Virtual Desktop Tools, Virtual Desktop Strategies
Article | June 8, 2023
Researchers have published the details of an investigation into CVE-2020-3952, a major vulnerability in VMware's vCenter that was disclosed and patched on April 9. The flaw was given a CVSS score of 10. CVE-2020-3952 exists in VMware's Directory Service (vmdir), which is a part of VMware vCenter Server, a centralized management platform for virtualized hosts and virtual machines. Through vCenter Server, the company says, an administrator can manage hundreds of workloads. The platform uses single sign-on (SSO), which includes vmdir, Security Token Service, an administration server, and the vCenter Lookup Service. Vmdir is also used for certificate management for the workloads vCenter handles.
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Server Hypervisors
Article | September 9, 2022
It is no surprise that e-commerce has grown dramatically in recent years. I don't want to be boring, but certainly the pandemic and a few other market factors have had a role.
From ancient times, marketplaces of all shapes and sizes have served as the foundation for all types of business. As the world transforms and becomes more digital, the rise of digital marketplaces, e-commerce, and other types of online business is exploding.
E-commerce marketplace platforms are rapidly expanding in the digital environment and are expected to acquire momentum as the future of e-commerce. This increase is because of the fact that online marketplaces combine user demand and provide customers with a broader selection of products.
Digital Marketplaces Are the Way to the Future of E-Commerce
Without a doubt, online marketplaces will dominate the e-commerce business in the coming years. According to Coresight Research, marketplace platform revenue will more than double, reaching around $40 billion in 2022. This means that by 2022,
online marketplaces will account for 67% of worldwide e-Commerce revenues (Forrester).
Today, the issue is not whether you sell online but how far you can reach.
E-commerce offers limitless opportunities, and all you need to do is keep pace with the trends. What are you doing right now? How far can you go? Have you already made the transition from local to global?
Digital marketplaces are indeed the way of the future of e-commerce. The earlier you realize this and integrate it into your sales and marketing approach, the better. I really mean it.
The world is changing, and your competitors are not sleeping. You cannot overlook this trend if you really want to stay ahead.
It's all about the people in business, as it has always been. Understanding who you're pitching to is critical to your success. You should be aware. Everything you do in business should get you closer to your target audience.
Closing Lines:
Digital marketplaces are indeed the future of commerce. People will inevitably start shopping online even more in the future. That implies methods and means will be developed to make such transactions easier for the common individual. Explore how your business might profit from these markets and trends that suggest the future of physical and online shopping.
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Virtual Desktop Strategies, Server Hypervisors
Article | April 27, 2023
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Software Development and Secure Testing
3. Using VMs in Software Development and Secure Testing
4. Conclusion
1. Introduction
“Testing is an infinite process of comparing the invisible to the ambiguous in order to avoid the unthinkable happening to the anonymous.” —James Bach.
Testing software is crucial for identifying and fixing security vulnerabilities. However, meeting quality standards for functionality and performance does not guarantee security. Thus, software testing nowadays is a must to identify and address
application security vulnerabilities to maintain the following:
Security of data history, databases, information, and servers
Customers’ integrity and trust
Web application protection from future attacks
VMs provide a flexible and isolated environment for software development and security testing. They offer easy replication of complex configurations and testing scenarios, allowing efficient issue resolution. VMs also provide secure testing by isolating applications from the host system and enabling a reset to a previous state. In addition, they facilitate DevOps practices and streamline the development workflow.
2. Software Development and Secure Testing
Software Secure Testing: The Approach
The following approaches must be considered while preparing and planning for security tests:
Architecture Study and Analysis: Understand whether the software meets the necessary requirements.
Threat Classification: List all potential threats and risk factors that must be tested.
Test Planning: Run the tests based on the identified threats, vulnerabilities, and security risks.
Testing Tool Identification: For software security testing tools for web applications, the developer must identify the relevant security tools to test the software for specific use cases.
Test-Case Execution: After performing a security test, the developer should fix it using any suitable open-source code or manually.
Reports: Prepare a detailed test report of the security tests performed, containing a list of the vulnerabilities, threats, and issues resolved and the ones that are still pending.
Ensuring the security of an application that handles essential functions is paramount. This may involve safeguarding databases against malicious attacks or implementing fraud detection mechanisms for incoming leads before integrating them into the platform.
Maintaining security is crucial throughout the software development life cycle (SDLC) and must be at the forefront of developers' minds while executing the software's requirements. With consistent effort, the SDLC pipeline addresses security issues before deployment, reducing the risk of discovering application vulnerabilities while minimizing the damage they could cause.
A secure SDLC makes developers responsible for critical security. Developers need to be aware of potential security concerns at each step of the process. This requires integrating security into the SDLC in ways that were not needed before. As anyone can potentially access source code, coding with potential vulnerabilities in mind is essential. As such, having a robust and secure SDLC process is critical to ensuring applications are not subject to attacks by hackers.
3. Using VMs in Software Development and Secure Testing:
Snapshotting: Snapshotting allows developers to capture a VM's state at a specific point in time and restore it later. This feature is helpful for debugging and enables developers to roll back to a previous state when an error occurs. A virtual machine provides several operations for creating and managing snapshots and snapshot chains. These operations let users create snapshots, revert to any snapshots in the chain, and remove snapshots. In addition, extensive snapshot trees can be created to streamline the flow.
