Tag: virtual desktop

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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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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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Mobilizing QuickBooks Desktops

 Hosted QuickBooks for Remote and Mobile Access

There was a time not too long ago when the “thought leaders” in information technology said that the desktop is dead, and all software will be accessed via the web. (Note: I put “thought leaders” in quotes because industry thought leaders are often those with the greatest media influence.  After all, you can’t lead them if you can’t reach them, right?). The whole no software thing is a dramatic oversimplification of what is happening with computer software, but one thing is kind of coming true: nobody wants to be tied to their desktop.  It’s not that the desktop is dead… it’s just not all there is. For users of the desktop editions of Intuit QuickBooks software, the question really isn’t whether they intend to give up their familiar and trusted software to use a different, online solution. The question is how to use the QuickBooks desktop software they want in the cloud so they can use it on desktops that aren’t the primary desktop computer, or on mobile devices.

Computing technology has finally reached a level of accessibility that was previously only imagined in science fiction stories.  Communicating instantaneously with anyone anywhere around the world; accessing extensive (limitless?) libraries of information, art and music with a simple handheld device – these are the things that people do every day without a second thought.  Business users may even be able to access their business documents, email, contacts and appointments etc. from mobile devices, enabling a productive and functional mobile workforce.
desktop-appsYet the desktop remains as the primary workhorse for most business users. This is where the productivity applications live, where large spreadsheets and full-screen applications are run, and where keyboarders and production data entry users operate.  Tablets, touchscreens and mobile devices just don’t provide the same capabilities unless you tether them to full size monitors and keyboards.  Even then they may not because they might not run the same OS as the desktop.  The point is that the desktop hasn’t gone away and isn’t likely to any time soon.  Users may use more mobile apps and devices, but this isn’t diminishing use on the desktop as much as it augmenting it.  This is what fuels the interest in application hosting and virtual desktop computing models – the desire to mobilize desktop and network applications and working environments.

Hosting applications and data gives businesses the flexibility of working in desktop applications and accessing data just as if they were in the office, yet users may be located anywhere there is Internet connectivity. When the applications and the associated data are managed in the datacenter, businesses are able to centralize their information assets and manage them more effectively than if the data were distributed among multiple computers.  While most sync and share solutions require files to be downloaded to local computers in order to open and edit, a hosted application service with virtual desktops and file sharing provides a security model which keeps business data secure yet available for user access without compromising security by downloading information to the user device.

A hosted solution approach can make license utilization more efficient and compliance easier to maintain, too.  By enabling access to applications on a centralized platform and eliminating the installation and maintenance of software on individual computers, businesses reduce the reliance on local IT personnel to install and update applications and user accounts, and improve their ability to control application assignments and usage.

Hosting helps businesses take advantage of technology that would otherwise be unaffordable, and delivers the mobility and centralized management required to boost productivity and contain costs.  There is a high cost to managing a business network, and creating secure mobile access to that network can represent an exponential increase in IT spending (just to initially set up, not to mention ongoing costs for security management, monitoring and support). Rather than taking on the entire burden of service management and delivery directly, businesses electing to work with hosting providers find that they are able to focus more on business operation, strategy and growth – and spend less time worrying about the IT supporting them.  Costs are reduced, workers are empowered, and capabilities are increased while knowledge and process investments are preserved.  When it comes to mobilizing business applications like QuickBooks desktop editions, it all starts with a hosted approach.

Joanie Mann Bunny FeetMake Sense?

J

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Avoid the Aftertaste| QuickBooks Desktop Hosting Comes in Many Flavors

Avoid the Aftertaste| QuickBooks Desktop Hosting Comes in Many Flavors

There is a lot of activity and interest around the hosting of desktop applications in the cloud, and it is no wonder that a great deal of the effort centers on the use of Intuit QuickBooks desktop editions.  QuickBooks is among the most popular software products used by small businesses, so it makes sense that service providers and hosting companies are taking advantage of that market share to reach prospective hosting customers.  After all, a hosting platform may be kind of neat, but it is not all that valuable unless there are applications and data living on it.

For the average small business, the applications of choice include Microsoft Office and QuickBooks.  Yes, there is an online edition of the QuickBooks product (called QuickBooks Online, of course).  However, the market share Intuit earned for QuickBooks wasn’t accomplished with an online application, it was done with the desktop applications which still own market share today.  Hosting service providers recognize this truth, and are taking steps to bring those QuickBooks desktop solutions into the cloud.  Now we have the ability to get QuickBooks Desktop editions online – which is not the name of a service but a description of what it offers – available from a variety of authorized hosting providers (and from many unauthorized ones).

