April 2021 - Baya Digital

Cloud Security Automation: Best Strategy, Practices, and Benefits

Companies across all industry verticals have been leveraging the elasticity, efficiency, and innovation of the cloud. Yet, a recent study showed that only 35% of companies have fully achieved their expected results from the cloud, and 65% knew ‘security and compliance risks as a meaningful barrier.

Though cloud gives new opportunities to modernize, transform, and innovate, security risk remains the most important hurdle to cloud adoption. Moreover, the complexity of multi-cloud and hybrid environments further complicate the drive to the cloud.

While security is often regarded as the biggest obstacle to cloud adoption – in reality – it can be its biggest accelerator – when automated.

Automating the cloud security method enables companies to gather the information they require to secure their cloud environments and redirect their struggles to innovation and growth.

Automating the security processes that are conventionally produced and deployed manually brings a new development to the cloud. However, many businesses struggle through the implementation of cloud security automation.

Here are the five most helpful practices for the successful implementation of cloud security automation:

5 Steps for Successful Cloud Security Automation

1. Automate Infrastructure Buildout

By automating infrastructure buildout, the engineers are released from the task of manually configuring user access, security groups, networks, firewalls, DNS names, and log shipping, among others. This significantly decreases the scope for engineers to make security errors.

Moreover, the security company need not worry about the best practices each time they spin up a new situation, as they only have to affect the scripts, not the situations, to make the changes.

2. Automate Script

In common IT, a zero-day vulnerability or any other important security issue needs an organization’s system engineers to work rigorously to patch each server manually. But automating scripts needs only a single line change in the manifests to assure the newly released version was running instead.

These automation script sources are declarative management tools that automatically arrange instances, virtualized servers, or even simple metal servers.

Whenever a new instance is started, these scripts get the instance available for production, including the security arrangement tasks like installing intrusion detection agents, ensuring central authentication, and enabling multi-factor authentication.

3. Automate Deployments

Though automating deployments is one of the greatest practices in DevOps implementation, it can also develop an organization’s security position. In a zero-day vulnerability, deployment automation assures that modifications made to the DevOps tool script get deployed across each instance or server automatically. This makes it potential for a single system engineer to react to threats immediately.

4. Automate Security Monitoring

In the already growing trend of multi-cloud and hybrid environments that promote individual applications, it is important to monitor the entire infrastructure in a unique interface. During an occurrence of a security attack and downtime, it can be time-consuming and resource-draining to identify and fix the problem.

Automated security monitoring help engineers with the appropriate intelligence to address the attack and defend critical assets.

5. Get Set for the Future of Automation

Within the next few years, hybrid environments and data balloons will become mainstream, making the manual security program incompetent. So, now is the most suitable time to develop an internal automation team or outsource it. Although managing end-to-end process automation across hybrid environments may take months or even years, it will show infinitely more valuable than encouraging employees to decrease human error.

5 Stages of Cloud Security Automation Framework

Automation of cloud security includes a 5-step strategy as follows:

1. Monitor

Your cloud space will always scale to meet all the operational requirements. So, it’s essential to monitor the workflow of all the tasks in your cloud. This allows you to gain an understanding of how all workflow is carried out.

2. Evaluate

In the method of automating cloud security, knowing and prioritizing the tasks to automate is the first important step. Closely monitoring the workflows serves to evaluate tasks that should be automated, like the repeated tasks, deployments, resource provisioning, and creating security rules.

3. Analyze

Do an in-depth analysis of the gathered information based on severity as low, medium, or high chance. Then automate low-risk processes first, followed by high and medium. The in-depth study also helps you do control automation and consider the impact on infrastructure.

4. Automate and Report

The resulting study can now be pushed to combined systems to automate the workflows. Then configure the automation processes to create the reports that provide the overview of the changes before or after.

5. Remediate

By now, you will get a clear view of cloud automation, irrespective of whether you started automating easy workflows or complex ones. This allows you to implement remediation and improve the overall security posture.

How Businesses Benefit from Cloud Security Automation?

