Category: Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing Category

Cloud Based Telecommunications

The Genie in the Phone Cloud: Top 5 Small Biz Features

Entrepreneurship is at an all-time high and innovative small businesses are sprouting and flourishing. Personal service, attention to detail, and feeling good about supporting local and sustainable companies are some of the most popular reasons people choose the little guy over big, aggressive brands.
Maybe you sell delectable gluten-free scones out of a food truck, or are a general housing contractor with a small team of employees. Being great at your trade is one thing, but there’s also the matter of managing communications and connecting smoothly with your customers. With a cloud-based phone system from RingCentral, small businesses are able to walk (and talk) in big business shoes. You can become the wizard behind the curtain, orchestrating spectacular feats with ingenuity and some smart technology.

The Auto-Receptionist is always in and on

Your Auto-Receptionist is the personal assistant that never calls in sick! You or your administrator set the parameters so you can be reached anytime and everyplace. Define the routing criteria, and you’re connected to customers, vendors, and your cycling group, with calls forwarded to multiple numbers and devices, text-to-speech translation of messages, and department-specific messaging. Want someone with a crisp English accent orating your menus for callers? Greetings are customizable, and you can even source professional talent for your recordings. Your three-person organization can perform with the finesse and functionality of a traditionally larger and more established operation.

Unlimited Toll-Free, Local, and Vanity Numbers

Your phone number says a lot about you. Literally it could spell out a memorable word or two. A standard toll-free number, including the classic 1-800 number, tells your customers you’re well established and ensures that your customers can reach you at no cost to themselves. Choose a few local numbers for areas you want to service and instantly become a hot, new, neighborhood business.

Yes, that’s my Department

Getting dumped into a general voicemail box or simply not being able to reach someone in a timely manner is alienating for callers and can send potential customers searching for a more responsive and better-prepared business. Instead, create virtual departments with a group of extensions as a fantastic way to add real structure to your business and make it easy for your contacts to connect with you. For example, create the ‘Sales’ department and when the designated reps aren’t available, the system puts callers on hold until someone can take the call. Hold times can be customized as well, so your callers never feel lost or unimportant.

Get ahead with Call Forwarding

So what happened to the caller on hold for sales? Realizing every second counts and all’s fair in love and brand loyalty, you set Call Forwarding to reach you or another contact after, say, a 30-second hold time. The call instantly goes to your business partner’s mobile phone. If they’re also not available, the call finds the next contact and, as a last resort, it routes to the extension at your poolside cabana in Orlando. You can set specific parameters for After Hours as well and avoid the cost (and antiquated style) of an outside answering service.

The thrill of the (easy) chase

You want your business to be pursued and easily caught. FindMe-FollowMe is the cyber stalker you’re glad to have on your side. You control connectivity by directing incoming calls to any and all your phones, whenever you want. You can even set it to call multiple phones simultaneously, in a specific order and even by date, time, the caller’s Caller ID, or the number dialed.

You had the vision and grit to launch your business, and the progressive thinking to ditch the room full of obsolete and costly phone system hardware. Your contacts will be amazed at how you always seem to magically appear when they need you. Building a successful business starts with the basic steps like establishing a phone system, and being easily reachable by customers whenever they need to reach you.

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Preparing Your IT Network For A Severe Storm

South Jersey Techies wanted to provide you with some suggested preparations to safely secure your workstations and networks from any storm damage.

Suggestions for Storm Preparations in Your Office:

Time to do backups of all data: Make back-ups of all data processing software, files, records, etc. and transport back-ups off-site, via disk, USB drive or in the cloud.
Document the layout: Get all of the network addresses, the router and firewall configurations.
Shut off all sensitive electrical equipment, such as computers.
Ideally all electronic devices should be unplugged or plugged into surge protectors.
Review inside storage arrangements and relocate all important materials and equipment to safe areas away from windows.
Update call lists and contact info: All key personnel need to register their updated cell numbers, home email addresses, and physical addresses.
Leave before you need to: Don’t get stuck in traffic, airports, train stations and in queues. Give yourself ample time.

