Archivo de la categoría: Featured

Cloud computing, cloud management, CMaaS, Featured

Modernizing IT by Killing the Transactional Treadmill

By Geoff Smith, Senior Manager, Managed Services, GreenPages-LogicsOne

Many IT departments today are unable to get off the transactional treadmill. You may have some serious talent in your IT department, but valuable, strategic IT assets are becoming bogged down with tactical actions. When this happens, IT cannot fulfill its true purpose: applying technology to enable business success. As an IT decision maker, you need to be providing IT with an effective, efficient, and modern way of addressing every day responsibilities so that internal focus can shift back to supporting crucial business objectives. I consistently see this issue when I’m out in the field speaking with customers. For this reason, I’m hosting a webinar on May 8th to go over some strategies your IT department can implement.

In this webinar you will learn ways to modernize IT operations and combine advanced management tools, mature operating procedures, and a skilled workforce to:

  • Build an Enterprise Command Center to effectively address and monitor the health and status of critical infrastructure systems
  • Leverage run books and Standard Operating Procedures to complete required actions and create consistency in approach
  • Establish a transparent co-sourced operational structure that promotes a culture of collaboration and joint responsibility for success
  • Create visibility and analytics that maximize availability and functionality of technology investments

If you’re interested in learning more, register here & bring your questions May 8th at 11 am EST.

 

 

Featured, Heartbleed, IT Management, Managed IT Services

How our Managed Services Team Responded to Heartbleed

By Jay Keating, Vice President of Managed Services

 

A lot has been written about the Heartbleed bug impacting versions of OpenSSL software in recent weeks. For an in-depth description of what Heartbleed is and how to respond to the vulnerability, you can refer to http://heartbleed.com/ or any number of 3rd party reports. This blog won’t review the actual weakness, but rather describe how our Managed IT Services team responded to the incident in support of our customers.

As software and hardware vendors release code updates to deal with vulnerabilities such as Heartbleed, our Managed IT Services team assesses overall risk in context to mitigating factors and then recommends a course of action. In the case of Heartbleed, since the scope was so broad, we prioritized our assessment in the following tiers:

  1. We quickly evaluated our internal systems and support tools. This important step had to happen immediately so our own management tools weren’t creating risk or concern for our customers.
  2. We then evaluated all Managed IT Services customers’ Internet-facing devices such as firewalls and web servers. All devices that were exposed have been patched at this point, and customers were notified of the risk and mitigation plan immediately. In this case, given the extent of the exposure, we declared emergency maintenance windows with our customers rather than wait for pre-approved monthly maintenance windows.
  3. Finally, with the Internet-facing systems no longer vulnerable, we have refocused on our customers’ internal networks for the next round of assessments and mitigation. As we work through this phase, we will once again work collaboratively with our Managed IT Services customers to coordinate an acceptable maintenance window as soon as possible.

With Heartbleed still top of mind, I suggest a few moments of reflection to think through how your organization responded.  Here are some questions to help frame your review:

  • Do you have a formal security incident response program in place and was it useful in responding to Heartbleed? If not, who will manage your response and what process will be followed?
  • How long did it take you to fully understand your risks? How long did you expect it to take?
  • Do you have support and maintenance contracts in place for all components of your infrastructure, and are the support contact details documented within your security incident response plan?
  • Who is responsible for internal and external communication in case you need to declare emergency maintenance periods?
  • What will your staffing plan be if your team goes into extended hours of operation in response to a security threat?
  • Who are your key IT delivery partners and what resources could they bring to your assistance if you need help with assessment, planning, communication, mitigation, and / or recovery? 

Just answering those six questions will improve your response program. Let us know if we can help.

Learn more about how your organization can properly manage your IT environment

 

 

 

Featured, Miscellaneous IT, Tech News

Tech News Recap for the Week of 4/14/2014

 

Were you busy last week? Here’s a quick recap of news and stories you may have missed!

