Cloud App Development, Cloud App Management, Cloud Deployment Models

Insurity’s Cloud-Based Sure Underwriting Workbench Now Available in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace

Insurity’s Cloud-Based Sure Underwriting Workbench Now Available

Insurity, a leading provider of cloud-based software for insurance carriers, brokers, and MGAs, today announced its Sure Underwriting Workbench solution is the first of its cloud-based products now available in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, an online store providing applications and services for use on Azure. Insurity’s customers and P&C carriers with an existing Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC) can now initiate their purchase of Sure Underwriting Workbench entirely through their Azure account and take advantage of the productive and trusted Azure cloud platform, streamlining deployment and management with their purchase contributing to their Azure commitment.

Insurity is the largest cloud-based insurance software provider and is trusted by 22 of the top 25 P&C carriers and 7 of the top 10 U.S. MGAs. Insurity’s vision is to empower insurance organizations to quickly capitalize on new opportunities by delivering the world’s most configurable, cloud-native, easy-to-use, and intuitively analytical software.

Sure Underwriting Workbench, now offered in the Azure Marketplace, facilitates collaboration, allowing underwriters to streamline risk assessment and improve decision-making through automation and self-service configuration tools. The low-code, API-enabled solution consolidates all data, documents, and decisions into a single cloud-native workbench. Insurers are reducing the number of underwriting tools required by an astonishing 50% overall.

“Insurity is excited to strengthen our cloud leadership by offering Sure Underwriting Workbench in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace,” said Sylvester Mathis, Chief Insurance Officer at Insurity. “As the largest cloud-based insurance software provider in the market and a top 2 core systems provider, Insurity is committed to providing insurance carriers with the world’s most configurable, easy-to-use, and intuitively analytical solutions. The Microsoft Azure Marketplace amplifies our reach, connecting us with more insurers looking to harness the power of the cloud.”

“Through Microsoft Azure Marketplace, customers around the world can easily find, buy, and deploy partner solutions they can trust, all certified and optimized to run on Azure,” said Jake Zborowski, General Manager, Microsoft Azure Platform at Microsoft Corp. “We’re happy to welcome Insurity’s Sure Underwriting Workbench solution to the growing Azure Marketplace ecosystem.”

The Azure Marketplace is an online market for buying and selling cloud solutions certified to run on Azure. The Azure Marketplace helps connect companies seeking innovative, cloud-based solutions with partners who have developed solutions that are ready to use.

About Insurity

Insurity is a leading provider of cloud-based software for insurance carriers, brokers, and MGAs. Insurity is trusted by 22 of the top 25 P&C carriers and 7 of the top 10 MGAs in the US and has over 400 cloud-based deployments. Through its best-in-class digital platform and with unrivaled industry experience and the industry’s most robust analytics offerings, Insurity is uniquely positioned to deliver exceptional value, empowering customers to focus on their core businesses, optimize their operations, and provide superior policyholder experiences. Insurity is a portfolio company of GI Partners and TA Associates.

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Cloud Storage

DigitalOcean Introduces Cloud-Hosted Scalable Storage for Managed Databases

Business Wire | October 06, 2023

DigitalOcean Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:DOCN), the cloud for startups and SMBs, today announced the launch of Scalable Storage for DigitalOcean PostgreSQL and MySQL Managed Databases, which enables small and medium-sized businesses to only pay for the data resources they need, preventing cloud underutilization and optimizing customer spend. With this new offering, DigitalOcean customers can increase the disk storage of their Managed Databases without needing to change compute and memory to meet higher data utilization demands. As businesses continue to grow and face ever-increasing customer demands, they need a database solution that can seamlessly scale alongside them, said Megan Wood, Chief Strategy & Product Officer at DigitalOcean. DigitalOcean’s portfolio is tailored to meet the needs of startups and tech entrepreneurs, enabling them with flexible and cost-effective solutions like Scalable Storage. With this new offering, businesses can easily accommodate dynamic database storage requirements and expand their data footprint with confidence, making it easier to grow in the cloud. Almost all businesses require a database that can scale to meet their needs, whether it’s an AI company storing voice recordings to train their large language model or an e-commerce website keeping inventory data up to date. For startups and SMBs with limited resources, the ability to have flexible and affordable storage options is also critical. Scalable Storage gives users the flexibility to add storage to MySQL and PostgreSQL Managed Databases at cost-effective prices with minimal friction and downtime. With a variety of shared and dedicated configuration plans, DigitalOcean customers can benefit from more customizable options that better fit their businesses. Add disk storage without adding compute and memory: Through this offering, users can add disk storage in 10 GB increments each priced at $2/month to meet constantly shifting demand without needing to increase compute and memory. Customers at different user levels can make changes to their disk storage capacity through various ways of interactions, including the Cloud Console or via API, allowing for a simpler and more intuitive experience. Greater disk storage capacity: All Managed Database plans come with a range of disk storage options beginning with a minimum amount that customers can increase from two to five times the starting amount. With storage capacity now up to 15 TB, users can future-proof their databases by helping to ensure they can handle the largest of database production workloads. Monitoring to optimize costs: Customers can scale compute, memory, and storage when it matters most by monitoring utilization data and setting alerts. By only paying for the database compute and storage resources needed, businesses can continue to optimize costs while maintaining peak performance. Alongside DigitalOcean Scalable Storage, DigitalOcean has been making investments in its product and infrastructure offerings to provide peace of mind, increased productivity, and more affordable solutions for SMBs and startups. About DigitalOcean DigitalOcean simplifies cloud computing so builders and businesses can spend more time creating software that changes the world. With its mission-critical infrastructure and fully managed offerings, DigitalOcean helps developers at startups and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) rapidly build, deploy and scale, whether creating a digital presence or building digital products. DigitalOcean combines the power of simplicity, security, community and customer support so customers can spend less time managing their infrastructure and more time building innovative applications that drive business growth. For more information, visit digitalocean.com.

