Tag Archives: Cloud Solutions

Hiring a Cloud Professional: Skills to Look For

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I think it’s safe to say that I’ve written a few times about the value of the cloud in business. And, as it turns out, a lot of people agree with me. The cloud is growing incredibly quickly, with cloud services such as Amazon AWS and Microsoft reporting massive upsurges in revenue. For agile businesses such as startups, entrepreneurs have been able to easily adopt the cloud and gain a huge advantage over competitors.

With this increase in demand for cloud services, businesses are looking for cloud-savvy professionals in their IT departments. Perhaps your company is even one of those businesses. With that in mind, these are some of the skills you’ll want to look for when it comes to hiring a cloud professional, or perhaps even learn for yourself.

Data Systems and Databases

Data is the cornerstone of the cloud, and any professional working with it needs to be familiar with the workings of a database in order to qualify. Big Data is increasingly enabled by the cloud, with the sector growing at a similarly rapid rate. In fact, cloud experts are convinced that this trend will become even more pronounced in the future, with businesses storing and accessing their data through the cloud.

SQL and MySQL are standard languages for databases and crucial for any cloud professional to know. However, open source data platforms such as Hadoop and MongoDB. In fact, the former is well suited for processing large volumes of data, making it ideal to embrace the advent of big data.

Linux

While it’s not strictly necessary for working with the cloud, the majority of cloud software platforms are based in Linux. While Linux hasn’t made a huge impact when it comes to desktop computing, it has gained popularity in the cloud community for its rapid innovation and flexibility. Its primary rival is Microsoft Azure, which even includes an option to run Linux’s openSuse OS.

Dual booting your computer is a great first step to start if you’d like to learn the ins and outs of Linux. As an open source operating system, the community is robust and helpful resources are plentiful.

Cloud migration

It can be difficult to switch over to the cloud from typical IT infrastructure, especially as a large business. When it comes time to make the transition, businesses often have to rely on professional services for migration.

Professionals will want to obtain a certificate in migration for the cloud platform of their choice. Giving the complexity and security concerns associated with migration, finding a professional and plan that fits your needs is very necessary.

Quality assurance

QA is one of the most common skills requested in cloud computing job postings, and the cloud presents new challenges to QA developers. QA and QC engineers have always been in demand, and with the expansion of the cloud, ensuring the integrity of a piece of software is more important than ever.

Security

Cyber security for cloud applications is still developing, leaving many systems vulnerable to hackers. With over 90% of cloud applications not secure for enterprise use, the burden falls to developers to secure their systems and protect the organizations that they work for.

Due to mounting security concerns, data protection regulations are being implemented to ensure compliance amongst businesses and leverage fines if their systems are not secure enough. Like many of the other skills on this list, certifications exist for any professional wishing to bring cloud applications up to spec.

Improving Research with the Cloud

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When it comes to fighting disease, it can often feel like an uphill battle that consumes funds and lives without end. While treatment options have improved greatly for diseases such as Parkinson’s, cancer, and heart disease, research methods associated with them have not and have remained largely stagnant over the past few decades.

Now, cloud technology may provide doctors and researchers with better, more consistent controls when it comes to collecting, measuring, and analyzing data. I’ve already discussed the ways that the cloud can assist with medical maintenance and improve patient outcomes through Big Data, but when applied to research, it offers consistency and an easy exchange of ideas.

Cloud computing is a prime example of disruptive technology, and nowhere else is it becoming more apparent than in the medical field, where integration with wearable devices offers access to a wealth of biometric readings in conjunction with easily-shared patient data, further blurring the line between treatment and research. Before this, data was often collected solely by doctors during patient visits, and inconsistent reporting measures majorly hampered the reach and quality of the collected data. The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research has tried to leave these practices behind and embrace cloud computing in an attempt to better understand and eventually cure the disease. With Big Data, the Foundation is able to get a better picture of the progression of the disease through patient wearables. Smartwatches allow researchers to monitor a number of biometric readings, including tremor symptoms and sleep patterns.

The Foundation’s CEO, Todd Sherer, Ph.D., remarked on the lack of progress in measuring Parkinson’s, stating that it measurement methods are “largely the same” as they were in 1817, when the disease was first described. In addition to the wearable devices that the Foundation uses, patients are capable of entering notes about their daily symptoms on a web portal as a more consistent substitute for reporting directly for a doctor. The information is then collected on Cloudera CDH, a secure data platform.

Parkinson’s isn’t the only disease that is being tracked through cloud services. The American Heart Association recently partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to create a cloud system to empower scientists and researchers from all over the world to share data with each other. Previous data that has remained unseen for years is now being distributed on the cloud, to the mutual benefit of all organizations involved. While this system requires the people involved to sacrifice some level of self-benefit to provide progress toward a major problem facing humanity, enough researchers have stepped up to make the AHA’s new project a major step forward.

