Author: galaxy-admin

The Future of Cloud Computing: How Will Cloud Look Like in 2025

Posted on by galaxy-admin

The Internet changed the way we communicate, share information, handle money transactions, and do shopping. Another defining change that the internet has facilitated is how we store information. Earlier, network servers were locked in secure rooms with only a few people having access to them. The internet and cloud computing decentralized the data. Data is now available through apps and cloud storage services while ensuring security and privacy. 

Cloud technology is among the recent and emerging technology services along with AI, IoT, Edge and Quantum computing. The cloud paved the way for businesses to grow and innovate. We already discussed the ways to scale in the cloud in one of our previous articles. But what do you think the future has in store for cloud computing? 

Cloud computing by 2025!

Today, the cloud is merely a technology platform for most businesses. By 2025, this perspective will change with all the companies adopting a cloud-first principle. Cloud will be the only approach for delivering applications and will serve as the key driver of business innovation. 

Legacy IT like wireless access points or mainframe computers will not go to the cloud. But, other applications and workloads will resort to the cloud, including servers, storage, and networking. Cloud will become the ubiquitous style of computing. Any non-cloud applications or infrastructure will be redundant by the year 2025.   

Two specific predictions on the future of the cloud that should be in your digital strategies:

  1. Cloud will be the foundation for business innovation –

Cloud is creating new business models and revenue streams. It will transform IT departments from cost centers to digital business bases.

Business innovation through the cloud – three core ways:

  1. Cloud democratizes access to cutting-edge technology. This makes it the platform of choice for most IT services. Consumption-based pricing and the ubiquitous availability of cloud services will provide next-generation capabilities to organizations.
  2. Cloud will connect organizations to a vast ecosystem of partners and suppliers.
  3. Organizations will create agile, innovative business designs using the cloud to enhance their core competencies. Cloud can provide opportunities in different business processes including customer service to supply chain management.

Cloud computing is the common denominator for the success of leading digital pioneers. They leverage the cloud and its principles to expand their services to create and monetize new services.

These organizations evolved into platform businesses. This is a trend that will be common by 2025. Enterprises must become platform businesses to compete with the digital giants.

cloud in 2025, Gartner prediction
  1. Intentional multi-cloud and distributed cloud
  • In a 2018 survey by Gartner, 80% of respondents said their organization runs load on multiple clouds. This approach is described as unintentional multi-cloud.
  • Another Gartner study in 2020 recorded respondents identifying the top reasons their organization uses multiple public clouds – improving availability, selecting best-of-breed capabilities, and satisfying compliance requirements.

By 2025, 50% of enterprises (up from fewer than 10% today) will adopt intentional multi-cloud where they use cloud services from multiple public cloud providers. With this approach, organizations can reduce the risk of vendor lock-in, maximize commercial leverage, and address broader compliance requirements.

Distributed cloud is another future-looking computing mechanism. It is the distribution of public cloud services to different physical locations. The operation, governance, and evolution of the services are the responsibility of the public cloud provider.

More than three-quarters of respondents in the Gartner 2020 Cloud End-User Behavior study preferred cloud computing in a location of their choice. Gartner anticipates half of the businesses using distributed cloud by 2025.

The rise of cloud computing!

  • Cloud spend will surpass the non-cloud spend – Gartner 2020 Cloud End User Behavior study.
  • More than 80% of large corporations are using cloud computing. This will increase to more than 90% up to 2024.
  • In 2025, the public cloud computing market will be worth $800 billion.
  • By 2024, enterprise cloud spending will be 14% of total IT revenue worldwide.

The technology landscape is highly unpredictable. Something like cloud computing can and will see multidimensional growth. Predictions can go on and on. We will be talking more about the future possibilities of cloud computing in future articles. Stay tuned for more and keep reading.

 Contact us for cloud computing support here! 

Glassmorphism – How to Leverage This New UI Trend in Your Website

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Another year, another UI design trend making waves – Glassmorphism  

Each trend or practice brings different perks and challenges alike. While we all like to be adopt different and newest design trends, we also need to ensure that our design is future-proof and will not go out of style after a few months. 

Glassmorphism is the latest UI design trend everyone trying to emulate. We prefer to be at the forefront of new UX trends and here are our learnings after experimenting with this eye-catching and vibrant design trend – Glassmorphism.

Glassmorphism
Image by Galaxy Weblinks

Glassmorphism is largely about highlighting light or dark objects by placing them on vividly colored backgrounds. The design has elements of transparency, frostiness, or glossiness. Glassmorphing is that “airy” interface where you see objects floating within space. Eye-catching and colorful, this trend favors multi-layered approaches. Resembling milky glass surfaces, the interface is grabbing a lot of attention.

Designers have been playing with this style of the interface in a major way. Glasmorphism is there in a larger number of published website designs. For instance, Apple used this effect on the latest update of macOS Big Sur. Microsoft also used this new interface on the app surfaces of Windows Vista and named it “The Acrylic”

The likes of Apple and Microsoft are using this interface. This trend is being followed by all those who want to make a lasting impression on their visitors. It is safe to say that Glassmorphism is here to stay. It is a promising design that has a lot to offer.

Glassmorphism in Apple Big Sur
Image by Galaxy Weblinks

All brands regardless of the nature of the work can incorporate this sort of interface. It is an all-weather solution.

