what you need to know about the cloud
TRANSCRIPT
What You Need to
Know About the Cloud
Chris Roche
What You Need to Know About the Cloud 4
7 Things You Need to Consider Before Moving to the Cloud 5
How Your Business Can Benefit From Office 365 7
What You Need to Know About Microsoft Azure 9
Enterprise Mobility + Security 11
Backup and Site Recovery 13
SharePoint 15
Table of
Contents
About Chris:Chris Roche is an IT expert and the Managing Director of ACUTEC.
After completing a degree in Computer Science from the University
of Wolverhampton, Chris started ACUTEC in 1995 working with a
range of businesses and organisations of all shapes and sizes. He
is still as obsessed with technology as he was back then and is
dedicated to making sure that ACUTEC clients have the best
solution for their business needs.
About ACUTEC: We are experts in providing IT Support with a guaranteed fix
An IT expert will respond to your issues within 15 minutes
We are specialists in Cloud Services
We have our own Software Development team
We protect businesses with Cyber Security
Contact us to see how we can help your business
Tel: 01675 469020
Email: [email protected]
www.acutec.co.uk
Book an appointment
St Peters House, Church Hill, Coleshill, B46 3AL
Chris
Roche
What You Need
to Know About
the Cloud
The Only Limit for Your Business is Your Imagination
Welcome to ‘What You Need to Know About the Cloud.’ The Cloud is
changing the way in which we use technology in both our personal lives and
our businesses. Companies are able to go beyond boundaries in ways that
would never have been possible before. Uber is the largest taxi company in the
world yet it owns no vehicles. Facebook is the largest media company in the
world yet it owns no content. The only limit for your business now is your
imagination.
What is the Cloud?
When people say Cloud a lot of the time people think that their data is floating
around in the air and that it is unsafe. Before we start it is important to make it
very clear that this is not the case. The Cloud is essentially a datacentre that
does not have to be in the same room as you and you connect to it via the
Internet. That’s it. No fluffy stuff. No files disappearing in a poof of smoke. It’s
just your data accessible to you from wherever you are. For example, the
Microsoft Cloud is just a datacentre in Dublin, not in the sky.
In ‘What You Need to Know About the Cloud’ you will find out just that: what
you need to know about the Cloud. You will find out how it can transform your
business to be a flexible and efficient organisation ready to become exactly
what you want it to be.
7 Things to
Consider
Before Moving
to the CloudEvaluate the Vendor
There is currently a lot of hype circulating around the Cloud, and because of it there are a
lot of start ups providing the service. You may not feel comfortable putting all of your data in
the hands of a company that has not had the time to build its reputation yet. You will need
to check their longevity and financial stability before making a decision. It would be a good
idea to check their references from their other clients.
Understand How Cloud Pricing Works
There are lots of different plans when it comes to the Cloud. For example, if you’re thinking
about moving to Office 365 the cheapest option is from £3 plus support per month but you
can also scale up dependent upon what services you need and you may only want certain
plans for certain employees. It’s important to know exactly what you are paying for and
whether it is what you need.
Security
One of the first questions that is always asked when it comes to cloud services is
security. Make sure that your provider is of an optimum security standard, as long as the
correct procedures are being followed there shouldn’t be a problem.
Understand What Services You Need
There are so many different options within Cloud services from infrastructure hosting
to backup and disaster recovery that it is important to know which ones are right for your
business. Furthermore, you should think about the future, even if you are only planning for
one or two services at present you may wish to expand this in years to come. The provider
you choose may be affected by this as the more services they offer the more flexibility it
provides you in the future.
Legal Ramifications
If you hold your client’s data then you may have a legal obligation when it comes to
security. Make sure you are fully aware of any specific standards you need to meet and
ensure your provider can meet them. You don’t want to have any lawsuits on your hands.
Internet Connection
If the services you want to offer are in the Cloud then you need to be able to access them and
you aren’t going to be able to do that if your Internet connection is not reliable or fast enough,
otherwise the work you have done to improve your system will have been a waste of time
because you won’t be able to access it easily.
Employee Policies
When an employee leaves they usually lose access to any documents or information as they
lose access to their company PC. With the Cloud, employees have access to these from a
range of different devices. Protect everyone in your company by having a policy to remove
access from terminated employees.
Your Business Without Limits
When people say: “oh don’t worry, it’s in the Cloud,” they can still be met with wide eyed stares of
horror at the thought of data floating around in the sky for anyone to find. The truth is the ‘Cloud’
is actually still on the ground, your data is still in a server it’s just not within your physical reach.
