1) Rapidly changing domain names creates a cover for cybercriminals

As we have seen in last few years, inspite of having a good security system, Cybercrime has increased a lot. Many of the websites has been hacked, login details of users are stolen, confidential and personal data is misused and others. And when research is done to find reasons behind this, our researchers have found that domain names are rapidly changing on Web which results in weakens effectiveness of security controls and leads to creation of a cover for cybercriminals.

2) Weakens the effectiveness of security controls

Effectiveness of security controls is getting weaker and researchers done research on this also to know the main causes behind this. Researchers have analysed 660 million hostnames at Blue Coat, a security vendor and came to know that out of this, only 470 million hostnames existed and that also for even less than a day. Result is that only 71% of the hostnames existed.

To catch web threats, Companies who are using products of Blue Coat requested for various domain names for a period of 90 days. Most of domain names which are throwaway belonged to Yahoo, Amazon, Google i.e. legitimate businesses and to blogging platforms, Web optimization companies and webhosting services.

Domain names are frequently changing for years, but one thing which is very interesting found, by the researcher, Tim van der Horst of Blue Coat, about numbers, is scale.

Blue Coat also found that out of top 50 parent domains by whom short-lived hostnames are generated, out of 5 only 1 was malicious.

But if we compare the no. of hostnames which are generated by legitimate businesses to the amount of criminal activity, then it was found that latter is very small as compared to former one. And out of total no. of domain names which were examined on just one day, it was found that only 0.43 % largest malicious parent domains were generated.

3) Role of Domain Generation Algorithms (DGAs)

DGAs played a significant role in weaken the effectiveness of security controls. In the several families of malware, domain generation algorithms (DGAs)were used, results in the no .of the malicious hostnames. Command-and-control servers exact and real location was hided by the fake names and this task performed by DGAs very well as they create the fake names in large no. Nevertheless, if someone consider the usage of real malicious hostnames, then their small number is also significant.

4) Criminals use the sites for

Sites are used by the criminals for drive and this is done by downloads and by hosting the kits which are exploited. Malware is downloaded by the kits to the victims computers and via phishing attack lured to the location. And to prevent the interaction between command-and-control servers and compromised computers, short-term hostnames are used.

As domain names are rapidly changing, thus correlation between all the attacks and detection was avoided. And companies could not rely only on the blacklists to avoid the malicious hostnames, they required systems also meant for prevention or intrusion detection and anti-virus softwares which must be updated from time to time.

5) Granular policy control and other threat mitigation actions

Granular policy control, in order to create this, risk value on domain names must be assigned by the technology on the basis of several factors such as on the popularity of the website, links to other sites, on the same IP address number of other sites hosted and on the basis of those sites ratings. With this, there must be a transient hostnames baseline also which is either malicious or secure.

According to Blue Coat, alerts and other threat mitigation actions are caused by a potential compromise which was constituted by detecting an anomaly from that baseline.

Here this article brings you some major differences between unmanaged hosting and managed hosting. Hope these differences helps you to understand which hosting is right choice for your business. But before this, let’s see concept of unmanaged hosting and managed hosting.

Unmanaged Hosting

As name suggests, this kind of hosting is not managed by others for you. From starting to end, everything needs to be take care by you. Here, a web hosting provider rent you a server and entire responsibility of handling of server and keep your site up, falls on you, whether you have technical expertise or not.

Managed Hosting

It is simply reverse of above. Here, a provider takes the complete responsibility of managing your server. Their team of professionals monitored your server for 24 *7 and 365 days to keep your site up and perform well. Their customer support is readily available to support you anytime of the day.

Now here presents some basic differences which assist you to make right choice for your business.

1. Security

Managed hosting handle issues related to security well. Providers offers tools by which viruses are scan, spams are filter, security audits run, software firewalls are configured and OS updates offered and in unmanaged hosting, you have to take care of all this.

2. Backups

In managed hosting, providers offers proper back up of data, as this is detrimental for you but in unmanaged hosting, all depends on you.

3. Monitoring of Server

In managed hosting, System admin monitor your servers for 24*7 to make network available for your clients all the time but in unmanaged hosting, you need some technical expertise to handle this, as a common man don’t understand servers and their handling session.

