Cumulus Global CEO Clouds Up New England Business Expo

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Boston, MA – October 18, 2011 – Allen Falcon, CEO of Cumulus Global (https://www.cumulusglobal.com/) will be clouding up the New England Business Expo at the DCU Center in Worcester.  As a featured speaker, Falcon’s seminar — Ground to Cloud in 30 Days! — will provide small and mid-size business owners with a road map for secure, cost-effective use of cloud computing solutions.  While most small businesses are aware of cloud computing, many are unsure about how to take the first steps.  Falcon will cover the basics of planning and moving to cloud computing, including the reality of security concerns and service level agreements.

“For most businesses, cloud computing solutions hold great potential for improved efficiency and cost  savings,” notes Falcon. “This seminar will take the mystery and fear out of cloud computing and will provide a road map for sound decisions and plans.”

Ground to Cloud in 30 Days! is scheduled for 4:00 pm in the New England Business Expo seminar rooms, on the 3rd floor of the DCU Center.  Interested business owners can learn more at Cumulus Global’s News and Events page or by visiting the expo site.

About Cumulus Global
Cumulus Global, formerly Horizon Info Services, helps small and mid-size businesses, non-profits, governments, and educational institutions thrive by delivering cloud computing solutions.  Serving clients from 1 to more than 1000 employees across numerous industries, we align technology with our clients’ goals, objectives, and bottom lines. We leverage our expertise, vendor relationships, and a diversified range of best-of-breed cloud services to create custom solutions with tangible value.

Tuesday Take-Away: New Security Standards for Cloud Computing

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It is common for cloud computing vendors often promote their security credentials, and doing so gives prospective customers valuable information about the vendors’ security operations and capabilities.

If your vendor is still promoting their SAS 70 Type II certifications, however, they are a little bit out of date.

As of June 15, 2011, the American Institute of CPAs replaced SAS 70 with SSAE 16, a much more rigorous standard for service provider security audits and attestations.  SSAE 16 is also in line with a separate, international security audit and attestation standard, ISAE 3402.

If you use Google Apps, Google Postini Services, Google App Engine, and/or Google Apps Script, you are in good shape.  Google is one of the first cloud computing vendors to move to the new, more rigorous, standards.

Google has attained SSAE 16 Type II and ISAE 3402 Type II certifications for these services.  SAS 70 Type II certifications are still valid for audits conducted before June 15, 2011.

While third party audits are part of the security and compliance benefits of Google Apps and Google App Engine products.  Google’s security efforts go well beyond audit requirements.  You can learn more about Google’s security by reviewing the current security white paper and watching this data center video tour.

Want to know more?  Contact us.  We would be happy to discuss your needs.

Friday Thought: Is BYOD Right for Your Business?

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A new trend is emerging in corporate IT that may make sense for small and mid-size businesses:  BYOD, or Bring-Your-Own-Device.  Companies with BYOD policies allow workers to pick their own smartphones, tablets, and, in some cases, laptop computers.  Most BYOD policies provide a fixed stipend for each type of device with employees free to spend more personally for a better device.

Recent articles in the New York Times and on SmarterTechnology.com have focused on this trend.   For large companies, BYOD policies …

  • Save money on purchases as employees often pick up part of the cost for better devices
  • Reduce demand on IT staff as BYOD employees often turn to other sources for help
  • Overcome the “my technology at home is better than at the office” syndrome

The challenge, of course, is security.  Not just access control, but virus and malware protection require standards and verification.

As more small and mid-size businesses move into the cloud, BYOD will make sense for smaller businesses as well.  Cloud computing solutions are more likely to be device independent, enabling users to pick their preferred smartphone, tablet, or laptop.  Google Apps, for example, provides native support for Android, iPhone, and Blackberry devices.

With BYOD, users pick the device or platform that works best for them, helping them be more productive.  As the recent articles note, colleges and universities have supported BYOD programs for some time with good results.  Users pick devices that best serve their needs, IT facilitates connectivity and support.

