Archive for the 'Virtual Corporate Desktops' Category

Virtual Corporate IT: Eseri.net is Starting Beta Trials

Published
by
Michael McKay
on 22 June 2009
in Eseri.net, Information Technology and Virtual Corporate Desktops
. 0 Comments

Eseri.net, one of my clients, is starting beta trials of their virtual corporate IT service and is accepting applications from interested customers.

Targeted at enterprise IT, the Eseri service provides a complete corporate IT solution, including individual virtual desktops, hosted in the cloud.  To use the service, the customer’s administrator visits Eseri.net and registers a corporate domain and provides a credit card.  The Administrator receives an e-mail link to their personal desktop and can then create additional desktops for other employees.  These people receive the links to their desktops and can start using them immediately.

The desktops are all connected by an organizational layer that provides common file storage, integrated e-mail and single-sign-on (SSO) to all the applications.  The desktops are loaded with 24 productivity and collaboration applications including:

  • e-mail and Internet browsers;
  • graphics software for images, vectors and diagrams;
  • The Open Office suite of applications;
  • Nuxeo document management;
  • vTiger CRM;
  • HR applications;
  • GNU Cash; and
  • Project management tools.

Internally, we’ve been using the system for over a year and I think it is a great alternative to the traditional IT model.  Eseri customers only need to have access to the Internet and a simple browser capable of running the NoMachine thin client.  There is no need to own a server or expensive software.  There are no capital expenses, only operating expenses. It is a fully outsourced IT model.

Please contact info@eseri.net for more information if you are interested in trying the Eseri virtual IT solution.

Cloud Computing and Freedom from Fear

Published
by
Michael McKay
on 6 November 2008
in Information Technology and Virtual Corporate Desktops
. 0 Comments

You probably don’t even realize that you are clinging to your computer.  It is a normal state of affairs - being afraid of losing your data, the manifestation of all the hours and work that you have poured into that machine over the last months and years.  Somewhere, in that hardware, is your life and perhaps your job.  God help you if you lose it. 

I lost mine once.  A laptop, stolen from my car while I dashed into a store to buy milk and bread.  On the hard drive, copies of our strategic plans, financial records, product development plans, customer lists - every piece of critical confidential data short of the actual designs.  I had been working from home and was syncing the data over a VPN with the network at work.  The data wasn’t lost but is was certainly compromised.  I never got the laptop back.

My story isn’t unique.  Laptop theft happens all the time.  Search for it on the Internet to get a long list of high-profile cases.  From the loss of personal data to the extreme damage of loosing other people’s data, the loss of a laptop is a real pain.

And it is not just theft that is the sole cause of fear.  Hard drives crash.  Data gets corrupted.  There are many ways to lose the data.

Note that its the data that concerns people.  The computer itself?  It can be replaced in a few days.  The software?  It can be repurchased and reinstalled.  Its a hassle to be sure.  The data loss? That is painful.  More so if it wasn’t backed up. 

After the loss of my laptop, I started using remote desktop technology.  My new laptop was just a simple terminal.  I never stored any data on it.  All my data and my applications resided on my desktop and network at the office. 

Lately, I’ve been using the cloud for it all: corporate networks, desktops, applications, collaboration tools, storage and communications.  I can work from anywhere there is Internet connectivity which is everywhere I want to be working.  I can work on just about any machine.  I have no fear of loss of the laptop, damage to the computer or inadequate backups.  It is liberating.

How much does your IT cost?

Published
by
Michael McKay
on 5 November 2008
in Information Technology and Virtual Corporate Desktops
. 0 Comments

What is it costing you to run your business?  That can be an easy question.  What is your IT costing you?  That can be tougher.  Especially if you are not tracking all the IT expenses in a consistent fashion.  IT services, equipment, web hosting and e-mail services may be easy to track but that is only a portion of the costs.  Communications costs, like VOIP, may be considered part of the IT costs these days.  The main grey area may be the company credit cards which your employees use to purchase a myriad of IT services on the web.  Web conferencing, storage, memberships, subscriptions, premium services that used to be free, the list goes on… all these small charges can add up and may be hidden if not properly recognized as such and categorized properly when you receive the bill.  How many of these are simply classed Miscellaneous and lost in your accounting records as unknown overhead?