I’ve said before that there is a fine art to hosting QuickBooks desktop for lots of users.  There are a great many different considerations and possible use cases, and not all providers will be able to meet every requirement.  There are also lots of different technology models and methodologies which may be applied to the hosting model, and each has some benefit or barrier depending on the specific need of the client.  Hosting companies may throw around terms like “cloud server” or “published application” or “remote desktop”, but at the end of the day, the systems are still Windows computers running QuickBooks software.  How those systems are wrapped up, how you connect to them, and how you operate with them often becomes the real difference in the service experience.

The specific technology a hosting provider applies to the service does not necessarily describe exactly how the service works.  Just because a provider may use Citrix doesn’t mean they have more capability to provide quality service than a provider using other technologies, or a host using VMWare is not necessarily creating better cloud servers than a host using Hyper-V or Parallels or some other virtualization strategy.  The technology may impact how the infrastructure is operated and can impress upon the customer experience, but the real differences in delivery often come down to the provider’s understanding of the software product, the customer need, and their ability to meet the need directly.

Does the experience of connecting to and using the service work for the users, and are people able to get their jobs done quickly using the service without a lot of support or frustration?  (**Please note that hosting services aren’t a solution for bad software and poor working processes.  If the software or processes aren’t workable now, they’re likely not going to become magically more workable if hosted).  Does the hosting service address issues like making the right data available to only the users who need it, and giving access to applications only when a user is permitted to use them?  What about “external” users like contractors or client businesses… does the host offer a way for them to also participate in the solution?

It’s important to consider all of the aspects of how the service will be used, and by whom and under what circumstances, to ensure that the delivery offered is the solution needed. The point of all this is to encourage users to concern themselves a little less with exactly what technology the host is using to deliver QuickBooks applications, and to evaluate the actual solution.  It won’t typically matter to an end-user what specific technology is being used to provide them with service as long as the service works well for them.

While some people do adopt a fondness for a particular “flavor” of technology or approach, the reality is that a quality user experience coupled with a useful and reliable system means much more to the business.  And knowing that there are future options for growing, expanding or simply changing the service is essential.  It’s not so much the flavor of technology users should be concerned with when shopping for QuickBooks hosting services, it’s avoiding that icky aftertaste that comes with selecting a QuickBooks hosting approach that just doesn’t meet the business need.

Make sense?

J

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Where do we go from here? The SMB SaaS Migration

Where do we go from here?  The SMB SaaS Migration

Forests are a great renewable resource.  You may cut them down, but you can replant and grow new ones to cut down again later.  I suppose it’s sort of like that for software vendors who provide small business solutions.  While many small businesses fail and close every year, lots and lots of them start up and continue operating each year.  Since there’s a steady stream of new prospective customers coming up each year, maybe it is OK when some of them outgrow the product and leave (leaf?).

On the other hand, maybe it makes sense to understand where those customers who do grow up and flourish will go… to which products or solutions they will migrate, and how the company might actually retain a relationship with them through that process and beyond.  Some businesses will mature successfully, and will outgrow their small business solutions and leave their vendors, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way for all.  For some key software vendors, a fair question to ask themselves is where their customers will go from here… where “here” is the solution the customer is using now.

When this question is applied to the small business accounting market, it ends up centering on the QuickBooks product line.  Intuit is currently encouraging all QuickBooks customers to look at the QuickBooks Online solution, the fully SaaS-based offering which is different from the desktop editions.  The QuickBooks desktop editions, on the other hand, service small businesses very well.  The functionality improves and increases as users move up the product line from the Pro version through Premier and to Enterprise edition.  This line of solutions has done a great job of serving the needs of both small and larger businesses – all within the same product set.  But now Intuit wants users to experience the benefits of subscription-based service and an online working model.  Those are great benefits, but there’s a question that is left open for the asking.  Where are QuickBooks customers supposed to go from there, assuming that at least some of them might grow beyond the capability of the online product?  It’s a fair question, and here’s why I think so.

fall_from_cloudOnce a business has adopted a certain working model and the mentality that goes along with it, it is difficult to come in and tell them they have to change to a new model and find a way to adjust.  Change doesn’t come that easily for many individuals much less an entire organization, so this is a big deal and potentially very impactful to all aspects of the operation.  Yet this is exactly what is currently suggested with Intuit’s desire to have customers use the online edition.

It may be a great solution for now, but what’s the next step up from there?  Is it QuickBooks Enterprise on the desktop?  Kind of a weird message, don’t you think?  Let’s have customers adopt an anytime, anywhere subscription solution model, and then migrate them back to the desktop where the management and maintenance of the solution is higher due to number of users, and where there is no mobility, multi-location or remote access capability as there was with online.