Think of it as more of a platform or a gateway that allows you to access your data through an
Internet connection wherever you are, you don’t have to be in the same building as it. Your
business no longer has to depend on where your data is because your data is wherever you are.
Flexibility and Productivity
One of the best ways to utilise the abilities of the Cloud is through Microsoft’s Office 365. Office
365 allows you to work anywhere and on any device by offering the familiar tools we all know:
Word, Excel, Outlook, Exchange, PowerPoint, Publisher and Access through a small subscription
service for each user dependent upon which plan they choose is best for their business
needs. Office 365 is available in a combination of desktop software and mobile apps, as well as
cloud based services through your browser so that the most convenient virtual working
environment is always available to you. You are able to write your reports in the office, read them
on your phone while waiting for the train and then edit them on your tablet once you set off.
How can your
business
benefit from
Office 365?
Everything in One Place
With the use of Office 365’s OneDrive for Business and OneNote you
are able to keep all your documents up to date as you use your array
of devices in the different working situations that you face. OneDrive
for Business allows synchronisation of your documents across all of
your devices making sure that everything you are working with is
always ready for you, whilst OneNote allows for a digital notebook with
features such as the ability to share your notebooks with others, clip
web pages and even use a stylus and scribble it all down yourself if
that function is available for you.
SharePoint (more on this later)
Where your business can really benefit from Office 365 is through the
use of SharePoint. SharePoint is a collaborative working tool that
allows for your business’s team to have a ‘site’ in which they’re able to
share their documents, calendars, tasks, discussions and more. The
tool is highly customisable with companies being able to brand the site
and build it around their users for the most productive experience.
SharePoint has huge potential dependent upon how a business
chooses to use it and needs a blog all of its own to cover its many
benefits. If you’re a proactive business then Office 365 is essential to
being as productive as possible.
Transform Your IT
We talk about Microsoft Azure all of the time. There’s so many different aspects of Azure that
we can never quite say everything that we need to. One of the fundamental aspects of Azure
is how it can change how you manage your IT infrastructure.
Infrastructure as a Service
Microsoft Azure provides Infrastructure as a Service. Basically, this means that you access
and manage your infrastructure through the Cloud. You no longer have to make investments
in buying and managing physical servers. You don’t have to pay for heating, cooling or
power either!
Simply, you’re renting your hardware from Microsoft and then accessing it through the
Internet without the expense you would have had previously with physical servers. A lot of
people question the security of the Cloud. There’s really no need. What you have to
remember is that the hardware still exists it’s just not your problem anymore.
What you need
to know about
Microsoft
Azure
World Class Security
When you have a physical server on-premises it is actually more vulnerable. It is only as
secure as what you do to make it secure. Locking your doors, turning on your alarm and
installing CCTV is the protection that you are giving your IT infrastructure. At Microsoft’s
datacentres your infrastructure will be subject to a number of different controls with heavy
security measures. The Microsoft Datacentre in Ireland has caterpillar generators just in
case there is an issue.
Reduce Waste
The issue with IT is that there is often a lot of a waste. For example, you could invest a
significant amount in a Network Attached Storage Device for your Disaster Recovery option
and then it may never be used. With Microsoft Azure this wouldn’t happen, you would pay
for what you needed when you needed it without having to make that significant
investment.
What is EMS?
A year or two ago, everyone was asking ‘What’s Microsoft Office 365?’ and soon they will be
asking ‘What’s EMS?’ Microsoft’s EMS or Enterprise Mobility + Security is the new add on for
Office 365 that ensures both control and productivity in the workplace, whether that be an SMB or
a major organisation. Have you opened an email on your phone today? Or a document on your
laptop while you’re out and about? EMS allows for the multitude of personal and work devices that
are populating the workplace to be both protected and to protect the user.
Mobile Devices at Work
One issue many organisations are facing is “bring-your-own-device” or “BYOD” where employees
want to use their personal mobile phones and other devices at work. Using devices of choice can
help grow productivity yet it can also make it difficult for company data to be managed. Enterprise
Mobility + Security allows organisations to be able to manage employees’ devices and
applications without affecting their personal files.