User experience lays the foundation for happy, satisfied customers. Here is how UX makes a lasting impact – 

A product’s ability to woo the audience rests on how strong, seamless, and speedy the interface is. As a conscious effort, the designers strive to create simple and minimalist designs and avoid using unnecessary information or low-resolution photos. The intriguing and minimal design keeps visitors engaged for longer. Glassmorphism UI complements modern design needs and user behavior. 

Here is what constitutes Glassmorphism Aesthetics 

Glassmorphism components
Image by Galaxy Weblinks

Here are some insightful tips on how we make this design work for our client’s website, for your website:

  • Not applying the blurring and transparent effect in areas that require active interactions.
  • Not using this design aesthetics in buttons, toggles, navigation menu, and similar elements.
  • Use transparency and blurring for boosting the overall look and feel, not only for decoration.
  • Applying fitting contrast with the cards in the interfaces for ease of accessibility.
  • Right spacing between the cards. Grouping together all the objects related to one another.
  • Choosing the right contrast and intuitive grouping of cards in the design layout
Glassmorphism
Image by Galaxy Weblinks

Glassmorphism usage is based on the designer’s discretion and they must use it judiciously. It is beautiful and minimalistic but falls short in the accessibility standards. Our design experts are exploring new trends and creative ways of making web products. At the same time, we try to overcome the shortcomings if there are any. Therefore, we are ensuring a higher level of accessibility in our web designs where we are leveraging Glassmorphism. 

Design is subjective, not bound by any rules. Websites are user-friendly and beautiful when the designers push their boundaries and experiment with the design trends. Glassmorphism is the latest trend and like the other trends, this will be replaced by something new soon. However, it does make a statement and if you wish to leverage this trend, we can help you while ensuring that the design is sustainable, future-proof, and accessible.  

Get in touch with our design team here and have a one on one about Glassmorphism. Contact us here!

How to Scale on Cloud Computing; Made Easy for You

Posted on by galaxy-admin

“What kind of cloud services do you use?”. 

Cloud services are categorized into Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service, and Software-as-a-Service (IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS). 

The traditional, on-premise deployments require managing your software as well as IT investments. IaaS, such as Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure provides a pay-as-you-go service for storage, networking, and virtualization. A step further are PaaS options such as Windows Azure, Google Compute Engine, IBM Cloud that also provide services such as hardware and software development. 

SaaS options such as Salesforce, Google Apps, Microsoft Office 365 are at the top of the Cloud Services table. You get an option of subscribing to end-to-end software solutions. 

Cloud Computing drives every little thing in today’s world, including jobs, applications, services, data, and platforms. The cloud is scalable and flexible. It also provides security and control over the data center.

The future of Cloud computing will be a combination of cloud-based software products and on-premises computing. There will be hybrid IT solutions. The shift to public cloud computing is the dominant trend in the industry. This will make cloud technology even bigger going forward.

Currently, cloud computing is dominated by three major players. We all know who they are – Google, Microsoft (Azure), and Amazon (AWS). These cloud computing providers are huge and are rapidly growing. These three did under $30 billion in revenue last quarter. They are heading towards $120 billion in revenue over the next year. Cloud computing is on the growth path for the foreseeable future. 

Scalability is a key driver for cloud migration!

No matter the size of your business, you are always planning to grow. Be it a startup or a successful venture, who doesn’t love to serve more customers, solve more customer problems, and gain profits. Don’t we all get a little starry-eyed when we hear a fairy-tale success story of companies scaling by 200 percent or increasing their team size by a substantial number? 

Scalability here refers to the ability to seamlessly enhance or decrease the compute or storage resources.

Smart and effective scaling requires systems, technology that scale easily. There are two types of scaling. 

Horizontal scaling, or more popularly referred to as scaling out or in signifies the number of resources. On the other hand, Vertical scaling which is also called scaling up or down refers to the power and capability of individual resources.

Cloud technology makes scaling faster, smarter, and more affordable than on-premises servers (on-prem) – by a big margin. Cloud is better for scalability. With on-premise installations, resources for scaling are finite. Opt for the cloud if you want to grow without major tech hiccups along the way.

Coming to the important part!

Scaling in cloud computing is the process of adding or reducing computing power, storage, and network services to meet the workload needs to match your business needs. For example, you own an Ecommerce store and need additional computing capacity on Black Friday, you need to scale up your server capacity to meet the additional traffic to your website. Similarly, if the need for computing power drops every day from 1 am to 5 am local time, your servers must scale down to use fewer resources, costing less money. 

Cloud workloads for computational resources are usually determined by:

  • Front-end traffic (The number of incoming requests)
  • Back-end, load-based (The number of jobs queued in the server) 
  • Back-end, time-based (The length of time jobs have waited in the queue)

Scaling Up & Scaling Out … 

Scaling up and scaling out refer to two dimensions across which resources can be added. To keep the system running smoothly as the user base grows, you have to add more computing power (CPU, RAM) to your existing machine, that is cloud vertical scaling. Or you have to add more machines/servers, that is cloud horizontal scaling.

