Microsoft BPOS Outage Gets Little Attention

/in

When it comes to Microsoft’s BPOS service, we often hear grumblings from the user community about downtime.  Yet, there is little or no press coverage.  Beyond the frequency of scheduled maintenance windows required for patches and security updates, we hear complaints about performance-related outages and emergency maintenance windows for fixes and updates to scheduled patches.

On Monday, August 23rd, Reuters reported that Microsoft’s US Data Centers experiences an outage lasting more than 2 hours … well beyond the 99.9% SLA touted by Microsoft for the BPOS and other hosted services.

That last Gmail outage made headlines on CNN and USA Today.   The Microsoft BPOS outage received relatively little coverage beyond a core set of reports in the IT press.  Maybe there is a difference in expectations?

Is this how your IT department spends its time?

/in

As reported today in ZDnet, Microsoft’s August Patch Tuesday is the largest ever, with 14 major patches, 8 of which are critical.

Why do you care?

Because if your IT dept is good, they are first going to spend time evaluating your business’ risk and will try to determine if any of these updates will break anything running on your network.  This means time and money that could be better spent on IT activities that improve business efficiency and profitability.

One of the advantages of cloud computing, and Google Apps in particular, is that updates can happen at anytime without disrupting users.  Critical updates can be deployed globally to all customers within hours.

Cloud computing is a more efficient means of managing the infrastructure underlying your applications and your business.

An Epidemic is Underway

/in

Hopefully, you did not notice.  Hopefully, your computer has been inoculated from zero-day viruses and the viruses that follow them.  If not, today is the day to update your virus protection and deep scan your systems.

Why? A virus outbreak continues to plague the Internet.

Starting Friday afternoon EST, we began seeing an large increase in the number of Virus Outbreak warnings for our clients covered by Google Postini Services (as part of Google Apps or protecting their internal email servers).  A Virus Outbreak alert reaches us when a large number of virus infected emails are being sent and blocked.

We cover thousands of mailboxes for hundreds of companies.  In a typical day, we see about five (5)  Virus Outbreak alerts.  Since Friday, we are seeing about 400 per day, an increase of nearly 8000%.  Unprotected systems are more than vulnerable, they are targets.

If you have questions about your level of protection, or you know of a business that needs better protection from spam and viruses, please contact us.  We are happy to help.

Horizon Info Services Receives FCC E-Rate Certification

/in

Libraries, Schools, and Rural Health Facilities can receive funding for up to 90% of the cost of
Google Apps, Google Postini Services, and related professional services purchased through
Horizon

Libraries, Schools, and Rural Health Facilities can receive funding for up to 90% of the cost of  Google Apps, Google Postini Services, and related professional services purchased through Horizon

WESTBOROUGH, MA – August 4, 2010 – Horizon Info Services, LLC announced that it is the first Google Apps Authorized Reseller to receive certification for the FCC E-Rate program.  With E-RATE certification, eligible libraries, schools, and rural health facilities can receive reimbursements from the FCC’s Universal Service Fund (USF) for Google Apps, Google Postini Services, and related implementation and support services purchased through Horizon.  Depending on the organization’s eligibility, reimbursements can range from 20% up to 90% of the service fees.

“This is a great opportunity for eligible entities,” stated Allen Falcon, Horizon’s founder and CEO.  “Through this program we help budget-strapped organizations save hundreds, even thousands, of dollars on email, communication, and collaboration services.”

By migrating to Google Apps, organizations gain more than subsidized email services, they get a range of communication and collaboration services.  The value proposition is far greater than other solutions. “You can use E-Rate funds to subsidize the cost of a Microsoft Exchange service and you get email and calendars,” notes Falcon.  “Switch to Google Apps, and you get email and calendars plus shared online documents; word processing, presentation, and spreadsheet tools; free voice/video conferencing; secure web sites for classrooms and project teams; and many other services.”  Because these additional services are free components of the Google Apps suite, they are covered under the E-Rate program. With other solutions, these services may not be eligible for reimbursement.

To promote the availability of funding for Google Apps, Horizon is hosting a series of webinars that cover the basics of the FCC E-Rate program and the steps libraries, schools, and rural medical facilities must follow to obtain funding for Google Apps and related services.  According to Falcon, Horizon also works closely with Google’s direct sales force and other resellers to connect eligible organizations to available funds.  Interested organizations can contact Horizon by email at info@horizoninfoservices.com or by phone at 866-356-1202.

About the E-RATE Program.  Administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), the program uses fees collected on every phone bill in the United States to equalize the cost of many telecommunication services for low income and rural communities.  In addition to consumer subsidies, the Universal Service Fund helps libraries, schools, and rural medical facilities upgrade and maintain a range of communication services and technologies, including email and related services.

About Google Apps.  Google Apps is a secure, integrated suite of communication and collaboration tools, including email, calendars, contacts, groups, office productivity tools, online document sharing,  secure collaboration web sites, video, and more.  Google and Horizon offer special pricing and discounts for schools, non-profit organizations, and governmental organizations.

