Sagari have been Awarded as Official Public Sector Suppliers on the G-Cloud

At Sagari we knew we had the ideal solution to save government bodies/organisations a lot of money, whilst vastly improving their business functions.

So the Sagari team have been quietly working in the background to work through an extensive list of must have’s that the Government Procurement Service would expect any IT support provider to have in place to be accepted for hosted services.

This has been a 8 month process completed by the Government Procurement Service, where Sagari have been through a comprehensive due diligence process, completed on everything from staff, security, location and disaster recovery to name a few.

Sagari had to provide solid evidence on each section, which needed to be backed up with documentary evidence, certification, credit ratings, partner agreements and contracts, specific workflows and process documents.

Below is an example of some of the information we had to provide to demonstrate our abilities and of our set-up:

Datacentre

• The location of each datacentre
• How these datacentres are connected
• What ISO accreditations each datacentre has with documented proof of certifications
• What environmental accreditations the datacentres have with documented proof of certification
• Complete plans, process mapping, workflows and proof of disaster recovery set-up
• Access to all of the public sector network on the N3 (NHS network), GSI (Government Secure Intranet) etc. with supporting documents
• What internet exchange presence they have/ bandwidth availability and network speeds achievable

As you can see from the list above, this is just a small proportion of what was asked of us by the Government Procurement Service. To demonstrate the Sagari platform is of the highest standard, to allow Government bodies/organisations to host their data, email and applications with us.

To elaborate further, Sagari went up against over 600 leading cloud hosting suppliers around the world, to be selected down to the final 36. This means that Sagari are 1 of only 36 providers who are allowed to be awarded any hosting projects from the public sector through the G-cloud.

This is an incredible achievement for us and shows that we are really beginning to become one of the leading cloud computing providers available.

Best Regards

Steven John
Sagari Ltd

Welcome to Part 3 of Preparing you for Cloud Computing

Welcome back to the final part of the preparing you for cloud computing blog series.  We really hope that you have found this extremely interesting, and provides you enough information to help you get started with planning your cloud computing project.

8. Do you have mobile workers?

Running a mobile workforce will certainly impact the decisions you make, when choosing a hosted service solution.

If your mobile workforce are  bound to the road, travelling for most of their working day,  then this will impact your decision on the cloud computing platform you choose. Or you will certainly need to understand how you can mix a cloud platform with offline feature sets.

Although there are many 3rd party applications which provide solutions for offline workers, or staff with a poor connection.

You could have a hosted desktop with an offline file storage system implemented such as hyperdrive or even a 3d party tool which syn’cs your data locally to your laptop, so when you are out of an area with a stable internet connection, you can still access your data locally from your laptop. When you are back to a reliable internet connection, that data is then sync’d back.

How to build your platform is beyond the scope of this blog, but we will running an article on web hosted applications and building cloud platforms for different businesses later on in the year

Most mobile workers rely heavily on their Blackberry devices, IPhone’s, Androids etc. Which means you need to ensure you partner with  a reliable and stable cloud computing hosting provider

The email features and functions needs to allow the minimum of providing, shared calendars and events, shared contacts, distribution lists and can push your emails to you as they are send and received in real time.

Most cloud computing providers offer additional services as part of the solution, including anti-spam, email anti-virus, outlook web access, archiving and backup to name a few. Make sure you find out what these costs are as some providers trick you into thinking your getting a good deal, but then hit you with additional storage charges, services and add-ons. This adds on a significant amount of money when you have 100′s or 1000′s of mailboxes.

9. What security needs to be in place for your data?

If you are an FSA regulated business or organisation, or if you are driven by compliance and risk management. Then you need to ensure your data is hosted by a provider who adheres to all the highest security measures, compliance and industry standards.

With organisation that need this level of security, you will always have to ensure the cloud solution is a private cloud. This means your data is held and managed in a highly secure dedicated datacentre, that you can be provided access to. Private cloud, means your data will be separated away from other businesses completely and normally is encrypted to the highest level.

If you are audited for any reason, you need to ensure that you can provide access to your data and all the relevant due diligence you have completed, to show you have completed a comprehensive due dilligence process, before partnering with a cloud computing supplie

There are many other forms of compliance and security that is important, but is beyond this blog discussion. They include ISO27001, two-factor authentication, security clearance to name a few. We will discuss these on another time.

10. What file and folder permissions need to be in place?

Running a physical server in your office with Windows server, makes it easy to implement a file and folder permission system, utilising Windows in-built NTFS file structure. Depending on what cloud computing system you implement, will mean you need to consider how you will build your file structure.

If you move to a hosted desktop system, then this is straight forward to implement, but if you are looking at more cost effective solutions, or moving away from a windows based system could mean a number of changes.

For instance, if you use an online storage system such as Jungle Disk or Drop box. These do not utilise windows file and folder permissions, and have their own hierarchical systems for implementing security.

They might not provide you the level of security you require on your files and folder, or you might find it complicated to use. I would suggest you test the different solution so you can analyse which one will suite you best. Sometimes, cost is a deciding factor, but it might not provide the service you require.

These are all important factors to consider.

11. What network hardware do you have in place?

Due to the importance of your network, because all the hosted services are now running over the internet. You need to ensure that your network has been implemented well, and is not causing any latency or broadcasting problems.

What I mean by this is, if your network has been setup incorrectly and your hardware is cheap or poorly configured. Then you could be doing a disservice to the performance of your network without realising. When set-up correctly. Your network should be able to communicate using minimum traffic to pass information back and forth. If on the other hand it has been implemented without thought. Then you could be flooding your network with unnecessary traffic which will heavily impact the quality of your hosted services.