Horizontal and vertical scaling in the cloud

  • Vertical Scaling is the process of resizing a server to give it supplemental CPUs, memory, or network capacity. With only one server to manage, vertical scaling minimizes operational overhead. The need to distribute the workload and coordinate among multiple servers is gone. Vertical scaling is best for applications that are difficult to distribute. 
  • Horizontal scaling splits the workload across multiple servers working in parallel instead of resizing an application to a bigger server. Applications that can sit within a single machine are well-suited to horizontal scaling. There is little need to coordinate tasks between servers. Front-end applications and microservices can leverage horizontal scaling and adjust the number of servers in use according to the workload demand patterns.

Cloud Autoscaling!

Cloud Autoscaling!

Cloud autoscaling is the process of automatically increasing or decreasing the computational resources delivered to a cloud workload. The benefit of autoscaling is simple – your workload gets exactly the cloud computational resources it requires (no more, no less) at the given time. This reflects sin cost as you pay only for resources you need.

All the major public cloud computing vendors offer autoscaling capabilities:

  • AWS calls the feature Auto Scaling Groups
  • Google Cloud calls the feature Instance Groups
  • Microsoft Azure calls it Virtual Machine Scale Sets

Each of these service providers offers the same core capabilities.

If cloud scaling is not done properly, there are risks. When scaling is applied across many workloads, the stakes go high:

  • Scaling capacity (up or out) beyond actual resource utilization results in overspending on unused infrastructure services. This reflects on cost as well.
  • Scaling capacity (up or out) creates overspend when demand is low, This puts workload performance at risk when traffic spikes

Well, there is always risk involved when things are done improperly, be it getting a coffee or scaling cloud computing. Right from cloud computing, cloud scaling, or autoscaling, everything is quite simple, not intimidating as it seems. 

Galaxy Weblinks has ventured into cloud and security services. With 21 years of experience in IT, we are aware of how deep the waters are. We too are aiming to scale  – help more customers with more technologies and solve more problems. Let’s scale together. Contact us for Cloud Migration and other cloud computing services.

Why Is the Discovery Phase Important Before Ecommerce Website Development?

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Setting up an Ecommerce shop online isn’t easy and comes with its own set of complications. The insane level of competition aside, your problems begin even before you’ve begun to build your website. There are numerous Ecommerce website platforms, a lot of plugins for various features and functionalities, and several design elements to consider tailored to your business needs for driving internet traffic and high conversions. There are a lot of moving parts to analyze, design, plan, and setup. These have to be done while making sure that your visitors have a good user experience 

It is important to conceptualize before spending a lot of time and money towards Ecommerce website development costs. Your website should address several factors such as understanding your user requirements, conducting competitive research, identifying the key functionalities/features of your product that you want to address, and designing according to your company’s brand. Without an understanding of these, you are bound to make frequent changes in your scope resulting in the development project exceeding the budget, missing its deadline and failing to meet the end objective. 

So it’s very important to carry out a Discovery phase before starting any development work to better understand the overall objectives and to eliminate the risks in order to make the website successful. In this article we will explain the meaning of a Discovery phase along with its importance. 

What is the Discovery Phase?

Discovery phase is a crucial stage in the Ecommerce website development project life cycle that involves collecting and analyzing information about the project including its targeted market, intended users and their needs/preferences, competitor analysis, carrying out design UX/UI, identifying the correct technology stack, and selecting the features/functionalities for your Ecommerce website ahead of the development work. 

The key objective of the Discovery phase is to get an in-depth understanding of the goals, scope, and limitation of the project. It helps get a reasonable and accurate estimate of the costs and the time it would take to execute the project. 

A Discovery phase could take one week to 2 months for completion, and is dependent on the project scope and its complexity. In addition to the time, the cost during the phase would also depend upon the hourly rate of the company carrying out the Discovery phase. Typically, Discovery phase could be up to 10% of the total project costs. 

What are the key benefits of a Discovery Phase?

The Discovery phase helps – 

  • Reduce risks as the phase focuses on getting a clear understanding of your goals and requirements. This helps the development team create reasonable and accurate estimates of time and budget. The overall cost savings from carrying out a Discovery phase can make-or-break a project’s success. 
  • Formulate a roadmap as the Discovery phase helps build a full timeline of the project with interim goals, deliverables and milestones. 
  • Build confidence in your development partner as the Discovery phase would highlight the approach that your development partner will take during execution of the project. A poor Discovery phase would help you re-evaluate your partner options before spending the entire budget with a wrong partner.

What are the key deliverables from the Discovery Phase?

Given the focus of the Discovery phase is to define the overall project, the key deliverables/outcomes from this phase are – 

  • User Personas and User Flows: These are outcomes from the business and user base understanding process that is carried out to understand the business/user better. 

    – User Personas represent your ideal customers and cover aspects such as demographics, behaviors, needs, pain points, etc. 
    – User Flows are flowcharts or diagrams that display the complete path a user takes when using a product. The flowchart starts with the user’s entry point on the product, like a registration/login, and ends with the final action or outcome, like purchasing a product. User Flows allow creations of a better user experience and helps focus development efforts keeping the same in mind.
  • Competitor analysis: This includes researching competitors and identifying competitor’s key uniqueness and limitations. Analysis of competitor’s designs and features/functionalities helps evaluate existing solutions and help you determine the niche of your future product.
  • Tech stack requirements specification: This deliverable fully describes the project, its features, suggested technology stack (custom development, Shopify, Magento, etc.), and architecture overview. This allows for course correction, if needed, before the start of the development spend.
  • UX/UI design: The visual representation of the software flow including wireframes, screens, etc. allows further clarity on the overall product. This also helps developers have a clear understanding of what is required to be coded and developed. 
  • Development plan and estimates: The end objective of the Discovery phase is to get an accurate estimate of the development timeline and budget.

