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10.24.2011

A recent study from KPMG shows that the adoption of cloud technology, including use of cloud servers, is changing the way that business is conducted by affecting the basic approach of business concepts.

Not surprisingly, four out of five businesses were shown to have been affected by this new technology by having moved some of their business needs to the cloud. If they had not already moved parts of their business to cloud servers, they were in the planning stages of doing so. One in ten companies interviewed for the report said that they had made the decision to move their core business functions to remote cloud servers.

When discussing what factors were the primary drivers to make these changes, three out of four companies said that the ability to save costs was the most important reason for the move to the cloud. When asked to comment on the significance of the findings, KPMG’s head of technology Tudor Aw said, “What the survey shows is that ‘cloud’ is becoming more of a business and not just a technology conversation.” He went on to point out the economic realities and how they are affecting this change. “In these harsh economic times, cloud computing should be considered by all companies that strive to reduce costs.”

With the growing interest in not only moving daily functions to the cloud but the core business as well, any business that does not make the change to cloud technology may soon find that they are not only losing the competitive edge but are going to find the cloud a necessity for conducting business. There are many examples of how businesses have used the move to the cloud to cut costs, improve their core business and achieve their goals. Here are just a few:

Seattle University – They made the decision to decrease operating costs, prolong the desktop lifecycle and put all of the labs onto one software program. This move would synch the entire lab system by converting twenty campus computer labs and over 1500 desktop computers to virtual desktops linked by a cloud server. The end result was faster response times to students, teachers and faculty. It also was instrumental in helping to meet the universities educational and administrative needs.

Germany – A German service provider uses cloud servers to connect churches and public sector organizations in a multitenant cloud. This enables them to deliver business applications to their end users which can number in the millions. By providing this cloud server to their customers, the service provider can scale the need for resources based on the demands of their client and bring new services to that client base in a timelier manner.

Georgetown University – This Washington D.C. University has a tradition of serving the legal needs of a wide ranging group of students. The recent conversion to a cloud server has made it possible for the law school to extend its classrooms out to remote locations. In addition, it has also created continuity for businesses in the event of a disaster.

Cloud computing has many solutions in many complex ways. Every organization is different and has different challenges and needs that can be met in a variety of ways and with a range of cloud solutions. The goal is to go beyond the complexities, engage with cloud service providers, customers and users to find the cloud server model that suits them best. Every journey must begin with a set of simple decisions, and the journey to the cloud is no different. The cloud is changing the way many businesses work, and with the right planning it is changing them for the better.

Our newsletters and blogs are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. We invite you to engage in our online community by following us on Twitter @GMOCloud and ‘Liking’ us on Facebook.

10.20.2011

One of the industries with the most intensive record control needs is the health industry. Recently the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) made the decision to implement the use of a cloud-based suite of collaboration software to aid in the certification of electronic health record systems.

A Non-Profit with a Mission

The non-profit has a public mission of assisting in the adaption of electronic records keeping by the introduction of robust interoperable health information technology. It certifies electronic health record technology and has been an Authorized Testing and Certification Body approved by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services since 2006.

Cloud-Based Software on Cloud Hosting Service

The organization has been using the cloud-based software to facilitate file sharing amongst its own staff as well as with customers and contractors. It has recently moved the entire mission-critical application to a cloud hosting service in order to leverage the cost saving benefits of the cloud, along with the added gains in productivity.

Move to the Cloud Helps Collaboration

CCHIT has found that by moving to the cloud it has “helped us to collaborate more effectively with our customers and contractors,” says Earl Evans, Technology Engineer at CCHIT. “We are able to seamlessly store, move and share important files internally and with outside parties as needed, while maintaining strong security and good performance. [Having it cloud-hosted] permits us to enjoy those same capabilities, but with significantly decreased cost.”

The scalable collaborative cloud-based solution is a client-server product suite that enables users to collaborate on files from within the applications that they are already using. This feature greatly reduces training costs for the organization and allows end users to realize the benefits of the cloud at a much accelerated rate.

Scalability is Key

The ability to scale up or down as needed gives an organization such as CCHIT the kind of control it needs to instantly manage costs while still allowing the flexibility to expand upon demand. For an organization like CCHIT it is an exciting move to the cloud.

Our newsletters and blogs are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. We invite you to engage in our online community by following us on Twitter @GMOCloud and ‘Liking’ us on Facebook.

10.19.2011

For most of us, when we think Adobe Software, we think of desktop applications for multimedia and creativity, as opposed to anything that you could run on virtual servers. That is probably because they have been producing these types of applications for over thirty years. But the world of the PC has gradually evolved into a place where desktop software is becoming old fashioned and virtual servers based “Software as a Service” (SaaS) is increasingly becoming the norm. It has often looked as if Adobe was completely unaware of this evolution happening around them. But that seems to have changed. Recently Adobe announced a very different set of tools for the creative community, one that is meant to work in the cloud.

Adobe Mobile Apps in the Cloud

Adobe recently revealed that they have created a set of applications (apps) that show they are ready to begin to change their focus. It will move them towards mobile technology and the ability to work with virtual servers to make those platforms a part of the Adobe world. The new mobile apps are called “Adobe Touch Apps” and were created to work with Android tablets and Apple iPads. They have the look and feel of the current Creative Suite desktop software and will continue to allow users to do full Photoshop image editing just like the desktop version, as well as a bunch a new creative design tasks.

These six apps are created specifically for touch screens and are designed to be intuitive. They will give users the ability to explore ideas and present creative concepts on the go through their iPad or Android tablet. These devices will be connected to cloud-based Adobe applications that will sit on virtual servers. These apps will have the same high professional quality that Adobe is known for and that many creative business people rely on, but with the ability to access them through a touch device while on-the-go. The mobile apps will create instant accessibility to image editing, ideation, sketching, mood boards, website and mobile app prototyping as well as being able to present finished work.