A constant, automated security protects your enterprise’s critical cloud assets from growing threats, as well as helps your company reap the following benefits:

Minimized time spend on security operations
Consistency in security operations
Reduced manual errors
Advanced security measures
Enhanced compliance
Rapidly identify and address security gaps
Robust security posture

In Conclusion

Automation of cloud security gives a host of business benefits. However, it can be costly and complex than non-automated security. The technology requirements are expensive and require a significant amount of time to implement. Moreover, security automation increases the need for some highly skilled security expertise to set it up efficiently and maintain it.

Hence, if you are moving to the cloud or already in the cloud, partnering with a Cloud solutions provider like Baya Digital is the most effective option to secure your cloud-based systems with state-of-the-art security.

Baya Digital delivers highly effective and reliable cloud computing services that enable organizations to be agile and responsive to the evolving market landscape.

How Digital Marketing Can Increase Your Brand Value [2021]

Digital marketing is the most important tool to grow your brand online. The proper digital marketing strategy is all you need to achieve a competitive advantage. Discover how digital marketing benefits you with branding.

“Products are created in the company, but brands are created in mind”- Walter Landor.

If you want to create a brand now? Just go digital because the techniques used in digital marketing and communication are more streamlined, versatile, simply faster, and practical than traditional paper-based marketing.

The Spending on digital media and advertisements by 2021 is supposed to increase by $375. Thus, the demand for online media can be surely seen.

The digital evolution is embraced by businesses now. They are basically moving digital interactivity towards the centre of their marketing strategies. Marketers are currently reshaping their processes & skills, altering their buying behaviour, and rethinking their priorities & budgets.

Let us examine in detail how digital marketing can help develop PR, media strategy, and brand experience.

#1. Simple access and visibility

With the help of the internet, the brand can reach a huge audience, even at a global level. The more people reach your brand, the more awareness will be for your services & products. This may not have been achieved with the traditional method of marketing.

The number of impressions a brand makes quickly accelerates its brand recognition. Appearance on multiple digital platforms drives to higher brand recognition.

Google observers around 4 billion searches per day. Being clearly visible on search engines by the proper keywords increases your brand value.

The age-old marketing strategy of “What you view, you tend to buy” stays static here. Thereby, stronger brand visibility immediately raises the opportunities to be accepted by prospective consumers.

#2. A great return on investment with email marketing

One can simply track the cost and return for any digital marketing mode of advertising. The marketers have a large pool of digital marketing packs to pick from at various stages. The one which satisfies their budget can be chosen.

With web analytics, business owners can learn whether there are usual returns on cost or not. It can also be traced from where the response is accurate, and it requires to be focused more. Also, closing down the methods which are only cost bearing and not shown fruitful.

#3. Improve consumer value individually

Your consumers must realise that you value them personally. This will eventually build up their dedication towards your brand. There needs to be a two-way street connection between a brand and its consumer.

Avoid handling your customers with plenty of promotions and jingles. This will make them superior to your brand. At first, they may purchase your products because of your name. But, once they notice a better offer awaits them, you will be kicked out.

Businesses should work on rephrasing how they feel for their specific consumers. This will bond them with you individually.

With ‘Thank You’ email, customer-centric marketing, and responsive consumer experience, we can make a brand feel much more convenient and connected with customers.

#4. Regular communications on social media channels

Thanks to fast-growing social platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit, businesses connect with their consumers to stay current.

The example of Neeleman, the retired CEO of JetBlue, will inform about consumer feedback in a low-quality customer service industry. The customers were made to believe cared for as their decisions were made heard in public forums.

Therefore, it shows that not even an expensive commercial can make your business look as concerned and careful towards the customers as a convenient response could.

Quickly responding to the commenter makes the person feel that you are a company that considers their customers through public communication.

#5. Improve revenue growths

In comparison to conventional marketing, digital marketing takes consumers at a lower cost and saves money. Not only this but the latter benefits in improving the revenue of the company also.

As per research by Google, businesses tend to grow their revenue 2.8 times more by utilising digital methods than by using conventional methods. Moreover, the effects of digital marketing can be estimated correctly, and this ultimately increases the functioning of the business.

