Change is constant, and over the last decade the nexus of two trends in particular has transformed the enterprise. Mobile technology and cloud software are fundamentally changing the way we interact internally within businesses, and externally with partners and customers.
Never before have workers enjoyed such freedom and flexibility. The days of being tied to a desk, manning a landline, are gone. Distributed teams can collaborate easily via virtual workplaces. Mobile technology provides access to the business world from any location and the cloud delivers the necessary data and software.
Driving IT Innovation in the Mid-Market | @CloudExpo [#Cloud]
Recent studies have shown that over two thirds of CIOs have difficulty balancing the time and resources needed in order to drive both business innovation and operational excellence. IT services teams in mid-sized organizations have so much to do that it’s difficult to prioritize. Maintaining existing operational effectiveness takes a significant portion of the available resources. Add to that new IT projects and upgrades and it becomes even more difficult to participate in business innovation efforts. Once you add the support of new technologies such as cloud services, mobile device management and BYOD, as well as ever-present security threats, it quickly becomes clear why it’s so hard to find any balance between operational excellence and innovation.
Industry Bifurcation? | @CloudExpo [#Cloud #IoT]
Apple reported record sales in the most recent quarter, thanks to its upgraded iPhone line. But it was almost alone among the big technology firms in doing so. Profits reported for the same period, have fallen at Google as well … Continue reading 
What To Move To the Cloud: A More Mature Model for SMBs
Many SMBs struggle with deciding if and what to move to the cloud. Whether it’s security concerns, cost, or lack of expertise, it’s oftentimes difficult to map the best possible solution. Here are 8 applications and services to consider when your organization is looking to move to the Cloud and reduce their server footprint.
What to move to the cloud
1. Email
Obviously in this day and age email is a requirement in virtually every business. A lot of businesses continue to run Exchange locally. If you are thinking about moving portions of your business out to the cloud, email is a good place to start. Why should you move to the cloud? Simple, it’s pretty easy to do and at this point it’s been well documented that mail runs very well up in the cloud. It takes a special skill set to run Exchange beyond just adding and managing users. If something goes wrong and you have an issue, it can often times be very complicated to fix. It can also be pretty complicated to install. A lot of companies do not have access to high quality Exchange skills. Moving to the cloud solves those issues. Having Exchange in the Cloud also gets your company off of the 3-5 year refresh cycle for the hardware to run Exchange as well as the upfront cost of the software.
Quick Tip – Most Cloud e-mail providers offer Anti-Spam/Anti-virus functionality as part of their offering. You can also take advantage of Cloud based AS/AV providers like MacAfee’s MXLogic.
2. File Shares
Small to medium sized businesses have to deal with sharing files securely and easily among its users. Typically, that’s a file server running locally in your office or at multiple offices. This can present a challenge of making sure everyone has the correct access and that there is enough storage available. Why should you move to the cloud? There are easy alternatives in the cloud to avoid dealing with those challenges. Such alternatives include Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive or using a file server in Microsoft Azure. In most cases you can use Active Directory to be the central repository of rights to manage passwords and permissions in one place.
Quick Tip – OneDrive is included with most Office 365 subscriptions. You can use Active Directory authentication to provide access through that.
3. Instant Messaging/Online Meetings
This one is pretty self-explanatory. Instant messaging can oftentimes be a quicker and more efficient form of communication than email. There are many platforms out there that can be used including Microsoft Lync, Skype and Cisco Jabber. A lot of these can be used for online meetings as well including screen sharing. Your users are looking for these tools and there are corporate options. With a corporate tool like Lync or Jabber, you can be in control. You can make sure conversations get logged, are secure and can be tracked. Microsoft Lync is included in Office 365.
Quick Tip – If you have the option, you might as well take advantage of it!
