In 2009, we started our transition to cloud services both for our business, as a Google Premier Enterprise Partner, but also for our own internal applications. As we started this change we were very aware that the transition to the cloud was a journey and not an event. Like many of our customers we wanted to benefit immediately from cloud email and collaboration applications with Google Apps for Business but some of our existing on-premise applications would not be replaced for some years to come.

In 2012 the maturity of Googles cloud ecosystem has truly come of age, at Easter we entered the "Post-PC" era as our sales team handed back their Windows PCs and are all using the Google Samsung Chromebook (the perfect travelling companion) as their primary device. We are now able to securely access all our corporate applications, not only Cloud based Email, document and collaboration but also our legacy (Windows dependent) CRM, financial applications through with the help of Ericom AccessNow (a pure HTML5 remote access client for Windows Terminal Services) from the device of choice. The team are delighted with the Chromebook as a lightweight, instant-on device and a battery that lasts through the working day.

Transitioning from on-premise to cloud accessible application services

Founded in 2003, our IT infrastructure at Ancoris was typical of many British small and medium companies.  We used Microsoft Exchange for email and Microsoft Dynamics CRM for our sales, marketing and support system and Sage Line 50 for our finance team; all run on our own servers on-premise. Our vision was to be able to move to an IT environment where all our applications would be accessible simply and securely through a browser whether in the office or remote to support a business model with lots of remote workers on client sites.

Integrating Google Apps for Business and Microsoft Dynamics CRM email

Our first project in 2009 was to replace our messaging infrastructure moving from Microsoft Exchange to Gmail, with a core requirement to keep the integration of email with our CRM system. We had chosen Microsoft Dynamics CRM years previously and had heavily customised this to our business. If we were a new start-up we would probably have chosen to move to a cloud based CRM system but we took the business decision that this wasnt an initial priority.

Migrating from Microsoft Exchange to Gmail was a straightforward process for our team of Google Certified Deployment Specialists and we were able to ensure that all our customer email conversations via Gmail were also tracked or logged in our CRM system by configuring the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Email Router together with Google Apps application specific passwords. Fortunately Microsoft has removed any hard dependency on Exchange since version 3.0  of Dynamics CRM and now requires standard SMTP/POP3 interfaces to your mail server.

Integrating Google Docs and Microsoft Dynamics CRM

We have also extended our CRM accounts to have a link to a Google Docs collection for each client, by a simple CRM customisation and a tweak to our business process.  We now have all our customer information accessible from one place, using the Google cloud to store all customer docs, many of which are shared with our clients but all organised through our Microsoft CRM system.

Enabling the remote worker with Chromebooks and Ericom AccessNow

The final piece of the puzzle was to be able to dispense with expensive, heavy and slow to boot Windows laptops with more modern devices, the Chromebook and Apples iPad which are the devices of choice for our remote users.

Ericoms release of AccessNow has finally enabled our vision to be complete. With a simple deployment achieved in a day, our Windows Terminal Server hosting our CRM, Sage and Quotewerks quotation system is now Internet enabled. These Windows applications can be accessed with Ericoms pure HTML5 client on both the Chromebook and the iPad. The screenshot shows my Chromebook remotely accessing both Google Apps and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Our own IT transition mirrors that of the many customers which we have helped over the last 18 months as a Google Premier Enterprise Partner and now as a member of the Google Chromebook Reseller pilot program. Our sales, support and consulting teams have the entire customer history and all information linked through one place, something that was not possible previously. Our applications are now accessible for our remote users on the device of their choice, whether a 100% web device such as the Chromebook, on a tablet or traditional PC. We are able to retain legacy on premise IT applications which still have business value, but we can integrate them with Google Apps for Business and then sweat these assets until the time comes to replace them with new pure-cloud applications. The cloud has truly come of age.

Why are companies being sold short with the ˜cloudwashing of traditional hosting? David McLeman gives tips for telling rebadged traditional hosting from real cloud services.