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Cloud Security

Lacework Announces Enterprise Multicloud Platform Updates

PR Newswire | October 25, 2023

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It's important that security teams do not lose sight of these short-lived instances. To meet this growing need, Lacework agentless workload scanning has been upgraded to check customer workloads every five minutes for new instances. This granular visibility of what is running and its associated risk assures teams that they have comprehensive visibility into rapidly changing environments and gives confidence that short-lived instances are not falling through the security cracks. Operationalized Risk Management with ServiceNow and Jira Integrations It's not enough for an organization to have a list of vulnerabilities, they need to be able to quickly fix them. To enhance its industry-leading threat visibility tools, the Lacework platform now features integrations with ServiceNow and Jira that improve the process of mitigating vulnerabilities. Now, security and development teams have the premium vulnerability feeds with all the context Lacework is known for integrated into their ticketing system of choice. By connecting these systems to streamline response efforts, the appropriate teams can move faster when securing vulnerabilities. "With the rise of cloud adoption and migration, securing the enterprise has never been more important for organizations," said Deepak Kolingivadi, Head of Security Products at ServiceNow. "The Lacework integration with ServiceNow Vulnerability Response enables our enterprise customers to streamline their response processes by simplifying assignment, collaboration, and remediation of critical vulnerabilities. Using business context in ServiceNow, customers can detect and report the security posture of IT and application environments within the Now Platform. We look forward to continuing our partnership with Lacework and helping mutual customers address cybersecurity threats more quickly and efficiently." Lacework's integration with ServiceNow Vulnerability Response offerings for infrastructure and container applications is currently available in the ServiceNow marketplace. Lacework's integration to Security in Jira is in private preview. About Lacework Lacework keeps organizations secure in the cloud, allowing them to innovate faster with confidence. Cloud security requires a fundamentally new approach and the Lacework platform is designed to scale with the volume, variety, and velocity of cloud data across an organization's cloud environment: code, identities, containers, and multi-cloud infrastructure. Only Lacework provides Security and Development teams with a correlated and prioritized end-to-end view that pinpoints the largest risks and handful of security events that matter most. Learn more at www.lacework.com.

