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Cloud Computing
- 1. Welcome! Our meeting will begin shortly…
- 2. How Your Business Can Benefit From Cloud Computing Presented by: Tim Geigner
- 3. What is cloud computing? How you and your business can benefit from using the cloud How does cloud computing save you money? What services and applications are best for use in the cloud? Questions to ask a cloud service provider before you outsource What you will discover:
- 4. What is Cloud Computing?
- 5. Cloud computing refers to computing on the Internet What is Cloud Computing? Internet “Storage” site Computing
- 6. What is Cloud Computing? Manage hardware (infrastructure) Configure computing systems (platforms) Run software
- 7. What is Cloud Computing? Server Manages: • Databases • Files • Emails Access anywhere within the office Cloud Manages: • Databases • Files • Emails Access anywhere in the world with an internet connection from any device!
- 8. Types of Clouds Public Private Hybrid
- 9. What Are The Benefits?
- 10. What are the benefits? Availability
- 11. What are the benefits? Availability Mobility
- 12. What are the benefits? Availability Mobility Cost
- 13. What are the benefits? Availability Mobility Cost Data Recovery
- 14. What are the benefits? Availability Mobility Cost Data Recovery Decreased Maintenance
- 15. What are the benefits? Availability Mobility Cost Data Recovery Decreased Maintenance Easy Upgrades
- 16. How Does Cloud Computing Save You Money?
- 17. How Does Cloud Computing Save You Money? Less hardware and software to purchase Less capital investment Decreased Maintenance
- 18. What Services and Applications Are Best For Use In the Cloud?
- 19. Applications For Use In The Cloud Management intensive applications Example: Email, Backup Applications accessed by users in various locations Example: CRM (SalesForce), Databases Have large amounts of data Have large swings in data/use
- 20. Applications For Use In The Cloud Email Databases Storage Backup CRM Project Management
- 21. “What Questions Should I Ask A Potential Cloud Service Provider?”
- 22. Cloud Services Provider Questionnaire What is your level of experience? Do you offer a Service Level Agreement? Do you fulfill compliance requirements? Where is the data located? Do you offer true data encryption? How often are systems backed up?
- 23. Special Offer Free Cloud Computing Assessment Find out if your business is a good candidate for the cloud BONUS: 1st Month Free of Digerati Group’s Cloud Services Send your contact info to: webinars@digeratigroup.com
- 24. Questions?
- 25. Thank you for joining us!
Editor's Notes
- Welcome to today’s webinar: How your business can benefit from Cloud computing. I’m Tim Geigner, account manager with Digerati Group. Also here are Andrew Bochantin and Gabe Welmers, also account managers with Digerati Group. Today we’re going to discuss something that I’m sure most of you have heard talked about in one fashion or another: cloud computing and what it can mean for your business. At the end of the slide deck, we’ll also open up the call for questions either over the phone bridge or through the chat function you should see on your screens.
- In today’s webinar, we’ll look to accomplish several things, including defining cloud computing, pointing towards how your company can benefit from the cloud, its financial impact, what services and applications are best suited for the cloud, and what you should be asking anyone cloud service provider when you’re investigating the cloud for your business.
- So, let’s tackle the first question: what is cloud computing. As I mentioned, the term “the cloud” is becoming prevalent enough that we’ve probably all heard it mentioned. There are commercials for consumer grade products that mention the cloud, businesses are using it more and more, and so on. But, like many aspects of emerging technology, it helps to understand what we’re dealing with before deciding if it’s something beneficial for our individual companies.
- Cloud computing basically refers to “computing on the internet” What does “ computing on the Internet?” mean? We simply mean that you can log onto a website or remote location to do whatever you might normally do on a local PC or local server. Cloud computing lets us do all of our computing on the Internet as a viable alternative to buying, installing, upgrading, uploading, downloading, backing up and otherwise maintaining local machines that can limit the way we work and what resources are available to us.
- For example you can “rent” and manage most of your hardware over the internet, configure computing environments and or run software. Cloud computing encompasses other forms of computing beyond software, including the underlying hardware (infrastructure) and platforms. In many ways, cloud computing is strikingly similar to desktop computing in that it encompasses the same three basic elements: hardware (infrastructure), operating systems (platforms), and software. The main difference is that, with cloud computing, all three elements are “rented” over the Internet, rather than being managed locally. What does it mean to say “computing on the Internet”? We simply mean that you can log onto a website to do whatever you might normally do on a PC or local server. For example, you can “rent” and manage all your hardware over the Internet, configure computing environments and/or run software. Cloud computing lets us do all of our computing on the Internet as a viable alternative to buying, installing, upgrading, uploading, downloading, backing up and otherwise managing physical hardware, operating systems and software. It doesn’t require a big upfront investment, because you “rent” only what you need, and as much as you need. With cloud computing, your PC is mainly used as a way to run a Web browser. The actual processing and computing is done by remote servers (or virtual servers) and software that may be scattered across the Internet, thus the word “cloud.”
- Take server hardware, for example. Most of recognize the benefits of servers, which handle our databases, access to files, email distribution, etc. But take a look at that last line under the server: access to all of that is done within the office. Even if you currently have remote users, access still must be made to the office network that those servers reside on, which can require additional hardware and/or software to achieve. With a cloud-based server, you achieve all of the same functionality, except that you have access from anywhere and any device that allows for an internet connection. This is includes tablets, phones, notebooks, home machines, devices you use while you travel, etc. The cloud turns your workforce away from the idea that they can work primarily while they’re in the office to one that can work whenever they need to.