 

Corporate IT departments have progressed from keepers of technology to providers of complex solutions that businesses truly rely on {ebook}

 

 

Featured, licensing, Microsoft, Miscellaneous IT

Have You Seen this Email? Microsoft Software Asset Management Review

By Rob O’Shaughnessy, Software Licensing Specialist, Pre-Sales Technical Support

 

I’ve been working in the GreenPages licensing department for over 14 years and many readers are probably asking the question, “why?”  Do you honestly like torturing yourself, Rob?  No, not really. I did have a full head of hair when I first started here and with each license change it recedes, so at least I’m saving on shampoo costs. Let’s face it, there are so many rules and regulations with licensing that it’s nearly impossible to keep up with.  Just when you think you understand, it changes.

 

We’ve been seeing an increase with our customers getting emails with the subject line: Microsoft Software Asset Management Review. Have you received this email? If you haven’t yet, there’s a good chance you may see one float in your inbox. This is Microsoft’s asset management team.  Their goal is to help you understand the licensing you currently own and match it up with what you’re running on your network.  Basically, this is an audit.  

Microsoft’s SAM doesn’t discriminate—everyone is a target. You’ll eventually have to deal with them so my recommendation is to not ignore the email. Now, just because you receive an email doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not compliant. Even if you’re 100% sure you’re compliant, it’s still best to work with them.  I can tell you that if their findings suggest that you’re short on licenses, the only real penalty is that you have to buy the licenses.  There are no fines, you’re not going to jail…this isn’t the Orange is the New Black. 

I suggest that if you do receive this email that you reach out to us here at GreenPages.  Like I said, I’ve been doing this a long time and there are some particulars of licensing that IMO the SAM team doesn’t know, especially when it comes to virtualization. Just a quick example: you may have 20 Windows Standard 2008 R2 VMs but only own five licenses.  Are you in compliance? Yes.  If you own Windows Enterprise 2008 R2 it allowed you to run up to 4 VMs with each license.  In this example the SAM team didn’t know the old rule when Windows 2008 R2 was around.   I mean, let’s face it, Microsoft licensing is confusing and the SAM team is human, so it’s always good to get a second set of eyes on it. 

This post’s goal is not to scare you and indict you of any wrong doing.  It’s to inform you.  If you do see this email I wouldn’t ignore it as much as you may be tempted to.  Hopefully it’s a quick and painless process for you, but regardless please let us know how we can assist.  If you already have worked with the SAM team, we’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences! 

 

Here are some FAQs I get from our customers:

Do I need a Windows Cal and RDS Cal?  Yes, Microsoft requires you to stack the CALs.  Same is true if you’re running Exchange, SharePoint, Lync etc.  Both the Windows and the specific application Cal is required.

What’s up with SQL Core licensing?  SQL moved from a per processor licensing model (when you got unlimited Cals) to per Core model when SQL 2012 was released.  So, the deal is, if SQL is running on a physical sever, you have to tally up all the cores on that box.  If SQL is running virtually you have to license all the cores allocated to the VM.  A minimum of four cores are required for each scenario.  This means that in a physical environment, even if the processor only has 2-cores, you’re still required to license four.  Same in the virtual world.  If you plan on only allocating 2 cores to the VM, Microsoft requires that you pay for 4-cores worth.  The reason is the price of the former per processor license is the same as the price of 4 cores today.  Licenses are sold in two-core packs. SQL Enterprise is now only licensed by the core.

What is multiplexing?  This mainly pertains to SQL, but it basically means that if users are hitting an application directly or indirectly a CAL is still required.  For example, your users are hitting a web server that has a back end SQL server.  The users are not touching the SQL app directly, but they are accessing information from it.  You need a CAL.

How do I reimage and downgrade my OEM Windows 8 Pro with a Windows 7 Pro MAK that I don’t have?  First off, yes you can legally downgrade and reimage an OEM copy of Windows.  The problem is getting the key to do it.   If you purchase a PC that has Windows 8 Pro, but you need to load Windows 7 Pro without a key, what you can do is purchase a single volume license of Windows Professional.  The cheapest way to do it is by purchasing an SA Only sku of Windows Pro.  You have 90 days to purchase this license after your PC purchase.  This will give you the ability to log onto the Volume Licensing Services Center (VLSC) site and obtain a MAK Windows 7 and download.  You only need to purchase one license as it will give you multiple activations.  If you need more you can call Microsoft Clearing House to obtain more.

