The IT manager’s survival guide to outsourcing your fax infrastructure to the cloud
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For many in IT management, spending capital, time and IT resources on maintaining fax servers and infrastructure is not a high priority. However, because many established industries — such as legal, healthcare, financial services, and manufacturing — are highly dependent on fax documents, IT management must continue to optimize this technology to meet business needs and requirements. But if your organization is spending more time than you should handling employees’ fax complaints or performing maintenance on fax servers and other infrastructure, it might be time to take your business’s fax infrastructure to the cloud, and leverage all of the benefits of a fully hosted cloud fax solution — benefits that include cost savings, freed-up IT resources, enhanced security and regulatory compliance, and even increased employee productivity.
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The IT manager’s survival guide to outsourcing your fax infrastructure to the cloud
- 1. World Leader in Digital Faxing ITManager’s Survival Guide for Moving your Fax Infrastructure to the Cloud
- 2. World Leader in Digital Faxing The Speaker Michael Flavin SeniorProductMarketingManager j2 CloudServices™ Part of j2Global®,Inc.
- 3. World Leader in Digital Faxing Is your org. ready for the cloud? (Five ways to know.) Before you jump in! (Ten considerations.) Q&A Overview of cloud computing and 3 cloud-fax models; common misconceptions about the cloud How eFax can help. About eFax® Corporate How cloud faxing can benefit you. (Typical scenarios.) Agenda
- 4. World Leader in Digital Faxing
- 5. World Leader in Digital Faxing TherearethreeMainmodesofcloud The Cloud Private/ Internal Public/ External Hybrid
- 6. World Leader in Digital Faxing FiveCommonmisconceptionsaboutCloud Five Common Misconceptions: • Enterprises are still experimenting with Cloud • The CIO role is dead… • Cloud is relevant only for technology needs… • Security concerns are a thing of the past… • Cloud consumption is simple… Survey realities about the cloud: • 58% of enterprises spend more than 10 percent of…IT Budget on cloud services • 75% of enterprises believe it (CIO) role is critical for cloud services ecosystem • 56% of enterprises consider cloud to be a strategic differentiator… • Security is top of mind still, but it not longer means going private cloud • 65% of enterprises believe they need help to deploy cloud 1) Forbes.com, Joe McKendrick and study cited from Cloud Connect on Forbes.com
- 7. World Leader in Digital Faxing The 3 Fax Models Private Cloud (onpremises) Public Cloud (fullyhosted) Hybrid Cloud (on premises & hosted offsite)
- 8. World Leader in Digital Faxing The Pros & Cons of Each Pros Cons Control Scalability Integration IT CapEx Security Maintenance Technology IT burden HW paid for Compliance? Pros Cons All benefits of hybrid model Custom coding or integration limits Highly scalable Security? Need Tier III or Tier IV Colocations Lowest cost and TCO vs. HW Compliance No HW Mgmt. Lower IT burden Flexible Integration - APIs TLS security – highly secure Private Cloud (onpremises) PublicCloud (fullyhosted) eFaxCorporate® Pros Cons Best of both worlds…? Double-paying for what could be outsourced Control IT CapEx Security IT burden Autonomy Compliance? HW paid for Rebranded server Hybrid Cloud (onpremises &hostedoffsite)
- 9. World Leader in Digital Faxing Rebuilding Your Fax Infrastructure: Server Costs One Dell or HP Server (24-channel, T1) $6,000 Fax card with TELCO interface $12,000 Fax software $25,000 Total Costs $43,000 per server Three-year amortization $1,200 per month to run
- 10. World Leader in Digital Faxing Rebuilding Your Fax Infrastructure: Infrastructure Costs Analog T1 lines $300 to $400 per month International dialing (assume approximately 800 user numbers) $200 per month Software maintenance fee (typically 15% of software value) $300 per month Total Costs $43,000 per server Average $800 per month on Infrastructure
- 11. World Leader in Digital Faxing Rebuilding Your Fax Infrastructure: Data Center Costs Onsite data-center cost for one Windows user $800 to $1,200 per month or Rented rack/cage space at TELCO $1,000 per month Average $1,000 per month on data center or colos
- 12. World Leader in Digital Faxing Rebuilding Your Fax Infrastructure: What It Adds Up To… $3,000 per month, per server Adding redundancy/failover with N+1 redundancy can boost cost to $9,000 per month! NO redundancy, NO disaster recovery Why add or continue to maintain expensive infrastructure that few in IT want to touch…
- 13. World Leader in Digital Faxing 5 Ways to Know It’s Time for Cloud Fax 1. Volume: It can’t justify faxing CapEx and OpEx costs and resource burdens 2. Capacity: Balancing fax volume creates capacity issues 3. Reliability: Servers fail too often and force reboots 4. Scalability: Each new user creates management work and consumes bandwidth, capacity planning means more HW. 5. Migration: Maybe you’re moving to VoIP or UC solution; great time to move fax to cloud
- 14. World Leader in Digital Faxing Why The Cloud Makes Sense: Real-World Scenarios “We fax high volumes of transactional documents, and our fax server is currently integrated into our medical-records application.” This healthcare company needs a solution with rapid scaling for high-volume faxing, one that will integrate into its existing medical-records app.