However, the cloud does still offer solutions for researchers interested in preserving their intellectual property. Hybrid clouds, another platform that I’ve discussed before, enable individuals to share data on a public cloud while storing their own progress on a private cloud. Because of this, others are still able to benefit from their research while they pioneer their own findings.

Not only is the cloud changing the way that data is collected and analyzed, it changes the type of data that can be measured. Compilation of genetic data is much more manageable than before thanks to better ways to sift through data, enabling researchers to better compare genomes and find subtle genetic trends that would otherwise take countless hours to detect.

Collecting a large amount of data to leverage through the cloud is part of the ongoing efforts of many research organizations; part of the ambitious Cancer Moonshot initiative is establishing a “data ecosystem” aimed at sharing and analyzing patient data on a national level.

It is exciting to see the cloud being used for medical goals in addition to business goals. From consumer trends to genetic trends, expect to see measurement metrics and data analysis improve substantially over the next few years as this disruptive technology rapidly becomes the norm in research.

Healthcare Compliance—A Short Guide for Businesspeople

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When healthcare companies try to achieve operational compliance, expertise regarding physical offices is usually fairly well-known. However, when it comes to online and cloud operations, the requirements are much more obscure. Generally, when we talk about cloud compliance in healthcare, we’re considering ways to drive risk avoidance, increase revenue, and improve patient outcomes. Naturally, these three objectives don’t just apply to technology, but are a good starting point when considering technology plans. Beyond this, the primary objective of any healthcare company when it comes to technology should be data protection for any and all stakeholders, and there are a few ways of going about this.

HIPAA

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, is a federal statute mandating requiring adequate security for any healthcare information. Complying with this act is highly important for any organization possessing Protected Healthcare Information (PHI), and can apply to a company even if it only has custody of a small amount of electronic PHI.

This is because the HITECH Act allows HIPAA to cover more businesses; including business associates that aren’t healthcare providers or payers.

EHNAC

EHNAC, the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission, is an organization dedicated to helping companies determine whether or not they are HIPAA compliant and assist them with setting up proper information security measures.

Of course, there’s nothing stopping a healthcare company from completing their own compliance assessment, but generally, unless a company already has a large staff dedicated to operational compliance, auditing, and analysis, it’s more financially sound to leverage the services of an existing hosting provider. Note that, if a healthcare company chooses to strive for compliance on their own, they will likely still need a third party to conduct a comprehensive risk analysis.

EHNAC is a great way for companies to provide themselves with a strong compliance framework without the need to hire full-time specialists.

HITRUST

Similar to EHNAC, HITRUST is another organization dedicated to helping businesses meet health data compliance standards. HITRUST is more expensive, but their Common Security Framework (CSF) covers HIPAA, HITECH, and a number of other standards such as ISO, PCI, CMS, and COBIT.

HITRUST certifications are difficult to obtain and even more difficult to maintain given the ever-changing standards of the industry. However, if a company successfully does both of these things, they are guaranteed a good reputation when it comes to data security.

Existing BAAs

BAAs, or Business Associate Agreements, can also be gained from public cloud companies such as Amazon or Microsoft. Unfortunately, these services will not provide you with the compliance measures that you need. For instance, some general utility BAAs will not provide companies with the minimum breach notification as specified under HITECH, leaving the burden squarely on the company to detect any sort of breach. Look for providers willing to assume some or all of the risk associated with compliance measures.

Cloud Computing in Rural India

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Cloud computing has been hailed unanimously as a positive development for the healthcare industry. Thanks to the cloud, medical professionals can easily track, store, and analyze data, improving both research and patient care.

Perhaps one of the most notable applications of new cloud technology is the enhanced capability to provide care to patients in remote areas. This may sound counterintuitive, as most cloud systems are dependent on a robust Internet connection to operate at their fullest, but a health technology company has created a cloud platform capable of operating at low bandwidth, addressing some of the hurdles faced when implementing these systems.

While India offers free healthcare to its citizens, its system is far from perfect, as the 70% of citizens that live in remote villages are often unable to receive attention as readily as their urban counterparts. To attempt to bring some balance to the healthcare market in the country, Sameer Sawarkar and Rajeev Kumar recently released ReMeDi (Remote Medical Diagnostics) to allow individuals with little training to represent doctors in remote areas.