If you need your data backed up or are unsure as to the last time a backup occurred, please contact our Support Team. We are here to help ensure that your data is safe and that you are able to be up and operating as soon as the storm passes. Our Support Team can be reached at (856) 745-9990 or by emailing us at support@sjtechies.com.

Suggestions for Storm Preparations in Your Home:

Monitor National Weather Service forecasts at http://weather.gov .
Bring outdoor objects, such as lawn furniture, garbage cans and other loose items, inside the house or tie them down securely.
Make backups of computer data (consider storing in the cloud or on a USB drive), keep computers or other sensitive electronic devises plugged into a surge protector or unplug entirely.
If you have a sump pump for your basement, make sure it’s working.
If the power goes off, unplug appliances like refrigerators and freezers and sensitive electronic equipment like TVs and computers so that they won’t overload when power is restored.
Keep family supplies on hand, such as:
- Water, one gallon per day, per person
- Food, non-perishable food (keep a manual can opener handy) and pet supplies, if needed
- Medications, contact lenses, glasses and first aid kit
- Batteries, flashlights and battery operated radios
Keep cell phones charged while possible, and if possible, have extra charged cell phone batteries.
Keep copies of any important documents either scanned or digitally saved on a USB drive, off-site or in a plastic bag.
Car filled up with gas; keep some water, food, first aid kits, contacts, blankets and pet supplies in the car as well.

If you have any issues or questions, please feel free to contact our support team by email at support@sjtechies.com or telephone at (856) 745-9990.

Every Budget is an IT Budget

Summary: Technology will be embedded everywhere and disrupt traditional IT and the vendors and ecosystem that goes with it.

ORLANDO—Global technology spending will surpass the $4 trillion mark in 2016 and digitization of industries will ultimately force a rethink on what is IT overall, according to Gartner.

In other words, the technology pie is going to get a lot larger, but murkier.

The big theme: Cloud, mobile, social and big data will come together to create a technology boom with a bevy of challenges and disruption ahead.

“Every budget is an IT budget,” said Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president of research at Gartner. “Technology is embedded in every product.”

His point: More technology spending will occur outside traditional procurement methods. Consumers will spend more disposable income on technologies. Industries traditionally thought to be non-tech will be digitized. And technology will be embedded into everything.

There will be chief digital officers in most companies. By 2015, 25 percent of companies will have a chief digital officer. The role: Digitize the business.

Gartner’s theme at its Symposium CIO powwow is that there’s a nexus of technologies that will revamp corporate technology, vendors and employment. Nexus is a word that will be beaten to death at this annual CIO leadership therapy session. The forces inside this nexus are all interdependent.

Some takeaways to ponder from Sondergaard’s talk:

Big data is the killer application of the cloud.
The cost savings of cloud haven’t been realized—subscriptions have trumped pay as you go.
80 percent of businesses are using SaaS.
IT departments mostly use private clouds.
Two versions of cloud are emerging—IT’s and everyone else.
Business process services in the cloud will be a $145 billion market in 2016, doubling from today.
Cloud will develop and transform with or without IT’s support.
It’s the end of the beginning for corporate IT.
Corporate IT needs to think mobile first in all designs.
Big software vendors won’t be able to think mobile first.
There will be more iPads in the enterprise than BlackBerries in two years.
Enterprises will have to spend time monitoring physical assets and the data they spew.
Social computing will become more important.
10 organizations in the U.S. will each spend more than $1 billion on social media in 2016.
Automated and paid reviews will be common nefarious uses of social media.
Continual stream of information will transform decision-making and industries.
85 percent of marketing organizations will outsource the analysis of big data.
Companies will be judged based on the quality of their algorithms.
CIOs will have to find new workers to do the big data jobs required.
CIOs will have to think like entrepreneurs.

And the effects of this disruption:

Consumers will spend more disposable income on technology spending. Consumer tech spending was 3% of disposable income in 2011. By 2015 will be 3.5 percent of spending.
Security infrastructure will have to be rethought completely because it could hinder progress.
Social and reputation wars will become an issue just like malware.
The IT market will change. The large IT megavendors are being challenged by at least one of the forces in the nexus. “Are your vendors accelerating your march into the future or putting the brakes on your progress?” asked Sondergaard.
Spending on technology outside the IT market will surpass levels inside.
1.9 million IT jobs will be created in the U.S.
6 million jobs in the U.S. created by information economy over the next 4 years.
There isn’t enough talent to fill those jobs.

