5 Things You Didn’t Know About Cloud Backup

We at cmx come across as anti-cloud, we are not, but what we are against is that new breed of IT salesman which we called the “the charlatan”.

According to that fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia; A charlatan (also called swindler or mountebank) is a person practicing quackery or some similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, fame or other advantages via some form of pretense or deception.

Perfect description; the word comes from French charlatan, a seller of medicines who might advertise his presence with music and an outdoor stage show –

 This sums them up exactly but we do not and cannot imply reverse logic that all  cloud sales people are charlatans. I speak of those who sell a very good product, for the right circumstances to the people who need it. I consider these as professional friends and I will be happy to recommend tyhem and introduce you to them.

The ones I speak of are those that in former lives sold double, glazing, PPI insurance, Cavity wall insulation, endowment mortgages and extended warranties, these are the guys who can spot an opportunistic bandwagon to leap on to make money on commission.
These are the guys we have a problem with and its to counter them that cmx appears to have adopted the anti cloud view. We are not anti-cloud, we are anti-charlatan. So we will carry on with the warnings.

1. Data privacy can easily be compromised by encryption key holders.
If your service provider has access to your encryption keys, your data is just not private.
Encryption is vital to data protection and most backup solutions offer it. However, encryption is not always a guarantee of security and privacy of business data. After all, if an employee at your data backup company can access your encryption keys, is your data truly secure?
Some service providers have responded to this concern by purporting to “” the key, saving it separately from data, and rotating it frequently. But no matter the steps taken, as long as the service provider has access to your encryption keys, your data is just not private. And a subpoena will force service providers to produce unencrypted customer data – even when encryption keys have been escrowed.

Another response to securing encryption keys has been to use an onsite server, behind the client’ firewall, to house encryption keys in order to guarantee sole ownership. However, this is not a true solution for cloud-based backups since there is still hardware to manage and maintain, defeating the purpose of cloud services. Additionally, an onsite server adds another point of potential failure, requiring additional data protection.

If your service provider has access to your encryption keys, your data is just not private

For maximum privacy, two-factor encryption key management is the recommended solution. With two-factor encryption key management, the encryption key is further encrypted using customer admin credentials, and only a token is stored in the cloud. With this solution, the service provider has zero access to encryption keys and customers avoid the hassle of supporting key servers on-premises.

Only customers have access to the key and, subsequently, their data, once authenticated.
And to truly guarantee privacy, the key is destroyed at the end of each customer session.

2. Choosing the wrong cloud could mean permanent data loss.Of course, most of ” cloud” actually exists at ground-level, supported by many connected servers and other devices which require electricity and protection from the elements. As much as dependability of data centers has increased over time, these server farms are still vulnerable to power outages, sabotage, and natural disaster.

This is why it’ important to understand the Service Level Agreements for any backup providers under consideration. Many cloud service providers don’ offer data redundancy across multiple data centers. In the event of a power supply disruption, service is suddenly unavailable and files are out of reach until the problem is corrected. A natural disaster, such as a flood, could even result in permanent loss of your critical corporate data.

Leading service providers offer data redundancy across multiple facilities, each of which is physically separate, located in lower risk flood plains and fed via distinct grids from independent utilities. These facilities are connected to different networks to ensure the
highest data availability and durability possible.

3. Local cloud backups can violate data residency laws.
Traditionally, cloud backup providers have employed a limited number of data centers
and housed those data centers within the borders of a single country. Adding Many cloud service providers don’t offer data redundancy across multiple data centers.
Server farms are still vulnerable to power outages, sabotage, and natural disaster.
5 Things You Didn’ Know About Cloud Backup storage typically requires following a multi-step process, often cumbersome and not immediate.
If your business has global reach, these localized backup providers are simply unable to offer a premium, worry-free experience. By definition, a global enterprise supports internal systems which are utilized by employees and other users all over the world, subjecting the enterprise to a specific set of laws in each country. Using localized cloud backup providers from a single country is not only inefficient but, in many cases, it results in a violation of local
data residency laws.

By contrast, leading cloud backup providers are equipped with multiple redundant data centers across the globe, enabling customers to control which data centers are used for their data backups. Leading providers also utilize an ” storage” concept, enabling customers to add storage instantly in any data center without having to worry about scaling their storage requirements.

