Microsoft Azure vs. Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2)

In our increasingly cloud-based world, it can be difficult to work with more traditional client- or server-side tools to do what we need. At Interlock IT, we're well-equipped with nothing more advanced than a web browser and a laptop for day-to-day work, but sometimes we just need that little bit of extra horsepower.

So, what to do? Well, we could spend thousands of dollars building our own workstations and servers, but why not leverage the cloud once again? A couple of years ago, we started using Amazon's Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) service; a central part of their Amazon Web Services infrastructure. AWS powers a host of websites, services, and more that you probably use every day—including, notably, Netflix.

EC2 allows you to get servers up and running in an Amazon datacentre fairly quickly and relatively painlessly. But even Amazon, for all their consumer-friendliness, hasn't managed to make it quite easy enough just yet. Setting up a new server takes many steps, including opening ports, setting security groups, assigning storage blocks (and choosing which type you'd like), and more. It's a lot of initial setup work, but once you're up and running, it just works.

Microsoft, on the other hand, has been steadily building out it's own Azure cloud platform since it launched in 2010. While Microsoft's service is a little younger (Amazon had a four-year head start with EC2), it meant that Microsoft could take a look at what Amazon was doing and set up their service a little bit differently.

Instead of having to wade through fifteen menus to get a new server up and running on Azure, there's five simple screens that ask you for a bit of information to set up your server, and then Azure does the rest.

I've done this repeatedly over the course of the last few months since we started using Azure and can get a new server up, running, and connected in less than five minutes. It's great!

To make things even better still, if you pre-pay your Azure account, the system can track your daily usage and forecast what your bill will be at the end of the month. No more worrying if you're going to be stuck with a huge bill at the end of the month.

We've switched most of our Windows cloud server needs to Azure because we find it a more powerful, easier-to-use option than Amazon's venerated EC2.

SMBs use multi-clouds to ramp up customer service

Mike Zafiris, an Interlockit.com team member, is quoted in the article "SMBs use multi-clouds to ramp up customer service" on Tech Page One, a technology blog from the Dell editorial team.

The article explains some of the general advantages of using cloud computing for businesses, as well as a specific use case for field technicians (something we've helped out other clients with).

Check it out here: http://www.techpageone.com/technology/smbs-use-multi-clouds-ramp-customer-service

Chrome web browser print preview problem, and why you need .NET Framework

Google’s Chrome is now the most popular Web browser worldwide, surpassing Microsoft’s Internet Explorer for the first time in May 2012 according to StatCounter.

We’ve run into an issue several times wherein a user will attempt to print a web page or document using Chrome’s default print preview rather than the standard Windows print preview screen, but upon actually sending the job to the printer it simply vanishes. Chrome thinks it’s printed the job and so keeps on going but the job is never actually delivered to the printer. Another variation of this problem is one where the user will try to print a document or web page but Chrome simply doesn’t load the print preview properly and the job can’t be sent to print at all.

Keep in mind that this issue only applies to systems running Windows XP.  Newer machines running Windows Vista and Windows 7 do not experience this problem.

There’s a simple fix for this issue and it comes in the form of Microsoft’s .NET Framework. Downloading and installing the latest version is always recommended anyway (just like Windows Updates!), but for systems that are running outdated versions of .NET (older than 3.5), this issue will nearly always crop up. The most up-to-date version Microsoft has published is .NET Framework 4.5, but the issue is resolved with version 3.5. Downloading these, or newer, versions of the .NET Framework will resolve the printing issues, and users should be able to print from Chrome as they would from any other web browser.

Now that you've got Chrome working properly, the next step might be taking a moment to think about retiring Internet Explorer...

Oracle acquires RightNow CRM: Cloud Platform or Cloudwashing?

This morning Oracle announced a deal to purchase RightNow for $1.5 billion.  Oracle's headline reads "Adds Leading Customer Service Cloud Offering to Oracle's Public Cloud."

In 2007 I had written RightNow CRM off as a non-cloud product while competing against them as a Sales Manager at NetSuite.

Unless a product is 100% web based like Google Apps or Norada Solve360 you still have all the costs and complexity of installing, upgrading, supporting, and fixing workstation based software.  Check out the RightNow CX "staff member" system requirements and recommendations to use complex technology like Citrix.  It has a Smart Client that needs 850 Mb of free hard disk space and only runs on the Windows 7 platform.  This means only 39% of the world's computers can fully use RightNow CRM.  True cloud products like Google Apps and Norada Solve360 CRM can be used by 99% of the world's computers.

What's strange is that Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle was an early investor in Salesforce.com and is a majority shareholder in NetSuite.  Larry definitely knows what a 100% web based cloud solution looks like.

Enlighten me with comments please because I'm skeptical how this acquisition will help long term against true cloud computing CRM solutions like Salesforce.com and Norada Solve360 that require nothing more than a web browser on 99% of the world's computers.

Certainly RightNow is more "Cloud" than the rest of Oracle's portfolio.  It is still a big step behind 100% web solutions that allow devices like notebooks, tablets, and smartphones to be portals to the data, which helps people be productive from anywhere, at any time.

