Valor IT Technology Blog

For years now the idea and implementation of cloud computing has been gaining momentum. Many business have been experimenting with different cloud applications, but for the most part company employees were not aware of the concepts of cloud computing. Their expectations of their work systems are often set by their interactions with their home computing environments. While some of your employees might be using some cloud style systems, most have not.

That is about to change. The introduction of Apple's iCloud will create a tipping point that will have a profound impact on consumer software and services. Soon employees will become used to having access to all their stuff everywhere and instantly. They are going to want the same access to their work environment.

Like it or not, where Apple goes, everyone else eventually follows. Apple has been a trend setter in the industry for years.  While most of their products are targeted at consumers over time these changes all make their way into business.  From the graphical user interphase on your computer to the new tablet or smartphone that you are holding have been influenced by Apple.

Apple has just introduced an attractive cloud system for a whole range of things consumers care about.  It is the comprehensiveness and elegance of the iCloud system that will unleash a tipping point.  Documents, photos, email, contacts, calendars--users will get used to moving fluidly between all of them on different devices.  And as soon as your employees become used to things acting this way, they’ll start actually expecting things to act this way. And when that happens, if your company does not offer these same experiences you might start loosing attractive candidates.

As a company if you have not started the conversation about how you are going to start transforming your legacy data system, it is time to start.  The consultants at Valor IT would be happy to sit down with you and conduct a baseline overview of your system and help you with this transition.

We often hear from clients that they are hesitant about moving their internal systems into the cloud because of security issues. The reasons range from availability of the systems to the information getting hacked as it transfer over public data lines. Securing critical business data is certainly an absolute must and ensuring constancy access to that data is just as important. Fortunately with the advances in Cloud computing not only has the technology eliminated the security issues; cloud computing will likely improve data availability to your company.

As you consider the move to a Cloud based system it is important to look for transparency with respect to vendor services, and avoid companies that fail to provide a comprehensive overview of security procedures. It is always a good idea to ask as many questions as you can concerning policy guidelines; security architecture such as encryption, firewalls and other technical features; and to what degree the vendor can verify that service and control processes are functioning correctly.  Things to look for are:

• Privileged user access. Sensitive data processed outside the enterprise brings with it an inherent level of risk, because outsourced services bypass the "physical, logical and personnel controls" IT shops exert over in-house programs. Get as much information as you can about the people who manage your data.

• Regulatory compliance. Customers are ultimately responsible for the security and integrity of their own data, even when it is held by a service provider. Traditional service providers are subjected to external audits and security certifications. Cloud computing providers who refuse to undergo this scrutiny are not worth the trouble.

• Data location. When you use the cloud, you probably won't know exactly where your data is hosted. In fact, you might not even know what country it will be stored in. Ask providers if they will commit to storing and processing data in specific jurisdictions, and whether or not they will contractually abide by it.

• Data segregation. Data in the cloud is typically in a shared environment alongside data from other customers. Encryption is effective but isn't a cure-all. The cloud provider should provide evidence that encryption schemes were designed and tested by experienced specialists.

• Recovery. Even if you don't know where your data is, a cloud provider should tell you what will happen to your data and service in case of a digital catastrophe. Ask your provider if it has the ability to do a complete restoration, and what sort of time-frame is involved in accomplishing this.

• Investigative support. Investigating inappropriate or illegal activity may be impossible in cloud computing. See to what degree the vendor will contractually support investigative activities.

• Long-term viability. Ideally, your cloud computing provider will never go broke or get acquired by a larger company. But it is up to you to ensure that your data will remain available even after such an event. Ask potential providers what sort of assurances they can commit to in such an event.

We often hear from clients that they are hesitant about moving their internal systems into the cloud because of security issues. The reasons range from availability of the systems to the information getting hacked as it transfer over public data lines. Securing critical business data is certainly an absolute must and ensuring constant access to that data is just as important. Fortunately with the advances in Cloud computing not only has the technology eliminated the security issues; cloud computing will likely improve data availability to your company.

As you consider the move to a Cloud based system it is important to look for transparency with respect to vendor services, and avoid companies that fail to provide a comprehensive overview of security procedures. It is always a good idea to ask as many questions as you can concerning policy guidelines; security architecture such as encryption, firewalls and other technical features; and to what degree the vendor can verify that service and control processes are functioning correctly.  Things to look for are:

• Privileged user access. Sensitive data processed outside the enterprise brings with it an inherent level of risk, because outsourced services bypass the "physical, logical and personnel controls" IT shops exert over in-house programs. Get as much information as you can about the people who manage your data.