These are all relatively easy things to sort out, but generally require a network engineer to audit and analyse your network. They will then provide a report of what needs to be changed to optimise your network traffic.

12. What hardware are you going to use to connect to the cloud?

Moving to the cloud means you don’t necessarily need to run high end desktops and laptops anymore.

With cloud computing all the work is done from the cloud, which means you can replace your desktop (AKA fat clients) with new devices called thin clients or dumb terminals.

Thin clients are desktops without large processors and memory, or high capacity hard drives to store your data. This is because they are not running your applications anymore.

All they require is enough memory or flash RAM, to enable you to gain access to the internet. These devices generally cost a lot less and use a lot less power, saving you further money.

Furthermore, they don’t require operating systems and anti-virus on them and more importantly they don’t require much maintenance. These devices don’t have much work to do which means further cost savings.

13. Educating your staff?

No one likes change, so implementing a hosted solution means it is worth getting the buy in early from your staff, and demonstrate the benefits of moving to a hosted solution, and how it will help them do their job more efficiently.

14. Trailing Services

This is a great opportunity to see the solution in action, so you can see if the services are a good fit for your business. If you know the route you want to take, and have implemented many of the steps listed ready to run a cloud computing service, then this is a good chance to see if your cloud computing provider runs a stable solution.

15. Do your own due diligence

It is very easy to be blind sited by companies who perceive to provide an excellent service and solution. You need to do your own due diligence.

Firstly I would advise you to get 3 strong references, and preferably consider doing a site visit to some of the  sites to see the solution in action.

You can visit their offices and to speak with their support staff to find out if they are the sort of company you would like to work with. Visiting the offices can generally provide a good insight into the type of Cloud Company they are and how they operate.

You can also visit the datacentres and internet exchanges where your data and hosted services will be hosted. This will demonstrate the level of security that is in place, and give you the opportunity to ask questions about the set-up.

You may have your own due diligence process already, but this is what many of our clients have done to gain confidence in Sagari before taking the leap.

16. How much disruption does moving to the cloud cause?

This is a difficult question to answer as it depends on a number of differentiating circumstances.

If your current physical hardware has been poorly managed, then this will affect your migration, because it will take more planning.

If you have ageing hardware and software then this can affect the migration, but shouldn’t cause too many problems. This relates back to planning early on with your application vendors to get this in place early.

All of the above can be minimised by planning carefully and by helping your cloud provider as much as possible.

Any reputable cloud provider would provide you an audit sheet of what they are going to do first, and then they would complete an on-site audit where they can compile a report.

The report would be provided back to the client with what needs to be completed (implementation plan), to bring the services up to a level that you can be migrated to a hosted service. This generally would be in the form of a statement of work, outlining the steps and timeframes.

The beauty of cloud computing is generally you can keep your old systems running, whilst testing your hosted platform alongside this, so it won’t affect you and your staff working. The only difficulty of this is email.

Email is by far the most difficult service to migrate seamlessly, as every client is different, and the service can not be run alongside each other easily. There are systems and services such as MigrationWizz, which is designed to help you migrate, but these come at a cost per head and don’t migrate everything over such as calendars, rules etc..

I hope this has made a well worth read, and provides you a good understanding of what needs to be done when planning a cloud computing migration.

Please feel free to email or contact us directly us directly if you want any further information relating to this 3 part blog on preparing for cloud computing.  If you have a current cloud computing or hosted services project you would like to discuss further. Then please feel free to contact us directly, visit Sagari at www.sagari.co.uk or please call us on 01274 929371 .

Best regards

Steven John
Sagari Ltd

p.s. We would be more than happy to discuss your cloud computing project, or discuss an existing hosted services project you are

Welcome to Part 2 of Preparing you for Cloud Computing

Welcome back to the part 2 of the preparing you for cloud computing blog series.  We really hope that you are finding the list so far, has helped build on the knowledge you need to help you get started with planning your cloud computing project.

3. Do you use a lot of data?

Many cloud providers offer what “looks like an excellent deals on data” etc.  they may provide 5 – 10GB of free space to start you off with, and to get you on their systems. What you need to be aware of is the prevailing costs that will add up, especially  if you are a high data rate user for example –  the charges can just seem too good to be true with the likes Amazon AWS and Rackspace Cloud pay per GigaByte – the costs can sore!

You realistically need to think about what sort of data will changing or increasing in your organisation, and plan for at least 2 years, so you can truly analyse and project whether a particular cloud solution or cloud data provider is going to cost you in the long run.  It is always better if you can find a solution where you are not charged additional amounts, for additional data, so you are therefore not financially penalised

We don’t like the idea of having a extra costs associated – this is the same with everything approach, not only can these be perceived as hidden costs, but your solutions become very complicated,  especially down the line.

4. Do your applications need upgrading?

Before you move your applications into the cloud, you need to check a number of things first.

If your applications are old and out-of-date,  they might not be compatible with later operating systems, or work over as a cloud application solution using Windows Terminal Services. They might not be supported by your vendor if being run over a cloud, or they might not be compatible full stop!

These are all things you will want to get checked before migrating over to a cloud service, as this might affect the direction you go. Speak directly with your application providers first to find out if they have other companies who are using this particular application over the cloud, ask what your suppliers need to ensure the cloud provider has for the application to work.

You could also look to migrate your data from your current application, such as your customer relationship management system, over to a cloud based system.

5. Do your applications need constant updates?

Many 3^rd party applications require continual updates and maintenance to ensure they are bug free, virus free and running the latest feature sets.

Whose responsibility this is requires information gathering early on, as this can cause problems down the line.

