Category: legacy application modernization

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Centralize and Secure Business Applications and Data

laptop drawingThe portable computer is an essential business tool for day’s mobile workforce, having the power and portability to meet the demands of executives and professionals working away from the office.  While executives and mobile professionals get the applications and data they need to keep productivity high, carrying business data on devices outside the network introduces significant business risk.

There are studies which estimate that as much as 80% of the data a small business owns (data like customer files, contracts, product information and financial data) is copied to or stored on portable computers.  When valuable business data is lost or stolen, the business can be exposed to a variety of problems – loss of revenue being just one. Losing track of business data can create legal issues, too. Customer privacy may be compromised, sensitive information could be exposed, or confidential plans might be made public if a business doesn’t take the right steps to secure its data.

It isn’t just the possibility of loss or theft which increases risk when data is copied to portable computers – the increased vulnerability of the information sits with the likelihood that the user will access unsecured networks, launch non-corporate applications, access private email accounts and perform other non-business related tasks with the computer because they have more access than with a fully secured corporate in-office desktop.  User behavior is often what puts corporate data and assets at risk, regardless of the policies that might define correct and acceptable procedures. It is very easy for workers to unknowingly lose and leak data, and when the data is present on the portable computer it gets even easier.

A 2014 study commissioned by Cisco Systems found that employees around the world continue to engage in “risky” behaviors that put business and personal information at risk:

  • The majority (70%) of surveyed IT pros believe that as many as half of their data loss incidents are due to authorized program installations
  • 44% of employees share work devices with others without supervision
  • 39% of IT professionals have dealt with employees trying to access unauthorized parts of the company’s network
  • Almost half of the employees admitted to copying data between work and personal computers when working from home
  • 18% (up to 25% in some regions) of employees shared passwords with their co-workers

Companies must not only protect their data for their financial well-being, but must recognize their legal obligation to protect much of the information, as well.  The risk extends beyond the walls of the enterprise, to vendors and customers and consumers whose information may be stored in the company data. Additionally, portable computers exposed to malware and virus attacks are likely to pass the bad code to other systems they come in contact with, introducing not just risk for the recipient but liability for the infected laptop owner.

Where mobile computing brings huge advantages to today’s business, owners would do well to consider the benefits of enabling mobility through the use of server-based and hosted computing models. Rather than installing software and copying data to PCs and mobile devices, workers should be able to access a central system where the applications actually run. IT management is more efficient and security is easier to enforce when applications and resources are contained exclusively within the corporate boundary, even if they are accessible from without.

Virtual desktop and remote application solutions offer features that address a variety of potential risk factors as well as enabling improved management and security of IT assets.  Centralizing and securing applications and data resources at the server allows businesses to deliver the mobility and functionality users need while enabling the information security and management the business demands. This is a foundation upon which remote desktop and remote application technologies were built, allowing users to have the real-time access to applications and data with full functionality and desktop modality, but without the requirement to install, manage and secure applications and data on the individual devices.

Make Sense?

J

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Licensing for Hosted Application Services: Why it costs what it costs

Licensing for Hosted Application Services:

Why it costs what it costs

Application hosting services are experiencing resurgence in popularity these days, due to the prevalence of messaging about the benefits of a “cloud” technology model.  While hosted application services aren’t really cloud (according to cloud technology purists, anyway), they can look and feel and be paid for just like cloud solutions, so the name fits OK.  Hosted applications are desktop or network applications you access via the web, where the software is implemented and managed by a 3rd party application service provider (the host) rather than being installed on your local PC or LAN.  Some software products may be rental-licensed by the ASP, and when combined with the hosting service, the entire subscription service is more like SaaS (software-as-a-service) than the old “purchase and install” approach.

