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How SMBs are looking to the cloud to unlock workforce potential

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) comprise the ‘engine room’ of the UK’s business economy. 

Recent figures from the Department of Business Skills and Innovation underline their importance and reveal  that SMBs make up 99% of all businesses and account for 59% of all private sector employment and 49% of all private sector turnover, so there’s nothing ‘small’ about their role in contributing to the economic recovery.

It’s also encouraging to see that the number of UK SMBs has grown hugely in the past decade, rising from 3.5 million in the UK in 2000 to 4.5 million in 2011, according to the Federation of Small Businesses.

But despite renewed optimism and growth, SMB organisations have endured tough times through the recession and must continue to maintain a tight rein on operational costs and overheads. Budgets for key areas such HR and IT remain closely guarded and …

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How Buggy Are Today’s APIs? [Infographic]

This infographic highlights some interesting findings from Parasoft’s research on API Integrity…
With the advent of the API economy, the integrity of the APIs you produce and consume is now more important than ever. As applications grow increasingly interdependent, the security, functionality, and performance of the composite «mashup» is only as strong as its weakest link. The success of an end-to-end transaction depends upon all the parts working flawlessly-all the time.
To better understand the scope and impact of API issues, Parasoft, leading provider of API Testing solutions, recently conducted study on API Integrity. The following infographic highlights some interesting findings…

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Cloud Expo: Top 10 Tips for Engaging Customers with Social Media

Over the past decade, social media has disrupted the traditional methods of providing customer support. In the new era, digital tools like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest are transforming organizations into social enterprises.
For companies of any size, a strong social media strategy is a growing necessity in the world of branding. What savvy businesses are doing is taking advantage of collaborative online platforms to shorten the distance between support specialists and consumers. The bottom line is that social media is a strategic tool that can be used to manage a company’s online reputation, control the spread of misinformation and enhance the overall customer experience.
In his session at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, Robert Collazo, Manager of Social Media and Senior Systems Engineer at Rackspace, will explain how you can leverage social and mobile technologies to drive real business outcomes. Attendees will learn how to optimize their company’s online presence in order to build customer engagement and extract value from social networks like Facebook, micro-blogs like Twitter and multimedia platforms like YouTube.

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Why Use the Cloud?

When the cloud first came out, there were the usual skeptics. «Why would I need a virtual storage when I have my computer right here?» they would ask. Truth be told, if you can access your stored data by just opening a folder or plugging in a USB drive, why go through the toll of going online, logging in, and then downloading the files you want, which could take a while if your internet is subpar? That sounds like reason enough not to get one. However, there are plenty of positives worth considering as well, and these can outweigh the cons of slow internet speed by a long shot.

Lost Data
First and foremost, the biggest reason the cloud was made, was to help people store their data and recover it if something were to happen to their computer. Google was the first to get on board with this idea by not only having cloud backup like Carbonite, the original cloud backup service, but actually designing a laptop and an operating system made specifically to always keep in-sync with your own personal cloud. Anywhere you went, your files were available to you as long as you had access to a computer or mobile device and an internet connection.

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MangoApps to Exhibit at Cloud Expo Silicon Valley

SYS-CON Events announced today that MangoApps, the social collaboration company, will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 13th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 4–7, 2013, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
MangoApps is a collaboration network that combines Employee Social Networking, Team Collaboration tools and Intranet into one seamless product.
Cloud Expo® 2013 Silicon Valley, November 4-7, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.

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Cloud Expo: Unified Security Across Mobile, Web, Cloud and APIs

As users are increasingly consuming data through mobile and cloud services, enterprise must adapt to enable these new channels while maintaining security and providing a consistent user experience. Users should be able use their web credentials, but still seamlessly access data through these additional channels.
In his session at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, Alistair Farquharson, CTO of SOA Software, will examine the different security and identity considerations across Web, mobile and cloud, and explore API best practices to achieve federation across these channels.

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Forex Trading with Solar VPS

