12.09.09
Posted in Work at 12:00 pm by JohnB
Cloud technologies… it’s all everyone is talking about at the moment. You can’t scan a blog site, pick up a magazine or log on to any technology forum without have “Cloud” shoved in your face.
And I’m as guilty as everyone else! When ones livelihood depends on the adoption and deployment of technology you sometime have to kick back and ride the wave and certainly there are new technologies emerging which are simply fantastic and would not have been possible without the recent developments in browser/OS/platform technologies. The Software as a Service Cloud is probably the most visible evidence of this, I can now write a document, put together a spreadsheet and edit graphics and a myriad of other cool stuff using free online services – brilliant!
But there’s another side (or two) to the picture. Let’s not forget about the techncal layers, the Platform as a Service and Infrastructure as a Service versions of the “Cloud” definition. In particular I’m more than a little smug that, what I would have termed well designed, internal infrastructures are now being heralded as ‘Private Clouds’.
We did a project in the Middle East nearly two years ago which involved the deployment of a virtualised environment for a corporate development team. The idea was to provide the team with a scalable platform within which they could spin up or down servers and systems without needing to refer to the IT department for every build. The stated business goals here were improved productivity, reduced overhead costs and flexibility with control. The control element came into play by allocating ‘points’ to each developer allowing them to create and use ny specification of virtual server or servers as long as the ‘cost’ fell inside their points allocation. Simple, easy and all delivered within the functionality of the chosen underlying technology.
This, dear reader, is a Private Cloud, we were doing it before it had a name! Of course there are now entire solutions built around the idea of the Dynamic Data Centre and the technology has moved on to allow even greater levels of administration, deployment and management to be achieved but the concept is the same; abstract away from the hardware and introduce services which are scalable, flexible and resilient without even needing to think about how these features are achieved.
And pretty much any business can take advantage of this kind of solution for a minimal level of investment. I’ll put good money on most businesses have at least one important if no critical systems or service which runs as a single point of failure. It’s economics, running multiple physical servers for resilience costs money. Not only in the original purchase of the time and it’s ongoing update/upgrade/replacement cycle, but also the power, cooling and administration side of things too.
By using virtualisaion and some central storage (this is were some investment may be needed) EVERY service can be resilient, monitored and flexible in it’s consumption of resources. Private Clouds are not just for giant enterprises and Universities they are for anyone who values their technical infrastructure and who would love to see their IT move from being an overhead cost to forming part of the strategic assets of the business.
Permalink
11.04.09
Posted in Work at 12:38 pm by JohnB
Microsoft’s BPOS Suite has come on quite a journey since it’s difficult birth. I can remember the reactions from the hosters I work with when the product set was announced. It ranged from outrage “They’re in competition with us!” through disbelief to a very simple “Meh, we provide other stuff with they can’t.”
Today’s announcement that the pricing for BPOS is being dropped and the mailbox spec increased is surely going to cause more growls and shrugs. The simple fact is thought that Microsoft tried over and over again to place Exchange Server, SharePoint and OCS into the hosing space through it’s partners and it simply didn’t take off the way that it should have done.
There are as many reasons (or excuses) for this as there are HMC – the MS hosting solution for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration – partners out there, but the main ones are simply that the product was never positioned by any partner the way that Microsoft has positioned BPOS and that the investment in making it easy for the customers was almost totally missing.
BPOS customers are able to migrate their users, groups, contacts and mailbox contents onto the hosted platform with little deep technical knowledge being required. They can also elect to keep some mailboxes locally if they need to.
The release:
New Pricing Announced for Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS)
Over the last few years we have seen demand for hosted software applications rapidly increase. Due to the success of our online services (Business Productivity Online Suite) we have decided to reduce the price in order to continue to deliver a competitive and compelling offer that will help to drive continued customer adoption. In addition mailbox storage has now been increased from 5B to 25GB.
From 3 November 2009 the new price structure for Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite is as follows:
| Offer |
Original List Price |
New UK Price |
| BPO Standard Suite |
£10.04 |
£6.71 |
| Exchange Online Standard |
£6.69 |
£3.35 |
| SharePoint Online Standard |
£4.85 |
£3.52 |
| Office Communications Online Standard |
£1.67 |
£1.34 |
| Live Meeting Standard |
£3.01 |
£3.02 |
Let’s take a look at one of those prices in particular: Exchange Online.
With these price releases organisations can now get an Exchange Server 2007 mailbox – with a built-in upgrade path to Exchange Server 2010 – for £3.35 per user, per month. Take a look around the hosters and see what the pricing is… really. Then have a think about the cost of a new server, the OS and Application licenses, the backup tapes / disks and the administration resource and tell me it makes sense to run Exchange yourself as a business who’s core competencies are NOT technology!
And to the hosters out there who are, today, throwing their arms in the air and screaming betrayal; you had the opportunity over the last 3 years to develop a significant business offering your own BPOS solution and put yourselves in this position but you didn’t, you put an Exchange Server logo on your web site and sold the TECHNOLOGY not the SERVICE. If you don’t have a migration plan for new customers then you are simply saying you don’t actually care about their needs.