Many IT services providers are now marketing private cloud offerings, no doubt hoping to attract customers who want all the benefits of cloud computing, such as scalability, capacity on demand and economies of scale, but who mistakenly assume a public cloud software application or platform is less secure than a private cloud.

Yet if you take a hard look at what these vendors are providing, you may well find these private clouds are nothing more than rebadged traditional hosting. Thats not to say true private clouds cant be created “ but the goal of private cloud initiatives is usually the provision of a new secure, dynamic, scaleable and reusable platform architecture for business applications. The trumpeting of the rebadging of data centre consolidation or outsourcing exercises as the creation of a private cloud is missing the point and typically will not result in cost-savings, more flexibility or even more security, especially when compared with true cloud-based platform infrastructures from specialists such as Amazon Web Services or by moving to Software as a Service.

So how can you tell if a provider is actually offering a cloud-based solution that will give you all the benefits of cloud computing “ or just cloudwashing traditional hosting? There are three key questions to ask:

Can the provider offer immediate provisioning and completely flexible capacity, whether you want to add one user or 10,000? If the vendor has to ask how big or small you are, or ask when you want it delivered, or tell you it will take a certain amount of time to deliver it¦ its not a cloud solution.

Is the cost significantly lower than running it in house? Traditional hosting may be a little cheaper than running your own IT, but cloud computing offers much greater economies of scale because it doesnt just do the same things you were doing in-house more efficiently but delivers IT services in a very different way. If the vendor isnt able to pass on those savings, its not a cloud solution.

Does the service provide a security infrastructure designed for the cloud? Does authentication allow secure access from the public internet to a single application or set of data? If security isnt built in to application or data objects, so that multiple users working on the same infrastructure can only ever see their own applications and data, its not a cloud solution.

For Software-as-a-Service, there are a couple of additional tests:

Can the application be accessed through any device on the internet, whether thats a PC, tablet or smartphone, and not require a particular operating system or device? If you need to use a designated operating system such as Windows or need to install any software on your device or in your infrastructure, its not a cloud solution.

Does the application support accelerated feature delivery? SaaS applications are typically updated with new features and functionality more regularly than on-premise software (often monthly) allowing agile development methodologies to keep the application up to date at all times.

True SaaS built for the internet solutions like Google Apps for Business, Salesforce.com, Netsuite pass all four tests. Vendors moving software from the on-premise world to the cloud like Microsoft Office365 may struggle in some areas, such as scaleability, complete cross-browser or cross device support or residual dependencies on on-premise software; they are also tied more rigidly to the typical 2-3 year major release cycle of their on-premise parent products.

The limitations of going the private cloud route with traditional applications have been clearly demonstrated in the UK Governments evolving G-Cloud strategy. Its not surprising the public sector wanted to take advantage of the cost savings of cloud computing, but it soon realised that creating its own private cloud infrastructure, as demonstrated in a pilot with HP, was prohibitively expensive. The G-Cloud project then morphed into a combination of data centre consolidation and virtualisation “ until it became apparent that this would offer limited financial benefit. During 2011, we saw the government recognise that both short and long-term benefits would come only from making use of widely available and mass-market software-as-a-service solutions delivered through public clouds. G-Cloud was then relaunched as a catalogue of apps from which the public sector could buy SaaS solutions.

What of the security concerns associated with public clouds? Because security is built in to true SaaS solutions from the ground up, the public cloud multi-tenant model is actually likely to be much more secure than a private cloud thats rebadged hosting. Once someone has gained access inside a traditional hosted environment, they can more easily wander around at will. So private cloud solutions that are really rebadged traditional hosting will not only fail to deliver the cost and scalability benefits of cloud computing but will also not provide the high level of security companies are seeking by going private.

That the UK government is willing to entrust its operations to public clouds confirms that public cloud is secure. Major players in other highly-regulated industries who handle extremely sensitive data are also confirming public clouds meet their security needs. For example, Spanish banking giant BBVA recently struck a deal to roll out Google Apps for Business to 110,000 users. So there really is no reason to settle for a private cloud thats just old-fashioned hosting masquerading under a new name.

