March 2009 Entries
Managed Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Services for less - March 28, 2009
Managed disaster recovery can cut costs says the Orlando Florida Chartered Management Institute has claimed that businesses of all sizes consider loss of IT to be the threat most likely to affect costs and revenue or bankruptcy. Yet many organizations fail to prepare properly for IT disasters.
IT disaster recovery is complicated. Doing it well requires a lot of planning, and you have to keep on updating the plan if it isn’t going to be totally useless by the time you want it, says Brian McCarthy CEO of Cherub Networks of Lake Mary Florida.
Testing the plan properly is almost never done, as it can be ruinously time-consuming. This has left many organisations with cheap, inadequate provisions or expensive set-ups that do not protect the business.
Too often, business continuity solutions focus on the provision of products or facilities. Whether these include replacement IT hardware or technical resources, they have limitations and leave the end user without the most important process of all – quick and effective "system" recovery. Virtualisation might revolutionize disaster recovery. This has obvious benefits if you are starting from scratch but, interestingly, it also outlines new strategies for companies large and small that are not proposing to completely re-engineer their existing systems. Managed disaster recovery services based on virtualised recovery platforms have the potential to do something disruptive to the economics of outsourced recovery, says McCarthy, who provides iTGuardian a fully managed service.
Companies of all types can now get a much higher standard of service, at a drastically lower price. And with automatic testing, you will always know it is working. Best of all, it is simple, and you do not need to keep updating the plan and Cherub Networks will do the rest. Whether companies have an expensive disaster recovery solution or are just hoping for the best, technology has moved on. ITGuardian uses advance virtualization tools from companies like VMware, EMC and Data Core Software.
With the introduction of virtual server technology that breaks the bond between operating systems and hardware, a business can be protected at a fraction of the previous cost. Cherub Networks has also introduced Storage Virtualization so that you are not "locked in" to a single storage provider.
There are now virtualisation-based, IT disaster recovery and backup services that use server image capture and conversion technology to create virtual machine copies of a company’s servers that can be quickly booted up off site on virtual servers. What use to cost high six figures and a team of DR admins, cherub Networks provides for a few dollars per giga-byte.
Recovered systems are accessed securely via VPN over any internet connection. Such services work and can recover working systems in minutes. Many offerings do not stand any real chance of recovering working systems in a timely manner. If automatically tested every day, it will work when you need it. High disaster recovery costs are no longer an excuse for doing nothing and believing that an IT disaster will not happen to you.
To Learn more and how to do it Right, call: (407) 965-1910 or go to: http://www.cherubnetworks.com/managed-services.php
Cherub Networks LLC is well known for it's flagship product iTGuardian Managed Services which is designed exclusively as a managed or hosted solution to provide our customers with the most cost effective management of their IT infrastructure 24x7. Cherub Networks uses iTGuardian enterprise class technology helping you provide end-to-end monitoring and management of your IT infrastructure over the secured and encrypted Internet connection. This solution helps Cherub Networks deliver an unlimited range of unique managed services, providing extraordinary levels of performance and availability for you, our customer. iTGuardian Managed Services Benefits.
Office in Orlando Lake Mary Longwood Lakeland Tampa Daytona Beach Maitland St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral MSP continuously monitoring healthcare network infrastructure Microsoft patch managing all critical systems Advanced Technology Service Hosting Hosted Data Center Exchanges Sharepoint SQL Event Log Application Backup Firewall Capacity Disk Space CDW Online Backup DR Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS GRID computing on demand storage Cloud We are well known for desktop, server and network monitoring, management, security online backup cloud computing storage archiving VoIP Hosting top 10 Virtualization HaaS SaaS Help desk 24x7 for small medium enterprise SMB SME employees IT as a service software hardware support onsite remote hosted exchange sharepoint fixed cost cutting solutions microsoft hp symantec spam barracuda anti-virus gartner magic quadrant robo soho GRID on demand ibm dell cdw low cost budget HaaS disaster recovery business continuity SaaS capacity cost per gigabyte firewall HaaS SaaS evault seagate iron mountain
ITGuardian - Best Practices for Storage-as-a-Service - March 14, 2009
Storage-as-a-service (SaaS) companies have changed how they operate compared to the storage service providers of the last decade. Is SaaS a good fit for your company's data?
Orlando Florida -- Remember eStorage? It was for eBusiness during the eEconomy. Ten years ago, a bunch of storage service providers (SSPs) popped up, ready to store dot-com data. Not long afterward, most first-generation SSPs closed their doors when their new-age business customers went belly-up and more established businesses couldn't adjust to the idea of handing crucial data to firms just a year or two old. StorageNetworks Inc., perhaps the best known SSP at the time, finally gave up the ghost after its stock price dropped from $154 per share to less than $1.50. When the dust settled, most storage managers never wanted to hear from an SSP again.
Today, sporting a new moniker, storage-as-a-service (SaaS) companies have learned from the mistakes of their SSP predecessors. And a handful of well-established storage heavyweights, EMC Corp. and IBM Corp. to name just two, have made key SaaS acquisitions in recent years. SaaS is being driven by economic factors and IT realities that didn't exist a few years ago: an explosion of electronic data, compliance requirements, a tight rein on capital spending and stringent disaster recovery (DR) mandates, all of which are making storage services more appealing to small and large businesses.
"We're seeing an increased level of sophistication on the supplier and customer side," says Doug Chandler, research director, infrastructure services at IDC, Framingham, MA. "[SaaS is] a very dynamic market right now."
So what's changed? The following broad trends are making SaaS more attractive to small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and enterprise companies:
• Big, well-known storage companies, such as IBM and EMC, have established SaaS offerings
• Remote-office data protection fits nicely into the SaaS model
• New data encryption transfer technology
• Different SaaS tiering offerings
• Increasing difficulties in companies finding and retaining storage staff
• Growing importance of laptop data protection services
Today's SaaS offerings differ from their first-generation predecessors in that many companies are now focused strictly on online backup business, and aren't trying to expand too quickly into providing suites of offerings, says Brian McCarthy, CEO at Cherub Networks LLC in Orlando Florida.
Also, today's SaaS competitors have "expertise on how to run and service and architect a complex data center ... I think a lot of the xSPs underestimated what it takes," adds McCarthy.
John Jewis is the director of IS at Geoinetics Inc., a Houston-based geophysical services company that has more than 3,000 employees around the globe. He was looking into products from CommVault for data management last year when someone suggested Cherub Networks iTGuardian SaaS.
"For us, it was a compliance crunch," says Jewis. Fifteen months after a company merger, "I had to get all these diverse locations unified under a single strategy--with no capital investment--and I had to do it pretty rapidly," he says.
Jewis decided on Cherub Networks’ iTGuardian™ Managed Storage Services, and now ships approximately 750GB of data, from applications such as SharePoint and accounting, daily to Cherub Networks. It's collected first on local appliances at headquarters and remote offices, and then delivered via the Internet to the iTGuardian storage site. "You have to think outside the box to understand the advantages of the platform," says Jewis.
Much of Jewis' environment is virtualized, which helps him with quick restores. "Right now, if I've got a Bogota, Columbia, site that goes down and I need to restore their backup, I can take that image from iTGuardian, restore it on my hardware and make it available over the VPN to them," he says. Before Jewis started using iTGuardian, if a server in Bogota crashed, staffers there would normally have to wait for a pre-loaded server to be shipped to them. "If you're doing international business and waiting on shipping, that's something tough to figure in an ROI," he says.
Is SaaS a good fit?
Two good starting points when considering a SaaS strategy are looking at your current backup costs and getting a true picture of whether or not there are gaps in your system, says Stephanie Balaouras, principal analyst at Cambridge, MA-based Forrester Research Inc.
When considering costs, there's almost always no investment in hardware or software needed to start doing business with a SaaS provider, says Balaouras. The average pricing for online server backup today is approximately $.50 per gigabyte per month, according to a recent Forrester report on backup software as a service, although some companies are offering lower prices to lure new business. Capacity pricing, where a vendor charges a fee for each gigabyte of capacity per machine per month, has the advantage of being predictable; however, a pricing model based on vault capacity is probably a less-expensive option for users, says Balaouras. For example, under the vault capacity pricing model, if you have a file server that has 100GB of capacity and you achieve at least a two times compression ratio, you would be charged for only 50GB in the first full backup (see "SaaS negotiating tips," below).
Geoinetics' Jewis figured out that over five years, the SaaS model will likely be more expensive than keeping his backup in-house. But the cost analysis doesn't take into account that new hardware investments and upgrades will be required after five years, he says. Also, there's the cost of possible human error, which is tough to nail down. "I don't have anyone swapping tapes," says Jewis. "I don't have to monitor all those humans who [occasionally] make mistakes."
When considering the efficiency of your current backup system, find out whether backups and restores are completed within specified recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) windows, and determine whether routine testing of backups is occurring. There are also the costs of moving and tiering data, and supporting a remote DR site. In addition, you should factor in the cost of the average number of staffing errors that occur each quarter. Finally, add in the cost of personnel, hardware and software. Most of this information should be readily available for your yearly budget process, and it will serve as a good benchmark to compare a SaaS vendor's prices with what it costs to provide similar service levels in-house.
Forrester Research's Balaouras says the first question she's asked by potential SaaS clients is whether it's possible to perform backups over the Internet. "The answer is yes; with some caveats, of course," she says.
"The real challenge is the restore," writes Balaouras in a 2008 report titled Market Overview: Backup Software-As-A-Service. "For large restores, the vendor will quickly ship a DVD, removable drive or network attached storage (NAS) appliance to the customer site to conduct the restore locally." (This is what Jewis is trying to avoid if he has a server go down in Bogota.) Cherub Networks believes it has the answers, local and virtualized storage, for fast, low cost recovery.
All SaaS players emphasize their restore capabilities; each one will tell you that their centralized Web dashboards, remote troubleshooting features, online restores to any location, continuous data protection capabilities and ability to perform delta restores to recover block changes whenever possible makes them better than the other guys. For example, according to a recent Stamford, CT-based Gartner Inc. report, Mozy Inc. (an EMC company) sends the customer a DVD or an external drive via FedEx or zip files via the Internet; IBM's Arsenal Digital Solutions offers online restores to the same site or an alternate location, and has quick-ship restores for databases, file servers and PCs. Again McCarthy stated the big guys will figure out this is not the right answer. In one case Iron Mountain lost about 500 giga-bytes of tapes in the mail, all non-encrypted, that company is still settling law suits. Our iTGuardian™ is safe in that we provided DoD levels of encryption for our clients data, vs. sending it via the US Mail Service.
Storage as a service is still geared primarily to the needs of SMBs, and no one is trying to convince large enterprise customers to ship hundreds of terabytes over the Internet. "If you talk about having to back up a data center and mission-critical applications, you can't back that up over the Internet," says Balaouras. "People have trouble backing [that amount of data] up over their high-speed corporate LANs."
However, SaaS companies are increasingly backing up corporate PC data over the Internet. "There's a growing realization that there's a lot of critical information stored on laptops," says Balaouras. Many companies, large and small, are using the Internet to ship data to the SaaS and a local backup appliance supplied by their SaaS vendor that's wired directly to the SaaS center's vault. Balaouras tells clients that a local appliance is sometimes preferable for clients with RTOs of less than 24 hours.
Data security
Security is still a showstopper for many companies exploring SaaS options. No matter how strong the encryption guarantees, or the type of encryption used, some potential customers simply won't be able to sleep at night knowing their data resides offsite at a location they don't own or manage, and that their data might be sitting beside some of their top competitors' data.