4. Without deduplication, your backup speed is a fraction of what it could be.

One of the reasons traditional cloud backup systems can be very slow is that the software must compare the last file and directory structure with the latest file and  directory structure in order to determine what’ changed. Unfortunately, as much as 80 percent of data is duplicated across a typical enterprise. This is because users often have multiple copies of an identical file stored locally, as well as on shared or removable drives. This causes storage requirements to boom, considerably slowing cloud data transfer.

When backup solutions practice global deduplication, cloud backup and restore times are dramatically improved because an enormous amount of duplicate data has been identified and removed.

To perform enterprise restores quickly, a backup solution must also use multi-threaded restores in order to allow parallel transfers of multiple files. Using multi-threaded restoration significantly accelerates the time it takes to restore data to a user’ computer.

Traditional cloud backup systems without global deduplication can be very slow. Using localized cloud backup providers is inefficient and often results in violation of data
residency laws. 

WAN optimization will also speed up endpoint backups because WAN optimization
makes best use of the available bandwidth. If there’ a network interruption, WAN
optimization ensures that the dropped backup automatically resumes at precisely
the right point.

5. Outdated backup solutions severely restrict IT control.
Using older principles of storage technology, some backup companies are not able to leverage federated search, which can quickly locate information anywhere on the network. This is a challenge when attempting to track down a file or to enforce a new policy. Because federated search looks across every file and device in the enterprise, it becomes easy to locate files, gather or even collect them for legal hold, in order to preserve custodian data for e-discovery.

On the other hand, modern backup solutions empower IT with visibility and make it easy to enforce policies on data backup, restore, and access. These leading backup companies also make use of detailed audit trails to strengthen IT’ oversight and to prevent material information, such as intellectual property, from being compromised due to the increasingly mobile workforce. Detailed audit trails preserve a record of all user and admin activity, as well as provide real-time visibility, enabling organizations to support their governance
and compliance needs.

If the enterprise is subject to industry regulation, it’ well worth it to select a service provider that already has passed the requisite certifications (e.g., HIPAA, PCI-DSS, ITAR) for its data centers and operations. Without federated search, it is a challenge to track down a file or
enforce a policy

Cancer, Car accidents, hacking, card fraud all have a lot in common – They only happen to other people, not you.

Is this arrogance, ignorance or what?

Everyone knows someone that something bad has happened to, if not then themselves, then someone close, or a friend, or a friend of a friend, maybe somebody in the same village or town even somebody living in a faraway country but in similar circumstances.

So in a word Sh*t happens, a lot, to everyone all the time so it can never be ignorance.  Maybe the alternative to “it’ll never happen to me” is a permanent fear that something is going to happen which is bordering on the symptoms of depression.

So if appers that we go around with an optimistic view on life to avoid the permenant worry of what’s going to happen next.  That’s fine as it enables us to lead a normal life of driving, shopping, flying kindly of the things we do on a day to day basis.

BAD NEWS.
That’s really bad news, we need to establish some form of balance unfortunately we don’t.  The anytime we do this is when we plan for emergencies that are unlikely to happen.  When we go on holiday we take offense take a first aid kit and no one really leaves without insurance.  I even know someone who drains down the heating system when they go away, which is usually in the summer.
 
It’s the same thing that suddenly wakes us up at four in the morning and gets us to worry what speed we went past that little yellow camera on the side of the road.
 
All of these things do not really need to be worried about because although they do happen the chance of us facing a disaster like we have imagined is unlikely.

It’s also guaranteed that it won’t happen because we have planned what we would do in case of an emergency.  I sail in all types of boats, I wear life jackets, make sure that there is manoverboard equipment, first aid kits etc.  Luckily I have never had to use this equipment and I hope I never will.

Now the point of this article is that the things that almost likely to happen, in fact happen every day to lots of people are so far down their list of priorities that no thought is at a given to them even on a  yearly basis.

Your building is unusable – KEEP OUT
The day of the 1987 stolen I went to work as usual, I didn’t expect anything different nobody had called and apart from losing the side of my house, the large amount of trees I expected to roll up at our Colchester office and start work as usual.