4. Storage and Database management

In managed hosting, system admin manage storage needs of your site so that space is properly utilised and scaled thereby saving some money, and database admin design database as per your need and manage the same. But on the other hand, in unmanaged, you need to manage both on your own basis or hire these professionals.

5. Time is precious

As time is very precious for small as well as for large business owners, so if they spend the same to focus on strategies and ways for growing their business, their time will be better utilized. And instead of this, if they spend their time on looking and handling servers for all day, they will be in a big trouble. So, it’s better if we used services of managed hosting, as this part will be handled by their professionals in a proper manner and saves us time.

6. Cost-Effective

Managed hosting is more expensive then unmanaged hosting. As its services include many things, so obviously, it will be more costly to you but if you cannot afford, then opt for fully managed hosting solution. Providers offer various plans in managed hosting, so before selecting the one, go through their features, support, price and other relevant factors, surely you choose the right plan.

7. Meets your specific business needs

In Managed hosting plan, experts offers you solutions by which your specific business needs can be meet in the best possible way and in your budget too. But unfortunately, in unmanaged hosting, no experts are available, its only you.

Conclusion

I hope you understand the differences between these two kinds of hosting. It is clearly defined, managed hosting is better in almost each and every way than unmanaged hosting. So, now surely you can make the right choice for your business.

To construct an in-house server room for IT equipment may be costly. With the help of colocation services it can be easily avoided. Service includes housing of servers by service provider and equipment is maintained 24×7. This is the service in which it is difficult to find reasons against it. It is not providing burden to user from all routine and tasks come with running of own server.

Colocation services provide advantage of top facility for a constant monthly fee. Service is more secure and delivers better performance of systems. Some reasons are there to demonstrate business needs of colocation services rather than in-house server rooms:-

1. Best value for money:

Colocation servers can easily be afforded. If anyone decides to maintain servers in-house, he will need to maintain and build whole network infrastructure, server room is created with proper cooling and must protection from flood and fire. In order to prevent internal and external threats such as viruses, cyber attacks user will need to install and design security solutions.

This is reason behind this that server room becomes costly. Entire network is maintained by service provider with the help of colocation. To create accurate IT budget all costs are rolled into single fee. Colocation is less expensive in comparison to costs of building server room, managing utilities and specialized staff and it provides also best value of money.

2. Simple scalability:

Scalability can be simplified by colocation for network and server needs. When additional servers are required by business, user can add them simply to colocation service without any major modifications to business. User can make request of large amount of bandwidth, additional storage space and higher processing power according to requirements. It gives large benefits to servers for its expansion with business growth.

3. High Security:

Servers can be maintained within data center will increase the security of servers. Facilities of data center are very secure, multiple layers of access control and have different security protocols and monitoring tools provides better protection to active networks links to internet servers.

Therefore, colocation is providing safety to data and also helpful in recovery process.

4. Fast Access of network:

Colocation provides fast network access as whole infrastructure of data center and network lines are designed to provide fastest speeds. Servers colocation ensures high speed of network for clients and employees. Data centers has provided bandwidth to handle large network traffics and scaled up or down as per needed.

5. High Flexibility:

Colocation services are offering flexibility achieved with in-house server room. User has option of multiple carriers for network service and will easily change carriers if he is not satisfied with performance of current hosting. He can choose between half racks, quarter racks, and full racks. All above choices can make design easier to meet their needs.

6. For servers professional support is there:

IT expert’s offers colocation services of data centers take care of all important network and environment of data center. Professionals are available to help in maintaining servers. Supporting team providing assistance to install new software and server settings are modified. Experts maintaining business areas enable to concentrate on business deals.

In colocation facility businesses can lease space for their resources and other hardware. Colocation provider offers building, cooling, power, bandwidth and physical security while customer provides servers and storage. Many colocation companies guarantees for uptime, high availability, compilance and protection.

LiquidWeb provides colocation hosting from its Michigan data centers. These data centers are made with N+1 redundancy on all networks, hardware, power systems, and generators. These centers are composed of Tier-1 premium bandwidth providers. They also allow off-site backup and premium disaster recovery services. Company’s colocation facility comprises SOC 3, SSAE-16, and HIPAA compliant features for high level of security and privacy. Company’s neutral-facility provides connectivity to multiple Tier-I bandwidth providers, ensuring minimal latency and fast connections to all points of the global Internet.