An important supporting program for application hosting service providers is the Microsoft Service Provider License Agreement program. Under a formal agreement with Microsoft or via an SPLA reseller, service providers and independent software vendors are able to license the latest Microsoft software to provide software services and hosted applications to customers. With the SPLA, service providers and ISVs can lawfully license Microsoft products on a monthly basis to host software services and provide application access for their customers. The SPLA supports a variety of hosting scenarios to help providers deliver highly-customized and robust solutions to a wide range of subscribing customers, and it’s the only valid means for obtaining subscription-based provider licensing for these products.

Because the software products being hosted are essentially desktop or LAN-based products, the underlying technology to “deliver” those applications is generally of a similar foundation.  In cases where the provider is offering hosting of Windows-based QuickBooks desktop editions or Microsoft Office applications, for example, the platforms and servers used by the service provider are almost certainly Windows-based.  This operating system, as well as the rights to allow remote user connections to it, is licensed to the provider from Microsoft under the SPLA.  These elements are referred to as “user” licensing elements.

An aspect of Microsoft reporting and licensing which is not well recognized (or frequently complied with) is the difference between user and application licensing.

User licensing, which includes the Windows server access license as well as the remote desktop user license, is a named user access license. This means that the provider need only report and settle for the user license if the user actually accesses the system during the reporting period (usually each month).  Not quite like a concurrent user model, where only the high count of users is reported, the named user model requires that the license for each user be paid if that user logged in at any time and remained logged in for any length of time during the reporting period.

Application licensing applies to the application software license acquired through and governed by the use-rights provided for and granted under the Microsoft SPLA. Rental application licensing is assigned to a specific, named user, and is to be reported fully on a monthly basis regardless of whether or not the user accessed the software. This is in direct contrast to the named user access licensing described above. Providers are required to report and settle on a monthly basis the total number of subscribed application licenses available to users, including Microsoft Office applications, Exchange, SQL and others, regardless of whether or not the user actually logged in and used the products.  The license is assigned to the user and is therefore required to be paid.

Being an application hosting service provider is a complicated business, and there is a lot to consider when developing subscription services for broad customer delivery.  Pricing is one of the complaints customers voice relating to these services, but the reality is that it takes quite a bit in terms of system resources and licensing to provide an acceptable hosted application experience.  This is one of the areas where SaaS and true cloud solutions benefit from a scale economy – where the application is designed for the platform, and one instance of the solution and platform can serve a large number of customers more affordably.

When working with a hosting service provider, it is wise to recognize that the platform and software licensing costs are there to support the type of applications being hosted.  If you have an SQL-based application, you will need the SQL licensing to support it, just like you have to pay for licensing of an Exchange mailbox or a hosted copy of Word.  Enabling only a portion of the total business software requirement may make it difficult to cost justify hosting just one solution.  However, if the business utilizes the host to manage all the desktop applications and data, the cost-efficiency of the approach can increase dramatically.  Regardless of whether the business elects to continue to run software on local PCs, or if it decides to outsource IT to a host and run it there, the company will have to pay the price for software licensing.

Make sense?

J

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Remote applications, virtual desktops and hosted QuickBooks

Cloud computing and SaaS applications are all the rage, and businesses are finding tremendous benefits with the mobility and managed service these models provide.  On the other hand, there also continues to be huge reliance on the desktop computer and the software running on it. From basic productivity tools to more advanced business solutions, desktop-based software and locally installed applications remain in favor for the vast majority of businesses around the country.  Adoption of web-based solutions is certainly increasing, but the need for tried-and-true business applications that were traditionally installed and managed directly on the PC or local network doesn’t seem to be going away. At least part of the reason for this is the functionality and performance these applications deliver.  Another factor is that hosting and remote access solutions have matured to the point where hosting applications is just as “mainstream” (and often more useful to the business) as using a SaaS solution. Managed application hosting models have made solutions like Microsoft Office and QuickBooks desktop editions available anytime, anywhere and using just about any device. I call hosting the best “tweener” solution available, because users can have the functionality they need and still get fully managed, on-demand service.