BYOD shifts some of the responsibility for support to the end user, so IT departments would be wise to ensure that end user support is available from key software and cloud solution vendors or resellers.   End users may turn to Apple for help with their iPad 2, but will need guidance from IT for issues of connectivity to applications and services.  Tier 2 support from the vendors or resellers should be a cost effective means to reduce demand for IT support.

The IT team needs to be prepared to help users navigate vendor support and, more importantly, configure devices to keep business and personal accounts separate.   And, if necessary, new SSO and identity management tools are available for smartphones and tablets.  While these tools add cost and a management layer, they can provide provide a level of security that may be appropriate whether the device is owned by the company or the employee.

Finally, a solid “usage” policy should be in place governing the use of company computing resources and how personal equipment and software may and may not be used for company business.  Having a policy in place sets guidelines and boundaries that will keep a BYOD program from getting out of hand.

With a sound set of usage policies and a reasonable stipend, BYOD can help small and mid-size businesses increase productivity.

Tuesday Take-Away: Tools to Ease Scheduling Woes

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Have you ever notices that the number of emails it takes to schedule a meeting seems to increase exponentially with the number of people you invite?  With our electronically organized days, it seems to get harder and harder to find a common time to meet, particularly when setting up meeting with people outside your company or organization.

While most calendar services give you the ability to see individuals’ free/busy times within your organization, scheduling meetings with others gets more tricky.   Fortunately, you have some tools.

With a new feature, appointment slots, in Google Calendar, you can block off and share blocks of time, enabling others to schedule appointments with you at your convenience. The user interface is simple and lets you create a single large block of time or multiple appointment windows.

By sharing a link with others, they can select a block of time and schedule a meeting with you for a mutually convenient time.

If you want to give it a try, click here for a full set of instructions.

Appointment slots in Calendar work well for arranging meetings with individuals, but what if you are trying to schedule a group?

We have found that Tungle to be an effective, free service.   Tungle lets you invite one person or many to a meeting by providing them multiple times when you are available.  Each person responds with their availability, then you pick the meeting time when all, or most, (or the most important) attendees are available.  At that point, everybody receives a confirmation of the booking and a formal meeting invite.  Tungle syncs with your Google Calendar and, if you want, your contacts.

Using either or both of these tools, you can reduce the time and stress involved in scheduling group meetings.

 


 

Friday Thought: Cloud Computing Changes IT Roles

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Jason Hiner recently kicked off the annual TechRepublic Live 2011 event in September by asking “What will the IT department look like in 2015”?  His conclusion is that larger centralized IT departments will give way to leaner teams with more IT consultants.  He also states that IT departments will focus resources on software, the cloud, and mobile devices.

What is really changing, however, is the roles IT will need to play, particularly as organizations move services to the cloud.   Rather than focusing on IT services, such as server maintenance, email, and other core/infrastructure services, IT departments will be able to focus on services that are closer to the business and end user needs.

As businesses implement cloud computing solutions, the need for hardware and software administration drops to near zero.  Time consuming activities such as managing patches, updates, and revision upgrades will almost vanish.  Backups, disaster recovery, spam/virus protection, and many other tasks will no longer require the time and attention they do today.

Instead, IT departments will be managing software systems.  IT departments will need to understand business processes and models and the software and data that support them.  In-house or in the cloud, IT staff will be expected to be able to help businesses manage and use its data, and ensure that applications support how users work.

While Mr. Hiner sees the IT pros that perform these tasks losing their jobs and being replaced by consultants that can bridge the gap between business and applications, I see a different path.

Smart IT pros will update their skills as companies migrate into cloud solutions.  These skills will develop over time as the migration happens, particularly in mid-size and small businesses where so many IT roles are often left unfulfilled.

I see network administrators that used to spend time managing email, spam/virus, and backup servers getting trained as database administrators and gaining skills in data management and reporting.  I see help desk teams learning to respond to business application requests as the number of “it’s not working/infrastructure” requests decline.

The move to cloud computing will change the role of IT professionals, but does not necessarily correlate to job loss.  Organizations use consultants when they do not have the skill set or resources in house.  IT pros that “get” cloud computing will migrate their expertise from infrastructure and toward the business.  In the process, they will become more valuable to the organization.

