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What You Need to Know About Your Hybrid Data Center and Cloud Migration Strategy

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Do you know the answers to these four questions? Don’t start a cloud migration until you do.

Failure is not an option when dealing with your data center or cloud migration. You need to ask these 4 questions as you consider your strategy.

When you are looking to move to a hybrid data center and migrate some of your function to the cloud, it is critical that you have a clear execution strategy. You data center is the brain of your business. If something happens to the data center your business will begin to suffer right away. When assessing your options, you need to make sure you know the answer to four key questions to make sure you have a smooth transition.

 

Question 1: How Much Bandwidth do you need?

 

The biggest mistake you can make with a cloud migration is underestimating the amount of bandwidth you will need. You always want to make sure you have access to more bandwidth than you need. As Big Data becomes more important to businesses in every industry, your bandwidth needs will only grow in the future. Make sure you know how much bandwidth you need currently and make sure your partner is equipped to meet your current needs as well as any future bandwidth increases as your business grows.

 

Question 2: Where Do You Need the Bandwidth Most?

 

When you are using a hybrid strategy for your data center, you need to make sure you have the right amount of bandwidth in the right places. Too often companies and their data center partners fail to take into different bandwidth needs of different departments and locations. This can cause costly bottlenecks that diminish productivity. You should talk to potential vendors about where you most need bandwidth to keep your business moving smoothly.

 

Question 3: Who is Responsible for What During the Transition?

 

You cannot afford for anything to fall through the cracks. You need to have clear lines of communication with your consultants and partners. You need to have the peace of mind of knowing who is in charge of each part of the transition. You need to know who to contact to get issues resolved and to get updates. You want a partner who is proactive and who not only has the expertise to execute on the strategy, but the communication skills to make sure you are never out of the loop.

 

Question 4: How Does Adding a VAR Improve the Experience?

 

Data center and cloud migration services are not cookie cutter. Your business has unique needs that cannot be met with a one-size fits all approach. Making sure your partner is a value added reseller (VAR) will help you get the exact products, services, and solutions your business needs. Adding a VAR to your project increases your options and adds additional expertise to your transition team. Companies often discover a VAR will be able to solve problems the company did not even realize they had yet.

 

If you want to stay competitive in this global marketplace you need to have a strong, reliable data center and the flexibility to quickly add more capabilities as the market changes. Make sure you are dealing with partners that are up to the challenge from both a technical expertise standpoint and a strategic execution standpoint.

Five Reasons why you need a VAR to implement your Cloud Strategy

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VAR will save time and money

Using a VAR or integrator to implement your company’s cloud strategy is a great way to save time and money while ensuring a more positive migration experience for end users.

Recently I spoke with a potential client who asked why his company would go through a VAR instead of buying directly from a vendor. Some vendors, like ShoreTel and Mitel, require customers to go through a VAR. Others like AT&T and Digital Realty use a collaborative approach to better handle larger customers with diverse needs driving their project that only a VAR can provide. For more from AT&T and Digital Realty contact us here.

For large companies, using a VAR or integrator to implement your company’s cloud strategy is a great way to save time and money while ensuring a more positive migration experience for end users. Here is a list of the five most common reasons CloudOgre is engaged as a VAR to assist in the implementation of a cloud strategy.

1. Companies with multiple locations in areas with different ILECs and MSOs

Designing a cost effective and high-performance Wide Area Network is the first step in moving to the cloud. Buying direct hurts your chances of getting the lowest pricing avaliable. A VAR will get pricing that a customer can’t get, similar to a mechanic who gets car parts at lower rates than consumers. You’ll also save countless hours using a VAR rather than having an employee try to obtain quotes from multiple vendors then hammering them on price. We have the inside scoop. Want in? Click here…

2. Non-Technical End-User impacting projects

When companies look to move from a traditional desktop environment to DaaS or VDI, cloud based email like O365 from an MS exchange server, or from an old PBX to a new cloud based UCaaS VoIP phone system, end user training is essential. Whether train the trainer or training the end-user, the success of the project lies here. Using CloudOgre to assist is a great way to save time and money. Vendors require VARs to have extensive training on their products, systems, and processes. More importantly, there are channels for additional support a VAR that escalates and resolves issues quickly.

3. End of life equipment replacement

Replacing old servers, phone systems, and desktops requires more than just decommissioning equipment. Sorting through vendors and the nuances to their products can take hours. Having a VAR to gather and arrange details from a technical, legal, and financial aspect as it pertains to your individual business case is the most effective way to comb through the details. CloudOgre is able to work across business units to provide detailed explanations addressing concerns. To learn more, click here.

4. Data Center footprint reduction & hybridization

The easiest way to obtain multiple competitive quotes is going through a VAR. For example, we partner with Digital Realty & AWS. Determining your need, whether cooling, space, bandwidth, storage, or processing it is a good idea consulting with a VAR with a process is most efficient. Combing through acceptable use policies, manufacturer’s suggested maintenance schedules, and other important details, simply put, is most efficiently done by a VAR.

