With so much angst in the market over new and innovative ways to deliver cloud application services, Cloud Application Manager has joined the open source community by introducing an entirely new project focused on container management called ElasticKube. Many of our customers have shown a keen interest in containers, although they’re looking to leverage Cloud Application Manager for “traditional” virtualized environments. However, I’m always intrigued at how cautiously optimistic IT organizations are and even sometimes, downright pessimistic, when it comes to management and security of containers. So it makes perfect sense that Cloud Application Manager has chosen to invest in containers and meet a huge need in the market.

Today’s launch is the first step in working with the community to help standardize the way enterprises deploy and manage containers. But what is ElasticKube exactly? Glad you asked; it is essentially a management layer on top of a Kubernetes cluster. Similar to the experience that you might see in our Cloud Application Manager offering, this is a web console and self-service template catalog of all the containerized services that are available in your repository (for example, GitHub). Our primary focus has been to add value with authorization and user management which...

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Managing - and protecting - enterprise data is a thankless task. It requires tons of upfront planning and budgeting. Often there's a byzantine-style system of InfoSec policies to navigate.

Cloud services, thankfully, dramatically simplify the exercise. When corporate data lives in the public cloud already, many different tools can be deployed via automation to hedge against risk. Further, many of these tools do not require large upfront investments in licensing fees or infrastructure.

Backup and Disaster Recovery (DR) are complex topics. But it all starts with analyzing your requirements, and evaluating different products that might fit the bill.

A Shortlist of Options to Consider

At CenturyLink, we have a few different options worth considering which are described below. Each service can be evaluated via automated deployment with very little upfront investment. From self-service backup, to full-featured Disaster Recovery (DR), we summarize four choices in this post. Outlining each option, to give you insight into which solutions are the best fit for your business needs, and how to get started.

CenturyLink Cloud Simple Backup Service

Data is the lifeblood of any organization. Keeping that data safely backed up and accessible in the event of file corruption is crucial. On top of that, organizations may have different data...

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Today, we’ve announced a new way for developers to quickly deploy Docker containers on CenturyLink Cloud with automated scripts to configure and launch Kubernetes, the open source container orchestration system.

Why Docker and Kubernetes?

Docker containers allow you to run your software across multiple platforms, giving you reduced load times, version control, and reusable software components while removing the need to manage shared software dependencies. Kubernetes is the open-source platform for automating the deployment, scaling, and operations of application containers across clusters of hosts. Together, Docker and Kubernetes enable our customers to accelerate development, simplify operations, and deliver a truly open hybrid cloud strategy.

Both Docker and Kubernetes are open-source projects with large active communities. They are constantly rolling out new features and are being used in both small and large scale production environments.

Types of Applications

Docker and Kubernetes are the ideal combination for many types of applications. They enable 12-factor applications, micro-services, and cloud-native applications, as well as more traditional back-end services like databases, big data stacks, and file stores. Using a "pets" versus "cattle" analogy, this solution provides you with the tools required to run your applications like "cattle", not "pets".

Why Kubernetes on CenturyLink Cloud?

CenturyLink’s Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offers on-demand virtual and...

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Have you ever wanted to have a forum where you can ask in-depth questions about how a company addresses similar issues that you experience within your business, and how other companies are keeping up with the rapid pace of change in IT services? Or have you wanted to attend a deep-dive tour into a specific technology, product, or service that goes beyond a web page experience? We created the CenturyLink Connect Team to provide just that. Not only for others to connect with us, but for us to connect with the IT community. The Connect Team provides a tailored experience for briefings, site tours, event support and speakers, technical learning workshops, and deep-dive sessions into sharing how the latest technologies are solving real-world business problems in the digital economy.

When the team began working with customers, partners, and prospects we noticed a common interest. Businesses were interested in the technical details of how we work, how others were solving problems, automation, integration, and trends seen within our customer base. To address this need we created the Cloud Briefing Center which opened in late 2014. We assembled the Connect Team to provide a real-world experience for sharing knowledge, enabling others to solve...