Maybe you’re looking to go long or maybe you are playing the market short. Maybe your pairing currency against one another (for the sake of context, the U.S. dollar vs. the Japanese Yen). Whatever your trade for the day or week and regardless of how much money you are currently day trading with, you are going to need an avenue in which to conduct your trading activities. More to the point, you are going to need a virtual platform which allows you to use any trading app you choose, scale your resources if need be, operate with sub-microsecond latency to major financial markets and trade from anywhere in the world with confidence and security. With this in mind, we want to introduce you to Solar VPS SolarSystem Windows VPS SolarSystem Windows VPS and SolarSystem Linux VPS. As noted on the site, SolarSystem Windows and Linux VPS Pods are highly scalable (see the six packages included), highly affordable and have the ability to keep you connected to your Forex trading life regardless of your location in the world. Due to this, below are five great reasons why you should invest your Forex trading needs with Solar VPS SolarSystem Windows or Linux VPS Pods. 1. Location, Location, Location When it comes to Forex Trading, everyone knows time makes all the difference. One second too late, the market shifts. One second too early, the market isn’t ready for your trade. In Forex Trading, timing is everything. Due to this, Solar VPS allows you the ability to provision your VPS Forex accounts from one of four different locations within the United States. Those locations are Los Angeles, CA, Dallas, TX, Miami, FL and most important, New York City, NY. Having your Forex VPS provisioned in New York City means you have sub-microsecond access to the major financial markets of the world. It means you don’t have to worry about latency or lag when placing trades. Most importantly this means you have the ability to interact with the market before your competition on the other side of the world does. 2. Global Connectivity The nature of Forex Trading is that of someone on the go. Forex Trading is great because you have the ability to trade from your smartphone, your laptop, your tablet or your home computer. Whatever avenue you choose to utilize for your Forex Trading account, Solar VPS gives you the ability to access your Forex VPS from anywhere in the world. With our Cloud VPS solutions, you can access your VPS Forex account regardless of if you are on the train going home from work or if you are halfway around the world on a business trip. Solar VPS means global connectivity to your VPS Forex server. 3. Freedom in Applications Freedom in applications. Here is the thing, like the type of skittles you love, every Forex trader has their trading application of choice. For some that application might be ForexTrader or TradeWindowsFX. For others that application might be CitiFX or MetaTrafer. … Continue

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Featured, Miscellaneous IT, Project management

How to Project Manage When it’s Not Your Job AND Everything is a Priority

By Melanie Haskell, Project Manager III

Over the years, we have heard customers repeatedly ask for tips on how they can manage their initiatives when project management is not their only job function and everything is a priority.  Before you can manage your time, you need to know what it is you must manage.

  • Create a list of what needs to be done. The first draft of your list should capture only high level items; don’t worry you will add more details later. At this point, you’re focused on what you need to get done, not how you are going to get there.
  • Prioritize the items on the high level list. In order to create realistic priorities, set aside the concept of “everything has to be done yesterday.” This is a first pass so prioritize the list based on what you know now. You can create any coding technique that works for you (for example, high, low and medium) – the only thing that matters that the coding works for you.
  • Now take the highest priority items and determine what needs to be done to complete the objective of that item (this is called a Task List). Eventually you will work through all items on your list.  This is an iterative process.  You might be able to create this task list on your own, or you might need to pull in other entities to flesh out the details. The more complex the item, the more help you may need. For example,  upgrading the firmware on your non-production SAN is a much easier item then moving your on premise email to a hosted cloud solution or embarking on hybrid cloud computing projects. When you start talking to people, you start discovering what needs to happen, and the picture becomes clearer.
  • Organize the task list conceptually – see if you need to pull in others just like in the step above. Since you did your due diligence during the discovery stage, now your objective is to chunk out the work.
  • Assign resources – ask for help if you do not have the ability to assign anyone.  You might end up owning all items, but if you can delegate tasks do so.  Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to do it all. You can be much more effective if you can delegate tasks as necessary.  Make sure individuals understand the overall goal and how it benefits the organization, as well as how their role affects the overall initiative. Gather feedback as much as possible as this will help identify risks, missed steps in the plan etc.
  • Determine if there is a tool you want to use to help you manage the task plan (i.e. the to-do list).  Some popular tools are Microsoft Project, Excel or Word. It does not matter what tool you utilize as long as it helps you with task management (i.e. what needs to get done, who is doing it and when will it happen).  Use technology to help you!
  • Set a communication plan – How will you know a task status?  This information can be gathered in many ways. Find what works for you and your resources.  Set schedules and follow up with people to make sure they are meeting their deadlines. Make time to monitor the task list to verify the team is in alignment with the committed tasks and timelines.

 

This all might sound like a lot of work, and you’re probably already over-tapped, but this will create efficiency and save a lot of time in the end.  It’s better to plan out how you will build your house before you pick up a hammer, nails and some wood and start building. Good luck and remember, if needed, our Project Management team is here in the wings to offer you professional advice any time!

 

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When Clouds Get Cloudy

The worldwide market for cloud computing is rapidly growing across all segments – 36% CAGR through 2016, reaching a market size of $19.5B by 2016, according to the InfoPro Wave 5 Cloud Computing Study from 451 Research. The result has been a substantial increase in the operational complexity of IT infrastructure management.
Legacy IT service management (ITSM) tools and suites from vendors like IBM, HP, BMC, CA and Microsoft, designed for on-premise data centers, are no longer effective for managing cloud-centric applications and infrastructure. Therefore companies are adopting multiple open source and point solutions designed to manage specific aspects of their cloud infrastructure.

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