Posts Tagged ‘Cloud Computing’
Trust the cloud they say… here’s another reason to be cautious
Wednesday, August 8th, 2012
One of the reasons I am wary of any cloud based service is the ability of said service provider to withdraw their services with little to no notice. In truth this can happen to any company be it a cloud vendor or a reseller. One real world case has just come to light with Cloud Backup based vendor Doyenz giving it’s UK clients just 3 days notice of their intent to withdraw their services to that entire market. Oh crap. What will those people that have based their backup and disaster recovery solutions do now? And with only 3 days notice? Doyenz have nicely informed them that they have until the end of the month to get their data off their cloud system after which time it will be gone… forever. I don’t envy those clients that are now going to have to find another solution so quickly. I don’t envy those resellers who whole heartedly endorsed Doyenz as a solid business partner behind which they obviously pitched their reputation.
What if this were a cloud based CRM provider. You store all your sales/marketing leads in there, all customer contact, everything. Suddenly you have less than 3 weeks to not only find another provider, but also move your entire history over which may well be neigh on impossible in that timeframe. What about the cost of doing this? What about the disruption to your organisation in doing this?
How would this have been different if it were an onpremise solution with a vendor going away? They would still have a working solution, just no support for it. The software would still work. They would have more time to look for alternatives and then decide on a course of action.
I’m not saying all cloud is bad. I’m saying that this is another thing that needs to be seriously considered with any cloud solution is that vendors may just close up shop. And with it, your data could be gone. Forever.
If I were a Doyenz client or reseller in the US, I’d be very nervous right now. I’d be looking for alternate solutions sooner than later, because if what they’ve done in the UK market is a sign on how they plan to handle things elsewhere then I’d be scared.
Tags: Business Focus, Cloud Computing
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Can you trust the cloud when vendors do stupid things?
Wednesday, July 4th, 2012
A news article I read yesterday has me wondering. The news article here talks about how certain Cisco/Linksys routers have last week automatically upgraded their firmware using a factory default setting. That in itself is not bad. What is bad however is how Cisco have chosen to tie the router into the Cisco Connect Cloud so tightly that they now control it and can monitor everything you do. What makes it worse still is that according to their own privacy policy, they reserve the right to terminate your access should they deem what you do to be pornographic in nature… hang on… this is your router and your internet connection and now your router vendor gets to decide what they feel is pornographic in nature? There are other things too that they may deem as “bad things” that might get you terminated as well.
What scares me here, is that once you are “in the cloud” you are subject to the whims of the cloud owner and they may very well decide to change what they feel is acceptable. You will likely find out when you breach their policy and they restrict/remove service to you. Not cool. You don’t find the electricity company deciding to turn of the power to your home because you’ve decide to look at some naked women now do you? Why then should Cisco get to decide to do the same if that is something you chose to do? (Note I’m not advocating pornography here at all – just commenting on the potential things that can get you banned)
You need to be ever mindful of what you use Cloud Services for and the potential impact on your business/life should changes occur beyond your control. As always, I say assess the impact before deciding to go to the cloud. Make sure it’s the right thing for YOU to do for YOUR business. Don’t just be a lemming and follow everyone else.
Tags: Cloud Computing, Rants
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Desktop to Cloud Event
Tuesday, May 8th, 2012
Ok – this is a reminder for you – Robert Cranes Desktop to Cloud event is coming up real soon. I originally mentioned it over a month ago now here
Well the good news is that Roberts been able to pull some top notch talent in for this event, and the agenda is packed to the brim full of good learning. Here’s a few names you might know that are speaking at this event….
Dean Calvert
Boon Tee
Mark O’Shea
Jeff Alexander
Roger Lawrence
Ishai Sagi
and of course Robert Crane himself.
This looks to be a pretty good local event, and if it were not for prior commitments, I too would be there. Check out the full agenda and book here
Tags: Cloud Computing, Events
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Desktop to Cloud Event
Tuesday, May 8th, 2012
Ok – this is a reminder for you – Robert Cranes Desktop to Cloud event is coming up real soon. I originally mentioned it over a month ago now here
Well the good news is that Roberts been able to pull some top notch talent in for this event, and the agenda is packed to the brim full of good learning. Here’s a few names you might know that are speaking at this event….
Dean Calvert
Boon Tee
Mark O’Shea
Jeff Alexander
Roger Lawrence
Ishai Sagi
and of course Robert Crane himself.
This looks to be a pretty good local event, and if it were not for prior commitments, I too would be there. Check out the full agenda and book here
Tags: Cloud Computing, Events
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Upgrading to SafeSync for Business 5.0
Monday, May 7th, 2012
I’ve been running Trend Micro’s SafeSync for Business for a while now (over 12 months from what I can recall). The version I’m on is version 3 and a little while back now, they released v5.0. I decided this weekend as I’m doing some planned work, that it’s time to upgrade and see what it has to offer. I run this on both my desktop and my laptop and I use it to keep files in sync between the two and also to share specific folders and files with my team.
Here’s my record of my experience with upgrading from SafeSync for Business 3.x to 5.0
Firstly – here’s what I’m running now.
I started by making sure that I had a good backup of my desktop and laptop – that way if anything goes wrong, I will have a rollback plan that will mean my data is protected.
I decided I would upgrade my desktop first, therefore I ensured that my laptop was logged off SafeSync for Business so that it would not have any issues while I did the upgrade on both machines.