Original article in VitAL Magazine

Stimulating exploration on Future-Proofing HR Technologies at 4th HR4ICT

Social media is transforming the very nature of recruitment and training, said author Jacqueline Davies in a scene-setting keynote on the first morning. You dont need a Learning Management System if you have YouTube. She drew on examples of companies around the world to illustrate that first and foremost, social media is not about technology, it is about relationships”quick, convenient and customised.

Zain Khan, CMC Founder, Alliances Consulting Group, Canada, spoke about the need to integrate HR strategies as a core part of broader organisational strategy. He shared his views on how best to build a customer-centric culture, engaging positively with cultural change management.

The afternoon of the first days proceedings was devoted to examining the complexities of privacy and security issues relating to employee information in the cloud age, while the second day dealt with strategic future projections, deliberating how data protection will affect future HR decisions, where HR technologies will be in a decades time, what their impact on HR professionals is likely to be and how mobile communications will change the company standard.

David McLeman, Managing Director, Ancoris, UK, rated the pros and cons of using the cloud to ease the burden of unmanageable data storage. Dr. Gus Hosein, executive director of Privacy International, highlighted the concerning extent to which technology can be used to track employee movement and behaviour, raising challenging questions regarding the nature of privacy in the 21st century. Lutz Bartsch, chief technologist, EMEA, for Munich-based SAP Success Factors, pointed out that for multi-country enterprises, local data protection laws would have to be reflected in the global cloud-based HR systems and selection of vendors becomes very important.

According to a Deloitte study, 90% of employer data is electronically stored information (ESI), and 40% of executives say that data volumes are becoming unmanageable. Locating relevant data becomes more challenging, manifesting in significant losses through wasted storage space and reductions in productivity. Excessive data volumes are especially troublesome during litigation that requires electronic discovery. The prevalence of e-HR also highlights Cybersecurity issues which need to be addressed in the current climate of frequent cyber attacks.

Press release on Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation

This article explains why companies are being sold short by cloudwashing of traditional hosting and give tips for telling rebadged traditional hosting from real cloud services.

Many IT services providers are now marketing private cloud offerings, no doubt hoping to attract customers who want all the benefits of cloud computing, such as scalability, capacity on demand and economies of scale, but who mistakenly assume a public cloud software application or platform is less secure than a private cloud.

Yet if you take a hard look at what these vendors are providing, you may well find these private clouds are nothing more than rebadged traditional hosting. Thats not to say true private clouds cant be created “ but the goal of private cloud initiatives is usually the provision of a new secure, dynamic, scaleable and reusable platform architecture for business applications.

The trumpeting of the rebadging of data centre consolidation or outsourcing exercises as the creation of a private cloud is missing the point and typically will not result in cost-savings, more flexibility or even more security, especially when compared with true cloud-based platform infrastructures from specialists such as Amazon Web Services or by moving to Software as a Service.

So how can you tell if a provider is actually offering a cloud-based solution that will give you all the benefits of cloud computing “ or just cloudwashing traditional hosting? There are three key questions to ask:

• Can the provider offer immediate provisioning and completely flexible capacity, whether you want to add one user or 10,000? If the vendor has to ask how big or small you are, or ask when you want it delivered, or tell you it will take a certain amount of time to deliver it¦ its not a cloud solution.

• Is the cost significantly lower than running it in house? Traditional hosting may be a little cheaper than running your own IT, but cloud computing offers much greater economies of scale because it doesnt just do the same things you were doing in-house more efficiently but delivers IT services in a very different way. If the vendor isnt able to pass on those savings, its not a cloud solution.

• Does the service provide a security infrastructure designed for the cloud? Does authentication allow secure access from the public internet to a single application or set of data? If security isnt built in to application or data objects, so that multiple users working on the same infrastructure can only ever see their own applications and data, its not a cloud solution.

For Software-as-a-Service, there are a couple of additional tests:

• Can the application be accessed through any device on the internet, whether thats a PC, tablet or smartphone, and not require a particular operating system or device? If you need to use a designated operating system such as Windows or need to install any software on your device or in your infrastructure, its not a cloud solution.