True Cloud products allow businesses to spend more time with customers and less time on managing technology.

Customer Case Study: Google Apps integrated with Solve360 CRM moves people, literally

Here’s a story most business folks can relate to — established in 1959, Taylor Moving starts with 1 truck and a handful of employees.  Dad grows the business.  Sons take over, expanding to 100 staff and operate a network handling international employee moves.

Fast forward to the present and those sons find themselves asking “How can we stay competitive and keep growing the business?” Son Rick Taylor knew more of the same wasn’t going to cut it.  “Our coordinators, our sales team, they were spending far too much time doing internal stuff and not talking to clients.”

The solution started when they looked at their email which, despite being mission critical for dealing with overseas moves, was unreliable.  A friend introduced Taylor to Blair Collins, founder of Interlockit.com, who was asked to help. “They were paying $1000 per month for IT support yet none of their email history was backed up because it was scattered across the hard drives of everyone's computers.”, noted Collins.  InterlockIT introduced Taylor to Google Apps and helped with the implementation.  With email issues now out of the way they now had the resources to look at how they organized their moves.

For years, Taylor Moving managed moves through a paper-based filing system and initially a document management system seemed like the answer.  The narrow access point of paper files was causing chaos and a lot of wasted time. “In the past, there would be a sales person at a coordinator’s desk eight times a day… they were always looking for information.”

But after a review, InterlockIT introduced Taylor to Solve360, which is a client management solution available in the Google Apps Marketplace. Solve360 focuses on helping businesses like Taylor manage their customers and their projects.  “We quickly realized that a fully integrated CRM solution like Solve360 with its included project management could do far more for their business“, said Collins.

Taylor was quickly impressed by Solve360’s flexibility.  Now any adjustments made to the move are now seen in real time, company-wide. Now everything is in one place, and easily accessed. “This is a big step up.”

Taylor and his team experience seamless integration between Solve360 and Google Apps.  In fact, Taylor himself barely acknowledges a separation between the two, viewing them as a single system. The Gmail contextual gadget for quick access to contacts/projects, the ability to easily capture emails, the simple linking to Google Docs, and the Google calendar integration are key features for them.  “Once you’ve got [Gmail], which I find to be a very user-friendly system, the changeover to Solve360 was far easier than I had expected. I expected a much harder learning curve.”

Streamlining the internal systems allowed Taylor and his team to turn outward and address what matters most to their business — the customer.  “In a service industry, you’re only productive if you’re talking with a client… if you’re doing background stuff, that’s offering no value back to your service.  So, what are the things you can do behind the scenes so that you’re spending the majority of time with your clients?... That’s why we brought the system on.” Solve360 allowed his team to focus on what would really drive business forward.

Growing his business with Google Apps and Solve360 “is something he’s looking forward to”, says Taylor.  “With software and servers you need to manage all the changes yourself to keep up.  Now [with Google Apps and Solve360] that’s done for us automatically so we can focus on serving our clients.”

Solve360 CRM and Google Apps for Commercial Real Estate Brokers

On August 25th and September 15th we hosted a webinar demonstrating how Solve360 CRM and Google Apps are ideally suited to and easily customized for Commercial Real Estate Brokers.  Our thanks to Sid Bhatt, a Solve360 and Google Apps user, plus President of Global Commercial Sales for making 9,000 CCIM members aware of the webinars.

The online registration form for the webinar is a great example of how easy it is to integrate a Google Apps Form into Solve360.  Can your current CRM system accept data from an online web form in real time and automatically assign a task for your staff to followup?

http://www.interlockit.com/Home/services/Norada-Solve360-CRM/commercial-brokers

We had a large number of registrations for the webinars and it was a breeze to send personalized emails and reminders to the registrants using Solve360's built in email merge functions.

Office 365 vs Google Apps

We're implementing both Office 365 and Google Apps for customers and are often asked how do they compare?

A lot depends ultimately on your comfort level with change. Microsoft Office 365 has little impact on your current processes and usage of Outlook and nicely takes away the hassles of managing your own servers. However, if you're working on multiple platforms such as Linux and Mac then those users will have to live without features available only to the Windows based users.

Set aside trying to compare Microsoft Office Word, Excel versus Google Docs, Spreadsheets as they coexist very happily. Your power users will still want the advanced features of Excel and Word but users may find everything they need in Google Docs and organically adapt to its simplicity and collaboration tools that avoid the version nightmare often created by file attachments.

• From a long term cost, simplicity, and reliability standpoint Google Apps wins.
• From the minimizing the costs of change standpoint Microsoft Office 365 wins.
• For Mobile devices Office 365 handles email, calendar, and contacts well across most platforms but Google Apps takes it a step further and provides simple document sharing and even document editing on iPads and Android devices.
• From a rapid innovation, no upgrades/patches to manage, and easy to use collaboration standpoint Google Apps wins.