Affiliate marketing is the process to earn commission by promoting other company’s products. Customer can find product according to his choice, promote to others and profit can be earned for each sale made by customer. Other internet markets are overlapped with Affiliate marketing to some extent because regular advertising methods are used by affiliates. Advertising methods include organic search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, content marketing and e-mail marketing.

Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which one or more affiliates are rewarded by business for each customer brought by marketing efforts of affiliates.

Web Host Company has very limited resources and tight budget. Many companies often struggle in finding prospective clients and their services are signed up. Promotions and marketing are two important factors for survival of business. Brand promotional techniques are there that do not require a lot of money but need to invest a lot of money and time.

Affiliate marketing is taken as one of basic forms of promoting company. Internet marketers will serve as link between company and prospective customers looking for web hosting services. Affiliates are utilized in order to drive traffic to website. By searching online find interested affiliates with good traffic. Search term is used related to products and services. Affiliates are chosen on top list and good amount of web traffic is received.

Next part is beginning of challenge. Being a business owner, his task is to convince these affiliates for website promotion. With careful consideration and planning, represent different deals that are offering to prospective marketers. Best offers such as high commissions and other incentives are looked out by affiliates. From other companies it is to make sure to get offer. Many web hosting companies wants better ad placement, are providing many proposals to affiliates. Bring that deals which are good to pass up and a proposal through which affiliate marketers get attention easily.

By this type of web marketing, when a sale is made then affiliates only get paid. As it is on commission basis means no unnecessary expenses are there at prior and during entire course of program. Since affiliate marketers have no means of tracking sales generated through their services. Web hosting companies are practiced honesty and transparency. There should be well written, clear and fully explained contract to both sides between these two parties. Open line communication is required wherein developments, suggestions and issues can be discussed in timely manner beneficial for both.

To help web host companies affiliate marketing programs are designed to find interested clients that will increase profit. To earn extra income, opportunity is provided by marketers.

1. Have professional, polished logo that link to home page : For brand, logo is an important part, so it is located prominently on one’s site. High-resolution image is used and placed it on page in upper left corner. So, to link logo to home page it is good thumb rule so that navigation can be easily done by visitors.

2. Get rid of clutter : These days’ websites visually overloaded with images to the point where anybody stop processing the information when too many options are confronted. On site to keep visitors it has to make sure pages have competing calls to visual clutter by which visitor would be attracted from important part of page. Landing pages clutter down further by considering options and links to be limited in header and footer to narrow focus further.

3. Intuitive navigation is used : On top of website primary navigation options are installed in horizontal bar. Underneath primary navigation bar providing secondary navigation options or in site margin, known as sidebar.” People are quitting page instead of trying to figure by confusing navigation layouts. Therefore, rather than putting links to less important pages that reduces from call to action or primary information at top of landing pages.

4. Use color strategically : Mostly neutral color palette can help website project clean, elegant and modern appearance. Small dashes of color are employed for headlines or key graphics helps to guide visitors to most valuable content. To use color palette is important complements logo and consistent to marketing materials.

5. Give visitors breathing room : Sufficient space between paragraph and images are created so that all features of site are absorbed and offer business said by Hannah Spencer, graphic designer, Coalition Technologies which is a web design and online marketing agency.

User will focus on content and control user flow by controlling white space through layout. By many visual competition taking place on mobile and web, less is more. User experience will be improved by controlling white space which increases returns from website.

6. Choose fonts easy to read across browsers and devices : People will be seeking at website while choosing fonts not just not on laptop but on mobile devices. Large-scaled fonts read on well but not scale on mobile, losing desired look.

Typeface has to be picked which can be easily read and size will not be less than 11pt. If web fonts are using by anyone, not more than two font families are used to ensure fast load times. Using font size allows maximum 15 to 20 words per line while using fixed-width design. If anybody is using fluid design, font size is used to allow 15 to 20 words per line at 900 to 1000 pixels wide.