• Does the application support accelerated feature delivery? SaaS applications are typically updated with new features and functionality more regularly than on-premise software (often monthly) allowing agile development methodologies to keep the application up to date at all times.

True SaaS built for the internet solutions like Google Apps for Business, Salesforce.com, Netsuite pass all four tests. Vendors moving software from the on-premise world to the cloud like Microsoft Office365 may struggle in some areas, such as scaleability, complete cross-browser or cross device support or residual dependencies on on-premise software; they are also tied more rigidly to the typical 2-3 year major release cycle of their on-premise parent products.

The limitations of going the private cloud route with traditional applications have been clearly demonstrated in the UK Governments evolving G-Cloud strategy. Its not surprising the public sector wanted to take advantage of the cost savings of cloud computing, but it soon realised that creating its own private cloud infrastructure, as demonstrated in a pilot with HP, was prohibitively expensive.

The G-Cloud project then morphed into a combination of data centre consolidation and virtualisation “ until it became apparent that this would offer limited financial benefit. During 2011, we saw the government recognise that both short and long-term benefits would come only from making use of widely available and mass-market software-as-a-service solutions delivered through public clouds. G-Cloud was then relaunched as a catalogue of apps from which the public sector could buy SaaS solutions.

What of the security concerns associated with public clouds? Because security is built in to true SaaS solutions from the ground up, the public cloud multi-tenant model is actually likely to be much more secure than a private cloud thats rebadged hosting. Once someone has gained access inside a traditional hosted environment, they can more easily wander around at will. So private cloud solutions that are really rebadged traditional hosting will not only fail to deliver the cost and scalability benefits of cloud computing but will also not provide the high level of security companies are seeking by going private.

That the UK government is willing to entrust its operations to public clouds confirms that public cloud is secure. Major players in other highly-regulated industries who handle extremely sensitive data are also confirming public clouds meet their security needs. For example, Spanish banking giant BBVA recently struck a deal to roll out Google Apps for Business to 110,000 users. So there really is no reason to settle for a private cloud thats just old-fashioned hosting masquerading under a new name.

Article on BCW website

Cloud computing has some great advantages. Alex Blyth reports

When Dee Edwards founded Tell Tale Travel in 2006 she knew right away that she wanted the entire IT infrastructure in the cloud. Previously, Id run tech companies, she explains. So, I was well aware that if we bought an exchange server it would cost around £2,000, while we could put everything in the cloud for just £50 a year. It was a pretty straightforward decision to make.

Saving money is just one benefit of storing your data and applications on a remote, central, online server (the cloud) instead of a traditional server in your office. For this Kensington-based tour operator, accessibility was also key. Our travellers want to meet local people, not just people who work in the travel industry, says Edwards. So we have tour organisers on the ground in Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Brazil, and we need an IT infrastructure that operates simply and seamlessly across all our locations.

Finally, Edwards wanted a solution that was resilient. If our office burns down we just need to go out and buy some computers, and were back up and running in two hours, she says. Fortunately, that has not happened, and the young company is going from strength to strength. In the past two years it has doubled turnover, and Edwards has never regretted the decision to put her IT infrastructure in the Drop Box cloud.

Potential benefits
She was one of the first travel companies to take this step, but towards the end of last year several larger players followed suit, and many are predicting that 2012 is the year when cloud computing becomes the norm rather than the exception in the travel industry.

The initial appeal for many is the cost. At the end of last year, Holiday Extras moved its IT infrastructure to the cloud with Amazon Web Services (AWS). Nilan Peiris, chief marketing technology officer, reports that it has more than halved the companys spending on IT hardware.

He adds: If you want to secure a sale online, speed of response is vital, especially in todays highly competitive market. AWS allows us to use a network that is far superior to anything we could operate on our premises, and this has cut end-user response times by 20%.

For Skyscanner, the key issue was scalability. Its website receives more than 14 million visits a month, and that number is growing rapidly. So in October last year the company turned to Iomarts cloud hosting service on the promise of additional server resources within minutes rather than weeks.

