Thursday, September 22, 2011

Cloud computing for smb


By Jill Billhorn , September 19, 2011

Related Articles

Cloud computing technology offers both time- and money-savingbenefits, which makes it a great fit for small business. As cloud computing benefits become more tangible, more small businesses are moving to the cloud. Still, as with any technology, you don’t want to jump in without proper preparation. 
First, it is important to recognize that there are several fundamentally different approaches to cloud computing, including:
  • Public cloud:  The cloud infrastructure is made available to the general public or to a large industry group and is owned by an organization selling cloud services.  Most commonly used services here are application-specific -- for example, Salesforce.com or Microsoft Office 365 -- and pricing is often on a simple, cost-per-seat-per-month basis.
  • Private cloud:  The cloud infrastructure is operated solely for one organization. It may be managed by the organization itself or by a third party, and it may exist on premises or off-premises.  CDW’s Cloud Computing Tracking Poll found that most IT decision makers, in SMB as well as other markets, would prefer the private option.  However, the private option requires more knowledge and capabilities to manage, so getting there is a challenge for many organizations, and it is not for everyone.
Cloud computing has a lot to offer, and for small businesses with limited resources, public cloud services offer especially attractive benefits.  For example, using applications in the public cloud can help address networking issues without requiring small businesses to invest in their own servers or expand their IT staff. 
With public cloud services, businesses pay only for the seats or capacity they use at any given time, which is ideal for small business IT budgets.  However, before making the move, small businesses need to be sure that they have a clear picture of all that the cloud entails, and then determine whether it is the right solution for them. 

Make a Cloud Computing Plan

The availability and cost of public cloud services makes starting so easy that many IT departments discover some of their employees are using them before the IT team even has a plan.  However, a plan -- even a simple one -- is essential to get the most value from cloud services.  Look at how your IT staff spends its time and budget, and consider cloud services that will take pressure off them.  For example:
• Software management: Is your business challenged by support and management requirements for widely used applications?  A cloud-based service such as Microsoft Office 365 usually includes support and certainly eliminates the requirement to do patches and upgrades at every client device.
• What is the current state of your data storage?  Are your storage needs close to exceeding your physical capacity?  According to CDW’s Cloud Computing Tracking Poll, storage services are one of the most commonly used cloud applications.
Some businesses, as their servers near end of life, consider moving at least a significant portion of their infrastructure requirements to the cloud -- the variant of cloud called infrastructure-as-a-service, or IaaS.  Comparing the cost of using IaaS versus the cost of owning and managing data center equipment is a more complicated calculation. But transferring less critical items, or backup data, to the cloud can help reduce the time you spend managing less important data and avoid having to upgrade onsite storage.
It’s important to understand that cloud computing is not a one-size-fits-all solution.  Each business is unique, with varying budgets and capacities, so your business may need a custom solution.  The unique requirements of small businesses make cloud computing customization a key selling point to companies that may be undecided about cloud computing.
Tags: software, IT, cloud computing, small business, tips
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By FrustrationFreeIT   September 19 2011 4:06 PMPDT
Nice article Jill. I would just like to add that small business owners can get the security they need through Virtual Private Cloud Computing which carves out a public space and makes it private. For business owners, think of a large office building. You don't own the building, but you lease office space inside the building. Based off of the sensitivity of your data, and any regulations you need to comply with, various security measures are put in place as Jill said. These security measures are similar to the walls, locks, safes, and security systems for an actual office. Because of the huge benefits that some businesses can gain from using cloud computing, curious small business owners see many of the benefits and limitations of cloud computing on our Pros and Cons of Cloud Computing webpage at:
http://www.frustrationfreeit.com/cloud-computing/benefits-of-cloud-computing.html