 

Google Docs and OffiSync Back on Track

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Many of our OffiSync customers experienced authentication issues over the past several days when connecting to Google Docs.

These errors were due to changes made by Google in the Google Docs API.  OffiSync has released a new version that fixes the issue.

The new version should install automatically the next time users open an MS Office application.  If users do not see the prompt, they should click on Settings -> Check for Updates on the OffiSync menu/toolbar/ribbon.

 

 

Cumulus Global CEO to speak at SpiceWorld 2011

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Allen Falcon, CEO of Cumulus Global (www.cumulusglobal.com) will be speaking at the SpiceWorld  2011 on October 20, 2011 in Austin, Tx.  SpiceWorld is the annual Spiceworks IT User Conference. The keynote panel discussion, “The Cloud: Should I Stay or Should I Go?”, will focus on decision points for IT professionals considering moving their organizations to cloud computing solutions.

“This panel reflects an evolutionary change in thinking about cloud computing,” notes Falcon.  “In past conferences, events focused on the ‘what’ and ‘if’ of cloud computing.  This panel focuses on the ‘how’.  Businesses are moving to the cloud, the challenge is to find the best path forward.”

For more information on the panel discussion and Spiceworld 2011, visit the News and Events page on the Cumulus Global website at: https://www.cumulusglobal.com/news-events/ or visit www.spiceworks.com/spiceworld/2011.

About Cumulus Global
Cumulus Global, formerly Horizon Info Services, helps small and mid-size businesses, non-profits, governments, and educational institutions thrive by delivering cloud computing solutions.  Serving clients from 1 to more than 1000 employees across numerous industries, we align technology with our clients’ goals, objectives, and bottom lines. We leverage our expertise, vendor relationships, and a diversified range of best-of-breed cloud services to create custom solutions with tangible value.

About Spiceworks
Globally, over 1 million companies and 1.6 million IT professionals at small and mid-size businesses use Spiceworks to monitor and manage the IT systems.  Spiceworks is free to users and is funded by advertising to spiceworks members.

Tuesday Take-Away: Google Apps as a SEO Tool

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Search engine optimization (“SEO”) experts will tell you that to improve your “organic”, or unpaid, standing in search results, search engines need to see you web site as relevant.  A major factor for nearly all search engines is how many authoritative sites link to your web site and the amount of authoritative content is available at your site.

Enter Google Apps for Business

As you may or may not know, within Google Apps for Business, you have the ability share information publicly.  When you do this, you are instructing Google to index the information in the global search engine.  You are giving Google authoritative information.

Taking advantage of this feature can improve your SEO results.

Calendar Events:

If you have public events (webinars, seminars, speaking engagements, etc.), create a company events calendar in Google Apps for Business and create a calendar entry for each event.  You can also embed the calendar in your web site.

For each calendar entry, include links to relevant information on your web site such as data sheets or a more detailed description of the event.

Be sure to mark the event “Public” so that the event is indexed by Google.

Documents:

Many web sites include documents — data sheets, white papers, etc. — in PDF format that visitors can download.

Instead of uploading these to your web server, save these in Google Docs and make them public.  Doing so pushes them into the Google search engine for indexing.

Within these documents, include live HTML links back to related content on you web site.  These can be to a product page, a contact us form, and your home page (of course).  Granted, individual that print the PDF files will not benefit from the links.  But those that view them on-screen, and the search engines, can follow those links to your site.

With URL mapping, your content appears to be under your domain and part of your website (i.e. docs.yourdomain.com),  In reality, the content is actually external to you web site.  Links from public information in Google Docs and Calendar provide are authoritative and will be indexed.

Friday Thought: All Outages are Not Equal

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Last week Google Docs experienced an outage lasting about 30 minutes.  Almost immediately, the “reconsider the cloud” articles and blogs began to appear.   Articles like this one on Ars Technica, immediately lump the Google Docs outage with other cloud outages, including Amazon’s outage earlier this year and the on-going problems with Microsoft’s BPOS and Office365 services.

And well no outages are good, they are not all the same.  In most cases, the nature of the outages and their impact reflect the nature of the architecture and the service provider.

