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Cloud advice

Infrastructure as Code – assessing the options

Introduction Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is a key element to successful cloud adoption. Using IaC, organisations create infrastructure that is both re-usable and reproducible. This consistency helps ensure that applications built in development environments will function the same way in near-identical production environments. Changes can (should!) be planned and controlled through coding best practices such as version […]

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Service announcements

Jisc Cloud Solutions G-Cloud 12 services

The twelfth iteration of the Crown Commercial Services (CCS) digital marketplace G-Cloud framework starts on Monday 28th September 2020. Jisc has listed its digital products and services on the G-Cloud framework to provide a route to purchase for those organizations that wish to use it. The G-Cloud framework is an agreement between the UK government […]

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Cloud advice

Being a good cloud citizen

When speaking to members and customers about their cloud adoption, I often use a phase to describe the development required for members of the team that will ultimately be deploying and managing resources in the cloud. I describe the need for these individuals to become “good cloud citizens”. This, of course, is followed by the […]

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Cloud advice

Powering productivity at home with desktops in the cloud

Jisc members and customers are under increasing pressure to deliver great user experiences to those who are working or studying remotely. Productivity suites have become an established means of delivering several applications and services remotely, across a range of platforms and devices. Email, calendars and collaboration tools, for example. But with the disruption caused by […]

Categories
Service announcements

AWS Partner Guided Onboard (GO) Program

We are excited to announce that we are part of the AWS Partner Guided Onboard (GO) Program! As part of our partnership with AWS we are now able to offer financial and practical support for a range of guided onboarding activities to support members and customers in their early use of AWS cloud technologies. The […]

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Cloud advice

Delivering your applications with AWS AppStream 2.0

One of the more recent inventions has been ‘streaming applications’. While the term sounds fancy, it is a relatively old technology – repackaged. Before I go into the specifics of AppStream 2.0, I would like to delve into the history of remote delivered content. Back in the mid ‘80s, a range of technologies started emerging. […]

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Cloud advice

Protecting your workloads behind AWS CloudFront

If you run a website serving static data and need a caching solution, AWS CloudFront is the go-to service for this. It works by providing multiple ‘edge’ locations, which are simply data centres located in geographical hot-spots around the world. Data is accessed from the nearest data centre. For example, when accessing your London-region hosted […]

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Cloud advice

Are you well-architected?

If you currently work in a UK university or college, then the chances are that somebody, somewhere in your institution is already a customer of AWS or Microsoft Azure. Maybe both? In most cases, that usage of AWS or Azure will be known about and managed by the central IT deparatment, in some cases, possibly […]

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News

AWS silly season – here we go

The AWS re:Invent annual conference in Las Vegas kicks-off next week, which means we are about to be snowed under by hundreds of new service announcments, product updates and the like. This year, AWS have started this process slightly early, so as not to overwhelm people during the week of the conferenece. There have been […]

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Cloud advice

The Capex to Opex Shift

Despite all the benefits of cloud, we often hear concerns about cloud. These generally fall into the following 6 categories which can be addressed with skills/knowledge or processes, be that creating or updating. One concern within Business is the capex to opex shift. Whilst on premise kit is treated as capex because they are owned […]