April 11, 2011
OPEN Forum Message
Affordably Build Your Brand
FedEx Global Brand Management Director Monica Skipper shares a cost-effective way to build a bigger brand for your small business.
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There are two dimensions to cloud computing that you must be aware of, and quickly.
The first is "phase one" of cloud computing wherein you host your e-mail, website and a few more mature services in the cloud. Whether it's hosted by Google Apps, Microsoft Exchange or CRM from BatchBlue or InfusionSoft, there are a variety of solutions and services for "in the cloud" computing. This is what many businesses are doing now.
But a new era is maturing: the applications you now run on a traditional server are also moving to the cloud. This could be a custom inventory solution, a special customer service application—it could be anything that you now run from a server in your office.
There is less of a need to use traditional servers to host your software and for you to have worry about security, maintenance and scalability issues when you can host your software in the cloud.
One of the most important aspects to consider as you move your software to the cloud is which hosted software vendor you should use. Cbeyond? Rackspace? Dell? Amazon.com? Microsoft? Or others?
Other things to consider include cost, security, scalability, portability, data location, uptime, support, technology services, support and customized solutions.
Cost / Price
"What is the cheapest? Consider what the cost is to run your servers constantly—the pay per use providers like Amazon are great for if you power up and shutdown virtual machines on use, but not great if you are running it 24/7. Consider support and maintenance cost as well. Infrastructure as a service provides great flexibility, but you have to setup and manage everything. Are you better off with platform as a service (e.g. Google app engine) or Software as a Service (e.g Salesforce)?"
Rakkhi Samarsekera
"Don't overpay—most services worth buying can be purchased relatively inexpensively. Make sure the seller is reputable, however."
Charlie Belmer
Security
"Ask your prospective vendors to complete this:http://www.cloudsecurityalliance.org/cai.html/. Highest score is a good start. You are probably more scared than you need to be.
Rakkhi Samarsekera
"Provides the level of availability or security of a Tier-4 data center, thereby increasing chances of downtime, performance delays and security breaches."
Brace Rennels, mindSHIFT
Scalability
"Keep an eye towards scalability. Does the vendor offer a solution that works for your small business of 10 employees and 100 customers? Would it also work with 1000 employees and 10,000 customers?"
Charlie Belmer
Want to read more on the cloud? Check these out:
"Partner with a firm (sometimes separate from the cloud vendor itself) that understands and embraces the scalability and rich capabilities of Public Cloud Services, but also embraces Private Cloud Services (IT as a service), and how they interact together to form a better solution for your business."
Paul Erhart, www.ensynch.com
Portability
"Ensure your data and applications can be ported if the relationship isn't working out. (Prevent vendor lock-in.)"
Charlie Belmer
Data Location
"Know where your data will be physically located."
Morris James & Christopher Spizzirri, eDiscovery Counsel
"Legal—do you need to keep your data in a particular geography? If you are not able to move your data outside the EU or your state then you need a vendor that supports this."
Rakkhi Samarsekera
Uptime and Tech Support
"Can the provider give you an SLA your business will accept e.g. 99.95 percent uptime? Have they proven this SLA over a number of years?"
Rakkhi Samarsekera
"Cloud Hosted solutions should offer round-the-clock technical support so that you can get your questions answered in real time. Much of today’s business is global with employees working across time zones and across the world."
Brace Rennels
Technology / Services
"Choose a vendor that offers multiple online services (not just one end-point solution). This could include, but is not limited to solutions beyond e-mail including unified communications, productivity, collaboration and business intelligence."
Paul Erhart
"Mobile Device Support—In today’s corporate culture of 24x7 availability, many business executives and sales people must remain connected to the office and their customers while at home, on business travel and even on vacation. The cloud services provider you select should offer support for popular mobile devices."
Brace Rennels
"Offers rich user experience, high availability, easy automated management and scalability Virtual desktops within PC budgets."
Monica Read, www.kaviza.com
"Leverage Open Source. Distributions like ClearOS are designed to reduce on-premise hardware to one device and push everything else into the cloud. This simplifies IT and reduces cost."
Michael Proper, Clear Center
Customized Solution
"Choose a vendor that understands your industry and your business, and is willing to take the time to understand it better to meet your unique needs, and create a strategic roadmap to the cloud--not just sell a piece of software or a service."
Paul Erhart
"What type of accountability, governance and audit requirements do you have and will your cloud provider adequately address these concerns?"
Steven Woodward, Woodward Systems Inc.
Miscellaneous
"When determining ROI, organizations need to look beyond just reducing capital expenditures—even though major gains can be made there. The ROI analysis should be based on a comprehensive view, considering all aspects required to deliver the solution—assessing factors such as, are they able to deliver services more effectively and efficiently? And, can they take better advantage of capacity on demand—like seasonal spikes - and achieve faster times to market?"
Rahul Bakshi, SunGard Availability Services
"Understand that quality, automated management of the identities of your employees across cloud services is a key component to your success in the cloud."
Paul Erhart
"Overall it also is largely a matter of trust!"
Steven Woodward
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