Category: Cloud adoption

Key benefits for SMBs looking to switch to cloud-based ERP solutions

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions are often used by businesses to help consolidate and organize information within an organization. ERP software was traditionally installed on company servers or other infrastructure. These on-premises solutions were able to make businesses more efficient and provide major benefits. However, they are imperfect in certain areas, such as cost, agility, and maintenance. Cloud based ERP solutions solve many of the problems that are associated with traditional on-premises solutions and provide many advantages over their counterparts on-site. The key benefits of Cloud ERP software: Lower initial cost Cloud-based ERP systems are significantly cheaper than traditional on-premises systems. Additionally, ongoing costs are often lower. The subscription costs for cloud ERP software can be reduced after deployment. This is because maintenance and support costs are typically 20% of initial license costs. These costs include hardware costs, as well as the cost to upgrade and maintain the system and IT staff. These costs can be eliminated for smaller companies that cannot afford the upfront costs of on-premises ERP, even though the technology could benefit them. Simplified compliance Businesses in highly-regulated industries such as finance, healthcare, and defense must regularly update their ERP software on-site to comply with regulations. To remain compliant and avoid expensive fees and other legal consequences, companies must be able to keep up-to-date with all the latest federal, state, and international rules updates. The company must then incorporate the changes in its existing system and upgrade hardware and software as required. Cloud ERP software providers, on the other hand, are proactive in complying with international, state, and federal provisions like HIPPA, GDPR, and GAAP. These regulations and others are already integrated into cloud ERP software. They are automatically updated to ensure businesses meet or exceed compliance requirements. Cloud ERP software often includes localization functionality, which allows companies to change between different countries’ regulations to ensure compliance across all global operations. Increased data security Business applications like ERP hold all confidential information of the company. It is, therefore, vital to keep it safe. Many people mistakenly believe that an on-site server is safer than a cloud-based one. However, this is completely false. Cloud based ERP solutions provide multiple layers of encryption to increase the security of your data and ensure that they are safely stored. Employees can access this through an individual account managed from the admin panel. Avoid the trap of ERP implementation by streamlining the deployment strategy High-profile ERP disasters are often caused by difficulties in planning and coordinating the rollout across departments and systems. On-premises ERP deployments can be a difficult and tedious task. Each department has to deal with its own problems while the IT department tries to keep up. Implementation problems can lead to production slowdowns, increased costs, and a halt in innovation. Cloud ERP software was created to address these issues directly. These systems are designed to create solutions that are more flexible, adaptable, and easier to use. Related: Six steps to a successful ERP implementation Maintenance and upgrades Businesses don’t need to worry about software upgrades or maintenance because the ERP solutions company hosts and maintains the entire system infrastructure. The provider manages all the infrastructure, including the database and servers, and pushes updates to all customers. This ensures that the software is safe and compliant with all regulations. Having one vendor handle all issues can increase accountability. Cloud ERP software providers offer 24/7 support, which is a subscription-based service. This allows them to respond quickly to any problems that may arise. Cloud ERP vendors can often provide more uptime and security for their customers than in-house IT staff because their business depends on availability. Get access to additional business intelligence capabilities Cloud ERPs make data storage and collection much simpler. This is crucial for data analysis. Many cloud-based ERPs have built-in analytics features that can be powered by real-time information. This allows your team to spot changes in business conditions, evaluate possible strategies, improve business performance, and make data-driven business decisions that reduce risk, cut costs, and increase revenue. Contrary to cloud ERPs, on-premise ERP software is more susceptible to compatibility issues and may have data silos. Cloud ERPs can easily be integrated with third-party business intelligence software if you need specific capabilities. How can cloud ERP systems help small businesses? We explained above that cloud ERP is a great option for small businesses because it is easy to use. Although ERP systems have the same benefits regardless of the size of the company, cloud ERP systems can be more cost-effective and easy to use for small businesses. Cloud ERP solutions are a great alternative to on-premise solutions that can be expensive and difficult to implement. Small businesses may not have the resources to support on-premise software. Cloud ERP software providers can be an extension of your staff, handling updates, maintenance, monitoring, and other tasks for you. This allows you to focus on the software and your business rather than worrying about how it runs. Related: Microsoft Business Central: The next step for SMEs Better agility for your business A growing business needs agility. Companies must be able and willing to take advantage of opportunities such as new locations, new products, services, acquisitions, and responding to market changes. Cloud ERP systems allow companies to expand their business by providing instant access to data from all departments. Cash flow visibility in the cloud Any growing company needs cash flow to survive. Cloud ERP software integrates accounting processes with business operations to increase information availability, such as working capital, operating costs, and investments. This ensures that every aspect of the company is accurately accounted for, which ultimately leads to growth. Seamless integration in the cloud To keep up with consumers and market demands, small businesses must adapt frequently. Cloud-based ERP solutions like Dynamics 365 Business Central simplify the integration of new software, processes, and solutions. This helps with frequent adjustments. Are you ready to make the switch to a cloud ERP? Advaiya can help. Cloud migration brings better best-practice data, new