Conclusion 

A Discovery phase is an important part of the Ecommerce website development. Without a clear understanding, a lot of time and money is spent into a project that has frequent scope revisions, cost overruns, time delays, and a website completely different from your original vision / objective. 

Running a successful Shopify Ecommerce website in today’s highly competitive online environment requires a good development partner who understands your business requirements and provides a helping hand in realizing your company’s vision, achieving your growth plans and having a great user experience. If you’ve any doubts related to Ecommerce platforms and if you need assistance developing one, then feel free to talk to us here.

Why Is Accessible Design Important to Maximize Your App Reach?

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You’ve created the next big mobile app… excellent work! The next step is to ensure that you get maximum users for your world-class application. Ensuring accessibility compliance in your mobile application is a way to ensure that you reach a substantial number of American audiences who suffer from disabilities. 

Inclusivity is not only the right thing to do but also offers lots of business benefits. Accessibility-enabled native apps will help you drive engagement, give you a loyal customer base and provide a personalized experience to your users. Governmental institutions are beginning to implement laws and regulations that require equal access for all users.

Here’s what you should know to make sure your app is inclusively designed.

1. New customer acquisition

More than 80% of people with disabilities have decided not to trust a service provider due to barriers, wherein poor web accessibility is the most common. Users with disabilities are willing to spend more money with companies that provide them with a well-thought-out user experience, although they are frequently ignored by most brands. This particular market has enormous purchasing power.

Accessibility enhancements will not turn away current customers but will attract new customers and increase conversions. By recognizing users with disabilities, you are letting them know that their rights are important and that their business is valued.

2. Enhanced reputation

Companies that welcome people with disabilities only benefit from it. Efforts to make a website or app completely accessible improve a company’s reputation and foster an image of social responsibility and concern for all users.

Silicon Valley giants do not shy away from bringing innovation to the game when it comes to adding accessibility features. They have invested millions in cutting-edge technology and ground-breaking new features. For example, this year, Facebook started using artificial intelligence to provide automatic alternative text to its blind users via object recognition technology. This feature now allows them to fully enjoy the 2 billion photos shared on Facebook each day.

3. Legal Compliance

The number of lawsuits filed in the United States alleging that websites, apps, and digital videos were inaccessible to people with disabilities increased by 64% year on year in the first half of 2021. 

For example, a visually-impaired person, Guillermo Robles sued Domino’s Pizza in 2019 for violations of ADA Title III. Similar lawsuits were against Nike and Beyonce’s company. According to the complaint, despite using screen-reading software, he was unable to order food from Domino’s website or app. Robles won the lawsuit and established a strong precedent for businesses. The threat of litigation is real!

Conclusion

Developing a mobile application with accessibility in mind will ensure a fabulous user experience for your mobile application. Accessibility compliance comes with numerous financial, moral, and legal advantages. Both the Android and iOS platforms provide a variety of tools for incorporating accessibility solutions into your app. There are virtually no valid reasons to disregard the concept of accessibility.

Achieving quality output well within your budget and timeline can be difficult for you. We can help you find the best approach based on your testing situation to reach your goal. Contact our experts today.

What Is Functional Testing and Why Is It Important?

Posted on by galaxy-admin

In this blog, we will answer every question you have regarding Functional Testing. What are its types, why is it important, when should you opt for Functional Testing, and the role of automation in functional testing? 

What is Functional Testing?

When software is tested against functional requirements or specifications to discover any bugs or defects, it is by definition Functional Testing. It is in contrast to System Testing which validates a program against the published user or system requirement. Functional testing verifies a program by checking it against the design document.

Types Of Functional Testing

The following are the types of Functional testing:

  • Smoke Testing
  • Integration Testing
  • Regression Testing
  • User Acceptance Testing
  • Smoke Testing

It is the initial phase of testing and hence ensures the stability of a build. Smoke testing also determines if the build is in a testing condition or not.

  • Integration Testing

As the name suggests, integration testing ensures if the software modules or component integrations as a whole are working as expected. 

  • Regression Testing

If during the testing, any modifications are made to the software, Regression tests are conducted. It ensures that the new additions to the software are not causing any issues and in the future will cause the software to break. 

  • User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

This is a real-world test where the people testing the software are the ones who intended to use that software. This test ensures that the system performs as per the given requirements. 

If the software quality takes the top spot on your list, then Functional Testing is imperative and unavoidable. However, to ensure proper unbiased testing, you need to find experienced software testers to help you deliver uncompromised quality.

Importance of Functional Testing

Functional testing meets the client’s requirements while fulfilling the functional requirements of the software. The testers assigned take into account different aspects of how a system functions in the context of the system as a whole, knowing where to look for weaknesses and to ensure the system functions logically from a user perspective. This test is guided by human intuition and training, which makes it predominantly a manual process. 

6 Steps to Conduct Functional Testing

Functional Testing is a linear process that includes:

  • Identify the expected functions and test parameters
  • Determine expected outcomes based on the functionality
  • Executing test cases based on client requirements and typical system functions
  • Compare the actual data with expected outcomes
  • Determine if the software works as expected
  • Rectify issues if any or declare tests as a success

When Should You Opt for Functional Testing?