- There are 3 types of clouds: public, private and hybrid clouds. Public clouds include publically facing collaborative sites and communications systems, such as Google Docs or web-based email accounts. Private clouds are dedicated, secure, and individually managed cloud infrastructures that are NOT publically facing, such as cloud-based corporate servers, dedicated hosted Exchange servers, etc. And, obviously, hybrid clouds are a mix of the two.
- So now that we’ve defined what “the cloud” is, basically any hardware, platform, or software operation that was traditionally on an internal network and is now located remotely and accessed over the internet, let’s discuss how companies can benefit from it.
- Cloud computing allows employees access to company resources on demand, whenever they need it. This means that work needed to be performed after hours is easily done, as logging into the cloud remotely is the same as logging in while in the office. This has the added benefit of a seemless work experience for employees, where working from home or the road is exactly the same as working in the office.
- Beyond your internal employees, any remote workforce easily works from home, the road, wherever. It’s all the same experience, and similar company policies for technology use and documents can be managed across the entire workforce, since it’s all one platform for all users. Basically, anywhere you have an internet connection, you can have your workforce. In addition, this works well with mobile devices and non-traditional desktop devices, like thin clients and zero clients.
- Speaking of thin clients and zero clients, recall that we’re doing our computing remotely now. This means that the processes and operations that were previously being done on a local desktop or notebook are now being done in the cloud. This means that the local machine you’re connecting from isn’t utilizing resources the way it had before. It’s basically just being used to log into the cloud. Therefore, machines that have less resources like thin/zero clients can be put into rotation. These tend to cost several hundred dollars less than traditional desktops and can stay in rotation for almost twice as long, saving the company money. Other types of cloud computing, like cloud-based email, Share Point, etc., can move costly capital expense upgrades into a manageable monthly operating expense.
- We talk a great deal about data backups and disaster recovery. The beauty of any competent cloud-services provider is that they should be taking care of this for you. Imagine you move all of your infrastructure to the cloud: servers, email, etc. The same company providing you that service should be building redundancy into their systems as well as have a proper backup and DR plan for their infrastructure. That means don’t have to, alleviating the need for tape backups, fire proof safes, etc. Additionally, if you’re keeping some of your hardware in house, like your servers, you can utilize the cloud as a backup strategy to send your data to a secure offsite location should anything happen to your data locally.
- Again, a competent cloud provider should be performing maintenance on their own equipment, which means you don’t have to. All of the cost in money and time spent performing updates, patching and security on local systems goes away as they are moved to the cloud, where that work is done as part of the service.
- Upgrading is one of the great pains of better technology is the need to upgrade to keep up. This usually results in frustration at cap-ex expenses for technology that you didn’t think would become obsolete so quickly, but has. With your cloud services, those upgrades should be included in your service plan and require only that you pay your next month’s bill to get them. Take hosted Exchange, for instance: when a new version of Exchange comes out, hosted Exchange users expect to get that upgrade with no further cost beyond their monthly bill. Think of that versus the pain and cost involved of going from one version of Exchange and migrating to another, including the cost of the work, the software, the CALs, the downtime, the cost of any mistakes or issues that occur during migration or installation, etc.
- So, we touched upon some of the financial benefits of Cloud computing, but let’s dig into the details a bit more.
- The true impact of cloud computing financially goes beyond limiting the amount of hardware, software, and other Cap-Ex expenditures you incur with internal resources. The true money saver in the cloud equation is on maintenance. These include very real hard costs like software maintenance packages, warranty extensions and service plans for hardware, annual software renewals, security definition updates, etc. But you should also consider the dollar value of the time spent internally to administer to all of these systems. How long does your staff or IT company have to spend on email server upkeep? Security definitions and antivirus? Rolling out new software? Helping off location staff? All or most that can go away depending on what you want to move to the cloud.
- So what SHOULD you move to the cloud? You of course have options and cloud computing doesn’t require you to jump directly into the deep end with both feet. But here’s where we see businesses going in utilizing the cloud.
- Management intensive applications – email is a good example of this, in part because of how much it takes to properly manage an email system but also because of how important it is to today’s businesses. Proper backup strategies also apply here, in part because of the time to manage, but also you have the added benefit of offsite data restores available in case of a disaster. Applications that are required from multiple locations like your company CRM, or collaborative software like Share Point also are particularly well suited to the cloud. Large amounts of data- having a centralized location to manage and store that data can be more cost effective and scalable, requiring less capital to be invested by the company and less management of the infrastructure on which that data resides. Also, for systems or services where utilization fluctuates greatly over time, the cloud can work well so that you don’t have to invest for the heavy use times which are then underused at other times.
- For applications, the cloud works very well for your hosted email, offsite databases, storage and backups, your CRM software like Sales Force, and collaborative project management software like Share Point. The key for all of these is access, which is ultimately what the cloud is all about.
- So, assuming you wanted to utilize the cloud for your company, let’s discuss what you should ask a potential service provider.
- You need to know for how long and at what level the provider has offered cloud services, you need to know what their service level commitment to you is, you need to know if they fulfill compliance requirements for your business, you need to know where they have their cloud infrastructure since that’s where your data will reside, and you need to know what type of encryption they use to secure connections to the cloud. And finally, they should be able to tell you how and how often they do their own backups which will include your data.
- State offer.