Author Archives: Brian

About Brian

Brian Byrne is the founder and Managing Partner of Dallas based meshIP, a technology services firm offering cloud computing strategies and services. He is an accomplished executive with senior management experience in all facets of the technology, telecom, cloud computing, SaaS, CRM and social media industry. He has proven success in developing, financing and executing strategic plans as well as launching new ventures. His background includes a record of significant achievement in international business development and his credentials include an MS from the School of Computer Science at DePaul University as well as an MBA in Marketing and Management Strategy from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. Specialties: His experience and expertise includes cloud computing, hosted PBX, virtualization, social media, business formation, venture funding, technology services go-to-market strategy development, SaaS, CRM, product development and launch, financial modeling, new market entry, sales, business development, and sales management.

How HR Can Manage The Risk Of Cloud Computing

Cloud technology is the future for the business-world. According to KPMG, it’s now used by most organisations. However, with this new technology come new risks for company information security, and it is important for HR teams to ensure that they update company IT policies to adequately protect business interests.

What’s different about cloud computing?

Cloud systems are often different from the traditional IT infrastructure set up by a company itself because they are normally provided by a third party supplier, and so businesses do not have as much control over the cloud system as they would over their own IT infrastructure.

For these reasons, cloud computing raises new risks for company information security. For example, it can be difficult to trace the web browsing history of an employee who views the internet inside the cloud (as they may be accessing web-based email to move documents outside the cloud), and it is often possible with cloud environments for documents to be copied within the cloud and then pasted outside it onto a personal desktop.

Why does this affect HR?

For companies considering moving onto a cloud-based system (or for those who have recently done so), it is vital for their HR teams to ensure staff IT policies adequately cover the company in the cloud-era against the risks of employees removing company information for illegitimate purposes.

As a first step, HR should sit down with the IT team to ensure that they understand the technology and what is involved with the particular cloud system which the company uses or may use. If those explanations unveil potential information-security risks (such as those listed above), this may influence the company’s choice of cloud-service provider or its choice of additional services (such as an email archive).

Ideally, businesses should start by implementing technology-based restrictions on what staff can do. For example, it is one thing to tell staff that they cannot send work emails to their private email accounts without permission, however it is much easier to prevent such email traffic in the first place using technology.

Turning to the staff handbook, HR should also check whether the following questions are covered adequately in any IT policy:

Does the IT policy make clear that emails and internet and general IT activity at work can be monitored?

When will the company use the cloud – for all IT infrastructure or only select applications?

Does the company allow employees to access personal webmail at work? Is access allowed inside or outside the cloud?

Are staff allowed to email themselves to their private accounts, for example to facilitate work outside the office?

Does the company allow employees to access cloud storage systems, such as Dropbox, at work? Does the company allow employees to put company information into such systems?

Can employees use personal devices for work purposes – for example, laptops or tablet computers, to log-in remotely?

It is also essential that the IT policy is clear about what is and isn’t company information and company property, and that this explicitly covers soft copy documents.

To the extent that the company is prepared to allow employees to use personal webmail and personal cloud storage systems at work, in order to minimise the risks of illegitimate use of company information, the policy should make clear that neither should be used for work-related purposes without prior permission, nor should they be used to send or store company information outside of the company’s systems.

Finally, the IT policy should also be supported by up-to-date confidentiality and company property clauses in the company’s employment contracts.

With the new possibilities that cloud computing raises for companies, it is crucial that businesses update their IT policies and employment contracts to help protect themselves from employee theft. With updated policies in place, these should form the basic building blocks to trace employee theft if it strikes.

Author: Sophie Vanhegan
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Five Questions Boards Of Directors Need To Ask About Cloud Governance

The many benefits of cloud computing include helping enterprises become more efficient, agile, innovative and flexible, but achieving those benefits depends on a number of factors, including the involvement of the board of directors. ISACA, a nonprofit, independent association of more than 100,000 governance, risk, security and assurance professionals worldwide, has issued new guidance outlining key questions for boards of directors to ask to ensure their enterprise’s cloud initiative is in line with business objectives and the organisation’s risk tolerance.