4. Active Directory
It is still a best practice to keep an Active Directory domain controller locally at each physical location to speed the login and authentication process even when some or most of the applications are services are based in the Cloud. This still leaves most companies with an issue if their site or sites are down for any reason. Microsoft now has provided the ability to run a domain controller in their Cloud with Azure Active Directory to provide that redundancy that many SMBs do not currently have.
Quick Tip – Azure Active Directory is pre-integrated with Salesforce, Office 365 and many other applications. Additionally, you can setup and use multi-factor authentication if needed.
5. Web servers
Web servers are another very easy workload to move to the cloud whether it’s Rackspace, Amazon, Azure, VMware etc. The information is not highly confidential so there is a much lower risk than putting extremely sensitive data up there. By moving your servers to the cloud, you can avoid all the traffic from your website going to the local connection; it can all go to the cloud instead.
Quick Tip – most cloud providers offer SQL server back-ends as part of their offerings. This makes it easy to tie in the web server to a backend database. Make sure you ask your provider about this.
6. Back Up
A lot of companies are looking for alternate locations to store back up files. It’s easy to back up locally on disk or tape and then move offsite. It’s often cheaper to store in the cloud and it helps eliminate the headache of rotating tapes.
Quick Tip – account for bandwidth needs when you start moving backups to the cloud. This can be a major factor.
7. Disaster Recovery
Now that you have your backups offsite, it’s possible to have capacity to run virtual machines or servers up in the cloud in the event of a disaster. Instead of moving data to another location you can pay to run your important apps in the cloud in case of disaster. It’s usually going to cost you less to do this.
Quick Tip – Make sure you look at your bandwidth closely when backing up to the Cloud. Measure how much data you need to backup, and then calculate the bandwidth that you will need. Most enterprise class backup applications allow you to throttle the backups so they do not impact business.
8. Applications
A lot of common applications that SMBs use are offered as a cloud service. For example, Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics. These companies make and host the product so that you don’t have to onsite. You can take advantage of the application for a fraction of the cost and headache.
In conclusion, don’t be afraid to move different portions of your environment to the cloud. For the most part, it’s less expensive and easier than you may think. If I was starting a business today, the only thing I would have running locally would be an AD controller or file server. The business can be faster and leaner without the IT infrastructure overhead that one needed to run a business ten years ago.
Looking for more tips? Download this whitepaper written by our CTO Chris Ward “8 Point Checklist for a Successful Data Center Move“
By Chris Chesley, Solutions Architect
Take a look at how cloud helped a cancer charity increase donations by 40%
Picture credit: iStockPhoto
The Canadian Cancer Society (CCSSK), based in Saskatchewan, has launched an omni-channel engagement centre utilising cloud telephony from NewVoiceMedia and Salesforce, and found charitable donations had increased by 40%.
At the society’s Relay for Life event, participation went up 30% and pledge numbers increased by 70%. The company looked to the cloud primarily to provide a greater customer experience. Utilising Salesforce data, employees were able to create more personalised calls with their customers leading to greater relationships.
“Better retention is a virtuous cycle,” explains Andrew Caswell, associate executive director at CCSSK. “As it increases, you lay a strong foundation for future years.”
As the solution utilises the cloud, it also means greater scale and flexibility. Through NewVoiceMedia’s cloud telephony, all inbound calls go through the system and get routed to a free phone in one of the firm’s offices around Saskatchewan, meaning some calls which were unanswered can now be taken. The level of scale is such that an entire Western Canada centre is being mooted; CCSSK has been making calls for the Alberta province.
It’s not just about customers either. The cloud telephony system enables incoming calls to be routed to the right parties, which frees up time for CCSSK’s Customer Care Reps to address individual contributors, volunteers, or cancer survivors. The solution also utilises real-time reporting, meaning CCSSK can identify areas of improvement for customer service.
“We wanted to emphasise the quality of relationships with participants, volunteers, donors and cancer survivors to reach more people with our support programmes and increase our fundraising,” said Catherine Moore, senior director of strategic engagement and platform development at CCSSK.