The Outlook that’s included in Office Standard doesn’t allow Personal Archiving or Retention Polices when using the Exchange Enterprise Cal, but standalone Outlook and the Outlook included in Office Pro Plus does?  Isn’t it the same Outlook?   Yes, if you purchase the Exchange Cal you’re likely doing so to use the Personal Archiving or Retention Polices that are included with it. However, for it to work properly, you need to either own standalone Outlook (basically you can purchase Outlook a la carte) or Office Professional Plus.  For whatever reason the Outlook that comes with Office Standard doesn’t work.  Microsoft doesn’t have an answer for this.

 

 

Featured, Miscellaneous IT, Tech News

Tech News Recap for the Week of 4/7/2014

 

Were you busy last week? Here’s a quick recap of news and stories you may have missed!

 

Looking to become a business savvy IT leader? Check out this whitepaper!

 

 

BYOD, Featured, IT Management, Shadow IT

Game of Thrones: Five Takeaways for IT

By Ben Stephenson, Journey to the Cloud

After a long wait, Game of Thrones Season 4 has officially started (no spoilers for the first episode of season 4 – I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy).  Amidst the action and excitement, there are some lessons IT can take away from seasons 1-3 of the show. Here are five of them:

The War Lies to the North

After Robert Baratheon dies, there is all out war for rule of the Iron Throne and control of the Seven Kingdoms. Joffrey Lannister usurps power after the passing of the king and executes the Lord of Winterfell, Ned Stark. This sparks Ned’s son Robb to march on King’s Landing to attempt to overthrow Joffrey. Meanwhile Robert Baratheon’s younger brother Renly, his older brother Stannis, and Daenerys Targaryen are also all raising armies to try and defeat Joffrey. By the end of season 3 however, it becomes known that the deadly “White Walkers” are back after thousands of years. Some people realize that the war everyone is fighting right now is insignificant because the real war lies to the north.

The lesson for IT: There is often a good amount of unrest between the IT Department and other business units. Maybe Accounting gets frustrated and places the blame for a systems failure on IT, but IT claims it was the Accounting Department’s fault for not following proper protocols. Maybe there is unrest between Marketing and IT around budget allocation for new tradeshow equipment. The lesson here is that IT needs to partner with the business and work together in order to achieve the overall goals that will determine the success of the company.

Liberate Your Users

Daenerys Targaryen, or Khaleesi, is looking to take back the throne that used to belong to her family. Without an army, she purchases a large number of slave soldiers. Instead of treating them poorly and forcing them to fight for her, she frees them all and says it’s their decision if they would like to stay and fight by her side. She then goes from city to city freeing slaves. The result? An extremely loyal and passionate army.

The lesson for IT: People will respond better if you give them choices as opposed to dictating how everything is going to work. Employees are going to bring their own devices to the workplace whether you allow it or not, so empower them to do so by implementing a BYOD program. Shadow IT is going to happen. Employees are going to bypass IT and use AWS. Provide them with a way to do so while you control costs, security, and governance.

Innovation Is Key

When Stannis Baratheon launches a full scale attack on King’s Landing with a large fleet of ships, things look pretty dim for the Lannister family. Stannis has more man power and weapons and has the advantage of being able to cut off supply lines to the capital. Tywin Lannister, King Joffrey’s uncle, is forced to think outside the box to try and defend his city. He ends up catapulting barrels of deadly wild fire onto the attacking ships, successfully fending off Stannis’ forces. 

The lesson for IT: Continue to innovate and look for creative ways to solve problems. It can be difficult to get to the strategic initiatives when your team is bogged down by day-to-day mundane tasks. IT leaders need to make innovation a top priority in order to keep pace with the needs of the business and the rapidly evolving technology landscape.