Many companies worry about security, but advocates of cloud solutions argue that trusting your IT infrastructure to professionals who spend all day, every day finding new ways to counter the latest cyber-attacks is, in fact, the most secure solution. In the same way, as Edwards says, cloud computing is a good insurance against natural disasters or burglary.

Technology consultant Dr Graham Oakes adds: Even if it wont cut your direct costs, cloud computing might allow you to reduce your indirect overheads and focus instead on running your business and delivering to your customers.

Getting it right
Moving to the cloud is a major undertaking and not to be rushed. Holiday Extras spent nine months moving its customer-facing websites to AWS. You need to find the right provider and conduct careful analysis of your existing IT, deciding which areas are right for the cloud, then run extensive tests before switching.

If you are a multinational you might be able to afford to bring in the likes of Accenture to design and implement your cloud-based IT infrastructure, as Thomas Cook did last September. Most travel companies can turn to services such as the AWS Architecture Center (aws.amazon.com/architecture) for advice throughout the building of their cloud-based applications.

THE PROVIDERS
- Virgin Atlantic and Voyages-SNCF use AWS, which provides a handy cost calculator.
- KLM and InterContinental Hotels Group use Google Apps for Business, which costs £33 a year, per user, and is accessed through a reseller such as Ancoris.
- Holidaybreak uses Daisy Group. Prices start from £150 per Virtual Private Server, or for larger capacity, £950 a month for a Virtual Data Centre.
- Elastic Hosts
- HP Cloud Start Solution

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Cost, flexibility and protection against disasters - cloud computing has some great advantages.  Alex Blyth reports.

Read full article on page 26 - 27

The European Union's recently announced plans to overhaul data protection legislation and create a Cloud Partnership, similar to the UKs G-Cloud Initiative, look to be good news for both users and providers of cloud computing services. Like the UK Government, which announced the first providers in its G-Cloud store this month, Ancoris among them, the EU is backing the use of public software-as-a-service solutions as the way forward for meeting public sector IT needs.

The EU is also looking to make using cloud solutions simpler and more secure for all users, including the private sector. EU Commissioners Neelie Kroes and Viviane Reding seemed to have grasped the fundamentals of cloud computing and have announced plans for a new legal environment that should make it simpler for cloud providers to offer solutions to users that support innovation and mobility while also providing security and data portability.

At the heart of the Commissioners' plans is a new approach to data protection that means it will no longer matter where the data is or where the provider is based “ "in Madrid, Mumbai or Mountain View", as Commissioner Kroes put it in a recent speech. If the customer is based in the EU, EU data protection standards will apply.

That will give cloud providers the flexibility to locate operations for maximum resilience and minimum cost, while ensuring customers can be confident services meet EU security standards no matter how or where they access them. In short, says Commissioner Reding, cloud service providers will need to offer "privacy by design" as standard: the kind of true multi-tenanted solution you'll already find in Google Apps for Business, where security is built in from the ground up to allow secure access from the public internet to a single application or set of data.

The two Commissioners have also announced that the EU's new approach will provide strong safeguards against supplier lock-in. Cloud service providers will have to make it easy and straightforward for users who want to switch services to get their data out “ something users of Google Apps for Business have been offered from the start.

While the proof is still in the pudding, and we'll need to see exactly what form the new regulations and the Cloud Partnership take, it's heartening to see the EU has a decent understanding of cloud computing and the current roadblocks to adoption.

The UK Government has very recently launched its new CloudStore as an innovative method of delivering IT applications via the G-Cloud. Under set 12 months contracts suppliers provide access to online applications at a fixed entry and exit point. It is widely accepted that this new technology will help Government to reduce its IT costs whilst providing comprehensive and reliable solutions. As the history of Government IT is littered with failed projects, the discipline of fixed term contracts provides suppliers with permanent incentives to give a high quality and resilient service. For smaller suppliers it opens up the Government marketplace quite radically “ SMEs can now compete on an equal footing with the IT giants that hitherto dominated Central Government computing.

