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7 Tenets of Remote User Support

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As our workforce and working style continues to be more mobile, more small and mid-size businesses are facing the challenge of supporting remote offices and mobile users. These remote workers may be flying solo in home offices, co-working spaces, or shared office suites, or may be part of larger remote site.

While the adoption of cloud solutions can simplify remote user support, these 7 tenets can save you time, money, and aggravation.

  1. Security
    Beyond strong passwords, ensure that the work of your remote users is as secure as those working in the office. This means providing secure access via company-managed applications and services (not personal apps), encrypting any local data when appropriate, and making sure machines and devices are physically secure.
  2. Automation
    Whenever possible, tap automated solutions for distributing software, updates, and services. Centrally managed IT services save you time and money, prevent mistakes or missed updates, and remove an IT burden from individual users.
  3. Upgrades
    Create a policy with respect to upgrades and new IT apps and services, and back the policy with responsiveness to end user needs. Your remote workers will find and install personal apps that help them do their jobs, which may or may not be in sync with your company’s needs or requirements, and can lead to data loss and other liabilities. Ensure your employees understand that you look at upgrades and new tools regularly and are open to vetting their suggestions. If you don’t or won’t provide a solution, they may move forward without you, and at your peril.
  4. Preventative Maintenance
    For users running on Mac OS, Windows, and other legacy operating systems, scheduling preventative maintenance (PM) will avoid performance problems and prevent failures that can cost you much more time and money. Verifying that systems are up to date, defragmenting disks, and replacing aging equipment on a regular schedule will keep your team happy and productive. PM also gives you an opportunity to confirm users are complying with company standards and policies, and to dispose of aging equipment before it becomes clutter.
  5. Point of Contact
    Every remote worker should have a clear point of contact for technology issues and support. In addition to helping with questions and problems, the point of contact should serve as an advocate for remote users’ needs and a resource for orienting and training new staff on your policies and procedures. While larger remote sites may have an on-site point of contact, they can be remote and effective.
  6. Communications
    Think beyond providing remote users with high speed network access at their desks. Remote users need fast, reliable communications while mobile. And, communications go beyond connecting devices. Remote users need voice, fax, and conferencing capabilities that are as seamless (if not more so) than those working in the main office. Customers should not need to know that somebody is remote as services should work transparently. Ease of use is key to avoid frustration.
  7. Repair and Replace
    Stuff breaks. Have a plan in place for local repairs or fast replacement. Spending a day figuring out how to repair or replace a broken device does nothing more than create a day of lost productivity.

Regardless of your technology infrastructure, these 7 tenets provide a framework that will enable your remote and mobile workforce to succeed without burdening them with informal IT responsibilities.

 

3 IT Shifts for Small Business: Mobile-Social

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The nature of computing and how it’s used by business is changing – rapidly.  You have heard the buzzwords … mobile, social, cloud, big data, analytics, and others.  You probably have thought about your own business and thought the these changes are just for the enterprise.

Three major shifts in technology, however, can and will impact your organization:  Data; Cloud; and Mobile-Social.

Shift 3: Mobile-Social

Why do we combine Mobile and Social? Social would not exist without Mobile.  Before the mobile revolution, social was limited to “Other who viewed this also viewed …” cues like those on Amazon.com. Social works because it is quick, easy, convenient, and immediate.

And while mobile technology lets us stay connected to the office and provides us access to information, the real transformation with mobile and social technologies is engagement.

Engagement, driven by mobile and social technologies, lets you build trust and establish value. And, if done properly, lets you build trust and value in a secure manner.

Mobile-Social lets you expand the nature of your engagement. You can easily move beyond 1:1 conversations with your customers. The #hashtag and the @mention let you “listen in” on the conversations you customers are having with their friends, and can give you the opportunity to join the conversation.

While there are examples of social media posts going viral and shaming companies into better behavior. The real opportunity lies with this type of communication:

“We saw you post about X. We were not aware of this issue and will fix it quickly. A customer rep will call you shortly to assist you directly.”

And via communications like this:

“Thank you for mentioning your great experience with our service. We are sending you a small token or our appreciation for your business and support.”