The Wall of Security

Security is critical to the survival of any organization. Winterfell and the North always relied on “The Wall” to keep out marauding Wildlings. The Wall is hundreds of feet high, made of sheer ice, and guarded by the Men of the Night’s Watch. Getting a large group of people past The Wall is extremely difficult. However, when an assembly of the Night’s Watch has to abandon their posts to head out beyond the wall, a group of Wildlings is able to scale it and cross to the other side.

The lesson for IT: It’s obviously important to have the proper security measures in place in your organization.  The lesson from the Wall though is that no matter what security you have in place, there are always ways to infiltrate your environment no matter how secure it may appear. This is why you need to proactively monitor and manage your environment.

Choose Your Partners Wisely

As the war with the Lannisters drags on, Robb Stark is in desperate need of more soldiers. Robb strikes a deal with Walder Frey to have one of his uncles marry one of Frey’s daughters to unite the families. Robb chose the wrong partner and things don’t go according to plan (and by not “going according to plan” I mean Robb, his wife, his mother, and his countrymen are brutally murdered during the wedding ceremony…).

The lesson for IT: There are a lot of factors to take into consideration when you’re deciding who to align yourself with. Choosing the right vendor for your organization depends on many factors including the specific project you’re working on, your existing environment, your budget, your goals, your future plans, etc. You don’t want to make a hasty decision on a specific vendor or product without thinking it through very carefully. This is where a company such as GreenPages can act as a trusted advisor to help guide you down the right path.

Any other lessons you can think of?

 

Download this whitepaper to learn how corporate IT can manage its environment as if it is “deployed to the cloud.” So, if and when different parts of the environment are deployed to the cloud, day-to-day management of the environment remains unchanged—regardless of where it is running.

 

 

Featured, Miscellaneous IT, Tech News

Tech News Recap for the Week of 3/31/2014

 

Here’s a quick IT news recap from around the web for the week of 3/31/2014. Enjoy!

Would you like to learn how you can cut costs by transforming your IT Department into a broker of IT services? Download this whitepaper to learn more.

 

Featured, Microsoft, Miscellaneous IT

March Madness Final Four: NCAA Basketball & Microsoft Ending Extended Support

By Rob O’Shaughnessy, Software Licensing Specialist, Pre-Sales Technical Support

It’s the Final Four for the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament, and if you’re like me and your bracket is busted the only thing to root for is a potential happy hour deal at your local watering hole. By midnight on Tuesday morning a victor will be crowed, and there will be fans celebrating their teams win on the court (and winning bets) and fans mourning their loss both on the court and perhaps in their wallet.

On April 8th the season will be over and a new beginning of sorts will occur as teams prepare for the loss of their star players to the draft and or graduation. Some of these players have been loyal to the school and had productive years as players and students. They’ve given it their best to succeed and they should be commended for their efforts, but, as reality sets in, one must understand that it’s time for them to go. Newer, fresher players will replace them because the talent will continue to get better. It’s just the nature of the beast…

Ironically we’re in the Final Four days until Microsoft stops supporting iconic products of Exchange and Office 2003, Windows 2003 Server and Window XP Professional. On April 8th Microsoft will graduate these products and focus their attention on their more current offerings. There are still a lot of customers running these products, and why not, they’ve worked great, but the reality is they are over 10 years old and in four days will no longer be supported. If you’re someone using these products and are looking to make an upgrade, what can you do?

Microsoft has offered, and continues to offer, its products to be purchased through its various license programs. Microsoft technology can still be purchased as a perpetual license and be hosted on premise. In addition, Microsoft also offers some of their products through Office 365, which is their cloud technology sold via a subscription model versus owning a perpetual license. With regards to on-prem/perpetual license vs. cloud/subscription: each customer will have their own preference to choose which licensing model makes sense, but I can tell you this, Microsoft’s investment is in the cloud and they are making Office 365 a very attractive option. Don’t believe me? Let’s look at the numbers.

