Why Your SMB Should Relocate to the Cloud The number of decisions small business owners must make is seemingly endless. They are the authority on whom to hire, how to run the business and with whom to do business with, so choosing tech tools may not always be at the top of their priority list. With the use of the cloud on the rise, small business owners are more eager than ever to take advantage of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions – essentially software that is delivered and maintained over the internet rather than running on a server in the office. For
Infrastructure
Past, Present and Future: Cloud Computing in Three Minutes Perhaps the most interesting thing about the cloud is just how fluffy it really is. Recent news indicates that it has finally gone mainsteam. Yet at the same time, most people are still not quite clear on what the cloud really is. To get a better understanding, here’s a three-minute summary of where the clouds came from and where they are heading. Looking at the roots of the cloud computing movement, it all really started in the late ‘90s when companies with a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business model started surfacing. Perhaps the most well known pioneer is Salesforce.com,
Cloud Governance Should Be Prioritized When businesses move existing applications and resources to the cloud, they always do it in phases, moving the most stable applications first in order to minimize down time. The transition is a slow process which enables users to have enough time to adapt to the new system. Because of this, cloud governance is also staggered per application or phase. The problem here is that people will get used to the staggered way governance is being implemented with many people overseeing governance for each different application. The correct method is a centralized approach to managing cloud
Virtualization Enables BYOD & Delivers IT Services On-Demand to Any Device With BYOD finding its way into the enterprise, the demand to deliver IT services to a plethora of devices while ensuring information security and keeping a centralized security policy are some of the real challenges which organization can no more ignore. Virtualization is an enabler which provides a viable solution to these and more challenges – simplifying IT infrastructure, cutting significant costs and allowing modern enterprise worker to use IT services on any device. The age of dedicated work stations with frequent software updates and its associated complexities are
Taking the PBX into the Cloud No matter how dramatic the reductions in OPEX, no matter how impressive the promised ROI, small and medium businesses cannot afford to rip and replace current infrastructure every time a technology breakthrough makes headlines. Take the case of the PBX—on-premise equipment and systems have become increasingly complex and unwieldy to support and upgrade. Cloud-hosted PBX services, in contrast, offer an enticing list of cost-saving IP communications capabilities: Enterprise-class unified communications features (audio-video conferencing, integrated voicemail and email, automatic call forwarding, and more) Integration with other enterprise-class business applications (instant messaging, conference room scheduling, etc.)
Start-Ups and The Cloud: A Match Made in Heaven Low on cash, always busy and prone to wonder, first-time entrepreneurs who rely on technology are fighting an uphill battle. Along with the sales, recruiting and administrative responsibilities entrepreneurs shoulder, these human swiss-army knives must also arrange an efficient IT structure. Entrepreneurs in years past had to use the bulk of their start-up capital to buy servers and hire IT professionals, leaving little money left to grow the rest of the business. An new era in technology has removed a large part of the IT hardware and hiring burden from these
Using The Cloud For Better Business Continuity Planning for your cloud application or website to go down seems like it should be a no brainer. We assume that every business is aptly prepared; in fact most people reading this probably believe theirs is. It is, right? Right? Turns out it only takes one extreme incident to show us that keeping websites and applications online no matter what the circumstance really is an after thought for many organizations. For instance, sites like Gawker, Gizmodo, and Huffington Post all went down during Hurricane Sandy last fall, as did hundreds of other businesses’