“Board members need a clear understanding of cloud computing benefits and how to maximise them through effective governance practices,” said Marc Vael, CISA, CISM, CGEIT, CISSP, an ISACA board member and chief IT audit executive at Smals.“This requires the board to see cloud computing not as an IT project, but rather as a business strategy.”

According to ISACA’s Cloud Governance: Questions Boards of Directors Need to Ask, boards should address the following five questions to determine the strategic value that cloud services are expected to provide and the impact that the cloud may have on resources and controls:

1. Do management teams have a plan for cloud computing? Have they weighed the value and opportunity costs?

2. How do current cloud plans support the enterprise’s mission?

3. Have executive teams systematically evaluated organisational readiness? For example, are the right skills available? Do cloud processes conflict with other established processes? Do cloud plans conflict with enterprise culture?

4. Have management teams considered what existing investments might be lost in their cloud planning? Does the adoption of a cloud service nullify already-made technology investments that have not reached their planned end date, and is that noted and approved?

5. Do management teams have strategies for measuring and tracking the value of cloud return vs. risk?

“The answers to these questions will help determine the enterprise’s readiness to adopt cloud computing and also help ensure that the necessary governance is in place,” said Vael. “The COBIT 5 framework for governance and management of IT can also help enterprises manage investments such as cloud services. COBIT 5 helps ensure consistent practices to maximise value and manage risk.”

ISACA’s white paper, “Cloud Governance: Questions Boards of Directors Need to Ask,” is available as a free download at www.isaca.org/cloud-governance. The COBIT 5 framework is a free download at www.isaca.org/cobit.

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Embrace The Cloud, Enjoy More Revenue

SMBs that embrace Cloud computing and business websites are much more likely to enjoy rising revenue than others, according to accounting software provider, MYOB.

The company’s March 2013 MYOB Business Monitor study, which was conducted by research firm Colmar Brunton and surveyed more than 1000 SMBs, found that the businesses that adopted Cloud technologies were twice as likely to see an earnings uplift in the past year.

However, only 16 per cent indicated to use Cloud computing and 38 per cent said to have a business website.

MYOB CEO, Tim Reed, said the research findings provide a clear cut case for embracing online technologies in business.

“It’s obvious that as time goes on, Australian business operators using Cloud computing are increasingly likely to achieve positive financial results. This ubiquitous technology has helped so many smaller businesses become better connected, more productive and more competitive,” he said.

Another key finding of the study is the widening gap in financial performance between the online-savvy and the online-cautious.

Business operators in the Cloud were not only more likely to see a revenue rise in the past year (33 per cent versus 16 per cent of those who weren’t) they were more likely to expect one in the next year (37 per cent as compared to 28 per cent).

Similarly, those with a business website were not only more likely to see a revenue rise in the past year (24 per cent versus 15 per cent), but also more likely to expect revenue growth in the next year (35 per cent versus 27 per cent).

“Interestingly, more than half our respondents said they would vote for the political party that proposed ‘free government-funded training on how to use the Internet to enhance their business.’ This says the majority realise they require further education on how to best employ online technology,” Reed said.

Other findings from the study include:

The most popular reason for Cloud use was the ability to access data from whatever location they wanted (52 per cent).

The top use for Cloud computing was file sharing (50 per cent) and file back-up (49 per cent).

35 per cent of respondents said they didn’t know enough about Cloud computing to implement it.

Among the SMBs that didn’t have a website, 68 per cent said they did not set one as they prefer to advertise and market their business using other methods.

Businesses exporting goods and services were the most likely to use Cloud computing and business websites.

South Australia had the highest proportion of Cloud users (22 per cent) and business website owners (42 per cent).

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Cloud Computing Not Just About IT

The word ‘cloud’ has been literally hanging over executives’ heads for the past two years — in the form of massive banners hanging from the ceilings of almost every hub airport they travel through. To date, the focus of cloud has been on the delivery of IT-related capabilities from IT-related providers, largely for things that the IT department is responsible for managing.

Cloud computing is expected to grow to 20% or more of the total IT budget by 2013. Gartner research shows that there is already significant non-IT involvement in decision making about cloud services, with finance, marketing, HR and other business units acting as key stakeholders 25 to 30% of the time and actually funding cloud services between 10 and 30% of the time. Although largely a technological development, many of the pertinent questions today about the usefulness of cloud computing as a business platform are non-technical. We believe over time businesses will better understand the principle that cloud computing is a means to deliver IT-enabled capabilities, not just simple IT capabilities.