I’ve been banging on about this stuff for quite a while now and it seems that the proof is finally coming to roost.
1. Do it first
2. Do it best
3. Do it cheapest
Those are the keys to making money in hosting. If you can get a combination then it’s pretty much a cast-iron guarantee.
If you’ve simply built an HMC platform, created some plans and then marked up your SPLA pricing thinking you have a solution you’ve missed the point, significantly and now MS are making it for you.
To Hosters
You have a choice now, provide your Exchange products as a value-added part of a larger solution like ERP, CRM or the like, position your solution against BPOS with good, solid business support and services, OR resell BPOS and make a solid recurring referral fee. It’s really become that simple
To Businesses
Give your TCO a serious look. BPOS now offers a significant benefit in both technology and financial terms as an alternative to running your own systems. If you believe you have a more difficult technological issue to overcome then talk to a Systems Integrator (like Planet Technologies of course!) who will be able to not only identify how your systems can be structured but also how ‘Cloud Services’ such as BPOS can and should be leveraged for your business and help you to migrate, quickly and easily, to BPOS if you make that decision.
Permalink
06.10.09
Posted in Home, Work at 4:03 pm by JohnB
It’s been a while since I felt the urge to share my desktop life with the world. It’s been a busy old 6 months, new technologies and solutions are bubbling up to the surface and keeping on top of them has been a challenge in itself, let alone actually doing the jobs I’ve got to do.
I made a decision a few weeks ago that if I was going to be espousing the benefits of Cloud Services, as well as assisting businesses with understanding how to take advantage of them in their various different guises, I should really see what it’s like to be a small-scale consumer of these things and I set out to make MY life as easy as possible using the technologies associated with The Cloud.
Virtualisation is the main hanger for these service. Virtualised storage means access from anywhere – in theory. Virtualised machines provide portability and flexibility. So here is my situation.
I use Macs as my workstation of choice, there are many reasons for this, but suffice it to say that I can do what I want and need to do with ease. There are however a couple of items which mean I also need a PC- read Windows – environment to work within:
1) Visio – I do systems architectural diagrams and exchange these with others
2) Project – Project plans need to be built and shared
3) Groove – As a virtual team we use Groove for shared document library storage and for projects
These applications are not available for the Mac – Boo Hiss MacBU in Microsoft! I know that there are alternatives around which will read file formats etc, but the important thing is that I exchange these with others and I’ve not found a ‘clean’ conversion which works both way in any of the options. Groove is simple Windows only.
My adopted solution is to use Parallels Desktop for the Mac and run a virtualised PC o take care of ‘that side of things’ in my working life. now this has been fine for many months and I actually run the PC off a Firewire connected portable drive so I can use it on my iMac at home and my MacBook when on the road; a nice solution as far as it goes but there is still a catch. My data lives on that Windows PC image. If it goes, it’s gone.
This would be bad in a number of ways, all of which are, I’m sure, clear to all. YES! I could take regular backups, but that is mitigation not resolution I needed to be more portable and more de-risked. My solution is a Cloud Service: Microsoft Live Mesh.
The Mesh allows me to publish a folder structure and subscribe to it from many devices including Mac’s natively, updates are made through the Mesh to all of the devices and things are kept up to date. I no longerneed to carry data around with me. But if we think about it, that means I actually no longer need to carry my Windows PC around with me either, I just need access to one wherever I am.
A new virtual PC was created on each of my device ‘locations’ and was added to my Mesh, now with the right aaplications installed and my Groove workspaces also synced, wherever I am I have access to my data. The Mesh also lets me access my library via the web so if I’m guesting on someone else’s PC for an hour I can still work (No Groove, but.. well… a move to Mesh for the team seems VERY likely!). It’s also worth noting that our email service at Planet is hosted, another Cloud service, so it also follows me around or is accessible via OWA.
I should also mention that my new virtual Windows PC’s are running the Windows 7RC. As I write this, I have a Mac running OSX Leopard with Parallels running Windows 7 AND a Windows XP virtual machine too (Groove syncing!!) and eveything is right with the world. I can leave me desk go to another location and have EXACTLY the same functionality, data and access without carrying anything other than my login details This makes me happy.
And things seem to be moving along nicely too. I read with GREAT interest the updates coming to OSX with the Snow Leopard release, in particular the inclusion of Exchange server support in the OS! As quoted from the Apple site “something even Windows PCs don’t have”.
But I am a multi platform user and I have to say that Windows 7 DOES seem to work… on the whole. I’m aware that it’s RC and that there will be a few niggles so I’m living with them for now, but those aside, it’s reasonably speedy (remember I’m running virtualised too) and easy to use. Having bypassed Vista, my XP tuned brain is re-learning how to do things, but it’s not too bad! Niggles a around file extension handling – especially with Groove!!! – and the way it sometimes provides a little too much technical info about a file type. The apps work well and I’ve not broken anything yet.
Anyway, think about the Cloud but not as a distant goal for corporate strategy, think of it as something hat, with a little planning can free you from the constraints of 1 system, 1 OS and 1 location, wander free and be productive for now is the time!
Permalink
« Previous Page — « Previous entries « Previous Page · Next Page » Next entries » — Next Page »