Google Apps for Business partner Ancoris is one of those small cloud providers, getting a foot in lot four. Ancoris MD David McLeman said G-Cloud is a significant break from the old cartel of large suppliers running massive government IT projects which have dominated public sector IT. Kate Craig-Wood, boss at cloud provider Memset, agreed: G-Cloud has the potential to be enormously disruptive. It heralds the breaking of large systems integrators strangle-hold over government ICT.
(Source: http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2012/02/20/cloudstore_launches/)

As proof of the breaking of the stranglehold of large companies over Government IT, 50% of the current suppliers on the CloudStore are SMEs, which is an extraordinary, indeed, an historic achievement, and shows the extent to which the Government wishes to engage with smaller organisations. 

The pre-qualification process was simplified to help SMEs overcome the barriers excessive bureaucracy previously placed on them. For those suppliers not already on the G-Cloud there will be a new opportunity to reapply in the Spring.

Article

Ancoris has today been announced as a G-Cloud supplier. As a supplier to the Governments CloudStore, Ancoris will now be able to migrate the public sector to Google Apps for Business, without a formal tender process.

The CloudStore will work as an online marketplace and will include information allowing buyers to make comparisons between suppliers. The carefully selected catalogue of cloud providers will enable the public sector to confidently buy cloud services.This is likely to see a big push into cloud computing by the UK public sector as it becomes easier to buy cloud-based services following the creation of the G-Cloud applications catalogue.

The launch of the G-Cloud is a significant step forward for cloud computing and the public sector. As an approved supplier we are able to transition Government departments from outdated legacy systems to the latest cloud computing technology.

Todays launch of the G-Cloud also puts to bed the issue of cloud security.  The message is clear - if cloud computing is secure enough for government, it's secure enough for the private sector.

By the end of 2012 the Government expects to have over 50 accredited products in place, which the public sector will be able to buy without putting suppliers through a lengthy tender process. The government's information assurance agency, the Communications Electronics Security Group (CESG), will confirm each G-Cloud service and deployment is secure.

Ancoris is now a Government approved cloud solution provider.  Both Private and Public Sector organisations can now buy our cloud services with the added confidence of the Government endorsement.

Todays announcement on the BBC that the Spanish banking giant BBVA is moving their workforce to Google Apps for Business is a further massive endorsement of the industry momentum in favour of both Cloud Computing and Googles offerings.

BBVA are quoted by the BBC interview as say that ˜they would use Google applications like email, calendar, docs, chat, video conferencing and other collaboration tools to "achieve a cultural change" and get "the whole company working together" across the 26 countries where BBVA is based.. They plan to move 35,000 Spanish employees initially and to complete the rollout out to the rest of their 110,00 employees during 2012.

The BBC were told "The main goal is to promote innovation and making decisions and increase productivity. We are in a challenging market and need to make faster and more accurate decisions... and eliminate duplication,".

The increasing mobility of the bank's workforce was also cited as a key factor. "A lot of the bank's computing needs had moved to smartphones, tablets, laptops and computers at home" said BBVA's Director of Innovation.

BBVA and Google stressed the Google service would meet the demands of banking regulators and data protection officials, and be as secure as any solution on the bank's premises.

This is the third significant announcement by Google in recent weeks which demonstrates the mainstream adoption of cloud computing for email, messaging and collaboration:

• BBVAs decision as a major financial organisation to go Google follows on from ...

• Reports in the Wall Street Journal in November that General Motors has also decided to adopt Google Apps for 100,000 staff

• The UK Government approval for local authorities to also adopt Googles cloud offerings with the announcement that Hillingdon Council are also migrating to Google Apps and expect to save £3M in the process

These announcements reflect the huge momentum that we are seeing at Ancoris. We now have been involved in over 50 deployments of Google Appsin the UK, with the vast majority of these happening in mid-market and large accounts since the start of 2011.

We look forward to an exciting 2012 as we continue to work closely with Googles Enterprise Division to develop robust deployment and support models for customers migrating to the cloud.