How to create an always free K8S cluster in Oracle Cloud

Context

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) has an always-free plan (here), where you have access **FREE and FOREVER **to some computing resources.

Among them, you will have access to:

• Two AMD Compute VMs (1/8 Core and 1 Gigabyte of RAM)
• Up to 4 instances of Arm Ampere A1 Compute (4 cores and 24 Gigabytes of RAM in total)

With this in mind, I started thinking about how I could create a useful environment for small apps using these resources.

After some research, I found the solution K3S (https://k3s.io/), a lightweight Kubernetes environment, with the most important feature: K3s supports ARM processors.

Then I started to study how to install K3S in my environment and finished using the following topology of machines and networks.

#k8s #kubernetes

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Multi-cloud Spending: 8 Tips To Lower Cost

A multi-cloud approach is nothing but leveraging two or more cloud platforms for meeting the various business requirements of an enterprise. The multi-cloud IT environment incorporates different clouds from multiple vendors and negates the dependence on a single public cloud service provider. Thus enterprises can choose specific services from multiple public clouds and reap the benefits of each.

Given its affordability and agility, most enterprises opt for a multi-cloud approach in cloud computing now. A 2018 survey on the public cloud services market points out that 81% of the respondents use services from two or more providers. Subsequently, the cloud computing services market has reported incredible growth in recent times. The worldwide public cloud services market is all set to reach $500 billion in the next four years, according to IDC.

By choosing multi-cloud solutions strategically, enterprises can optimize the benefits of cloud computing and aim for some key competitive advantages. They can avoid the lengthy and cumbersome processes involved in buying, installing and testing high-priced systems. The IaaS and PaaS solutions have become a windfall for the enterprise’s budget as it does not incur huge up-front capital expenditure.

However, cost optimization is still a challenge while facilitating a multi-cloud environment and a large number of enterprises end up overpaying with or without realizing it. The below-mentioned tips would help you ensure the money is spent wisely on cloud computing services.

• Deactivate underused or unattached resources

Most organizations tend to get wrong with simple things which turn out to be the root cause for needless spending and resource wastage. The first step to cost optimization in your cloud strategy is to identify underutilized resources that you have been paying for.

Enterprises often continue to pay for resources that have been purchased earlier but are no longer useful. Identifying such unused and unattached resources and deactivating it on a regular basis brings you one step closer to cost optimization. If needed, you can deploy automated cloud management tools that are largely helpful in providing the analytics needed to optimize the cloud spending and cut costs on an ongoing basis.

• Figure out idle instances

Another key cost optimization strategy is to identify the idle computing instances and consolidate them into fewer instances. An idle computing instance may require a CPU utilization level of 1-5%, but you may be billed by the service provider for 100% for the same instance.

Every enterprise will have such non-production instances that constitute unnecessary storage space and lead to overpaying. Re-evaluating your resource allocations regularly and removing unnecessary storage may help you save money significantly. Resource allocation is not only a matter of CPU and memory but also it is linked to the storage, network, and various other factors.

• Deploy monitoring mechanisms

The key to efficient cost reduction in cloud computing technology lies in proactive monitoring. A comprehensive view of the cloud usage helps enterprises to monitor and minimize unnecessary spending. You can make use of various mechanisms for monitoring computing demand.

For instance, you can use a heatmap to understand the highs and lows in computing visually. This heat map indicates the start and stop times which in turn lead to reduced costs. You can also deploy automated tools that help organizations to schedule instances to start and stop. By following a heatmap, you can understand whether it is safe to shut down servers on holidays or weekends.

#cloud computing services #all #hybrid cloud #cloud #multi-cloud strategy #cloud spend #multi-cloud spending #multi cloud adoption #why multi cloud #multi cloud trends #multi cloud companies #multi cloud research #multi cloud market

What are the benefits of cloud migration? Reasons you should migrate

The moving of applications, databases and other business elements from the local server to the cloud server called cloud migration. This article will deal with migration techniques, requirement and the benefits of cloud migration.

In simple terms, moving from local to the public cloud server is called cloud migration. Gartner says 17.5% revenue growth as promised in cloud migration and also has a forecast for 2022 as shown in the following image.

#cloud computing services #cloud migration #all #cloud #cloud migration strategy #enterprise cloud migration strategy #business benefits of cloud migration #key benefits of cloud migration #benefits of cloud migration #types of cloud migration

Using Oracle Cloud to create an “always free” Online Development Environment

Context

After reading one of my last articles (How to create an always free K8S cluster in Oracle Cloud), a beginning developer friend which uses the smartphone to learn about programming, asked me if it is possible to create an “online development environment” using the same free machine.