Back when a few businesses started operating as Application Service Providers (ASPs), there were a limited number of realistic approaches available for building the platform to deliver desktop applications.  Many application hosting offerings grew somewhat like a fungus from the internal Citrix Metaframe and terminal service set ups performed by IT service companies.   A lot of these companies didn’t start out to provide application hosting services; they simply found it to be more efficient and profitable than trying to manage all that hardware and software at the client site.

Over the years, a variety of solutions have been introduced to ease the burdens of implementation and management of desktop applications on centralized platforms, but most of them were designed more for enterprise deployment rather than as the basis for a generalized service offering.  Microsoft’s Remote App and Remote Desktop services, Microsoft and Citrix and Dell (Quest) app virtualization/management/publishing, even streaming and “containerized” applications… there are quite a few options out there and, in some circumstances, they can work pretty well.   What has kept them from working out REALLY well, however, is the cost and complexity of deploying these solutions.  From printing problems to user device support to simply allowing a user to gracefully reset their connection when it gets stuck…  application and desktop delivery platforms can be very difficult to set up and manage.

My team works with a number of solutions which address these aspects of application and desktop delivery, bringing the functionality to a level where small businesses and their IT service providers can easily set up secure remote access and hosting environments that actually work.  This includes addressing the printing facilities, user management, app and desktop publishing, workspaces administration, and connection management that makes a remote desktop or app deployment useful. For IT folks, the fact that no special firewall configurations are required and that a static IP address is not needed means that our solution for on-prem can work where many VPNs and web portals can’t.

Remote Desktop services (Terminal services) is the most widely recognized approach for creating “virtual” desktop or hosted application services.  It solves many of the problems involved in centralizing the management and administration of computing resources and applications for broad bases of users, and it’s pretty much the only game in town when it comes to putting traditional desktop applications online (or putting the desktop online).  This approach, which is essentially packing all of the computing requirement into a centralized infrastructure, is the most effective method of addressing the total business requirement (e.g., hosting all the business applications with associated data, administering user security and access, and managing the entire system) at any significant scale.  Each of these methods of providing managed applications require that the entire realm of solutions – the main applications, all integrations, drivers for devices to be supported, and all associated data – exist on the service provider servers and under the service provider’s control.

Our services deliver a simple and straightforward set up so you begin using the platform right away; seamless and affordable.

Joanie Mann Bunny FeetMake Sense?

J

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QuickBooks Point of Sale and Hosting

QuickBooks Point of Sale in a Hosted Environment

Retail operators and multi-location store owners often face difficulties in attempting to bring cohesion to their accounting, financial, and operational data.  In so many situations, the retail location –  where inventory is sold and money is exchanged – is far-removed from the administrative location where the financial systems and business reporting exist.  It seems that the best case scenario is to create a means for the remote (retail) locations to operate with real-time access to centralized customer, inventory, and financial data from a primary source. Application hosting services can provide this centralization,  and a platform for standardization, of systems.  Further, the application hosting model can deliver security and managed service which ensures that the systems are available and performing as required.

Even though hosted applications and centralization of the systems and processes in a POS environment may appear to be the right answer, there are caveats and considerations that speak to the realities of today’s technologies.  These caveats should be strongly considered prior to undertaking any reformation of systems and processes relating to the retail locations.

The first fundamental reality which must be addressed is connectivity.

While a retail or store location may enjoy Internet or network connectivity, there should be great consideration given to the wisdom of connecting these locations only and exclusively via remote access systems.

Retail is a dynamic business, and the sale is made when the customer is ready and willing to buy.  Any retail location must be able to process this sale in order to meet the immediacy of customer demand.

 

If the systems in use are exclusively accessed remotely, then the connectivity to those systems become of paramount importance in the ability to do business.  At the very minimum, any remotely-served retail location should have redundant connectivity options, with local personnel being familiar with the connection failover process.

A second strong consideration for a hosted or remotely-deployed POS or retail system is local device support.

Devices, such as card readers, scanners, cash drawers, receipt printers, etc. typically require local PC/computer drivers in order to function.  When served by a remote system, this connection between the host and the local devices may not function.  Limited device support for POS hardware can significantly impact the location’s accuracy and efficiency.