One of Microsoft’s more popular products is Office Professional Plus. To license Office Pro Plus with 3 years of Software Assurance (SA) in the Open Value program it would retail for $954 a device. After the 3 year SA period is up the renewal price for 3 more years of SA is $444 MSRP. Over a 6 year span the price to license a single desktop of Office Professional Plus is $1,398. By getting Software Assurance you’ll be receiving the latest editions that come out as well as Home Use Rights, which allows employees to purchase Office Professional Plus for personal use at a very cheap price.

Now the very same Office Professional Plus through Office 365 retails for $12 per User per Month, which is $144 a year. Over a 6 year period the price of Office Professional Plus through Office 365 would be $864, which is a $534 savings compared to purchasing through the aforementioned volume license option. Office Professional Plus through Office 365 is licensed per user and each user can run it on up to 5 business devices. So an employee can run a copy on their work computer, their Mac, home PC etc. Now, let’s say you don’t want Software Assurance and wanted to look at just the license cost of Office Professional Plus. Well, that would run you $508 per device. To compare, one could purchase Office 365 for 3 years for roughly the same amount, get the latest technology on 5 devices and true-up or true-down the user count depending on how many users need to run Office.

To take it a step further, Microsoft also offers different Office 365 bundles and one of their more popular bundles is the E3 Plan which includes Office Professional Plus, Exchange, SharePoint and Lync Online Plan-2. This is also licensed per user and runs for $20 per User per Month or $240 a year. When you look at the technology baked into that bundle it’s hard not to see the attractiveness. Plus, since you’re not loading the SW on your own infrastructure, money can be saved on hardware costs.

Lastly if you’re an SMB customer, Microsoft is running a promotion called the SMB Advantage where you can receive subsidy dollars on purchases of Office 365. From now until the end of May, Microsoft will cut a check for 15% on MSRP for Office 365 orders in April and 10% for orders is May. In addition, if the E3 or E4 Plan is purchased, Microsoft will kick in another 10%, so it would be 25% subsidy for April and a 20% for May. To put it in perspective a 100 user purchase of the E3 Plan in April would be a $6,000 subsidy check. This can be used for services, more software or even hardware. Please reach out to your GreenPages Account Executive for more details and to see if you’re eligible.

So as you can see, Microsoft is very cloud centric, and it’s not too late to upgrade that older technology via avenues in place to help you do that. Please reach out (you can fill out this form or send us an email at socialmedia@greenpages.com ) if you would like more details and to see if you’re eligible. GreenPages can also assist you with any migrations needs and questions you may have.

Come Monday night, when Jim Nance is handing over the NCAA trophy and “One Shining Moment” is playing in the background, rest assure that Microsoft won’t be picking up your call to assist with your XP and 2003 support issues. Those products are done, they’ve graduated, but there are some better ones out there…it’s time to move on. It’s just the nature of the beast.

 

Editor’s Note: Rob picked Syracuse to win the tournament (terrible pick). Luckily he knows a lot more about Microsoft licensing than he does about college hoops.

 

 

 

Featured, IT Management, PMO, Project management

Are You Ready for a Project Management Office? Part 2 – Players and Pitfalls

By Nancy Mather, Director of Professional Services Operations, PMP

This is the second part of a series. Catch up with part 1 here.

Once you’ve made the decision you’re ready for a Project Management Office (PMO), it’s time to think about who you need for players. If you’re on the fence about a hire due to uncertainty of sustained business needs to support the hire, or due to the fact that you have found someone that might not have the exact experience you are looking for but you believe is the kind of person you want on your team, consider a contract position instead of a permanent hire. More than half of all PMO’s use contracts resources to manage projects.

Consider the reporting structure and if the PMO will manage the project managers. It’s important to try and keep PMO resources unified within the group. That doesn’t mean that there can’t still be a dotted line reporting structure to groups outside; however, try to keep the PMO together.  The team will gain great value from the consistency that comes from being part of a PMO. In addition, it will make it easier to keep processes and best practices consistent. Project Management team meetings can be a great forum for the team to share lessons learned.