Cloud Computing Tips for Small Business

By Jill Billhorn , September 19, 2011

Related Articles

Factor In Cloud Security

Cloud computing security is one of the big unknowns for companies.  According to the CDW Cloud Computing Tracking Poll, 41 percent survey respondents noted “security concerns” as the top factor hindering adoption of the cloud.  Data security breaches show no sign of slowing down; as a result, some businesses are reluctant to store sensitive, business-critical data in the cloud. 
When it comes to security and cloud computing, small business owners and/or their IT professionals should consider layers of security.  It may mean tightening up existing security or adding additional layers to match the cloud provider’s security measures. 
The added security uniformly protects a company’s assets whether they are inside the public cloud or within the company's own domain.  When an organization uses multiple cloud services, IT professionals may consider using single sign-on access to multiple cloud applications.  Another critical security measure: organizations should always encrypt their data, both while it's in transit and at rest.
Another aspect of IT security to consider includes firewalls and proxies.  Companies need to look at whether the security technologies being used within internal clouds match up to those of potential public cloud providers.  It’s also important to consider how data flows through the firewall-based perimeter to the external cloud.  In some cases, you may want your IT provider to deploy proxy servers that intercept sensitive data for local delivery rather than via the cloud.
If your business deals with highly sensitive data, a private cloud may be your best bet.  A private cloud combines the benefits of a public cloud, such as scalability and metering, with the benefits of private “ownership.”  In other words, businesses own the infrastructure (e.g., servers) in which their data is stored, and only authorized people within their network can access it. 
Businesses that can’t afford going private can consider a hybrid approach, which combines aspects of public and private clouds, giving businesses the option of maintaining their more sensitive data on the private cloud. 

Budget Carefully

In the face of economic realities, many small businesses have had to reduce both budgets and staff, but that doesn’t mean that a business’ IT needs or requests lessen.  Cloud computing can deliver, augment and improve the round-the-clock service your organization relies on. 
With guaranteed services from a cloud provider, small businesses can achieve the level of support their large enterprise counterparts have, without the additional costs.  The bottom line is that cloud computing can ease the demands on smaller in-house IT departments, and let IT professionals focus on mission-critical projects.
The Cloud Computing Tracking Poll found that 35 percent of small businesses have a written strategic plan for the adoption of cloud.  Furthermore, 76 percent of the small businesses implementing or maintaining cloud computing have successfully reduced the cost of applications by moving them to the cloud. 
While the benefits of cloud computing are clear, don’t pursue the cloud on a whim.  Take the time to have a network assessment done by a vendor-neutral service provider to determine your needs and whether a cloud solution is right for your business. 
If your current IT infrastructure needs improving, cloud computing may offer a more cost-efficient option than rebuilding your entire infrastructure.  Whatever your needs may be, the cloud’s customizable and flexible solutions are the perfect option for expanding small businesses, and even for companies just looking to consolidate and de-clutter. 
Jill Billhorn is the vice president, small business at CDW.
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Thursday, July 28, 2011

Brennan IT

http://www.businessday.com.au/business/key-leaders/brennan-its-future-is-in-the-clouds-20110721-1hqbx.html