Functional testing works best in tandem with Test Automation, Exploratory Testing, and Performance Testing, which is a part of a broader Testing Strategy. This comprehensive testing strategy ensures that every aspect and part of the system works as intended on the front-end, back-end, and through various unexpected conditions as well. 

Unlike other automated forms of testing, Functional Testing doesn’t require coding expertise but it can be conducted on par with industry standards via tools like Selenium, which is also used for automation testing.

Role of Test Automation in Functional Testing

End-to-end comprehensive functional tests can be a daunting task, Test automation makes it easier. Here are a few important aspects to consider for adopting test automation in Functional Testing:

Get the right expertise onboard: 

You need to get the right set of people onboard to be successful when you’re trying to adopt Test Automation for Functional Testing. Right from the stakeholders who will drive strategy to align and meet organizational goals to testing experts, to product experts.

Choosing the right tools: 

The right strategy can ensure your project’s success and this will be facilitated also need a great tool to help you in the process and achieve your testing goals more efficiently. 

You can base your selection on these parameters: 

  • Ease of use – It should be easy to create test scripts, test data, and reusable components
  • Automation Speed – The tool should enable rapid test script development
  • Technology Support – The tool should support all the technologies/practices you work with including database, web-based UI and services, mobile or thick client apps, file handling, etc. 
  • DevOps Support – The tool must support and manage continuous integration tools and infrastructure
  • Reusability and Maintainability –  It must support easy traceability and modularity of changes ensuring high maintainability of the test suite
  • Collaboration – The tool must be equipped with real-time collaboration capabilities to make distributed working more efficient
  • Powerful Reporting –  The tool must have robust reporting for every execution cycle, suite, and across multiple builds.

Functional testing on a larger scale becomes complex and test automation helps us reduce that complexity. All we need to do is implement the right testing solutions. Continuous upskilling of the testers is also important to adopt and adapt the latest technologies. 

Functional testing not only helps you deliver software that is flawless but also right on the money when matched against the business objectives. You just need the right team and a set of tools that fits like missing puzzle pieces in your existing team. 

Need help with your testing requirements? Reach out to us here.

5 Reasons Why Developers Think Headless CMS Is the Best

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Headless CMS has gained popularity among developers, marketers, QA engineers, and even designers. And there is enough buzz in its favor, especially amongst developers, which shows that it is a promising technology. There are other CMS systems in place that seem to be doing well, but headless CMS is a definitive upgrade from them.

Headless CMS is giving developers more freedom to focus on core user experiences without worrying about how content is being showcased across platforms. They can juggle with frameworks and tools of their choice with no specific vendor lock-in. 

Read on to find out more about why Headless CMS is all in the rage.  

1. Faster to market

Headless CMS allows developers and content creators to work in parallel, thanks to its decoupled mechanism. There is minimum back and forth between teams regarding content placements across different touchpoints. Developers can deliver the content via APIs call to devices and touchpoints. This way teams can concentrate on the overall user experience rather than cross verifying “if the content is placed correctly”, “is it in line with the platform content consumption format” etc. 

2. Easy updates and maintenance

Maintenance is always an ongoing process and the easier it is, the more regular it will be. Developers do not dread updating and maintenance but it is tiring and tedious. There will always be new features, some glitches, small errors that will affect your user experience. Headless CMS ensures that no major red flags occur when making changes to content because there is a separation of frontend and backend.

3. Flexible tech stack for developers

A great thing about headless CMS is that your team of developers is not bound to a set choice of integrations and plugins that come with traditional CMS. While there is no harm in it, sticking to a single choice limits your options and you can not switch to better alternatives that might be there in the industry. 

Headless CMS removes this barrier, any third-party tool can be integrated via APIs, thus giving a maximum selection pool. You can easily switch between tools as well, making it easy to stay on top of new technology. This gives developers immense flexibility, making headless CMS a great choice for them.      

4. Better code reusability 

When you have Headless CMS implemented, the modular approach gives developers the freedom to reuse code from other projects and even from older ones. There will be no need to keep changing your backend to accommodate the new changes that are done from time to time.

5. Focus more on personalized user experiences

Data is what drives personalized experiences. And Headless CMS’s API approach lets you collect data from various platforms and use them simultaneously. You can shape the API call’s responses as per requirements and deliver tailor-made user experiences. Additionally, there are some indirect routes opened for IoT devices as well. 

Wrapping Up

The pointers mentioned above are the reason more and more developers are willing to shift to Headless CMS from traditional CMS and decoupled CMS. IKEA, Burger King, and many other big names have invested in headless CMS architectures, so what’s stopping you from experimenting a bit?

If you feel that there is more to know about headless CMS, drop us your contact information here, and we will be happy to assist you with any questions and migration.

Security in Public Cloud – How to Choose the Right Service Provider

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While considering a public cloud service, you need to keep several important considerations in mind. One of the most important among those is cyber security. The features and capabilities your public cloud service provider employs to keep their networks and services safe and ultimately your data safe.

There are three big players in the game; Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Microsoft Azure. All three take their security very seriously because one breach can cause a loss of millions of dollars in penalties, revenue, and reputation.