Technology Trends for 2013

Tech trends to watch out for in 2013

Takeaway: IT leaders need to be smart about the decisions they make and truly leverage next-generation tools and strategies. Here are some technology trends that will shape their decision-making in 2013.

With the New Year comes a fresh set of technology imperatives, challenges and opportunities for organizations to consider. The increased innovation in the technology sector means that companies are finally in a position to be smart about the IT decisions they make and truly leverage next-generation tools and strategies to mitigate risk and shape strategies for the future. Below are trends that will shape and impact their decision-making in 2013.

Prediction #1: Cloud interoperability will take the spotlight

Cloud interoperability will be huge: private cloud adoption will continue to grow, but more organizations and MSPs will adopt a hybrid public / private approach. This hybrid approach could simply be an organization’s private cloud interfacing with other public clouds in a secure manner, or it could mean augmenting an internal private cloud with additional compute, storage or cooling resources from a public cloud. The biggest challenge with this reality will be the manageability of the hybrid environment. Generally, enterprises and MSPs don’t use the same set of tools and monitor environments in the same way. To ensure these hybrid cloud environments deliver on their promise of costs savings and productivity benefits, vendor-agnostic management and monitoring solutions are critical.

Prediction #2: Worldwide economic struggles will direct the data center world

Data centers are consuming more power, more cooling and their density continues to rise, but an organization ability to retrofit or expand the physical space is challenging and not cost effective. Private and hybrid cloud models will get traction because it saves on cost. It isn’t cost intuitive to upgrade a physical data center, so the shift to private clouds is the next logical step.

Worldwide economic struggles both in the financial sector, and more importantly in the energy sector, have the high probability of forcing data centers to close or increase prices to stay functional. While there has been a data center construction boom in the last several years, the demand for space will have to be countered by ever-rising costs in the energy industry. Depending on how the world can come together and address the energy crisis, this will continue to dramatically impact the data center world.

Prediction #3: BYOD and v Virtualization will collide

Smartphone, tablet, laptop and other mobile devices will all begin leveraging virtualization technologies, increasing virtualized BYOD, and this will become the next evolution of the mobile device. Consumers will be confident in the security and interoperability of a working profile with their personal profile on any device they choose, regardless of their location, and they will no longer need access to their specific mobile device. With virtualization, they can grab a friend’s and have access to their virtual identity no matter where they are. Service providers have already started leveraging this technology, and enterprises are not far behind, as they will benefit once they’ve addressed potential security and identity challenges and embraced the evolution.

Prediction # 4: Cloud outages by major Web hosts will gain momentum

We will continue to see cloud outages by all major cloud providers. These outages will dramatically impact businesses and hosting customers on the cloud. Technology today is mature enough to prevent complete outage of customer assets. The big balance has always been with hosting how much money you are willing to spend to ensure uptime. More and more cloud and hosting customers are putting the trust in the clouds resilience without really understanding or choosing to understand that without paying for resilience you will experience some outage at some point. As the cloud provider drive for pricing down to compete with each other and gain market share the cost of driving price down has to be found in some level of corners being cut. Which will lead to more outages. Example: It comes down to mitigating cost vs. risk. Amazon keeps trying to drive costs down, but the tradeoff is their customers must decide how much they want to pay to mitigate their own risk. In order to lower risk, a company suffers the effect on its monthly price. However, with today’s economy and the focus on cost rather than risk, outages will still occur.

Prediction # 5: The Presidential imperative will be cybersecurity

President Obama has been elected for a second term and one thing is crystal clear: cybersecurity must be a top priority for him in 2013. There is an increased awareness around the issue of cybersecurity, and it is only set to rise further as more and more people transition information to the cloud. In 2013, the president will have to answer: how do I protect people on the Internet? We’ve had multiple bills passed but what we really need is education around how to be safe as a nation on the Internet and in the cloud. A cyber war is as dangerous as a physical one and with out a government focus on cybersecurity, we’re facing that risk head on.