- 15. World Leader in Digital Faxing Why The Cloud Makes Sense: Real-World Scenarios “I am the IT director at a large financial company, and we’re suffering poor reliability and frustrated customers who say they’re not receiving anticipated fax docs.” This financial-services company faces fax-server failure and downtime, often relating to maintenance or upgrades. They need a more reliable fax infrastructure.
- 16. World Leader in Digital Faxing Why The Cloud Makes Sense: Real-World Scenarios “As the CIO of a major law firm, I oversaw multiple fax servers in several locations — too high- maintenance to justify the cost and time. But moving to VoIP for fax created its own problems.” This law firm experienced the common problems with migrating a large-scale enterprise fax infrastructure to the firm’s new companywide VoIP technology. As a business bound by confidentiality rules and federal privacy regs, they need a more reliable and secure fax infrastructure.
- 17. World Leader in Digital Faxing Is cloud faxing right for your organization? 10 Considerations for finding the right Partner Compliance & Audit Scalability Infrastructure Redundancy & DR Security Protocols Volume Requirements How Old Are Your Fax Servers? Business Model & SLAs What Are The Features? Financial Considerations Where Does It Hurt?
- 18. World Leader in Digital Faxing What to Demand From a Cloud Fax Solution Eliminate existing costly infrastructure — retire the fax servers Free up resources — stop managing server reboots Save money — and be an IT hero! Make growth easier— add scalability, redundancy and reliability Add smart features—security, mobile BYOD support, audit trail
- 19. World Leader in Digital Faxing How Does eFax Corporate Measure Up? Heavy data centers — major infrastructure investments for security, redundancy, failover, Tier III/IV colos, global footprint Enhanced compliance — HIPAA, SOX, GLBA Proven quality — manage millions of fax pages each day, fax service of choice for most heavily regulated industries Ease of deployment Ease of use Integrates with your workflow (APIs, REST, SAP) No hardware, software or other capital costs; no maintenance costs Unlimited scalability
- 20. World Leader in Digital Faxing Internet Unparalleled Cloud Fax Infrastructure j2 Colocations (Inbound) 25+ Worldwide Colocations TLS Outbound Atlanta, GA (Inbound/Send) PSTN – SIP Trunk on Redundant Internet Fiber Circuits TLS Outbound Chandler, AZ (Inbound/Send) DR for all Hollywood Services PSTN – SIP Trunk on Redundant Internet Fiber Circuits Secure TLS Inbound Redundancy for Secure Solutions handled out of Chandler, AZ, Chandler mirrors j2 Global Hollywood j2 Hollywood, CA (Inbound/Send) Company HQ Network Operations – Data Center PSTN – SIP Trunk on Redundant Internet Fiber Circuits Secure TLS Inbound j2 Cloud Services™ built on N+1 Network, Systems and Hardware Ottawa, CAN (Inbound/Send) PSTN – SIP Trunk on Redundant Internet Fiber Circuits TLS Outbound 24/7/365 Monitoring 24/7/365 TechSupport Morethan30data centersWorldwide Disaster Recovery Business Continuity EU – Europe (Send) PSTN – SIP Trunk on Redundant Internet Fiber Circuits TLS Outbound j2 Cloud Services™ EU are highly redundant Portland, OR (Inbound/Send) PSTN – SIP Trunk on Redundant Internet Fiber Circuits Secure TLS Inbound
- 21. World Leader in Digital Faxing Migrating to the Cloud: eFax Corporate 1. Sales will provide the New account set up form to assist the customer with compiling a user list 2. Sales will provide Porting documentation to assist those customers who are porting their numbers onto the j2 network 3. Sales Engineer will work with customer to set up Training for Admin and Users Cover pages, security protocols, for example- TLS encryption 4. Organization provides documents to Sales department for Porting, New Account Set up, TLS request form, Cover pages 5. Sales Organization will set up your Account, Users, groups, billing codes, cover page 6. Sales Engineer will set up TLS, Domain Level Send, Training for Admin and Users Moving forward Customer Support will support the Organization with training, and address questions on service. Sales and Account Management continue to support the Organization with contracts and new services admin changes, deletion of numbers and cover pages