If you have a good idea what you are paying, I’d really like to know.  How much does it cost you per person per month to have adequate IT in your company?

Productivity?

Published
by
Michael McKay
on 2 November 2008
in Information Technology, Management and Virtual Corporate Desktops
. 0 Comments
It happens twice every day.  Sometimes, in some places, all day - it never stops.  Millions of people sitting in their cars, travelling, only to return a few hours later.  It seems like such a waste of time.  Why do we do this?
Hours a day?
Hours a day?
If your staff can, let them work from home.  They can use the extra hours in productive effort or in lifestyle changes that will improve their productivity - like sleep.  Let them save the gas and wear and tear on their cars and stress levels.  Leave the commuting to those who don’t have a choice.
If you only work in an office, there is little need to go there every day.  Network and communication solutions are out there that will allow you and your team to collaborate and work together from any location where there is Internet connectivity.  I’m involved with a company that is selling such a solution.   We are looking for beta customers in North America who would be willing to trial a virtual desktop solution for small and medium sized corporations.  If you want to learn more, please contact me.

12 Ways to Cut your IT Costs

Published
by
Michael McKay
on 2 November 2008
in Information Technology and Virtual Corporate Desktops
. 1 Comment

bMighty.com recently released a slide show on 12 Ways to Cut Your Company’s Tech Costs Now!. While informative, I don’t like the slide format, so here is the meat in a more palatable list:

  1. Bring all your printing together. Use cheap multifunction printers to save desk space and repair costs.  Many of these devices can be used as network printers.
  2. Explor alternative Internet access. Rather than pay for expensive Internet connections that are backed by Service Level Agreements, consider a cable connection that is more consumer grade.  The consumer service may be faster than a T-1 and the lack of the SLA may not be an issue compared to the cost savings.
  3. Dial-in telephone alternatives. VoIP alternatives like Vonage and Packet8 may reduce your phone bill, but computer-based options like Skype and Gizmo Project can slash them to ribbons.
  4. Embrace the OFF switch. Most electronic equipment continues to use power even when switched off.  The power converters (bricks) plugged into the walls continue to consume electricity even when the device is switched off.  With the proliferation of devices, the drain on power adds up.  To conserve, shut down all equipment and then disconnect it by switching off the surge protector or unplugging the devices.
  5. Kick your Costly Mobile Connections. Avoid paying for multiple Wi-Fi connection subscriptions.  Try wireless broadband or a combination service like  iPass.  Keep the subscription linked to your laptop only.
  6. Consider exchanging Exchange. Do you need the free-busy functionality of exchange?  If not, consider a hosted e-mail only account like Gmail.  If you still do, you can move Exchangeoutside your firewall.
  7. Small-Size your office. Have a portion of your staff working from home so that you can reduce the number of offices you need to rent, furnish, heat and power.  Those in the offices can use shared or any of the available desks.
  8. Toss your equipment.  Move your IT infrastructure into the cloud.  Whether you move your existing applications to remote locations or adopt remote applications entirely, you’re likely to reduce equipment, software licensing, energy, and IT support costs immediately.
  9. Know what you’re spending. Analyzing your bills is essential if you are to understand what you are paying for and then make smart changes.  Start with your phone bill.  If you can’t make heads or tails of the charges, consider hiring an auditing firm that specializes in this area.
  10. Get what you need for free.The freemium business model is alive an well.  Make use of it.  Open source applications are getting better all the time and are available in nearly every software category.  Don’t pay for software until you have eliminated the open-source alternatives.  Many on-line services such as Google Docs and Zoho also provide free versions.
  11. Share your marketing efforts. Partner with companies that have complementary products or services and share the marketing costs.
  12. Shatter your Windows dependence.  Linux has come a long way and is now a low-cost alternative to the Windows desktop operating systems.  Some of the most popular Linux migrations include Xandros, Ubuntu, and Kubuntu.  Consider it when you next upgrade your systems.

Alternatives to Layoffs

Published
by
Michael McKay
on 8 October 2008
in Business Planning, Financing, Information Technology, Management and Virtual Corporate Desktops
. 0 Comments

If you are preparing for the downturn by cutting costs, consider the advice of Mike Elgan. In his article on “Three Ways SMBs can Survive the Economic Meltdown“, Mike highlights three alternatives to layoffs that can help reduce the overhead costs of running a business:

  1. Send people home. Companies often consider transport and associated costs as included in employee pay. Consider cutting a portion of this pay and let employees work from home.
  2. Use all the on-line tools to travel virtually and collaborate without actually leaving home.
  3. At the extreme, consider closing your office and becoming a Bedouin organization.