If the professional implementation is completed, it can increase revenues, profits, loyalty, and client base. The core concept is to adapt to the digital change and make the most of it rather than sticking to traditional marketing methods.

#6. Associating with mobile customers

For each company at this time, following mobile-friendly marketing techniques is really important. This is because all the customers have access to a mobile, and they look for various products and services on the smartphone.

All the websites have a responsive layout for mobile handsets now, particularly after the initial update by Google mobile. The navigation of a website must be designed in such a way that it is simply viewable by prospective consumers on mobile as well.

This improves customer engagement in the company’s brand, as customers can simply connect through the website. They will learn about the services & products the company deals in, in a more reliable way.

Getting connected to mobile consumers show to be more fruitful than a desktop.

#7. Market research & interaction

Earlier, managing a market research project used to be an expensive affair. Not only this, but it was a huge, time-consuming method also. It was a true challenge for business people to conduct their business analysis by manual mode.

But with the growth of technology, one can easily gather the customers’ ideas and requirements, who happen to have distinguished opinions about a product. After getting the ideas, the business owner can launch a service or product in the market in real-time. It is way more useful to take reviews from customers from online blogs or websites than offline techniques.

For example, if a product gets a lot of positive reviews, it will end up attaching value to your company. A brand can obtain immense benefits from such kind of digital marketing. Apart from market analysis, communication in the market has become comparatively simple and common.

The company can simply interact with their consumers on diverse social media channels through online chatting. This also helps in obtaining instant feedback from customers.

#8. Forecasting demand

Demand and supply share an exceptional correlation with each other. A business can provide services and goods to the customers only after realising the demand for the same.

Digital marketing helps business people in predicting the demand for their products. The businesses can infer brief data by aggregating the data concerning all the responsible resources for the demand.

Social media platforms determine to be one of the most extensively used marketing tools and popular too. A huge buzz about a commodity on the social media platforms will surely assist the businesses to develop in various countries across the globe.

By ensuring the frequency of replies from the consumers on social media, lets you predict demand for the product.

#9. Leveraging influencers

In this digital era, increasing your products through an influencer is the most reliable way of marketing. This is very powerful and much in fashion too. Influencers can be any successful TikTok artists, Sportsperson, Filmstars, YouTubers, Musicians, or any kind of celebrity who is loved by the crowds.

It is basic human nature to do whatever your role model is doing. If such influencers upload a video using some service or product, then it will definitely be noticed by their followers. This will accelerate the prospective customers for the brand. And that’s how the main goal of brand recognition is achieved.

Moreover, influencers develop a product in a very creative and smart way; one could not bear getting attracted to it. Even big YouTube channels associate with brands and showcase the products in their videos in a clever way. Therefore, this becomes one of the most cost-effective tools for brand recognition.

#10. Upgrading content strategies

Surely, content is the king. All the tactics, like video marketing, picture marketing, etc., can never replace content marketing. This is because most people choose to read the details about the brand.

A beautifully written content can even be read months after it gets published. A good quality content describing a brand’s products and services proves to be very effective on the readers—that’ why there is always a desperate need for content writers.

There are many services that can be defined in smart and compact content. Uplifting the content strategy is helpful for brand recognition.

#11. Proper SEO techniques

SEO requires some investments to be done in a proper way. A clear plan should be performed to make the most of SEO that also in a budget-friendly way. Company owners can end up in a lot of expense if SEO is done in a free flow without any proper plan.

Keyword-based submissions and writings can be made to increase brand recognition. Currently, the process could be at a slow pace. But ultimately, the results will last longer, even exceeding the paid techniques.

SEO is worth the effort, as the results are very encouraging for a brand.

Conclusion

A corporate always requires a significant influence on its reputation for managing its business. The trust and confidence of its customers are necessary for its survival.

The article here explains the current target strategies and methods for strengthening digital marketing, highlighting the use of social media and online branding for setting up a new benchmark in the industry.

Online marketing creates a network of customers over various touchpoints, both online and offline.

8 Tips to Making a Remarkable Brand Design

The right logo can make it possible that your brand stands out in the world of digital marketing. However, there are some rules you should understand to ensure that your performance doesn’t get lost in the mix.