The thought is that QuickBooks Online will eventually compete with the Netsuite and Intacct class of SaaS solutions, but right now it doesn’t and there are customers who must leave that product for something that handles their larger and deeper business needs (like the QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise solutions do).   There is a big gap between the entry level accounting products and those which are designed for the larger or midsize “small business”, and the QuickBooks desktop editions represent the only viable options in that very large space.  In fact, many businesses utilize line of business products that allow them to retain use of QuickBooks even as the enterprise scales far beyond the expectation that QuickBooks could handle the need.  But it often can, and it makes sense for businesses to leverage this ability if they are able.

The answer for these growing businesses  – the place they should go when they’ve outgrown the small business SaaS solution like QuickBooks Online (or Xero or Freshbooks or whatever) is to a hosted or remote-enabled QuickBooks model.  With the QuickBooks desktop editions hosted and managed by a cloud provider, businesses are able to retain the benefits of managed service, subscription pricing, and anytime/anywhere access while utilizing the products that are recognized as the industry standards for finance and accounting for growing businesses.

The hosted approach gives the businesses a clear path for the advancement of their systems in line with the growing needs of the business, and removes the need to shift working models from online to on-prem.  As needs increase and the complexity of systems grow through integration and scale, the service provider manages the platform and systems, enabling the business to not simply continue operating, but to grow and expand with the confidence that there is a plan to grow and expand the systems which support it.   The place to go is the cloud, and whether it is an entry-level SaaS solution or a hosted desktop and server approach, the service is there to handle the business.

jmbunnyfeetMake Sense?

J

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Small #NonProfits, Crummy Computers and the #Cloud

Small NonProfits, Crummy Computers and the Cloud

There are many benefits included in the “value proposition” for cloud computing models, but there are some hidden gems in terms of how these outsourced IT models can specifically and directly address one of the biggest problems facing many smaller nonprofit organizations: they have to use old, outdated, and often just pretty crummy equipment. But now it’s OK, because even crummy old PCs can work just fine when the applications are hosted in the cloud.

picture-pcSmall nonprofit organizations often rely exclusively on donations to keep the business running.  Donations don’t always come in the form of dollars; sometimes donations include used computer equipment.  For many nonprofits, using donated equipment is the only option they have due to various budgeting constraints, and nonprofits need computers just as badly as any other business. Not only do these underfunded businesses have to try to operate with what most users would consider to be sub-par equipment, they frequently operate their systems and networks without the aid of skilled or experienced technicians.  For a small nonprofit organization, keeping up with business is tough when the computers and software aren’t able to fully meet the need.

To complicate things even more, many people working in smaller nonprofit organizations are mobile workers – functioning either as part-time participants or users who simply need to work from a variety of possible locations.  And they almost always have to use their own mobile devices.  Supporting a remote or mobile workforce is particularly challenging when even the most basic of computing requirements are barely met, so addressing the variables of everyone having their own mobile devices and remote computers is frightful at best.

With the introduction of cloud computing, affordable broadband access, and value-priced application hosting services, small nonprofit organizations finally have a workable answer.  Working with an application hosting provider, the business can move applications and data to outsourced infrastructure, where the solution is effectively delivered back in the form of a subscription service.

Accessing applications and data on central servers, and using those applications from a “virtual” or hosted desktop, can allow these small businesses to use current versions of business applications without having to purchase the powerful desktop or portable computers necessary to run them.  The applications run from the host’s servers, reducing the local PC’s involvement to handling the display, keyboard and mouse inputs, and printer outputs.  Even older computers which would be incapable of running current versions of applications like Microsoft Office or QuickBooks are generally able to access and run those applications from the cloud.

Predicting costs of operations is essential for any business but is crucial for the nonprofit.  Budgeting around a limited financial resource, small nonprofits are hard hit when unplanned failures in computer systems occur.  In many cases, there simply isn’t room in the budget to recover from these events, and productivity and performance suffers because of it.

Approaching IT services from an outsourced perspective, these small businesses can build a significant level of predictability into their business technology costs – and get higher levels of fault tolerance and disaster recovery capability along with it.  The hosting service is responsible for maintaining the operating environment, securing the systems, backing up the data, and keeping things running.  The costs associated with server hardware failures, and even regular server and system maintenance, are covered in the subscription service.  This means that unexpected break/fix, update and maintenance costs are no longer of concern.

Every small business, not just the nonprofit, should explore the options available to them with cloud and application hosting services.  Performance within any organization depends on the systems and tools available to get work done.  Owning the problem of managing and maintaining the information technology platforms and systems makes little sense these days; better to outsource the problems to a professional service provider.  Not only can this type of service introduce predictable costs for business IT services, it makes working with crummy old donated equipment a workable situation.

Joanie Mann Bunny FeetMake Sense?

J