I like these ideas but I have to ask, why wait for a downturn?

Buffett’s Law and Cloud Computing

Published
by
Michael McKay
on 6 October 2008
in Financing, Information Technology, Management and Virtual Corporate Desktops
. 0 Comments

In an interesting post on the future of Cloud Computing, Jake Smith says that one of several antecedents of wide-spread cloud computing is the impact of “Buffett’s Law”. Basically, the law states that Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor is driving change in the business world through the principles of value investing in ways that promote conservative innovation as opposed to radical or flamboyant visionary creation. “The value of an enterprise is a direct correlation of it’s ability to deliver consistent return on invested capital, regardless of market conditions.” What does this mean?

Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) is a measure of the ability of a company to generate EBIT or earnings before interest and taxes compared to the amount of investment in long term debt or equity. To maximize the ROIC, the company must do two things: first, maximize its operating profit which translates to maximizing sales, minimizing the cost of good sold, minimizing the overhead involved and working with a low tax rate; second, the company must minimize the debt and investment required which translates into minimizing the working capital requirements and the non-current assets.

The first part is about efficiency of operations. The second part is about business models. Efficiency of operations is the realm of lean manufacturing - a philosophy of organizational efficiency that can be applied to just about any process. Business models relate to how you make money and the decisions about what you do and what you outsource. Take the decision to outsource PCB assembly rather than purchase the equipment and build the components in house. If the cost of goods remains the same, out-sourcing is preferred since it lowers the non-current assets which will result in a better ROIC. To make the purchase of the PCB assembly line attractive, the cost of goods would have to drop significantly compared to what could be produced through outsourcing in order to generate the same ROIC.

How does this apply to cloud computing? Cloud computing is essentially an outsourced IT model comparable to the outsourcing of PCB assembly. The cloud offers lower infrastructure for similar performance which means that, even if the cloud is just as expensive as tradition IT, it will be a preferred simply because it lowers the ROIC - hence the impact of Buffett’s Law.

For more on the trends in cloud computing read Jake’s article here or my own take on the changes in IT here.

MJM Consulting - Helping companies grow.

Open Source Software: an Inferior Good

Published
by
Michael McKay
on 2 October 2008
in Financing, Information Technology and Virtual Corporate Desktops
. 0 Comments
Image from “Romance gets a market correction”Please have a read of Steven Vaughan-Nichols’ blog Lets Talk Cheap Software. The comments are especially good.His point is that, in these turbulent times, expensive software licenses and contracts are not the place to put your money. If cash is now king (but hasn’t it always been?) it is better to trade effort for a product than cash. With open-source software, their is little cash outlay but you do have to spend the time to learn how to use it.

Like most inferior goods (I’m using inferior in the economic sense - see wikipedia definition here), open source software may not be seen as an attractive option when times are good. When you feel rich, you have options. It is easy to throw money at a problem and buy the expensive stuff and the consultants to install it. On the other hand, when times are bad, throwing money may not be an option and is likely a dumb move in any case. Its in the bad times that open source software is an especially attractive choice.

This doesn’t mean that you have to put up with something less, just something different. An attitude adjustment is required. Like in the article in The Globe And Mail today “Romance gets a market correction“, don’t worry that because you can’t afford expensive dinners any more, your marriage will suffer. If you think back to when you were young and at the beginning of your relationship, those were happy times. “You were pretty close to broke, but you were having fun.”

Tradeoffs in Desktop Virtualization: No Showstoppers

Published
by
Michael McKay
on 27 September 2008
in Information Technology and Virtual Corporate Desktops
. 0 Comments

In a recent post on ZDNet.co.uk, Jason Hiner, says that the cloud is not ready for desktop virtualization.

I’m more confident in the success of virtualized desktops. I have, along with many others, been using them for years as remote desktops. First with GoToMyPC and later with Microsoft remote desktop. I would leave my desktop computer running at work and then access the desktop remotely from home or on the road. My primary access method was a laptop connected on my home’s wireless network or the hotel Internet. Never needing to transfer a file or install software, after two years, my laptop was in the same condition it was when I bought it.