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Cloud Security

Aviatrix’s Distributed Firewall: A Breakthrough in Cloud Security

Aviatrix | October 13, 2023

Aviatrix, a leading provider of secure cloud networking solutions, unveiled the results of a comprehensive technical assessment conducted by TechTarget's Enterprise Strategy Group, highlighting the efficacy of its revolutionary distributed cloud firewall in fortifying cloud-based cybersecurity. The report underscores the growing need for a simplified and comprehensive security architecture to safeguard applications on public cloud infrastructure as organizations increasingly leverage multiple cloud providers. According to the evaluation, the Aviatrix Distributed Cloud Firewall significantly reduces the complexity of securing public cloud infrastructure, streamlining crucial aspects such as threat blocking, policy definition, enforcement, and microsegmentation. This is a significant development considering the challenges posed by traditional firewalls that struggle to adapt to the dynamic nature of cloud computing. Alex Arcilla, Senior Validation Analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, reportedly remarked, Many organizations are still working with traditional data center network firewalls that have been virtualized to work in the public cloud, and they're now finding that they're saddled with the same – if not more – challenges than they faced when deploying firewalls on premises. [Source – Cision PR Newswire] Aviatrix's innovative Distributed Cloud Firewall, a key offering within its Secure Cloud Networking suite, revolutionizes network security in the cloud by enabling distributed inspection and enforcement. This approach enhances security, scalability, and agility while substantially reducing costs. Notably, the distributed architecture allows for a cost reduction of over 30% while delivering a 14-fold increase in aggregate security throughput compared to conventional, centralized firewall architectures commonly adapted for cloud environments. It was proven that the Aviatrix Distributed Cloud Firewall can create a zero-trust security posture in multicloud environments by protecting the current perimeter, locking down environments with policy configurations based on cloud resource attributes and tags, and filtering traffic from one service to another. These features ensure comprehensive security measures for east-west service-to-service traffic within cloud environments and internet egress traffic. Rod Stuhlmuller, the Vice President of Solutions Marketing at Aviatrix, emphasized that the introduction of Aviatrix's Distributed Cloud Firewall earlier that year had signaled the beginning of a new era for cloud network security. He further noted that customers were rapidly embracing this solution. Additionally, he highlighted that the technical analysis by Enterprise Strategy Group underscored the value that Aviatrix was providing to enterprises struggling with contemporary cloud security challenges and associated expenses. However, the Aviatrix Distributed Cloud Firewall, with its intricate functionalities and sophisticated network security configurations, may present a considerable obstacle for users less familiar with such intricate setups. Consequently, the successful deployment of this firewall may require the involvement of specialized experts to ensure its optimal performance. Moreover, the initial financial investment and the intricacies involved in the integration process of the Aviatrix Distributed Cloud Firewall may create barriers for smaller organizations, potentially limiting their access to the advantages it offers. Notwithstanding these challenges, the Aviatrix Distributed Cloud Firewall effectively addresses the continually changing security requirements of modern cloud environments. It presents a seamless and cost-effective solution for establishing comprehensive cybersecurity measures within a cloud-based infrastructure, thereby enhancing the overall security posture and minimizing potential risks. About Aviatrix Aviatrix, a Santa Clara-based software development firm, caters to a global clientele of over 500 companies, providing secure cloud networking solutions that foster innovation and cost control. Its pioneering Aviatrix Certified Engineer (ACE) Program facilitates digital transformation for businesses. Specializing in hybrid cloud networking, VPC peering, and cloud security, Aviatrix is recognized for its expertise in simplifying and streamlining networking architectures across multiple cloud service providers.

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Cloud App Development

CloudBees Launches Groundbreaking Cloud-Native DevSecOps Platform

Business Wire | September 15, 2023

On September 14, 2023, CloudBees, a leading enterprise software delivery platform, introduces a groundbreaking cloud-native DevSecOps platform that prioritizes platform engineers and developer experiences. The platform, built on Tekton, employs a domain-specific language akin to GitHub Actions and incorporates feature flagging, security, compliance, pipeline orchestration, analytics, and value stream management (VSM) into a fully managed single-tenant SaaS, multi-tenant SaaS, or on-premise virtual private cloud instance. A spokesperson for CloudBees stated that the revolutionary platform was the market's most open and extensible DevSecOps solution, capable of orchestrating any tool in the software development toolkit. They added that it redefined DevSecOps by addressing the challenges of delivering secure, compliant, cloud-native software faster than ever. Meeting the Challenges of Cloud-Native Development As the rush towards cloud-native application development continues, software development and delivery teams grapple with the complexities of modern cloud-native architectures. This has led to the emergence of platform engineering as an evolution of DevOps practices. Platform engineering unites various roles such as site reliability engineers (SREs), DevOps engineers, security teams, product managers, and operations teams with the shared goal of integrating all organizations’ disparate technologies and tools into a streamlined path for developers. The CloudBees platform is purpose-built for this mission. The CloudBees Platform: Speed and Security The CloudBees platform empowers organizations to simplify complex cloud-native development and deployment processes across all DevOps tools, thereby accelerating innovation. It ensures a seamless journey from code development to successful deployment with a focus on: 1. Developer-centric experience: Enhancing developer experience by minimizing cognitive load and making DevOps processes nearly invisible through blocks, automations, and golden paths. 2. Open and extensible: Embracing the DevOps ecosystem, starting with Jenkins, and offering flexibility to orchestrate any other tool, protecting existing tooling investments. 3. Self-service model: Allowing platform engineers to customize the platform, providing autonomy for development teams. Developers can focus on innovation without waiting for automation or resources. 4. Security and compliance: Centralizing security and compliance with out-of-the-box workflow templates containing built-in security measures. Automated DevSecOps is integrated, incorporating checks across source code, binaries, cloud environments, data, and identity. Michel Lopez, founder and CEO at E2F, noted that the CloudBees platform had significantly reduced the time required for their ISO 27001 compliance audit, from 12 hours to just 60 minutes. He also mentioned that the CloudBees platform provided all controls. Shawn Ahmed, Chief Product Officer at CloudBees, emphasized, Our new platform empowers developers, unifies teams, and accelerates innovation while offering unprecedented flexibility and choice. [Source: Businesswire] The CloudBees platform promises to enhance developer experiences, streamline processes, and prioritize security, offering organizations a powerful tool to navigate the complexities of modern cloud-native architectures and accelerate innovation. About CloudBees CloudBees, headquartered in San Jose, California, has been a software development leader since 2010. The company thrives in an innovation-driven industry by addressing the need for balancing development freedom and regulatory governance through its pioneering end-to-end automated software delivery system. Its robust Software as a Service (SaaS) platform encompasses DevOps, Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, and more, ensuring secure and compliant innovation.

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