Here are some easy tips you should think about when designing your logo to promote your brand’s value and generate sleek and attractive designs and logos, all of which can have a significant influence on your audiences purchasing behaviour and understanding of your brand.

1. Assure Your Logo/Design describes a Story

Rather than just “selling” a product in the traditional sense, innovative and cutting-edge businesses show a story of how they discover solutions for their customers and clients. Therefore, you should communicate your company’s information through a simple image and a bold, impactful persona.

Expressing your story can be as simple as using your logo to convey not only what your business does but also why your business does it.

2. Find the Best Words to Sum up Your Business

The best words can convey your information more effectively than a 10,000-word article. One simple tip to help you find those words is to type your company into a thesaurus website.

The website will deliver dozens of words that will help you find the best words that describe your brand. Use those words as inspiration when planning your designs.

3. Sketch Your Ideas By Hand

Several designs look similar because they are exclusively designed on a computer and lack a personal touch. Don’t be scared to use a sketch pad to bring up your first thoughts. One tip to keep in mind is to keep the shapes and colour separation simple.

Your design only has a second to catch someone’s attention. Good brand perception comes from bold, simple designs like branding from Apple and Coca-Cola. Simple design is more impactful, more quickly digested and are also recognisable.

If your designs are too simple, they may be too quickly ignored. Yes, your designs should be simple, but they should never be bland.

4. Get Feedback Outside of the Office

A smart designer always gets feedback from outside their representative ranks. Therefore, you should take about two of your favourite logo designs and solicit feedback from your family, friends, and people who would completely fit your potential customer base.

You are not looking for expert feedback. You just want to see if your designs deliver your business’s brand identity.

5. Use Professional Software To Improve Your Sketch

Now that you have developed your sketch by hand, it is time to get that achievement ready for the digital world. You don’t want to use some low-cost software for this design. After all, we are talking about the brand identity that should offer an understanding of professionalism to the potential customer.

Adobe Suites provide some of the most useful software programs available and will offer you the flexibility to build any design you have in mind.

6. Colour Schemes are Important

Colour can entirely change the definition of a brand and logo design. When choosing colours for your brand, consider examining what industries usually use which colours and remember that colours carry various meanings and are generally tied to specific feelings or emotions.

Also, remember to analyse the weight each colour will have in the brand use. Once you’ve reached this far, you need to make sure that your palette choice will stand out in light and dark background. Also, check that your palette options will work on promotional things like stickers, t-shirts and coffee mugs.

7. Choose The Right Font

Business personas live and breathe through the type font chosen to describe the business. You should first consider how the typography should ‘feel’ based on the brand’s personality — whether it is corporate and easy, handwritten, contemporary, grunge, or fun.

In most cases, you will require to choose a more unique font, make your personal font, or make little tweaks to very classic fonts. Also, think whether you want to use a Serif or Sans Serif font or a mix of both. Part of the benefit comes from picking a font that aligns well with the company’s brand identity.

8. Make sure your idea is scalable.

Assure that your performance will work whether it is on a twenty-foot by thirty-foot billboard or if it is tucked into the corner of a small web banner. Keeping your achievement simple will ensure that your execution will be scalable on every form of digital or traditional media.

8 Best Productivity Tips for Programmers and Developers

It’s not easy to stay fruitful as a developer. It’s mentally stressful work that can instantly exhaust the mind and also needs a lot of attention. Understanding how you can concentrate on your work, use shortcuts using automation, and deal with distractions can significantly benefit you in creating the most out of your working hours. In this collection, you can discover our best productivity tips for programmers and developers, from finding the best developer tools to getting regular breaks to reduce distractions while working successfully.

1. Find the Best Code Editor

Developer productivity begins with a good source code editor. Although there are many great choices in the market, it’s difficult to tell which is the best — it all depends on your needs and goals. It’s worth trying out various code editors to see which one suits best with your workflow. Here are some important parts to take into consideration.