What I didn’t expect was to see 36 people standing outside staring of the site of the building.  The whole side which was made of glass had been totally removed by the next door factory roof.  We had asbestos and glass all over 50% of the building.  In my office the carpet was ruined, the wall and door had glass embedded in it.  The computer screen was smashed and as it turned out all of are servers were destroyed.  “It” had just happened to us.

All backups were off site, we had spare equipment, another office and we were up and running again later that day.

We had a plan.
We had actually spent some time compiling everything we needed to implement a disaster  plan.  We started from the premis that we would arrive at the very large hole which was water filled that now replaced our 6,800 sq foot office building in south Colchester, we prepare the same plan for Ipswich.

We went around everybody in the company announced what they would need to be operational again, this was incorporated into the plan and tasks were delegated.  We looked at everything, wrote it all up and circulated plenty of copies.  Apart from the daily routine of data backup the plan was forgotten except when it came out to be reviewed once a year during a meeting of everyone, usually down the pub ensuring 100% attendance.

We had confidence that should a disaster strike we had done as much as possible.  Backups were tested and we had established a routine.

That disaster cost us nothing, not a bean, no cash flow interruption, no lost data and we were able on the same day to go out and look after clients who had faced thier own disasters.

We get 250 calls a year over lost data 
We get roughly one call a day from someone who has lost their  data, that’s over 250 calls a year. We have special software that can unscramble disk drives. No one else we know does this.

Only a fraction of the callers, as low as 2%, has an adequate backup.  Most of them think may have but they haven’t.  I suspect that that only 2% of all the people who start reading this article will get this far.  If you have then I am personally available to come to you and check your backup. Free of charge. That’s to prove my point. I will publish the results in a months time of who has taken me up on this my number is 01206 256459 or 01473 231800 ask for extension 25 and I will talk to if I am in, if not I’ll ring you back as soon as I can. 

Security
Doesn’t have to be a big disaster, or even one you can see, you can have a virus, a hacking or fraud attempt. These can cost you so much more and in a shorter time. The difference is you may not know about it until its too late.

The moral is?
Its not down to arrogance, its all down to ignorance and ignorance especially about planning. I was once told “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”, that’s a military adage. here’s another “Proper Planning Prevents P*** Poor Performance” and my particular favourite, Lack of preparation on your behalf does not justify an emergency on mine”. When bad things happen we react, its better to have the cool judgement of a previous “you” telling you what to do than the “panic you” running round in ever decreasing circles doing headless chicken impressions as you hard built up business disappears into dust & debt.

The moral is that everyone needs a plan, needs to check it and make sure it works. Our clients may not know it but we have a disaster plan for them too.  We have loan equipment and the expertise to get them up and running as quickly as possible.
 
This will all be useless unless the backups are good enough, they have the proper insurance policy and the ability to start up again somewhere else almost immediately.

Oh I forgot, its what happens to other people isn’t it? Like the people flooded in  Wales, Someset, London and the riots in Croydon, Brixton, Toxteth.

TECHIE POST: Hyper-V on the Client: How to install the hypervisor on Windows 8 to run Windows XP without security issues.

Windows XP’s date with destiny has passed….. What now? 

As of Tuesday, Microsoft will NOT be releasing any new security updates. With one in five PCs still running Windows XP, there’s a chance you are among those whose computer is now running an unsupported operating system. What now?

Doing an in-place upgrade to Windows 7  or 8 isn’t a good choice. Yes, it will keep all your apps and settings, but it’ll also preserve all the clutter and crud that slows down an old Windows install, and you’re limited to 32-bit Windows 7. You really need to nuke and start over.

But there’s another, little-known way to replace your old, unsupported OS with a new one that’s safe, current, gets updates and comes free of charge. The answer: run Windows XP as a zombie OS on something else.

Chances are you’re using WinXP for a particular application that’s incompatible with 64-bit Windows; backwards compatibility with legacy code was dropped to keep the size and complexity of the operating system down. Vista was the first 64-bit version of Windows to see much adoption, and its users suddenly found that some of their beloved but ancient apps didn’t work any more.

So, Windows 7 introduced a workaround: Windows XP Mode. This is a free download for Windows 7 Pro and above, comprising two files: a compressed virtual machine containing a complete, pre-installed copy of XP Pro, and a copy of Microsoft’s free desktop hypervisor, Virtual PC, preconfigured to run that copy of XP with desktop integration – so XP windows appear on Windows 7’s desktop and so on.