A fast off-topic comment: it’s very common here in Brazil for young people who wish to learn about development and programming, and don’t have access to a computer. I know, this is sad but is the truth.

The idea behind the article it’s to create a step-by-step tutorial to create a virtual machine, install a Desktop Interface, install docker, and some utils tools.

Let’s begin.

#cloud-computing #oracle-cloud #cloud

Oracle Kills 402 Bugs in Massive October Patch Update

Business software giant Oracle is urging customers to update their systems in the October release of its quarterly Critical Patch Update (CPU), which fixes 402 vulnerabilities across various product families.

Well over half (272) of these vulnerabilities open products up to remote exploitation without authentication. That means that the flaw may be exploited over a network without requiring user credentials.

The majority of the flaws are in Oracle Financial Services Applications (53), Oracle MySQL (53), Oracle Communications (52), Oracle Fusion Middleware (46), Oracle Retail Applications (28) and Oracle E-Business Suite (27). But overall, 27 Oracle product families are affected by the flaws. Users can find a patch availability document for each product, available here.

“Oracle continues to periodically receive reports of attempts to maliciously exploit vulnerabilities for which Oracle has already released security patches,” according to the company’s release on Tuesday. “In some instances, it has been reported that attackers have been successful because targeted customers had failed to apply available Oracle patches. Oracle therefore strongly recommends that customers remain on actively-supported versions and apply Critical Patch Update security patches without delay.”

While details of the flaws themselves are scant, two of the critical vulnerabilities disclosed by Oracle rank the highest severity score – 10 out of 10 – on the CVSS scale.

These include a flaw in the self-service analytics component of Oracle Healthcare Foundation, which is a unified healthcare-analytics platform that is part of the Oracle Health Science Applications suite. The flaw (CVE-2020-1953), which can be remotely exploited without requiring any user credentials, requires no user interaction and is easy to exploit, according to Oracle. Affected supported versions include 7.1.1, 7.2.0, 7.2.1 and 7.3.0.

The second severe flaw (CVE-2020-14871) exists in the pluggable authentication module of Oracle Solaris, its enterprise operating system for Oracle Database and Java applications (part of the Oracle Systems risk matrix). The flaw is also remotely exploitable without user credentials, requires no user interaction and is a “low-complexity” attack. Versions 10 and 11 are affected.

Sixty-five of the vulnerabilities also had a CVSS base score of 9.8 (and six had a score of 9.4) out of 10, making them critical in severity.

Oracle did offer some workarounds, advising that for attacks that require certain privileges or access to certain packages, removing the privileges or the ability to access the packages from users that do not need the privileges may help reduce the risk of successful attack. Users can also reduce the risk of successful attack by blocking network protocols required by an attack.

However, both these approaches may break application functionality, and Oracle does not recommend that either approach be considered a long-term solution as neither corrects the underlying problem.

“Due to the threat posed by a successful attack, Oracle strongly recommends that customers apply Critical Patch Update security patches as soon as possible,” according to the company.

Oracle releases its CPUs on the Tuesday closest to the 17th day of January, April, July and October.

Previous quarterly updates have stomped out hundreds of bugs across the company’s product lines, including one in April that patched 405. There are also out-of-band updates; in June for instance, Oracle warned of a critical remote code-execution flaw in its WebLogic Server being actively exploited in the wild.

#vulnerabilities #web security #cpu #critical patch update #cve-2020-14871 #cve-2020-1953 #oracle #oracle communications #oracle e-business suite #oracle financial services applications #oracle fusion middleware #oracle mysql #oracle retail applications #quarterly patch update #remote code execution #security update

Oracle ERP Cloud ESS Jobs

This article discusses the steps to register an Oracle Cloud BI report as an ESS (Enterprise Schedule Service Jobs) and the various options available during registration.

In this previous article, we learned how to design and Develop an Oracle Cloud BI Report. In this article, we will use a simple BI report to show AP invoices for a vendor. We will register this BI report as an Enterprise Schedule Service Job.

Log in to Oracle Cloud Applications and Go to Tools in the Navigator and click on Reports and Analytics. Click on Browse Catalog to launch the BI workspace.

#cloud #oracle #oracle applications #oracle erp cloud