The Creative Cloud

The biggest step for Adobe has to be the creation of a virtual server hub for users to share files, synch the collaborative work they are doing and allow others to view work as it progresses. This hub, which Adobe has named “Creative Cloud”, will take the company that extra step into one of the areas that cloud is best at, collaboration. In many ways, this is a natural step for a company that has always been at the heart of the creative community.

It is no secret that the company sees this move as an important step that will transform the company and bring it into the 21st Century. Adobe Chief Technology Officer Kevin Lynch has even said, “The move to the Creative Cloud is a major component in the transformation of Adobe.”

With this move to bring the desktop software that has been so vital to many creative businesses into the world of virtual servers and cloud technology Adobe brings its unique creative software to the world of the tablet and beyond. It also anticipates the move by many tablets to stylus capabilities and will prove to be a good partner for that development.

Flash vs HTML5

One of the hallmarks of Adobe has always been its Flash product, an application that at one time was used anywhere that animation and video was seen on the web. But Flash has recently been under fire as video, gaming and animation developers in both large companies and independent studios explore HTML5 capabilities. HTML5 is an open source standard as opposed to Flash’s proprietary platform, which is another reason for HTML5’s recent popularity amongst developers. At a recent conference Adobe talked of its own work with HTML5 and was noticeably silent about any new Flash developments. This may also be a sign that Adobe is moving more of its gaming based software towards the open source HTML5 and the cloud. It is probably no coincidence that Adobe also announced its recent purchase of Nitobi software, creators of PhoneGap, an open source platform for creating mobile apps based on HTML5.

With the addition of these six apps and the introduction of the Creative Cloud, it looks like Adobe has finally entered the Cloud universe. Adobe’s push toward HTML5 development support merely endorses that change. For many within the creative community this will be welcome news. It is also welcome news to anyone in the cloud community as it simply reinforces that almost any business model can be adapted successfully to the power of virtual servers in the cloud.

Our newsletters and blogs are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. We invite you to engage in our online community by following us on Twitter @GMOCloud and ‘Liking’ us on Facebook.

10.18.2011

Is your company considering moving some or many of their day-to-day operations to cloud servers? These days it is no longer really a question of if you will move at least part of your business enterprise to the cloud, but when. If this is a step you are contemplating soon, you might want to consider a couple of key questions that will help you to decide what elements in your groundwork may prevent your business from utilizing virtual servers or cloud hosting.

Will It Meet Your Financial Objectives?

Every project has both long term and short term risks for its financial return on investment. Have you looked at both of these to assess how including cloud servers will affect your goals? There are a number of factors to consider when looking at risk probability including utilization, speed, scalability and value. While it is true that these factors can and often will be built into most ROI models, careful consideration should be made to ensure you are aware of how including virtual servers or cloud hosting will affect the headline numbers for investment, revenue, cost and most importantly how long before you see your return.

Does the Solution Fit in the Enterprise Culture?

This is an important question that isn’t always asked at the beginning. The best solution is to start with an executive vision that clearly shows the direction the business transformation will take. Of course, this is easier said than done. It will require top-level support for the changes proposed, a clear roadmap for procurement, cloud services or cloud hosting and applications implementation and most of all the organization of stakeholders. You will need to develop consensus amongst these stakeholders for such elements as storage, computing, network and applications in order to prioritize demands for usage. If you begin by creating a series of pilot introductions you can build confidence amongst the users and create buy-in from your most critical stakeholders.

Can You Integrate Cloud Solutions and Current Services?

If you are considering several different cloud solutions as part of a bigger solution, do these various elements integrate and can they work well with the existing system in addition to each other? This can be a critical factor since the inability to integrate an element such as cloud VPS servers into the current system may make the changes impossible to implement. The three key elements to include are taking into account the interface conversion cost, assessing the difficulty level in changing the existing system and considering whether the skills exist within the company to make these changes.

The question of skills is an important risk as you will need to know if the current skill sets include an ability to assemble and customize multiple cloud servers and services from various providers. This will need to be accomplished in a flexible way that is adaptable while able to maintain the same high levels of security, handle backup and all governance issues that may arise. If you do not have this kind of skill in house, the cost of adding it needs to be considered as part of the solution.

Will your Legal, Contractual and Moral Obligations be Impacted?

Noncompliance can become an issue when considering an outside cloud service provider for cloud hosting or cloud VPS servers. Even the provision of contracts may not be sufficient when it comes to confidentiality and location assurances. In some instances you may even discover that force majeure will stop the supplier from honoring those agreements. A good example of this would be if a legal action resulted in a subpoena of another tenant’s data that is in the same system. This may have an impact on the enterprise’s corporate reputation.

Is the System Quality and Security Adequate to Meet Your Users’ Needs?

If you were buying a system in-house, you would have benchmarks it needed to meet. The same criteria holds true for anything in the cloud. You can assess the quality of an external system using the same factors you would use for the quality of your own system. In addition, take a close look at the provider’s track record just as you would with any other vendor. The same rules should be applied to security. Ask questions, get answers and adapt your traditional security models to the new cloud computing needs. Be sure that you include end-to-end security as part of the solution. Your own internal policies regarding user provisioning and control over access should be a part of the entire security plan.

As you can see, none of these questions are a large departure from what you would be asking if you were considering a new system in the traditional mode. Deciding to include cloud servers or cloud hosting as part of a larger project simply requires a few more questions that in the long run will give planning stages more information, ultimately ending with a better designed solution.

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