- 22. World Leader in Digital Faxing eFax Corporate: a Leader in Cloud Services eFax Corporate is Part of Publicly-Traded j2 Global (Nasdaq; JCOM) Market Capitalization: $3.2 Billion More than 12 million customers worldwide Growing in revenue for over 19 consecutive years Unique Intellectual Property (IP) of 40+ cloud-service companies Deepest online-fax Intellectual Property portfolio Numerous US and foreign patents Patents pending across a host of cloud-based communication technologies World Leader in Digital Faxing
- 23. World Leader in Digital Faxing Be an IT Hero U.S.Sales (888)532-9265 UKSales +44(0)8707113811 www.enterprise.efax.com Q&A
Editor's Notes
- Hello and welcome to our webinar “IT manager’s survival guide to moving your fax infrastructure to the cloud”
- I’m Michael Flavin, Sr. Product Marketing Manager with j2 Cloud Services™, part of j2 Global®, Inc.
- Our agenda for today – is to provide a IT management with a virtual survival guide for moving their existing fax infrastructure to the cloud - *we’ll review cloud computing and the related cloud faxing models and evaluate the pros and cons of each *we’ll discuss some key indicators which will help determine if cloud faxing is right for your organization *we’ll review some real-world scenarios where organizations moved to cloud computing *finally, we’ll discuss ten key considerations your organization should utilize to select a cloud fax provider when the time comes *we’ve alloted time for Q&A at the end of our Webinar today; if you have questions, right hand side of your screen – feel free to pop in a question at any time. If we can’t get to you…
- The cloud model is here to stay. According to IDC, over 56% or organizations surveyed have moved at least one component of their infrastructure to the Cloud – so if your organization has already leveraged cloud computing for parts of your business – you are not alone! Focus has changed from hosting or DR to applications as a service, infrastructure as a service and vertical-specific solutions for industries (for example big data applications or medical analytics). The challenge for IT management: Not if but which applications or functions to source to cloud how to find the best feature rich and cost-effective cloud providers that provide scale and reliability business demands in addition to understanding which model (private, hybrid, fully hosted cloud) is best for your business’ needs. It’s important to have a basic understanding of each before you decide which is right for your organization and moving core applications, such as faxing to the cloud. Let’s review these basic models, some misconceptions and apply those three models to cloud faxing
- Generally speaking: 3 models – public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid public – standard model, svc provider makes computing resources available (apps, storage) to the public over the internet can be free or paid services like Gmail, iTunes, Instagram, Netflix or salesforce Commonly shared pool of computing resources. Private – distinct cloud based environment or instance (can be on-site or offsite) in which only the specific client or organization can operate. Commonly within a virtualized environment and IT management commonly understands this as virtualized computing (e.g. VMware, citrix) but can actually be on-site or hosted private cloud. Usually a unique pool of computer resources. Hybrid – integrated cloud service utilizing both private and public cloud to perform distinct functions for one organization. Example: where a business leverages private cloud for financial data (on premise) and then for example collaboration on projects is done on a public cloud – such as SharePoint. Note: all cloud services should offer certain efficiencies; public cloud likely most cost efficient and scalable vs. private cloud. The misconception of private cloud being ‘more secure’ is going away as focus shifts on features, scale, costs of providers. Hybrid cloud adds value only if the two can have mutual benefits private/public.