Safeguard your
business with
Enterprise
Mobility Suite
Azure Active Directory
Sometimes people will leave organisations and passwords just aren’t changed, leaving
your business vulnerable. Azure Active Directory in Enterprise Mobility + Security allows
for users to be given a single sign-on account. By using single sign-on, organisations
are able to deactivate user access with a click of a button rather than having to change
many different passwords.
Protecting Information
Everyone has sent an email accidentally to the wrong person. With Enterprise Mobility
+ Security, organisations are able to control this and make sure only authorised people
are able to access certain things. With Microsoft Azure Rights Management Service,
EMS is able to protect documents making it so that they can’t be edited, printed or
copied. This way confidential data can be emailed and you know that it is still protected.
Breach Alerts
Enterprise Mobility + Security comes with Advanced Threat Analytics enabling an
organisation to detect unusual behaviour, a little bit like your bank contacting you if you
have been making payments in Las Vegas when you’re actually in Birmingham. EMS
alerts you when there is anything unusual like hacking occurring enabling you to act
quickly before any damage is done.
Disaster Recovery That Makes Sense
When it comes to Microsoft Azure people overcomplicate it. The reason it gets
overcomplicated is because it does so many things that you can’t really sum it up
in a few sentences. You have to take a narrower, focussed view.
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform that is flexible to your needs. You
pay for what you need and you can integrate it with your existing technology. You
still need a narrower focus to understand what Azure can do for your business and
that is why ACUTEC has chosen to focus on a specific service from Azure and that
is Backup and Site Recovery.
Azure Backup
With Azure Backup you don’t need to worry about tapes or USB Hard Drives or
Network Attached Storage Devices. Azure takes all of your files and folders, your
Exchange Server and your Windows Servers among other applications and stores
them in the Cloud. It’s a scalable service where you only pay for what you need,
providing significant cost savings.
Azure Backup
and Site
Recovery
Azure Site Recovery
Meanwhile, Azure Site Recovery is a cost effective solution in which you can
recover individual servers or your whole site to an offsite location. Azure allows for
the orchestration and automated replication and failover to Azure, or to a secondary
on-premise site. We like to describe it like a pilot light on your boiler. You buy the
boiler but you can only turn the pilot light on when you need it. With Azure you are
buying a service but you only pay for recovery when it is needed. Furthermore, the
cost of recovery will more than likely be covered by your insurance. We have even
seen our clients’s insurance premiums dramatically reduced through this form of
Disaster Recovery.
It Makes Sense
The trick to Microsoft Azure is to see it as many different things that can be chosen
from one service, in a similar way to how you may use Word from your Office Suite
but not Excel. They’re both tools with a variety of different functions and you
wouldn’t want to explain them both at the same time.
SharePoint: a
collaborative,
virtual
workspaceProfessional Sharing and Collaboration
SharePoint is a web application platform that is perfect for professional sharing, networking and
document management within a business infrastructure to enable collaborative working. Think
of it as a virtual working space, and one with endless possibilities too!
Within SharePoint, businesses are able to create areas for teams dependent upon what is
needed for the business through the sites feature. The whole business can have a site and then
individual departments can do the same. You want your sales team and your design team to
have separate spaces? No problem, that facility is provided.
Your Own Digital Library
One of the primary features that is included with SharePoint is the library application. The library
application enables users within each site to be able to share their files and documents with
each other, providing a kind of ‘One Drive for Everyone in the Business’ but that name may not
catch on. If it does, you heard it here first!
Along with the library app, there are other document features that will help your
business be as productive as possible. SharePoint comes with the ability to share
files both internally and externally to the business, as well as a collaboration
feature enabling employees to edit a document together in real time. This may be
a little confusing if you have lots of people accessing the document at once, but if
used correctly this could be a very powerful tool in any business environment.
Version Control
SharePoint provides another really useful tool in its ability to version control
documents. If a user downloads a document set up with version control then
SharePoint views it as ‘checked out’ and no one else can download or edit it until
it is checked back in. This means that all changes that occur are attached to an
individual’s name enabling a completely recorded system.
Exactly How You Want It
Making SharePoint user-friendly for your business is also possible because it is
completely customisable, providing options such as being able to change themes
and incorporate logos amongst others. SharePoint has the power to be whatever
you want it to be and to be used however you want it to be used.
Like its counterpart Office 365, it is available across a multitude of different
devices allowing you to access it wherever you are and how ever you want
through online, desktop and mobile app versions. Whether you purchase
SharePoint on its own or as part of Office 365, it is an incredibly powerful tool that
will only ever increase the productivity of your business.
