Cloud Service Offerings – Google, Microsoft, Apple and Drop Box
Cloud services are really starting to heat up with feature rich offerings from three major players in our computing world.
Click on the links below to learn more.
Big Village IT has never offered Hosting, knowing that there was no way to compete with the cloud services that were coming from the “Big Guys”. Local Hosting providers are rightfully nervous because they are not going to be able to offer hosting at the same level for the same price.
Google, Microsoft, and Apple are offering email, calendaring, contacts and documents sharing for a low as $5.00 per month, per user. Expanding broadband services and reliability are making it difficult to not seriously consider their solutions for your businesses or personal use. There are limitations, but for many businesses, it fits nicely.
DropBox offers online storage and file syncing to multiple computing devices – 2 Gigs for free and up to 50 Gigs for a monthly fee
In the coming weeks, I’ll be looking at each of these services and providing more details, including how to access them on your phone and iPad
Cloud solutions may not work for everyone though – Call us and we’ll help you decide if the Cloud is right for your business.
Here’s an interesting read comparing Google Apps to Microsoft’s Office 365
Information Week Compare Cloud Services
Wayne Kimes MCSE, CNE, CCNA
Big Village IT, Austin, Texas
512 524-7641
Do you know the difference between “Insurance” and “Assurance”, and can you trust your Managed Service Provider?
Managed Services have increasingly earned a poor reputation, with many business owners and managers placing them in the same category as “used car salesmen.” This was quoted to me by the owner of one of Austin’s largest Managed Service Providers, who is certainly qualified to have this opinion.
Before starting my own company, I thought long and hard about this reality. Though there are many reasons why service often falls below expectation with some Managed Service Providers, I believe that there is one primary reason.
The business model of Managed Services is to lock your business into a “fixed fee”, flat monthly rate, preferably with a long-term contract to ensure recurring revenue. There’s nothing wrong with that, except there is an implied conflict of interest; the less you call, the more they profit. The only other business with this revenue model is the insurance industry. Though the reasoning behind the model may seem sound “We guarantee 99% uptime” and “You can call us as much as you need”– it’s still IT insurance and cannot replace the value of dedicated IT staff.
When I started Big Village IT, I wanted to provide IT Assurance. Assurance is when you know you’ve hired a qualified vendor that cares, is competent, and gives you the service you pay for; the service you should expect. Generally speaking, this is called “value for your dollar” — something that is sorely lacking in today’s technology-related service industries.
Here is an excellent article at ZDNet with some points about choosing a service provider:
ZDNet – Can you trust your IT Provider?
Big Village IT will only provide a fixed-fee solution after several months of working with your company. We don’t have a “cookie cutter” fixed fee price structure. We work with your organization to develop a tailored service structure that provides ongoing productive service for your dollar. Yes, everything will be covered and you won’t have to worry about fluctuating IT costs but, we call that IT Assurance. We’ll work hard to fulfill the promise of “Being your IT Partner” and if you’re not getting service for your dollar, we’ll lower your fee. Every single one of our clients had an IT provider before coming to us and every single one of them pays less for their service now than they did before.
Don’t take my word for it — Call us and we’ll let you talk to them.
Wayne Kimes MCSE, CNE, CCNA
Big Village IT, Austin Texas
512 524-7641
The thought of going to the Cloud for many is like the beginning of a beautiful relationship; you’re in love, that person is the coolest person ever, and it’s all butterflies and moon beams; everything seems to better and they have so much to offer, but no one talks about what happens when it ends — I mean it can’t end, this is so perfect, right?
Well, it may or may not be; businesses grow and change, just like people do. If you’re thinking about going to the Cloud, or using Hosted Services, you need to ask up-front: “If we leave you, how do you handle that process?” and “Are you really hosting our business in a way that makes migrations or exiting seamless?”
Chances are you’ll get a boiler-plate answer that does not provide exact details and a “Don’t’ worry about it” attitude. You do need to worry about it!
Many companies put you in Hosted Environments with hundreds of other users that you can’t see, or in Virtual Machines, and when it comes to migrating to a better server, upgrade, or leaving because you are not happy (imagine that?) seamless migration or exit may not be possible, becoming a real headache.
An example: A common migration process would be to install a new server on the same network as your existing server, install the upgraded operating system and email server. This would allow a seamless transfer to the new server without business interruption. If you want to leave your Hosting Company for whatever reason, they’re not going to let you install a server on their network to migrate. Instead, they’ll give you all of the emails in hard drive or disk and tell you to import them. This means there will be a period of time where all of your users will not have all of their email and possibly suffer some loss or corruption.
Another example: We configured a business for Google Apps and migrated all of their existing Exchange email to Google. It was seamless and Google Apps works very well. After some time it was decided that Google Apps did not have all of the features they required and the decision was made to migrate back to Exchange. That was easily done. However, all of the auto-fill email addresses (you know the ones that fill automatically as you type) were altered by Google and no longer worked with Exchange – It seems trivial, until the CEO complains that they have to retype every email address and “You know how long that takes, and I don’t need all of those email addresses!” Imagine 50 employees complaining about this at the same time.
I could go on with other examples, but the point is; do your home work and don’t trust the Hosting Company to give you a complete picture.
Consult with an IT Professional that can ask the questions of your potential Hosting Company.