"If you look at most of the online backup providers, they have an option for individual encryption on a key basis," he says. "We do a double key. It means that every encryption has two keys. You can choose to let some people have limited access to elements of information so you couldn't access all the text or Word docs, but you could see the headers or file names. That gives you some flexibility." Most SaaS vendors offer a customer the option of holding their own encryption key or putting it in escrow with the SaaS vendor.
James Cosgrove, founder and CEO of Seattle-based Computer Resource Corp. (CRC), chose the option of allowing Intronis Technologies to hold his encryption key. "The reason we don't manage the key is because if that one little key gets lost or misplaced, then I don't have that customer data," says Cosgrove. His clients are mostly dental offices in the Seattle area. Many were using Symantec's Backup Exec before they adopted an online strategy, he says. "They would say the tapes got dirty or the backups didn't run last night ... we were getting tired of these phone calls."
Making the case
For Tom Comella, VP of technology and information systems and CIO at Neighborhood Centers Inc., a 101-year-old nonprofit that operates social services from Headstart to senior centers in Houston and surrounding counties, cost wasn't a major concern. "I was more worried about the data being safe. We need to show that we are good stewards of the data," says Comella, device at Neighborhood Centers' headquarters.
Currently, pushes Neighborhood Centers' data changes out overnight, averaging 400GB, across the Internet to a location in North Carolina. When Comella arrived at Neighborhood Centers three years ago, the organization relied on tape backups, but some of the tapes weren't rotated when the task was left to non-IT professionals at the community centers. When you add in Neighborhood Centers' hurricane-prone location, says Comella, it didn't take much convincing for him to embrace a new data protection strategy.
"The first [online] backup took quite a bit of time--a weekend," he says. "Now it's only backing up things that change. They have a nice GUI interface and if they have a problem, like they don't get a good backup, they call and let us know," says Comella. "The point is that they do check [and call]."
Jenny Lorenz is IT director at the Linn Area Credit Union in Cedar Rapids, IA, and a Seagate Technology EVault customer whose IT shop is just outside a 10 square-mile radius that was flooded following severe June rainstorms. One of her locations lost power for a few days and an ATM machine was submerged in the floodwaters. For Lorenz, the benefits of sending her data far away to a dry location are pretty obvious. In addition, her industry requirements were met without heavy lifting from her strained IT staff.
"Seagate's EVault is SAS 70 certified," which is an independent verification that the company has a stable control environment, and "that was a selling point," she says. Before negotiating her SLAs, Lorenz determined which volumes on a particular server made sense to back up and those that didn't. "They charge by the gig and we didn't want to back up everything over and over again," she says. When testing the product, Lorenz found she could schedule backups throughout the day so she didn't have to tax her Internet connection during peak hours.
With Seagate EVault, she gets 24/7 monitoring and notification, a standard offering among most SaaS vendors; however, EVault doesn't offer user trouble-ticket integration, according to the recent Gartner report. In comparison, EMC's Mozy allows tickets to be created through 24/7 customer service, while IBM's Arsenal can integrate with a customer's trouble-ticket systems.
Perhaps what draws users to a remote SaaS firm is the built-in DR that comes with the service. During the flooding in downtown Cedar Rapids, Lorenz was running her EVault product through a routine annual restore test. "It went well," she says. "We've been able to restore backups remotely, use browser technology transmissions of direct deposits and access the data we need." The credit union's servers are 10 miles away from the flood zone and a nuclear facility is also 10 miles away. Says Lorenz: "Theoretically, we could go anywhere in the country if we needed to get away from a disaster, and I could manage the data."
To Learn more and how to do it Right!
(407) 965-1910 or go to: http://www.cherubnetworks.com/managed-services.php
Cherub Networks LLC is well known for it's flagship product iTGuardian™ Managed Services which is designed exclusively as a managed or hosted solution to provide our customers with the most cost effective management of their IT infrastructure 24x7. Cherub Networks uses iTGuardian enterprise class technology helping you provide end-to-end monitoring and management of your IT infrastructure over the secured and encrypted Internet connection. This solution helps Cherub Networks deliver an unlimited range of unique managed services, providing extraordinary levels of performance and availability for you, our customer. iTGuardian Managed Services Benefits.
Office in Orlando Lake Mary Longwood Lakeland Tampa Daytona Beach Maitland St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral MSP continuously monitoring healthcare network infrastructure Microsoft patch managing all critical systems Advanced Technology Service Hosting Hosted Data Center Exchanges Sharepoint SQL Event Log Application Backup Firewall Capacity Disk Space CDW Online Backup DR Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS GRID computing on demand storage Cloud We are well known for desktop, server and network monitoring, management, security online backup cloud computing storage archiving VoIP Hosting top 10 Virtualization HaaS SaaS Help desk 24x7 for small medium enterprise SMB SME employees IT as a service software hardware support onsite remote hosted exchange sharepoint fixed cost cutting solutions microsoft hp symantec spam barracuda anti-virus gartner magic quadrant robo soho GRID on demand ibm dell cdw low cost budget HaaS SaaS capacity cost per gigabyte firewall HaaS SaaS evault seagate
Understanding Hosted and Managed VoIP, which is Best for Your Business? - March 14, 2009
Orlando Florida -- Adoption rates of hosted VoIP and managed VoIP are increasing as more companies look to reduce the costs and complexities of deploying VoIP in house. Enterprises are factoring revenue growth, enhanced productivity and communication services into ROI calculations to make a business case for hosted or managed VoIP. This guide explains the differences between hosted and managed VoIP solutions and will help you decide if outsourcing VoIP is right for your organization, along with expects in the field like Cherub Networks' CEO Brian McCarthy, with over 5 years of deploying VoIP solutions to clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses.
Table of contents
UNDERSTANDING HOSTED AND MANAGED VOIP
• Hosted VoIP eliminates cost, complexity:
Hosted VoIP is being adopted at increasing rates as more and more companies look to avoid the excess costs and complexities of on-premise solutions.
• Managed and hosted VoIP: muddling through:
Managed and Centrex and hosted, oh my! For companies looking for an alternative to a premise-based phone system, there are plenty available,
and they come in all shapes and sizes.
• Managed VoIP -- 10 tips for a smooth migration:
Migrating to managed VoIP doesn't have to be a headache. Here, Verizon Business offers 10 top tips to ensure you get what you need.
• Hosted VoIP: Take the headache and heartache out of VoIP, part 1:
No matter what size network an enterprise is running these days, large and small alike are faced with increasing technical and financial challenges.
• Hosted VoIP: Take the headache and heartache out of VoIP, part 2
Part 2 of this series investigates the QoS and security issues of the hosted VoIP model.
HOSTED VOIP: CASE STUDIES
• Hosted VoIP improves portfolio, company functionality:
Hosted VoIP helped one company improve intra-office communications and team spirit.
• VoIP software eases company's communications constraints:
Hosted VoIP solution -- converged communications as a service -- saves one company time and money and has liberated its IT staff to focus on
higher-value activities.
UNDERSTANDING HOSTED AND MANAGED VOIP
Hosted VoIP eliminates cost, complexity
An increasing number of businesses are adopting hosted voice services in an effort to avoid the cost and complexity of premise-based solutions, according to a recent study by Frost & Sullivan. Businesses are also reaping the benefits of supplemental capabilities -- including unified communications, simple-to-use conferencing, and find me/follow me. The study recorded hosted Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services revenues at $2.372.6 billion in 2008, with estimates reaching to $14.6 billion in 2012. "Small businesses that account for the majority of the end users are likely to continue driving hosted IP telephony deployments," Frost & Sullivan senior analyst Lynda Starr said. "Medium and large businesses' interests in hosted IP telephony and VoIP access service are also likely to increase."
Enticing businesses to switch to partial or complete hosted service will be VoIP service providers' biggest challenge
Decreasing hardware prices, improved voice quality resulting from advances in codes, and tight service level agreements (SLAs) have fueled the drive toward hosted services. Hosted services allow businesses with limited budgets and staff to balance the cost of a more efficient communication system with a level of available productivity. They also offer customers the immediate benefit of upgrades that otherwise would not be considered a practical expense for another 10 years. The Frost & Sullivan study also found that most companies with a premise-based system already in place are seriously considering a hybrid solution as they migrate to hosted IP telephony, allowing them to continue using existing systems for a number of years.
"As these two systems can coexist," Starr said, "service providers are likely to offer end-user enterprises a hybrid solution of both premise-based and hosted solutions, enabling customers to phase in a hosted solution with a trunking service and existing legacy equipment."
Enticing businesses to switch to partial or complete hosted service will be VoIP service providers' biggest challenge. Hurdles include offering customers a unique set of features that are not available over circuit-switched offerings and a pricing model that offers adequate return on investment to the customer. Starr concluded that end users of VoIP found the rapid growth potential for the hosted services reassuring when beginning a migration from outdated Y2K-era systems. She added that small and midsized businesses in particular stood to gain a more professional phone appearance.
Managed and hosted VoIP: muddling through Managed and Centrex and hosted, oh my! For companies looking for an alternative to a premise-based phone system, there are plenty available, and they come in all shapes and sizes. Hosted voice, IP Centrex, managed IP PBXs and network-based voice service are all viable alternatives to the do-it-yourself model. But these terms are often used interchangeably -- incorrectly in most cases -- causing confusion among the buying community as to which product to use in what situation. A clearer understanding of exactly what's available will help you at least ask the proper questions to distinguish between the services, says Brian McCarthy CEO of Cherub Networks LLC in Orlando Florida.
The main benefit of an outsourced service is that much of the risk is transferred to the service provider, but the customer does lose direct control of the solution.
The products
When considering an outsourced service, there are four basic product categories. Hosted IP PBX, managed IP PBXs, network-based services and IP Centrex. The basic premise of all of these services is that a third party manages everything and provides a "service" to the organization -- but they do differ. The main benefit of an outsourced service is that much of the risk is transferred to the service provider, but the customer does lose direct control of the solution, says McCarthy.
Managed IP PBX
This is where the traditional IP PBX is on premise. The enterprise could choose to manage the products itself but chooses to outsource the management to a third party. It's important to note that not all managed services are created equal. They range from simple moves, adds and changes up to fully outsourced management of the entire lifecycle of VoIP. Most VoIP services today are managed services and are offered by most telcos and systems integrators, and even by many vendors such as Avaya and NEC Unified Solutions.
Hosted IP PBX
A hosted IP PBX is no different from any other hosted application, such as email. Instead of the IP PBX being located on the customer premise, it is located in the vendor's hosting center. The IP PBX is exactly the same one that would be purchased and placed on premise, meaning that the company is buying "hosted Cisco" or "hosted Avaya," so it interoperates with the premise-based equipment. Some companies "host" the IP PBX themselves by placing the IP PBX in their own data center, and then every branch office picks up the call control from there. A few companies I've talked to have put the primary IP PBX in their own data center and the backup in a third-party hosting center. The systems integrators and VARs are the primary deliverers of hosted IP PBXs. An interesting option for Avaya customers is Avaya's On-Demand voice service, delivered in partnership with Savvis, picking the right services is what we offer the customer, most times at a lot less then if they go direct to the vendors.
IP Centrex
The term "IP Centrex" is an overused tag used to describe anything where the call control is located in the network instead of the branch. There are many carrier services that carry the Centrex name, but most of them are actually much more than an IP version of a traditional Centrex service. A true IP Centrex service has an IP gateway placed in front of a traditional Class 5 switch, with the service delivered over IP, but the basic service is still a traditional Centrex service. The growth potential of this type of service is limited because many of the advanced unified communications features cannot be delivered this way. Also, in the U.S., Centrex services haven't been overly popular; IP enabling it makes it a little easier to deliver, but the stigma of Centrex still applies to it. As far as I know, there are no major carriers that offer an IP-enabled Centrex service. A few rural ILECs do, but the growth in cloud-based voice services is in a true network-based service, highlighted below.
