Press Release: Cloud-A Launches new High Performance Direct Fibre Network

Cloud-A Launches New High Performance Direct Fibre Network

Halifax, NS – Dec 19, 2014 – Cloud-A Computing Inc., a Canadian OpenStack Public Cloud provider, announced today, the launch of their new dedicated fibre network between their primary data centre facility in Halifax, Nova Scotia and the Toronto Internet Exchange in Toronto, Ontario.

The new network, which is the highest performing and most comprehensive direct fibre network offered by any Canadian Public Cloud provider, will not only provide Cloud-A customers with a single hop between their Halifax and Toronto data centre facilities, but also a direct connection to London, the Caribbean, and New York, leveraging Hibernia’s high capacity, low latency trans-atlantic fiber network.

Early indications of performance gains are that latency has been reduced by an average of 35% across the board.

“We know that network performance and reliability are extremely important to our clients. Investing in higher quality peering is a top priority for us, and this Hibernia link will open doors for us to continue extending the reach of our network both within and outside of our borders.” says Jacob Godin, Chief Technology Officer at Cloud-A “We are extremely excited to allow our clients to reach their users more efficiently. We believe it will enable them to better compete with providers in the US and beyond. It’s the kind of network that Canada’s cloud industry really needs.”

In addition to enhanced network performance, the new network allows for enhanced protection against distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, which Cloud-A has been victim of in the past. The one-hop to Toronto means that Cloud-A now peers with some of the worlds leading internet service providers, which expands Cloud-A’s DDoS mitigation strategy.

About Cloud-A

Cloud-A is the leading provider of public cloud Infrastructure based in Canada. Their products automate & simplify the installation and management of the hardware and software that provides the infrastructure for large scale environments having hundreds or thousands of servers supporting high performance compute applications. For more information visit www.CloudA.ca

Contact

Geoff Sullivan, Channel Manager & Public Relations

5562 Sackville Street, Halifax, NS, B3J 1L1

1-855-925-6831 ext. 703

info@clouda.ca

What does Cloud-A’s new Network mean for you?

Last week we announced our new direct fibre network which will provide one-hop from our primary data centre facility in Halifax to the Toronto Internet Exchange as well as Europe and the Caribbean.

So what does that mean for our customers?

35% Decrease in Network Latency

Early testing has indicated that our new direct fibre network has provided  performance gains in network latency by an average of 35%. Not only does this enhance performance within Canada, the new network provides direct connection to London, the Caribbean, and New York, leveraging Hibernia’s high capacity, low latency trans-atlantic fibre network.

Here are some performance test results from our Data Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia:

  • 14 millisecond round trip from Halifax to New York
  • 25 millisecond round trip from Halifax to Montreal
  • 30 millisecond round trip from Halifax to Toronto
  • 60 millisecond round trip from Halifax to the UK
  • 68 millisecond round trip from Halifax to the Bahamas
  • 90 millisecond round trip from Halifax to Calgary
  • 90 millisecond round trip from Halifax to Vancouver

Enhanced DDoS Protection

Earlier this year we were the victim of several DDoS attacks which resulted in some unfortunate outages for our clients (see our DDoS Story & Postmortem.) In an effort to prevent future DDoS attacks, we successfully developed a DDoS mitigation strategy in conjunction with our upstream internet service providers.

Our new network has us directly connected to all major Internet players in Canada including Telus, Rogers, Bell, Allstream, Google, TekSavvy, Akamai, Microsoft, and Net Access which expands our DDoS strategy and provides enhanced protection against future attacks.

Continuous Product Development

Our new network is just one of the many product enhancements we have in our hopper. Cloud-A is dedicated to staying ahead of the curve and offering high performing cloud products. We love feedback so please continue to send your feature requests to info@clouda.ca.

 

Alternative to Dropbox in Canada

Logo_OwnCloud

One of the more common things we find running on Cloud-A these days is a great little App called OwnCloud. It’s a free Open Source project that offers a similar solution for document management as can be found with Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, iCloud, or Microsoft’s One Drive with the added benefit that you get to decide where your data is stored.

Similar to Dropbox, Owncloud is used by thousands of people often at work and for personal use. With OwnCloud & Cloud-A you get the same features of Dropbox including advanced admin controls, all the space you need, AND your Data is not subject to the patriot act.

Here we’ve made a practical 4 step guide to getting started:

  1. Determine if you are a DIY (Do It Yourself’) kinda person or if you should consider working with one of our trusted partners to help you get things setup. DIY isn’t for everyone and for a reasonable fee you can find atrusted partner who will be more than happy to setup Owncloud for you or your business.
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  2. All set? Ok, so now you’ve got to setup the business end of the application that will be running in the Canadian Cloud. Owncloud can be run on either Windows or Linux  so you need to determine what version you are most comfortable with. Here is a tutorial on how to configure Owncloud on Windows. If you prefer to install the Linux version you can see how that’s done here.
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  3. (OPTIONAL) Most people will want to use the more cost effective cloud storage option we have at Cloud-A (that costs only $0.075/GB/month !!!) so we’ve written a step by step guide for those who want to configure Swift Cloud Storage on Cloud-A.
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  4. Setting up the Owncloud Desktop Client is easy, the step by step guide is here:https://www.clouda.ca/blog/general/installing-owncloud-desktop-client/

That’s it, now you are all set to use Owncloud as an alternative to Dropbox where you data is in Canada. Of course you will likely want to install the Owncloud mobile App to access your files on your iPhone, Ipad, orAndroid devices as well.