  • The Google Docs outage was caused by a memory error and was exposed by an update.  Google acknowledged the error and resolved the issue in under 45 minutes.
  • Amazon’s outage was a network failure that took an entire data center off-line.  Customer that signed up for redundancy were not impacted.
  • Microsoft’s flurry of outages, including a 6 hour outage that took Microsoft almost 90 minutes to fully acknowledge, appear to be related to DNS, load, and other operational issues.

Why is it important to understand the cause and nature of the outage?  With this understanding, you can provide rational comparisons between cloud and in-house systems and between vendors.

Every piece of software has bugs and some bugs are more serious than others.  Google’s architecture enables Google to roll forward and roll back changes rapidly across their entire infrastructure.  The fact that a problem was identified and corrected in under an hour is evidence of the effectiveness of their operations and architecture.

To compare Google to in-house systems, Microsoft releases bug fixes and updates monthly which generally require server reboots.  Depending on the size and use of each server (file/print, Exchange, etc), multiple reboots may be necessary and reboots can run well over an hour.  In the last two years, over 50% of all “patch Tuesday” releases have been followed up with updates, emergency patches, or hot-fixes with the recommendation of immediate action.  Fixing a bug in one of Microsoft’s releases can take from hours to days.  Comparatively, under an hour is not so shabby.

When looking across cloud vendors, the nature of the outage is also important.  Amazon customers that chose not to pay extra for redundancy knowingly assumed a small risk that their systems could become unavailable due to a large error or event.  Just like any IT decision, each business must make a cost/benefit analysis.

Customers should understand the level of redundancy provided with their service and the extra costs involved to ensure better availability.

The most troubling of the cloud outages are Microsoft’s.  Why?  Because the causes appear to relate to an inability to manage a high-volume, multi-tenant infrastructure.  Just like you cannot watch TV without electricity, you cannot run online services (or much of anything on a computer) without DNS.  That Microsoft continues to struggle with DNS, routing, and other operational issues leads me to believe that their infrastructure lacks the architecture and operating procedures to prove reliable.

Should cloud outages make us wary? Yes and no.  Yes to the extent that customers should understand what they are buying with a cloud solution — not just features and functions, but ecosystem.  No, to the extent that when put in perspective, cloud solutions are still generally proving more reliable and available than in-house systems.

 

 

Friday Thought: Maybe the Backup Should Be The Primary

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When Hurricane Irene seemed like a bigger threat to the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, I started receiving emails with emergency contact information.  From non-profits I work with, organizations to which I belong, businesses I use, and event customers of Cumulus Global.  While some noted likely or planned closing, most were providing alternate means of communication “just in case” power outages caused their email server and phones to go down or be unreachable.

Every single one of these alternate emails ended in @gmail.com. Go figure!  When businesses and non-profits need an email service that will be available during the storm and that can be accessed from phones and tablets as easily as from computers, they turn to Gmail.

In-house email servers are susceptible to power outages, Internet downtime, and other local or regional crises.  Gmail is not.  Gmail runs redundantly across many geographically dispersed data centers.  And while it is easy to seamlessly connect your iPhone, Android, or Blackberry, all you really need is an Internet connection and a browser.

For all of the organizations that went out of their way to tell me about their backup email service, the backup service is more reliable and effective than their in-house system.   Why then wouldn’t they switch?

I’m not talking about Gmail, either.  I’m talking about businesses and non-profits moving to Google Apps for Business and Google Apps for Education, respectively.

For 501c3 non-profits and schools, Google Apps of Education is free.  You get better service and save money.  And, we can help you migrate your data and your team.  Other non-profits are eligible for discounts, contact me and find out more.

For businesses, our Google Apps for Business packages, with end user support, start at less than the equivalent of $10 per user per month.

Think of the benefits of having your email on the most reliable, most accessible communication and collaboration platform available.  Think of your piece of mind know that your organization, its employees, its customers, and its constituents will be able to communicate without jumping through hoops.

Migration is quick and painless.  Email or call us toll free (866-356-1202).  Let’s discuss how we can help you.