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What is capacity planning for the cloud, why does this problem matter?

The cloud promises to provide scale-free access to a variety of platforms, services, and infrastructures. This is especially true for customers who want to trade the expensive “cost of assets” and their management for the much smaller “incremental just-in-time” ability to grow their own applications and technologies, as dictated by the requirements of their business. The need for an underlying set of computational resources is common to all of the offerings on cloud ecosystems. Essentially, providers require a solution that can accurately predict the projected levels of demand needs to coincide with current operational processes to aid in capacity planning and load.

Capacity planning for cloud platforms is both similar to and different from “on-premises” capacity planning. It is similar in that we can project our future expectations based upon our current utilization patterns. However, it is different for at least two substantial reasons. Firstly, cloud platforms represent a large, often global network of interconnected devices - this means that accurate forecasts initially require building a map of the network and devices based both upon device hierarchy and device function. Secondly, cloud platforms allow the consumption of each customer to...

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Customer service, or a company's lack of customer service, is a detail overlooked by many businesses. For example, think about the last time you called a credit card company's customer service line. After being routed through the standard "Press 1 for English, 2 for Spanish" system of questions, you were connected to a representative. Depending on the reason for your call, you may have been transferred to several different representatives, each one trying to solve your issue using varying levels of background knowledge on the subject. This same scenario holds true for the customer service lines of most organizations, including IT help desks.

Make room for the CenturyLink Cloud Customer Care Team. The lead, Michael Talbert, has spent many years operating behind-the-scenes on customer service teams such as this. You may remember reading about Michael from this piece, which showcased his team and the ideas behind their formation and process. He's experienced the same frustration at the multiple-step process described above that may or may not end in a resolution of the problem. So, when he joined our team at CenturyLink, his first order of business was to build a team (and a process) that took the commonly-experienced frustration away. He...

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Periodically, we turn over control of the CenturyLink Cloud blog to members of our certified technology Ecosystem to share how they leverage our platform to enable customer success. This week’s guest author from the Cloud Marketplace Provider Program is Muhammad Umair, VP of Software for VDIWorks.

Desktop-as-a-Service(DaaS) with VDIworks and CenturyLink Cloud

With tens of thousands of licenses sold globally, VDIworks’ VDP is an end-to-end VDI management system that enables DaaS for your business.

By now you have probably read dozens, if not hundreds of articles touting the benefits of virtualized desktops. Most pundits agree virtual desktops lower costs of IT support through enhanced proactive management processes, mitigation of unplanned downtime via more reliable services, extend equipment lifecycles, and make it possible to achieve a nearly 50% reduction in desktop delivery costs. Imagine how that would feel.

What small, medium, or even large enterprise CIO wouldn’t relish the elation of knowing their organization had achieved a level of competence that eludes so many of their peers and competitors? Your organization, regardless of its size, can achieve a transition from the old PC-centric model of desktop delivery to employees and turn to a modern, state-of-the-art computing workspace. With cloud-based Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), you can...

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Recently a major vulnerability in the open source GNU C Library (aka ‘glibc’) was disclosed to the public. We discussed in a post on February 19th, how to tell if you were affected by the glibc vulnerability and how the CenturyLink Platform was largely unaffected by the issue. For many users and providers, however, that was not the case. Despite a patch being issued in parallel with the disclosure, this revelation undoubtedly kicked-off a scramble in IT organizations of all sizes and industries to evaluate the level of exposure this vulnerability presents within their overall environment.

For most companies the ability to estimate quickly and accurately their level of risk to a vulnerability like glibc just doesn't exist. Even if a company has a robust threat evaluation process, IT personnel usually aren't equipped to answer the real question of whether the cost -- both tangible and intangible -- and risk associated with performing emergency maintenance and patching is a necessary or a worthwhile investment. Sometimes, a patch isn't available at the time of the disclosure and doesn’t have that option. Essentially, IT personnel can know that the company is vulnerable, yet there isn’t anything they can do about it. Either way,...

