Update 12/2025 — Closing Out the Year! Happy New Years!
Closing the Year Strong: Security, Storage, and Scale
December was all about tightening the foundation stronger identity and access controls, cleaner onboarding, and more resilient storage/backup workflows. So we can start 2026 with momentum. We’re building Redacted Hosting into a secure, repeatable, and scalable ecosystem where customers and cadre can move faster without trading away governance or reliability.
Storage & Resilience Improvements
We completed and tested our NAS backend cluster storage for three nodes, and continued refining a short-, mid-, and long-term backup strategy to support growth and recovery readiness.
We also completed a virtualization backup consolidation effort, migrating backup archives from external mounted storage to the agents storage mount to improve backup availability and simplify restore operations from the new target.
Identity & Access: SSO + MFA Foundation
This month we made a major leap forward in identity and access management across the Redacted Hosting ecosystem by deploying our SSO provider and integrating it with our LMS and other hosted services.
During integration, we identified that edge-layer protections (Cloudflare bot/challenge enforcement) were interfering with OIDC flows. After controlled testing, we stabilized authentication by implementing targeted allow/whitelist rules so trusted service-to-service traffic can function reliably while maintaining security controls for untrusted traffic.
To raise the baseline, we also enforced Email OTP MFA for all users, ensuring every login is protected beyond username/password.
Onboarding Pipeline: Customer + Internal (Cadre) Tracks
We began formalizing a cleaner, repeatable onboarding process by building two parallel pipelines:
- Customer/user onboarding (what customers experience when they sign up)
- Internal onboarding (admins/instructors/volunteers critical for IP and access governance)
The customer flow includes account creation, policy acceptance, provisioning, security baseline (MFA + role limits), orientation, and support handoff that is designed to be automated where possible and documented for repeatability.
Customer Feedback Loops
We also worked with e-commerce customers to strengthen the feedback loop on systems and applications closing the gap between what’s deployed and what’s actually experienced day-to-day.
Looking Ahead (January 2026)
January is about starting fast: onboarding users, deploying new capabilities, and tightening operations so growth is controlled and secure.
- SSO + 2FA onboarding for all customers: everyone will access Redacted Hosting services through secure, centralized authentication by default, with exceptions handled for unique/unattributable access needs (“snowflake” cases).
- Training ecosystem expansion: onboarding more users into structured training tracks and building a strong start to the year across the board.
- Edge AI agents (early rollout): deploying edge capable AI assistants designed to help customers and cadre move faster goal support, documentation support, workflow acceleration while keeping privacy and control aligned with our model.
- Smoother onboarding/offboarding for all roles: from customers to instructors clean lifecycle management, clearer governance, and faster enablement.
- Documentation overhaul: simplifying and standardizing our internal and user facing docs so systems are easier to use and easier to support.
- CI/CD + DevOps implementation: investing in automation and repeatable deployments so we ship faster with fewer surprises.
- Forms replacing tickets: users will receive an email soon on how to use the new forms function we’re moving to forms as the primary entry point for Redacted Hosting requests and workflows.
Community / Hiring Event: Vibrint Networking
We’re also linking our cadre and community with local industry opportunities.
Vibrint Hiring & Networking Event
When: Friday, January 23, 2026 | 2:00–5:00 PM
Where:
- Annapolis Junction, MD — 10977 Guilford Road, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701
or - Reston, VA — 11600 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 440, Reston, VA 20191
They’re advertising hundreds of open roles across Cybersecurity, Cloud, AI/ML, and DevOps. If you plan to attend, brush up on:
- Security+ fundamentals
- STAR interview answers
- Networking soft skills (introductions, value statement, follow-up etiquette)
New Course Track: PMP Bootcamp (Planned)
We’re also drafting a PMP Project Management Bootcamp for users preparing for the PMP certification structured study plan, accountability, and practical delivery patterns that translate directly into real project execution.
As we close out 2025, we’re proud of the progress made behind the scenes hardening identity and access, improving backups and storage, and building onboarding systems that scale. In 2026 we’re doubling down on what matters most: a secure-by-default platform, a stronger training pipeline, and tighter operations that make it easier for customers and cadre to succeed. If you’re attending the Vibrint event, show up prepared, connect with intent, and represent the community well. Happy New Year let’s build something real together.
— Redacted Hosting Team
-- Redacted Hosting Team.