If you are running a hosted desktop solution, you are effectively installing your applications on the cloud provider’s platform. This means it needs to be decided if your 3^rd party application provider will install their own updates on the cloud platform, working with the cloud hosting provider to provision this in, or is this is going to be the responsibility of an internal resource at work, or even the cloud providers themselves.

As you can imagine this needs to be understood and  discussed early on, so it doesn’t cause issues down the line, and therefore costing you more money.

6. Do you work with a lot of high end graphics and video?

As previouosly mentioned. Video and high end graphics has not yet been mastered by any of the main providers of cloud. This will again determine what route you should take for cloud computing.

From our own experience, we normally suggest a hybrid cloud; that allows the customer to have their CAD designers, media staff etc. to keep their high end “local desktops” for running their design packages locally, but provide such applications as hosted exchange email and SaaS (software as a service) solution for other applications.

7. Do you need to collaborate with others?

If your business has multiple offices in different geo locations, or you need to collaborate with people all over the world, then the cloud really comes into its own. Cloud computing enables you to implement a solution such as a hosted desktop, this enables teams to work on the same project with real time updates. This provides incredible flexibility and improves your businesses efficiency with untold benefits.

There are many other options such as a document management system such as Microsoft SharePoint which allows you to share documents from a central web portal.

Cloud computing truly enables many different options for sharing information,  and the ability work on projects together and therefore not be bound by your location.

I hope you have enjoyed the second part of this blog on how to prepare for cloud computing. We have one more part to this article which will be released shortly so please visit regularly.

Best Regards

Steven John
Sagari Ltd

p.s Please visit our website www.sagari.co.uk and watch the short videos, demonstrating how we provide some of our main hosted services, including hosted desktops and email exchange hosting

Planning the big move to Cloud Computing?

When you are considering moving your business to the cloud, you need to think about what you need to address and have in place to make the transition as seamless as possible.

There are some main steps that each business or organisation needs to think about which we are going to list for you, and briefly speak about each one. This should help you put the steps in place and also to see if cloud computing is the correct move for you.

1. Sufficient Bandwidth

The most important element that always needs to be in place before you run hosted services is the network. You will need to have a sufficient broadband or a dedicated line. This is because you are now accessing most or all of your important data over the web, so you are using more bandwidth (the amount of data or traffic that is travelling down the line).

You can run tools such as speed test http://speedtest.net which performs a check on your network to see what upload and download speeds you currently can achieve on your network.

There are a lot of deciding factors for the network as broadband is relatively cheap, but can produce latency (delays on the network) and other people/businesses are sharing the line with you. This means at certain times of the day, the line can get saturated which would hinder the performance of your hosted services. You can utilise cloud services for certain hosted services, or for small number of users because the resource being affected would be relatively low.

Alternatively, you can go for a dedicated solution which means a line would be allocated only for your business. No other companies would have access to this line. Furthermore, the provider of the line has to guarantee the speeds and up-time of the line. This of course costs more, but is by far the best choice when you want to run a hosted services solution for larger numbers of user or cloud service that require specific bandwidth requirements.

There are many different options and packages which will be discussed in more detail for another time, but to give you an idea of the different services out there are:

ADSL, DSL, SDSL, final mile, bonded line, dedicated line, MPLS, cable

2. What cloud solution is best for your business?

There are many cloud services options available such as hosted desktops, hosted exchange email, public clouds, private clouds or Software as a Service to name few, but which one is right for you?

This depends on how you operate and what your requirements are. If you are a business who has lots of legacy applications and connectors, linking your Microsoft Outlook, or bespoke applications requiring specific configurations.

To help provide an overview I have listed the main cloud solution below and who would suite that type of hosted service:

• Private Cloud: A private cloud means you are provided your own virtual server or private hardware which you have full control over. Your private cloud will not be sharing resource, or applications with other businesses. This provides you the control to build and configure your solution to your specification.It also means you are far more secure, adhering to compliance and security measures many companies require these days. This could be companies such as Law Firms, Accountants and FSA regulated companies. Businesses like these have to ensure the data is highly secure due to the sensitivity of the data.
• Public Cloud: A public cloud means you don’t own the hardware in anyway and are sharing resource and applications with others. This restricts what you can do as a business. You will be provided a suite of applications such as the Office suite, Sage, Adobe and you will have no control over how these work with your applications. You might not be able to install your legacy application onto the shared cloud and you will be limited to the changes you can make. Public clouds are generally not as expensive as running a private cloud and it means they are load balanced across multiple hardware providing excellent resilience and disaster recovery.Public clouds are a good choice to make, but it depends on your requirements and what you need to be able to do as a business.
• Hybrid Clouds: If you want to keep a server on-site so you can keep control of where your data is, then you can implement a best of both solution which is also known as a “Hybrid Cloud”. This provides added flexibility because you can incorporate SAAS (Software as a Service),
  hosted email, on premise hardware, local applications etc.
• SAAS: This leads me on to Software as a Service where you can run your applications over the cloud such as Google Apps and hosted web services, but allows you to keep local resources such as your server and desktops. Another good example for the type of companies that might implement these solutions are businesses who run a lot of high end graphics, video content or streaming music. The cloud has not quite managed to stream this sort of content directly from a datacentre, back to your screen without it pixilating or becoming a little distorted. They are seeing good results but it is not a good as running a local high end desktop to run CAD programs etc.

There are many choices out there, so you need to think about what it is you are trying to achieve and what solution fits best for you.

We don’t want to overwhelm you, so we have put this together over a few weeks. Please make sure you visit regularly to view the rest of the seventeen must haves to prepare you for Cloud Computing for your business.

Best Regards

Steven John

Sagari Ltd

p.s Please visit our website www.sagari.co.uk and watch the short videos, demonstrating how we provide some of our main hosted services, including hosted desktops and cloud computing storage.

