European citizens have complained en masse that companies such as Amazon, Apple, YouTube, and Spotify are misusing their data.

The claims were brought to light by Austrian privacy group noyb, led by activist Max Schrems, which say that the companies highlighted are not adhering to the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

Schrems said in the complaint that he requested eight streaming companies including Amazon, Apple, Spotify, Netflix, Soundcloud, YouTube and UK-based sports streaming service DAZN, provide the information they hold about customers.

However, Soundcloud and DAZN didn’t even respond to the request, while the others failed to provide adequate data about how their customers’ details were used.

“Spotify takes data privacy and our obligations to users extremely seriously,” the company said in a statement. “We are committed to complying with all relevant national and international laws and regulations, including GDPR, with which we believe we are fully compliant.”

Schrems said that most companies his group sent requests to simply set up automated replies but this isn’t compliant with GDPR. Companies must provide details about the data they collect, how the data is used and stored and who it’s shared with in order to comply with the law.

“In most cases, users only got the raw data, but, for example, no information about who this data was shared with,” Schrems added.

The companies could find themselves with fines of up to €20 million or 4% of their global turnover if they’re found to be violating GDPR regulations.

Other companies such as Facebook and Google have come under fire for not adhering to the law in Europe following the introduction of the GDPR in May last year.

It’s almost inevitable that most people will have encountered Dropbox at some stage, as it’s one of the most popular file sharing cloud platforms. For good reason too; Dropbox offers a great set of features with its Business plans adding essential collaboration tools and enhanced security.

We’re reviewing the Business Advanced plan which augments the Standard version with unlimited cloud storage, tiered admin roles and file event tracking. You can sign up for a 5-user, 30-day trial and Dropbox only wants your card details if you decide to keep it.

Adding new members to your team is a breeze as invitations are emailed directly from the admin console. After clicking on the link, users enter their name, choose a password and download the Dropbox app.

The whole process takes 5-6 minutes and each user is provided with a personal Dropbox folder and direct access to all shared folders they have permission to see. If permitted, they can also decide whether to save on hard disk space and have files only available online.

Their local Dropbox folder shows all files stored in the cloud which can then be downloaded for editing. The local option still stores the files in the cloud but also downloads them to their Dropbox folder for instant access.

File sharing features are excellent with the contents of any team folder initially available to all members. You can fine-tune this by deciding who is allowed to access and edit top level team folders and set sharing permissions right down to individual folders and files.

Link settings protect shared folders and files so you can decide who can see them, what editing privileges they have and whether they can post comments. They can be password protected and an expiry date set so the link then becomes unavailable.

Admin tasks can be delegated by adding privileges to selected members. User admins can add and remove team members and groups while support admins handle account password management and deleted file recovery requests.

File requests are a handy feature as you can ask anyone, including those without a Dropbox account, to send you a file. Just create an email request and the recipient chooses a local file and sends it to the Dropbox folder you specified in the request.

Dropbox Paper delivers great online document editing tools. It allows team members to create documents that can be viewed, shared and edited directly from the Dropbox web portal and exported in Word, PDF and Markdown formats.

Dropbox Badge supports Microsoft Office files, allows you to see who else is viewing and editing shared files on their desktop and lets you update your version with any changes they’ve made. It requires the Windows or Mac Dropbox agent loaded and adds an icon at the side of the document window which shows who else is accessing the document.

General access security is tight – admins can enable global password controls and choose the ‘moderate’ or ‘very strong’ setting. Dropbox compares their passwords with a pattern database and will stop weak or easily guessed passwords being used.

You can enable this feature at any time, while regular password changes can be enforced from the admin console with one click. There’s more: the plan also includes two-factor authentication (2FA) which uses unique six-digit security codes, while single sign-on (SSO) allows you to redirect user logins to identity providers that support SAML 2.0.

Businesses that want plenty of cloud collaboration tools and no limits on storage will love Dropbox Business Advanced. File sharing features are beyond reproach, it’s easy to manage and account security doesn’t get much tougher either.

Paessler’s PRTG Network Monitor is perfect for SMEs that want to know about everything on their network, as it offers over 250 sensor types. Even better, these are all included as standard so you don’t have to worry about any future costs for optional features.

PRTG’s licensing is based on the number of monitored elements, which can be anything from a CPU core or network switch port to a web URL or Exchange mail queue. The sensor count can get eaten up very quickly on large networks but you can delete those you don’t want so they’re returned to the licensing pool for other devices.

We’ve been running PRTG on a Windows 7 desktop in the lab for over six years, and Paessler’s continuous rollout model has faithfully kept it updated to the latest version. Our host system is fine for monitoring our lab network of up to 50 devices and 500 sensors but for larger networks, Paessler would prefer you to use Windows Server 2012 R2 or later.

New users are guided along with a network discovery wizard which does all the hard work for them. Once it has identified each device, it assigns the most appropriate set of sensors to them along with pre-set threshold triggers so it can start issuing alerts immediately.

PRTG’s web console is a slick affair and its home page provides quick readout graphs showing the status of all sensors and alarms. The latest v18.4 has been updated so that all the status icons next to the donut charts are now active and clicking on one takes you directly to a filtered view.

The console presents a wealth of valuable information with systems neatly organised into hierarchical groupings. You can move systems to other groups as required, where they inherit settings such as discovery schedules and login credentials from the parent group – or they can have their own settings.