- With the various flavors of cloud there are some Common misconceptions about cloud computing in general… 1st - Cloud is not a coming soon technology…upwards of 62% have moved at least 1 component of their core network to the cloud, 58% spend 10% on cloud… 2nd – CIO position is not needed since cloud vendors ‘handle it all…’ complete opposite is true. 75% believe CIO is mission critical with key IT management 3rd – cloud is good for tech only…many use it as key differentiator – for example, always on, always available, costs, scale, which can give a leg up on the competition 4th Security – private cloud or on-site private cloud are the only secure models since they are ‘inside the firewall’. As security features improve (example: TLS encryption, secure data centers) focus has changed to cost and features, and core applications (CRM, FAX, Data, DR) are apps that can be hosted on the cloud in a secure fashion. 5th – migrating to the cloud is something that IT professionals look for help as many lack the skills needed to deploy cloud solutions – requiring cloud expertise in partners and applications they support.
- Similarly, faxing today has three primary deployment modes; private, hybrid and cloud (hosted): Private: all infrastructure is ‘private’ with on premise fax servers and infrastructure (telco lines, fax cards, maintenance, re-boot of physical servers, etc.). In-house IT team manages / responsible for uptime SLAs, maintenance, trouble shooting. Hybrid: similarly will have fax servers, hardware, etc, on premise hardware but have a ‘fail over’ or non-core function (e.g. fax network) as ‘public’ cloud component (e.g. the fax network). Public cloud faxing: no on-site fax infrastructure required; no capex or maintenance, telco lines – it’s all hosted by cloud fax provider.
- Now let’s take a closer look at the pros and cons of each model, and some misconceptions that are out there about each... Private ‘onsite’ faxing – supposed to offer more control, integration and security, but scalability, capex, maintenance, IT burden and compliance come at a high cost. Least scalable model. At the end of the day your IT dept. owns the SLAs, maintenance and hands-on work of patching, updates, re-boots, telco issues. This model is currently becoming harder and harder for IT management to justify… Public Cloud faxing – is a fully outsourced application to cloud fax provider. Pros are that this model provides the best scale, redundancy, uptime SLAs and cost effectiveness with a lower overall TCO. Value add is the scale or resources, infrastructure expertise, security and compliance – especially in highly regulated industries such as legal, healthcare and financial services. Cons – security: misconceptions about security, as a robust provider can provide robust, secure, reliable and compliant solutions with Tier III and Tier IV colos, geographically dispersed – so you get the same value add at a lower TCO than hybrid on ‘private’ model of faxing. Hybrid cloud faxing - relies on both on-site fax servers (private?) and public cloud infrastructure to deliver faxing, which is predicated on your ability to manage ‘private’ cloud piece toward SLAs and scale demands…however, are you doubling up on costs by continually paying for fax servers and the ‘cloud’ network at the same time? Could this all be accomplished by one robust cloud solution? How do you maintain compliance and reporting for audit between two systems? Is there true benefit to continuing to investing in fax servers? Or is the on-site server just a re-branding of an existing service to be marketed as hybrid? Is this provider a cloud provider or fax server company? If they say they are a cloud fax provider, why are they selling your servers to maintain?
- What are the financial considerations of continuing with fax servers (private or hybrid cloud?) Costs - $43K for fax servers, $1,200 / mo. Amortized
- Infrastructure costs – about $800 a month for analog T1 lines, numbers, maintenance costs
- data center or Rackspace will cost an average of $1,000
- From a financial perspective, it’s $3K per month WITHOUT redundancy…and $9K with redundancy built in…if you can get the reliability, scale, security and redundancy of a cloud fax provider like eFax Corporate®, it doesn’t make sense financially in the ‘make/buy’ equation to continue to have on-site fax servers or ‘hybrid’ solutions…. And let’s face it…IT isn't’ in excited about fax servers and could be freed up to do other forward-looking projects and quality of service tasks.