Start by downloading the client software from here
Once the download was done, I ran the installation program and followed the bouncing ball through the installation process.
After the restart, I noticed one major issue for me. My Online W: drive – which was the drive letter I gave to SafeSync, was gone… ohhh so that’s what they meant by that first couple of screens. I’m not happy at all about this change. The ability to have a drive letter on my computer and copy things directly to the cloud WITHOUT having to have them sync’d across all my computers was in fact a benefit to me. Now it appears due to the change in functionality, I will be FORCED to use the web interface to do the same thing. Sorry Trend – that’s not a step forward, it’s a step backward.
Below you can see my W: drive that I used to have along with the contents that I had there. The Software folder was one that I used that was NEVER sync’d to my computers as it allowed me to easily keep copies of software that I use so I can install them without having to go to various vendors websites all the time.
Ok – so the upgrade went fine, but there’s at least ONE feature I have lost. I decided to poke around and look at the settings for SafeSync for Business 5.0
After upgrading my desktop, I told SafeSync for Business to logout. I then proceeded to do the same upgrade on my laptop. The upgrade for it also went fine, so nothing major to report there.
I am however concerned about the change in functionality that Trend have done with this. The offline drive was something I used a LOT, now I’m going to be forced to use the web interface to do the uploads which is not ideal at all. I would suggest quite highly to Trend that they reconsider this and restore this feature to SafeSync for Business .
Trend also have a SafeSync Blog where you can find out lots of info including the details of the monthly feature updates on the SafeSync blog here.
Tags: Cloud Computing, SafeSync, TrendMicro
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25GB for free on SkyDrive
Tuesday, April 24th, 2012
I found out today via some MVP buddies, that Microsoft have released a free 25GB upgrade for users of SkyDrive. You can find out more about it here.
I’ve used SkyDrive in the past but have more recently moved everything over to TrendMicro SafeSync for Business which suits me just fine. I did that because I could not get more than the 7GB with SkyDrive and with Trend I could purchase as much as I needed. I’m currently using around 14GB which I sync across a number of computers. One of the new features of SkyDrive is integration with iPad’s – this is a feature I’m keen to trial myself.
So today I got my free upgrade to 25GB. I suggest you get yours and start to play with it some more. Windows 8 promises to use SkyDrive even more than Win7 did, so I’m keen to start playing with it myself.
Tags: Cloud Computing, Microsoft, SkyDrive, Software I use, Windows 8
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Cloud Hype – is it just hype?
Saturday, April 21st, 2012
Fellow SBS MVP Tim Barrett has a good post here about how Microsoft believe that 58% of our SMB clients want to move to the cloud as it will make them more competitive. He goes on to say that many clients are moving to the cloud simply so they won’t get left behind. Personally I think that there are much better things that customers can do to make themselves more competitive than to simply move to the cloud. I mean, the cloud is there to service their business needs for IT. When was the last time that JUST investing in your IT systems alone made you more competitive? Surely there are other things that clients can do aside from moving to the cloud to make them more competitive? A client of ours was a world class Rally car company… would moving to the cloud alone make them more competitive?
Be careful people – statistics can be made to say anything you want them to say. I’m not saying DON’T move to the cloud. I’m saying (as I have said all along) is to evaluate ALL your business requirements including Cloud solutions, and if it works in the cloud for your business model and I’m not just talking about costs here, I’m talking about the entire business risk analysis, then use the cloud. If upon reflection of your business options, the cloud poses more risk for you than return, then don’t use the cloud. But at a very minimum, at least DO A RISK ANALYSIS before deciding to move that business process (email or whatever) to the cloud is the best thing for you.
Tags: Cloud Computing, Microsoft
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Desktop to Cloud Event
Saturday, April 7th, 2012
Robert Crane has come up with another training offering, this time focused on the desktop to cloud migration. He’s launched the event which will be held in May (that’s just next month!)
This event will consist of two tracks, one for consumers and one for IT Professionals and will provide the latest information on desktop software like Windows 8, Office 2010 as well as information about cloud technologies such as Office 365 and Windows Intune. It will be provided by a range of speakers and include all meals, parking and WiFi access.
Date: Saturday 19th of May 2012
Time: 8.30am to 5.30pm
Tracks: A = Consumer, B = IT Professional
You can find out more about the event and register for it here www.desktoptocloud.com.au
Tags: Cloud Computing, Events, Migration, Training
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Office 365 for SBS 2011 Essentials – Finally Released
Tuesday, December 27th, 2011
Last week, Microsoft quietly released the final version of the Office 365 Integration Module for SBS 2011 Essentials. They did this not with a lot of fanfare, but a simple blog post here. They seem to have forgotten to notify the beta testers as well in their rush to make the holiday season. Never mind though – we’ll forgive them this time.
Long story short, this module provides some great integration between SBS 2011 Essentials and Office 365. It will allow you to easily do a number of things that would normally require you to flip between the SBS 2011 Essentials console and the Office 365 web page.
Enjoy.
Tags: Cloud Computing, Office 365, SBS 2011, SBS 2011 Essentials
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Gmail man!
Friday, September 30th, 2011
Yes – it’s Friday and here’s an interesting spoof video that Microsoft have done that seriously does show what Gmail do with your mail… quite scary for most that don’t realise what is going on.
Tags: Cloud Computing, Humour, Microsoft, Office 365
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