5. Contract renegotiation and Office Moves

Allowing a contract to auto-renew can have heavy financial impacts for your company that a VAR can manage. Managing expenses includes managing SLAs, credits, overages, contract renewals, and more. During office moves or expansion a CloudOgre can be very helpful. Have you ever tried to move your home service? Now multiply that experience by 1,000! Check out our blog post on how we help with office moves here.

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Typically, CloudOgre is engaged by new clients as a VAR to manage projects with critical status and aggressive timelines. The additional support provided by the CloudOgre team provides a better end-user migration experience while giving time back to IT staff and money back to the budget. Contact us here for more information on how the Ogre can help your team move your company to the cloud.

Data Centers, Infrastructure Week, and Net Neutrality

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Coming off of the heels of last month’s Infrastructure Week we are looking at more and more consolidation in the industry. The core of today’s tech revolution and innovation is dependent upon telecommunications infrastructure and your data center. It remains obscure to many just how and how much of a role they’ll play. Data Center strategy allows companies to build their own cloud with closer proximity to core infrastructure.

Bandwidth and processing hogs like driverless cars will require more bandwidth, more data centers, and more connectivity in remote areas, whether wireless or wireline. That said, we’ll also need greater security woven into the fabric of the network.

Some of the largest acquisitions in the telecommunications and data center space include Digital Realty’s acquisition of TelX and DuPont Fabros, the purchase of Bight House and Time Warner Cable by Charter Communications, Windstream’s acquisition of Earthlink, Altice’s acquisition of Cablevision, and finally CenturyLink’s acquisition of Level3 who’d recently completed acquisitions of Global Crossing and TW Telecom. The above mergers all made sense by creating efficiencies in technology, human capital, and more.But what does that do for competition?

The telecommunications industry is tightly regulated but the move to ISP from Telco is a relatively immature move for regulators who have been at this since the 30’s. In 1984 when long haul and local traffic were broken up and even in ’96 when the RBOCs had to wholesale, regulations weren’t written to account for the architecture of the internet as a whole.

Net Neutrality was presented to the public by most media as stopping “the fast lane to the internet” but that’s not possible given the architecture of the world wide web.  The internet is like a series of highways and Telco providers pretty much control the flow of traffic via their toll booths, or IP routers, and highways or long haul fiber. The true “fast lane to the internet” is space in a data center sitting on top of a dedicated connection into a core IP router. The laws of physics govern the speed that light can travel through glass and a data packet can travel from point A to Z. That said, the data center gets you closer to the core, lowering your latency.

Lobbyist David Redl has recently been appointed to the NTIA National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Many are concluding that he, along with Ajit Pai the Chairman of the FCC, will continue along the road to increased mergers and acquisitions. Many were shocked when Comcast’s offer to buy Time Warner Cable was blocked by the FCC yet Charter’s offer was approved. Customers used to poor service were glad to see that it didn’t go through after having come off of winning Consumerist’s Golden Poo Award and having a viral YouTube video of a customer trying to cancel their service with a rogue Comcast rep.

Some critics say that the telecommunications industry is an inherent monopoly to be viewed in the same light as a utility company so consolidation is to be expected. Others think that less competition will lead to poor customer service and high prices like in the eighties and nineties. What is clear is that the acquisitions keep coming and network architecture is pretty static. Security being a concern that is hot right now really lends to the argument in favor of consolidation as a single network is not only easier to manage, it’s easier to secure and perhaps monitor.

Is SD-WAN marketing hype or next best thing in telecommunications?

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Is SD-WAN Hype or Huge?

SD-WAN or Software Defined Wide Area Networking is being touted by many carriers looking to move away from MPLS. It’s a pretty cool tool however its greatest value comes at the carrier network level. That said, AT&T seems to be the leader in comprehensive SD-WAN and Network Based Security development. Contact us for more info and watch the video below from AT&T.

https://youtu.be/sCXgvxcFKbI

Carriers like Comcast are advertising speeds greater than what coaxial cable is capable of carrying due to compression and Software Defined Networking. It is similar to compressing voice to push 46 voice calls over a T1 combined with a cache for static data sets. Not all traffic, unlike voice packets, have real-time, sequential requirements.

HBO’s Silicon Valley’s latest season has entrepreneur Richard looking to build ‘a new internet’ using SD-WAN. Quite apropos given that his compression algorithm enables Software Defined Networking across cell phones to create connectivity. Hence, a device to device ‘new internet’. Is it possible? Who cares??? The cool thing is there’s a popular comedy on HBO that has allows me to geek out on SD-WAN and networking technologies.