Cloud is Good

Cloud is good! Shared computing services—whether applications or platforms—available over internet have granted unprecedented access to technology sophistication to small and medium sized businesses.

Five must-haves to evaluate cloud backup & disaster recovery providers

With the increasing amount of data processing and a wide variety of application usage, data protection has become a critical component in the IT strategy of every business. Even the slightest of downtime can significantly impact productivity. Therefore your daily operations can be compromised if you fail to recover your precious data quickly in the event of a natural disaster, storage failure, or cyber-attack. A vast majority of companies are aware of the importance of data protection. However, nearly 3 out of 4 companies worldwide are failing in terms of disaster readiness, according to the Disaster Recovery Preparedness Benchmark Survey, 2014. While cloud backup disaster recovery providers often offer affordable, reliable, and efficient data protection solution for companies, choosing the right service for your specific business needs can be a challenge. So, before you implement your backup and DR strategies in cloud, here are five things you need to take into consideration when evaluating cloud backup providers. 1. Experience – DR budget typically ranges from 5-7 percent of the total IT budget. Hence, finding a cloud backup service provider that has the capability to meet specific requirements of your organization and the one who has got the expertise to work within the available budget is important.  2. Testing Recovery– Testing recovery operations is an essential ingredient when selecting a service provider offering DRaaS/BaaS capabilities. It is recommended to perform an initial test at the provider’s location before you sign a contract with the provider to bring up any impending issues that might occur during the test. Varying infrastructural differences may confine you to work within the boundary of the provider’s cloud which may force you to redesign your infrastructure from scratch. 3. SLA – When considering SLA, you should be careful of even the minutest detail of service that your service provider is providing. Before signing up with any backup as a service (BaaS) or disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS), verify to read the fine print in the SLA. If something is not explicitly written into the SLA, you should not assume that it is a covered service. 4. Security – Some providers encrypt data at rest on their servers, but not data in transit. It is recommended that data should be encrypted at no less than 256-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) levels before it leaves the customer's site for the cloud provider so that the data in transit cannot be stolen as plain text. The companies should hold all encryption keys and not allow the BaaS or DRaaS provider to have the ability to decrypt any data stored on their servers. 5. Compliance – As cloud-based storage today has become a commodity, hence, providers might tend to store your data on inexpensive storage having poor security. So, if your data backup pertains to government or industry related security regulations, you must ensure that the data centers where your backups are stored, meet the required compliance standards. For example, customers' health should be stored in HIPAA-compliant (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) clouds and credit card data should be stored in PCI DSS-compliant (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) clouds. In short, SMBs who tend to do all the recovery themselves may miss some essential requirements. Hence, having a key person at the provider side should help eliminate those errors. However, it is highly recommended that you do your due diligence to ensure that the provider you choose for cloud backup disaster recovery services, can assist in the recovery of files in a right way while providing technical support and assistance as and when needed.

Major concerns for Cloud Computing in respect of Office 365

As a Microsoft partner for Office 365 and Azure solution implementation, we often come across customers who are either planning to migrate some of the workload to Office 365 or started some proof of concepts for selective workloads in cloud, but worry of adopting cloud as primary workload or infrastructure.

Enterprise-level innovation is democratized and available for SMB

Trends relating to cloud, mobility and data driven collaboration mean that SMBs can be every bit as sophisticated and cutting edge as large enterprises.

Spending too much time troubleshooting IT issues?