Network-based voice
A network-based service is similar to a hosted IP PBX but with a couple of differences. First, the infrastructure -- known as a softswitch -- which provides the call control, is located in the telco network, not a hosting center. The softswitch is designed to be a multi-tenant product, meaning that it can house the calling capabilities of multiple customers, whereas a hosted IP PBX is deployed on a per-customer basis. The softswitch has been positioned as the IP equivalent of an old Class 5 switch, but a softswitch is more of an application server that's capable of serving up applications other than just voice. Any service built from a softswitch is capable of delivering many of the unified communications applications as well. One mistake many carriers have made is branding their softswitch-based services as "IP Centrex" services. For example, Verizon's Hosted IP Centrex service is actually a network-based service built on Broadsoft infrastructure and is much more than just a basic Centrex service. AT&T's Voice DNA and Vonage's phone service (consumer) are also examples of this. Organizations considering a cloud-based service should do the due diligence to understand exactly how the service is delivered and the long-term roadmap of the service. The downside to these services is that the infrastructure that provides the service needs to adhere to industry standards, meaning that the features are limited to ones that have made their way through the standards bodies. Most premise-based IP PBXs from vendors such as Cisco and Avaya also adhere to standards, but they add on extra features through proprietary extensions to the standard. In many cases, the standards-based features available should be sufficient for many organizations, but companies considering this type of service should keep this in mind. As time marches on and the standards mature, the gap between proprietary features and standards-based features will close.
The main theme behind a hosted, IP Centrex, and network-based voice service is that the call control is somewhere "in the cloud," and all that's needed on the customer premise are IP phones and a router for the data services. Telecommuter phones and PC-based softphones can also interoperate with these services. Even though the industry has done a great job creating confusion among all the available VoIP services, I do think they're a good alternative to organizations that want to offload much of the up-front expense of buying the equipment and the ongoing operational costs associated with managing the equipment. If you're considering a service, though, keep a few things in mind.
Understand the architecture behind the service
Many of the services have been branded with names that don't accurately describe them. For example, a name like "Hosted IP Centrex" service doesn't really describe whether it's a true hosted service, Centrex service or network-based service. Even if you're a predominantly do-it-yourself IT organization, consider a hybrid environment where the hosted services are used for some of the smaller branches and telecommuters. This will probably scale much more easily for you as you move more locations over to VoIP.
Managed VoIP -- 10 tips for a smooth migration
VoIP migration can take a lot out of a company. It takes massive amounts of time and piles of money. From the largest enterprises to the smallest SMBs, managed VoIP has become a reality. Many companies just don't have the time to do it themselves. They need to hire a service provider to oversee the transition to VoIP and ensure high reliability and performance. But even with managed VoIP, there are things companies need to know before selecting their partners and deciding who will manage their mission-critical voice applications. According to Laurie Shook, Verizon Business' director of managed IP telephony, said companies need to start focusing on the quality of a voice deployment and who best suits its needs, instead of trying to do it themselves. "Companies need to realize there is too much at risk to try to do it yourself," she said. "Businesses aren't used to thinking of their telephone systems as an IT system." Companies labor under two major misconceptions when considering a provider for managed VoIP service, Shook said. They often underestimate the degree of readiness in the existing WAN to accommodate VoIP, and they underestimate the complexity of managing VoIP when it's on the same backbone as data. Some vendors run a VoIP readiness assessment based on a pass-fail analysis, while others offer a more comprehensive analysis and make recommendations. Research has shown that roughly 85% of customers looking for a managed VoIP service require some sort of WAN upgrade to accommodate IP telephony, Shook said. "There's no more problems with IP [systems] over TDM [systems]," she said, "but when you do have a problem [with IP], it's a lot harder to figure out where that problem is."
There are 10 things a company should look out for when considering a migration to managed VoIP, according to Shook. And though these steps can help a smooth migration, she said, they are certainly not a cure-all.
According to Shook, Verizon Business suggests that companies should:
• Evaluate service provider and system integrator capabilities in terms of breadth of services and flexibility of offerings.
• Ensure that the vendor is financially stable and committed to the business over the long haul.
• Determine whether resources are available when and where they are required.
• Look for a service provider that will build upon the existing investment in hardware and software.
• Identify the scope and scale of service provider responsibility.
• Tour the company's network management facility and meet the people who will monitor the network.
• Ask about employee and site certifications.
• Select a service provider with built-in system redundancy.
• Obtain fully documented service resolution procedures.
• Consider vendors that are committed to continued investment in network operations and systems integration.
Companies really need to put managed providers under fire before signing on the dotted line, Shook said. It essentially comes down to "who you are able to have a trusting relationship with," she said. "Can the vendor meet your needs?"
In some cases, vendors offer help with implementation but not future management, Shook said. Companies also have to consider whether they want a centralized solution that will be managed separately and must also figure out how much of their existing infrastructure they want to reuse.
Most importantly, however, companies need to pay attention to the SLAs offered by service providers, she said. The wording of the SLA can determine whether refunds are related to repair time or response time, and some service providers aren't clear which they offer until the issue arises.
According to Jim DeMerlis, vice president of managed services for Verizon Business, these 10 tips are not necessarily set in stone; rather, they are guidelines to ensure a smooth migration with as few surprises as possible.
"These suggestions are not a silver bullet for success," DeMerlis said. "Organizations must devote the time and resources necessary to develop a comprehensive IPT migration strategy. Incorporating these tips into the due diligence process will help ensure a smooth transition."
Hosted and managed telephony solutions offer a great litany of benefits as compared with premise-based solutions which are costlier and require more responsibility for network maintenance. It is often possible to create umbrella solutions that combine both hosted and premise components, and allows the customer to maintain their own network instead of outsourcing that responsibility.
Hosted VoIP: Take the headache and heartache out of VoIP, part 1
No matter what size network an enterprise is running these days, large and small alike are faced with increasing technical and financial challenges. These include dealing with a myriad of networking components, never ending security issues, the unquenchable demand for new network services -- such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and IP television -- as well as balancing this demand with the ongoing pressure to reduce capital and operating expenses. Increasingly, enterprise CIO's are deciding to outsource the operation, support and maintenance of their enterprise network to a third-party. The driving force behind this shift is new market innovations, such as the convergence of voice and data, which makes network operations more complex.
New technology introduces complicated technical issues and VoIP specifically has two very relevant concerns that need to be addressed immediately -- security and quality of service (QoS).
The term "hosted VoIP" means a number of different things to different people. One key data point is that the "who" of hosting should be transparent to the end user. It can be a service provider or a third-party offering the hosted solution. The hosting can be offered in a completely separate facility sometimes called a global network operations center (GNOC) or can be offered directly on the carriers' or their customers premises. One key point is that whoever is providing the hosting actually owns the equipment and this in turn significantly reduces the amount of CAPEX for the enterprise. Enterprises will ultimately choose the optimized hosted solution based upon their own network needs, core technical competencies and capabilities as well as desired services. While the hosting infrastructure architecture can be designed in a variety of ways technically, one of the parts of the decision process is who should perform the hosting. Obviously an enterprise needs to carefully select a trusted partner. Just as any outsourcing decision, handing over an important function of network operation needs to be a well-thought out process. Enterprises need to take into consideration the performance record of their partner, their partner's commitment to new services development and deployment, as well as their customer support and business continuity and disaster recovery plans. For many enterprise CIO's – especially those involved with large enterprises – outsourcing on a scale this big might be considered a loss of control and a decision that could compromise overall quality. However, as technologies such as VoIP continue to evolve to new and even more challenging applications, it may be easier for enterprises to keep up by using a third-party provider.
New technology introduces complicated technical issues and VoIP specifically has two very relevant concerns that need to be addressed immediately -- security and quality of service (QoS). Both of them can be addressed in the network, however since both continue to evolve on a sometimes-weekly basis, they can become very cumbersome issues. This makes it quite difficult for an IT organization that is already over tasked with regular network issues to identify and resolve without significant investment.
The industry often chooses to focus on the positive features of VoIP — shared IT infrastructure, and plug-and-play adaptability. While these key elements take advantage of the flexibility of IP, they are also what make it more susceptible to possible outside attack. Unlike a traditional circuit based telephone network., a VoIP network is vulnerable to the typical IP infrastructure issues, including interference from denial of service (DOS) attacks, viruses and wo,prms. These attacks can lead to the major outages that sometimes occur with data networks – taking the network down for hours or even days.
There are also a variety of attacks that specifically target VoIP networks. A couple of recent examples include spam over IP telephony (SPIT) and malicious transmission of obscenities. All of these issues are things that would be a huge problem inside a corporate network – especially when they can lead to the disruption of phone service.
In today's fast-paced global business world many workers spend hours on conference calls and reaching out to customer and colleagues by phone. The ability to pick up a desk phone and have it work almost 100 percent of the time is taken for granted. However, with a VoIP network there are not the same guarantees. Because they are vulnerable to outside influence, these disruptions can magnify some of the other common deficiencies with VoIP – latency, dropped calls or distortion. Since voice communications is one of the most reliable and personal ways to conduct business most companies do not tolerate downtime on a voice network or unintelligible calls the same way they might with a data network or a mobile phone.
Hosted VoIP: Take the headache and heartache out of VoIP, part 2
The good news is that VoIP has been around for a number of years, so some of its major risks are well understood. The industry is constantly developing best practices and tools and techniques for protecting and controlling VoIP networks. For instance, the International Organization for Standardization offers ISO 17799, which provides recommendations for information security management, also provides a common basis for developing organizational security standards. Similarly, the International Telecommunications Union's X.805 standard, pioneered by Bell Labs, defines security architecture for systems providing end-to-end communications. And NRIC, the Network Reliability and Interoperability Council, provides best practices guidance in a number of areas that relate to VoIP operations.
While the tools to deal with security concerns and VoIP exist, the time it takes to implement them may be the harder part of the equation. Because the industry is constantly evolving, security issues may pull away hours and hours of resource time from already strapped IT staffs.
Even the creation of a best practices model for an individual company is a laborious process. Typically these includes both and internal review that involved detailed -- users, administrators, managers and other employees -- as well as the more traditional security equipment assessments to show potential technical security gaps. A well-devised security plan must be able to include these unforeseeable risks and minimise them – however finding the time can be the trickiest part. In a hosted environment much of this work, especially keeping current with new types of attacks and solutions, will already be addressed.
Given today's competitive operating environments, the benefits of the hosted model provide some compelling reasons to consider it as a viable option.
The second major issue that is also commonly overlooked or minimized in the zealous race to move to a VoIP network is QoS. While QoS has long been discussed in data circles, when an IP network is carrying voice traffic it becomes an even more critical element. Just as planning is a key aspect to controlling the potential security issues; planning and network design are the foundation to building a VoIP network that delivers upon quality expectations. A good network design methodology includes prioritisation, traffic engineering, a plan to handle voice in a converged network and a restoration process.
In addition administrators must put a call admission control (CAC) process in place. CAC allows the customers to properly design the network to carry the traffic load even at the busiest times while still meeting QoS objectives. This complex process can be managed, for the most part by using one of the following methods: per call bandwidth reservation, local measurement based management, path-based management and link-based management. A network needs to carefully consider each choice, because the wrong one can have a direct impact on total voice quality.
In a traditional circuit based network voice is given a dedicated bandwidth allotment so the quality is assured. In a packet environment a customer must either predict voice quality in a new VoIP deployment or assess voice quality in an existing network to ensure end user satisfaction. Both scenarios can be managed by using a well-designed modelling process. One way to accomplish this is to combine both subjective testing with objective testing models. The subjective category includes the e-model scale of user satisfaction categories (ITU G.109) that set definitive end values and give a Mean Opinion Score (MOS). The objective components then measures network impairments such as delays, packet loss and echo, and computes a total score. In the case of a brand-new network these models are then combined with a network performance prediction tool (NPPT) that takes into account network information, VoIP traffic demand patterns and a network performance prediction algorithm to deliver a VoIP voice quality prediction report.