Cloud Computing is the big buzz word out there for businesses at the moment and is growing rapidly.

But….

Is Cloud Computing right for you…….. and your business?

This is what I want to explore with you today, by providing you with the information, enabling you to make a confident decision.

To answer this question, we must first examine the pros and cons of cloud computing; no technology or service is perfect, but cloud computing posses many more benefits than the traditional IT model we all know. So let’s examine this in more detail.

Firstly we will look at the pros and cons of cloud computing, then we’ll analyse what types of users and businesses who really benefit most from this global shift.

Then, and only then should you consider cloud computing, and whether this is the right fit for you and your business!

To start with I would suggest you watch our Cloud Computing video. This demonstrates how cloud computing works, and is a fantastic starting point, helping you visualise this complex and evolving technology.

Understanding Cloud Computing Video (click on the play button)

The Pros and Cons of Cloud Computing

As with any cutting edge technology, Cloud Computing can be somewhat confusing to understand. It’s important for you to grasp the ‘pros and cons’ as this will enable you to minimise potential risks and fully understand how cloud computing can add value to both you, your staff and customers.

Cloud Computing Advantages

Let’s have a look at a few of the many advantages Cloud Computing has to offer:

Reduced Cost for User Desktops

I will start with trying to quantify the financial advantage: You will no longer require a powerful desktop computer(s), this in-turn means you will no longer require regular and expensive upgrades when running a cloud computing, or a hosted desktop solution.

This is quite simple to understand as all your data, applications and information are running from the Cloud, and not your local desktop. This means you no longer require the hard drive space or large amounts of memory to process your applications. In essence, your desktop machine has now become “dumb”. No work is being processed from your machine anymore; it means you can buy terminals with reduced memory, hard drive space, processing power – giving them the name “dumb terminals” or “thin clients”.

These devices don’t even require operating systems such as Windows XP or Windows 7, backup software or Anti-Virus (AV), because there is no requirement locally…. This is all managed in the Cloud and no longer has to be your concern.

Not only does this mean less hassle and inherent downtime, but considerable savings, not to mention the vast reduction in electricity consumption!

Improved Performance

I will now elaborate further on the user’s desktop experience: Understanding that the local desktop doesn’t have to run memory intensive applications, or perform processing hogging tasks, whilst storing gigabytes and gigabytes of data leads to massive increases in performance.

The local desktops resources are no longer being utilised, freeing the machine’s performance up immeasurably.

This allows your desktop to not only boot up quicker, but also run faster and work more effectively, because there is nothing hogging up the memory or tasks to perform, other than a connection to run the cloud.

Vastly Reduced Capital Expenditure Costs

With no requirements for servers on-site, you remove the up-front costs of running and maintaining hardware on-site. Instead of investing in large up-front costs that these powerful servers cost, your internal IT staff or resource can harness the power of cloud computing to replace the role of the server.

This provides major financial gains for up-front costs (capital expenditure), especially as most companies procure servers with a 3 – 5 year plan, buying a server which will be heavily under-utilised (paying for resources not being used) to ensure it lasts, then sweating that asset out as long as possible to improve your return on investment. Then the server is under performing, because the resources are being over utilised (not enough power or resource to perform its role).

Cloud Computing is scalable, this means you only pay for what you use, whether you grow or shrink as a business.

This provides large financial savings, primarily because you’re only paying a subscription on a service that truly gives you control of your costs, on a month to month basis.

As we all know business changes so quickly that we all need to be able to adapt to changes as quickly as possible, and with minimum cost.

Fewer Maintenance Issues

With Cloud Computing, you no longer have servers on-site to maintain, and no applications to manage on either the desktops or servers, with no more storage requirements or data to backups to worry about.

Cloud computing almost eliminates the requirements for any on-site resources. In effect you now have no IT assets to manage.

Reduced Software Costs

Running software and maintaining it is far simpler in the cloud. Software is now paid for on a subscription basis, and only for the users that require it.

There is no need to procure expensive operating systems, or purchase separate applications for each individual computer. Instead, applications are published out to the relevant users over the cloud as and when they are required.

Your IT staff are subsequently saved the hassle of installing and maintaining these applications on every desktop in the organisation and freed up for more productive use of their time.

Many cloud companies provide some of the main applications as part of their service. For instance Sagari will provide you the very latest Microsoft Office suite as part of our delivery, and then allow you to install any other applications onto your cloud, offering you the flexibility to have your own bespoke software solution in line with current business needs.

Google apps provide an element of their applications for free, but they remove the flexibility of installing your own applications. This depends on your requirements, and on which you choose, also taking into account your budgets etc.

Instant Software Updates

Providing applications over the cloud means you are always going to receive the latest versions of software, therefore providing your staff with the very latest features and benefits.

Hosted applications means that any upgrades, patches and subsequent management of software, are the sole responsibility of the vendor.

You will never have to worry about expensive software upgrades, or legacy applications that no one knows how to manage.

Increased Computing Power

When utilising cloud computing, you have the power of the entire cloud (public cloud), or infrastructure within a datacentre (private cloud) at your disposal.

Traditional desktop computing means your PC can only perform as well as the resources within it (memory, processor).

Cloud computing will allow your staff to perform supercomputing tasks on their desktop, by harnessing the power of 100’s or 1000’s of super-computers. Traditional desktop computing obviously restricts you from doing this

Unlimited Storage Capacity

The beauty of cloud computing is its scalability. No longer do you have to worry about your hard drive running out of space and the hassle of replacing the drive, or worse, the hard drive running out of space where your operating system is stored, and the machine not booting anymore.

Cloud computing scales as your users and business requires, providing you endless amount of data to use and share.