This has been dropped in Windows 8.x – the newer OS has its own built-in hypervisor, and by now, you’re meant to be running 64-bit native apps anyway.

However, XP Mode remains a free download, and with a little work, you can get it running on the cheaper editions of Windows 7, on Windows 8.x – and even on Linux (Ubuntu in my case). All you need is a different hypervisor.

If you’re a committed VMware user, then the freeware VMware Player will do, but otherwise, Oracle’s VirtualBox is free and open source. You only need proprietary code for the extension pack, which adds USB2 support among other things – but it’s still gratis.

You can download the XP Mode VM freely from Microsoft’s website, but to do so, your PC needs to pass Windows Genuine Authentication – so here’s a handy list of direct links that will serve you the file directly, whatever OS you’re running. Once you have the file, you’ll need a grown-up archiver to unpack it, such as Zip central.

You need an XP licence, of course – the copy in the VM is keyed against VirtualPC’s emulated hardware and will fail when running on VirtualBox, so you’re going to need a valid XP Pro licence key. Microsoft handily includes a key in the download file “sourcesXPMKEY”), but the chances are it won’t work. Of course, you may well have one on a sticker on your PC case or knocking around somewhere.

Just in case you thought running Linux had banished Windows Update forever… 
 

Once you’ve unzipped the download file, you’ll find another archive (“sourcesxpm”) inside it. Extract that, too. In there is a VirtualPC VM image and its virtual hard disk (“VirtualXPVHD”).
Next, create a new Windows VM – I called mine “XP Mode”. Move VirtualXPVHD into your new VM’s folder (“~VirtualBox VMsXP Mode”), insert a full stop in the appropriate place (“VirtualXP.VHD”), and when VirtualBox asks whether to create a new virtual HD or use an existing one, choose it.

Now you can boot your new VM. It has to go through the final stages of setup – that’s your chance to set it to a UK keyboard etc – and then it will finish loading. The snag is that the VM has the “VirtualPC Integration Components” pre-installed, and they won’t work under VirtualBox, meaning that the VM will lock up.

You’ll have to forcibly power off the VM, restart it, uninstall the VirtualPC gubbins, try to shut it down, watch it freeze again, close it, and reboot it again. It should restart OK, at which point, you can install the VirtualBox additions and reboot it again. Now, you’re in business, and you also remember why you wanted to get rid of XP in the first place.

Being popular helps mask your mistakes
Google may be seen as top of its game but it has launched some real failures too.

I was having a discussion about us Brits, how we always knock success and act with jealousy, I told the story that in the US someone going past in a swanky car would get the “Next year that’ll be me” comment but in the UK its “Why does a bastard Ba****d like that get such a swanky car, and not me, that’s not fair”.

We just have a different view on life and don’t accept that’s a. its not fair and b. you have to work for success. Maybe that’s why we have such a poor youth employment record compared to other countries.

So this got me thinking, there is usually a love hate with Brands, at the moment everyone has a go at Blackberry and Microsoft, years ago it was IBM and Lotus, now Apple and Google can do no wrong – or can thay?

Everyone loves Google, except for those pesky funny looking street view cars a few years ago but do you realise that Goggle has had many failures along the way?

1. Google Answers
Google Answers was Google’s marketplace for knowledge. Users posted a question and the amount they were willing to pay for an answer, and then researchers would answer the question. The community was too small and the service could never compete with Yahoo’s answers service.


2. Google Buzz


Google Buzz was a social platform for sharing content that was incorporated into Gmail. Buzz met heavy criticism and raised numerous privacy issues among users. It was discontinued in December 2011.

3. Google Latitude

Google Latitude was a location-based app that allowed users to find some of their Gmail contacts by proximity. It failed mostly because it was creepy.


4. Nexus Q


The Nexus Q was Google’s multimedia player challenge to the Apple TV. The problem was that the product was $300 and it didn’t really do much. At least it looked cool.


5. Google Wave


Google Wave was a classic case of “over promise, under deliver.” Google touted it in glowing terms at launch, but it never really lived up to the hype. The product was confusing and it didn’t really have a clear value proposition.


6. Google TV


Google TV was a smart TV platform launched in 2010. The implementation was clumsy and the products were not well-received. It’s rumoured that Google TV could be re branded as Android TV.


