Posts

Managed IT Services Pricing: Are You Overpaying?

/in /by

With companies more dependent than ever on complex networks, mobile devices and electronic solutions for everything from bookkeeping to compliance, managed IT services are looking increasingly attractive. But choosing a provider can be an exercise in comparing apples and oranges. Some managed IT services companies set their prices based purely on how many devices you use. Others let you pick and choose from a variety of services on an a la carte basis. And still others have a tiered system where “gold” level clients get quicker service and more total hours of support than their “bronze” counterparts.

The key to choosing wisely is that there’s no one perfect managed IT services package. What you need is the best package for your business. And that means you need to have a clear idea of your specific needs going into the process. How many networks do you use? If your IT is hosted on site, do you want to move it to the cloud, and, if so, how will the transition and continuing network management fit into your overall plans? Do you have employees who work from home, or who use mobile devices on the road?

If you take a look at your use of IT service over the past few months, you can probably get a sense of your needs. How many tickets have come in from employees, and what issues did they reflect? Do you need frequent hands-on help at your office, or can remote assistance typically handle the problem?

It’s also a good idea to go through worst-case scenarios. If your network suddenly went down on a Sunday at 4 p.m., would it be an emergency that had to be handled immediately or a minor inconvenience that could wait until Monday morning? If one of your field reps working on the other side of the country couldn’t get help logging a new phone onto your network, how bad would that be?

There’s a reason people say time is money. If a long wait time for help from your managed IT services provider would keep your workers twiddling their thumbs, that’s just as much of a problem as overpaying for services you don’t need.

Of course, what you really want is to avoid both those problems. So before you go shopping for managed IT services, make sure you know just what your needs really are.

A Paradox: Apple’s Time Machine Showing a Few Faults

/in /by

There is nothing worse than losing data, not even a flat tire or paper cut between your toes.  There are a variety of ways to keep your data from being swallowed by the ether.  One such way, that is touted by Apple is Time Machine.

It works by taking an image of a hard drive, copying every file except for select root directories and itself.  Then it transfers the image to an external hard drive, such as the brand specific Time Capsule.  After the initial image is taken, every hour Time Machine takes more hard drive images.  To save time, it compares the new image to the old one and only keeps files that are different, i.e changes you’ve made in the last hour.

However, like with their new, but defunct, mapping application Apple’s new Time Machine is showing faults.  One such fault may be a sign of a bigger problem.  The blog Mac’s Performance Guide has report on Time Machine not backing up partitioned drives.  Evidence suggests that when a drive is unmounted, mission critical files can be excluded from Time Machine’s backup list.

Why is this important?  Well, although one can argue that Mac’s have a lot user friendly features, no one can argue that there’s a plethora of software made with them in mind.  This causes individuals to partition their drives with Bootcamp, software that allows another operating system to be live on your Mac.

The fact is that if you want a well optimized office, you need your Macs to have Windows on them.  It is well known that the Mac’s versions of the Office are inferior to those of the Windows’.  However, this bug could mean none of the Microsoft Word documents and spreadsheets are being backed up.

If you really are feeling antsy, I’d suggest that you backup all your critical files to the cloud. Find out more here.

AT&T rolling out the SaaS

/in , /by

To most consumers, the Cloud is a place to have offsite storage.  To designers, it can be a place to dump data to free up more hardware for other things.  How about adding retail space to the list?

AT&T is rolling out SaaS (Software as a Service) products to over three million of its small business customers.  Most notable on the list is the ability to access Microsoft Office suite programs over the Cloud.

This offers several advantages.  The first of which is the freeing of IT resources.  All the programs and the data you input into them are held offsite.  That means you need extra hardware to run an HD teleconference or require constantly looking for CD keys to give out when everyone upgrades to the latest version of Office.

The second major advantage is scale.  The SaaS is rolling out in two tiers.  The first one allows up to 25 users download and upload all the AT&T cloud services at any given time.  For smaller businesses, that means when a new employee is hired, you don’t need to buy yet another cd for Microsoft Office.  Instead, they can just download all the data they need and be able to look at and share all relevant documents.  Essentially, it’s like having your own server for only six dollars month.

The upper tier is basically the same save for unlimited users.  You’ll probably save on IT costs by having AT&T dealing with all that.

Yet, if you want your own dedicated cloud—you might want to check this out.

 

 

Using Managed IT Services for Savings

/in /by

We all know that you get what you pay for, right? You can’t expect to pay rock bottom wages and get the best employees, or spend next to nothing for a great office space.

When it comes to technology, though, things are different. Some companies are still using old-fashioned software at a big up-front cost, and paying big money for professionals to set up new computers and troubleshoot their networks. But forward-thinking businesses can cut out much of this expense with new managed IT services offerings.