QuickBooks POS was designed for use on a single-user PC environment.  The application is not well-suited to a hosted deployment for multiple users, as the software only allows one instance of itself to run on each computer.  This alone eliminates the benefits of a server-based computing model for POS, whether onsite or hosted. The multi-lane option requires all stores to be connected via the same LAN, so remotely connecting multiple locations isn’t really do-able, either.  This is why there is a multi-store option, allowing the various stores to operate independently and send the daily data back to a master location via a store transfer or email process.

In many cases, the suitable answer is to keep the POS systems running on the local computers and network, and run the accounting applications on the host. The host system, whether it be an on-premises server or a location in the cloud, could also run the software which integrates the POS data with accounting.

integratedFor example, with an installation of QuickBooks accounting the point-of-sale “master location” on the host, the core financial data is able to be secured and protected in the virtual environment without risking lost productivity (and lost sales!) due to connectivity failures at the retail locations.  The end-of-day process at each location is to then copy the POS data to the host system where it is integrated with the accounting system. If the POS system is something other than QuickBooks POS, it simply means that there is another piece of software – the specific POS integration tool – required to transfer the POS data into the accounting software.  QuickBooks desktop accounting integrations are available for most popular POS systems including Micros, POSiTouch, Aloha and others. The integration software (often just a QuickBooks plug-in) would be installed on the computer running QuickBooks, enabling the entry of the POS data into the QuickBooks accounting system.

It makes a ton of sense to centrally manage the accounting and financial data for the business, in a secure location away from the retail storefront and frontline workers.  It’s just that the accounting is easier to host and makes more sense to run as a centrally-managed, hosted solution.  POS, on the other hand?  Not so much.

For a small market vendor or the largest of retail stores, point of sale needs to be up and running at all times, driving receipt printers and cash registers/drawers and barcode scanners. Run the POS system on-premises where the action happens, but keep accounting and finance safe and secure somewhere else.

jmbunnyfeetMake Sense?

J

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What we’ve learned about desktop and application hosting for small businesses

Application hosting is pretty popular these days, and a lot of that popularity can be attributed to the proliferation of web-based and SaaS solutions that have clearly revealed the benefits of mobility and managed service.  Not everyone wants to or can use a web-based application, however, causing demand for hosting of desktop applications to grow.  Take a look at what’s going on with Intuit QuickBooks, for example.  With all the push to QuickBooks Online, Intuit has created a surge in the demand for hosted QuickBooks desktop editions.  Folks want their QuickBooks available for remote access and to support multiple users from different locations… but they also want to continue to use the feature-rich QuickBooks desktop products their businesses rely on.  Hosting lets them have their cake and eat it, too.  It’s the best of both worlds.

Back in 2000, there were a few in the tech industry that said the desktop would be dead soon.  Business users wouldn’t be sitting down to work at computers, they would be using various devices to access their applications and data, from anywhere.  Those early visionaries recognized that mobility was the coming thing, and that even the smallest of businesses would need what was at the time enterprise-class technology. I wasn’t so sure about the potential death of the desktop and the beloved applications businesses love to use, but I was pretty certain that “working online” with centrally-managed systems was the thing to work toward.

A lot of hosting companies started up at that time, and a lot of them went out of business just a few years later – some in virtual flames.  Customers lost time, productivity, and in some cases their data.  Investors lost their investments.  It wasn’t that the service providers weren’t doing a good job, or that the technology wasn’t quite up to the task – the problem was the hype and the money.  Too many people sat on the sales-side of the technology, making promises they couldn’t deliver and coming up short in meeting investor and customer demands.

Quite a number of years have gone by, and the market is still rife with promises unkept and solutions undelivered.  But some of us in the industry have learned a lot over the years, so I’d like to share some of that learning.

Application hosting services gained popularity because they solved some major problems for businesses and their collaborators (including accountants, bookkeepers, remote workers, etc.).