Here’s what they are offering in terms of cyber security to keep your data safe:

Network and Infrastructure Security

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

  • Network firewalls that allow customers to create private networks and control access to instances or apps
  • Companies also get access to control encryption in transit across AWS services.
  • Connectivity options to enable private or dedicated connections
  • DDoS mitigation
  • Automatic encryption of all traffic between AWS secured facilities

Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

  • Has purpose-built hardware for security. Titan, a custom security chip used to establish a hardware root in GCP servers and peripheral devices.
  • Google also makes its network hardware for improving security. 
  • Multiple layers of physical and logical protection
  • A global network infrastructure that is designed to withstand attacks such as DDoS.
  • There are additional network security capabilities like cloud load balancing and Cloud Armor that can be deployed on the customer level.
  • Several security measures are put in place to secure data in transit. Google encrypts and authenticates data in transit at multiple network layers.

Fun fact: In 2017, the infrastructure absorbed a 2.5 Tbps DDoS, the highest-bandwidth attack reported to date.

Microsoft Azure

  • Microsoft has geographically dispersed data centers that comply with industry standards for security and reliability.
  • Experienced Microsoft operations staff manage, monitor, and administer the Azure data centers.
  • Operations personnel are profiled through a series of background verification checks. And based on those checks Microsoft limits access to applications, systems, and network infrastructure. 
  • Azure Virtual Network resources are protected by cloud-based network security called Azure Firewall. It is a firewall-as-a-service that comes with built-in high availability and unrestricted scalability. It can decrypt outbound traffic, perform security checks and then re-encrypt the traffic.

Identity and Access Control

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

  • AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) lets you define individual user accounts with permissions across AWS resources.
  • AWS Multi-Factor Authentication for privileged accounts including software-based and hardware-based authenticators. 
  • You can use partner identity systems like Microsoft Active Directory to grant employees and applications federated access to AWS Management Console and service APIs.
  • AWS single sign-on enables organizations to manage user access and permissions to all of their accounts in AWS.
  • Amazon also offers a directory service which lets organizations integrate and federate with corporate directories to reduce administrative overheads and improve end-user experience. 

Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

  • Google Cloud Identity Access Management(IAM) lets administrators authorize people to take action on specific resources, with full control and visibility to manage GCP resources centrally. 
  • Cloud’s IAM provides a unified view into security policy across the entire organization to ease compliance processes for bigger organizations.
  • Google Cloud comes with Cloud Identity, an Identity-as-a-Service(IDaaS) that centrally manages users and groups.
  • Exclusive in its arsenal Google also provides Titan Security Keys that provide cryptographic proof that users are interacting with legitimate services. 
  • There’s also a resource manager, Cloud Resource Manager that provides resource containers like organizations, folders, and projects which let you organize your GCP resources group-wise and hierarchically.

Microsoft Azure

  • For SSO or Single Sign-On, multi-factor authentication, and conditional access to Azure services, corporate networks, on-premise resources, and SaaS applications, Microsoft has Azure Active Directory(AD). 
  • Azure AD comes with secure adaptive access which simplifies access, streamlines control with unified identity management, and ensures compliance with simplified identity governance.

Fun Fact: Microsoft says that with these features, it can help protect users from 99.9% of cyber security attacks.

Data Protection and Encryption

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

  1. Apart from data-in-transit, Amazon also provides a scalable encryption feature for data at rest with its data-at-rest encryption.
  2. Amazon also has flexible key management options including AWS Key Management Service, AWS CloudHSM for hardware-based cryptographic key storage, and encrypted message queues for sensitive data.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

  • Google utilizes Confidential Computing to secure data as it is being used. One of the firsts in the line of products that will benefit from Confidential Computing is Confidential VMs. 
  • Google also offers flexible Key management with its Cloud External Key Manager (Cloud EKM).

Microsoft Azure

  • For the key management, Microsoft has Azure Key Vault which helps keep cryptographic keys safe.  
  • Azure Key Vault streamlines the key management process and also gives control of keys to organizations.
  • Security admins can grant and revoke permission to keys as needed.
  • Organizations can use Microsoft information protection and Microsoft Information Governance within Microsoft 365 to protect and govern data.

The security features and capabilities mentioned above for the respective Cloud Service Providers are a testament to the importance of Cyber security in a public cloud. As an organization, all these cloud security features are at your disposal but you need experts to manage your cloud and implement these security features to be able to secure yourself from attacks like DDoS and data breaches. 
Our Cloud experts at Galaxy are here to help you implement and secure Public Clouds in Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure. Contact us for a free consultation.

The Top 7 Benefits of Building a Website on Umbraco CMS

Posted on by galaxy-admin

A content management system (CMS) is an essential component of your online experience. As the digital landscape expands to include additional channels and touchpoints, a CMS must provide flexibility, robust content production tools, and efficient workflows to fuel customer journey content.

There is an increasing number of solutions available, and this is where Umbraco CMS comes into the picture. Umbraco is an advanced Content Management System (CMS) and has more features and capabilities vis-a-vis its contemporaries. 

What is Umbraco?

Umbraco provides cloud hosting for Ecommerce platforms for customers who do not want to spend time building up and monitoring personal websites. Umbraco is a well-known, robust, extensible, and adaptable content management system. As a result, it is capable of handling anything from simple web pages to sophisticated apps.