Looking Ahead

When you take a step back and look at all 2013 technology predictions from industry one thing becomes clear: there are lots of moving parts for organizations to control. It will be critical next year that they have tools to manage and monitor these ever-changing environments. Organizations must be smarter about IT, proactive rather than reactive and continue to innovate.

RingCentral #1 Top VOIP Services

Consumer-Rankings.com Named RingCentral as the # 1 VOIP Business Service Provider!

Consumer-Rankings tested the top VoIP service providers and compared their prices, features, ease of use, call quality and more so that you can determine which of the industry leaders offers the right VoIP plan for you. Read an in-depth RingCentral VoIP review so you can make an educated purchase.

Best for: Small and large businesses that are looking for a reliable VoIP phone solution.

RingCentral is a company that specializes in providing business VoIP services, fax services and mobile communication solutions. With plans ranging from a single user to over 20 users, RingCentral makes it clear that they can cater to both small businesses and large corporations. With a cloud-based virtual office system, RingCentral eliminates the need for technical knowledge or bulky hardware and makes it possible to enjoy your virtual office from virtually anywhere.

Professionals looking for a VoIP business solution will be drawn to the RingCentral Office plan, which combines calling and online fax features.

Features

RingCentral offers a range of professional-grade VoIP features. Surprisingly, RingCentral is one of the few business VoIP providers that offer a free 1800 toll free number that includes 1,000 minutes of talk per month in the price of the plan. Overage charges for the toll free line cost 3.9 cents per minute. RingCentral’s other features include:

Voicemail
Voicemail to email (aka Visual Voicemail)
Auto-attendant
Missed call notification
Outlook integration
Call screening
Call forwarding
Call logs
Call conferencing
Caller ID
Calling card (use your RingCentral account to make free calls from anywhere)
Music-on-hold
Dial-by-name extensions
Online fax service
Free softphone

Customer Support

RingCentral is one of the few business VoIP providers that offers 24/7 technical support by phone. The billing department is available by phone between 8am-10pm EST on Monday through Friday, 10am-7pm EST on Saturday, and 11am-8pm EST on Sundays. When RingCentral’s customer support was called at various times throughout the day, and never waited on hold for more than 2 minutes for sales or technical support.

RingCentral also offers chat support, though this feature is not prominently displayed on their website. Chat support is available between 9am and 9pm Monday through Friday and is closed on Saturdays and Sundays.

A search button that is found on most of the site’s pages makes it easy to get answers to questions at any time, and we were happy to see that the search feature yielded relevant, useful results in the majority of our searches. RingCentral answers questions via email only for paying customers, and therefore, the company’s email information is not easily identifiable on the site. Still, we managed to email RingCentral and to receive a same-day response.

Tablet War-Is Microsoft The Winner?

Takeaway: Find out why Microsoft may still win the tablet war, even if its early efforts are unsuccessful.

After spending time with Microsoft’s Surface RT tablet, we were left with more questions than answers. The further we considered Microsoft’s tablet strategy, the more we wondered if it were genius or madness driving its recent moves. Depending on what we see in the next few months, it just might be the former.

Leaving the Home Court

Surface was most perplexing in that Microsoft aced the hardware of the device — an area most pundits, expected it to miss completely. The device was sleek and well-assembled, and it brought unique and noteworthy features to the table rather than simply trying to copy market leaders. If only the software were on par with the hardware.

The OS was particularly troubling, considering Microsoft essentially invented the tablet category a decade ago, only to let it languish until Apple ate its lunch and dominated the market in a matter of months. While all this is old news, and Windows RT remains what seems to be a compromised OS, there are some interesting things happening on the software front.

An Office for Everyone

Microsoft began its life as an applications software company, achieving dominance in the desktop space through luck and tenacity. People often forget that Microsoft set out to build applications for a variety of platforms rather than create the one that would dominate desktop computing for a generation. While Microsoft has released its Office suite for some competing platforms, the most interesting missing links in the Office world are mobile versions of the software for iOS and Android. There have been enough rumors and rumblings about an iOS version of Office that the rumor has a measure of credibility.