7. iGoogle

iGoogle allowed users to created a customisable homepage with widgets such as weather and content feeds. The company initially announced they would migrate the social features in 2012.

“With our new focus on Google+, we will remove iGoogle’s social features on January 15, 2012. iGoogle itself, and non-social iGoogle applications, will stay as they are,” said Bradley Horowitz, then vice president of product.

As it turns out, the other features weren’t all that useful so Google canned iGoogle in November 2013


8. Knol

 This one I don’t even remember, Knol was Google’s challenge to Wikipedia. The site was plagued by plagiarism and poor sourcing, which ultimately led to its demise. Also, the concept of monetising knowledge was too strange


9. Web Accelerator


We disliked this when it arrived and we still don’t like Google Toolbars. Web Accelerator was a proxy server that sped up web surfing times by caching certain types of info. There were some privacy concerns and the product was buggy. It even kept users from watching YouTube videos

10. Lively


Another Google barely known. Lively was Google’s online 3D universe, similar to Second Life. Lively was too complex and didn’t offer enough customisation for users. It was barely six months old when Google killed it.


11. Google Print Ads

Yep, at one point Google started producing print ads in nearly 800 newspapers. It was Google running backwards and the revenue just wasn’t there.


12. Google Building Maker

Google Building Maker allowed users to make 3D models of buildings to be used in conjunction with Google Earth. Building Maker was too ambitious of a project and a community never developed around it, so the service was retired in 2013

There you have it, Googles lemons, or turkeys if you prefer. Every brand does it at least once, they might be good ideas but if the support form the user or buyer is not there then it will flop. Did I tell you that the IBM PS/2 was a brilliant computer concept, well it was and its architecture is still in use today in Mainframes. IBM went about selling them in such a way that they demonstrated that they couldn’t market free beer. 

21 things you really need to know  as XP goes “End of life” in 4 days

Einstein’s Secret to Amazing Problem Solving

(and 10 Specific Ways You Can Use It)

 

I have always had a soft spot for Einstein. He died at exactly the same time I was born and unknowingly, muntil recently,  I have been using his quotes all my life, That is sadly where our similarities end, Did I also ever tell you that I quote Sherlock Holmes too…………….

Einstein is quoted as having said that if he had one hour to save the world he would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem and only five minutes finding the solution.

This quote does illustrate an important point: before jumping right into solving a problem, we should step back and invest time and effort to improve our understanding of it. Here are 10 strategies you can use to see problems from many different perspectives and master what is the most important step in problem solving: clearly defining the problem in the first place!

The Problem Is To Know What the Problem Is

The definition of the problem will be the focal point of all your problem-solving efforts. As such, it makes sense to devote as much attention and dedication to problem definition as possible. What usually happens is that as soon as we have a problem to work on we’re so eager to get to solutions that we neglect spending any time refining it.

What most of us don’t realise — and what supposedly Einstein might have been alluding to — is that the quality of the solutions we come up with will be in direct proportion to the quality of the description of the problem we’re trying to solve. Not only will your solutions be more abundant and of higher quality, but they’ll be achieved much, much more easily. Most importantly, you’ll have the confidence to be tackling a worthwhile problem.

Problem Definition Tools and Strategies
The good news is that getting different perspectives and angles in order to clearly define a problem is a skill that can be learned and developed. As such, there are many strategies you can use to perfect it. Here are the 10 most effective ones I know.

1. Rephrase the Problem
When a Toyota executive asked employees to brainstorm “ways to increase their productivity”, all he got back were blank stares. When he rephrased his request as “ways to make their jobs easier”, he could barely keep up with the amount of suggestions.

Words carry strong implicit meaning and, as such, play a major role in how we perceive a problem. In the example above, ‘be productive’ might seem like a sacrifice you’re doing for the company, while ‘make your job easier’ may be more like something you’re doing for your own benefit, but from which the company also benefits. In the end, the problem is still the same, but the feelings — and the points of view — associated with each of them are vastly different.
Play freely with the problem statement, rewording it several times. For a methodic approach, take single words and substitute variations. ‘Increase sales’? Try replacing ‘increase’ with ‘attract’, ‘develop’, ‘extend’, ‘repeat’ and see how your perception of the problem changes. A rich vocabulary plays an important role here, so you may want to use a thesaurus or develop your vocabulary.
2. Expose and Challenge Assumptions

Every problem — no matter how apparently simple it may be — comes with a long list of assumptions attached. Many of these assumptions may be inaccurate and could make your problem statement inadequate or even misguided.