As this thinking evolves, the focus of cloud computing will shift toward exploiting it as a service delivery mechanism for the provision of non-IT capabilities, such as such as payroll, printing, logistics and e-commerce. In this context, cloud computing enables these services to be delivered from organisations that are not traditionally seen as IT companies, nor have any intention of ever being seen in this way.

By 2015, Gartner predicts that 20% of non-IT sector global 500 companies will be cloud service providers. We are already seeing examples of this emerging.

Large retail, financial service, government and media organisations have begun to recognise that supply chain competencies do not need to be commercialised solely through their stores, either physical or online. As discrete capabilities, they have their own revenue potential. We’ve also seen distribution businesses undertaking the same strategy. This trend is not being wholly enabled, or strictly defined, by cloud computing.

There are several related trends that are actually fuelling the business mandate behind this, such as the accelerated digitisation or ‘hyperdigitisation’ of many industries that are largely information based, such as financial services, education, communications and media, government and industry-specific intermediaries, such as the travel and insurance sectors.

These industries deliver non-physical digital services, increasingly mostly online. Additionally, many businesses have been exploring the move toward process externalisation driven by activities such as open innovation.

The move by non-IT organisations to provide non-IT capabilities via the cloud will mean even more technology decisions will be made outside the IT organisation. Ultimately these services are bound to service-level agreements that will be understood best by the owner of the specific process. Yet, while the barriers that historically prohibit these groups from directly provisioning these services drop, the need to manage data and integration requirements remain.

Far from being a problem, this represents another opportunity for IT departments to redefine their value proposition as service enablers — either through consumption or provision of cloud-based services.

As non-IT players externalise business competencies via the cloud, they will compete directly with IT organisations that have traditionally served in this capacity.

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What Is Service Virtualization?

Today, most large enterprises, no matter what industry they serve, are software developers. The reason? The various ways through which employees and customers can, and want, to engage with businesses has grown exponentially; time, platform and frequency are no longer considerable barriers to achieving what you want to achieve.

Applications that are used by either staff or customers are developed internally by the development team and/or with their development partners. For many organisations, their applications, particularly those which are customer facing, are the differentiators between them and their competitors, so getting it right is crucial.

Development and testing teams are under immense pressure to speed up the testing process in order to deliver applications out to market as quickly as possible, but one of the main issues is the lack of pre-production infrastructure available to them. This is where the ability to create a virtual service, also known as service virtualization, comes into play.

Service virtualization enables developers and testers to remove these constraints by replacing dependent systems with virtual services. The virtual service simulates the behaviour, data, and performance characteristics of a dependent system whilst consuming a fraction of the infrastructure. It is then instantly available to each team as and when they need it. By removing these constraints, software can be developed and delivered faster, with lower costs and higher reliability. It is a fundamentally new technique in software development.

In July 2012, CA Technologies commissioned a research study “The Business Benefits of Service Virtualization”. The survey, which was conducted by Coleman Parkes, includes feedback from over three hundred software development managers from large enterprises with revenues of more than $1 billion or equivalent in the UK, France and Germany. The vast majority of respondents (90 per cent) stated that they had problems with availability of systems and applications, such as databases or mainframes, for development and test purposes, the result of which leads to delayed projects, over-spending and lack of quality control.

The research suggests that organisations are taking steps to address their development and testing issues with nearly half of respondents (44 per cent) indicating they are moving to a cloud-based development and test environment. However, moving to a cloud-based environment is not the only answer as it is not possible and/or cost-effective to replicate certain types of infrastructure in the cloud such as a mainframe, third-party fee-based services or full databases.

Without these crucial pieces of the puzzle, the development project can’t move forward. If it takes three weeks to get access to a mainframe that means it still takes three weeks to wait and provision a cloud lab. We call this the “wires hanging out” issue. Service virtualization can aid those moving their preproduction environments to the cloud. It does not force those testing an application to choose between the three critical criteria in application development and testing: cost, quality or schedule.