Which programming languages you are using. You require a code editor that offers syntax highlighting for the languages you require. Some code editor also comes with syntax highlighters for popular technologies such as React, not just for programming languages.
If your preferred code editor has enough plugin and theme ecosystem that provides the functionality you require (for instance, a high contrast theme if you have low vision).
If you commit your work to a code-sharing platform, such as Bitbucket or GitHub, you might find built-in Git functionality helpful. For instance, Visual Studio Code lets you instantly commit your task to GitHub without leaving the editor.
If you want to use your personal code snippets and/or keyboard shortcuts, it’s also a great idea to choose a code editor that lets you add or import them.

2. Begin with the Most Difficult Task Each Day

It’s simple to get lost in everyday tasks. Procrastination is also a common practice of developers — primarily if you work as a freelancer and manage your deadlines. Therefore, it often happens that you work all day, and by the end of the day, you understand that you have barely achieved anything. You can avoid that if you build a hierarchy of everyday tasks rather than multitasking, start with the most challenging task each day.

Although multitasking had been seen as a real thing for many years, it turned out that it’s not fit for most people. A study has shown that only 2% of the people are good at multitasking, while the rest can experience a lack of productivity as high as 40%. So, if you are into the 2%, keep working on multitasking. Otherwise, prioritize your tasks and concentrate only on one thing at the same time.

3. Take Breaks Regularly

Humans can’t focus on the same thing for unlimited time, and this is particularly true of hard mental work such as programming. You can find various studies about the time limit people can concentrate on a task without their brain wandering off to something else. For example, this research states that sustained attention is potential for about 45 minutes, while another one suggests 52 continuous minutes followed by a 17-minute break.

However, there’s one major thing to remember. The break has to be a true break when you do get up from your table. Checking emails, social media, blogs, Slack notifications, or simply looking at any kind of screen won’t matter as a break for your mind — every single study on the subject states this as a fact.

4. Schedule Your Work In Advance

Scheduling your works in advance can also significantly improve your productivity. You can either build task lists and check off finished tasks using to-do apps such as Todoist and Wunderlist or set up workflows with an application such as Trello. Nowadays, many great choices allow you to integrate various productivity tools, such as IFTTT and Zapier.

With task scheduling, you’ll also require to manage some experiments and think about what kind of tools you’ll actually need. You can use more than one app for accomplishing a task for sure. However, there’s also a chance of using multiple tools together. In some cases, too much complexity can lead to a lack of productivity.

5. Automate Repetitive Tasks

Automating repeated tasks is a must nowadays as a developer. It’s not a coincidence that DevOps is all the rage lately, as it’s all about automation. You won’t require much automation on the development side. However, getting your development code ready for production does include a lot of repetitive tasks.

For example, as a frontend developer, you can use a task runner to automatically complete everyday tasks on your code, such as minification, auto-prefixing, image optimization, and others.

6. Track Your Working Hours

Although not everyone wants to track their working hours, placing a time tracking app into use can benefit y’all a lot if you have time management problems. Time tracking can improve your productivity mostly because you can see how you spent your time throughout the day so that you can screen out possible distractions. Time trackers can also be a benefit if you are a freelancer, as they help you bill your customers on an hourly basis.

7. Use The Command Line

Besides automating tasks, it’s also a great idea to create a habit of using the command line in your daily workflow. First, you can importantly speed up your workflow if you use a CLI instead of a GUI. For example, here’s a tutorial about how to set up the WordPress CLI to accelerate WordPress development and maintenance. Second, securely utilizing CLI commands is an essential programming skill that you can use in many other fields of your work.

8. Eliminate Distractions

Distractions are the largest enemy of productivity, so you require to find a way to reduce them as much as possible. Unluckily, they have a sneaky nature, so it’s not simple at all to catch them. This is mainly because, several times, they don’t look like a distraction first.

For example, checking your email every hour, chatting with co-workers on Slack, or watching a new video tutorial on YouTube can be seen as work-related tasks, but if you are consuming too much time on them, you might notice that you haven’t achieved that much by the end of the day.

So, you need to be very concerned about distractions and take cares wherever you can. For instance, you can choose to check your emails only twice a day, switch off Slack notifications while working, or block distracting website that you often visit during work.

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