Hosted application services allow everyone to work on the same software and data, regardless of where the user is located. Hosted application services provide centralized access for businesses with multiple locations or mobile workers.  And hosted application services make it easier for contracted or engaged professionals like accountants and bookkeepers to work closer with their clients.

In the beginning, when we were just launching these hosting services, the equipment, facilities and expansive engineering labor requirements were really expensive so there was tremendous pressure to find ways to keep costs down.  For customers, the plan was to pack as many users into the environment as possible, with volume representing a way to get a lower per-user cost.  This concept paved the way for the accountant cloud server model, where it was suggested that an accounting firm could bring all their clients onto the cloud server to help keep the costs down.  For a while that model worked pretty well, but then some issues started to be revealed.

With small business application hosting, particularly when dealing with QuickBooks, it should be recognized that nobody uses just QuickBooks.

There’s almost always a plug-in or add-on or some other solution that is also required with QuickBooks. Taking payments in QuickBooks requires a 3rd party plugin if you aren’t going to use Intuit payment solutions.  Downloading payroll data from another service may also require a plugin, as does the tax add-on and the order sync tool and the solution that integrates orders from the website or via EDI from vendors or suppliers.  It is almost never just QuickBooks.  When a provider tries to pack all that customization into a single server and serve a whole lot of different business, each with their own needs – things go a bit sideways.  Servers hang, customer applications interfere with one another, and data gets compromised.

The next phase then was either VDI or dedicated service.  VDI was and continues to be too expensive and complex when you have to factor in database engines, shared storage and such.  Dedicated service (server) is a bit more straightforward and still has some economy of scale.  With this model, each customer gets what they need.  They’re still in a cloud-hosted environment so collaboration isn’t a problem, and every customer has the benefit of working with exactly the software solutions they need for their particular business.  The challenge is serving just a few users.  Even though cloud servers can be relatively affordable to get these days, it may still be too costly for one- or two-user situations. (Note that these are the folks that often find themselves compelled to try the online, web version of an application simply due to cost.)

The customized cloud delivery is the right concept, but many service providers still have problems supporting multiple applications for customers and often charge quite a bit extra while delivering a marginal level of service.  You may find a provider who will try to deliver any application for you (and many will do that poorly) or you may find a popular provider that can only offer a particular set of applications for hosting.  If the provider isn’t able to deliver the applications the business needs, or if they are unable to deliver custom or personalized service, then they are likely not the right provider for the business.

The emergence of public cloud services like AWS should make it easier for small businesses to get affordable computing power and customized cloud service from any IT provider, but it hasn’t yet. 

The public cloud is still far too complicated for most small businesses to navigate or even get started with.  Truthfully, it is difficult for many IT resellers and partners to navigate, too.  Getting started is potentially costly in terms of time and resources especially for service providers, so those costs and complications end up reaching through to the customer.  The public cloud just isn’t ready for the average small business to take advantage of directly, so on-premises servers or managed cloud server hosting are still the most viable options.

A big wrinkle in the whole hosted online application model is that many businesses don’t really need or want to completely outsource their IT to a cloud provider.

Considerations relating to privacy and proximity are paramount for many business owners, not to mention the trust factor.  Lawyers, accounts, manufacturers… business owners in any industry may be uncomfortable considering moving their systems and information out of their immediate control.  There could be regulatory concerns or logistical challenges, or it could be something as simple as realizing that there remain applications or data on computers on-premises that make an outsourced hosting approach more complicated and costly while delivering only a partial solution.  Whatever the reasons, there remains a lot of in-house IT and that’s OK.

There is no doubt that business owners and their team members need and want mobility and secure remote access.  They also want to work with the IT providers they trust and maybe they even want to continue working from servers they have already contracted for or purchased. Others may wish to leverage cloud platforms, but remain closely associated with their IT providers.

Forcing a business owner to migrate their systems to a hosting platform when all they really want is remote access or multi-user service seems a bit like overkill.