Thanks to cloud technology, many companies can get the latest software, the precise amount of storage they need, and all the back-up and compliance services they want, for less than they might have paid for a much less sophisticated system a few years ago. For example, Office365 and other providers now provide Exchange email hosting in the cloud for as little as $4 a month. That means getting your email out of you on-site server, eliminating the need to have an IT consultant fix any problems it might develop.

Another excellent value you can find with managed IT services is a fixed monthly fee that covers the maintenance of all your on-site systems. Beware of contracts with an added fee to address problems that occur—for a flat fee, an IT company should keep things from breaking and also fix any problems it fails to prevent.

Of course, sometimes you need extra services, whether it’s redoing your phone system or setting up network connections for new employees. Most managed IT services companies will let you pre-purchase blocks of hours at a better rate than you can get by calling the company out of the blue.

The options available with modern managed IT services can be complicated, but if you pay attention to your alternatives you can often find ways to get better service for less money. And that’s certainly more than you can say for just about any other business expense.

What’s the Deal with Cloudstack?

/in /by

In an attempt to capitalize on the success of Amazon cloud hosting services, several new contenders have sprung up.  Most notably are Openstack and its spin off Cloudstack. Openstack has created a lot of buzz in recent months.  Companies supporting this new cloud resource hosting service include HP, Rackspace, and NASA.  Openstack is an open source code for companies to build their own internal cloud.

According to an interview of Sameer Dholakia, Cloudstack may achieve success because of how similar it is to the already established Amazon cloud services.  Cloudstack is now a ward of the Apache Software Foundation.  This is important because although Openstack has some big names behind it, Apache is a well-respected open source name.

The main difference between the two is how they are constructed.  Cloudstack has a major weakness of being just one massive .jar file, while Openstack has a modular approach.  This means that Cloudstack is harder to modify.  If you’re a small business looking to create their own cloud you’ll want your IT department working with sets of small files.  It’s easier to troubleshoot.  If one thing goes wrong in a giant file, they’ll have to go hunting amongst all the code.  As always, consult with an IT expert before implementing a cloud.

Quickbooks and Peachtree Hosting: Meeting Business Demands, No Sweat

/2 Comments/in , /by

If there’s one person small business owners depend on, it’s their accountant or bookkeeper. So owners demand a lot from them. They want flawless record-keeping, of course, but also absolute security and constant access to their information.

Once upon a time, that set of demands might have made an accountant break out in a cold sweat. Getting information from a financial professional to a client took communication and time. And sharing files online could risk security breaches.

Fortunately, the cloud has changed all that. Applications like Quickbooks and Peachtree can run in the cloud just as well as they do on a firm’s own office computers. In fact, using them that way keeps them better protected from outages or natural disasters than running them on a local machine.

With hosted software, business owners and accountants can look at the same document, at the same time, from anywhere in the world. And they can do it not just from a computer but from their smartphone or tablet device too.

One of the most significant benefits of using Peachtree or Quickbooks in the cloud is that accountants and bookkeepers don’t have to handle data issues themselves. The responsibility for backing data up and keeping it secure and available lies with IT consultants who are specialists in these matters. That means there’s no need for people whose training is in accounting to spend hours trying to set up a firewall or figure out the most secure way to share files remotely.

With hosted software, accountants can keep business owners connected to their accounts whether they’re at their office or fielding an urgent call from their iPhone at a conference in Cancun. And they can do it without breaking a sweat.

Chosing Between a Private or Public Cloud

/in , , /by

The Cloud is, at first, a foreboding place for small and medium businesses to venture. There is a lot buzz surrounding the increased productivity and efficiency in cloud computing and storage. There is an equal amount of talk concerning security of cloud services. In the information age, there is no question that all businesses should at least consider moving to the cloud. The real question is what kind of cloud? On the most macro level, clouds can be divided into two types: Private and Public. Each have their own unique qualities.

Private clouds are those that built in-house. This cloud allows companies to shift workloads from server to server and disseminate new applications quickly. The biggest concern to a business thinking about building a cloud of their own is whether or not they have the IT support to create or even maintain one. If they can’t, the situation becomes more complicated. Do they expand their IT department or hire an outside firm to do it for them? In some situations, this is unavoidable such as in the pharmaceutical industry which has to comply with strict regulations concerning their data. But if you’re not a giant pharmaceutical company, a public cloud service may be the way to go.

A decade ago, people would say that we lived in the oil age. Now, it seems like we are living in the information age. A report done by analysts at Ovum show that IT services will grow 4.5 percent by 2013, impressive considering the state of the global economy. Companies survive and adapt based on the data at hand. Backing up that data is essential. In days long past, companies had to pay for dedicated storage. It was expensive and inefficient. Today, companies can just sync with an offsite cloud server. The data can flow and ebb as demand dictates without any fear of unused capacity or running out of space . This is important for keeping costs down. However, the issue of security does come up. The solution is simple, just as you would with storing your physical possessions, you need to find a reputable cloud host service. Find a company that is willing to comply to your specific security needs. Look into their past and see if they’ve had any breeches or unethical activity. It’ll become apparent that most cloud hosts are secure and on the level.

