You may have seen advertisements for “cloud” based computing in the past few years both on TV and the internet. For those who are fairly new or not familiar with internet services, you may have experienced some confusion over what a cloud service provider is and how they affect the internet.

What is Cloud?

Basically, cloud computing uses a number of both hardware and software sources that are connected through a network. The term “cloud” comes from the symbol used to describe the infrastructure of the network itself. Basically, a cloud service provider has a number of resources tied together to provide for their customers, including the user’s data, computation and software.

For those who use computers or mobile devices, a cloud service provider has a number of applications that can be utilized over the internet. Those who provide cloud based services have offered a number of advantages over the traditional internet servers.

Faster Upgrades: A cloud based provider can add new applications and make changes faster than the traditional means of upgrading systems and internet service.

Greater Flexibility: With faster upgrades come greater flexibilities to meet new challenges. It’s easier for a cloud based provider to adjust to the new demands of their clients and do so more quickly than under the old system.

Less Maintenance: Since the cloud based system is not centralized, it’s easier to maintain if something should breakdown. The older internet system was based on the single server in one location. If the server should breakdown or the location be affected, then all internet service that ran through the server would shut down. In the cloud-based system, a server or service that breaks down does not shut down the network. Instead, the rest of the services are maintained until it can be repaired or replaced.

However, it must be noted that a cloud service provider does have potential risks along with the advantages.

Security: The very nature of the cloud based system means that security is more of an issue than with the single server based system. After all, with the number of entrances that hackers can access, privacy concerns on cloud based systems has become a paramount issue. Cloud service providers must go to great lengths to insure that their networks are not compromised, but the truth is that they can be broken into and service can be disrupted easier than the traditional server systems if the provider is not an experienced company employing rigorous process auditing and testing.

The question “what is cloud?” is answered by the extraordinary flexibility of the network and the sheer number of services provided which greatly exceeds the old single server systems. The future for the cloud service provider looks quite promising as this trend will no doubt continue into the foreseeable future.

Questions about privacy and security however will continue to be asked however, so it is up to the consumer to choose the right provider and make the appropriate decision to pick wisely the right cloud service provider that meets their needs and exceeds their expectations in terms of security, service and quality.

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But outsourcing today may sound passé. Over the last two decades, we’ve been told how detrimental the popular “outsourcing” is to the American economy, and in the last ten years, there’s been a trend toward “in-sourcing” to bring the jobs back. As recently as July, Congress tried to pass incentives for small companies to hire more of their own employees and discourage “the shipping of jobs overseas.”

What very few acknowledge is that there’s a difference between outsourcing and offshoring. Likewise, in-sourcing is confused with inshoring. Outsourcing simply means moving a process to an external organization. It doesn’t have to be on foreign soil. So while outsourcing is an umbrella term, the general populace consumes media that conflates the meaning into one negative connotation.

All outsourcing carries the benefit, or the potential benefit, of cost savings for a business. How a business accomplishes outsourcing is the key to failure or success, politics aside. There are several factors to consider when pursuing outsourcing.

IT Outsourcing Benefits

The biggest benefit to a business when outsourcing to other service providers is, of course, the cost savings. It will often be cheaper to hire someone outside the company for certain jobs. With an internal IT department, the network and systems may work normally without maintenance, but the IT department still gets paid (as well as sick days, benefits, etc) for doing little to nothing. Outsourcing to an outside IT contractor means IT personnel will only be paid when they’re needed. When contracting with managed IT service providers, however, service agreements are usually longterm and more proactive than simple maintenance.

Competition between outsourcing companies pushes them to a higher quality. The service provider is forced to train its employees above and beyond the competition and must provide the highest quality service possible to maintain its reputation. Because of said competition over the last decade, high quality IT providers developed into managed IT services with hosted solutions. Managed IT service providers hold their standards to ITGC (IT General Controls) and use an SLA (Service Level Agreement).

Along with quality, a business can get specialized services that might not have been otherwise available internally. While a business could potentially hire such skill for a limited amount of time under a contract, good IT services offer a more comprehensive skillset that can be used permanently, just like internal IT departments. A competitive IT company also has the resources for application development, software deployment, and tech support.

There is also more liability for an outsourcing company in signing a contract than for a business. The service provider has a reputation to uphold if it wants to stay competitive, therefore creating a safer avenue for a potential client to outsource IT.

IT Outsourcing Disadvantages

One drawback to outsourcing IT is the time factor. If there is an emergency with your network or machines then the outsource company takes time to get there. Different elements you might consider: drive time, priority on the client list, or the contractor’s schedule. If you have in-house IT then it is dealt with immediately. Note that high response times aren’t always a factor, especially in managed IT services, because much of the hardware is offsite and/or closer to the IT service personnel. Additionally, certain companies like TTR go above and beyond their SLA to provide clients with permanent onsite technical support staff.

Businesses may be concerned that outsourced IT staff won’t understand the network or system in place—and with some IT contractors, this may be true. In-house IT staff will (or should) be intimately aware of their infrastructure. Good outsourced IT will a) learn the system and b) take care of the sensitive information involved. Managed IT services often host the infrastructure or can provide onsite staff as stated above, and thus will be equally aware of how a company’s networks and data function. However, onsite support staff will develop a deeper understanding of business objectives as they relate to IT strategy compared to a remote technician.

