Another Reason You Need OPENRSM To Help Guide You Into The Clouds

And this is another reason why you need an experienced IT Company to help you manage your implementation and use of “The Cloud”

 

» Dropbox Lied to Users About Data Security, Complaint to FTC Alleges

www.wired.com

Dropbox, the wildly popular online storage system, deceived users about the security and encryption of its services, putting it at a competitive advantage….

Tornado Proof your Business

It is Tornado season here in the Midwest, which makes for plenty of time in the basement listening to the weatherman and wondering if you’ll have a business to go to in the morning.  Well, you can replace inventory, fix a building, etc. but your data (accounting, sales, invoices, payroll records, etc.) is another story entirely.

And simply copying stuff to a USB Hard disk doesn’t cut it either.  What if your software is a couple revisions back?  Will the new, current version of your accounting system read that old data?  And if your backup is bad, then what do you do?  And we would lay odds that you havn’t tested the recovery of data off of your old tape or USB Disk backups either.  So you don’t really know if your protected, or not.

But it’s okay.  You havn’t been hit with an EF4 yet.  So how about we suggest that by realizing that IT is a Process, Not a Project you can implement a solid strategy for data backup and recovery along with a disaster recovery plan that can help protect you from a big twister, monster hail storm, flood, or whatever else might hit your business.  And let you recover fast.

The ultimate solution should:

• Keep your Data Offsite and out of the region for better protection.
• Stored in a secure datacenter built for backup
• Include not only your data, but your programs as well
• And have a written “Plan of Action” so if bad things happen, you’ll know what to do, who to contact, and when.

Want to quit worrying about your business when the weather turns bad?  Get ahold of OPENRSM, Inc. at 816-200-2220, email us at [email protected], or fill out the form below and we’ll help you implement safegards such that IT is a Process, Not a Project so you’ll always know your safe.

Amazon’s Cloud Problem Shows Why Hybrid Systems are Best for Business

Amazon’s EC2 and AWS Cloud Computing and storage services have been down now for over 24 hours .  Peter Pachal writes in his PCMag article today, “Since so many businesses rely on Amazon Web Services, a host of sites, many major, were down for hours, possibly days. I haven’t seen any estimates on the amount of potential dollars lost because of the incident, but it’s no doubt in the millions.”.  Many major businesses are no doubt impacted (Reddit and Quora for example), but this isn’t all that’s on what I normally think of as a quality cloud platform.  No indeed.  For there are hundreds and thousands of EC2 and AWS customers that provide virtual services for small businesses…  like yours!

Lots of small businesses who have no clue that everything they use to run their businesses are all really at Amazon arn’t very happy today.  And are losing money hand over fist.  Think about it, could you afford to lose nearly two full business days (so far) with the Amazon “Cloud Problem”?  How much would simply losing two whole days cost?  No sales, plenty of employees to pay, electric, water, answering phones and racking up loads of catch up work for when you would get your systems back.  The costs in lost productivity alone are very high.  Let alone the loss of faith by your customers when they see how helpless you are and that you made a decision about your IT (most likely without really knowing) to put everything in a single location.

Which brings up a very good point.  Cloud Computing isn’t the answer to everything.  It’s just another “Arrow in the Quivver” for IT Professionals to use when appropriate.  You see, it isn’t the “shiny” new techno tools that should catch your attention.  Nor the pure cost savings.  Nor the productivity gains.   IT is a Process, Not a Project.  It isn’t good enough to just put everything in the Cloud.  Just as it isn’t good to use a single anything in the IT world.  Diversity is a good thing insofar as if any one thing breaks, everything else runs.

Which is why OPENRSM only utilizes the “Hybrid Cloud” for our Cloud Computing services.  The most essential data stays onsite.  Backups go offsite (and out of region).  Some tools are located in one cloud off in the East.  Others are in another cloud in the West.  With no one element so essential that losing it would hurt you much (or, it would be easily and quickly replicated).

Which is why if your a small business in the Kansas City area, you need to contact us here at OPENRSM so we can show you how you can take advantage of Cloud Computing without being taken advantage of by Cloud Computing.

Saving Money Upgrading Office with Open Source

Recently OPENRSM did a software upgrade for a business as they moved to Windows7.  And we saved this company significantly by upgrading their Office with Open Source Alternatives.  Using our emphasis on Business Engineering, OPENRSM evaluated the documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and even normal email coming in and out of the business.  And with this information it was determined that upgrading the Office applications did not make economic or operational sense when quality Open Source alternatives exist.

The Open Source Alternative is a direct replacement for Office, can both read and write Office documents, can write directly to .pdf format, and integrates well with the existing network, printers, etc.  Also key in the decision is that very little training is required.  Users were instantly productive with the Open Source Alternative.

Also note that this is a small incremental step.  The OPENRSM Customer saves significant money on a software upgrade now, and repeats this savings far into the future.  No upheaval in the operation of the business at all (in fact, it takes less time to install the Open Source Alternative than performaing an Office upgrade).

Here’s the financial breakdown:

Office Upgrade $239.00 per install + labor ($32.00) = $271.00 per computer

LibreOffice        $    0.00 per install + labor & Training =  $  65.00 per computer

Savings per computer = $174.00 per computer

Now, it is important to note that the upgrade cost on Office depends on which version(s) of Office your already using (which also affects how much time an individual upgrade takes).  This cost was for this particular business.  But not to worry, OPENRSM will meet with you and help you evaluate the technical feasability, and  what your direct and indirect costs and savings would be.

Send us a note and we’ll work with you to determine just how much you can save by upgrading your Office with Open Source Alternatives that will be suitable for your business.