AWS and Azure Pushing The Pace

Gartner Magic Quadrant for Infrastructure as a Service Cloud

During the past few years, Amazon Web Services has been the dominant player in the cloud infrastructure space, with very little in the way of significant competition. However, a quick spin around the interwebs has shown that status is starting to face some competition. At JHC we’ve been deploying solutions on AWS – from small scale to large scale – for more than four years. During that time, we’ve also kept an eye on Microsoft Azure, a platform JHC principals considered a few years ago for a key project.

As Microsoft moves rapidly forward in its cloud efforts, it’s becoming a bigger player in the space, and certainly a strong alternative to industry-leading AWS. Just recently, in fact, a customer requested that JHC use Azure to host its new global web site and we were happy to oblige. JHC is a Microsoft Certified Partner and Microsoft has always been a key point in our solutions, AWS or otherwise. We use Microsoft products internally and for our clients, hosting solutions for SharePoint 2007, 2010, and 2013 on AWS. We also have a hybrid Office 365 and AWS solution that also works well for our customers.

It all puts us in a great position as the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant report for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service came out, positioning both AWS and Azure in the Leaders quadrant. We’re thrilled at the continued success of both and look forward to leveraging AWS and Azure infrastructure to provide innovative and secure solutions for ourselves and our clients moving forward.

Matt Jordan is the Cloud Services Manager for JHC Technology. He can be reached at mjordan(at)jhctechology.com,　@matt_jhc, or　connect with him on LinkedIn.

Amazon Web Services VPN Gateway

I ran into an interesting conflict last week with AWS VPN (Virtual Private Network) Gateway.  I know there is a limitation with your AWS account that you are not allowed to have multiple customer gateways within a region having the same IP address. This would be an extremely nice feature because we would be able to connect multiple VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) inside the same region to a single VPN device outside of AWS.  There are a lot of use cases for being able to have multiple VPCs within a region have a VPN connect to a single customer gateway device:

• Logical separation of Development and Production environments
• Logical separation of data at different classification levels for industry compliance and regulatory restrictions.
• Customer segregation

Based on this information, I thought I would be clever to create two customer gateways within the same region, but have them separated by two AWS accounts. I was able to successfully create the customer gateway and perform the VPN connection in the first AWS account.  I then went into the second AWS account and was able to create the customer gateway successfully; however, when I went to create the VPN connection I received a conflict error with the customer gateway.  Come to find out, regardless of AWS account separation you cannot successfully create VPN connections with AWS VPN gateway if the customer gateway address is being used somewhere else within a single AWS Region. 

The way to work around this issue is to separate VPCs and customer gateways across different AWS regions regardless if you have one or multiple AWS accounts.

James Hirmas is the CEO for JHC Technology.  He can be reached at jhirmas(at)jhctechnology.com,@JHC_JamesHirmas, or connect with him on LinkedIn.

Why use the Configuration Logging feature in XenApp 6.5?

The Configuration Logging feature allows you to keep track of administrative changes made to your server farm environment. By generating the reports that this feature makes available, you can determine what changes were made to your server farm, when they were made, and which administrators made them. This is especially useful when multiple administrators are modifying the configuration of your server farm. It also facilitates the identification and, if necessary, reversion of administrative changes that may be causing problems for the server farm.

Below I have provided step by step instructions on how to configure this feature in XenApp 6.5.

Step 1: Left click on "Start (push button)" in "Start"

Step 2: Left click on "Citrix AppCenter (menu item)" in "Start menu" Step 3: Left click on "SOC Farm (outline item)" in "Citrix AppCenter"  Step 4: Right click on "SOC Farm (outline item)" in "Citrix AppCenter"

Step 5: Left click on "Farm properties (menu item)"

Step 6: Left click on "Configuration Logging (outline item)" in "SOC Farm - Farm Properties"

Step 7: Left click on "Configure Database... (push button)" in "SOC Farm - Farm Properties"

Step 8: Left click on "Server name: (This will be the name of your SQL server)" in "Configuration Logging Database"

Step 9: The username specified must have db_owner permissions over the database in SQL.

Citrix recommended to use Windows authentication as it’s more secure than SQL authentication.

Step 10: Left click on "password (editable text)" in "Configuration Logging Database"

Step 11: Left click on "password (editable text)" in "Configuration Logging Database"

Step 12: Enter the password for the Windows account.

 Step 13: Left click on "Next > (push button)" in "Configuration Logging Database"

Step 14: Left click on "specify the database (editable text)" in "Configuration Logging Database"

Step 15: Specify the database created in SQL

Step 16: Left click on "Next > (push button)" in "Configuration Logging Database"

Step 17: Left click on "Open (push button)" in "Configuration Logging Database"

Step 18: left click on "No (list item)"

 Step 19: left click on "Next > (push button)" in "Configuration Logging Database"

Step 20: left click on "Test Database Connection (push button)" in "Configuration Logging Database"

Step 21: left click on "OK (push button)" in "AppCenter"

Step 22: left click on "Finish (push button)" in "Configuration Logging Database (4/4)" 

Step 23: left click on "Apply (push button)" in "SOC Farm - Farm Properties"

Step 24: left click on "OK (push button)" in "SOC Farm - Farm Properties"

Step 25: left click on "History (outline item)" in "Citrix AppCenter"

Step 26: User left click on "History (outline item)" in "Citrix AppCenter"

Step 27: User left click on "Yes (push button)" in "No Filters Specified"

Step 28: Once History is selected, choose “Get Log” under the Action column on the right hand side of the window.