Brennan IT's future is in the clouds

Alexandra Cain
July 21, 2011
IT industry pioneer and survivor Dave Stevens
IT industry pioneer and survivor Dave Stevens
IT industry pioneer and survivor of the first dot-com bubble Dave Stevens is sceptical we’re in the midst of a dot-com II boom.
“I’m not seeing any unfounded valuations for businesses – multiples are high, but business models are credible,” he says. “The market’s a bit soft at the moment and we’re not forecasting massive growth – although we’ll take as much as we can get”.
Stevens is the founder of phenomenally successful technology company Brennan IT, one of only two companies to be named in BRW’s Fast 100 list for seven consecutive years. The company was a pioneer in its market, the first business to focus solely on selling IT services to mid-market businesses.
After running IT training programs that attracted participants from small and medium-sized entities, Brennan says he started the business “after it finally dawned on me there was a yawning gap in the mid-market. There were suppliers selling software and hardware, but no-one was focused on helping businesses achieve the right outcome with their IT system”.
“I walked into an uncontested market and was able to come up with innovative products that met the market’s needs,” he says, explaining that one of his first products was a "service pack" for businesses, including pre-paid blocks of service time and guaranteed service levels, taking a consultative approach to working with its clients, something no other business was offering the smaller end of the market at the time.
It’s a strategy that has paid off. Stevens says in its first five years, Brennan IT at least doubled in size every year. “In a good year we’d increase revenue five times,” he says. The business now has 200 staff around Australia, a network of data centres across the country and its own IT network.
Of course, companies experiencing rapid growth naturally experience growing pains and Brennan IT was no different.
“My role changed from being a consultant and engineer to being the manager of the business. We also had to learn how to transfer the ‘recipe’ for the business to the next generation of people in the company, which slowed us down. We’d go through a growth spurt, then settle down for a while, then ramp up again,” Stevens explains.
A key part of passing on the business’s "recipe" was developing an operations manual called The Brennan Way, a document that Stevens says “outlines the subtleties about the way we operate, things like how many staff each manager looks after, the right attitude to have towards clients and our formula for success – it’s now hundreds of pages long and it’s the main document we use to train people”.
Asked what he’d do differently if he had his time again, Stevens says “I’d invest more heavily earlier on. We were fully funded with cash until we made our first acquisition, iExec, in 2006. Since then, the business has made a further three acquisitions, TSA Communications, S Central and Tele-IP Network Services.”
“We like businesses that are immediately cash accretive and that have recurring revenue. And we’d rather spend money upfront to get long-term cost synergies. The best deals don’t have large revenue streams that are one-off in nature – we prefer highly contracted and recurring revenue.”
A tough time for Brennan IT was the dot-com crash. Stevens says the business survived because “we acted fast and had a good handle on our finances. Although we didn’t really understand cash flow at the time – many businesses don’t”.
Stevens took steps like returning rented pot plants, and became more disciplined about collecting accounts and negotiating for extended credit terms with suppliers. “We became very savvy about cash very fast,” he says.
Presently, the business is keenly focused on the opportunity the cloud computing model brings to the business. Cloud computing is a new IT model where businesses only pay for the services they use, many applications and information are stored online and server space is shared and re-allocated to businesses that need it, rather than a business maintaining its own, generally under-utilised servers.
“The cloud boom is a real milestone,” says Stevens. “We started working on it around four years ago. But it’s fundamentally changing our revenue stream. Instead of receiving one-off million dollar payments, you might sign monthly, ongoing $20,000 infrastructure-as-a-service contracts. It’s a business model we’ve been using for 10 years but traditional resellers are going to find it a struggle. There’s no million dollar contracts with $100,000 profits – instead they are going to have to wait three years to accumulate profit from jobs.”
Currently, Brennan IT is investing 15 per cent of its revenue in its cloud platform.
“Cloud is so prolific – every project we do has at least one component in the cloud, and an increasing number of projects are totally in the cloud. Our investment in this space doubles every nine months”.
Stevens says there are no more acquisitions on the cards at present. “IT businesses went through a rough time in the financial crisis and they are not in a position to attract the value they want,” he explains.
And, despite favourable stock market conditions for IT listings, Stevens says an IPO is not on the cards. “We’re using our cash to build our cloud platform and there are no plans for a listing any time soon.”
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Saturday, April 23, 2011

Amazon's trouble

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/23/technology/23cloud.html?_r=1&ref=technology