7. Invest in professional, good photography : Generic photos can be sniffed by website visitors in a second and generic impression of company will be left. Company is not generic, this has to show visitors by investing in professional photography. Good photography providing emotional connection to written content.

Design every page as a landing page: Websites are designed in such a way so that through homepage user enters and navigates into site said by Michael Freeman, senior manager of ShoreTel, Inc, providing hosted VoIP, cloud PBX service and business phone systems.

Fog Computing

1) Description about Fog computing

Fog computing operate at ends of network, not like cloud computing which operates from a central location. It places some resources and processes on edges of cloud. It is also known as edge computing. Due to some limitations related to technical and infrastructure aspects, there are some services and applications which could not fit in paradigm of cloud, to address them, paradigm of cloud computing to edge of network is extended by fog computing.

2) Difference between Fog computing and cloud computing

In Cloud Computing, there are different set of machines distributed and running at various locations while connected to a single hub service or a network.

In Fog computing, one or more than one collaborative multitude of customers carried storage, configuration, measurement, communication, control, and management in a substantial amount.

3) Applications of fog computing

There are some tech giants such as IBM which are driving force behind fog computing. These days in offices, data centre is a common thing or you can see hundreds of devices are connected and communicated to each other and it is expecting that in next few years this number could raised to thousands or lakhs. There are possibilities that direct user-end computing and communication will soon become more relevant.

Here are some practical examples for you to understand where fog computing can be applied:

• It permits prompt interaction between machine and humans, between machine and machine with cooperation of cloud.
• The activities which are going in the cities, on their levels, Sensor data can be obtained by fog computing and then it integrates all network entities which are working independently within those cities.
• As per reports of Markets, it is predicted that by 2017, cloud computing market in field of healthcare will reach $5.4 billion and same thing on a local level will be permit by fog computing.

Fog computing laid focus on a big scale on processes which brings us close to location of data as much as possible. Unvaluable data must be stopped from reaching to cloud and only data which has some worth or has some value should be reach to networks of cloud computing.

Models which helps us to learn machines, through them fog computing is done in best manner which gets training on a small part of data on the cloud. If this model finds suitable, then it is send nearer to the devices. On these devices, there are some algorithms such as decision trees and fuzzy logic can be used on a local level in order to take decision which is less expensive as compared setting up of an infrastructure in cloud which is required to deal with data acquired from tens of thousands of devices.

4) What is next for fog computing?

If you want services on immediate basis, fog computing is a good way. It can also be used in place of internet as speed of net is dependent on carriers.

For future, large companies such as Facebook, Google are looking for alternative methods such as drones and balloons to access web in case any network issue occurs. And small scale organizations are planning to develop a fog of devices which are currently present around them so as to establish close and prompt connections by which resources can be computed.

Aggregated and centralized cloud computing will certainly has a place but as sensors moved to things and data also grows enormously, thus in order to host applications, a new and a fresh approach is required. Right approach for hosting fresh and new applications which could make use of existing devices is Fog computing.

Although relevance of centre is not reduced because of the movement to edge. And on other hand, it reflects that to expand computer architecture, data centre must be a great nucleus.

1) What is Small Business

Small Businesses are private corporations, sole proprietorships and partnerships. The term “Small Business” defines by different organizations in the context of number of employees. Generally it is mentioned, businesses ranging from less than 10 employees to thousand employees are mainly categorised as small to mid- sized companies otherwise they are termed as SMBs. According to other methods, Small businesses can also be categorised as assets, sales, liabilities, purchases, net profit and others. These companies range from a very small store to e-commerce businesses.

In 2006, more than 18,000 small businesses possessing more than 500 employees constitute half of total employees engaged in all small businesses. SMBs want to lead themselves so they are focusing on ways of cutting the costs and expansion of their capabilities. There are various ways and among this, one way is that they are moving their important functions to cloud. Recently a study was conducted which predicted and showed the value $32 billion of the U.S. SMB Market in 2016 which is almost 20% growth rate occurred on year to year basis and also showed increase of 25% in the adoption of the total global cloud services.

2) Small businesses in terms of web hosting

Use of Web hosting is becoming very popular among large size businesses. Small size companies are also having their websites in order to improve their competitive position and to host them; they are also using hosting services of various web hosting companies.