The first step to get rid of bad assumptions is to make them explicit. Write a list and expose as many assumptions as you can — especially those that may seem the most obvious and ‘untouchable’.

That, in itself, brings more clarity to the problem at hand. But go further and test each assumption for validity: think in ways that they might not be valid and their consequences. What you will find may surprise you: that many of those bad assumptions are self-imposed — with just a bit of scrutiny you are able to safely drop them.

For example, suppose you’re about to enter the restaurant business. One of your assumptions might be ‘restaurants have a menu’. While such an assumption may seem true at first, try challenging it and maybe you’ll find some very interesting business models (such as one restaurant in which customers bring dish ideas for the chef to cook, for example).

3. Chunk Up

Each problem is a small piece of a greater problem. In the same way that you can explore a problem laterally — such as by playing with words or challenging assumptions — you can also explore it at different “altitudes”.

If you feel you’re overwhelmed with details or looking at a problem too narrowly, look at it from a more general perspective. In order to make your problem more general, ask questions such as: “What’s this a part of?”, “What’s this an example of?” or “What’s the intention behind this?”.

Another approach that helps a lot in getting a more general view of a problem is replacing words in the problem statement with hypernyms. Hypernyms are words that have a broader meaning than the given word. (For example, a hypernym of ‘car’ is ‘vehicle’). A great, free tool for finding hypernyms for a given word is WordNet (just search for a word and click on the ‘S:’ label before the word definitions).

4. Chunk Down

If each problem is part of a greater problem, it also means that each problem is composed of many smaller problems. It turns out that decomposing a problem in many smaller problems — each of them more specific than the original — can also provide greater insights about it.
‘Chunking the problem down’ (making it more specific) is especially useful if you find the problem overwhelming or daunting.
Some of the typical questions you can ask to make a problem more specific are: “What are parts of this?” or “What are examples of this?”.

Just as in ‘chunking up’, word substitution can also come to great use here. The class of words that are useful here are hyponyms: words that are stricter in meaning than the given one. (E.g. two hyponyms of ‘car’ are ‘minivan’ and ‘limousine’). WordNet can also help you finding hyponyms.

5. Find Multiple Perspectives

Before rushing to solve a problem, always make sure you look at it from different perspectives. Looking at it with different eyes is a great way to have instant insight on new, overlooked directions.

For example, if you own a business and are trying to ‘increase sales’, try to view this problem from the point of view of, say, a customer. For example, from the customer’s viewpoint, this may be a matter of adding features to your product that one would be willing to pay more for.

Rewrite your problem statement many times, each time using one of these different perspectives. How would your competition see this problem? Your employees? Your mom?

Also, imagine how people in various roles would frame the problem. How would a politician see it? A college professor? A nun? Try to find the differences and similarities on how the different roles would deal with your problem.

6. Use Effective Language Constructs

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all formula for properly crafting the perfect problem statement, but there are some language constructs that always help making it more effective:

Choosing Cloud computing?

You’d better count the cost before and not after!

We are being approached by at least 3 companies a day that are pushing us to sell their clod facilities to our clients and they say  we will get rich out of doing this.

Unlike most companies we are interested in the long term relationship and not the quick kill. We don’t employ and have a high turnover of high commission salesman.

Say “cloud” to anyone at cmx business computing and we all get the same thoughts, “Double glazing, PPI, Endowment mortgages, extended warranties” all get rich quick schemes for the dodgy seller wheeler-dealer spiv salesman”

So by now you think cmx is anti-cloud – WRONG.
There are many reasons the cloud can be the right answer but you have to look at the question first. So many cloud consultants are like the cartoon. “The answer is yes, now what’s the question?”

Talk about cart and horse. Before you decide to use the cloud you need to know why you haven’t used it before and why you want to use it now.

Lets do the consultancy bit first and ask questions. That’s what a consultant does.