Describing NewVoiceMedia as “a game changer”, she added: “Now we are better able to engage with people to increase the impact of our support, prevention and advocacy programmes.”
NewVoiceMedia isn’t the only cloud service provider aiming to make a difference to cancer. Microsoft launched a recent campaign highlighting the work being done by scientists and engineers at Virginia Tech, analysing DNA sequencing information. Canada itself is investing $6.7m (£4.28m) in cloud-based biotech infrastructure designed to analyse genetic data.
You can read the full case study here.
Verizon announces its Cloud Marketplace is open for business
Picture credit: iStockPhoto
Verizon Enterprise Solutions has announced the official launch of its Verizon Cloud Marketplace, a store for software certified to operate in the Verizon cloud.
The communications provider has been aggressive in its cloud push in recent months, and is opening up this one-stop shop with a variety of partners, including AppDynamics, Hitachi and Juniper Networks.
“The launch of Verizon Cloud Marketplace is an important milestone in the ongoing evolution of our cloud ecosystem,” said SVP cloud services Siki Giunta.
“Verizon Cloud Marketplace is all about simplifying and streamlining migration to the cloud, and enterprises using Verizon Cloud will now have access to a growing number of industry-leading cloud-based applications required to power their businesses in the digital age,” he added.
Currently Verizon offers a wide-ranging portfolio of enterprise-ready cloud services, as well as more than 40 data centres across four continents. The company has beefed its portfolio up with some heavyweight partnerships, including the likes of Oracle providing middleware, and is also aiming to leverage its communications and network experience.
Many traditional telecoms firms, from Ericsson to CenturyLink, are providing cloud services, aiming to provide better customer service as well as reduce costs. CenturyLink Cloud CTO Jared Wray told CloudTech last week of his firm’s strategy to build a single platform and converge the network with computing layers.
With recent survey data from Verizon revealing 65% of enterprises are using cloud computing, it puts the firm’s aggressive push into perspective.
Earlier this month it was announced that Verizon’s cloud service had achieved FedRAMP certification, being given authority to operate. Verizon’s a bit late to the party with this, after HP, Amazon, Microsoft and various others got their pips last year, however the telco aims to go full speed ahead now.
Find out more about the Verizon Cloud Marketplace here.
G20: Saudi Arabia Needs More Cloud
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia needs more cloud computing, more Big Data, and more IoT. This is according to our research at the Tau Institute. The nation does not finish well in our research, yet has a great chance to improve things right at the present moment. Can it? Will it?
Saudi Arabia was represented at the recent G20 Summit in Brisbane, Australia, presenting a plan with a call to “deepen and accelerate the pace of economic diversification” while enrolling some 450,000 students in technical and vocation centers by the year 2020.
The country’s rulers plan a “renewed focus on quality” (rather than quantity) and technological development when it comes to its non-oil exports, and seeks more outside investments through the creation of numerous new “free zones.”
The House of Saud also wishes to reduce its own consumption of oil and natural gas, according to the Comprehensive Strategy it presented in Brisbane.
Setting the Scene
There have been many years since the first oil shock of 1973 when Saudi Arabia’s leaders would have been considered the most important at any global gathering. This was not one of those years, as recent drops in oil prices, brought on partially by increased oil production in the US and Canada, have made Saudi Arabia less of a top-level global mover and shaker.
Indeed, the Brisbane meeting was dominated by explicit Western criticism of Russia’s Vladimir Putin. The presence of Saudi Arabia may have seemed like a footnote.
But Saudi Arabia is a legitimate member of the G20, with the world’s 19th largest economy. Its per-capita income does not rank among the world leaders, though, as it wrestles with a situation in which new-found oil wealth since the 1970s has created a society of about 30% immigrant labor among a total population that’s approaching 30 million people.
