Greetings!Hello and welcome to our cloud computing update. We have been doing a lot of work recently around this area and helped people realise significant cost and agility benefits. It has also become apparent that we could go even further in helping our clients by signing a few of the right partnership agreements and offering a complete service option. Working with Microsoft as a key technology partner we can provide a cost-effective, scalable and trustworthy solution to a wide range of business requirements. We are announcing three key offerings: - MOSP - Microsoft Online Subscription Programme:
- choose from a whole range of individual hosted services
- prices between £2 and £7 per user per month
- BPOS - Business Productivity Online Standard suite:
- a suite of four Online Services offering a 40% discount over purchasing individually
- prices start at just over £10 per user per month
- Deskless worker suite:
- offers a 25% discount over purchasing individually
- prices less than £2 per user per month
All of these can be taken for as few as 5 users over a 12 month period (initially then switching to monthly from year 2). Below we will give you some more information about the significant benefits you can receive for a surprisingly small outlay. Don't forget to keep an eye on our blog, where ideas and information will be posted more regularly. You can also find management update newsletters (those focused on informative business topics) in our archive and even follow us on Twitter.If there is anything you don't like please tell us. If you enjoy it then do please forward on to anyone who might find this useful too. Good ideas are for spreading.  |
WIIFM?-the benefits of Microsoft in the cloud
|  What's In It For Me? Or WIIFM as we like to say. The following outlines the key benefits of the Micosoft Online Services offering:
Better control of your finances - no major upfront investments in hardware and software, buy what you need as and when you need it. Licensing is on a simple per-user basis for greater predictability.
No more major deployment or upgrade projects - not only do they consume money but also they divert your staff from other important work. This will now be managed for you by Stansburys and Microsoft.
Top class infrastructure for a fraction of the cost - using a shared approach means you have a small part of a very highly specified datacentre set-up without having to take on the whole cost or responsibility.
Flexibility for growth, projects and the unexpected - the ability to add or remove licences quickly and easily means you can mobilise and demobilise projects, grow incrementally or cater for other unexpected changes in your user base with minimal time and effort.
High security and availability without the dedicated team - software hosted in high security, geo-redundant data-centres with high availability servers supported 24x7x365. Imagine how much it would cost to add all the relevant people, processes and tools to your IT team.
Integrated suite of software available anywhere in the world - a range of the latest software from Microsoft available immediately online through secure login and able to integrate with your on-premises software where needed.
Microsoft putting its money where its mouth is - many of you will, like us, have bitter memories of the blame game between supplier, customer and partner when software fails to do what is promised. Here Microsoft is providing and maintaining their own software and providing the service guarantees, the buck stops with them. We are here to help you manage the supplier and, most importantly, ensure you realise the full business benefit from the investment.
If you would like to discuss benefits and opportunities for your particular business needs don't hesitate to get in contact.
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MOSP, BPOS and what's actually included
|  This whole offering comes with a wide range of components in the true spirit of you only having to take what you need. Hopefully the following clarifies what is included and available.
The Microsoft Online Subscription Programme (MOSP) contains all the options while Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) and Deskless Worker Suite are bundles of MOSP applications available at a discount. There is not enough room to detail these for people unfamiliar with an application or service, so do contact us for further information. MOSP
The a la carte solution - pick any number of options from: - Microsoft® Exchange Online Standard
hosted enterprise messaging solution
- Microsoft® Office SharePoint®
Online Standard hosted enterprise collaboration solution
- Microsoft®
Office Communication Online Standard hosted instant messaging and
presence solution
- Microsoft® Live Meeting Online Standard hosted Web
conferencing solution
- Microsoft® SharePoint® Online Extra Storage 1GB
extra storage available as an Add-On to SharePoint Online Standard
only
- Microsoft® Exchange Online Deskless Worker lower storage and
functionality than Exchange Online Standard
- Microsoft® SharePoint®
Online Deskless Worker lower storage and functionality than SharePoint
Online Standard
The Business Productivity Online Standard Suite (BPOS) is a suite of four Online Services and offers a 40% discount over purchasing individually. BPOS includes:
- Exchange Online Standard
- SharePoint Online Standard
- Office Communication Online Standard
- Live Meeting Online Standard
The Deskless Worker Suite offers a 25% discount over purchasing individually and includes:
- Exchange Online Deskless Worker
- SharePoint Online Deskless Worker
For those with existing Microsoft Enterprise Agreements (EA) and Enterprise Subscription Agreements (ESA) there are many opportunities to use this investment here.
If you would like to discuss any aspect of these services and solutions don't hesitate to contact us.
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Isn't this all a bit risky?
|  Anybody considering cloud computing is right to be worried about security and availability - here we will look at some of the key features of the Microsoft approach to addressing concerns.
Before entering the main list it is worth reiterating that these offerings are fully hosted by Microsoft which should address some of the higher level concerns around supplier viability, what happens if they get taken over by somebody else. Also there is the question about staff skills, does the hosting company know enough about the software and have a good relationship with the publisher - not really a question here then.
- 9 layers of data security -
filtering
routers, firewalls, intrusion detection system, system level security,
application authentication, application level countermeasures, virus
scanning, separate data networks and authentication to data all add up
to considerable peace of mind.