How many calls or requests in a week do you think the help desk receives related to infrastructure? How long do you think the help desk spend working on these issues? Apparently, more than you think. Managing day to day IT operations hold the IT team to focus on the core business. In other words, if you’re just solving the problems and not planning to prevent them, you will always have to keep solving them. Reasons could be relying on old technologies for running your operations and not because you do not want to upgrade. The business-critical system of your company cannot afford the downtime of transition to newer technologies. But on the other side, this causes slower performance, troubleshooting, and costs time and money. Also, there might be a situation that you are spending much on barely used systems. The IT team keep maintaining multiple legacy systems and doing this adds a layer of complexity to the infrastructure. But again, when the problem arises it become harder to spot a problem which again needs a lot of efforts. Chances are your company falls into at least one of these categories and is wasting at least some part of its IT budget. And all these problems come from the same place: You’re not getting enough return on your infrastructure investments. So, is it the right time for you to move your infrastructure to Cloud? Today users are becoming increasingly demanding: they want useful resources more quickly than ever, and they want to be able to access services whenever they want. It is not about the size of the company; it is all about the speed at which your business operates. A decision to move to the cloud gives organizations enormous advantages Lower cost It saves a lot of up-front costs related to hardware and human resources. You simply pay for what services you use. So, less budget for IT infrastructure and more focus on actual business problems. Faster and up-to-date setup It can typically be deployed in a matter of days as there is no need to install software or hardware on-site. Also, you do not have to worry about the system maintenance and upgrades. On demand availability It gives you the agility to scale up and down with growing or fluctuating demands. Also, it offers flexibility for employees to access the company resources and work from almost anywhere. So, considering these points, and the benefits that the cloud can provide to your organization, I think this is the right time for you to move to the cloud. We are Value Added Reseller (VAR) of major cloud services providers, we bring together consulting, migration, operations and licensing services enabling you to adopt cloud technologies in the most fruitful manner seamlessly. Call us today at +1-425-256-3123 or Email us at connect@advaiya.com to discuss your challenges and see how we can help.

Facing unplanned downtime and reduced productivity?

Despite developments in infrastructure robustness, organizations still face software, hardware, network, and database downtime, ranging from short periods to closing the business for days. Unplanned downtime has been impacting companies in multiple ways: Reduce profitability – this is the most direct effect Harm business reputation and loyalty Compliance impacts – if you have SLA’s or performance guarantees, 100% response times to your customers Potential remedial costs – overtime costs to recover the work lost All these negatively affect your organization’s performance and productivity. 100% uptime is crucial for organizations today, which depends on IT both for employee productivity and a competitive differentiation to stay ahead. So how can you prevent unplanned downtime and hampered productivity? Choosing an infrastructure solution that best suits your business needs The right cloud strategy promises a lot: Minimal recovery time – With cloud-based disaster recovery, the backup environment will be ready to serve your mission critical applications the moment any incident is detected at the primary sites. Once end-users have been transferred to the cloud environment, organizations can get to work repairing the primary site rapidly to cut the amount of time spent utilizing the recovery site. Compliance and security solutions – Cloud vendors stay up to date with the state-of-the-art industry standards and compliance certifications. Single-tenant cloud users enjoy an additional layer of security as there’s no chance of their data being compromised, accessed by unauthorized users or mixed with another company’s data. Elastic infrastructure – Cloud-based services are ideal for businesses with growing or fluctuating demands. The cloud provides the agility to easily scale up as demands grow, and scale down again as per the need. So, the customers can add more users, storage, and features over time. The benefit of this flexibility is that companies only have to pay for what they need and use. Reduced CAPEX – Cloud computing helps bring down the high cost of infrastructure. The pay-as-you-go option allows for a subscription-based model, where you only pay for services procured rather than overbuying resources. Not on the cloud yet? If you are looking to protect your IT environment and shorten the backup and recovery time, we can help you move to the cloud. As Value Added Reseller (VAR) of major cloud services providers, Advaiya brings together consulting, migration, operations and licensing services enabling you to adopt cloud technologies in the most fruitful manner seamlessly.