Finally, an outsourced IT company can only handle so much. A small-to-medium business is likely to benefit more than a large enterprise with hundreds or thousands of employees. Enterprise corporations at that scale need a large IT department to support its size and sustain a complex onsite infrastructure.

Depending on your needs and the size of your company, outsourcing IT can be a good choice. You will likely save money, and if you don’t, a good managed IT solution with an SLA will outweigh the costs.

The post IT Outsourcing Basics: Pros and Cons appeared first on TTRcorp.

1,750,000 hits per minute—or about 29,166.67 hits per second—is a substantial record. That’s more than half the amount of search queries Google receives every minute. (See the infographic from two months ago about just how much data is created every minute.)

This wasn’t some DDoS attack, either. We recently added more high-traffic domains to our servers, and because we built our infrastructure to expand, we’re able to support the influx of traffic at the data centers. Hosting “Big Data” isn’t all about the size, though. What really matters is the ability to consistently serve requests at high volumes. That means speed, and serving client websites at the same rate as non-peak hours. Are you ready?

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“Regulation” is a hot topic these days in the sweltering atmosphere before the presidential election. But for business, it doesn’t have to be a bad word.

The Sarbanes–Oxley legislation was passed in 2002, which President Bush called “the most far-reaching reforms of American business practices since the time of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”  Since then, many publicly traded companies have struggled to comply with the requirements for stricter reporting standards, transparency and accountability.

The staff at TTR have been working through Information Technology General Controls (ITGC) for a decade now. During that time we have held a claim that compliance is a good thing for process improvement. The outcome of any compliance effort should be a net gain in efficiency.

Protiviti’s (2012) corporate survey found:

the most notable benefits of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance are viewed to be enhanced understanding of controls design and operating effectiveness, internal audit’s ability to perform more traditional audits, and increased effectiveness and efficiency of operations.
(p. 26)

Now, you are probably thinking that any gain is offset by the investment of resources into the change process, training, implementations, and additional work. How could all of these changes actually make anything more cost effective or more efficient?

When I first approached regulatory compliance I felt the same way. But what I found was that the effort to streamline processes organically delivered efficiency gains at completion. I also found that greater transparency to IT processes made the entire organization participate in the redesign of the processes into efficient systems. An added bonus to the compliance effort: the end users are more receptive to change during the compliance effort because they are willing participants in the organization effort to meet the compliance goals.

So next time the thought of regulatory compliance in your IT department sends chills down your spine. Remember, regulatory compliance can have some tangible improvements to IT operational efficiencies. Say it like it’s a GOOD thing!

Protiviti (2012). 2012 Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Survey. Retrieved from http://www.protiviti.com/soxsurvey

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When I hear about yet another startup selecting yet another “latest and greatest” technology, I am immediately reminded of something each of us heard our mothers say: “Just because your friends are doing it… doesn’t make it right”. We can all use some motherly advice from time to time and this can certainly apply to the NoSQL buzz currently impacting technology selection at startups around the world.

Don’t take this to mean that I don’t think anyone should ever use NoSQL. To the contrary, use whatever technology makes the most sense for your application. But, before you make that decision, keep in mind the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), the availability of support resources and the applicability of the technology for your application needs.

Let’s take that last item first. The applicability of the technology for your application needs is a major factor in your technology selection. NoSQL is a great selection if your application truly has unstructured data requirements. Does it? Be advised that this does not mean you have no idea what your data structure should be. It also does not mean that your data is so large that a structure seems impossible. It simply means that your data is expected to have no structure. Here is an example of unstructured data: If you have an application that stores a user’s favorite thing, you might find the results to be a dog, a memory, an event, a long trip, or a color. The attributes are all very different, all the time. By contrast, if you want to store the user’s favorite place, it has a fairly consistent set of responses with the attributes all relating to a place.

Once you think that most of your data will be unstructured, you should next consider the available support resources for your technology selection. How quickly can you find a MongoDB expert once your application is successful and your current MongoDB expert is recruited to work at her next great gig? It might be better for your new business to find a way to structure the data and recruit MySQL experts, Oracle experts or Microsoft SQL experts. The extra work up front to determine the database schema may be easily offset by the reduction in recruiting work load required to support MongoDB or a NoSQL solution like Hadoop.

The true TCO of any technology selection is the sum of the cost of each stage of the Systems Development Life Cycle. From Design through development and maintenance, costs are incurred to implement the system. While the new technologies each claim to be more scalable, more resilient and “just plain cool!” the true cost is often overlooked. When the new technology crashes, hangs, fails or otherwise produces unexpected results, who can you turn to? How long will your revenue-generating application be unavailable if the technology fails? In stark contrast, MySQL, Oracle, Microsoft SQL and other relational databases have a large population of technology experts available to remedy any trouble that arises.

So the next time you feel like you are missing the latest buzz worthy data technology, remember your mother’s advice. That advice has likely saved you from some trouble in the past and might just save you from another troubling and late-night debacle in your present day adventures.

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