If you’re thinking about Hosted Solution and you need help, call us. We don’t offer Hosting and there are many variables to consider before you decide. We’ll give you our honest assessment which may save you many headaches when that time comes to “break-up.”
Wayne Kimes, MCSE, CNE, CCNA
Big Village IT, Austin Texas
They are a trustworthy, knowledgeable and vital part of our team.
– Peek and Toland
Big Village IT volunteered its expertise and experience to Clint Small Middle School to assist in developing their TEK curriculum and offer extracurricular activities for students.
This partnership entails working with teachers to help them form the curriculum for their technical courses, as well as being on hand for presentations, workshops, labs and field trips.
As a company, Big Village IT values education and our youth. Our goal in doing this is to provide students with the very best skills and knowledge. In doing so, we hope to help cultivate student’s passion and understanding of technology, develop marketable skills early in life, and establish a foundation for the future.
Here’s a recent post I sent to several clients that are using Macs in a Windows domain environment:
“Recently, there has been an increase in virus activity for Macs. This is just a friendly reminder that Macs are not immune to virus attacks.”
The article below discusses a recent virus similar to the Windows Fake Antivirus Virus, which has a
pop-up that says your machine is infected; and it won’t go away until you pay for the full version of their software. This virus is apparently written by the same Russian group that is writing the Windows version.
I am not recommending purchasing an Antivirus product, but just be aware that your Mac is not immune and, as always, exercise caution while browsing the web and installing programs.
Below is the link to the article and below that, a link to Clam AV. Clam AV is a free Antivirus program for Mac. As with many free AV products, it is not automatic and must be updated and run by you. It will not “real time” scan and block infections as they enter your computer. I advise you to download Clam AV, install, and update it – just to have it in case something pops up (a virus). You might want to update and run it periodically.
If you want a full blown AV product for your Mac, the article suggests two: Sophos and Intego. Sophos appears to be free, but I have no experience with these products and can’t make a recommendation. I might spend some time in the future looking at AV products for the Mac, but I’m not sure it’s needed now. Awareness is what is needed now…”
Safe computing-
Wayne
Clam AV
http://www.clamxav.com
Intego
https://secure.intego.com
Sohpos
http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/sophos-antivirus-for-mac-home-edition.aspx
Here’s a recent post I sent to several clients that are using Macs in a Windows domain environment:
“Recently, there has been an increase in virus activity for Macs. This is just a friendly reminder that Macs are not immune to virus attacks.”
The article below discusses a recent virus similar to the Windows Fake Antivirus Virus, which has a
pop-up that says your machine is infected; and it won’t go away until you pay for the full version of their software. This virus is apparently written by the same Russian group that is writing the Windows version.
I am not recommending purchasing an Antivirus product, but just be aware that your Mac is not immune and, as always, exercise caution while browsing the web and installing programs.
Below is the link to the article and below that, a link to Clam AV. Clam AV is a free Antivirus program for Mac. As with many free AV products, it is not automatic and must be updated and run by you. It will not “real time” scan and block infections as they enter your computer. I advise you to download Clam AV, install, and update it – just to have it in case something pops up (a virus). You might want to update and run it periodically.
If you want a full blown AV product for your Mac, the article suggests two: Sophos and Intego. Sophos appears to be free, but I have no experience with these products and can’t make a recommendation. I might spend some time in the future looking at AV products for the Mac, but I’m not sure it’s needed now. Awareness is what is needed now…”
Safe computing-
Wayne
The Number One Thing You Can Do To Save On IT Costs – It Won’t Cost You a Penny!
More often than not, when we get a call or go on-site for a new client, the number one thing that increases the time it takes to resolve many problems is the lack of documentation, software, or other information needed to resolve the issue.
Scrambling for this information after a problem arises, increases the time it takes for us to fix the problem and results in longer down time for the business. This also applies to individuals and their personal computers.
1. Keep all of your software in one location, preferably locked up, but where someone with regular availability has access;
2. Keep all of your IT related documents in the same location. Include all licenses for all of your software, including operating systems;
3. Record all of your logins (i.e. login ID/passwords): servers, desktops, wireless routers, firewalls and websites used for business;
4. Record all IT related vendor account information, especially your ISP (Internet Service Provider), account numbers, contact phone numbers, and IP address information.
Just having the above information available for your IT Support Technician when the time arises will speed up resolution time and keep your costs to a minimum.
If you need help with collecting this information, give our office a call and we’ll lend a hand.
Wayne Kimes
Big Village IT, Austin, TX
VisionBEE Engineering in Austin, Texas is one of the leading providers of building energy analysis and consulting. They have been chosen by multiple State agencies in Texas to perform ongoing analysis and recommendations for energy improvements for new construction and existing buildings.
The Data Management System that VisionBEE and these State agencies have chosen to use is Microsoft’s SharePoint. Microsoft’s SharePoint has matured in the last few years, emerging as a quality and reliable information collaboration portal; providing online document management, company email access, calendaring, and just about anything you want to utilize.
We at Big Village IT are proud that Vision BEE has chosen us to implement their SharePoint solution.
Big Village It has contracted with some of the other Managed IT Providers for their SharePoint needs as well, and is emerging as one of only a few IT support companies that can provide a complete SharePoint solution.
For more information on VisionBEE Engineering http://www.visionbee.com and http://visionbee.com/case-studies.html
Big Village IT, Austin, Texas