In the case of an existing network the e-model testing is still used for a voice auality assessment portion, but it is combined with other assessment tools such as network discovery, network performance measurement, delay asessment plan, delay assessment and root-cause analysis to deliver a VoIP voice quality assessment report.
While the industry has a number of different approaches to QoS it is clear that voice quality is key to the ultimate success of a VoIP deployment. The planning and traffic prediction make or break the deployment. The use of a hosted environment where detailed planning was built into the network design and will continue to be upgraded and monitored as new technology emerges may make a significant difference in overall performance.
Given today's competitive operating environments, the benefits of the hosted model provide some compelling reasons to consider it as a viable option. These may include lower overall operating expenses, ability to provide enhanced security, improved network performance and ability to quickly rollout new services such as VoIP. This approach allows enterprises to focus on their own core network competencies and re-deploy staff to areas that make the most use of their expertise.
As VoIP and a wide variety of other broadband communications applications including unified messaging, security and mobile extension applications that can extend the functionality of the office phone system to a mobile environment, continue to emerge on the scene, the network landscape is dramatically changing. The continuous push to add new technology is tipping the scales in what was once a closely guarded possession for organizations -- network operation. When customers combine the cost-effectiveness and the ability to immediately offer new services the decision to outsource is becoming clearer every day to both the network operator and enterprise CIO.
HOSTED VOIP: CASE STUDIES
Hosted VoIP improves portfolio, company functionality
"Americans feel they have certain inalienable rights," said Brian Mccarthy, president and CEO of Cherub Networks LLC in Orlando Florida. -- "including the right to a dial tone." As a beta-tester for MailStreet's recently added hosted VoIP feature, McCarthy has enough experience to say with certainty that he wants a dial tone to be a right. As founder and CEO of an online marketing and software development firm, McCarthy knows what he wants from his communications services and isn't afraid to ask for it.
Yet with a growing business, the need to rely on continuous connectivity became an issue, and eventually the situation came to a head when Cherub Networks experienced a three-day service outage with Vonage. By the third day, when patience was exhausted and weak assistance from customer service had run its course, McCarthy began a search for a new communications provider. Two or three days after the outage fiasco, Cherub Networks began a fruitful partnership with Apptix's MailStreet.
Apptix offers three levels of service, with MailStreet catering primarily to what is termed the "ultra-small" business market -- one to 20 employees -- and offering a cost-conscious solution. Covering all the basics of enterprise-class email, unified communications, hosted Exchange and hosted PBX services, Apptix's various service levels launched their latest feature, Apptix Voice -- a hosted VoIP solution -- on March 19, in response to a demand among businesses of all sizes. Amir Hudda, CEO, said, "Combined with our hosted email and collaboration solutions, Apptix Voice extends our vision of delivering reliable, enterprise-class business communications solutions to the SMB [small and midsized business] market."
In addition to choosing the more traditional MailStreet offerings of hosted Exchange, email and Outlook integration, McCarthy also volunteered his firm of primarily home-office-based employees to beta-test the MailStreet VoIP feature. He said it was important that all the workers in his firm felt comfortable handling call conferencing, call forwarding and call transfers -- both internal and external -- so the user interface would need to be easy to use but graphically dynamic.
After initial testing among the employees, a user in the marketing department came back and confirmed the functionality of MailStreet's offering by stating, "Even a non-geek like me can use the system and understand the display easily." The firm is also testing softphones, handsets and PC integration among the three features, which share the same phone number -- another feature of MailStreet's offerings that appeals to McCarthy .
McCarthy acknowledged that he is a demanding user, but he knows what he wants and is also aware that the perfect communication system does not exist. But a high level of customer service -- including rapid turnaround on emails, willingness to assist on implementation of new features, and availability after hours to handle difficult situations as they arise -- has convinced McCarthy that he made a wise choice in taking his firm to the next level in communications.
VoIP software eases company's communications constraints
Hosted VoIP is getting a new spin as the telephony community begins to explore voice communications as software applications on a converged network.
"We're allergic to the word 'hosted,'" Russ Maney, vice president of marketing, said when describing Smoothstone and its view of the Voice over IP (VoIP) communications world.
Rather than following the better-known model of hosted VoIP services, Smoothstone considers itself a fully managed communications service provider. Terming its service "converged communications as a service," Smoothstone takes the approach of offering a complete solution -- covering everything from basic dial tone to automated call distribution (ACD) and videoconferencing services.
Using the Software as a Service (SaaS) model and replacing traditional telecom equipment and separate silos of legacy networks, Smoothstone makes VoIP software and services available over a network connection from an externally hosted platform. In addition, Smoothstone offers businesses the chance to converge separated data, voice and video networks into a single provider that offers these features over a private, nationwide network as a service.
Vic Elarde, IT manager at Telular Corp., said that six months with Smoothstone's complete solution liberated his staff to focus on the higher-value activities of the network rather than spending their time keeping the voice system operational.
Whenever there was a problem with the phone system, Elarde knew he would need to set aside at least a few hours to phone in the problem to his previous provider, AT&T/BellSouth, and then wait for a call back with a response -- the actual fix for the issue could take another day or two, depending on the problem. In comparison, Elarde said, "It took one call to reach Smoothstone's support versus waiting a day or two to hear back from our previous provider, or several hours on the phone before reaching a support worker."
For Telular, the cost-savings benefits of VoIP and hosted VoIP had become another incentive to find a different telephony solution. With an average bill of $30,000 per month before switching to Smoothstone, and struggling to reach a customer service rep with the other company when there was a problem, monthly costs of $12,000 to $13,000 reaffirmed Elarde's decision to switch.
As a manager who is customer service-oriented, Elarde is also thrilled with the near-weekly phone calls he receives from his Smoothstone customer service rep to check in. Telular also found that using a new hosted service helped the company avoid the cost of a forklift to VoIP -- one that might not have included the other unified features included with Smoothstone's complete solution.
In choosing to use a converged communications model, our cost savings alone have made our company profitable.
Vic Elarde
IT manager, Telular Corporation
Rather than allowing the site to be down for the duration of the physical move, Smoothstone enabled Telular to virtually move the site from the Chicago server to the New York office's server. Once the physical move to downtown Chicago was over and the server was back online, Smoothstone transitioned the site back onto the Chicago server -- without experiencing any downtime.
For Telular's remote and mobile workers, additional features have also improved communications capabilities. As its complete solution places all network users onto the same private network, the entire company is on the same virtual call center -- allowing workers to communicate with one another as if they were in the same physical location.
Elarde has found that Smoothstone's flexibility is invaluable to improving Telular's business -- including being able to add T1 lines as the volume handled by the call center increases, or rerouting calls to the Chicago office when the volume spikes.
With the number of benefits Elarde has seen for his IT staff and within the rest of Telular, he is confident that a converged communications system was the best path for his company to take to improve its business.
"In choosing to use a converged communications model," Elarde said, "our cost savings alone have made our company profitable."
To Learn more and how to do it Right!
(407) 965-1910 or go to: http://www.cherubnetworks.com/managed-services.php
Cherub Networks LLC is well known for it's flagship product iTGuardian™ Managed Services which is designed exclusively as a managed or hosted solution to provide our customers with the most cost effective management of their IT infrastructure 24x7. Cherub Networks uses iTGuardian enterprise class technology helping you provide end-to-end monitoring and management of your IT infrastructure over the secured and encrypted Internet connection. This solution helps Cherub Networks deliver an unlimited range of unique managed services, providing extraordinary levels of performance and availability for you, our customer. iTGuardian Managed Services Benefits.
Office in Orlando Lake Mary Longwood Lakeland Tampa Daytona Beach Maitland St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral MSP continuously monitoring healthcare network infrastructure Microsoft patch managing all critical systems Advanced Technology Service Hosting Hosted Data Center Exchanges Sharepoint SQL Event Log Application Backup Firewall Capacity Disk Space CDW Online Backup DR Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS GRID computing on demand storage Cloud We are well known for desktop, server and network monitoring, management, security online backup cloud computing storage archiving VoIP Hosting top 10 Virtualization HaaS SaaS Help desk 24x7 for small medium enterprise SMB SME employees IT as a service software hardware support onsite remote hosted exchange sharepoint fixed cost cutting solutions microsoft hp symantec spam barracuda anti-virus gartner magic quadrant robo soho GRID on demand ibm dell cdw low cost budget HaaS SaaS capacity cost per gigabyte firewall HaaS SaaS
Managed VoIP Services as a Cost Cutting Solution - March 11, 2009
Orlando Florida -- The current direction that Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is taking is believed to help the current economic crisis according to IBISWorld. In a recent study released this week, IBISWorld predicted the impact of the current recession on the VoIP industry will be positive and that “this emerging industry has one distinctive advantage over competing industries and firms; price.”
Most everyone knows the advantages that VoIP services can offer and right now all that matters to anyone who lives on planet Earth is money. It’s what makes the world go round and despite various arguments money does and potentially can make you happy. It’s ALL about the Benjamins now folks.
By using VoIP, local, long distance, and international calls are substantially cheaper using than those made on wired and wireless networks, attracting more business and personal use in a deteriorating economic environment, according to IBISWorld.
Based on IBISWorld’s research, “Consumer migration to VoIP will boost revenue but the higher cost of funding will result in an earlier than expected shakeout of industry participants. IBISWorld expect enterprises to fall by 18 percent in 2009 compared to a February 2008 forecast of a 6.3 percent increase.”
Although, most small VoIP providers were already running their businesses on extremely thin ice when the economy was performing well, these firms will obviously be the first to go. IBISWorld anticipate margin decay in 2009 followed by an increase in 2010. But overall, IBISWorld predicts that the industry will benefit from some consolidation while the weaker economic conditions will serve to boost demand in the short to medium term.
However, IBISWorld reports revenue growth over 2009 and 2010 will be stronger than previously projected with an anticipated acceleration of consumer and business substitution from wireline services to VoIP. Revenue growth is expected to slow from 2011 as the financial pressures motivating substitution ease and the industry takes stock.
To Learn More and how to do it Right!
(407) 965-1910 or go to: http://www.cherubnetworks.com/managed-services.php
Cherub Networks LLC is well known for it's flagship product iTGuardian is designed exclusively as a managed solution to provide our customers with the most cost effective management of their IT infrastructure 24x7. Cherub Networks uses iTGuardian enterprise class technology helping you provide end-to-end monitoring and management of your IT infrastructure over the secured and encrypted Internet connection. This solution helps Cherub Networks deliver an unlimited range of unique managed services, providing extraordinary levels of performance and availability for you, our customer. iTGuardian Managed Services Benefits.