• Regulatory compliance. Customers are ultimately responsible for the security and integrity of their own data, even when it is held by a service provider. Traditional service providers are subjected to external audits and security certifications. Cloud computing providers who refuse to undergo this scrutiny are not worth the trouble.

• Data location. When you use the cloud, you probably won't know exactly where your data is hosted. In fact, you might not even know what country it will be stored in. Ask providers if they will commit to storing and processing data in specific jurisdictions, and whether or not they will contractually abide by it.

• Data segregation. Data in the cloud is typically in a shared environment alongside data from other customers. Encryption is effective but isn't a cure-all. The cloud provider should provide evidence that encryption schemes were designed and tested by experienced specialists.

• Recovery. Even if you don't know where your data is, a cloud provider should tell you what will happen to your data and service in case of a digital catastrophe. Ask your provider if it has the ability to do a complete restoration, and what sort of time-frame is involved in accomplishing this.

• Investigative support. Investigating inappropriate or illegal activity may be impossible in cloud computing. See to what degree the vendor will contractually support investigative activities.

• Long-term viability. Ideally, your cloud computing provider will never go broke or get acquired by a larger company. But it is up to you to ensure that your data will remain available even after such an event. Ask potential providers what sort of assurances they can commit to in such an event.

With the recent economic downturn, many companies are trying to find ways to decrease IT costs, yet still maintain a highly reliable infrastructure.  Finding the right solution to this problem has become a challenging task. Fortunately, the advent of Cloud computing has made reliability, scalability and lower costs a possibility for most business owners.

Cloud computing allows businesses to own a lot less equipment and yet get a lot more technology. With Cloud based computing your technology resources are housed off-site in highly reliable hosting data centers. All the maintenance, administration and hardware/software updates are performed by your managed IT partner allowing you to focus on your core business initiatives.

Cloud computing reduces investment in technology and increases the value of investment. With a cloud based service businesses pay a fixed monthly fee for their technology needs.  This includes both your software applications and hardware based systems.  The costs can be based on user counts or company needs.  The flexibility of this subscription-based service ensures that your business only pays for the services you need and use.

Could Computing can benefit your company/s bottom-line in the following ways:

• Reduce capital expenditures and operational overhead.
• Provide Scalability and Flexibility similar to a subscription-based or pay-per-use service. Basically you pay for the services you need and use.
• Increase IT responsiveness and efficiency. 24-7 Service.
• Reduce the training of new IT personnel.
• Reduce the cost of Licensing New Software.

As with any technology there are risks and mitigating those risks is a very important element when considering your move to a cloud based model.  The recent catastrophic failure of Amazon’s cloud-hosted Web Services failure last month knocked hundreds of sites off the web. These sites went down due to failure in implementing the key principle design of technology – backup plan for failures. Sites like Netflix were not affected by the outage due to their disaster recovery design.

The most important component in risk management is selecting a technology partner that can ensure proper design, transition and support of your cloud. Valor IT has been implementing cloud based technologies for over 5 years.  Our executive and technology staff are well trained and versed in the best practices for implementing cloud based solutions.  We have painstaking looked at every step in our transition and support process to ensure that clients data is never lost and their is a backup plan for every outage.

Over the past 5 years, many Valor IT customers have made the switch to cloud hosted solutions. In 2010, we saved those customers over $2 million in IT spending while improving system availability and up-time.  Call to schedule a Cloud Adoption Assessment to see if the cloud is a good fit for your company.

Many CEO's and IT managers are hearing about Cloud Computing. Most are asking if it is the right choice for their company and what it means to the future of their technology infrastructure. In most cases the answer is "Yes". With cloud computing, you eliminate the traditional IT headaches because it is no longer you’re responsibility to manage hardware and software — that’s the responsibility of an experienced partner like Valor IT. The shared infrastructure sets Valor IT up as a utility. You only pay for what you need, upgrades are automatic, scaling up or down is easy, and there is no waste of resources.

Cloud-based applications can be up and running in days or weeks, and are cost effective. Over 90% of Fortune 500 companies have already adopted Cloud Computing and have moved mission critical applications to the cloud.

As cloud computing grows in popularity, thousands of companies are simply re-branding their non-cloud products and services as “cloud computing.” Always dig deeper when evaluating cloud offerings and keep in mind that if you have to buy and manage hardware and software, what you’re looking at isn’t really cloud computing but a false cloud. Valor IT provides the ability to take advantage of true Cloud solutions offered by companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon amongst other market leaders with guaranteed savings and better Return on Investment.