The Microsoft Cloud Office 365 solution depends heavily on client installed software such as Outlook and Lync for the full experience. Lync for example is ~65 Mb in size and provides the instant messaging, video, audio, and phone calls but doesn't work on the Mac or Linux platform. Google Apps provides a web browser based solution for this that works on most platforms and even mobile devices.

Office 365 is still an excellent step forward and ideal for eliminating some of the costs of managing servers.

As a solution provider focused exclusively on Cloud products we can discuss the pros and cons of each platform relative to your specific needs. We can provide a lengthy detailed document on the differences that can only come from the experience we have implementing both products, but what's most important is which product best aligns to your current needs and long term business goals.

Contact us at Interlockit.com and we'll help you succeed with business technology in the Cloud.

Blair Collins from Interlockit.com will be presenting at the Entrepreneurial Masters Program

Blair Collins from Interlockit.com will be presenting at the Entrepreneurial Masters Program at MIT in Boston on June 25th.  The topic is "What Cloud Computing, the next big trend, really means to your business."

The Entrepreneurial Masters Program brings together 65 remarkable entrepreneurs – each a company Founder or Co-Founder who leads a company that grosses more than US$1 million — for four days on a suburban campus of MIT.

For more details on the program visit http://events.eonetwork.org/emp.

Why isn't your current IT consultant or reseller promoting the cloud?

Cloud Computing is a disruptive wave that provides cheaper, more convenient, and simpler business solutions that work.  So why isn't your current consultant or reseller recommending Cloud Computing solutions?

It's simple:

1. Cloud software vendors sell direct to the customer and give little or zero margin to the reseller.
2. Consultants compete globally in the cloud for engagements because cloud systems can be setup and managed from anywhere without complex remote access solutions.
3. On-premise consultants know your existing network infrastructure and server configurations making customer's loyal to them for future work.  In the cloud you only need a web browser so the customer is more likely to choose the cloud software expert over their existing consultant.
4. For every $1 customers spend on Microsoft enterprise licensing fees, they spend $8 with consultants and channel vendors customizing Microsoft's tools or integrating other products.  This ecosystem works well with an on-premise model that requires physical management and integration of systems.

Bottom line is that, until forced to change, existing consultants and resellers will continue to focus on what makes them the most money which is traditional on-premise systems.

The challenge for Cloud Computing focused vendors like us is to constantly find new customers because the  recurring consulting dollars for us are much smaller.  However, we're 100% committed to cloud solutions because fundamentally it is the best solution for the customer.

We love our work because we're blazing a new trail and every day making our customer's extraordinarily happy with moving their business to the cloud.

Google defines 100% Web

Google today posted an excellent article about bringing customers to a world they call 100% web. Interlockit.com has helped numerous customers move their businesses to the cloud ranging from 1000's of users to sole proprietors. Defining the vision we share of 100% web will help future customers better spot the numerous cloud pretenders.

"This year cloud computing went mainstream, and the conversations moved beyond "this is a way to cut costs" to "this is a better way to run my business."  While many IT vendors have now adopted (or co-opted) the term “cloud computing” to describe a wide variety of technologies, most don’t deliver on the true promise of the cloud. Hosting single-tenant server products in a data center is not cloud computing. Nor is requiring customers to install thick client software. These solutions lock-in customers to multi-year release cycles, leave them with the significant costs of managing client software, and expose sensitive data on insecure devices."

You can read the complete Google Enterprise blog post here

Interlockit.com and Microsoft BPOS

We've officially become a Microsoft Partner for Microsoft Online Services.  Microsoft BPOS gives your business the powerful productivity of Exchange Online, Sharepoint Online, Office Communications Online, and Office Live Meeting starting at $12.50 per user per month.  All services are hosted in the cloud by Microsoft and are easy to setup without the upfront costs of an on-premise deployment.

This is a natural addition to our cloud computing service offerings at Interlockit.com since we have deep experience in migrating data from legacy systems like Microsoft Exchange or other POP3/IMAP based systems.  We're also experienced in synchronizing user lists from Active Directory to cloud based services eliminating the need to manage users in two places.

Cloud Computing is a disruptive wave that provides cheaper, more convenient, and simpler business solutions that work!

First Impression: DrayTek Vigor2950G Dual Wan Router

After much research we recently installed the Draytek Vigor2950G Dual Wan Router for a client to replace their NetGear FVS336G.  I'm impressed by its functionality and sophistication for $475 USD.  The NetGear's load balancing was simplistic and couldn't properly utilize the combined bandwidth of the customer's T1 line and Rogers Cable modem.

All of the customer's software applications are cloud computing based so our goal is to provide redundancy, yet still utilize all the bandwidth available for better performance.  We also wanted stronger QoS for consistently clear phone calls over Voip.

We configured the Draytek to allocate up to 75% of the T1 line to Voip/SIP calls.  The 75% can still be used by other traffic but only when it isn't needed for Voip.

There are certainly more expensive firewalls/routers with the same functionality.  So far it's working great.  I'll post again after we've had more time to put it through it paces.