Office in Orlando Lake Mary Longwood Lakeland Tampa Daytona Beach Maitland St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral MSP continuously monitoring healthcare network infrastructure Microsoft patch managing all critical systems Advanced Technology Service Hosting Hosted Data Center Exchanges Sharepoint SQL Event Log Application Backup Firewall Capacity Disk Space CDW Online Backup DR Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS GRID computing on demand storage Cloud We are well known for desktop, server and network monitoring, management, security online backup cloud computing storage archiving VoIP Hosting top 10 Virtualization HaaS SaaS Help desk 24x7 for small medium enterprise SMB SME employees IT as a service software hardware support onsite remote hosted exchange sharepoint fixed cost cutting solutions microsoft hp symantec spam barracuda anti-virus gartner magic quadrant robo soho GRID on demand ibm dell cdw low cost budget HaaS SaaS capacity cost per gigabyte firewall HaaS SaaS
VoIP as a Service - Not just for Big Business but SMBs - March 11, 2009
Orlando Florida -- Whereas on-premise IP PBXs are becoming the provenance of those large enterprises having financial resources necessary to buy or lease equipment and maintain it with a knowledgeable (and expensive) staff, hosted and managed VoIP systems have become the mainstay of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (SMBs). The smaller the business, the more “hosted” the VoIP system, mostly because of the reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) thanks to the negligible upfront investment and low monthly service fees associated with hosted solutions. Hosted VoIP is already used by over 11 million SMBs, according to a 2008 Dell’Oro Group report, and they’ve predicted that 35 million SMB will adopt it by 2010.
Many VoIP providers that originally delved into the consumer space are now targeting the more dependable and lucrative business world. One VoIP provider that has successfully taken the business segment by storm is 8x8 the folks who bring you the Packet8 services. Perhaps their most impressive offering is the Packet8 Virtual Office hosted PBX service, which offers advanced PBX functions along with local and long distance calling from a single service provider. Companies can instantly enjoy seamless business communications whether they operate from a single location or from a combination of centralized headquarters and remote satellite and home offices. Packet8 / 8x8 also offers advanced call/contact center services.
Even if you have a big investment in your current equipment and phone numbers, Packet8 lets you use your already installed data connections to do unlimited calling between your sites using a combination of Packet8’s service and Microsoft’s (News - Alert) clever little on-premise phone system box called Response Point. By using direct IP trunking connections over any broadband Internet connection instead of jumping calls in and out of the PSTN, Response Point customers using Packet8 services automatically enjoy unlimited free calls to and from any other Packet8 subscriber worldwide along with the option to combine Packet8 on-premise and hosted solutions for multiple locations.
Larger, more traditional network operators are also attempting to win over businesses with VoIP services, though nimbly making changes in response to market forces is less difficult for a Packet8 than something the size of Verizon Communications, which terminated its short-lived VoiceWing IP Internet phone service for consumers as of March 31, 2009. Apparently, Verizon partly feared that VoiceWing would cut into its more lucrative landline business, and it also wanted to create revenue-generating services — such as digital voice service — to run over its huge fiber optic network build-out that’s currently used for FiOS TV and broadband Internet access.
However, Verizon does offer Verizon Hosted IP Centrex, a Broadsoft PBX-powered descendant of the old MCI Advantage hosted VoIP service. Telecom managers should like its desktop web browser interface to quickly handle such tasks as Moves, Adds, Changes and Deletes (MACDs) along with network applications. Hosted IP Centrex can be used to establish a new location or replace a old PBX, key or TDM-based central exchange system. This complete turnkey solution package includes design, installation and ongoing maintenance and is intended for locations with 5 to 325 employees.
“One-man band” SOHO operations may find the Verizon Hub intriguing, which will be released on February 1, 2009. The Verizon Hub is a sophisticated though inexpensive ($200 and $35 a month for unlimited calling/messaging in the U.S.) touch screen home/SOHO communications system that both replaces landline telephones and can be wireless service accessory. The Verizon Hub can call upon any broadband connection to connect to the Internet and provide VoIP-based telephony services. It’s seven-inch touchscreen display — vaguely reminiscent of the old ADSI (Analog Display Services Interface) phones — that offers a sort of super personal information manager, with calendars, weather, maps, directions, traffic, movie times and messaging.
Qwest Communications International is also maneuvering in the hosted VoIP space for businesses. Their OneFlex Hosted VoIP service lets you make place and receive calls, while at the same time enabling you to check voice messages online, filter incoming calls, quickly add new employees to the system and more. Calls are made using a OneFlex phone connected to the Internet. VoIP services are connected using a separately purchased Qwest iQ Networking Internet Port (for Dedicated Internet Access).
Hosted, Managed, or Totally On-Premise VoIP?
Unlike premise-based systems that charge “per-active” port fees, hosted systems can expand one line at a time and are therefore subject to cost-effective per-seat licenses, charge only for those actually configured for use.
There is also an interesting middle ground of “managed services” wherein IP equipment can exist on the company premises (or in a tenant’s building) if necessary, but it’s taken care of by the service provider. It conserves the provider’s office space and distributes much of the call control processing around to the customer locations. Even though the equipment may not be situated right inside the service provider’s facilities, network surveillance and remote fault monitoring and various forms of remote reporting and service management can keep the provider on top of things and maintain both high availability and QoS.
Some managed plans are quite flexible, since businesses often find that what they want to “outsource” is simply the day-to-day distractions of administering a complex communications environment. In the case of Avaya’s (News - Alert) Remote Managed Services for IP Telephony, the service ensures that a company’s IP-telephony applications, platforms and underlying data network are working together and companies can choose the amount of operational responsibility they want to farm out to Avaya. Remote monitoring and management of applications is done via Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), real-time access of platform and network data is maintained as are “health checks” and network-wide voice statistics. (There are hourly updates of service outage events.) Avaya can deal with the receipt of and response to off-board alarms for all supported Avaya PBXs.
Similar flexibility can occur at the other end of the business model — instead of offering VoIP services directly to small businesses, Speakeasy (News - Alert) sells through its channel. Despite the additional layer of the channel, customers still enjoy the expediency of working with a single supplier, simple pricing, a single bill and the ease of doing business with a single support person. The highest voice quality is maintained by keeping voice calls off of the public Internet and instead utilizing various Speakeasy Points of Presence that serve over 120 metropolitan markets around the U.S.
The same kind of master agents that served as middlemen between carriers and customers in the old TDM days are also at work in the new convergence market. For example, Concierge Communications offers businesses products and communication services from over 30 of the nations top communications companies.
The Right Hardware Makes it Easy
When serving huge number of users in a hosted or managed environment, a provider naturally wants to use equipment and software that will reduce as much as possible the number of truck rolls to a customer site.
For example, take Momentum of Birmingham, Alabama, a provider of private label digital voice service to operators throughout the U.S., who in 2008 introduced a line of business digital voice products with advanced packaged feature sets targeting those regional cable operators and municipalities focused on serving SMBs. These digital voice products allow cable operators to offer 1 to 12 line integrated access and hosted IP PBX services in order to address the market’s current lack of functional, cost-effective, streamlined business solutions for SMBs. The solution’s key features include music on hold, auto-attendant, 8xx remote retrieve voicemail, standalone extensions as seats, call pickup, voicemail to email, multiple hunt groups and call logs
Momentum’s business product suite is built on a BroadSoft platform and can either work with a customer’s existing PBX/key system or use the IP PBX product with Polycom (News - Alert) or existing phones. The feature set enables operators to easily rollout, train, sell and support the new product to SMBs at competitive rates with less complexity than many of the other options in the market. The service includes a friendly feature console that allows operators, office administrators and end-users the ability to quickly adjust the enhanced feature settings as needed.
From VoIP to Telepresence (News - Alert)
The hosting and managed scene in the world of convergence is growing in size and scope every day. Looking toward a time when VoIP calls will be challenged by frequent Telepresence teleconferencing calls of extremely high video and sound quality, AT&T in 2008 enhanced its Cisco-based AT&T Telepresence service solution to include multipoint, intercompany connectivity. Organizations can now extend Cisco TelePresence multipoint meetings beyond the enterprise boundary to help enable meetings with customers, suppliers and partners using the AT&T Business Exchange.
The AT&T Telepresence Solution combines the “in-person” experience of Telepresence with the simplicity of a phone call, along with an interesting “meet me” feature guarded with a secure PIN code that simplifies intercompany calling. And now, Cisco TelePresence Multipoint can bring many conference rooms together in a single meeting, enabling a large number of dispersed people to sit “face to face” in a single virtual meeting room, without any performance degradation, thus obviating the need for expensive business travel.
To Learn More and how to do it Right!
(407) 965-1910 or go to: http://www.cherubnetworks.com/managed-services.php
Cherub Networks LLC is well known for it's flagship product iTGuardian is designed exclusively as a managed solution to provide our customers with the most cost effective management of their IT infrastructure 24x7. Cherub Networks uses iTGuardian enterprise class technology helping you provide end-to-end monitoring and management of your IT infrastructure over the secured and encrypted Internet connection. This solution helps Cherub Networks deliver an unlimited range of unique managed services, providing extraordinary levels of performance and availability for you, our customer. iTGuardian Managed Services Benefits.
Office in Orlando Lake Mary Longwood Lakeland Tampa Daytona Beach Maitland St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral MSP continuously monitoring healthcare network infrastructure Microsoft patch managing all critical systems Advanced Technology Service Hosting Hosted Data Center Exchanges Sharepoint SQL Event Log Application Backup Firewall Capacity Disk Space CDW Online Backup DR Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS GRID computing on demand storage Cloud We are well known for desktop, server and network monitoring, management, security online backup cloud computing storage archiving VoIP Hosting top 10 Virtualization HaaS SaaS Help desk 24x7 for small medium enterprise SMB SME employees IT as a service software hardware support onsite remote hosted exchange sharepoint fixed cost cutting solutions microsoft hp symantec spam barracuda anti-virus gartner magic quadrant robo soho GRID on demand ibm dell cdw low cost budget HaaS SaaS capacity cost per gigabyte firewall HaaS SaaS Top 10 vs. compare best in class
How Managed Security Services will Help you to avoid a Data Breach - March 11, 2009
Orlando Florida --It was 1 a.m. and we had been working on our client's data breach for eight hours. Most of the team had been awake for 20-plus hours, and fatigue was starting to set in when Bob discovered something.
He realized that a piece of malware that was embedded in the phishing attack linked back to a website in Spain. "I did a little research and that site in Spain is a compromised host," Bob told me. "These attackers are very clever. They mirrored the normal landing site with one that they set up that contains their exploits."
"So instead of a visitor landing on the regular home page, they land on a compromised, hidden page?" Sam asked.
"Correct," Bob said. "This has the hallmarks of an extremely sophisticated attack."
Bob has a lot of credibility in my book, so when he talks about sophisticated attacks, I take notice.
"Why do you say sophisticated?" I asked.
"First, there's the malware package. Looks like its polymorphic, changes its digital signature at every execution. So creating a digital hash won't help us locate other infections," Bob said. "Of course I won't know for sure until we have a chance to send it to Dave for him to decompile, but I have a pretty good feeling that it is. Then there is the amount of research that had to go into crafting the phishing e-mail. It uses all the right buzz words, talks about a current project and even lists company employees who aren't listed on the company's website. Then there's the amount of effort they took to hide their site. Take a look at the homepage for this site." Bob turned his laptop around so everyone at the conference table could see the screen. "Here is the regular site: www.compromisedsite.com/index.html. But here is the link for the site that contains the exploit: www.compromisedsite.com/Ãndex.html. See the difference?"
"They look the same to me," said Sam.
"They did to me, too. For a long time. But here's the difference: The uncompromised site has a regular Times New Roman letter i in the name: index.html. The compromised landing page uses the special character an accented i."
It's tough to notice, and of course that's the point. Whoever compromised this site went to a lot of trouble to hide the fact from the Web owner, and even from fairly savvy computer users, Bob said.
"Did you have a chance to connect to the compromised site using one of our sand boxes?" I asked him.
"I did just a couple minutes ago. The results are very preliminary, but I think they confirm the fact that this is a well-planned attack. The site tries no less than five different browser attacks, and that's if the user doesn't click any of the links! I don't know yet how many attacks the links launch. Also, the Spanish site seems like it might be a site that some employees of the client would need to access for normal business operations. That would explain why it was so important for the attackers to hide their presence on that server."
