Curious about Microsoft Azure and the best ways to connect? Azure is a hybrid Cloud Service Provider (CSP) with customized, scalable, cloud-based packages. These encompass Software as a Service (SaaS), based on subscription-based software licensing and delivery, Platform as a Service (PaaS), allowing companies to develop, deploy, manage, and update applications, and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), providing high-level application programming interfaces (APIs).

When talking about managing web applications and the services they provide, the term “API gateway” is often thrown around, but what does it mean? In order to unpack how a gateway functions, we first need to understand what an API is.

In retail, the cloud changes everything because it offers flexibility and the opportunity to do things better, or to do things that were previously impossible, for a lower cost. This is especially true in a multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environment, where retailers can connect their legacy private data centres with public clouds to enhance their offering and make it more competitive.

With HTTP REST APIs serving as the backbone of modern web applications, securing those APIs presents a critical challenge for organizations. APIs are typically designed to be discoverable, self-documenting, and easily consumed by a range of programming languages, and that makes them appetizing for hackers.

Technologies like virtualization and containerization have gained significant traction over the last decade as foundational tools for modern application development. As companies like Amazon (AWS), Microsoft (Azure), and Google (Google Cloud) started to invest in the hardware and software infrastructure required to support access to these virtualized resources, “the cloud” was born.

As a new or growing MSP, discovering tools and processes that will let you do more with less is a prime focus. You’re always looking for ways to boost that bottom line by cutting costs, driving more revenue, and improving overall efficiency. If you have more than a handful of employees, you’ve likely already implemented a good MSP network monitoring tool and PSA (professional services automation) tools.

Written by Andrew Puch and Brian Langbecker You use NGINX as a proxy for your application, and you want to leverage your favorite features in Honeycomb to help make sense of the traffic data. Have no fear: Honeycomb is more than capable and ready to help! Things you will need: Before you start with the instructions, let’s discuss a lightweight tool called Honeytail. This utility will tail log files, parse the various formats, and send the data to Honeycomb.

Cisco ACI is an enterprise-class, software-defined networking (SDN) solution that provides complete control of the data center network. Using a policy-based approach, Cisco ACI delivers security, performance, and scalability for today’s demanding applications. Cisco ACI is part of the broader Cisco SDN portfolio, which also includes Nexus switches and Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) controllers. If you are looking for a way to improve your data center network, Cisco ACI may be the answer.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) recently announced the ability to publish VPC Flow Logs directly to Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose. For Splunk customers, this feature helps to optimize the architecture to send VPC Flow Logs directly to Splunk Enterprise or Splunk Cloud Platform. With a fully managed service like Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose, users don’t have to worry about scaling, and can optionally transform their data in near real-time and enjoy the cost-effective, reliable service.