Improved Data Safety

Anyone who has lost their data understands how important it is to have a good backup policy in place. Many businesses though still neglect to test the validity of their data and backup procedures.

Cloud computing removes the need to worry about this anymore, because your data is backed up continuously across multiple storage devices (public cloud), or storage area networks (private clouds).

If your machine dies, all you have to do is get to another machine with an internet connection and log back on………. That’s it.

Improved Compatibility between Operating Systems

In a world where MACs and Linux are entering the business space more and more, it is important that users can share data between each other.

Cloud computing bridges the gap that was formally a difficult task to accomplish, allowing your staff to share documents between any operating system. In the cloud, the data matters, not the operating system.

Improved Document Format Compatibility

With traditional desktop computing, applications are installed on each individual machine, which means it is very common for compatibility issues owing to one or many users in the same organisation using a slightly different version of the same application as another.

A good example of this is the Microsoft Office suite, when the change of the file format occurred from .docx in Office 2007, to .doc in Office 2003.

Cloud computing eliminates compatibility issues because everyone will be connecting to one machine and accessing one version of each application.

Easier Group Collaboration

This is one of biggest advantages of cloud computing. Being able to share documents and collaborate effectively with all relevant teams on the same project. Before cloud computing, you had to email documents, or back the data up onto a drive and then send to the relevant users.

With cloud computing you can share any information to anyone in the world, changes to documents are seen in real-time, and multiple users can work on the same document sequentially.

The advantages of sharing data and group collaboration on this scale is incredible. It means just some of the following efficiencies can be realised:

• Quickly share documents
• Work on the same document sequentially
• Provide versioning control of documents
• Complete group projects across different geographical locations
• Groups don’t need to reside in a single location

Universal Access to Documents

This follows on from group collaboration, but cloud computing also means you can be working on a document in your office, and rather than saving the document and putting on a pen drive to upload at home, you can just go home and log onto your hosted desktop, and carry on from the point you left off.

This is the amazing flexibility that cloud computing brings. Your documents are instantly available from any machine with an internet connection.

Latest Version Availability

This one is positive for organisations at so many levels…… Have you ever edited a document at home, gone into the office the next day, only to find that it is the out-dated version?

When accessing your documents on the cloud you will always find the latest version of the document, saving you the frustrations of having to go over old work.

Removes the Tether to Specific Devices

Not being bound to a single device or location is by far the biggest cloud computing advantage. Working from the cloud means you can now access your information from any device, and in any location.

For example, if your working on a document and go abroad. You can access everything from another computer in another country. I’m sure you’ll agree this provides the ultimate flexibility for you and your business.

This is not just to a PC or Laptop, but also through any portable device such as an iPad or any commercial Smart Phone. Your applications and data follow you no matter where you are, what device you’re on, or what operating system you use.

You don’t have to worry about syncing data anymore or running special applications to convert data to different platforms, or onto a specific format etc.
Cloud computing simplifies accessing your information for you and your staff.

Cloud Computing Disadvantages

We don’t live in a perfect world unfortunately, which means Cloud computing does come with some disadvantages.
Although Cloud has many more benefits over a traditional desktop solution. The cloud is not going to be right for every business.

Let me explain what these disadvantages are so you can make an informed decision for your business.

Requires a Constant Connection

This is the biggest single factor that hinders the cloud e.g. the ‘internet connection.’ By basic definition Cloud Computing’s means ‘the internet’ e.g. without it or a connection to it, you can not access your data and applications.

There is however ways to sync data from the Cloud to your local PC, and its possible for you to work offline and upload the documents to the cloud when you are back online again!

If your place of business is in an area that suffers intermittent internet connections, or is extremely expensive to provide leased lines (direct connections) because your business is away from a commercial hub geographically, then cloud computing might not be the best decision for your business.

The cloud relies on good internet connections, because your information is being streamed to your device(s). For smaller companies of up to 5 users, you can generally get away with a standard broadband connection (adsl), but for larger businesses, you require improved broadband solutions such as SDSL or leased lines – the truth is most businesses already have these circuits due to the commercial importance that good circuit connections have.

Low Speed Connections

Running a cloud service for your business on a low speed broadband, with latency (delays on the line), will affect the performance of your cloud and access to your information.

Web-based applications often require a lot of bandwidth to download a document for example, but more importantly it is your up-load speed that’s critical. Most broadband providers never deliver the bandwidth they promise, unless you pay a little more money for guaranteed speeds.
Analysing your network connection is the fist thing we audit, before delivering a cloud service, without the bandwidth for your business; your cloud would be less efficient.

We offer all the advice and support to ensure you have a sufficient network in place before migrating to a cloud solution.

Can Be Slow

Believe it or not, even on a fast internet connection, particular web based applications or graphical based applications can be slower than running on your local machine, although this is not a rule of thumb and is rare.

This especially effects heavy graphic/data usage such as architects/designers Graphic companies for example, we do not promote a fully steamed environment for these organisations Instead we would suggest a hybrid cloud – this means we would host an element of your environment, such as your email and your web sites, whilst managing your local applications onsite.

In conclusion there are many options available, and all these are discussed following Sagari’s thorough consulting and audit service, ensuring we bring you and your business across to the cloud as seamlessly as possible.

Features Might Be Limited

If you want to use free cloud computing solutions such as Google Apps or Zoho, you must understand their limitations, and what can truly be achieved with each application.

For example, Google’s desktop publishing tool, compared to the feature rich Microsoft Word are currently worlds apart.

If you only require basic software, Google Apps could be a perfect solution for you, but if you are like most organisations using Microsoft Office applications already this is essential.