Most small business, like yours and ours, could never afford the infrastructure necessary to facilitate, monitor, and act on social media interactions.  Cloud-based services, however, have the horsepower and economy of scale to enable us to leverage social-mobile technologies. And, make it possible to integrate our social-mobile applications with our operational and line of business systems.

 

3 IT Shifts for Small Business: Cloud

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Shifter
The nature of computing and how it’s used by business is changing – rapidly.  You have heard the buzzwords … mobile, social, cloud, big data, analytics, and others.  You probably have thought about your own business and thought the these changes are just for the enterprise.

Three major shifts in technology, however, can and will impact your organization:  Data; Cloud; and Mobile-Social.

Shift 2: Cloud

Not everything labeled “cloud” is actually “cloud computing”.  For our purposes, that’s okay.  Whether meeting the strict definition of cloud computing or a hosted service, the cloud is transformational.

Virtualization, one of the underlying mechanisms of building cloud services, is the entry point for most businesses doing it themselves.  Virtualization, however, is only the baseline.

The real power of the cloud is that IT and business processes transform into digital services.

Filing an auto insurance claim, for example, used to be a time-consuming process with paper forms, phone calls, visits to repair shops, and meeting with adjusters.  Today, filing a claim is digital service available to the policy holder by mobile app that instantly puts the information in the hands of the broker, adjuster, and back-office.

Cloud technology has the power to transform business models. Small businesses are less limited by geography than any other time in human history. Scalable, affordable resources empower companies to experiment and development without prohibitive capital investment. The pace of innovation accelerates and time to market drops.

While some small businesses may deliver cloud-based solutions to customers, for your business, the impact on the customer may be indirect. Better relationship management and systems enhance the way we sell. Better support systems scale with our customer base, enable self-help, and improve communications. Even simple abilities, like secure calendar sharing, make it easier for your customers to make appointments to speak with you and your team.

The cloud makes it easier for us to select specific applications and services. And we can integrate these applications and services into a single computing ecosystem without huge investments in middleware, custom programming, and infrastructure.

Where you start with the cloud depends on how you want your business to evolve. We recommend beginning with a platform that enables communications and collaborations, and can serve as the integration point for CRM, ERP, and other applications, as well as line of business systems.

Cloud Outages: Which Provider has 3 of the 10 biggest so far in 2014?

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CRN Magazine recently published a list of the 10 biggest and most impactful cloud service outages so far in 2010.  Outages happen.  Every vendor has, or will have, an outage at some point in time.  The severity of outages and how well a vendor communicates and recovers, however, point to underlying quality of service issues.

According to CRN, Microsoft’s Lync outage on June 23rd, Exchange outage on June 24th, and no-ip.com seizure outages starting June 30th represent 3 of the 10 biggest outages so far this calendar year.

See the full list of cloud outages.

 

 

Moving from SBS? 6 Questions to Ask

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Back in 2012, Microsoft announced the end of life for the Small Business Server (SBS) product line (see SBS End of Life: Microsoft Punishes Small Businesses).  As with any retiring technologies, some organizations will wait to move until there is a current need.  If something works, why fix it?

With Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 reach end of life as well, many are taking a new look at whether now is the time to move.

Here are 6 questions to ask before you make the move.

1) Does cloud-based email work for your business?

While many focus on why you should NOT move to cloud-based email, services like Google Apps for Business provide the security and privacy controls — and support encryption and other services — needed to meet pretty much any data protection requirement.

Focus on the value cloud-based email can provide to your business.

  • Secure access to email, from any device, at any time
  • Built in spam/virus protection
  • No monthly updates
  • No local queue errors
  • No VPN or additional web server needed
  • Affordable options for archiving, encryption, and backup/restore

2) What is the total cost of ownership?

When upgrading from SBS, organizations will need to purchase new 64-bit server hardware with additional disk space, new versions of Windows Server, new Windows CALs, Exchange Server Licenses, new Exchange CALs.  They will also need to purchase or upgrade their spam/virus protection solution and backup/recovery system.

Beyond the purchase, Microsoft still requires administrators to update software monthly — often multiple times each month — in order to maintain security patches and updates.

Moving to the cloud, organizations skip the large capital expenditure.  Cloud-based email solutions are operating expenses.  Costs are tied to the number of users, not to the amount of capacity you may use in the future.