Microsoft also seems a bit more pragmatic and less dogmatic than Apple, and it has released several applications for the iOS platform, from relatively innocuous photography applications to versions of its SkyDrive cloud-based file storage platform. SkyDrive is available for all major OSs, and Microsoft’s cloud strategy points toward open platforms rather than a walled garden like Apple’s iCloud. With a Microsoft-based cloud storage service already gaining traction on a variety of platforms, mobile versions of Office don’t seem as much of a stretch as they might have been a few months ago.

Returning to its roots around application software might not be a bad strategy for Microsoft. Clearly, Surface has not lit the world afire in its first incarnation, so launching popular applications on a variety of platforms would keeps Microsoft relevant in the enterprise and personal space, no matter which tablet device an enterprise ends up selecting.

There’s also the possibility of a halo effect should Microsoft deliver a quality mobile Office experience on a variety of platforms. The iPod music player and iPhone arguably sold more Mac computers than any ad campaign, and a suite of compelling software and services might make a case for a deeper Microsoft experience, especially in the enterprise.

The End of the Platform

While the proclamations that the “desktop is dead” have not been as dire as predicted, many applications are shifting to the cloud- and browser-based interfaces. In mobile, especially, core application logic and data are cloud-based for most popular applications. Tablets and smartphones generally don’t have the “baggage” of legacy applications that have saddled our desktop computing experience, so in many ways, mobile operating systems are more likely to fade toward irrelevancy beyond running cloud-based applications. If Microsoft can rekindle its multi-platform application heritage and combine it with a strong hardware competency, it might successfully win the longer tablet war, even if its early efforts sputter.

10 Purchases for Small & Medium-Size Businesses

Small and Medium-Size Businesses (SMBs) will often take shortcuts to cut costs when purchasing. To avoid disasters such as a loss of data or work, SMBs are strongly suggested to focus on the ten points below.

Hardware

Considering the rapid change of technology requirements, a pro-active approach for replacing desktops, laptops, servers, and networking hardware is to look five years into the future.

Backup Software

Although built-in backup software and Windows Server backup are adequate, purchasing a third-party backup solution will have the ability to recover from an image.

Internet Connection

Providing your SMB with a consumer-grade DSL line would not be an efficient business plan. Setting up a network that provides your business with more bandwidth than required will prevent a network bottleneck from occuring.

Firewall

Securing your business with only Windows built-in firewall is not ideal. Configuring a Cisco, Fortinet, or Sonicwall is more secure, reliable and flexible in a SMB environment.

Cloud Storage

Cloud storage provides scalability, reliability and portability. Cloud storage is divided into three categories: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). Many companies are transferring to Cloud services for access to data outside the network.

Website

Online presence has become an important key for all businesses. A solid solution is to have a strong website, blogging and effectively using social media.

Redundancy

Redundancy is an appropriate investment towards ensuring that your SMBs network does not go down. Similar to backups, redundancy does not affect everyday business but should an incident arise, you’ll be glad it’s there.

Support

IT Support is a necessity, whether it’s an in-house department, third-party service provider, or support for software.

Mobile Devices

The ability to work from outside the office and accessing data from anywhere is now an important key for businesses. Setting up a virtual private network enables laptops, tablets and smartphones to connect and work from anywhere.

Printers

Supply your SMB with a printer that has the sustainability and features required for business use.

Microsoft OneDrive for Business

OneDrive (formerly “SkyDrive”) in an essential tool for the Office 365 package. OneDrive provides safe data storage that can be easily accessed from virtually anywhere. Although, this storage option is safe, it is not practical for business use.

OneDrive for Business (formerly “SkyDrive Pro”) offers a administrative controls with a content management platform. OneDrive for Business allow IT Administrators/Departments to control the intellectual property of their business(es).

Improved features for OneDrive for Business include a menu bar to easily access frequent tools and controls, search bar with type-ahead feature to quickly find files and many more. Additional features such as, higher storage limits, encryption on stored data, data loss prevention features and many more will be released throughout 2014.

Currently, OneDrive for Business is included with Office 365 and SharePoint package plans. Microsoft announced that as of April 1, 2014 OneDrive for Business, as well as other services/software, will be available as a standalone cloud service for $5 a month per user.