View source for The Cloud/Meeting Notes for 2016-07-11

<span style="font-size:x-large;">'''The Cloud'''</span>

Future Topic: Succession strategies


== Hosting ==

=== VPS hosting: servers in the cloud ===
* Linode: $20/month (TWC uses this)
* Digital Ocean
* Cloud at cost (don't use this for production)

You get a virtual machine in the sky which you have to administrate.


=== Shared hosting===
* peaceworks.ca
* CCj/Clearline : $20/month for a shared host
* http://www.ixwebhosti... : $8/month

Somebody else sets a server up and gives people accounts. They typically take care of disaster recovery.

Typically you don't get root. Sometimes you don't get a shell.

=== Colocation ===

Put a server in somebody's rack. You pay for the hardware and the hosting.

=== Computer in your basement (self-hosting) ===

You take of everything.

Your ISP has to be happy with you.

Server power is expensive.

=== Pros/cons===

* Be careful what you make public
* Be careful of hopscotch attacks



== Hosted Services ==

=== Types of Services ===

* Microsoft services (Office 365)
* Storage (SkyDrive, DropBox, Google Drive)
* Hosted Exchange, Sharepoint, OneDrive
* Hosting antivirus

=== Considerations ===

* There have to be ways for people to work offline on planes
** But even Google Docs can be used offline (via an installer?)

* When the Internet is down Brendan goes home. Why?
** Email
** VoIP phones
** File shares that are not local

* Can you do video editing in the cloud?
** There is an upper limit to the resolution

* Multiple location and home access is easier

* Who does the backups?
** There is versioning for documents in Office 365

* Sometimes services you depend upon go down. Then what?
** Can you transfer your services to other providers easily?
** LibreOffice is going into the cloud as well
** Mount as a filesystem and use rsync
** Google provides a way to do sync as well

* Can sysadmins see the documents of their users when they are on the cloud? + What happens when people leave?
** People use their corporate accounts and access data via their browser

* Logging into multiple companies can be difficult

* Do these services all use cookies for sessions?
** Cookies
** Session tokens
** User data storage
** Persistent TCP sessions?
** Endlessly refreshing HTTP sessions? WebSockets




=== Pros/cons===

* Self-hosting is complicated so companies are taking it away (also not as lucrative for the companies)
* What happens if you are offline?
** Adobe was offline in 2014 and people were locked out (how does this work?)
** What happens when your apps are just web frontends?
* Will all the IT people be unemployed? Not Brendan!

== Antivirus? ==

* Web browsers check every page to make sure it is not malicious?
* You could put the management consoles in the cloud
* You could have clients send everything up to the cloud to be scanned



== User Training/Adoptions== 

* Do corporations just do this to minimize training costs?
** You have to train people
** But what happens when there is a breach?

* How to we improve training and workplace culture?
** Go to management?
** Sheet of instructions that staff don't read
** Monthly staff meetings

* What about intentionally baiting users?
** Report to your users
** Go to your users individually and educate them?
** Reduce user rights?
** Publicize the people who have done bad things
** Use peer pressure?

* Passwords
** Shamir's Secret Sharing System : Multiple people each need to put a password in to unlock things. http://point-at-infin...
** Brendan does not allow people to set their own passwords. He gives passwords to people.
** Is it worth running hashcat or john the ripper on passwords?

* Why do users keep sending attachments by email?
** People have inertia for new things
** It is harder to put files in shared storage than to email attachments
** Sharepoint puts links to files instead of attaching them (for internal emails) (and so does GroupWise document management)

* "Permissions" for cloud resources are hard for users to understand
** Things that are "public" can be public to the world, not just the organization