- Geo-redundant datacentres -
if there is a major problem in one geographical location you will
seamlessly be able to access your services from a datacentre in another
location.
- N+1 architecture
- which essentially means they have at least two of everything in their
datacenters so that a failure in any one item (power supply, power back
up, cooling systems, generators etc.) will not cause an outage.
- Independent audit and certification - is a key part of the
Microsoft offering with a focus on SAS
70 audits (become very important and widely recognised in part as a
result of Sarbanes Oxley) and CyberTrust
certification (widely respected marks of compliance for
applications and service providers).
- Secure access via 128 bit SSL - protecting data between
Microsoft datacenters and between datacenters and users. Fact for
number lovers, you could use lower strength encryption (e.g. 40 bit) but
don't think this is just 3 times better. If a hacker could break a 40
bit connection in a few minutes, the same tools would need over a
trillion years to break a 128 bit connection.
- ITIL and MOF operational practices -
there's no point having all these great systems if the people and
process just come in and wreck everything each time they try to change,
fix or improve something. These practices are widely respected around
the world for minimising negative impacts on IT service provision.
- 24x7x365 support - any time of day or
night there are support people available and keeping an eye on things.
- Backed by 99.9% uptime SLA - there
are some meaty documents to read and a formula to calculate your service
credits (aka money back) but basically Microsoft have committed to make
the services available 99.9% of the time - if they fail to meet this
you can claim money back (in fact broadly speaking if the availability
fell below 95% in a month you would receive a full refund on your
monthly fee).
You quite possibly have concerns that are not fully covered by this, do get in contact, whether to discuss a generic concern around cloud computing or with specific reference to Microsoft Online Services.
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Thanks for your time and we hope you have enjoyed reading this edition. If you have found it useful please tell your friends, if you have not, or would like to see anything else discussed then please tell us. Please keep an eye on our blog and get involved in the discussions!! Until the next time....... Yours Sincerely, 
Peter Stansbury
Managing Director
Stansburys Ltd
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Cloud Computing Primer
|  | Cloud computing seems to be all the rage at the moment. There are many good reasons for this and others that will just prove to be hype.
In this primer we will outline the 3 key categories of cloud computing - all ending in "aaS" (which stands for "as
a Service").
By the way the term "cloud" originates from the cloud symbol used by
techies to represent the Internet on the majority of diagrams.
(CaaS)
Cleaning as a Service.
First out of the blocks - no prizes for guessing we have made this up (there are really 3 types, not 4). But it should help demonstrate the service principle without any IT jargon.
Imagine a world where you do your own cleaning, you bought the vacuum cleaner, you buy the bags, cloths and cleaning fluids as you go along.
You decide there must be a better way, you discover the kids are pretty keen on this and want the pocket money so you pay them to use your vacuum cleaner.
You discover they are not so good at the job (more interested in the gadgets than the cleaning) and keep forgetting bits.
So you decide to outsource to a cleaner but find you are still providing all the tools and consumables and probably find yourself feeling embarrassed and doing cleaning before they arrive.
Then a salesman turns up and you are persuaded to buy a robotic version that does the cleaning by itself. But when it breaks down it's a pain to fix. Then somebody offers you a self-healing upgrade and it's just getting confusing.
And so it goes on until you find somebody offering CaaS - you just pay them a monthly amount and they do all the cleaning. provide all the equipment, maintenance and consumables and, heck, they even bring their own electricity and water.
You just order the service you need. The Spring Cleaning service please, the Window Cleaning Service please....
And so it is with cloud computing - you are just buying a service and letting somebody else worry about all the rest.
SaaS
Software as a Service. Here your fee covers everything needed to provide the software (the servers, internet connection, maintenance, licences etc. etc.) The MOSP and BPOS described in this newsletter fits in this category.
PaaS
Platform as a Service. Here the fee covers everything to provide the platform to run your service (servers, operating systems, internet connection etc.) but not the software itself. A bit like you providing the vacuum cleaner but the cleaning service doing everything else.
In this case it is often about software development, you have the developers but don't worry about providing everything else they need to do the job. This often includes presenting the software to customers via a website when it is live.
A good example of this is Google AppEngine. You start out small, but if your application suddenly becomes massively popular you just buy more storage and bandwidth as you need it rather than panicking and running to your hardware supplier.
IaaS
Infrastructure as a Service.
Here the fee covers the infrastructure (often referred to as the "tin"). So all the servers, storage, networking etc. are part of the service but none of the software.
A good simple example is Amazon ECS which provides on demand servers.
Some simpler services are just about on demand storage.
Key Features
So what things really unite all of these offerings as cloud services:
- On demand - you buy what you need, when you need it
- Elastic - you take as much or as little as you need
- Fully managed - somebody else is looking after it for you
Sometimes people use the term "utility computing" imagining that you buy computing much as you buy electricity or water from your utility company.
And to top it all we haven't even got the space to look at the types of cloud (e.g. private, public, community or hybrid). Perhaps another day.
To find out more about cloud computing and your business don't hesitate to contact us.
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