Step 29: As you can see, now that Configuration Logging has been enabled changes made within the AppCenter, such as the publishing of Apps or changes to the permissions of applications or policies will be logged under the History option located within your Farm under XenApp.

David Cuevas is a Jr. Citrix Engineer for JHC Technology.  He can be reached at dcuevas (at) jhctechnology.com.

JHC Integrates AWS CloudTrail

JHC Technology has integrated Amazon Web Services' CloudTrail as a best practice for all our AWS solutions.  AWS CloudTrail is a fully managed web service that provides increased visibility into a customer's cloud solution and user activity by recording the API calls on that customer's account.  JHC utilizes CloudTrail to perform the following services in order to provide enhanced security for our AWS customers:

·        CloudTrail is the first service activated on new AWS accounts to ensure every API call is captured from the onset of the account.

·        JHC configures CloudTrail to capture both regional and Global API calls while preventing duplicate global events in the logs.

·        JHC deploys custom Identity and Access Management (IAM) permission policies on CloudTrail to prevent unauthorized access to logs.

·        JHC Enables versioning and logging on CloudTrail S3 buckets for added protection.

·        JHC deploys and configures Splunk Enterprise Instance inside customer's Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) and integrates Splunk with CloudTrail in order to gain additional insight into security related activities.

·        JHC creates custom notifications on CloudTrail S3 bucket to immediately notify customers when objects stored are lost.

 

James Hirmas is the CEO for JHC Technology.  He can be reached at jhirmas (at)jhctechnology.com, @JHC_JamesHirmas, or connect with him on LinkedIn.

Hybrid Cloud Solutions: Amazon Web Service (AWS) and Microsoft Office 365

Can Microsoft Office 365 and Amazon Web Services (AWS) work together?  The answer to this cloud riddle is YES.  

There seems to be an overall confusion between what these Cloud venders provide as services.  To be clear, Amazon Web Services is an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider and Microsoft Office 365 is a Software as a Service (SaaS).  

In enterprise deployments of Office 365, many organizations have requirements to manage and synchronize user profiles to Office 365, restrict user access, provide secure mobile access, and advanced Exchange/Lync/SharePoint management (Remote PowerShell and management consoles).  

In order to satisfy these requirements, organizations will need to deploy the following components within their controlled environment:

• Mobile Management Solution (Blackberry Enterprise Server 10)
• Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) internal and proxy
• Exchange and Lync Management Console
• Remote PowerShell for SharePoint, Exchange, Lync, and other Office 365 components

Some of our clients have elected to move these components into their own Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) within Amazon Web Services (AWS) so that they can take advantage of the power of AWS (Elastic, Pay as you go model, network, high availability, etc…) and remove their dependencies on managing their own data centers. Once these components have been deployed they can be configured to integrate/communicate with Office 365 Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, and other Office 365 components.

JHC Technology has also designed and implemented virtual application and desktop technology to run on Amazon Web Services.  We are able to deploy the Microsoft Outlook virtual application as well as other office products on AWS and connect them to Office 365.  In this scenario, users are able to connect to an AWS region and access Outlook either via virtual desktop or virtual application from any device and pull down their Office 365 exchange mail securely.

Organizations should not be tied down to use only one cloud model (IaaS vs SaaS). They should look at their overall requirements and choose an architecture that is flexible enough to expand for future requirements.

James Hirmas is the CEO for JHC Technology.  He can be reached at jhirmas(at)jhctechnology.com,@JHC_JamesHirmas, or connect with him on LinkedIn.

Cloud Isn’t All or Nothing

One of the misconceptions that I run into as I visit potential clients is the amount of access a company like ours has when performing a cloud project for a company or individual.  Invariably, at some point, the question of data visibility comes to the forefront.  It usually goes something like this:  “So are you going to be able to see everything, because we can’t have that!”

The answer to this question is the same as many other answers we give when it relates to highly malleable cloud projects:  “It depends.”

Cloud isn’t an all or nothing endeavor.  Your data doesn’t have anything to do with our work, and whether we get to see the data is totally up to you.  I look at it this way:  A cloud provider, such as AWS, can come to the site at which you’re building your dream home.  AWS will put a Home Depot on the site and then leave.  AWS doesn’t tell you how to build your home, what boards to use, or whether that joint requires a nail or a screw.  All they do is keep the Home Depot stocked.  JHC handles the architecture and deployment, and we know all the best practices when it comes to using the material.  But that’s where it ends.  We can build your house without ever knowing what will go in it.

Your data is the same way.  We don’t need to see it and building your cloud environment isn’t dependent on having any access to it at all.

We are doing one project with a global organization in which we have full control of the cloud infrastructure we are deploying.  This infrastructure is being deployed in an AWS Virtual Private Cloud (VPC).  As part of the creation of the VPC, our client’s requirement was that the VPC only allows access from a specific set of IP addresses.  As it stands, that IP range is limited only to our client’s development servers.  What that means is while we can deploy a server into the AWS VPC, we can’t even verify its operation beyond the fact that the server is running.  We have no access to ping the server or remote into it.  The only access comes from the client’s on-premises machines.

Testing the capabilities of the cloud can provide tremendous insight for an organization.  Many times, involving an outside consultant with cloud experience is also the wise step.  But, don’t fret that you’ll need to give the ol’ “Keys to the Kingdom,” to your consultant.  You can build and test all sorts of services without exposing your data outside your organization.

Matt Jordan is the Cloud Services Manager for JHC Technology.  He can be reached at mjordan(at)jhctechology.com, @matt_jhc, or connect with him on LinkedIn.