April 2021 Summaries

David Finster, Vultr's Technical Editor and Developer Advocate, explores the distinctions between data replication and backup, emphasizing the importance of understanding their roles in data protection. While replication synchronizes multiple copies of data to improve availability and performance, it does not ensure data integrity or protection against data corruption, making it unsuitable as a standalone backup solution. Finster advocates for a robust 3-2-1 backup strategy, which involves maintaining three copies of data stored in two different formats, with one copy offsite, to safeguard against hardware failures, human error, and malicious activities. He underscores the necessity of encryption for backup data, limiting access to prevent breaches, and regularly testing restoration processes to ensure reliability. Finster also highlights the limitations of different backup methods, such as snapshots and file-by-file backups, and suggests combining their strengths for a comprehensive data protection plan, using tools like Vultr's Object and Block Storage, and Automatic Backups for enhanced security and manageability.

Vultr, an independent cloud computing platform, has secured a $150 million credit facility from J.P. Morgan and Bank of America to accelerate its global expansion and enhance its offerings. As a founder-owned company, Vultr emphasizes ease of use, performance, and cost-effectiveness, catering to developers and businesses of all sizes without outside investor influence. This independence allows Vultr to focus on user-centric and open-source initiatives, avoiding competition with its customers and fostering partnerships with best-of-breed solution providers. With over 1.3 million customers in 185 countries, Vultr continues to grow its team and infrastructure, introducing new leaders to support its rapid expansion and further developing features like Direct Connect, BGP, and Bare Metal. The company aims to make enterprise-grade cloud computing accessible and affordable, maintaining its commitment to meet the diverse needs of its global user base while expanding its Marketplace through collaborations with complementary technology providers.

Software engineer Amy Tengelics, known for her expertise in front-end development and usability at Vultr, emphasizes the critical importance of accessibility in technology, drawing from her personal experience with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. Accessibility is crucial because about 15% of the global population lives with some form of disability, which can impact how they interact with technology. Tengelics advocates for inclusive design from the outset to avoid alienating users, considering various challenges such as color blindness and epilepsy, and emphasizes adherence to ADA Guidelines. She uses multiple screen readers and assistive technologies to ensure Vultr’s web content is accessible, highlighting the importance of feedback from users with disabilities to enhance usability. Vultr has made strides in improving accessibility, such as updating pricing tables for better navigation with screen readers and ensuring keyboard controls can access all site content, demonstrating their commitment to continuous improvement in creating an inclusive user experience.

Vultr has joined the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) to support its mission of sustaining and integrating open-source technologies, such as Kubernetes and Prometheus, marking a significant milestone for the company. Vultr aims to simplify cloud processes for developers by offering tools like Kubernetes plugins and the upcoming Vultr Kubernetes Engine (VKE), which will facilitate easier management of Kubernetes clusters. The company has introduced Condor, a terraform module, to streamline the provisioning of Kubernetes clusters with Vultr-specific features, and Vultr Load Balancers to enhance application scalability and uptime by efficiently distributing traffic across multiple instances. In addition, Vultr is working on integrating cloud-init for customizing cloud instances and plans to extend support to tools like Cluster Autoscaler and Cert Manager, while also welcoming developer feedback for further tool integrations. Through its CNCF membership, Vultr is committed to contributing to the adoption of cloud-native technologies and supporting developer education and engagement.