Respondents of the survey also recognised that better processes for developing and testing software applications can result in the following business outcomes: greater customer satisfaction (80 per cent), increased revenue (72 per cent), improved market reputation (72 per cent) and more competitive products (71 per cent).

The need from the business is clear. Leaders now expect the IT function to deliver greater operational efficiency, reduce time to market, increase revenues and, to some extent, build and sustain competitive advantage and be a driver for innovation. However, they also need to acknowledge that conventional approaches to software development and testing are costing money and impacting the organisation’s bottom line. Business leaders need to invest in their development and testing teams now to get the results that will drive the business forward in the future.

Author: Chris Rowett
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Cloud Computing Still Confusing to Small Businesses

Only 28 percent of small-business owners completely understand the concept of cloud computing, while 42 percent of respondents said they are not using cloud computing at all and 35 percent said they were using it only for data storage, according to the latest “Brother Small-Business Survey,” from Brother International, which examined the role of technology in small business.

Small-business owners also noted using the cloud for document management (21 percent) as well as business applications like CRM and accounting and human resources (17 percent).

The study, conducted by Wakefield Research and based on a poll of 500 owners of U.S. businesses with less than 100 employees, revealed a surprising 75 percent of these small-business owners felt that a crashed computer was more disruptive than a sick employee, and 75 percent said that a tech malfunction had negatively affected their business through a missed deadline or opportunity.

“This year’s small-business survey found that technology is just as important as a healthy workforce,” John Wandishin, vice president of marketing for Brother, said in a statement. “The results emphasize the importance of delivering reliable and easy-to-use products to promote a productive working environment.”

When asked about business investments, 51 percent of small-business owners said that they prioritize technology tool-related capital investments, such as new software, mobile apps and cloud computing services. Machinery-related (21 percent) and facility-related investments (20 percent) were other areas of priority.

The results indicated that while technology plays a vital role in terms of office productivity, 66 percent of small-business owners said they are frequently overwhelmed by the amount of technology available to help them run their businesses, and 86 percent additionally noted that in the past year, office productivity suffered due to technology not working properly. Nearly a third (31 percent) of respondents went so far as to say that they would give up a week’s worth of vacation to ensure tech malfunctions never happened in their business again.

The survey measured a slight uptick (48 percent, compared with 44 percent in 2012) in small-business owners feeling the need to stockpile cash to help guarantee that they could survive any economic downturn. However, 52 percent said they believe that investing in their businesses can give them an advantage over competitors.

While stress levels among small-business owners remained high in general (58 percent in 2013, versus 55 percent in 2012), survey results indicated “extreme stress” seemed to be down. The percentage of those claiming their stress levels are at their highest ever (13 percent) is down almost half from last year (24 percent). However, 41 percent of small-business owners felt that 2012 turned out worse than expected.

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Running Your Own IT Systems Costly And Inefficient

Cloud computing represents enormous opportunities for domestic transport and logistics businesses around the world, according to Ralf Moller, general manager marketing for CargoWise and WiseTech Global. While cloud technology sounds complex, it is easy to find analogies that make this evolving mainstream technology easy to understand and adopt.

“Around the world there are tens of millions of trucks in circulation, and still more drivers who hit the roads to keep supermarkets, stores, factories, hospitals, schools and businesses supplied with all kinds of goods,” said Moller. “People who benefit from this transport network aren’t interested in how goods get there – they just expect them to be available at low cost, where and when they are ready to purchase them.”

Moller points out that while consumers might pay more for premium products, which feature higher grades of raw materials, or more highly refined manufacturing processes, few if any, think about the delivery process. As a result, wholesalers and retailers turn to logistics and transport experts to move the goods and meet customer expectations for cost and efficiency.

The domestic transport industry has largely focused on achieving economies of scale – enabling specialists with large assets (trucks and warehouses) to provide transportation, storage and logistics expertise at a fraction of the cost it would take individual wholesalers and retailers to do themselves.
“So why are many transport and logistics providers running their own IT systems when it’s safer, cheaper and more efficient to take advantage of technology solutions which are hosted in the cloud?” asks Moller.
“For the same reasons that it doesn’t make sense for most of your customers to own and run their own fleets, it probably no longer makes much sense for your business to own and run your IT systems.
“Consider what would happen if your customers insisted on owning and running their own logistics fleet, and what kinds of mistakes they would make in attempting to purchase the most appropriate vehicles and secure the right skills.