- Here’s some common issues many in IT management site as drivers of cloud faxing adoption: Some organizations’ volume may not continue to justify the Capex and Opex of private or hybrid faxing While capacity, reliability and scalability in high volume industries such as legal, finance and healthcare are predicated on high availability and best costs providers offering cloud faxing – not building, scaling in-house infrastructure Finally – many of our customers find an infrastructure upgrade project or VoIP project, for example, a good time to consider moving to cloud faxing, and is a great way to save on Capex and IT overhead
- Here’s some real-world examples of customers who have moved to cloud faxing with eFax Corporate® utilizing an API which provided full integration into their EMR and greatly enhanced compliance with HIPAA regulations, streamlining workflows and ease of use with mobile/BYOD faxing capability. It also removed the burden of capacity planning and IT overhead and capex associated with the fax server.
- Another common issue is companies who have on premise servers that are EOL and/or encountering failure and re-boots – impacting a core business mode of document transmissions. This financial services company opted to retire their servers and move to the cloud, eliminating the need to manage SLA uptimes, maintenance and re-building fax server infrastructure or paying for server O/S upgrades, maintenance etc.
- This law firm encountered issues on two fronts: fax not working well after a VoIP migration, and the very high CAPEX of fax servers in multiple locations. To reduce overall costs and IT burden of management of multiple servers, and unjustifiably high CAPEX to maintain them, this top 100 law firm moved to cloud faxing with eFax Corporate®.
- Before jumping to the cloud, there’s 10 considerations you should evaluate These boil down into 3 areas: Financial – cost/benefit, age of servers and cost to re-build, add capacity, redundancy. Your goal should be to have the lowest TCO over time vs. continuing to invest in infrastructure which may not justify itself when this can be outsourced and provide better value to your organization. 2) Operational – will a new solution provide you with the SLAs, scale, volume requirements, and redundancy needed for your organization? Can the new solution handle millions of faxes each day? Can you leverage flexible integration methods such as APIs, security – TLS, for example? Is there integration into third party applications such as SAP or integration into Multi-function Devices? You’ll want to have improvement over the existing fax server solution or ‘hybrid’ solution at a minimum. Again, ask if your provider is a cloud fax provider or server provider? If they are both, is this really in your best interest? 3) Feature sets, requirements – will moving to the cloud provide meet or enhance your security requirements? Will the solution meet your compliance, audit and corporate regulatory needs? Are there robust security features to meet or enhance your existing security features?
- Now that we’ve explored the numerous benefits of cloud faxing and validated the many benefits to the model: What you should demand: - no onsite servers or infrastructure: results will be reduced costs, freed up IT resources - high uptime SLAs – you should demand 99.5% or better uptime SLA for fax network – ask what investments they’ve made in redundancy, security, scale. If they can’t answer millions of faxes a day, this may be a red flag - features: don’t cut yourself short on features – demand strong security (for example TLS) and mobile support. Is there strong audit and compliance capabilities – such as receipt confirmations.
- eFax Corporate® has invested millions of dollars in infrastructure to provide a highly secure, compliant and redundant global cloud fax network. With millions of faxes sent daily, we service nearly half of the fortune 1000 companies worldwide. You also get ease of deployment and deep integration through our flexible APIs and can retire fax servers and infrastructure
- Another key differentiator about eFax Corporate® is that faxing is our core business The eFax Corporate® has a geographically disperse, global network with Tier III and Tier IV colocations, providing a 99.5% uptime, rapid delivery times and unparalleled transmission security.
- At eFax Corporate®, our goal is to make it easy for your organization to move to cloud faxing. We have the resources and enterprise infrastructure to enable a seamless migration from premise-based faxing to the cloud for your organization. You can port you existing numbers over seamlessly and retire your fax infrastructure.
- A little about eFax®: eFax Corporate® is part of j2 Cloud Services™ We specialize in cloud applications to help businesses be more productive HQ – Hollywood CA Data centers and offices worldwide: Tier III & Tier IV geographically redundant data centers around the world We’re an enterprise company with the infrastructure and scale to support many of the fortune 500 companies and 12 million SMB customers worldwide We own Significant IP/patents relating to cloud services