What is the cloud? Really!
Do you have good fantastic broadband No? – forget it
Are you replacing a server and frightened by the cost?
Are you trying to save money?
Do you want Data Backup
Do you want to share data
Do you have a cashflow restriction?
The downside
Conclusion

What is the cloud? Really!
The cloud is storage or programs that you access using the Internet. The trouble is the company supplying the Cloud service could be as big as Apple or Microsoft or as small as Phoenix – who are they you ask? 10 years ago my son had some friends, they borrowed a garage from one of their number, set up a server, setup a company and offered on-line storage. They were ahead of their time and the problem? They were sixteen and the dad wanted his garage back after six months so they closed it all down. They did it ethically but how do you know if your cloud storage company isn’t small and in a mates garage – You don’t, unless its a big company
  
Do you have good fantastic broadband No? – forget it
If the answer is no then don’t even think about it. Broadband comes in two flavours, what you get down to your site and what you send up. The up is always faster than the down unless you have a balanced service which to most people is unaffordable. The reason is quite simple what you send up is simple, like asking Google about ” who is the Queen” what you get back is millions of characters of information called search results, you press one click on an entry and you get a whole lot more. Up does not usually need to be fast.

When you use the cloud for email, data or anything the UP has to be at least a useful speed. Anything slow is useless and lets face it most of North Essex and Suffolk is slow on broadband, so forget the cloud.

To see how fast your broadband is go to speedtest.com.

Are you replacing a server and frightened by the cost?
Several years ago Microsoft had a low cost server package for small business. This had everything and by the time it was installed the cost of the server was between £2k and £8K. Microsoft have removed this and replaced it with the full package which costs £8k to £15k. Big companies will pay this as it hasn’t changed for them but small companies cant afford it. So they are offered the cloud. We can supply a Server for small business with Exchange like email for £2k-£8k but not everyone can, so you can keep it in house.

Are you trying to save money?
If you go to the cloud you won’t, it will cost you three times as much. Microsoft make their money by pushing you on to the cloud. If you buy Microsoft Office on a PC you will pay around £200. Most people keep a computer for five years, we have some running and 11 year old version of office. If you go on the cloud, that will cost you £10 a month, over five years that’s £600. Five users = £3,000. See the plan? Save yourself and buy a replacement server and we can supply one with an email system that’s a fraction of the cost, by avoiding Exchange.
Do you want Data Backup
If you are a sensible one man band you will want data backed up somewhere else apart from your place of work. If your backup is within 100 metres of your system, you don’t really have a backup.

So the cloud, send it up overnight, job done, It will cost you a lot and it will be single generation, for more information on what this means ask us. If your broadband is slow the initial backup will be slow. The questions to ask your self is who owns the data and how safe is it? 12p/Gb/month at Rackspace. That’s £216 = VAT a year for the average 150Gb data storage of most companies or over £1,000 for five years.

It’s the ideal answer for  a small single premises business, but a  better answer is Macrium, its free, and a small GOOD QUALITY USB disk unit for £100, make a full backup once a month / week make a full backup and take it to your mothers, a friend, a relative anyone that you don’t mind seeing once a week. I had a client who gave it to their cleaner, she was 60 and it was secure.

Do you want to share data
This is the best reason for the cloud, collaborative sharing for small companies. Things like email, diaries, forms, photos data. Well I have news for you. If you are a big company then do it yourself. If you are small then use the cloud but use the free services that are available. Use ActiveSync with your Google mail, iPhone or iPad.

 Do you have a cashflow restriction?The biggest reason for using the cloud is spreading the cost. You wouldn’t go to a loan shark to borrow money so why not lease the equipment? It spreads the cost over five years and is a low fixed amount, usually around 6%. The best news is that you can claim this 100% against tax. So you get maximum tax efficiency, spread the cost and save money by buying your own server.

The downside of the cloud.
Apart from the cost which is a big consideration what about reliability and there is a big debate about who owns your data. If you use online CRM there is no export facility so you cannot move onto something like ACT! without re-entering the data.

What happens if there is a fire on a local exchange or in the datacentre. If they are a big concern then your data will be replicated elsewhere. But even the big guys have problems. This is a Telstra Exchange and data facility which was down for months and affected 65,000 subscribers. The cost was in the tens of millions in lost business and now the lawyers are involved it will be sorted out eventually but what happens in the meantime?