Does Not Rank Well
Our research at the Tau Institute examines the relative ICT development and dynamics of 103 nations of the world. Saudi Arabia ranks 84th overall, slightly higher than its impoverished neighbor Yemen. Within its region, Saudi Arabia trails Jordan and the UAE, although to be fair, it does lead neighboring oil-centric nations Oman, Kuwait, and Iran.
Within its income tier (with per-person incomes between $13,000 an $25,000), Saudi Arabia ranks 17th of 18 nations surveyed. This is the toughest class in our research, with global leaders such as South Korea, Taiwan, Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Chile and Uruguay all going gangbusters as they develop their ICT environments and overall economies.
Given its relatively small population, the overall challenge in improving Saudi Arabia’s ICT infrastructure is middling, similar to that of Turkey, Jordan, and Mexico.
The Challenge Ahead
We believe in the fundamental theorem that aggressive ICT development acts as a trigger to economic growth and societal development. So naturally, we recommend that the Kingdom make ICT development as an explicit goal.
Technology can also act as a driver of government transparency and be quite disruptive, something that Saudi Arabia’s leaders will not want to hear. The society faces great stresses, along religious lines as well as the publicly stated problem of reducing the amount of immigrant labor within its population. Both of these issues – religious and demographic – are potential tinderboxes.
Saudi Arabia announced its Tenth Development Plan, covering the years 2015-2019, prior to the Brisbane Summit. The plan calls for infrastructure development of about $100 billion, up 76% from the previous five-year plan. In the end, the Kingdom says it wishes to develop “a national strategy and action plan for a gradual shift to a knowledge-based economy,” creating 1.3 million new jobs for Saudi citizens.
Yet only 3.4% of its planned infrastructure development is earmarked for “transportation and communications,” with nothing explicitly devoted to ICT or, say, the way the Internet of Things could be used to develop its transportation vision. There are modern trains in this vision, though, and we’d expect the IoT to play a role here. Implied here is the notion that the Kingdom should commit itself to cloud computing and all that goes with it to create an ICT infrastructure suitable for the 21st century.
Saudi Arabia has a high level of wealth and relatively low population level that, in theory, gives it a better chance than most countries to develop economically and societally over the next few decades. The country’s leaders seem to be clear-eyed about the need to diversify its economy as the glory days of oil start to fade in the rear-view mirror. Looking ahead, it’s also clear the nation’s leaders face a tremendous societal challenge as they work to develop the nation’s economy.
Internet of Things and New App Economy By @Centrify | @ThingsExpo [#IoT]
In 2007, there were virtually no mobile apps. Last year alone, over 100 billion apps were downloaded, generating $26 billion in sales. App stores operated by Apple and Google now offer more than a million apps each and people every day depend on apps like Facebook, Google Maps and Uber.
The app economy is here. And – with the coming tide of wearable devices giving rise to a new generation of applications and the Internet of Things taking off – it’s going to get big. Fast. There are app developers right now who are working on ways to connect your TV to your fridge, so you know what drinks are available without tearing yourself away from “Orange Is the New Black.”
The DNS of Things @ThingsExpo 2014 By @PSilvas [#IoT]
With Levi’s Stadium as a backdrop, I share a bit about the Internet of Things and the strain it will place on the Domain Name System (DNS) along with a preview of his DNS of Things session at CloudExpo/ThingsExpo at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Reporting from Silicon Valley.
The Evolution of the ‘Internet of Things’ By @RedHatNews | @ThingsExpo [#IoT]
The Internet of Things is not new. Historically, smart businesses have used its basic concept of leveraging data to drive better decision making and have capitalized on those insights to realize additional revenue opportunities. So, what has changed to make the Internet of Things one of the hottest topics in tech?
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Chris Gray, Director, Embedded and Internet of Things, discussed the underlying factors that are driving the economics of intelligent systems. Discover how hardware commoditization, the ubiquitous nature of connectivity, and the emergence of Big Data and analysis are providing the pull to meet customer expectations of a widely connected, multi-dimensional universe of people, things, and information.