Granted, there are many benefits to be derived from outsourcing IT management and administration, like improved focus on the business, and various business processes and workflows could be more streamlined with a centrally-managed and fully accessible solution.  Yet those benefits are the intangibles that businesses must discover after-the-fact, and are achieved only if the business works specifically towards those goals.  In short, it isn’t necessarily what business owners are buying.

If we have learned nothing else over the years it is that things don’t move as quickly as we’d like them to.

The world never seems to end before your homework is due.

Software-as-a-Service hasn’t completely killed off desktop software, and smartphones and tablets haven’t ended the useful life of the desktop computer.   What they have done is fully expose the desire and need for mobility and access, and have opened the doors for tools to address those needs better than the other approaches previously available.

jmbunnyfeetMake Sense?

J

 

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The Cloud and the Business Desktop

Cloud computing is here – no longer is it considered to be temporary or just a fad.  Even though there are many businesses in the country without access to high quality high-speed Internet connectivity, the levels of investment and revenue surrounding cloud and mobile computing solutions and technologies has proven that mobility and managed service matter to those who are connected. What’s interesting is that the popularity of the cloud and the emergence of cloud-based applications and services haven’t really put much of a dent in the need for the desktop, which remains as the business workhorse and – connected or not – represents the foundation for business productivity and getting work done.

Some years ago, business applications began to emerge in SaaS (software-as-a-service) format, meaning a customer could simply subscribe to an application on the web rather than purchasing and installing software.  This option clearly resounded with many business customers and ushered in an era of online application services oriented specifically toward mobile users. Yet the desktop remains as the place where online solutions meet productivity (export any online data to an Excel spreadsheet recently?) and where accounting and finance connect with the rest of the operation.

Believing too much of the marketing-speak around cloud computing, many business users believe that they can only remotely access business software solutions if they are “cloud” and subscription model applications, and that the desktop products they know and have invested in cannot be available to them in a fully managed online model.  In fact, a large number of the business owners I speak with that actually use hosted desktop services somehow believe that the software they are using is something special and different from that which would be installed to their PCs. The fact is that the software is not different, regardless of what they may think. More often than not, the hosted applications are EXACTLY what the customer had previously installed (or would have installed) to their own computers had they not been working with a hosting provider.  Whether they are hosted or not… the desktop products generally function with all the features and capability designed into them because they are hosted on platforms they were designed to run on (like Microsoft Windows, for example).

Customers of the QuickBooks hosting companies often refer to their systems as “QuickBooks cloud, but not the online one”, not really understanding that it is simply the full desktop application that is being hosted for them.

Regardless of how many online application services emerge, and even if (IF) web-based versions of our favorite word processing and spreadsheet software become as useful as the installed kind, there will still be a need for the desktop if for no other reason than to make it easier to use and work with a variety of solutions at the same time.  Perhaps this is why remote desktop computing and hosted application services are becoming increasingly popular approaches to cloud and managed computing services.  The user benefits from having the feature-rich applications they need and a single place to access them and make them work together (the desktop value proposition), yet is able to have remote and mobile access, comprehensive system management and maintenance, data protection, helpdesk support and affordable monthly payments (the cloud value proposition).  In many ways, application hosting models represent the best of both worlds for the business.

JJoanie Mann Bunny Feet

Make Sense?

Consider how beneficial it would be to businesses who want the advantage of remote desktop and mobile access to applications to be able to run their QuickBooks (feature-rich desktop QuickBooks) and/or other business applications in an anytime, anywhere sort of environment. Businesses can obtain hosting services for QuickBooks Pro, Premier, and Enterprise – allowing organizations to have their QuickBooks financial applications managed, protected, secured, and made available to users all the time and from any location. Some hosting services may also support integrations and extensions for QuickBooks – for both desktop and Web-based applications and services. When the host can provide authorized subscription licensing for Microsoft Office, a business can have a complete, outsourced IT solution and pay only monthly service fees to get it. No installation or system management to worry about: the QuickBooks financials, the productivity, the operational systems and plugged-in applications can all be hosted in the cloud.