“Chances are they would end up with a fleet with excess capacity and a whole lot of staff with not enough to do – almost certainly it would be a less efficient and more costly operation with an inferior service to what your organisation is able to provide today.

“Running your own internal IT systems versus outsourcing is equivalent to the difference between a supplier organising its own transport as opposed to using the services of a domestic transport provider.”
Many of the larger domestic transport companies have invested significantly in creating an internal IT team because in the past, the only way to access productivity gains offered by computer systems was to spend a lot of money buying and constantly upgrading hardware; however, cloud computing has changed all of that.

“The cloud may sound mysterious and magical, and yet it is as straight forward as the service provided by most domestic transport companies,” said Moller. “Companies that provide cloud services have simply purchased assets (IT infrastructure hardware and software) with greater capacity, in bigger quantities at lower unit costs. They then employ specialists who construct and provide superior services relying on economies of scale to deliver their business model.”

Cloud computing delivers data storage, processing power and software provided as a service, rather than as a good that needs to be purchased and maintained. Because of this, there is no longer any need to worry about what system to purchase, which version to implement, determining when to upgrade and how to attract and retain the right IT staff.

More importantly, with the use of cloud computing, there is no longer any need to pay for extra headspace or down time, and you do not need to worry about disaster recovery systems to keep your business running when disaster strikes, points out Moller.

“In actual fact your data is far more secure in a tier three or four data centre, with multiple power sources and data connections, than it would ever be in your own premises. You don’t keep your money under your pillow; so why do you keep your data under your desk?” said Moller. “The benefits of cloud technolgy are greatest for small to medium-sized companies. Transport and logistics companies should be looking for ways to leave the difficult bits of technology up to the companies that have the skills and capabilities to deliver a reliable service at the best possible price,’’ he said.

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Seven Reasons To Get Your Head In The Cloud

Businesses speak up about how they’re flying thanks to cloud computing

Imagine if Frank Sinatra was an entrepreneur.

If he was in business, besides being effortlessly cool, he’d be totally nuts about cloud computing. Why? Because he’s the man who once sung: “Come fly with me”.

And not just that, he also sung in “I saw your face in a cloud”.

Jokes apart though, there are many good things that could happen if you take Sinatra’s example and fly away into cloud computing.

We asked businesses to tell us how cloud has been able to impact their balance sheets:

1. Battersea luxury floor business Harvey Maria: “We can act like a big firm even though we only three staff”

Owner Mark Findlay says:

“Back in the mid-late noughties we realised we needed to completely rethink and structure our business. Moving all of our operating systems to the cloud was a big part of this transformation and we chose NetSuite’s cloud-based SuiteCommerce solution to drive this change.

“Essentially, operating in the cloud allows us to have the profile of a big company, but operate like a lean, small company. With just three full-time members of staff, we use this software to outsource everything to keep staffing costs down. The solution also integrates accounting, CRM B2B and B2C eCommerce, including shopping cart management and check-out, which makes managing our outsourced processes really easy.

“Our annual turnover is increasing by 50% year on year and since doing so SuiteCommerce has been integral to our success, enabling us to easily sell and ship internationally. The technology automates the whole process taking into account currency exchange rates and delivery costs. Moving to the cloud for us was also the natural choice as it’s scalable as well which prevents any IT headaches when you want to grow.”

2. Martial arts equipment retailer Blitz Sport: Cloud helped us double our turnover and increase international sales tenfold

Chris Geast, Blitz Sport head of IT says:

“We run all of our commerce processes through the cloud. Prior to this, we had a number of systems running different parts of the business, including separate software for mail order management and B2C and B2B eCommerce inventory management as well as delivery. As we grew managing these disjointed systems became a struggle. We couldn’t see a real-time view of stock levels across our different retail channels, resulting in customer orders being processed for out-of-stock items.

“Our main reason for choosing cloud over on-premise solutions was cost. We use NetSuite to run so many parts of the business without a dedicated IT staff and we don’t need to buy and maintain any hardware on-site.