It’s easy to pinpoint trouble areas as the colour-coded sensors show clearly whether they are up, down, paused or in a warning state. Hover the mouse over any sensor and it’ll pop up a window with graphs of live data and any relevant warning messages.

PRTG offers ten notification methods including email, SMS, Syslog and Slack. Events can be tied in with actions and the pre-set values provided by the wizard can be changed at any level of the group hierarchy.

Extra sensors can be added to the web console and PRTG scores highly for its cloud service sensors. The price includes ones to monitor Amazon CloudWatch services, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive and Dropbox while the Common SaaS sensor keeps an eye on Office 365, SalesForce and Google Apps.

To help interpret sensor data, PRTG provides pre-set views such as the top ten sensors for uptime, downtime or CPU usage but it’s easy enough to create your own custom dashboards. Paessler also delivers unbeatable mobile support and we used the iOS app on our iPad to remotely access the main PRTG server, view the same content as the web console and receive alerts via push notifications.

The new eHealth sensor even puts hospitals on Paessler’s radar, as it monitors the HL7 (Health Level 7) and DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) protocols. It has no access to patient data and is designed to monitor these systems and provide early warnings of problems.

Paessler’s PRTG Network Monitor 18.4 presents a well-designed console that tells you everything you need to know about your network. The huge range of sensors makes it a compelling choice for businesses of all sizes and the all-inclusive price means there are no hidden costs to worry about.

Most IT professionals are familiar with the three primary cloud options; public cloud, private cloud and hybrid cloud. Businesses all around the world are using the cloud in different ways to streamline processes, improve collaboration and communication, and save money on expensive infrastructure, while still getting the benefits of cutting-edge technology.

But as the cloud and the services around it evolve, so do the ways it can be tailored for individual business’ needs. Awareness is now growing of the potential of virtual private clouds, so here, we explain what a virtual private cloud is, why organisations are using them, and what the advantages and disadvantages are.

What is a virtual private cloud?

A virtual private cloud is a private network running within shared public cloud infrastructure, using virtualisation to isolate the resources being used specifically for each user. It ensures the same levels of security that private cloud offers, but virtualisation enables users to run applications, services and a variety of workloads on shared resources, allowing users to benefit from the flexibility of a public cloud. It also offers organisations and their IT staff the ability to isolate select applications and services within the cloud even if they are sharing the same underlying physical hardware as other apps and workloads.

Learn more about Virtual Private Cloud and how it could help your business in this special report from IT Pro.

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Implementations of virtual private cloud vary, but often operate like a private cloud running on dedicated hardware but that runs from inside a multi-tenant environment.

In most ways, virtual private clouds operate very much like private clouds, where businesses pay depending on what level of performance they require. But virtualisation allows delivery of virtual, software-defined infrastructure within a shared hardware infrastructure, before making that available to customers through the internet.

With a virtual private cloud, teams can spin up their own virtual machines, test apps, and innovate. Businesses can pool their resources to get a better understanding of benefits and costs. As well as this, private clouds improve availability by making workloads portable, and adding in more options to scale outwards or recover in a crisis.

Why use a virtual private cloud?

Not all companies will need a virtual private cloud, and for some businesses, public clouds offer everything they need at a reasonable cost. But for others, either a private cloud or a hybrid cloud system is the best one for their organisation.

Common reasons for using a virtual private cloud include:

• Needing a consistently high level of performance on business-critical applications. Whereas the public cloud can handle heavy workloads, private cloud offers more control over compute and storage performance for applications where speed is essential.

• Minimising downtime on the business. With more control and allocated resources, private cloud can help ensure availability, and many private cloud services have service level agreements and uptime guarantees as well as more visibility into any issues that occur.

• More control over security. A private cloud isn’t necessarily more secure than a public one as much depends on where the physical services are located as well as the steps taken to secure them, but businesses have much more control when it comes to access and building defences around data. Some private cloud services also allow more granular control over network security and patching.

• Being bound by regulatory frameworks around where and how data is processed and stored. GDPR has had an impact in this area, not necessarily because public clouds aren’t compliant, but because private clouds can make compliance that bit easier.

Pros and cons of virtual private cloud

When compared to public cloud, virtual private cloud gives users more control, and often more consistent performance. There’s no contention for compute, storage or network resources, and a reduced risk of ‘noisy neighbour’ syndrome, where another user on the same host hardware keeps processor or storage bandwidth.

‘The IT Pro guide to Virtual Private Cloud’ lifts the lid on VPC, explaining what it is, how it works and how it can help businesses. Download it here.

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There are also advantages to operating in a virtual rather than a physical environment, given that it makes it much easier to scale compute and storage demands upwards or downwards depending on business demand. If more or less CPU cores, RAM or storage resources are needed, these can be easily added and removed.

Because of the way virtual private clouds work, the workloads themselves are still hosted outside the organisation’s own data centre. This can potentially cause issues in industries which have strict regulations around where and how data is processed, and which applications can be run in a virtual private cloud.

Virtual private clouds often work out as being more cost-effective than investing in servers and infrastructure, especially when operating and maintenance costs are factored in. When compared to public cloud however, virtual private cloud is often a more expensive option, but is usually more affordable than a fully private cloud.