Armed with that information, Sam and I met Victor, our Russian colleague, down in the server room. "Hey boss! Velcome to ze dungeon data center. Ha-ha! Guess vat I have found?" he asked.
"Tell me you have good news, Victor," I said.
"Vell boss, ze system administrators turned off all ze logging. No more of doze damn alerts going off! But zey did not turn off everything. And I found vat zey did not! Look here."
Victor showed me the log file index of the company's antivirus software. "See how ze log files are small here, and here and here, too," Victor points to the logs from Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of the previous week. "But look here. Friday ze log is four times bigger than for ze other days of ze veek. I tink somezing happened on Friday. And ven ve look here, ve see this IP address over and over and over and over. It's an IP address from ze Russian Federation. Telephone company in St. Petersburg."
He suggested we wait an hour and come back. St. Petersburg is at lunch time now but he said he'll call them in an hour and see what information he can get. Back in the conference room Michael was sitting at the table talking on his BlackBerry. He was looking pretty ragged, his eyes bloodshot and a new coffee stain on his shirt.
"I'll tell them. Right. Bye," Michael said as he finished the phone call. "That was the CIO. He wants us to brief him before we make our presentation to the CEO and the board."
"We're making a presentation to the CEO and Board?"
"Oh yeah, sorry. Forgot to tell you. Tomorrow morning. Well, actually this morning at 7."
Not much time to prepare anything since it was already 5:45 p.m.
A short time later, the systems admin who had been working with Victor burst into the conference room and said, "Hey man, your guy is down in the server room actin' all crazy. He's yellin' some kinda gibberish on his cell and getting all red in the face. You better take a look at him before he busts a vein or something." As if on queue, Victor threw open the near door of the conference room and came in. "I have information about ze group dat used dat server as demo platform for hacker convention," he said. "Ze IP address that vaz in ze antivirus logs vaz registered to dis vireless telephone company. Dey told me dat dey rented this IP range to ze hacker convention. So ve have proof dat dis group attacked ze e-mail server earlier, because vie vould dey use a server dat was not already compromised? Dey don't! Dis server vas compromised before!"
"Wow! Were you on the phone to Russia?" I asked. "Is that why the sys admin thinks you were yelling?"
"Russian people understand authority. Sometimes you have to make them believe dat you are ze authority. Dats vie I was little animated in ze phone call. Ha-ha-ha! Russian hackers compromised ze e-mail server some day earlier than last Friday. Ve don't know ven ze original compromise happened, but ze computer vas used for demonstration at ze hacker convention Friday last veek," Victor said.
At that point, Bob approached me. "Eamon, can we talk in private for a minute?"
Alone in Michael's office, Bob picked up the phone and started dialing. He must have hit at least 30 keys before he put the headset to his ear.
"Tremendous Fury. Yes that's right, Tremendous Fury. This is an insecure line. Yes," Bob started spelling the name of the client using the NATO phonetic alphabet (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc.). "I'll look for an e-mail." Bob hung up. "I have to wait for an e-mail but I don't think the Russians are the culprits here, or at least not the cause for the call from the Air Force OSI. This thing just doesn't have the feel of a Russian hack, at least as far as the phishing attack goes. I respect Victor and believe in what he found, but I don't think that the phishing attack was Russian in origin. Maybe this box was compromised twice."
"That's a bombshell," I said. "I'm going to wait before I hit that alarm bell. Maybe later on in the investigation we'll have confirmation."
Back in the conference room the entire team was there, including Michael, and we all had fresh coffee. Ten minutes until the meeting with the CIO.
Here's what I wrote down:
The company's e-mail server was compromised on date unknown but earlier than last Friday;
This server was used by a Russian hacking group last Friday;
This group used the server for a hacking demonstration at a convention in St. Petersburg;
On Monday of this week, an employee clicked a link in a phishing e-mail. This e-mail contained information about the company and a project that they are currently working on, so this attacker either had insider knowledge or did quite a bit of research about the company;
All of the data from a different employee's hard drive (not the one who clicked the link) was seen traversing an Internet link monitored by the Air Force OSI;
A call from the OSI alerted the client to the fact that they had been compromised. The organization did not detect this themselves due to insufficient security controls;
The malware from the phishing attack has an IP address hard coded into it which links to a compromised Web server in Spain;
We know the attackers are on the network, probably even this minute, because they orchestrated the removal of 120GB of data from the above hard drive.
"Have I missed anything?" I asked.
"China. I just received an e-mail from a friend." Bob said.
"That's a bombshell," I said. "OK, then. Let me change this."
We are dealing with at least two attacks. The e-mail server was compromised by a Russian group and the phishing attack is Chinese.
How we would come to wish that the client had been compromised by only two groups. In the next few days, the team would make discoveries that risked national security and would culminate in the resignation of the CIO.
To Learn More and how to do it Right!
(407) 965-1910 or go to: http://www.cherubnetworks.com/managed-services.php
Cherub Networks LLC is well known for it's flagship product iTGuardian is designed exclusively as a managed solution to provide our customers with the most cost effective management of their IT infrastructure 24x7. Cherub Networks uses iTGuardian enterprise class technology helping you provide end-to-end monitoring and management of your IT infrastructure over the secured and encrypted Internet connection. This solution helps Cherub Networks deliver an unlimited range of unique managed services, providing extraordinary levels of performance and availability for you, our customer. iTGuardian Managed Services Benefits.
Office in Orlando Lake Mary Longwood Lakeland Tampa Daytona Beach Maitland St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral MSP continuously monitoring healthcare network infrastructure Microsoft patch managing all critical systems Advanced Technology Service Hosting Hosted Data Center Exchanges Sharepoint SQL Event Log Application Backup Firewall Capacity Disk Space CDW Online Backup DR Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS GRID computing on demand storage Cloud We are well known for desktop, server and network monitoring, management, security online backup cloud computing storage archiving VoIP Hosting top 10 Virtualization HaaS SaaS Help desk 24x7 for small medium enterprise SMB SME employees IT as a service software hardware support onsite remote hosted exchange sharepoint fixed cost cutting solutions microsoft hp symantec spam barracuda anti-virus gartner magic quadrant robo soho GRID on demand ibm dell cdw low cost budget HaaS SaaS capacity cost per gigabyte firewall
IT Cost Cutting for the SMB using Managed Services - Part II - March 8, 2009
Sometimes you just have to spend money to save money!
Sometimes you just have to spend money to save money!
Orlando Florida -- The company put the list of tips together because while it's a natural instinct for most organizations to batten down the hatches and stay as still as possible as the economic hurricane passes over, the reality is that IT spending still needs to be done, said Elaine Mah, business marketing manager for Intel Canada. Additionally, there are good return on investment (ROI) reasons for investing in certain technologies -- but organizations have to spend smart. "There are still investments that need to be made in these tough times. It's about how to make smart technology investments that will pay dividends in the long run when we come out of this economic downturn we've gotten ourselves into," Mah said.
The essence of the top five tips is to spend smart, do more and be more secure, she noted.
The first tip is to refresh PCs that are more than three years old. While that does require an output of cash, it makes sense from an ROI perspective, Mah said. As PCs (and servers, for that matter) age, the maintenance costs start to increase, with those costs increasing by 50 per cent after the systems age past three years.
At the same time, end-users will see significant productivity and secure enhancements by working on more modern PCs, Mah said.
"The productivity you'll get out of a newer system will be quite significant when you're looking at a three-year-old PC versus a system you'd buy today," she said. The same can be said for servers, as three-year-old servers are likely built on single-core technology and can't offer the productivity gains that dual- and multi-core servers can offer.
The second tip is to go mobile. Intel and other vendors have been talking to the benefits of mobile technology for some time, but in the economic downturn, it still makes sense.
"If you're looking at making a smart investment ... we would suggest that when you do that refresh, buy a notebook PC. From a spend smart perspective, moving to mobile will save energy. You're reducing system power consumption," Mah said. Additionally, workers with mobile PCs will be more productive because they can connect anywhere.
The third tip is to look to managed services and remote manageability features. Solution providers can turn on features in more recent equipment to take advantage of remote monitoring capabilities, which can not only help with security, but also in maintaining the systems from companies like Cherub Networks developers of iTGuardian of Lake Mary Florida, Mah said.
"Once they're able to prove to their customers the type of value they're getting from the remote management, you can go back and look at the rest of the systems in the environment and you're back at the refresh," she said.
Another critical element is ensuring good information and knowledge capture, which is tip number four. Better understanding the impact of knowledge management on a business' overall success, producitivity and competitiveness is important, Mah said.
"You need to make sure you build up the right infrastructure before the storm hits," she said.
Finally, the last tip is to buy into green technology to reduce energy consumption and costs, Mah said. Most PCs and servers today are more energy-efficient than those of a few years ago.
"To not do anything is always going to be the wrong strategy. Now is not the time to turtle," Mah said.
To Learn More
For more information about Cherub Networks Email Anti-Spam and Email Anti-Virus or other managed services, contact us at (407) 965-1910 or go to: http://www.cherubnetworks.com/managed-services.php
Cherub Networks LLC is well known for it's flagship product iTGuardian is designed exclusively as a managed solution to provide our customers with the most cost effective management of their IT infrastructure 24x7. Cherub Networks uses iTGuardian enterprise class technology helping you provide end-to-end monitoring and management of your IT infrastructure over the secured and encrypted Internet connection. This solution helps Cherub Networks deliver an unlimited range of unique managed services, providing extraordinary levels of performance and availability for you, our customer. iTGuardian Managed Services Benefits.
Office in Orlando Lake Mary Longwood Lakeland Tampa Daytona Beach Maitland St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral MSP continuously monitoring healthcare network infrastructure Microsoft patch managing all critical systems Advanced Technology Service Hosting Hosted Data Center Exchanges Sharepoint SQL Event Log Application Backup Firewall Capacity Disk Space CDW Online Backup DR Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS GRID computing on demand storage Cloud We are well known for desktop, server and network monitoring, management, security online backup cloud computing storage archiving VoIP Hosting top 10 Virtualization HaaS SaaS Help desk 24x7 for small medium enterprise SMB SME employees IT as a service software hardware support onsite remote hosted exchange sharepoint fixed cost cutting solutions microsoft hp symantec spam barracuda anti-virus gartner magic quadrant robo soho GRID on demand ibm dell cdw low cost budget HaaS SaaS capacity cost per gigabyte firewall
IT Cost Cutting for the SMB using Managed Security - Part I - March 8, 2009
Options for outsourcing security grow, offer IT budget savings
Orlando Florida -- IT security typically has been deemed one of those services best provided in-house. But the stigma attached to outsourcing security and Security as a Service -- namely that an outsider does not know your company well enough to protect it -- may be falling away, as businesses look for more ways to cut costs.
More IT budget resources Midmarket IT budgets hit by economic downturn CIO's cost-cutting measures include move to Gmail
"Because the economy is struggling, I think there will be enough excitement in the marketplace over the cost benefits of managed Security Services that we are going to see a much higher degree of willingness to look at it as a real viable option," said Brian McCarthy, Co-founder of MSP Cherub Networks of Orlando Florida.
McCarthy contended that a SMB company with between 25 and 250 employees can realize costs savings from 35% to upwards of 60% by doing security as a managed service. Savings diminish as the deployment gets larger and more complicated, and the costs of managed services escalate.
Yet outsourcing security is not just about cost. The world is becoming very hostile, said Sadik Joe Swanton, CSO at Sencilo solutions, Lake Mary Florida.
"We have seen a substantial uptick in security incidents over the last two quarters, and even the automated attacks are going after data," said Swanton, who oversees Sencilo's advanced security practice, which has a strong midmarket bent (typically for companies with 50 to 2,500 users). "Maybe I am biased because I am in the security business, but I honestly believe that a single person can't keep up. I think a team of people who only do security can. So the question for the CIO becomes, do I hire a team or a company? There are reasons to answer that question both ways."
