Archive for Cloud

Funny Quotes about the Internet and the Cloud

I don’t generally post funny things on this blog site, but these two quotes, worth re-quoting, were sent to me this week. I had such a good laugh from both of them that I wanted to share them with everyone.IMG_1400

This first one reminds me of something my dad shared with me when I was a teenager: “Don’t believe everything you read”. This has been updated for the 21st century:

The trouble with quotes from the Internet is that you can never know if they are genuine. Signed, Abraham Lincoln”

The second one answers a question that I am often asked by customers and friends:
“What is ‘the cloud’?”

imageI usually respond with this analogy: “If I move your computer box to another room where you can’t see it, but you can keep your monitor, keyboard and mouse and you can continue to work – that’s ‘the cloud’. It’s a computer you can’t see!”

“There is NO CLOUD, just some other people’s computers”

Cloud Backup Calculator

Backing up your business data to the cloud should be a point of discussion with each and every one of your customers. I’m not saying that it’s necessary to do cloud backup, but it should be addressed.

One of the first questions that is generally asked is: “How long will it take me to backup my data?”

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The folks at Highly Reliable systems posted an Upload Time Calculator which you may find useful. For example, it will take 8 days to backup 100GB of data on a T-1 line (1.5Mbps). But that time reduces to 2 1/2 days if your Internet upload speed is 5Mbps.

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Exchange Defender Cloudshare

Vlad Mazek (CEO, Own Web Now) announced the ExchangeDefender CloudShare file sharing and synchronization platform on July 19, 2012.

There is a one page overview that compares CloudShare to Dropbox, YouSendIt, Google, Skydrive and Box on his site.

ExchangeDefender CloudShare Diagram

Office 365 First Birthday!

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Office 365, Microsoft’s subscription-based solution for hosted email and office productivity tools celebrated it’s official Office 365 First Birthday on June 28, 2012. However, Office 365 is just the latest iteration of hosted services from Microsoft.

As far back as 2003 Microsoft was exploring the opportunities for hosted Exchange. By 2007 they had started rolling out hosted Exchange, and in late 2008 they officially announced BPOS.

I have several customers that have already transitioned to Office 365, or are exploring this as a viable alternative to an on-premise Exchange.

Happy birthday, Office 365!