The following are some of the advantages of utilizing Umbraco for your content management systems:

1. Complete Customization

Umbraco can meet all of your bespoke branding and design demands. It is open-sourced, therefore the source code of Umbraco is available for modification by your web development team. You are free to develop the content and functionality experience your website requires.

Even if you do not have a team of web developers or designers, Umbraco provides a plethora of themes and skins from which to choose. You can select a template that meets your requirements and go right into the editing.

2. Numerous options for hosting and tools

As a developer, you can select your preferred tool. If you use VSCode, you can use IntelliSense in your Umbraco projects. Visual Studio and Rider are additional popular options that can be fully utilized with Umbraco 9.

When it comes to hosting alternatives, you can use the SaaS platform Umbraco Cloud. It was designed as the ideal location for Umbraco websites and is now more versatile than ever. However, if you require a different sort of hosting, Umbraco 9 and.NET 5 provide a wider selection of options like shared hosting, dedicated hosting, on-premise hosting, etc.

3. Headless CMS

As the newest trend in content management systems, headless CMS allows you to create a highly scalable and modular content distribution system. Umbraco can function as both a monolith and a headless CMS, allowing you to manage multiple websites and platforms with the same simplicity as one – adding or removing any type of data you desire. A headless CMS, on the other hand, does not display pages on its own. Instead, it serves data via a REST API, allowing users to consume, render, and use it to meet even the most bizarre requirements. 

How does Headless CMS help in building future-proof websites, and why are they so popular among developers? Learn here.

4. Future-proof software 

Umbraco is easier to learn and maintain, as well as more flexible and developer-friendly. Working with Umbraco 9 as a developer is a sheer delight. You’ll find enhancements to all of the classic APIs and services, as well as new .NET 5 goodies like MSDI (Microsoft Dependency Injection), Hosted Services, Razor TagHelpers, and.NET CLI.

5. Preferred by Enterprises 

Umbraco is built on Microsoft’s .NET Framework, therefore it’s not surprising that Microsoft utilizes it to administer their websites. Umbraco is used by a variety of large corporations, including Sony, Avon, Warner Brothers, Peugeot, and Vogue, to mention a few. These businesses have made a deliberate decision to use this CMS.

The client base is growing with time, and Umbraco CMS is getting increasingly popular. According to the official Umbraco website, the platform has had over 731,000 active installs since its original release. It may not be as popular as WordPress, but Umbraco is carving its niche as more adaptable, secure, and scalable.

6. Built on Microsoft.NET Framework

Umbraco is an open-source content management system built on the Microsoft ASP.NET foundation. It allows you to create everything from small brochures to massive applications using its fully-featured environment and a host of additional tools. Umbraco is a popular platform for expert programmers that is created with ASP.net. Umbraco is presently used by over 100,000 websites.

Umbraco is a well-documented object-oriented architecture that gives users a high level of comfort when designing and customizing web pages. Umbraco is entirely compatible with Microsoft technologies and can make use of various ready-to-use libraries, allowing it to implement any business requirement in a realistic timescale.

7. It is simple to integrate with various platforms

A modern CMS must be compatible with a wide range of software. Umbraco is adaptable enough to integrate with a wide range of applications and platforms, including:

  • Web analytics and statistics tools — for gathering information about online traffic and website visits (ex. Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics).
  • CRM platforms are used to manage customer relationships (ex. Salesforce, SugarCRM, Microsoft Dynamics).
  • ERP systems are used to manage internal activities including accounting, invoicing, and payroll (ex. SAP Business One, Oracle E-Business Suite).
  • Payment gateways – used to build secure payment sites and execute transactions (ex. PayPal, PayU).

What project can Umbraco be used for? 

Umbraco CMS may be used to create practically any form of internet application, from simple personal websites to complex company portals or e-commerce stores.

Umbraco is a solid option for:

  • Employees and partners can access an enterprise portal that also functions as an intranet.
  • A corporate website containing information on the company’s portfolio and goods.
  • An online store that sells sporting equipment, clothing, books, and other items.
  • Large websites will have a large number of content pages (articles, news, etc.) and files.
  • A web platform for the local community.
  • A personal website, such as a blog.
  • A data-driven CMS that exposes content to a variety of apps and devices.
  • Any web application with a large number of integrations.

Umbraco is ideal for marketing firms wanting to work with small businesses or organizations in need of a scalable platform to handle their content. Users may directly control their website, which improves the entire client experience and makes it easy to stay up to date on any changes.

Key Takeaway

When it comes to web development and content management, having a reliable CMS that allows you to build whatever you want pays dividends. Most prominent website development companies strongly suggest you consider Umbraco whether you’re building a new website or switching to a new CMS. Assume you want to create a website with a large content database, marketing, and promotion tools, e-commerce, user-generated material, corporate and governmental content, and those with a high volume of transactions and events, such as gaming sites. Umbraco is a good and suggested solution in this circumstance.

Contact us, if you are interested in more details on how we approach website development with Umbraco CMS.

About Galaxy Weblinks:
We are your offshore CMS development partner! We offer expert capabilities in developing feature-rich solutions using the latest CMS technology trends. We have hands-on experience in building popular CMS-based websites using our frontend and backend expertise for different business needs. We offer assistance from building custom CMS websites to website migration and maintenance processes.

5 Best Practices to Make the Most Out of Manual Software Testing

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Manual Testing aids in the detection of both hidden and evident software flaws. Despite the growing usage of automated testing, manual testing remains an important part of the software development process.