Yes there were limitations. Editing a Power Point presentation was annoying and multimedia files were poorly displayed. If the Internet was slow, the mouse and keyboard screen updates could be jerky. If I didn’t have Internet, I couldn’t work. But there were always work-arounds and compromises. For Power Point, I learned to turn off the background graphics or use a different template altogether. I spent more time on content than format. For surfing, it was often better to do the surfing locally - but not always. I read on the plane and worked in the airport terminal.

However, the benefits of a single working desktop, of not having to sync files, of always being able to get to the desktop no matter where I was or on what machine: these things outweighed the reduction in the “user experience”. I was willing to put up with less in order to get these benefits. It was a classic cost-benefit trade-off that I think many people and companies will make in the cloud’s favor.

I’d also like to point out that many companies are not using state of the art multimedia machines as desktops. A quick walk through some local offices shows 14″ monitors, e-mail and word processing, two-tone text based data entry screens that look like they were programmed in 1970, no multi-media capabilities - basically bare bones corporate only workstations. These are also the targets for virtualization.

What I am looking forward to with the virtualized desktop approach is being able to get rid of the corporate desktop altogether. Virtualization has been a key term in servers since it allows servers to be consolidated. If I had 10 servers, I may be able to get away with five or three or even one with the appropriate virtualization technology. If you can virtualize the desktop as well, consider the additional savings. How many computers are there out there in total? What is the ratio of desktop computers to servers? Its a probably more than 2 to 1. If employees have a desktop at work and a laptop for home or the road, the number of non-server computers is even higher. Now consider that desktop virtualization can reduce the number of redundant computers by up to a 50:1 ratio (as claimed by Qumranet’s President Rami Tamir in April.) Yes, there will still need to be terminals with screens and keyboards but these can be much cheaper than the multi-cpu, multi-core machine that currently sits on my desk. In all, this means a dramatic reduction in the amount of desktop hardware out there with a concomitant reduction in the IT support requirements. The savings are too hard to ignore.

I agree with Jason that the importance of latency in the network will be important. But just as working with remote desktops in a hotel, it is still possible to do even with tardy connections. In return, the bandwidth requirements are significantly reduced. A terminal for a virtual desktop will only need a fraction of the Internet bandwidth since it handles no files, transfers no data and only displays updates to the graphics. The server in the cloud, on the other hand, has access to the Internet backbone and can deal with files over a high-bandwidth link. For many companies, the server may have access to more Internet bandwidth than their own servers.

Jason’s article also mentions a bridge approach from MokaFive. I realize the appeal of MokaFive’s approach, but I have lost (and given away) more USB keys than I can count and would not want to be dependent on one in order to use my computer. I want the freedom of the web even with its restrictions.

What would you be willing to sacrifice to implement virtual desktops in your company?

Where is your data? Changing attitudes about on-line storage

Published
by
Michael McKay
on 25 September 2008
in Information Technology and Virtual Corporate Desktops
. 0 Comments

One issue that people often mention with off-site virtualized or cloud computing systems is the loss of control of their “data”. The adults in the crowd grew up with paper, floppy disks, local storage on hard drives, removeable hard drives, CD Roms and more recently DVDs and USB sticks. The data was always at hand. We could point to it and know it was safe and we’d protect it.

The new world of virtualization and cloud computing is changing this. Companies are outsourcing their IT needs and on-line services such as SalesForce are gaining traction. In both cases, the data is no longer in the direct control of the company that owns it. This requires a level of trust that the supplier will not abuse the data or allow it to be compromised. It has been a tough sell with the adults.

Not with the kids. Kids these days are growing up with web services and social media. All the data starts being “out there” and they have grow used to it to the point that it is normal. On-line E-mail services are common, FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter, Fickr, YouTube, are all about sharing data. Google docs, Zoho, Apple’s Mobile Me and other web 2.0 services like them provide on-line storage. Virtual desktops are gaining in popularity - and the young crowd is using them at an increasing rate. . Their digital stuff is out there - on the web, in someone else’s control - and that is just fine. They do not want a local copy because they use computers like terminals and they want to get at their stuff from where ever they are, on what ever device.

When the kids reach adulthood, I’m sure they will change the attitude in industry as well.

Local storage will become, well - so 2001.