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CenturyLink Cloud is focused on becoming the most customer-driven cloud service provider in the marketplace. While CenturyLink has always operated as a customer-driven company, we are passionate about continuously improving the way our customers – both current and prospective – interact with us.

Technology enables us to stay connected like never before and provides the opportunity to reduce the time and distance between us. So communicating with the most important asset we have, our customers, is only a few clicks away. Last quarter, we posted a blog about how CenturyLink’s approach to customer care is different. This quarter, we’re reinforcing the simple mechanisms that are available when you need help - and that we want to hear from you! In fact, we’ll take your question and respond to it -- even if you’re not yet a customer. Unlike some other cloud providers in the marketplace, customers and non-customers don’t need to pay us extra to ask questions.

Within the CenturyLink Platform, Cloud Products and Hosting organization, we manage our organizational structure to maximize customer and operational responsiveness and support agile product development, that is truly driven by customer feedback. We know that our success is predicated...

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Popular media outlets are reporting a new vulnerability that was recently discovered in "glibc" which is a key component in most modern Linux systems. For background, you can read the details of the original discovery and the summary information on the risk rating for this vulnerability.

The CenturyLink Platform is largely unaffected by this issue. We have patched our DNS servers and the default DNS servers used by customer virtual machines on our platform. Customers running their own DNS servers on Linux-based virtual machines or customers not using the default CenturyLink Cloud DNS servers should apply the released patches to these servers as soon as possible.

For customers using the CenturyLink Cloud® Intrusion Prevention Service (IPS) your hosts already have detection enabled for any attempts to exploit this vulnerability. This particular signature is set to "detect only" rather than "block" in order to prevent unintended impact to production services. The IPS system will send you an alert using the configured mechanisms if there are any attempts at an exploit. We recommend you update the operating system on your servers according to your standard maintenance cycle. You can learn more by reading our IPS Anywhere post.

For CenturyLink Cloud® customers using VMs with a...

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Consistency. Consistency. Consistency. The much awaited update for the Cloud Application Manager virtual appliance has arrived and it brings robust cloud application management experiences from the SaaS environment directly into your datacenter. With many customers requiring unique infrastructure configurations and isolation from a shared platform whether it be for regulatory, compliance or simply taking advantage of existing investments; we’re enabling users to manage their applications consistently across clouds while IT has the confidence that on-premises investments are being leveraged.

One of the leading updates for this release is that Kubernetes from the Google Compute Engine is now supported as a deployment target, allowing users to build applications and package them with the appropriate configurations for the Google cloud. This expands the deployment options for customers who aspire for a wide range of applications that can be packaged into a container and managed on Cloud Application Manager.

We also expanded support for the Google Compute Engine (GCE) cloud itself which includes: new autoscaling support, Windows instances support, and new functionality that allows users to select the desired boot disk size, based on their needs (SSD’s and enhanced support for disk images).

This comprehensive appliance update also allows for more cloud providers: OpenStack now supports...

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These are exciting times for tech-driven integration. The Internet of Things is in fact taking over the world in both concept and practice, perpetually changing the way industries work together. The IoT has spurred the rapid evolution of ideas that affect our day-to-day activities and will undoubtedly accelerate the tech world's capability to make digital ecosystems 'of the future' a present-day reality.

According to Gartner, "The Internet of Things installed base will grow to 26 billion units by 2020. IoT product and service suppliers will generate incremental revenue exceeding $300 billion, mostly in services, in 2020. It will result in $1.9 trillion in global economic value-add through sales into diverse end markets.”

At the core of IoT is the principle of using sensors to connect smart technologies with everyday life. The practice of mining data from the sensors that make up an IoT ecosystem is what ushers forth and shapes a brave new world full of technologies that automate processes, expedite progress, connect industries, and ultimately, improve overall user experiences.

The chances are great that you've seen the widening array of embedded applications that make the IoT a tangible thing. For example, wearable technologies are redefining the fitness world; word processing algorithms and...

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