Today, end-users have tons of bandwidth available to them. If they don’t, SD-WAN is not going to help. The last mile is still the proverbial long pole in the tent. We’re not connecting cell phones to create a ‘new internet’ with Hooli’s founder. In this non-fiction reality, those cell phones connect to terrestrial wires on the world wide web.

SD-WAN Tech Diagram

How does Software Defined Wide Area Network actually work?

What’s more problematic, Layer 3 transport technologies will never be as secure as layer 2 or layer 1 transport. Contact us to debate that premise or hear us expand on it. What would be cool is to see carriers roll out network based security platforms with great complexity that will have functions like geographic traffic blocking and other advanced firewall capabilities. Security features will ultimately drive the growth in SD-WAN adoption.

In our opinion, bandwidth is cheap and using it more efficiently is not a huge cost saver. SD-WAN is cool but most aren’t rushing to adopt it, though its marketed well. Network based security and transmission technology is constantly being improved. There are much more vulnerable areas in network technology that need to be addressed but access is still key. Redirecting traffic through a dashboard still requires an ability to connect to a site to an IP router. Our customer’s concerns are typically around security at a network level but they’re certainly paying attention to the developments in Software Defined Wide Area Networking technology for enterprises. Contact us if you share the same concerns!

Five reasons to adopt a distributed work force

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distributed work force

distributed work force leads to a better work life balance and greater productivity

Today it’s common knowledge that a distributed work force leads to a happier and more productive work force and environment. Happier employees are more likely to be dedicated to their employers and less likely to quit. Employers with distributed work force programs in place are more productive. High quality employees are looking for employers that have a work from home policy for a better work life balance. It indicates a forward thinking organization that will be able to use technology to gain or sustain a competitive advantage.

 

Huffington Post Claims the following:

  • 20%–25% of the U.S. workforce now teleworks with some frequency
  • Regular work-at-home grew by 103% between 2005 and 2015 among those not self-employed

Here are five reasons we suggest adapting a work from home or distributed work force policy.

 

Productivity – People can do more when they work from home. It cuts down on water cooler conversations and unproductive, yet mandatory, staff meetings. Most importantly it cuts down on the need to commute, allowing employees to dedicate a portion of that time to work, further increasing productivity.

 

Liability – In today’s environment, it can be a liability to have personnel on site. Rising rates of terror attacks and force majeure make it less frustrating for employees to travel at work and feel safe. It is a shame we have to think this way but in today’s day it is a reality.

 

Cost – From a total cost of ownership perspective, cloud based technologies are less costly. For example, the price of a 50 seat telephone system from a manufacturer like Cisco, ShoreTel, Mitel, etc. is going to be north of $40-50k. You’ll also need a maintenance contract and PRIs or SIP trunks adding on another $30k at least, over three years. That’s $80k, not including any staff hours for configuration and implementation, as opposed to $45k for a brand new Gartner Magic Quadrant rated UCaaS system for three years.

We can make similar examples about hosted email vs. your own exchange, VDI vs. your own desktop environment, and DRaaS as opposed to running multiple data centers or a self-managed hybrid strategy.

 

Continuity – In the past, if you lost power to your office, your whole company was down. Then folks started using data centers which led to having those backed up in the cloud. This increased their redundancy and reliability.

Today many functions and applications are hosted and made available in this manner. This frees up employees to work from anywhere they have a solid internet connection. That means their data is sent, away from their device, to be stored, accessed, and later manipulated by themselves or others in the organization or new employees that may have to start from where a past employee left off.

 

Work Life Balance – We live in a very competitive, high paced environment. Balancing life may include children, school, or both, and more. Balancing it all requires the skills of a circus juggler, after all, there’s only 24 hors in a day. The key is, how can we be more efficient with our 24 hours? If you’re an employer, why make a great employee spend an extra two hours out of the day traveling to and from work. It must have an impact on performance and happiness. Don’t you want to work with happy people if you can?

 

In Anne-Marie Slaughter’s Ted Talk “Can we have it all?”, exploring work life balance she states:

“The companies that win awards for workplace flexibility in the United States include some of our most successful corporations, and a 2008 national study on the changing workforce showed that employees in flexible and effective workplaces are more engaged with their work, they’re more satisfied and more loyal, they have lower levels of stress and higher levels of mental health. And a 2012 study of employers showed that deep, flexible practices actually lowered operating costs and increased adaptability in a global service economy.”

Still unsure about distributed work force and its effect on your bottom line? Inc. Magazine’s Samuel Quicy quoted a study in his 2015 article Examining the Relationship Between Workplace Satisfaction and Productivity, “conducted by economists at the University of Warwick–found that happiness leads to a 12 percent increase in productivity. It also found that unhappy workers are 10 percent less productive than content employees.” That’s a 22% delta in productivity… for an organization of 100 that’s getting 22 more employees. Now that’s a bump in productivity any business can appreciate.

There is, however, a very good reason why you should not always work from home… Here’s a funny video that shows us why… Enjoy!

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