There is no doubt that other software vendors will soon be competing with Microsoft on a much more even playing field, and no doubt be catching up in the future.
Sagari provide the latest Microsoft Office 2010 Professional as part of every hosted desktop and do not restrict you from any of the features and benefits provided.

Stored Data Might Not Be Secure

Delivering data and software services over the Cloud does have inherent security risks, which are important to understand….. The irony is your data is most likely far safer in the cloud than in your own office!

There are different types of clouds which bare a number of risks. For instance, public clouds means your data and applications are stored on a server(s) somewhere out in the cloud, but no one could tell you where this data is, or how to retrieve it in the event of a hardware crash.

Cloud companies providing this service need to be audited fully, and you need to fully understand how their disaster recovery procedures work, also their backup processes should the unfortunate hardware failure ever occur.

I would suggest not only a visit to their offices to meet support staff, but try and get some customer references and arrange a site visit.. A thorough understanding of their disaster recovery and backup process really is a given.

You must be confident that your business critical data is being managed to the very highest levels.

Private Clouds are far safer, mainly because it is all managed in a secure datacentre where someone can physically put their hand on your data, but it is vital you check everything for your own due-diligence. Well managed Private Clouds and data centres come with a plethora or accreditations you can look into.

Sagari provide private Clouds only, and run our services in 3 of the most prolific datacentres in the UK. We are in the process of implementing a 4th which I will detail at another time. We have recently had 10 month due diligence completed by a leading law firm, who are more than happy to backup all the claims we make about our business structure, services and accreditations etc.

I will be running a blog on how to choose the right Cloud Partner and preparing for the cloud another time.

The next blog will be talking about whom benefits from the cloud, which I will discuss more about collaborators, road warriors, adding value and much more…
I look forward to the next blog.

Many Thanks

Steven John – The Sagari Team

Cloud computing is changing the way we work, operate and do business day-to-day. Cloud computing will become more and more important as it evolves and develops.

For end users, cloud computing means the user is not restricted to the computer he sits on, or the office he works in. Cloud computing allows the end user to access his information anywhere he chooses, as long as he has an internet connection. With wireless, 3G networks popping up in more and more locations. It is becoming easier and easier to get online, not matter where you are.

Cloud computing provides the end user increased amounts of processing power to run complex tasks and increased amounts of storage capacity when required. In essence, the user is not restricted by physical constraints. Instead Cloud computing enables new ways to access information, process and analyse data, and connect people and resources from any location, anywhere in the world.

Centralising your business documents, emails and applications means they are always in one place, to be accessed from any device or machine. Apart from easy access, it means you don’t have to move data from one place to another or duplicate information. It makes it far easier to share and connect with other people.

Gone is the fear of losing data if computer crashes, documents hosted in the cloud always exist, no matter what happens to the user’s machine.

Another important benefit is the ability to provide group collaboration, staff in different offices or global offices around the world can collaborate on the same document, applications and projects, in real time. Cloud computing brings your business, staff and customer closer together.

Cloud computing reduces your business costs, because the cloud enables more efficient sharing of resources than traditional methods of network computing.

With cloud computing, your business doesn’t require physical servers or even fat client desktops because all of your business applications, email and documents are stored in the cloud.

Instead, you connect using thin clients (mentioned in previous posts) which are desktop computers which heavily relies on the cloud to perform the tasks a normal desktop would such as running the applications, running tasks etc.

With cloud computing, cloud recourses are always available to you as a business, removing the need to purchase assets for infrequent intensive computing tasks. If you need services for a month, then you just pay for a month. That is the beauty of cloud computing, you pay for what you use as a subscription, then close this down when you have finished.

Why not speak to one of our cloud computing experts about some of our services including hosted desktops, exchange hosted email, hosted online backup, or is you require a bespoke service for a hosted application then we would be happy to help you further.

Please contact us at sales@sagari.co.uk or contact us directly on 0844 357 7282

Many Thanks

Steven John – The Sagari Team

Morning All,

To further help explain what Cloud Computing is, I thought it would be good to discuss what Cloud Computing isn’t.

With traditional computing, you install and run your applications locally on your computer. If any updates or new versions of software are released for the applications installed on your PC. You are responsible for updating your device

Traditional computing means you require what’s called a “fat client” or desktop computer. This means you need to run a supported operation system such as Microsoft XP, Vista or 7. This requires you to ensure the Windows security patches which are released each week are installed to ensure you are protected from the latest security threats
Windows also release periodic updates to improve, stabilise and resolve bugs within the operating system.

With every PC you require an anti-virus program to protect your PC from viruses, Trojans, adware and spyware. This need to be updates every time an update is released;

Documents are stored on the machine you created them on. Backing up these documents requires software installed on your machine and an external device to back these documents up to. Again, it is your responsibility to ensure your data is being backed up successfully everyday.

Accessing your documents means you need to be on the device you stored them on, or you need to procure remote access software to access your information from another PC. Some important points are: The PC you need to remotely access has to be switched on, when accessing the information remotely, you are bound by the internet connection you are remotely accessing from, and the internet connection the device you are trying to connect in on.
Access speeds are generally a lot slower because of this and uses a lot more resources on the remote device to work.

Cloud computing or hosted desktops do not depend on any of the above. This is why there are many benefits over traditional desktop computing.

We will be discussing cloud computing benefits is upcoming blogs.

Thanks

Steve John – The Sagari Team

The term cloud computing in its simplest form probably comes from the use of a cloud image to represent the Internet, or some large networked environment. It is the way we are beginning to access our information as a service over the internet.

The cloud is a large group of interconnected computers (small desktop to large servers), which allow you to use their hardware and services over the web.
A good example of companies who provide cloud computing is Google and Microsoft.

There are 3 main forms of clouds, “Private Clouds“, “Public Clouds” and “Hybrid Clouds“.