Kumar and Sawarkar’s company, Neurosynaptic Communications, has dispatched medical technicians to over 2,000 villages across India to provide on-site examinations. The technicians use ReMeDi to gather basic information about patients, entering it all into a cloud-based medical repository. Patient information is then reviewed by an offsite doctor, who can provide recommendations and diagnoses based on the provided data. Additionally, an audio/video connection allows for personal consultations between doctors and patients.

And, as with any other cloud system, it gets better the more data is gathered. Studying health trends based on Big Data can help detect early signs of certain ailments and lead to administration of potentially lifesaving care. The integration that cloud computing provides is helpful not only for managing a large number of patients, but for fueling future research and innovation.

Other diagnostic platforms, such as Sana, Intelehealth, and CliniPAK, seek to solve similar issues as ReMeDi. Sawarkar has been ardent about the potential changes that ReMeDi can make to the Indian healthcare system, with the stated goal of lowering costs for companies and enabling more rapid delivery of health services, something that ultimately benefits patients. To that end, he has stated that the basic cost for a consultation under this new platform is under a dollar.

India’s healthcare system does little to service outlying areas, and as a result, many residents of remote villages seek out private healthcare, which can be costly for families and individuals with little income. 80% of Indians use private healthcare, and costs to travel and receive medical attention are financially crippling to many. This is the root of Sawarkar’s excitement with ReMeDi; what would require hours or even days of travel and weeks worth of wages can now be accomplished in the villages that need attention.

Sawarkar has strived to make ReMeDi as flexible as possible, and the platform is capable of running on a wide range of devices. With the market for cloud-based healthcare systems growing, Sawarkar intends to expand distribution of the platform in India as well as developing countries without decent access to healthcare.

Currently, ReMeDi is used in eight countries, including Bangladesh, Ghana, and Kenya. With African countries facing similar issues with disadvantaged citizens in remote areas, it stands to reason that their governments will be similarly interested in improving healthcare distribution.

Adopting the Cloud in 2017

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With a new year comes resolutions—personal objectives for an individual to complete. Too often, the grand dream of exercising more often does not come to fruition, leading to empty gyms and admissions that the whole effort was “good enough.”

On a greater level, the new year gives businesses a chance to rethink how they run themselves—particularly when it comes to things like cloud systems.

It has been mentioned a few times on this very blog that cloud systems are revolutionizing enterprise data management. The cloud computing industry grew by 25% in 2016 and is expected to continue that sort of progress in the near future. Perhaps more telling is the rapid growth of infrastructure as a service (IaaS) by 53%, indicating a rise in interest in public cloud services.

So, in 2017, let’s have a look at some of the more viable cloud strategies that enterprises can adopt as their own new year’s resolutions. Hey, at least it’s not a gym membership.

The Public Option

Of course, the truth of the matter is that businesses that take advantage of cloud opportunities will fare better in the future that those that don’t. This has caused some degree of controversy, especially among small businesses that may not have the time or resources to kickstart their own cloud network.

That said, even these businesses can harness cloud services through the ever-popular public cloud. If they lack a CIO, which they likely will, they may not be able to enjoy the full benefits of whatever platform they decide to use, but still stand to benefit in the form of better storage, backup, and information sharing.

The Hybrid Option

Everything about the cloud is set to herald in a new era of IT-driven success in business. As a professional in the field, I’m ecstatic to see cloud computing given so much attention in the technology sector.

Despite my earlier mentions of public cloud systems, I believe that a hybrid cloud approach is best for businesses capable of running the private components on their own. Of course, infrastructure is necessary for a private cloud to work, but the speed of having on-site data access as opposed to relying on public Internet is very often an advantage.

Beyond that, one of the great aspects of the hybrid cloud is the ability to “pay as you go” for public services, giving businesses flexibility when more computing power than usual is needed.

Rise of Bimodal IT

Now, more than ever, this is the time to adopt cloud services, particularly for businesses that possess a robust IT department. A 2014 CIO Agenda report by Gartner details the ways that a hybrid cloud model can bring further opportunities to enterprises through what it calls “bimodal IT.”

Bimodal IT, referred to as one of the large components of digital transformation, is the practice of managing two work styles, one rooted in established practices and another focused on exploratory tactics. The hybrid cloud enables this progressive practice by allowing easy “overlay” across existing platforms, whereas companies operating primarily from physical servers may face problems with their hardware becoming outdated.

This is perhaps the biggest challenge that big businesses will face in the coming years. While small businesses may not have an existing IT support structure, they can also adopt cloud services without worrying too much about how it interacts with existing infrastructure.

Here’s to a New Year!

As we continue to move into 2017, it is important to remember that the IT industry is constantly in a state of flux. Businesses can’t anticipate every development that will be made, but adopting a cloud-based infrastructure gives them unprecedented flexibility to adapt to computing demand.