When moving organizations to Google Apps for Business, we see customers saving 30% to as much as 70% over 3 year and 5 year TCO cycles.

3) How much disruption will end users experience?

Yes, some users are afraid to move away from MS Outlook and your existing web access for email.  When surveying users, however, we find that in most organizations, 60% to 80% already use cloud-based email services, like Gmail, personally.  The change in user experience is likely less than initial perceptions.

But, moving is a change and can have an impact.

As we move organizations to Google Apps, we include communications about the changes and opportunities for users to learn how to best use the new tools.  We make self-help learning systems — video and interactive — available to users.  We also offer customized workshops and “web office hours”.  In short, many methods exist to help users make the transition and understand how they can do more with their new email service.

4) Is the replacement system you’re considering easy to administer?

If planning to stay in-house, the answer will be “No!”.  New versions of MS Exchange include features and complexity designed to serve the needs of larger enterprises.  For small and mid-size enterprises, they live with the additional administrative burden.

Moving to cloud-based email dramatically reduces administrative requirements.  Without hardware, operating systems, and Exchange software, management of Google Apps for Business focuses on user settings and support.

5) Is the vendor committed to small and mid-sized businesses?

By deeds more than words, Microsoft is focused on large enterprises.  Recent licensing changes have removed the most affordable Windows and Exchange options for small and mid-size enterprises, increasing minimum costs by as much as 100%.

Cumulus Global, as a Google Apps Premier SMB Partner, is focuses exclusively on businesses and nonprofits with 1 to 500 employees.  We also serve K-12 education, smaller higher education, and local/regional governments.  We tailor our services to the needs of small and mid-size enterprises, understanding needs, priorities, and budgets.

6) Is the change a better value?

When moving from any in-house MS Exchange solution to Google Apps for Business, you are gaining more than a secure, reliable email service.  Google Apps is a small business productivity platform, with:

  • Integrated personal and shared calendars
  • Secure Instant Messaging
  • Voice / Video conferencing
  • Hangouts — video meetings with shared documents and desktops
  • Google Docs productivity tools — word processing, spreadsheets, and more
  • Drive for storage of Google-based and legacy files of any type
  • Local Drive sync and share, providing integration for MS Office users
  • Secure web Sites, for your intranet, projects, and customer portals
  • Integration with hundreds of business applications and services.

With more than email to offer, solutions like Google Apps for Business deliver greater value, even if additional features are not used immediately.

Cloud Backup: Small Businesses Hesitate at their Own Peril

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Cloud Backup
According to a recent survey of IT service firms conducted by The 2112 Group, small and mid-size businesses (SMBs with up to 250 employees) do not respond to most marketing efforts.  The lack of interest appears to be due to underlying concerns about data security, bandwidth, availability, and recurring costs.

Not surprisingly, SMBs become interested in cloud backup after a data loss or downtime. Having experienced disruption or loss, SMBs better understand the cost of a failed recovery compared with the cost of adequate protection.

Businesses that move to cloud backup sited their primary motivations as:

  • Improved data protection and business continuity (34%)
  • Better overall IT reliability (20%)
  • Reduced IT costs (16%)

The challenge for us, as a cloud solutions provider, is to meet our customers’ objectives while addressing issues of security, bandwidth, availability, and cost.

The challenge for SMBs, as our customer or prospective customer, is to recognize the value of cloud-based backup before a crisis.  And, understand that by offering a range of solutions, we can ensure data integrity while keeping costs in-line.

 

Moving to the Cloud: Cost Savings

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Green_GaugeThis post is the second in a series addressing concerns organizations may have that prevent them from moving the cloud-based solutions.

Will moving to the cloud save money?

The answer is a definite, absolute … maybe!

Whether or not a move to the cloud saves money depends on the in-house services being replaced and the cloud-based services taking their place, as well as the impact the change will have on related IT services and your business.

In our experience, most companies see savings over 3-year and 5-year periods of 30% or more.  Some companies see total cost of ownership (TCO) savings of up to 70%

When looking at 5-year TCO, organizations must make honest projections on IT spending to maintain the status quo and/or upgrading systems.  Beyond projected hardware and software replacements and upgrades, the analysis should include the cost of services and supporting systems (backup, anti-virus, security, etc.).  The analysis should also assess soft costs for administration, support, and estimated down time.