1. Private cloud is the implementation of cloud services on resources that are dedicated to your organization, with a private cloud; you receive the many benefits of public cloud computing, including self-service, scalability, and elasticity, with the additional control and customisation available from dedicated resources
2. Public clouds are where resources are dynamically provisioned to the general public on a self-service basis over the internet. These are provided from an off-site third-party provider who bills on a subscription based service
3. A third model, the hybrid cloud is maintained by both internal and external providers.

Google offer Gmail, Google Docs and Google Apps to name a few. These are services that are built on their private cloud (they own it), which they allow users to access publically to use.

Microsoft offer Azure, BPOS, Skype to name a few which offer similar services on their private cloud

The aim of offering these services is to remove the burden of managing your own in-house hardware and applications. Instead, you will pay a very small subscription to services such as email, MS Office, data storage etc. and your provider will manage the well-being of these services on your behalf.

You will always own your data, but the hardware and services are owned by your cloud provider. At the end of the data, it is your information that is important to you and not the hardware it sits on, especially in a business environment.

Cloud computing gives you the flexibility to access your information from anywhere in the world, as long as you have an internet connection. Nothing is stored locally on your desktop. This provides many benefits to you as the user.

Benefits

• You can access your information from anywhere in the world
• You don’t require expensive hardware and software to procure and manage
• Your data is far safer in the cloud because it is constantly backed up and encrypted
• You save a lot of money on electricity
• You can share your data and information easily

to name a few…

Cloud computing is here to stay and is growing faster and faster with new service shooting up everywhere…. We will be helping you understand how cloud computing works, if it right for you, how to prepare for cloud computing and so on.

Steven John – The Sagari Team

When making such a big decision, such as who to chose as your IT provider. At Sagari we feel it is important to be transparent from the start, by arming you will all the details so you can feel confident when making your decision.

Our ‘Products and Services Overview’ was created to provide you with all the necessary information about our products and services, detailing what you will receive with each of our main services and how much they will cost.
We try to answer a lot of the common questions surrounding security, resilience, support, backup and service delivery to name and few.
Our Sagari team have all played a part in building this blog entry and adding information where they feel it adds value.
It has also been created as a reference blog entry you can keep coming back to quickly to answer important question about security, resillience, servce delivery etc..

Terminology

It is important we provide all the relevant definitions and terminology so you understand all the terms listed throughout this document. Please see below for the term and the definition below:

VMware – VMware is a provider of virtualization software.

Hosted Services – Services that house, serve, and maintain files. Servers are either owned and managed by the client or by the vendor, and are either dedicated or shared.

Virtualisation – in computing, is the creation of a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, such as a hardware platform, operating system, a storage device or network resources

Datacentre – is a facility used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. It generally includes redundant or backup power supplies, redundant data communications connections, environmental controls (e.g., air conditioning, fire suppression) and security devices.

Network (computer network) – often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of computers and devices interconnected by communications channels that facilitate communications and allows sharing of resources and information among interconnected devices

Internet Exchanges – is a physical infrastructure through which Internet service providers (ISPs) exchange Internet traffic between their networks

ISO27001 - formally specifies a management system that is intended to bring information security under explicit management control. Being a formal specification means that it mandates specific requirements. Organizations that claim to have adopted ISO/IEC 27001 can therefore be formally audited and certified compliant with the standard.

Network Operations Centre – NOCs are responsible for monitoring the network/services provided for alarms or certain conditions that may require special attention to avoid impact on the network’s performance or services provided.

Server Farm – A server farm or server cluster is a collection of computer servers usually maintained by an enterprise to accomplish server needs far beyond the capability of one machine

Private Cloud - Or Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) is a private cloud existing within a shared or public cloud (i.e. the Intercloud).

PCI DSS Compliance – The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is an information security standard for organisations that handle cardholder information for the major debit, credit, prepaid, e-purse, ATM, and POS cards

Disaster Recovery – Disaster recovery is the process, policies and procedures related to preparing for recovery or continuation of technology infrastructure critical to an organization after a natural or human-induced disaster

Blowfish Encryption – Blowfish is a keyed, symmetric block cipher, designed in 1993 by Bruce Schneier and included in a large number of cipher suites and encryption products. Blowfish provides a good encryption rate in software and no effective cryptanalysis of it has been found to date.

Continuous Data Protection (CDP) – also called continuous backup or real-time backup, refers to backup of computer data by automatically saving a copy of every change made to that data, essentially capturing every version of the data that the user saves. It allows the user or administrator to restore data to any point in time

Snapshot – (computer storage), a set of computer files and directories kept in storage as they were some time in the past

Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line – (ADSL) is one form of the Digital Subscriber Line technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide

Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line – (SDSL) In the wider sense it is a collection of Internet access technologies based on DSL that offer symmetric bandwidth upstream and downstream

MPLS - Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a mechanism in high-performance telecommunications networks which directs and carries data from one network node to the next with the help of labels

Sagari Hosted Platform

We utilise 3 highly secure datacentres based in the UK to provide all of our hosted service. They have 1GB fibre connections to each datacentre for resilience. Here is some of the main reason we chose our datacentres:

• The network has been independently rated by SpeedTest.net as the fastest network in the UK, and third fastest network in the World.
• Connectivity is excellent with dual entry diverse fibre routes encompassing Telecity Williams House and Reynolds House data centres in Manchester as well as numerous others in the North
• Direct links into Telehouse North and Harbour Exchange, which are Londons more prestigious Tier 4 internet exchanges.
• The network our datacentre utilise has the coveted ISO27001 accreditation which is the highest security standard as well as a 24/7 manned NOC (Network Operations Centre)

