A new era for SMB and SME companies thanks to Virtualization, new technology innovations and Cloud computing.
Keeping costs contained is the challenge and objective of every company and IT is classically considered a cost center; I personally believe that an innovative IT Department actually can save organizations money and utilizing technology advancements can actually increase profitability.
With the emergence of companies like Kaseya, Level Platforms and Zoho, formerly Adventnet, Asset Management and Real-time Monitoring are now budget friendly to SMB and SME companies. These type of software’s in conjunction with Microsoft’s innovations incorporated into Vista/Windows 7 and Server 2008/20008 R2 has empowered companies to implement infrastructures that are semi-fully automated, something that use to have a starting cost of $30K+.
If a company adds Virtualization to the picture, a feature Microsoft and VMware offer at no additional cost, the game has been forever changed and the IT Services market shaken up.
Cloud computing offerings take advantage of some or all of these technologies and others not mentioned. Using these new technologies innovatively further extends the accessibility of technologies of which were formerly exclusive to enterprise sized companies, such as redundant Exchange Servers with 99.9 uptime, on-demand Servers and Server clusters, ad-hoc storage arrays and more.
Enterprise class companies have enjoyed semi-full automation in their IT Infrastructures utilizing asset management/automation and imaging solution software’s for some time. Using these technologies together has resulted in centralized manageability of large infrastructures inclusive of day to day support and application and asset upgrades which has in turn assisted in managing costs. These technologies use to have a cost that kept them out of reach to smaller companies however things have changed and for the benefit of both SMB and enterprise companies.
Some key questions decision makers should be asking when they are considering changes to their IT infrastructures both procedural and solutions based are:
• Where is my IP content stored? Within or Outside of Canada?
• What security is embedded into the technology or solution and who controls it?
• What are the Exit conditions? in the case of a hosted service.
• What are the internal Security Policies of the Hosted Services provider?
• What is the Disaster Recovery Plan of the Service Provider?
• What is the licensing model? Perpetual or Annual?
• How open is the software to third party plugins? Does it conform to Industry standards?
• Online Backup, is there a rapid return/restore option via DVD, Blue Ray or Hard Drive?
• Always ask for client reference that would match or exceed the capacity you are engaging at.
• What changes are required to ensure the solution runs optimally? versus simply asking for the minimum requirements.
If you have any questions about the information above or wish more detail, please feel free to contact me using the information presented in the Contact section.
Cheers.