The challenge remains making the comparison equivalent.  For example, moving from a single in-house Exchange server to Google Apps for Business is a move from a system with several single points of failure to a highly redundant and highly available service.  If improving availability is an objective of the move to the cloud, the comparison should include the cost of upgrading the Exchange environment for redundancy.

A final consideration should include any business enablement that comes from the move into the cloud.  Will the cloud service enable the business to operate more efficiently and/or in new, more productive ways?  Improved collaboration, real-time communications, and access to information are all examples of how Google Apps for Business enables businesses over traditional email services.

In straight dollars and cents, not every company will see savings when moving to cloud-based solutions.  With better availability and expanded capabilities, cloud computing solutions can deliver better value, even when the price tag is higher.

Next Post in the Series:  Provider Reliability

Previous Post in the Series:  Moving to the Cloud: Security

 

Microsoft Azure Fail! Will Customers Bail?

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Once again, a flagship Microsoft cloud service blows through the Service Level Agreement like a blizzard through the Midwest.  Th February 22nd outage, impacting all Azure users worldwide, lasted more than 12 hours.

The culprit:  Microsoft failed to purchase and replace expiring SSL certificates.  In other words, Microsoft neglected to renew one of the most basic components that secure the Azure service.

As noted on RedmondMag.com

“Furious customers wanted to know how something as simple as renewing a SSL cert could fall through the cracks. Even worse, how could that become a single point of failure capable of bringing down the entire service throughout the world?”

Once again, an operational error puts thousands of customers  in the dark.  And this outage is one in a string of major service outages, including:

Microsoft described the issue as “A breakdown in our procedures”.  If not for the disruption and financial impact for thousands for companies, this statement might be considered almost comical.  Ironically, a different certificate error was behind a major Azure outage in February 2012.

To put this in perspective, how would you respond if your internal IT department had Microsoft’s track record of catastrophic failure?

 

It is difficult to trust that Microsoft has the operational maturity and rigor to design and manage multi-tenant, hosted services.  The Azure outage, and others like it, demonstrate immaturity, negligence, or incompetence.  Do the reasons matter given the frequency and impact?  With certificate outages on two subsequent annual renewal terms, it is hard to believe that Microsoft is learning from its mistakes.

 

Backing up Google Apps: A Smart Idea or a Needed Service?

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As companies move their systems and data from on-premise servers into cloud computing solutions, companies maintain control of their data.  Control over the systems that house the data, however, belongs to the cloud provider.  The same is true for businesses moving to Google Apps.

When businesses move to Google Apps, they are trusting Google’s fault-tolerant, grid-based architecture to run with any disruptions due to hardware or software failures.  But a reliable system cannot prevent all forms of data loss.

  • 75% of incidents involving sensitive data lossare caused by human error, according to the IT Policy Compliance Group, as reported in PC World.
  • 32% of data loss is due to user error, according to Gartner surveys, cited by the SANS Institute.
  • 70% of companies go out of business after a major data loss, according to DTI as cited by the SANS Institute.

While Google protects you from data loss due to system failure, Google cannot protect you from data loss due to user error (or malicious act).

Nor can Google protect you from data loss or corruption caused by third party applications. These applications pose new and different risks as these application range from integrated applications installed through the Google Apps cPanel to tablet and smart phone apps users may install themselves on personal devices.  In the emerging world of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), monitoring and managing third party applications is a challenge.

Given the risks, backing up your data in Google Apps seems smart, but is it necessary and worth the expense?

If information is lost or damaged, the cost can be staggering.  Lost contract amendments may prevent a business from getting paid in full; Missing emails can create customer service nightmares;  Corrupt data can cause employees and customers to lose confidence in your business.

And beyond tangible losses, the cost of recovery adds up quickly.  Losing a day’s worth of work costs more than the lost day.  Recovery takes time and resources and disrupt your normal business activities.  A loss of one day of work that takes one day to recovery, actually costs your business 3 to 5 days of lost productivity.

In comparison, protecting your data in Google Apps from user error and third party applications costs between $3 and $8 per user per month.  Given the value of your data, the cost and impact of lost data, and the cost of recovery, backing up your data in Google Apps is an affordable insurance policy.

Affordable protection for your data is a service you should want and probably need.