10 reasons to move your infrastructure to Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure is the core of Microsoft’s Cloud offering, and it’s getting more and better received each year. In the final quarter of 2016 alone, Microsoft has reported a whopping 102% growth in Azure revenue, with usage doubling year after year. As we look towards 2017, we’ve picked our top 10 reasons organizations are moving to the cloud. 1. Agile and scalable Business growth is often unpredictable. For your IT platforms to provide the most value, they need to be able to grow and scale as your business does. Azure shines at this, allowing you to develop applications as a cluster that designates a web application to a set of specific set of processes. With applications spread across multiple of servers, they won’t run out of server capacity.  2. Microsoft compatibility For any organization currently using Microsoft products like SharePoint and Office 365, a cloud infrastructure provider that works seamlessly with existing technology is vital. Microsoft Azure is in a unique position to offer that ease of use to organizations, over providers like AWS. The same Virtual Machines can also be used on-premises, further simplifying processes.  3. On-demand computing Vast amounts of computing resources can be provisioned in minutes, typically with just a few mouse clicks, giving businesses a lot of flexibility and taking the pressure off capacity planning.  4. Elastic hosting With the complex range of computing and software options available on the market, flexibility is vital. Azure offers Infrastructure as a service option, allowing organizations to outsource their cloud infrastructure (to us for instance) and follow a pay-as-you-go, model. 5. Secure and resilient Microsoft is one of the most renowned, long-standing technology companies out there and has proved their capability in the enterprise space many times over. For many organizations where security and reliability are critical, this is a big selling feature of Azure.  Data is also safe, with Azure based on the Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle, a highly advanced approach to developing the most secure code. 6. Global data centers For global organizations with employees located in several countries, local data centers to improve speed and uptime are important selling points of a cloud infrastructure provider. Azure is backed up by Microsoft’s growing number of global managed data centers; there are currently 30 with eight additional regions including Korea, France, and four more locations in the USA coming soon. From a user’s point of view, their experience is also hugely improved by having a local data center. 7. Hybrid capability Azure also gives users the choice to build hybrid environments, allowing organizations to leverage on-premises resources and the advantages of the cloud without complexity. 8. Economies of scale Azure’s pay-as-you-grow model decreases unnecessary costs as you’re only paying for what you use. With their large customer base, they have also been able to pass on volume discounts to their clients. 9. Simplified management Even though the Azure platform has been around for many years now, the services that it offers have been continuously evolving, offering new features to consumers. It has not been standing still from a management point of view either, and the IT professional now has a much more superior API to use in the form of Azure Resource Manager (ARM). 10. Support From small dev-test projects to global product launches, Azure is engineered to handle any workload. Azure also offers enterprise-grade SLAs on services, 24/7 tech support, and service health monitoring. Microsoft also provides support in a variety of languages to help the regions of their data centers. We work with clients every day to build business cases for Azure, consulting on the best strategies for cloud infrastructure that will add value. Look here for more info on the cloud infrastructure services we offer and feel free to contact us to discuss your requirements. Want information about our Cloud infrastructure services? Click here

O365 vs GSuite – Which is Best For Your Business?

“Productivity” and “Collaboration” are the two buzz words in every industry today. As consultants, everyday we learn about the vision for increasing the productivity and workforce efficiency from the top management of many industry leaders which explicitly calls out for a single platform to collaborate. For instance, more than one employee working on a single document, communicating with each other simultaneously over chat, making iterations is a very typical example of collaboration. In other words, parallel execution of tasks with efficiency leading to higher productivity is collaboration. 

The two industry rivals, Microsoft and Google, have been proactive in pushing and promoting their cloud business productivity as a leading collaboration tool. Microsoft’s Office 365 has been a known cloud solution amongst market leaders, whereas Google Apps (now G Suite) has managed to attract start-ups and small-scale industries. Two factors, reach and price has played a significant role here, Google wins on price and Microsoft wins on its reach. Beating Microsoft Office is very tough for any other business tool with similar capacities. 

There is a list of features and functionalities which are common, and some which have been the key differentiation points between two solutions, giving advantage and disadvantage over each other.

A study by Okta Inc. showed that Finance and Construction sectors are pretty much inclined to use Office 365, whereas Marketing firms look confident and happy with Google Apps. A screenshot of stats below: 

Image Source: Oka study on “Business @Work, March 2016.” 

Apart from the complex figures and comparison, Microsoft leads the race on the nature of innovation in the simplest form, which has been not appealing in G Suite. Recently introduced Flow, Stream, Planner, Delve, and Team are such small yet powerful services additions in Office 365. Stream appears to be Youtube for Enterprises whereas Flow allows people to build actionable workflows by their own without knowing a piece of code. G Suite has been typical of the services included in the package, and not much increment or innovation was seen, apart from “Android for Work” which shall be appreciated by enterprises for mobility. 

To conclude, Google apps has attracted businesses that need basic functionalities and features; most of the industry owns Office 365 due to trust, familiarity and compatibility with Office applications. On commercials aspects, G Suite wins the race by keeping two simple plans for any number of users; Office 365 has six variety of plans targeted to different user group and features.