A word about definitions: Like most IT monikers, Security as a Service takes various shapes. It can refer to a traditional managed services model, in which a company hires an outside provider to configure, manage and even maintain its security infrastructure. These services can be dispatched remotely using a connection over the Internet.
Another model, "in-the-cloud" services, allows a company to use security technologies that are not located on its premises. One such cloud service that has gained traction is email security: Companies point their email to a cloud-based provider for cleansing before it's delivered to the on-premise mail server. Web security is also catching on, as cloud-based providers have resolved latency issues. A third model, Security as a Utility, usually refers to an arrangement in which companies pay a monthly fee to lease security hardware for their premises and pay for the services to manage and maintain it.
To get a better sense of the IT security outsourcing space, we asked McCarthy and Swanton to talk about the nuts and bolts of handing over security to an outside provider. Here is an edited version of their responses. (The interviews were conducted separately.)
How does the expense of managed security services compare with the salary of an IT security expert?
McCarthy: An organization that has, let's say, three reasonably sized intrusion prevention devices that they are looking for a managed service provider to manage and monitor for them, that is going to run you on average $500 to $1,000 per device, per month. So you're looking at around $3,700 a month times 12 months -- it is quite a savings over the cost of a fully loaded person. And one person is not going to be enough to monitor those devices. Technically, you are going to need a minimum of four people to run a shift 24/7. So, there is really significant savings to be realized.
The cost of a cloud solution is generally priced per user. Depending on volume, it ranges anywhere from a little under $1 to upwards of $3, $4, $5 and even $7 per user. The reason there is such a variance is because the price goes down very quickly with volume, and the price also goes up based on the number of features the customer chooses to consume for their users. In most all cases, you can build tangible ROI and TCO models that show positive gains vs. doing all of this in-house. What you're really doing is leveraging economies of scale of these providers.
Swanton: Some people view managed security as someone managing firewalls and intrusion prevention. Others view it as a larger question, including user provisioning and access control. The most typical definition is that managed perimeter, so firewalls plus intrusion prevention plus analysis of intrusion events. And in that case it is probably fairly equivalent to a single full-time security individual.
We charge by managed device with a premium if we are actually doing incident analysis and response. So, if the organization is large enough to have five Internet points of presence and five firewalls, we would price on a per-firewall basis, plus the additional premium if we are doing analysis of the security events.
What does a company need, going into Security as a Service? And how long does it take to get up and running? McCarthy: In the cloud model, if you want to deploy email security you have your IT team update a single line within a text file on one of their DNS servers and the cloud service is turned on. … Once you make that change it only takes a matter of hours for that change to propagate across the entire Internet.
In response to emerging threats, cloud-based security services are an ideal way to be able to turn up security without having to worry about the hardware procurement, the configuration, testing, the deployment. Sometimes when a threat is around the corner, people don't have the time to wait.
Swanton: We have a firm belief that not all organizations are created [equal] and not all security needs are the same. So our approach to the customer is to start with an assessment of needs and vulnerabilities to bring both the organization up to speed on what needs to be addressed, [then] move from assessment into design and implementation, so getting them healthy in their security infrastructure. At that point the customer and Sencilo Solutions jointly make the decision about is this something the customer will continue to operate or transition management of to CDW.
So, what do they need to get into managed services?
Swanton: If you make the assumption that there is a freshly implemented, clean system that is performing as designed, how long does it take to spin off on managed services? It is really a couple of weeks, where you're getting all the monitoring platforms in place, all the contact strategy in place, the escalations, how does the customer want to be notified when an incident occurs, what level of responsibility are they taking on. … So it's a week to two weeks, but that is from the assumption that they have a fully stable, effectively configured perimeter. Getting to that point can vary wildly depending on where they are coming from.
What kind of human interaction do you get with Security as a Service?
McCarthy: In all of the different models we have described there is absolutely a 24/7 support requirement, regardless of who is the provider of that service. In our managed security services group, we have eight security operation centers spread around the world … and all of those security operations centers work in tandem to provide unified support for our customer.
In the cloud-based services it is really a similar situation. The work that the individuals picking up the phone are doing is different, but having that broad global 24/7 is necessary for customers to feel comfortable that somebody is watching out for their environment.
Swanton: During the implementation of the managed services, both organizations agree to a certain level of change control and level of communications plan. Let's say an important code update comes out for the firewall and under the managed services agreement we are the ones responsible for being aware that that update is out there and making the decision that it should be applied. Customers are assigned a service account manager, and that person coordinates and quarterbacks all customer-initiated requests.
In most all cases, you can build tangible ROI and TCO models that show positive gains vs. doing all of this in-house.
The final case is incidents. What the customer is paying for as part of the managed service is for us to [perform] that first level of analysis … on those incidents. If an incidence occurs, we typically alert them immediately and we start the incident response procedure, which involves getting them information they need to understand what that incident is. That is about when what is covered under a managed services stops, and the incident response starts. Some organizations prefer to handle that in-house or engage another party for that. But one of the things they are able to access is our incident response team, should they want to work shoulder to shoulder with us.
And yes, they can always pick up the phone and get to somebody familiar with their environment 24/7.
The rap against Security as a Service is that it comes as one size fits all. Can it be tailored to the particulars of a company?
McCarthy: I think the tailoring piece is where there a little bit of a misconception in the marketplace, and the misconception is that when you outsource security you're getting what the provider tells you you're going to get, and that's it. In fact, that's really not the case, whether the provider is Cherub Networks or one of the other market leaders.
There is, in most cases, a broad spectrum of configurability and customization available. To give you some examples, we have a variety of different offerings, ranging from managing firewalls, monitoring intrusion detection and prevention devices to log and event management. All of those services are available in a variety of different service levels: standard, select and premium. The service levels help dictate how quickly things get done, how much interaction the customer has with the provider and the level of configurability and flexibility available for the various technologies that they have purchased.
Swanton: We do allow some flexibility in the managed services contracts. People want to draw the lines in different places for how much they do and how much we do. And yes, we do assign human beings to each and every one of these contracts to be the champion inside of CDW. This is a highly tailored and customized service.
To Learn More
For more information about Cherub Networks Email Anti-Spam and Email Anti-Virus or other managed services, contact us at (407) 965-1910 or go to: http://www.cherubnetworks.com/managed-services.php
Cherub Networks LLC is well known for it's flagship product iTGuardian is designed exclusively as a managed solution to provide our customers with the most cost effective management of their IT infrastructure 24x7. Cherub Networks uses iTGuardian enterprise class technology helping you provide end-to-end monitoring and management of your IT infrastructure over the secured and encrypted Internet connection. This solution helps Cherub Networks deliver an unlimited range of unique managed services, providing extraordinary levels of performance and availability for you, our customer. iTGuardian Managed Services Benefits.
Office in Orlando Lake Mary Longwood Lakeland Tampa Daytona Beach Maitland St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral MSP continuously monitoring healthcare network infrastructure Microsoft patch managing all critical systems Advanced Technology Service Hosting Hosted Data Center Exchanges Sharepoint SQL Event Log Application Backup Firewall Capacity Disk Space CDW Online Backup DR Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS GRID computing on demand storage Cloud We are well known for desktop, server and network monitoring, management, security online backup cloud computing storage archiving VoIP Hosting top 10 Virtualization HaaS SaaS Help desk 24x7 for small medium enterprise SMB SME employees IT as a service software hardware support onsite remote hosted exchange sharepoint fixed cost cutting solutions microsoft hp symantec spam barracuda anti-virus gartner magic quadrant robo soho GRID on demand ibm dell cdw low cost budget HaaS SaaS capacity cost per gigabyte firewall
Why so many CXOs are asking for Managed IT Services - improved SLAs at half the cost! - March 8, 2009
Daytona Beach Florida -- New impacts on outsourcing in 2009 include service-oriented architecture (SOA), service provider "DNA," green IT, the changing role of physicians, and what the future holds because of the convergence of technology and business process. This article looks at what you need to know about each of these impacts from managed service provider Cherub Networks
Service-Oriented Architecture
"I'm really excited about SOA," says Brian McCarthy, CEO of Cherub Networks in Orlando Florida. "Conceptually, it's a revolution in outsourcing that will take it to the next level."
Software implementations today are constrained by yesterday's way of writing code. As McCarthy explains, software developers wrote hundreds of thousands of lines of code that, together, handle a business process (such as finance and accounting). But the code is not clearly segmented into functions or subprocesses (such as accounts payable, accounts receivable, collections, general ledger, and fixed assets). It's often difficult to take out the lines of code for subprocesses and give them to another company. And, at times, companies have to implement an entire system even if they only want to use one segment of the code.
In contrast, SOA makes the code accessible in pieces, so to speak, that are very easy to map to business subprocesses. So if a company only wants to implement a system for collections or a system for the general ledger, for example, SOA enables that option.
"By being able to do that, you enable one simple thing: specialization," explains McCarthy. He compares it to automobile manufacturers that use subcontractors to build almost of the components that make up a car. "Those components became a natural breeding ground for organizations that are specialized in doing specific things such as making brakes or transmissions. Without specialization, we wouldn't be able to have cars that cost what they do today. Cars were expensive and extremely rudimentary decades ago because there was no specialization in the components in the car."
SOA has the potential to generate that specialization in the outsourcing industry because it enables providers to take much more granular pieces of a process and concentrate on them. "By concentrating only on one piece or on a few pieces, service providers can actually choose the ones in which they are really, really good, the ones in which they really can create significant economies of scale for 100 or 200 customers," says the Cherub Networks CEO.
That's a value proposition that McCarthy points out is still sometimes lacking in BPO today. "Many providers are not bringing to the fore significantly different economies of scale that the client can't replicate because many providers have at best only a handful of clients running on the same platform."
What are the implications for buyers of outsourcing services? The risk and difficulty of outsourcing subprocesses will be much lower. "The connection points between the piece the buyer moved out and gave to the provider and the rest of the retained subprocesses are going to be very clear because they are mapped into the software. It's almost like taking a Lego piece out of a structure; it still recombines fairly well with the rest because the connection points are very regular. SOA is also great for making new and improved pieces fit with the rest of the structure; there's less pain with enhancement, upgrades, and ultimately innovation."
The ideal scenario is one where both the buyer and provider have SOA so that they can communicate in the best way and so there is a minimum amount of "stranded assets" on the client side. "But the reality is most clients don't have SOA in their landscape today for most of the processes. It's changing, and there's a wave of adoption today; however, broader adoption will follow the rhythm of upgrades, so it will take 10 years," says McCarthy. "This said, the fact that the provider is already able to use SOA on its end to build very focused 'droplets' of subfunctions is game-changing."
The big advantage of SOA in outsourcing is a win-win for buyers and providers. McCarthy points out, "With SOA, the BPO provider needs to implement and run only a specific piece of the entire application landscape (such as the collections piece of the accounts receivable process). Therefore, the implementation will be much less complex, less lengthy (and costly) than traditional implementations."
Provider DNA
"I think that the biggest thing in the outsourcing landscape over the next year or two is going to be the expectation of the customers of a much different DNA in the suppliers that they work with in the outsourcing space." That's the belief of Keith Higgins, vice president of Worldwide Marketing, at BTD, a global innovation, technology, and outsourcing company focused exclusively on the communications industry.
In an age where user experience and consumer demands dictate product development, companies are under pressure to innovate and get to market a lot faster than ever before.
"We're moving from cost arbitrage to skills arbitrage," claims Higgins. This is different from the DNA required for just being the recipient of a client's to-do list and doing it globally at lower cost. Outsourcing providers are now moving up the value chain and product life cycle all the way to the whiteboard."