About Horizon Info Services, LLC.  Horizon Info Services (http://www.horizoninfoservices.com) offers a range of cloud computing solutions to businesses and organizations with 1 to 500 users.  Horizon is an Authorized Reseller of Google Apps and Google Postini Services, in addition to a range of online backup, web security, and cloud storage solutions.

Economy is Ripe for Cloud Computing

/in

A recent article in the New York Times reported that in the current economy, businesses are spending capital rather than hiring additional employees.  As reported in the article, the Commerce Department noted that

“The equipment and software category alone grew at an annual rate of 21.9 percent, the fastest pace in 12 years.”

When we look  at the stats and trends, we see businesses moving forward with project that have been put on hold.  And, we question whether or not this is a wise move.  Is moving forward with a project that’s been on hold for 12 to 24 months still the best way to go? In many cases, the answer is “No!”.

Many businesses are facing upgrades to core systems and infrastructure — desktop operating systems, office productivity tools, email servers — and are looking to finally move forward implementing collaboration systems.  Much of this demand is driven by aging hardware and software that is reaching end of life and vendor support.

Before moving forward with existing plans, businesses would do well to reassess their planned directions.  The past 24 months has seen a dramatic improvement and expansion of cloud-based services.  During that time, for example, Google has added over 200 major features to the Google Apps Premier Edition suite of services.  And, the rate of innovation and adoption for cloud computing solutions continues to accelerate.

If businesses do not take a fresh look, they stand to miss the improved integration between Google Apps and Windows desktops — Outlook and MS Office; support for enterprise features such as delegation of email and calendars and mobile device management tools; and improve security and management tools.

In short, what was leading edge is quickly moving mainstream.  Reactivating projects without reassessing options means potentially missing better solutions and lowering costs.  And, wouldn’t most businesses rather spend money on people and projects with greater returns than on their infrastructure and email?

If your business would benefit from a free email and collaboration assessment, please let us know.

Cloud Protects Small City from Hurricanes

/in ,

How, you may ask, can a Cloud protect a small Florida city from Hurricanes?  Just ask the IT team supporting the City of Defuniak Springs and their police force.

In the face of Hurricanes and new regulations requiring public access to email, the City of Defuniak Springs, Florida, needed a disaster-safe email service with message archiving and discovery. Horizon’s Google Apps Premier Edition / Message Discovery bundle delivered availability, secure access, mobile user integration, and audit-ready archives.

The Challenge:Customer Profile

The City of Defuniak Springs, FL, like many municipalities, found itself searching for a new email solution. Deemed part of the public record, the city must preserve and be able to recall messages upon request. As important, the city and its police force needed to ensure email and critical documents would be available during Hurricanes and other major events.

The Solution:

In choosing Google Apps Premier Edition, the town and its police force have a secure, hosted email service that resides well out of harm’s way. Accessible from any Internet-connected device, users can work from vehicles, cell phones and PDAs during power outages. Bundled with Message Discovery, the city and police have an audit-ready archive of all email, meeting all regulatory requirements. As part of the package, Google Sites provide a secure, hosted location for critical documents when on-premise servers are unavailable. From decision to go-live in less than a week, the Google Apps Premier Edition and Message Discovery bundle costs a small fraction of other on-premise and hosted solutions.

 

 

New APIs Open Opportunities for 3rd Party Admin Solutions

/in

The Google Apps Audit API now allows Google Apps administrators to audit a user’s email, email drafts, and archived chats.  In addition, a domain administrator can retrieve account login information and download a user’s mailbox.

These features, and others Google is adding to the Google Apps API, open new opportunities for more advanced administrative features — a necessity in today’s enterprise computing environment.

Keep an eye on the Google Apps Marketplace for new management apps.

Google Documents Editor Updates

/in

Google has released several enhancements to the Google Docs word processor.

  • Comment scrolling:
    Whenever you click in a comment it will now scroll so that it’s directly beside the associated text.
  • Dictionary:
    Select a word in your doc, you can look up the definition for that word by going to ‘Tools’ then ‘Define…’.
  • Special Characters:
    Click ‘Insert’, then ‘Special characters’.
  • Metric Units:
    If your language is set to ‘English US’, your ruler will be set in inches. All other locales will now see the ruler with metric units but this will soon be a setting that you can modify.

Google Spreadsheet Update

/in

As Google continues to aggressively enhance the user interface and functionalities, they continue to announce more capabilities:

  • Range sorting: You can now choose column ranges in ascending or descending order. You can also add and take away rules as well as selecting if data has a header or not.
  • Formula highlighting in Internet Explorer: Highlight the ranges in the formula – each range referenced in a formula gets highlighted a different color automatically.

You can learn more here.

MS Office Suite and Apps Prices Jump 4% to 10%

/in

With May 12 set for the official launch of MS Office 2010, the folks at ZDNET are reporting on pricing analysis done by Directions on Microsoft.  After analyzing the maze of Microsoft pricing programs for businesses, they report that prices are jumping 4% to 10% across the suite, and for applications like Project and Sharepoint.

Are these increases enough to prompt businesses to look at other solutions, or just another annoying fact of life when running a Microsft-based ecosystem?