Perhaps neither private nor public clouds seem that appealing. That’s the sector that the hybrid hopes to fill. Microsoft recently announced that its Office 365 service will be creating a government-only cloud. This cloud was built to allow government agencies to share data with each other but not the general public. It’s not a huge leap to imagine hybrid clouds being the favored tool in a B2B setting. Companies in partnerships could share information with each other while being shielded from unwanted eyes. This would combine many of the security features of a private cloud while providing the ease of collaboration of a public cloud.

The cloud computing and storage landscape is in a state of flux. We may see public, private or even hybrid clouds become the standard. What is clear though, is that the cloud is here to stay. Companies that adopt this paradigm will have a leg up on their competitors, so they better get their head in the clouds.

Office 365: Embracing Software by Subscription

/in , , /by

Instead of paying once for the basic world processing and database programs you use every day, how would you like to keep paying, month after month, for the privilege of using them? Microsoft is betting that’s actually going to sound like a good deal to its users.

The dominant workplace software company is trying what ZDNet blogger Simon Bisson refers to as a “bet-the-company strategy” in rolling out Office 365 not as software-plus-services but as fully functioning software as a service, with installed software as a minor piece of the deal.

Bisson notes that part of what makes this a big leap is Microsoft’s plan to let resellers bill customers directly for subscriptions to the cloud version of the software suite, Office 365 Open rather than handling the cloud service through a revenue sharing agreement.

Meanwhile, though, observers are wondering what this will mean for consumers. The current version of Office 365 includes various subscription plans for businesses, from $4 per user/month for a simple email-and-calendar setup to $20 per user/month for full access to Office programs both online and off plus hosted voicemail support, unlimited email archiving and other perks.

That’s all well and good for corporate users, but getting individuals to pay for a subscription to software is a different matter. PC World rounded up expert opinions on the subject and averaged their opinions out to predict that consumers won’t pay more than $6 a month for Office 365—and they’ll want to be able to install copies of the software on their computers. Even at that price, it might not be a great deal. PC World breaks down the math like this: The average customer keeps their software for five years. Office Home & Student 2010 costs $125 at a discount on Amazon and includes three licenses. That comes to $8.33 per license per year.

Google’s Cloud Gets Bigger

/in , /by


Google, one of the big names in practically every corner of the internet, is the latest player to unveil a product offering raw computing power in the cloud.

The new service, Google Compute Engine, will compete directly with Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud. Developers can use the company’s Linux-based virtual machines to run whatever operations they want. So far the product is only in beta testing, but the company’s big name, combined with its promise of lower costs than competitors, seems likely to make it a major player fairly quickly once it goes live for everyone.

Already, Google is a big part of cloud computing. It’s well known for its free, user-friendly applications like Google Docs. It also offers Google App Engine, which lets developers build applications, and Google BigQuery, a service for analyzing large volumes of data. And it has an enormous amount of storage and processing capability. The company doesn’t disclose how much, exactly, but one estimate suggests it’s approaching 2 million.

Yet the market for cloud computing is less in platforms and services built on remove servers than in the servers themselves. Most institutional users are looking for infrastructure as a service—something they can use just like a real server to build whatever they need. That’s what Google Compute Engine is promising to deliver.

This is the third in a series of blog posts on major cloud computing players.

Image credit: paz.ca/Flickr

When the Cloud Falls

/in , /by

The concept of the Cloud revolves around the ability to access information from anywhere at any time.  Millions of users uploading and downloading their data from a centralized set of severs.  No longer do IT resources have to spread out, but centralized.  Just as the many feudal lords were replaced by absolute monarchs, so have many servers been replaced by the few.  Sounds greats, costs are reduced and efficiency is increased—until something fails.  That’s what happened to Amazon’s EC2.  Businesses like Netflix and Pinterest went down with them.  The outage only lasted about 24 hours.  However, the outrage seemed to last a little longer.

It brings up and interesting question: Are we overly dependent on cloud services.  A lot of companies like using cloud hosting services.  They allow businesses to focus on providing goods and services rather than backing up their data or looking for more storage space for their files.  But is that the best practice?  When they first came out, cloud servers were more of a back-up than a primary means of data storage.  Now it’s the reverse.  But how can you have a hybrid system?  Perhaps having just enough data stored on site to function in case of a cloud server crash would be enough.  However, that doesn’t cover businesses like Netflix in which every file is needed.  If a user goes looking for a particular movie that’s listed in the database, but can’t access it, than you have a dissatisfied customer.  Should they only have blockbusters and big releases on hand?  What about everyone else?

What about your business?  Backing up files is considered a good practice.  How to, how much, and when is a more gray area.  In the end, even with this recent crash, the amount of uptime that Amazon’s EC2 has is impressive.  Reputable cloud storage companies are secure and reliable.