Usage of the cloud services and products of infrastructure by SMBs is expected to become almost double for next few years and reason behind this that these SMBs become more user friendly with concept of cloud and do not face in using same. Now SMBs are looking for cloud service companies as now they are moving several applications of business to cloud. SMBs are small size companies thus they operate more efficiently and focus on their main business, outsource functions of technology and in this context they prefer the established organizations.

3) Emerging small business /SMB Demand Is a Golden Opportunity for Resellers

Resellers are having a great opportunity; they can open new stream of revenue and expand their relationship with the existing customers. VARs, MSPs, SIs want to expand their portfolio to use cloud services and for same they are required to increase their revenue and improve their relationships with SMBs. Demand is rising very fast within SMB market for different kinds of cloud services;

• (IAAS) Infrastructure as a service – From the study, it is known that safety, IaaS server backup and services related to database is used by 40% of SMBs. Those are in the need of a robust database find web hosting solutions which are flexible via a reasonable and convenient way so as to store large amount of data in offsite without considering the issue of maintenance of server. In SMBs market, there are some rapidly growing sectors such as Security services, anti-malware, anti-spyware, anti- virus and e-mail safety solutions.
• (SAAS) Software as a service Apps – Social media platform used by number of SMBs as a tool of marketing and access productivity apps such as Dropbox on regular basis. SMB’s feel more comfortable with cloud services, they started to embrace platforms of CRM such as Salesforce.com and other solutions related to business intelligence. These tools are accessed via laptops and desktops in office and also on mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones.

4) Hosted Communications and Collaboration Solutions

Cloud services are used by SMBs for increasing capabilities of communication and for consolidating the infrastructure for more efficiency and for integration on one platform. E-mail and hosted private branch exchange (PBX) phone services are included in the applications but Unified Communications-as-a-Service solutions attract the market towards themselves. It delivers audio / video conferencing, telephone, messaging, presence technology, and email more over an IP network.

Mostly in web hosting some aspects creates bothersome like researching of host, price comparison and look best website, business or blog in organizing new business on internet. User has to spend a lot of time managing after adopting this. All web hosts are not created same stuffs but some features such as reliability and uptime of site applied on same. User should not restrict on above features for daily backups and make safe website.

Before choosing web host, user has to consider some key factors below:

Price : User monthly plan payment will be like fine, unless ton of traffic is pushed on his website. It will be possible on a shared server with collection of many sites. User should consider dedicated servers for bulk traffic sites which provides good pricing to any site size.

Technical Support : If user’s site ever goes down then he need technical support providing solution. User has to go with that web host offering 24/7 support via online chat, phone and email. By this user can easily resolve his technical problems regarding site.

WordPress Installation in one click : People are using more WordPress nowadays in comparison to earlier. Many web hosting are offering one-click installation solution to their customers. To setup new WordPress sites and software on server this is the easiest way rather than to upload and download files through FTP. User can go through the link how one click install works.

Reviews of Customer : If user wants to search best things about any web hosting company then he has to observe online reviews of customers. Some brands usually posts their own made reviews helps to fetch their favorable ratings, so user must be sure to check reviews from different locations.

Top Hosting Companies

There are many different options user has to choose for web hosting. To opt for best and reliable web host check below mentioned details:-

Hostgator : Company entered in web hosting since 2002 and support currently around eight million domains. It is providing dedicated server hosting, VPS hosting and reseller hosting.

Rackspace : Rackspace has been in web hosting since 1998. It provides cloud servers and sites to custom applications and managed colocation servers. They are also utilizing OpenStack for cloud computing infrastructure.

BlueHost : Bluehost has been in business since 1996. Company is offering shared server as well as reseller web hosting. They have service of free website builder and use cPanel for client access.

SoftLayer : Softlayer came into business in 2005. It provides dedicated server hosting, managed hosting and cloud computing. They are offering implementation of virtual cloud servers or CloudLayer servers according to requirement.

Domain.com : They have entered into business since 2000. They are providing domain names as well as VPS hosting, emails and SSL services. Also offers some cool free domain and email forwarding services.

Now user will get enough information regarding best hosting companies after visiting few options given above. There are many more options available besides these companies. User can also compare rates, best plans and features according to the requirements.