Security

We want to make sure we provide the highest level of security, when managing your critical data and applications. We have taken every step to ensure you feel confident when choosing Sagari as an IT Provider.
Here is some of the main security measure we put in place:

• Sagari’s servers farms (VMware) are all separated away from any other company, installed in their own rack with key access.
• Sagari only provide ‘private clouds’. This means you are not sharing resources (applications, processing power, memory) with any other company, but more importantly it means we know exactly where your data is. Most companies do not like the idea of having their data somewhere they don’t know how to retrieve it physically. Your data will be stored securely within our Datacentre which can be accessed 24/7 365
• All data is encrypted (448 blowfish) and can only be accessed if you know the self generated password
• We run PCI DSS compliance checks on all of our infrastructure on a monthly basis to ensure it passes all tests
• Unique password for every user for access to our hosted solution
• Sagari can provide key fobs with a 30 character number which changes ever 30 seconds for an added level of security for accessing our hosted desktop solutions

Disaster Recovery

Ensuring all of our cloud services run seamlessly for our customer’s means we have to deliver a resilient solution.

All of the services we provide are built on our VMfarm which are a cluster of servers all interconnected. Our engineers have built the sever farms using best practice methodology so every aspect from hardware to routing has fail-over (resilience) built in at every level and no noticeable downtime to our customers.

At Sagari we work very closely with our partners to ensure we are building out platform to the highest standards. Microsoft, VMware and Cisco all dial in to our systems and make recommendations that will improve our resilience further
We implement fail-over for all of our core routers and switches. If for any reason a core router crashes or fails, all routing will be passed to the secondary router

Sagari NOC

Our Network Operations Centre (NOC) is where all support of our services is delivered centrally.

The NOC is responsible for monitoring the network for alarms or certain conditions that may require special attention to avoid impact on your network’s performance. This includes monitoring for power failures, communication line alarms (such as bit errors, framing errors, line coding errors, and circuits down) and other performance issues that may affect your network. If necessary our NOC escalates problems to the appropriate personnel.

It is the role of the NOC to ensure seamless and timely delivery of services and also to escalate issues in a hierarchic manner.

Data Backup

Traditional backup solutions meant you would schedule a backup at the end of the day. We use a new technique to backup using a system called continuous data protection (CDP). What this means is as soon as you make a change to a file such as a document or spreadsheet. It is backed up automatically as you change it.
This allows our customers to restore from earlier that day, rather than only being able to restore from the backup the day before.

Server Snapshots

Everything related to your server (applications, accounts, profiles etc) is backed up differently. We take a snapshot of your system which is literally a snapshot of how the system is at that point in time, and we push this to the 2 other data centres VMfarms. This happens all the time and is more of a focus on resilience, so if in the event the primary server fails. All customers can be pushed to the next high availability datacentre.
We complete a snapshot of the server farms every hour so we can always restore our servers with minimum changes

Please keep an eye on this blog for the next part, discussing more about security, resillience and service delivery.

The Ultimate Small Business Guide To Setting Up A ‘Work From Home’ Or Remote Network Access System For Your Staff

Critical Facts And Insider Secrets Every Business Owner Must Know Before Installing A ‘Virtual Network’ To Allow Employees To Work From Home, On The Road, Or From A Remote Office

If you are the owner of a small or medium sized business that is thinking about implementing a “work from home” program for your employees – or if you want to install a virtual network to enable you and certain key employees and managers to work on the road or from a remote office – DON’T – until you read this eye-opening guide.

This report will explain in plain, non-technical terms best practices for setting up remote access for you and your staff, as well important questions you should ask any computer consultant to avoid making the most commonly made, costly mistakes made when setting up the technology for a work from home program.

You’ll Discover:
- What “telecommuting” is and why so many small and medium sized businesses are rapidly implementing work from home programs.
- The single most important thing you MUST have in place before starting any work from home or remote office initiative.
- How one company saved £6 million after implementing a work from home program – and how you implement the same money-saving strategies for your small business.
- How one company slashed its turnover rate from 33% to nearly 0% – and increased productivity by 18% – all by implementing a “work from home” program.
- 8 CRITICAL characteristics you should absolutely demand from any IT professional you’re considering to setup your remote office technology; DO NOT trust your infrastructure to anyone who does not meet these criteria.
- How to get a FREE “Home Office Action Pack” (£45 Value).

From the Desk of: Steven John
Managing Director
Sagari Ltd
Dear Colleague,

Imaging being able to get double the work out of your employees while simultaneously slashing overhead costs, padding your bottom line, and securing incredible loyalty from your staff.
Sound too good to be true? I assure you it’s not…

My name is Steven John and for over 4 years, I have provided business and technology consulting services to 100’s of small and medium businesses in the London and surrounding areas. You may have heard of me before because I write a many article and we are seen as an authority in our field.

While it may seem like I’m making radical statements, I want you to know that I’m not a “radical person.” As a matter of fact, one glance at the enclosed fact sheet about my background and expertise will show that I’m a very grounded and conservative-minded technology consultant with a long track record of helping my clients enjoy more stress-free productivity, lowered costs, and competitive advantages.

That’s why I published this business advisory guide.

There is a fast-growing trend among small and medium businesses that is drastically increasing productivity, cutting costs, and driving more profit to the bottom line. Is it a new management style or marketing trend?

No – it’s telecommuting, which is a 50 cense word for allowing your staff to work from home or while on the road.
Sure it doesn’t sound very sexy when you first hear it, but when you see the bottom line impact it has on profits and productivity and talk to business owners who rave about how much money it’s saving them, you’ll start to see what all the excitement is about.

Steven John Owner of Sagari Ltd
www.itmanagedsupportservices.co.uk