Although the testing technique necessitates a large amount of time and work, it is necessary for the testing of freshly generated software. It ensures that all of the software’s basic functions are working properly and lays the groundwork for automated testing. Let’s dive into the best practices of manual testing for a successful foundation in software testing.

1. Adopt Tests Written for Maximum Coverage

For various scenarios, QA teams employ several forms of testing. However, if 100 percent coverage isn’t feasible, the primary goal should be to ensure that the tests are created to cover as much as possible.

To ensure that the product’s requirements can be tested, test cases should be written to include them as well. To get 100% coverage, we must use a variety of manual testing methods. However, the same forms of software testing can be used in automated software testing.

  • Black Box Testing:- Black box testing is a testing technique in which QA testers must perform manual testing without being able to see the internal code structure. Black box testing specializes in determining whether or not a software meets the specifications and requirements specified by the user. As a result, the testers will solely focus on the application’s inputs and outputs without evaluating its internal structure.
  • Exploratory testing:- In this method, the QA testers do not develop test cases in advance. Instead, they develop test cases after conceptualizing all conceivable test scenarios before the test execution. This process aids in the creation of out-of-the-box test cases as well as the rapid execution of software testing.
  • White Box Testing:- White box testing is used to check the flow input and output rather than the application’s functional requirements. It seeks to improve the design and usability of the app while simultaneously boosting its security.

You may also like: Comparing and Evaluating the Best QA Automation Tools of 2021 

2. Make use of test-oriented development practices

Waiting until the QA stage to test software in development is both self-defeating and woefully inadequate.

Instead, implementing test-oriented development approaches like Test-Driven Development (TDD), pair programming, and unit testing, testing should be ingrained from the start of the development process. This allows bugs to be detected and eradicated much earlier in the process of manual testing.

For example,

  • Create a low-cost manual test that automates the organize and act stages but not the assertion
  • Only write the code required to make it pass
  • Refactor

This approach would not slow down your project as long as the number of tests does not rise indefinitely and the manual check can be performed swiftly. You’ll have to deal with regression in other ways, but at least you’ve defined a set of manual test cases.

You may also like: Test-Driven Development (TDD): How to choose the Right Team To Drive TDD 

3. Assess the code’s quality

There is a link between the quality of a software product and the quality of its source code. However, if it cannot be measured, it cannot be judged efficiently.

As a result, ensuring that QA objectives are measurable is the greatest strategy to increase QA quality. This quantifiability, in turn, allows for the tracking, assessment, and documentation of quality control measures for the product under test.

However, there is no standard method for measuring code quality; instead, common-sense recommendations and rules of thumb must be followed.

4. Think out of the box

How can a competent manual tester who frequently runs repetitive tests become more creative? There are a few pieces of advice that may be valuable to any tester:

  • Determine what the software under test is not supposed to accomplish.
  • The ‘what if’ issue should become the primary focus of software research. For example – If you are testing an Apple Watch, what happens if the iPhone with which it is paired runs out of battery?
  • Tray out all possible scenarios without hesitation.
  • If feasible, remove the system (or device) under test from your working environment and try in a real-world environment.

5. Streamline security

Manual security testers usually use a hand-selected combination of security testing software and technologies that are most suited to assessing their application. Customized scripts and automatic scanning technologies are two examples.

Advanced manual security testing approaches involve specific test cases such as validating user controls, analyzing encryption capabilities, and conducting extensive analysis to discover nested weaknesses within an application. Here are some of the most effective and efficient ways:

  • Check Server Access Controls
  • Do Static Analysis (Static Code Analysis)
  • Dynamic Analysis (Penetration Testing)
  • Monitor Access Control Management

….

When Your Project Needs Manual Testing

1. When You Need to Run Agile Tests

Software testers in an agile setting must work with regular feedback and handle changing needs in the user interface, product flow, and, in extreme circumstances, core functionalities.

At the same time, these unpredictable changes might have an impact on regression testing scripts in agile contexts.

2. When Implementing Automated Testing

Automated software testing is a viable approach for software testers to streamline testing operations and eliminate redundant tasks. It cannot, however, completely substitute human intelligence throughout testing operations.

Automated testing can only simulate human intelligence and boost the application’s total test coverage. As a result, human testers are still required to improve overall test coverage and develop new scripts for resolving complicated testing anomalies.

3. Throughout User Experience Testing

The reason for employing human testing for user experience is that automated testing methodologies for user experience are difficult to encode.

Although smoke tests can be used to evaluate usability, manual testing is far more convenient in this regard. Furthermore, only human testers can test for localization features and double-check design and language components.

Conclusion

Manual software testing has a lower starting cost and takes less time. It allows us to efficiently evaluate user interface requirements and execute exceedingly complicated test cases. Finally, to achieve the greatest software testing outcomes, we must employ both automated and manual testing methodologies.

We not only have a varied selection of Test Automation libraries, but we also offer skilled manual testing services in software testing. You may also rely on us for other essential software testing services like Performance Testing, Usability Testing, Integration Testing, Security Testing, and much more. Contact us.

About Galaxy Weblinks

We specialize in delivering end-to-end software design & development services and have hands-on experience with automation testing in agile development environments. Our engineers, QA analysts, and developers help improve security, reliability, and features to make sure your business application and IT structure scale and remain secure.