Virtual Networking: It allows virtual machines to be connected to virtual networks that simulate complex network topologies, allowing developers to test their applications in different network environments. This allows expanding data centers to cover multiple physical locations, gaining access to a plethora of more efficient options. This empowers them to effortlessly modify the network as per changing requirements without any additional hardware. Moreover, providing the network for specific applications and needs offers greater flexibility. Additionally, it enables workloads to be moved seamlessly across the network infrastructure without compromising on service, security, or availability.
Resource Allocation: VMs can be configured with specific resource allocations such as CPU, RAM, and storage, allowing developers to test their applications under different resource constraints. Maintaining a 1:1 ratio between the virtual machine processor and its host or core is highly recommended. It's crucial to refrain from over-subscribing virtual machine processors to a single core, as this could lead to stalled or delayed events, causing significant frustration and dissatisfaction among users. However, it is essential to acknowledge that IT administrators sometimes overallocate virtual machine processors. In such cases, a practical approach is to start with a 2:1 ratio and gradually move towards 4:1, 8:1, 12:1, and so on while bringing virtual allocation into IT infrastructure. This approach ensures a safe and seamless transition towards optimized virtual resource allocation.
Containerization within VMs: Containerization within VMs provides an additional layer of isolation and security for applications. Enterprises are finding new use cases for VMs to utilize their in-house and cloud infrastructure to support heavy-duty application and networking workloads. This will also have a positive impact on the environment. DevOps teams use containerization with virtualization to improve software development flexibility. Containers allow multiple apps to run in one container with the necessary components, such as code, system tools, and libraries. For complex applications, both virtual machines and containers are used together. However, while containers are used for the front-end and middleware, VMs are used for the back-end.
VM Templates: VM templates are pre-configured virtual machines that can be used as a base for creating new virtual machines, making it easier to set up development and testing environments. A VM template is an image of a virtual machine that serves as a master copy. It includes VM disks, virtual devices, and settings. By using a VM template, cloning a virtual machine multiple times can be achieved. When you clone a VM from a template, the clones are independent and not linked to the template. VM templates are handy when a large number of similar VMs need to be deployed. They preserve VM consistency. To edit a template, convert it to a VM, make the necessary changes, and then convert the edited VM back into a new template.
Remote Access: VMs can be accessed remotely, allowing developers and testers to collaborate more effectively from anywhere worldwide. To manage a virtual machine, follow these steps: enable remote access, connect to the virtual machine, and then access the VNC or serial console. Once connected, full permission to manage the virtual machine is granted with the user's approval. Remote access provides a secure way to access VMs, as connections can be encrypted and authenticated to prevent unauthorized access. Additionally, remote access allows for easier management of VMs, as administrators can monitor and control virtual machines from a central location.
DevOps Integration: DevOps is a collection of practices, principles, and tools that allow a team to release software quickly and efficiently. Virtualization is vital in DevOps when developing intricate cloud, API, and SOA systems. Virtual machines enable teams to simulate environments for creating, testing, and launching code, ultimately preserving computing resources.
While commencing a bug search at the API layer, teams find that virtual machines are suitable for test-driven development (TDD). Virtualization providers handle updates, freeing up DevOps teams, to focus on other areas and increasing productivity by 50 –60%. In addition, VMs allow for simultaneous testing of multiple release and patch levels, improving product compatibility and interoperability.
4. Conclusion
The outlook for virtual machine applications is highly promising in the development and testing fields. With the increasing complexity of development and testing processes, VMs can significantly simplify and streamline these operations. In the future, VMs are expected to become even more versatile and potent, providing developers and testers with a broader range of tools and capabilities to facilitate the development process.
One potential future development is integrating machine learning and artificial intelligence into VMs. This would enable VMs to automate various tasks, optimize the allocation of resources, and generate recommendations based on performance data. Moreover, VMs may become more agile and lightweight, allowing developers and testers to spin up and spin down instances with greater efficiency.
The future of VM applications for software development and security testing looks bright, with continued innovation and development expected to provide developers and testers with even more powerful and flexible tools to improve the software development process.
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Virtual Desktop Tools
Article | July 26, 2022
Network virtualization combines network resources to integrate several physical networks, segment a network, or construct software networks among VMs.
IT teams can construct numerous separate virtual networks using network virtualization. Virtual networks can be added and scaled without changing hardware.
Teams can start up logical networks more rapidly in response to business needs using network virtualization. This adaptability improves service delivery, efficiency, and control.
Importance of Network Virtualisation
Network virtualization entails developing new rules for the delivery of network services. This involves software-defined data centers (SDDC), cloud computing, and edge computing.
Virtualization assists in the transformation of networks from rigid, wasteful, and static to optimized, agile, and dynamic. To ensure agility and speed, modern virtual networks must keep up with the needs of cloud-hosted, decentralized applications while addressing cyberthreats.
You can deploy and upgrade programs in minutes thanks to network virtualization. This eliminates the need to spend time setting up the infrastructure to accommodate the new applications.
What is the Process of Network Virtualization?
Several network functions that were previously done manually on hardware are now automated through network virtualisation. Network managers can construct, maintain, and provide networks programmatically in software while employing the hardware as a packet-forwarding backplane.
Physical network resources, such as virtual private networks (VPNs), load balancing, firewalling, routing, and switching, are pooled and supplied in software.
To do this, you merely require Internet Protocol (IP) packet forwarding from the hardware or physical network. Individual workloads, such as virtual machines, can access network services that have been distributed to a virtual layer.
There are several kinds of virtual machines accessible. The finest virtual machines enable network administrators to access all parts of a network from a single point of access.
Closing Lines
Network virtualization will remain a critical component in both business and carrier network architectures. Network virtualization projects in the future will inevitably incorporate zero trust, automation, and edge and cloud computing.
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