“Since installing NetSuite our overall turnover has doubled. Its easy integration processes have allowed us to increase international sales tenfold. We use it to automatically create local regional websites with the right currency and adhering to local compliance and retailing laws, which saves us hours of time.”

3. Luxury accommodation providers Boutique London Lets: “We’ve trebled in size every year since getting cloud”

MD Derek Gallimore:

“Although based in London, we’re now an international company with 90% of our trade coming from overseas bookings across all different time zones. To ensure we can handle all these queries and provide great customer service, we provide a 24/7 phone and email support service with staff based in the Philippines, London, the US and Australia.

“With such a global spread of employees, we simply couldn’t exist without the cloud. We’re able to share documents, and access information wherever we are, on whatever device, or using cloud tools such as Google Groups for quick online discussions to answer customer queries as quickly as possible. Storing all essential documents in the cloud means we can also respond much quicker to email enquiries as multiple employees can access template responses instead of having to wait to receive large files over email across different time zones.

“And because the cloud is by its nature so easily scalable it’s enabled us to grow quickly too, without any of the usual problems and expense you get when you try and upscale traditional IT. In fact, since 2009, when moving to Google Apps we’ve trebled in size every year for four years, and the cloud has certainly played a huge part in enabling that.”

4. Accountants Charlie Carne & Co: “Cloud has saved time, money and allowed more flexible working”

Founder Charlie Carne says:

“Cloud-based bookkeeping has revolutionised the way we work. Now I can access a client’s records in real time, wherever I am, and ultimately provide a quicker, more responsive service to clients. Pretty much all my client data now gets filed electronically and sits securely in the cloud, saving me valuable filing space, time and money previously spent on posting out documents.

“The fact that cloud-based software such as QuickBooks Online is so accessible means I’ve been able to employ more flexible working practices, employing more work-at-home parents and saving a huge amount of time and money previously spent travelling to see my clients and access their accounts.”

5. Ethical bag-makers ElephantBranded: “Cloud is our virtual office on the move”

Founder James Boon:

“We’re often travelling and trying to keep on top of complex projects, so we’ve really taken to the Basecamp application. It is now our virtual office, and allows us to run ElephantBranded from our phones anywhere in the world. Without it, our way of doing business would not be possible!”

6. Business consultancy firm It’s a Glorious Day: “We can keep track of all our projects quicker”

Laurence Coen, founder, whose clients include Vodafone, TUI Travel, KPMG, says:

“Our business has been transformed by using cloud computing. We have two main offices – one in London and one in Budapest, plus various mobile workers moving around Europe at all times. As you can imagine, before the move to cloud computing we faced a challenge to keep track of work projects.

“Before we used Dropbox, I could never find e-mail attachments when I wanted them and was in constant upheaval on the road. Now everything is ordered logically and can be accessed instantly wherever I am in the world.

“We use Basecamp as a collaborative based working system so that all of the team can chip in on projects. It means that everyone gets their say in real time as thoughts are recorded and processes worked through logically. We also use ‘Tick Time’ for time sheets – it adds up each of our hours and drops them into the right client invoice automatically. That’s a no-brainer.

“We have found that one of the benefits of having a wealth of cloud computing tools at our disposal is that different team members prefer different methods of communication. It’s just human nature because our brains are all wired differently and we process information in a variety of ways.

“So our creatives might prefer to draw a diagram and post it on Basecamp, whereas members of the admin team might prefer to use video conferencing or IM for example. Everyone has their ‘preferred’ way of being contacted too, so we know how to get hold of them at a moment’s notice.

“By combining a varied swathe of Cloud-based systems – it gives scope for each of us to participate on a project in our own individual way.”

7. IT firm Postcode Anywhere: “Cloud helped us become of the UK’s fastest growing IT companies”

CTO Jamie Turner says

“We became one of the UK’s fastest-growing IT companies by investing heavily in innovative cloud computing, which makes it far more cost effective to deliver business software and services.

“The internet provides an ideal medium for managing data between distributed systems compared to traditional EDI [electronic data interchange] methods. This allows data to be more easily moved between different systems and platforms at a much lower cost than has historically been the case.