CLOUD-A GUIDE TO CLOUD SECURITY

 

infosec2

Whether it is for compliance purposes, protecting trade secrets, or safeguarding sensitive client information, data security is a priority for every organization in any industry. With the rapid adoption of public cloud environments, it is imperative to understand how cloud affects how you secure your data. At the most basic level, it is understanding which parties are responsible for the different layers of security, so to clarify how this works with Cloud-A, we have created the Guide to Securing Your Data with Cloud-A.

It is Cloud-A’s responsibility to ensure that our infrastructure is bulletproof and that we follow security best practises, but once a client launches an instance, they have free reign to manage their cloud infrastructure as they please.

Here are some best practices and client responsibilities for securing your data with Cloud-A

Passwords 101

Password strength is the most basic layer of security in any scenario, but it is of the utmost importance. Weak passwords are a simple point of failure that the most amateur attacker can take advantage of. A strong password should be between 10 and 12 characters, it should have a mixture of uppercase and lowercase letters, as well as numbers and symbols. There are tools available to assist with creating and keeping track of your passwords.

Check out LastPass

Encryption is Key

Although the infrastructure that your Cloud-A instances reside on and the OpenStack platform that orchestrates and manages that infrastructure is built and managed with security as the top priority, it is the users responsibility to ensure that the drives of their cloud servers are protected. We recommend encrypting the drives (volumes) that are attached to your Cloud-A instances.  Encryption is a great way to keep your valuable data safe at rest, as it make your data unreadable to any unintended recipient. For more details on configuration and benefits, you can check out our blog post:  Encrypted Volumes: Linux Edition

Lock Down Security Groups

Cloud-A’s security group functionality allows you to create firewall rules that can be applied to your instances. Instances are launched with all of the ports locked down and you can create your own firewall rules that you can allocate to your instances. It is important to use inclusive firewall rules rather than exclusive. Exclusive firewall rules allow all traffic through except for the traffic matching the ruleset. Inclusive firewall rules do the reverse as they only allow traffic matching the rules through and block everything else. When creating your firewall rules, It is best practice to only allow internet access to servers that require it. You can use your internal networks created with Cloud-A’s virtual private networking to connect servers that do not require internet access.

Understand that Cloud Security is a Partnership

Once you launch an instance on Cloud-A, you have full control over that virtual machine. It is up to the end user, or the Cloud-A integration partner to manage that virtual machine, ensure that it is patched, updated and that it is used appropriately. There is a level of knowledge that is required to operate a server securely. If you do not have that level of knowledge in-house, we advise that you seek out an organization that can provide these services. Cloud-A can help recommend partners who can assist with these services. Many organizations with stringent requirements for data security require advanced security services such as intrusion protection and detection and live security monitoring. Cloud-A’s go-to security partner for these advanced security services is GoSecure.

 

CASE STUDY: MIGRATION FROM CANARIE DAIR TO CLOUD-A

exactd

CANARIE’s DAIR program leverages Canada’s investment in the CANARIE national backbone research and education network to accelerate product development and improve the market competitiveness of small and medium-sized Canadian companies.

DAIR provides Canadian entrepreneurs and small businesses with free cloud-based compute and storage resources that help speed time to market by enabling rapid and scalable product design, prototyping, validation and demonstration.

Many organizations graduating from the DAIR program require a public cloud platform to migrate to that will facilitate the growth of the organization. Cloud-A is proud to be the public cloud of choice of several DAIR graduates.

Check out our case study and story of ExactDeposit’s successful migration to Cloud-A from CANARIE DAIR’s OpenStack cloud.

CLOUD-A LAUNCHES DATA CENTRE RECYCLING PROGRAM

For immediate release

Cloud-A launches Data Centre Recycling Program

Halifax, NS – Dec 4, 2014 – Cloud-A Computing Inc., a Canadian OpenStack Public Cloud provider, announced today a new program dubbed the “Data Centre Recycling Program” focused on offsetting the capital expenditures invested in traditional infrastructure, allowing Enterprises to move from on-premise infrastructure to the cloud. Not only can customers leave their traditional, labour intensive infrastructure tasks behind, and run on a bullet-proof, secure, and modern cloud — but they can now be paid to do it.

The program compensates customers for any existing server hardware that becomes decommissioned as a result of moving traditional hardware or virtualization platforms to Cloud-A’s true, whitelabelled public cloud. Customers fill out information about their decommissioned hardware through Cloud-A’s website, they are provided with a quote for the value of the hardware within 72 hours, and if the quote is accepted, the value of the hardware is instantly credited to their Cloud-A account which can equate to months of zero-cost cloud computing. The server hardware is refurbished and reused through a network of recycling partners.

“The Data Centre Recycling program helps prove organization’s business cases for moving to the cloud.” Says Brandon Kolybaba, CEO, Cloud-A. “The benefits of this program are threefold. Customers are financially incentivized to move to our modern cloud platform, the retired server hardware becomes refurbished and reused, and Cloud-A continues to grow its customer base.” says Kolybaba.

The program is a result of market research performed by Cloud-A which determined that some of the hesitation organizations have about migrating to the cloud is related to the existing level of investment in on premise infrastructure. There are also green motives for this program.

About Cloud-A

Cloud-A is the leading provider of public cloud Infrastructure based in Canada. Their products automate & simplify the installation and management of the hardware and software that provides the infrastructure for large scale environments having hundreds or thousands of servers supporting high performance compute applications. For more information visit www.CloudA.ca

Contact

Geoff Sullivan, Channel Manager & Public Relations
5562 Sackville Street, Halifax, NS, B3J 1L1
1-855-925-6831 ext. 703
info@clouda.ca