Amazon’s Trouble Raises Cloud Computing Doubts

By STEVE LOHR
Published: April 22, 2011
As technical problems interrupted computer services provided byAmazon for a second day on Friday, industry analysts said the troubles would prompt many companies to reconsider relying on remote computers beyond their control.
Enlarge This Image
foursquare.com, via Associated Press
The Foursquare Web site, as well as some other sites using Amazon Web Services, have had problems in the last two days.
“This is a wake-up call for cloud computing,” said Matthew Eastwood, an analyst for the research firm IDC, using the term for accessing services and information in big data centers remotely over the Internet from anywhere, as if the services were in a cloud. “It will force a conversation in the industry.”
That discussion, he said, will most likely center on what data and computer operations to send off to the cloud and what to keep inside the corporate walls.
But another issue, Mr. Eastwood said, will be a re-examination of the contracts that cover cloud services — how much to pay for backup and recovery services, including paying extra for data centers in different locations. That is because the companies that were apparently hit hardest by the Amazon interruption were start-ups that, analysts said, are focused on moving fast in pursuit of growth, and less apt to pay for extensive backup and recovery services.
Amazon set up a side business five years ago offering computing resources to businesses from its network of sophisticated data centers. Today, the company is the early leader in the fast-growing business of cloud computing.
In business, the cloud model is rapidly gaining popularity as a way for companies to outsource computing chores to avoid the costs and headaches of running their own data centers — simply tap in, over the Web, to computer processing and storage without owning the machines or operating software.
Amazon has thousands of corporate customers, from Pfizer and Netflix to legions of start-ups, whose businesses often live on Amazon Web Services. Those reporting service troubles included Foursquare, a location-based social networking site; Quora, a question-and-answer service; Reddit, a news-sharing site; and BigDoor, which makes game tools for Web publishers.
The problems companies reported varied, but included being unable to access data, service interruptions and sites being shut down.
Amazon has data centers around the world, but the current problems have come from its big center in Northern Virginia, near Dulles airport. Amazon’s Web page on the status of its cloud services said on Friday that matters were improving but were still not resolved. A company spokeswoman said the updates would be Amazon’s only comment for now.
Big companies, that have decided to put crucial operations on Amazon computers are apt to pay up for the equivalent of computing insurance, analysts say. Netflix, the movie rental site, has become a large customer of the Amazon cloud. Most of its Web technology — customer movie queues, search tools and the like — runs in Amazon data centers.
Netflix said it had sailed through the last couple of days unscathed. “That’s because Netflix has taken full advantage of Amazon Web Services’ redundant cloud architecture,” which insures against technical malfunctions in any one location, said Steve Swasey, a Netflix spokesman.
BigDoor, a 20-employee start-up in Seattle, was knocked down by Amazon’s travails. It had backup and recovery services with Amazon, said Keith Smith, the chief executive, but only at Amazon’s data center in Virginia. “There’s always a trade-off,” Mr. Smith said, noting the expenses and developer time that would have been required to do more.
By Friday evening, most services at BigDoor, which makes game and rewards features for online publishers, were back up, but its Web site was still down.
The long-term toll to cloud computing, if any, is uncertain. Corporate cloud computing is expected to grow rapidly, by more than 25 percent a year, to $55.5 billion by 2014, IDC estimates.
Major technology suppliers are aggressively promoting different cloud offerings — some emphasizing a utility-style service, like Amazon, and others focusing more on selling big companies the hardware and software to more efficiently juggle computing workloads. The latter use the cloud technology, but companies own and control them — so-called private clouds.
The Amazon interruption, said Lew Moorman, chief strategy officer of Rackspace, a specialist in data center services, was the computing equivalent of an airplane crash. It is a major episode with widespread damage. But airline travel, he noted, is still safer than traveling in a car — analogous to cloud computing being safer than data centers run by individual companies.
“Every day, inside companies all over the world, there are technology outages,” Mr. Moorman said. “Each episode is smaller, but they add up to far more lost time, money and business.”
The Amazon setback, he said, should prove to be a learning experience. “We all have an interest in Amazon handling this well,” said Mr. Moorman, whose company is a competitor in the cloud business.
A version of this article appeared in print on April 23, 2011, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Amazon’s Trouble Raises Cloud Computing Doubts.
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