“We’ve seen the cloud evolve over the last 10 years and realised from an early stage that the use of web technologies makes it easier to access different systems. One of our core focuses has always been delivering data anywhere – to any software on any device anywhere in the world. We started with postal data but we realised that the same technology can be used by our customers to make their own data available anywhere and, crucially, make it easy to share and move it around.”

Author: Asa Bennett
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Desktop Virtualization Facilitates Easy Migration To Windows 7 & 8

After a long wait, Windows 8 is finally here. The new operating system from Microsoft, features a number of business-friendly features that would be compelling for enterprise users and administrators. According to industry estimates, nearly half of the Indian organisations use Windows XP platform today, and as the OS reaches end of life in a year-and-a-half, analysts believe it will result in a demand uptick for newer platforms such as Windows 7 and 8.

Hence, the migration from Windows XP is one of the top IT priorities today, in the context of the emerging post PC era, the extinction of Windows XP support, and device proliferation at the workplace.

Although the roll-out of Windows 8 by enterprises will be phased and gradual, media reports state that select Indian enterprises have already downloaded 16 million copies for testing of the OS since September 2011 until its launch this year. As organizations undertake this migration, many are looking to streamline the process for both IT and users to reduce the complexity and costs associated with migrating client PCs to a new operating system.

However, while the decision to migrate is relatively straightforward, the process of migrating can be rife with IT complexity, end-user disruptions, and added costs. Desktop Virtualization in this context is a powerful technology that can facilitate this transition in a quick seamless way through the following four pivots:

Enhancing Consumerization of IT

For executives, work is no longer defined by a place. It’s something they do – wherever and whenever their organizations require. Modern executives need continuous access to enterprise data while being inherently agile. The role of an executive has changed from being hierarchical to being truly networked.

In this regard, executives who have adopted tablets can now get a consistent experience of Windows 7/8 through desktop virtualization even if the tablets are running on different operating systems (such as iOS, Android etc.) This also enables these mobile executives to access their desktops anywhere using their device, thereby improving efficiency and productivity.

Application compatibility

Applications built on a 16-bit architecture will cease to work while upgrading to 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows 7 or 8. This can be challenging from a business continuity perspective as many business critical programs will be dependent on their erstwhile architecture framework.

Similarly, it could be a gargantuan activity to re-platform applications built and designed for Internet Explorer 6 browsers with Windows 8. In this case, desktop virtualization facilitates on-demand application facility where IT can virtualize the IE6 and deliver it from data center onto the new OS with no differentiation in user experience. In addition, applications that require 16-bit architecture can be virtualized and delivered in the same way to numerous end points.

Hardware Upgrade

Migration to Windows 7 and 8 comes with having to open purse strings towards hardware upgrades in an organization. Such roll-outs are also associated with downtime as they are completed in a phased approach, consuming months of IT staff time and multiple days of downtime for end users. Desktop Virtualization enables the OS and applications to be delivered virtually, while the hardware resources of the end-point remain unused. As a result it doesn’t necessitate a hardware upgrade, eliminating the scenarios of cost expenditure and downtime.

In fact, the procedure entails merely deploying the Windows 7/8 solution at the data center, and all the user has to do is simply log out and re-login. When they log in to the desktop virtualization client, their systems are up and running on Windows 7/8 with all their requisite applications. Another major advantage of embracing desktop virtualization is that it reduces operating expenses by centralizing desktop maintenance and brings down the desk-side support needs. By making it possible to deliver virtual desktops to thin clients or tablet devices, this enables the company to save costs on power and cooling.

Security and User Preferences

During an upgrade, it may be required to re-chart the entire settings for each of the end users owing to the host of new security and user preferences available with Windows 7 & 8 as compared to Windows XP. As a natural consequence, security of data becomes a concern while allotting privileges to each of the employees as the company data resides on user end-points.

With desktop virtualization, the organization can manage this transition in a secured manner as the data doesn’t shift out of company’s data center, and therefore doesn’t reside on the end points.

In a nutshell, the challenges around application compatibility, agility of desktops to support new environments and data security can be very well addressed through desktop virtualization during migration from Windows XP.

Author: Atul Ahuja
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Desktop Virtualization Facilitates Easy Migration To Windows 7 & 8