Be on the lookout for functions that might take Project Managers away from their primary focus of project management. Project Managers are known to be detail-oriented and organized by nature. This can at times make them a catch all in the company for a variety of responsibilities, some of which might not need to belong with them. This could include things like:  resource scheduling, contract creation, negotiation, or other general administrative tasks.

Over the years, we have gone through my renditions of what functions our PMs hold.  Some functions we’ve moved to centralize, and others we have decentralized. Centralizing helped us increase efficiency in areas around contract writing and resource scheduling, and it decreased efficiency when it came to centralized billing. The key is to be open to change and recognize that there is not a one size fits all answer.

If project managing is not the primary role of the person that’s deemed the project manager, you could be setting yourself up to fail. We often see examples of IT professionals that wear a project management hat as needed in their organization. While some can do this effectively, others can get more hands on than needed and take on more of the leg work than needed. Just because someone is good in one role, it doesn’t mean they will automatically be a good project manager.

Executive buy-in is also a must. Without executive level support of the PMO, your PMO could be doomed to fail by not being valued or being dismissed as an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy. There must be executive buy-in that believes in the fundamental value of a PMO. In order for this to happen, the PMO must be aligned with the organization’s strategy. If the PMO doesn’t understand the company’s key drivers, it won’t contribute to the value.

Continual improvement is also key.  While a PMO should use best practices for consistency, it’s important to make sure that these practices are continually being looked at for refinement and continuous improvement. The PMO must be agile in the event that the needs of the business change.

By considering these things up front, it will help ensure that you are on the right path to successfully establishing a PMO. As always, our Project Management team is available to offer you professional advice any time!

 

 

Amazon, cloud brokerage, Cloud computing, Featured, Public Cloud

Google & Amazon Cut Prices & Microsoft is Next. Why Not Take Advantage of Them All?

By Ben Stephenson, Journey to the Cloud

 

There’s been a lot of talk this week about price cuts coming from cloud providers. First Google announced several price reductions for most of its cloud services. In response, Amazon announced a round of price cuts as well. This marked the 42nd time AWS has reduced prices since 2006. This means that Microsoft Azure will most likely get in on the action as well. Last April, Microsoft pledged that it would match any price drops from AWS. In early 2014, Microsoft did just that when it lowered prices to match a reduction made by Amazon. TechCrunch has nice write-ups on the specifics of the Google & Amazon  price reductions.

Obviously price cuts are beneficial to organizations using these platforms, but wouldn’t it make sense to take advantage of price cuts from multiple providers at the same time to maximize cost savings and performance? What if you moved different applications to different clouds – or even different parts of an application to different clouds?

Let’s say you have some applications for your database that require high-end performance, and you’re willing to pay more for performance.  But if you use a more expensive provider exclusively, you may be overspending in other areas that do not require as high performance. So, instead of running all your apps on the same provider, you could move some, say, commodity web-based applications that don’t require as much performance to the cheapest provider. You also have to keep in mind that the best option could be to keep the application on premise. This is only one example. John Dixon wrote a great ebook about the evolution of the corporate IT department and gives a more in depth look at the “which app, which cloud” philosophy that I highly recommend downloading.

So why don’t more companies split applications across multiple cloud providers? It’s simple; it’s complex and painful to manage. Furthermore, price cuts can happen at the spur of the moment so you need to be able to take advantage in real time to maximize savings.

This is where you need a management platform like GreenPages’ Cloud Management as a Service (CMaaS) Brokerage and Governance offering. CMaaS gives you the ability to match the right applications to the right cloud providers and compare the true cost of running your resources at a CSP before even placing an order. The platform eliminates cloud sourcing complexity with a central portal where business and IT users can quickly and easily aggregate, procure, and pay for cloud solutions. It answers the “which app, which cloud?” question across both internal private and public cloud environments.

Has your organization looked into spreading different applications across different clouds? What are your thoughts?

 

Download whitepaper: Cloud Management, Now