As clients ask for innovation, industry domain expertise will be "paramount to selecting the right outsourcing partner." It will enable more streamlined expertise for the buyer. Higgins believes the trillion-dollar outsourcing market will soon fragment into players focused on domain expertise.
"It will be the death of the mile-wide inch-deep outsourcing deals," he says. "You can't be a jack of all trades in the outsourcing space." He predicts that domain expertise will be a self-fulfilling prophecy; the more customers a provider has in one domain, the better the provider "gets it," and the more customers the provider will gain.
Neeraj Bhargava, CEO of Noval Global Services, agrees. "Successful providers are going to have greater industry specialization." He says the DNA of offshore providers will also change. "The successful offshore companies will add more value by combining their talent with technologies." According to Bhargava, offshore providers like WNS have the momentum of growth at 40 percent per year for the past five years. Now they're adding higher value-added areas such as research and analytics to their DNA. "Areas such as financial research, marketing analysis, and procurement analysis are growing rapidly in the offshore market," says Bhargava.
Debra Kops, chief marketing officer, WNoval Global Services, also lists the changing provider DNA as a new impact on outsourcing in the coming year. "What's driving the increased focus on vertical domain expertise is the need for the provider to understand the buyer's industry challenges and changes in business volumes. An example is knowing the context of billing in the utilities industry along with conversion rates and need for accuracy of meter reading."
Changing role of physicians
Look for a new spin on clinical help desks next year. New opportunities for outsourcing are developing in the physician community, according to Greg Baugh, senior director of operations, Siemens. Business processes in hospitals are changing, and physicians' roles are changing, requiring them to do more things in hospitals. For instance, in an effort to reduce medical errors, hospitals are implementing systems that require physicians to take accountability and place their orders themselves instead of having other clinicians do it for them.
"Outsourcers will need to change the way they provide help desk services and on-site services to physicians. We need to help the physicians do what's now being required of them. Physicians can't delay their work while they're held up with IT issues. They need support right away and expect answers immediately."
Physicians are also getting more involved with the electronic medical records (EMR). As companies sell them ambulatory products to handle the EMR, it will create new opportunities for outsourcing services in support of those products.
Green IT
"Companies are really taking up the charge of responsibility to the environment and to society at large," says Arthur Mazor, senior vice president, Offering Management & Marketing, Fidelity HR Services. Fidelity is finding that most companies seeking to create outsourcing engagements are now including interest in and requirements around environmental sustainability contributions in their evaluation criteria for service providers.
"We're finding that this is a significant impact on the way that outsourcing providers must think about and execute their business strategies, solutions, infrastructure footprint, and usage of resources that are environmentally friendly."
According to Mazor, many buyers' RFIs, RFPs, and questions from analysts and sourcing advisors guiding clients are now requiring providers to demonstrate their positions and environmental contributions. The environmental issue is starting to manifest itself in companies requiring electronic distribution and collection of RFPs.
Mazor says the "big question" is to what degree companies will weight the RFP questions related to environmental sustainability compared to the rest of the provider evaluation. "I think that's something that companies are wresting with," he says.
Bob Pryor, senior vice president, Sales and Marketing, BP Outsourcing Services, agrees that the influence of environmentalism in terms of "green" IT is a significant trend shaping the industry today. He ties it together with pressures on data centers for reducing costs of energy and cooling. "These two issues are tightly connected now."
"We're seeing very significant trends in this past year about what customers are asking for and the issues they are facing regarding their data centers not being able to handle the higher demands for power and cooling, especially in higher density environments," says Pryor. Customers are asking about solutions for energy management, conservation, preservation, and alternative energy sources as well as seeking understanding on whether they should build solutions with their own capital, outsource, or do a combination of both.
Convergence of technology and business process
"Although it's happening in pockets, the trend around the convergence of technology and business process hasn't quite taken hold yet. But it's ultimately the new area in outsourcing," predicts Pryor.
In this emerging model, customers move away from doing everything in an isolated pocket (for example, buy an application from one company, outsource computing capacity from another, and outsource accounting to another company). In the model Pryor favors, customers demand and expect that one company "could provide them all of their business process services with all of the people, expertise, and enabling technology and all bundled back to them at a price however they want it (per customer, per volume, per certain service units, the way they bill their customers, etc.)."
"Combining all of these pieces is an early step in offering on-demand services over the Internet," says Pryor. While cloud computing (including the SaaS model as one component) is "a profound trend in the marketplace today," he believes it will take a while before suppliers can deliver everything as a service from an outsourcing standpoint.
"I think you'll see aspects or components of it in outsourcing within the next three to five years," predicts Pryor. The question is, how prominent will that be? The answer depends on how advanced the enabling network and computing environments become." Building the model will shift the risk to providers, along with the significant capital investment.
"It won't be a small undertaking for providers," he adds. "So we'll see it first in niche kinds of services and with early adopters. But as the demand grows, you'll see the investment and the growth curve that says it's truly a big trend in the industry."
Lessons from the Outsourcing Journal:
Service-oriented architecture (SOA) will enable outsourcing service providers to specialize in certain processes and thus create more significant economies of scale for the buyers' benefit; this will create a value proposition that is often still lacking in BPO to date. SOA will reduce the complexity, time, and costs involved in traditional software implementations. The outsourcing market is beginning to fragment into providers focused on domain expertise, enabling them to better meet buyer's needs around industry challenges and changes in business volumes. The influence of environmentalism in terms of "green" IT is now tightly connected with pressures to reduce energy and cooling costs in data centers. Many companies are now starting to include requirements around environmental sustainability contributions in their evaluation criteria for service providers.
Physicians' roles in hospitals are changing as is their use of IT. Accordingly, service providers need to change the way they provide help desk and on-site services to physicians. Outsourcing will begin moving away from doing work in isolated pockets (buying an application from one provider, computing capacity from another, and outsourcing a business process to another) and move toward providers that can deliver all such aspects in one bundled offering at a pricing structure that suits the buyer's needs. Combining all these aspects is necessary for offering on-demand outsourced services. This movement is beginning to happen now and will increase in niche areas over the next three to five years.
To Learn More
For more information about Cherub Networks Email Anti-Spam and Email Anti-Virus or other managed services, contact us at (407) 965-1910 or go to: http://www.cherubnetworks.com/managed-services.php
Cherub Networks LLC is well known for it's flagship product iTGuardian is designed exclusively as a managed solution to provide our customers with the most cost effective management of their IT infrastructure 24x7. Cherub Networks uses iTGuardian enterprise class technology helping you provide end-to-end monitoring and management of your IT infrastructure over the secured and encrypted Internet connection. This solution helps Cherub Networks deliver an unlimited range of unique managed services, providing extraordinary levels of performance and availability for you, our customer. iTGuardian Managed Services Benefits.
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Cloud Storage - Best Practices - March 8, 2009
Orlando Florida - Cloud storage is a relatively new concept that is becoming a more recognizable term in industry vernacular. Originally delivered as a service, it gained early popularity with Web 2.0 startups looking to outsource storage administration. As the concept spread and offerings expanded, the industry has now embraced two flavors of cloud storage: public and private. This article reviews the choices a user faces when choosing a private versus public cloud storage offering. It describes data types and identifies scenarios where cloud storage is a good solution and where it is a poor fit. This article also covers usage patterns, security, performance and cost implications to educate the reader on differences between public and private cloud storage, says CEO Brian McCarthy, of Cherub Networks.
Public Versus Private, What Is the Difference?
The difference between private and public storage clouds is simple. Where is the cloud deployed? A public cloud is offered as a service, usually over an Internet connection. Private clouds are deployed inside the firewall and managed by the user organization. Locality is a simple difference that drives very unique experiences and capabilities to the end user.
Public clouds typically charge a monthly usage fee per GB combined with bandwidth transfer charges. Users can scale the storage on-demand and will never need to purchase storage hardware. Service providers manage the infrastructure and pool resources into capacity that any customer can claim.
Private clouds are built from software running on customer-supplied commodity hardware. The storage is typically not shared outside the enterprise and full control is retained by the organization. Scaling the cloud is as simple as adding another server to the pool and the self-managing architecture expands the cloud by adding performance and capacity.
Read-Intensive Workloads
Video streaming and online video sharing are categorized as read-intensive workloads. Consider the example of the Beijing Olympics last summer. There was unbelievable demand for online video of the events, and in the U.S. the focus was on men's swimming. When the U.S. relay team won by a fraction of a second, everybody wanted to watch. Millions of people flocked to the web and video servers churned out views. This creates a unique storage demand. With thousands of web servers trying to read a single file, the architecture must support parallel reads. With hundreds of independent nodes serving out many copies of the same file, cloud storage provides the ideal solution to read intensive workloads.
High Performance Computing (HPC) Workloads
HPC workloads are similar to data ingestion workloads with one important difference - access to a single file. Rather than every client creating a unique file, hundreds or thousands of systems access a single file that is striped across many nodes for performance. This workload requires tight coordination between every node in the cluster to ensure data integrity, file locking, and cache coherence. HPC storage is used extensively in oil and gas exploration and financial data modeling where complex transactions are processed by compute clusters. There are a number of established HPC storage vendors include Panasas, Isilon and NetApp GX.
Single Producer, Many Consumer Workloads
In June 2008, the NASA Phoenix Mars Lander discovered ice crystals on the surface of Mars. The world reacted, scientists and religious organizations confirmed their unique theories about the universe, and everybody wanted access to the data. Given the challenges of landing on Mars and collecting soil samples, it's safe to say this is an example of a write once, consume many workload. Other examples include genomic sequence findings and quarterly business results. All share a single creation event with demand for multiple points of read access. Cloud storage protects data by replicating files to one or more nodes. This same activity can create many access points, enabling a single creation event to be easily shared amongst many consumers.
Archive or Content Depot Workloads
In most cases as data ages it becomes less active. Whether it is corporate information or media content, it is important that this data be kept available, but at a cost relative to its value. Private cloud storage economics and scale capabilities are designed to address this use case. Data can be copied to the cloud to free up more expensive tier-one storage devices and delay costly infrastructure upgrades. Cloud storage can be expanded on demand using the latest (or oldest) commodity hardware and a few simple mouse clicks. When it comes time to retire cloud hardware, it can be removed without downtime, preserving access and enabling 50 year archives.
What Is Your Data Workload?
When considering storage choices, ignore the "we can do everything" vendors and think about your workload. Once you understand your requirements and how the data will be used, your answer will emerge.
To Learn More
For more information about Cherub Networks Email Anti-Spam and Email Anti-Virus or other managed services, contact us at (407) 965-1910 or go to: http://www.cherubnetworks.com/managed-services.php
Cherub Networks LLC is well known for it's flagship product iTGuardian is designed exclusively as a managed solution to provide our customers with the most cost effective management of their IT infrastructure 24x7. Cherub Networks uses iTGuardian enterprise class technology helping you provide end-to-end monitoring and management of your IT infrastructure over the secured and encrypted Internet connection. This solution helps Cherub Networks deliver an unlimited range of unique managed services, providing extraordinary levels of performance and availability for you, our customer. iTGuardian Managed Services Benefits.
Office in Orlando Lake Mary Longwood Lakeland Tampa Daytona Beach Maitland
We are well known for desktop, server and network monitoring, management, security online backup cloud computing storage archiving VoIP Hosting
Virtualization HaaS SaaS Help desk 24x7 for small medium enterprise SMB SME employees IT as a service software hardware support onsite remote hosted exchange sharepoint fixed cost cutting solutions microsoft hp symantec spam barracuda anti-virus gartner magic quadrant robo soho GRID on demand ibm dell cdw