So if you live in a big city, have fast broadband, need to share your data and have plenty of money then the cloud is maybe a good idea. However if you have 2Mb broadband, 150Gb of data five exchange email accounts and use Sage and ACT! then forget it and I think that’s most of the SME’s in North Essex and Suffolk. We can advices who to go with and we can be independent because we don’t make a penny setting the cloud up for you like those wonderful knowledgeable pressure sellers I talked about earlier.

This is it, in just over a fortnight you will be a target, Its open season on XP users

Its true, you share the same operating system as the banks, NHS and over a third of computer users but what does it all mean.

As far as us IT people are concerned your computer and this car have a lot in common. First off all please understand you are using an old banger, its a 12 year old computer operating system, now look at your car, is it younger than that? Obvious really, wasn’t it?

OK so you have XP whats all the fuss?
Here is Microsoft’s take on this https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/endofsupport.aspx

Basically it means that every XP computer system is fair game for every hacker aged two years or over. They now have something to do that’s easy and no one is going to stop them. If you think it hasn’t been a problem why should you bother then I can remind you that XP has had 361 known vulnerabilities, of which about 40 have never been fixed.

Whats a vulnerability?
One persons vulnerability is another persons ease of use, there are 65,500 holes in Windows which are there to be useful. Also the code can be broken like a moneybox can be opened. The idea is that someone can get into your computer and exploit its weaknesses.

What can they do?
Run some code that will make your machine part of a botnet (Think of the “borg” from Star Trek. The can install some searching software and key logging software. If I tell you that we can access any computer that comes in and we don’t need a password, you should be worried, its easy. So when someone gets in they can mess about with whats stored in there or any keystrokes you make.

I would know wouldn’t 1?
Yes like you know when you are infected with a cold or after you have been robbed, yes you will know but its usually too late, these guys don’t want to be detected or their software found and they are very good at it. OK there are obvious things  like blackmail / ransomware but they get you to load that. You machine has slowed down since the day you bought it but have you really noticed and how would you really know anyway.

What are they after?
3 numbers, sixteen numbers and four numbers. That’s your security code on the back of your card, your card number and the expiry date. This will be stored on your computer somewhere if you have ever typed them in to buy something. Remember the VeriSign, that says your safe? Well it doesn’t apply to your computer only theirs. Bear in mind that in most countries chip and ppin doesn’t exist, even in the United States its signatures and card holder not present checking.

Most people don’t check their credit cards, surprising but true and would you notice £9 or £10 here or there occasionally? One of our clients didn’t we took them on and found the code in a couple of hours, they had been milked for £8,279 over the last three years in little amounts

I have anti virus installed
Well done, but how do you know its working? also we are not talking about viruses, just malicious code, your computer runs all sorts of programs with a problem, whats one small new one that tell the AV to ignore it? Did you know that in 2006 Norton had all their program code stolen by hackers, guess why they wanted it?

So your AV might miss it. How many of you run malware searches, thought not, I advise you start now.

I sit behind a firewall.
You mean the thing in your £39 BT router? well they are cheap for a reason. If you had a Jupiter firewall it would cost you over £9,000. Would you trust a cheap liferaft or the best you can get? By the way there are some wireless routers that send out their password when reset. Its an un-fixed fault.

Both cheap firewalls and free Anti Virus are like using a condom with a hole it it, sorry to be crude but you might find out when its too late.

OK but should I worry
Not on April the 8th but when the first system is cracked which could be a bank, or similar the word will spread and then they will start falling like dominoes. Its easy money.

Generally I wouldn’t bother, if the system is doing what it should then there is no valid reason to upgrade it, but if you don’t like the reliability and security of old bangers than yes. The problem is to leap from XP to Windows8 which I would recommend you will need some nifty transfer programs, which we have, to avoid all that setting up again.

Conclusion
If you have updated your car because you fancied it then you obviously can afford to lose some money. Whats a few thousand here or there? If you haven’t or had to then this is another thing thats vulnerable.

Did I tell you that this doesn’t just happen to other people, my daughter suffered Identity theft, affected the whole family but at least when my Debit card was cloned online because of a security breach at RBS NatWest picked it up and blocked it. New card arrived in 2 days. Did you know theres no protection on most debit cards? Now there is a thought.