The Hybrid Cloud Model - has this been implemented in to your 2014 business plan?

There is no question about it; cloud adoption will continue to rise in 2014. However, it is the growth of the hybrid cloud that will be the focal point and the most significant IT-altering trend in cloud computing this year.

According to Gartner, half of large enterprises will be operating on a hybrid cloud model and more than half of IT budgets will be spent on cloud computing by 2017.

For those of you that do not know already, a hybrid cloud combines the best of both worlds: a single-tenant private architecture with a multi-tenant cloud. In other words, a mix of private internally used 'cloud', merged with external public cloud services.

So why are more and more businesses choosing a hybrid cloud model?

A hybrid cloud provides the security and performance benefits of the private cloud, along with the high availability and security of the public cloud.

However, the key and crucial motive that is attracting more and more businesses to implement a hybrid cloud model in to their business plan for 2014 is in fact the latest development of the smart server.

Tell me more… What are smart servers?

Smart servers are crucial to the next generation of hybrid environments. This is due to their simplicity, ease of deployment and speed of deployment in only a matter of minutes!

What’s more, a smart server accelerates the process of scaling up resources, while eliminating downtime and optimizing performance to create a better user experience. This is essential for businesses who want to be able to scale up and down, and flex in and out, in co-ordination with the growth and decline in sales demands, as well as the peaks and troughs in the market throughout the year.

As smart servers become more standard, cloud hosting will become an on-demand service where businesses can customize their infrastructure to their exact resource needs, accessing CPU, RAM and storage as and when they require it.

In a nut shell, a hybrid cloud model offers businesses the ability to combine public cloud services with local storage and application solutions that work for them by choosing the right combination of performance, reliability, security and cost that suits their exact business requirements.

Ok, so how can I manage the process?

Cristie's CloneManager™ software product provides users with the ability to continuously  move and manage their systems between and within private and public cloud offerings, as well as virtual and physical environments. It is the complete machine mobility tool which has been designed to provide users with a simple to use interface, and a speedy and reliable process. 

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To find out more, contact a member of our sales team on: 

+44 1453 847000 or by using any of the links below:

Back to basics: What is Cloud Computing and what should it mean to you?

#CloneManager  @CristieSoftware

Everybody seems to have a different definition when it comes to the ‘Cloud.’ When combined with ‘computing’ the meaning gets even vaster and more complicated. One of the simplest and narrowest descriptions of cloud computing is it being multiple virtual servers available over the internet. It is an updated version of utility computing, helping IT to create virtual data-centers from commodity servers on demand. Nowadays with such cloud-based interconnection, cloud computing could be more accurately described as ‘sky computing’ with many isolated clouds of services which IT customers must plug into individually. Cloud computing provides users with the ability to store digital files and access them from multiple internet-connected devices at any time and any place.

The growing popularity among businesses, who are adopting cloud computing, is the ability to increase capacity and add capabilities to fulfill IT needs without having to invest in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software. Storing data in the cloud means that hardware expenses and storage spaces are cut, which is why an increasing number of businesses are migrating their data-centers to the cloud.

According to the Cisco^® Global Cloud Index nearly two-thirds of all workloads will be processed in the cloud by 2017!

Have you made the transition yet?

Check out CloneManager™ the system migration software product. What makes CloneManager™ different from other migration tools currently on the market is that:

•      It can migrate in any direction (between Virtual, Cloud and Physical environments)
•      It will migrate the following OS machines: Windows Linux Solaris & AIX
•      It can customize and optimize the machine for the cloud environment DURING the cloud process
•      The CloneSync feature rapidly synchronizes a previously cloned machine with its source machine without having to repeat a full migration process
•      It has been developed using its own transport mechanism and web services which is resilient, robust, tolerant and fast for transfers of data from source to target machines (clones can be performed quickly and reliably over networks with large amounts of data and even with restricted bandwidths)

To find out more, contact a member of our sales team on: +44 1453 847000 or by using any of the links below:

The New Year’s Resolution for all masters of disasters!

Too many businesses should have won the master of disaster award last year after suffering from major IT downtime after a server failure. With the technology we have available today, there is no reason for companies to suffer from their systems being unavailable to use after a disaster strikes anymore. For the amount of time it takes to enquire, install and setup the software that will backup and recover your machines, there really is no excuse to plead ignorance whilst twiddling your thumbs waiting for the business to get up and running again.

Start 2014 off on the right foot by prioritising investing in BMR software. Not only will it give you confidence that your business servers are protected from any unpredictable IT, or even natural disaster, to occur, but it will also help you to easily achieve your recovery time objective(RTO).

For more information on achieving your new year’s resolution, please visit: www.cristie.com to find out more.

Mistakes in 2013 are lessons for 2014

It is a popular saying that we learn through making mistakes. But what if we were able to educate people prior to making mistakes so that they can be prevented altogether? Surely when it comes to disaster recovery of IT infrastructure, in this fast moving technologically advanced world it is too risky to take chances and let other businesses overtake you as your systems fail. But we see time and time again businesses becoming distracted with the money making side of their operation that protecting a legacy of reputation and success seems to be thrown on to the back burner.

As we approach the end of 2013, it is time to focus on one of the major lessons learned from disasters that occurred this year, so that we can minimize the effects if similar disasters take place in 2014.

One of the best examples to focus on is the disaster centralized around the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), namely the IT outage that occurred earlier this month which caused havoc among customers and business practices.

Unfortunately for RBS the IT outage occurred on one of the busiest online shopping days of the year, often referred to as ‘Cyber Monday.’ During the three hour downtime, more than one million customers were unable to use their debit cards to make card payments, withdraw cash from ATMs or use their online banking facility.

It definitely wasn’t the first time the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) experienced an IT outage but by adopting a BMR solution in to their business continuity plan for the future, it can hopefully be the last!

This incident followed a number of IT failures for RBS as another system outage took place earlier in the year from a hardware failure which prevented customers from accessing online banking, using ATM's and carrying out point of service payments. 

Even further, these incidents follow RBS’s largest catastrophic IT meltdown which took place in June last year, where payments were held up and balances were not updated for over a week.

While analysts have already described RBS’s technology as outdated and question its resilience, the new CEO for RBS has even admitted that RBS has neglected its technology by failing to have invested properly in its systems for decades.

After being footed with a whopping £175 million bill in compensation to their customers, and a huge dent in their reputation, it really is time for RBS to invest properly in state of the art technology and software that protects their IT infrastructure.

Let this be a lesson to all businesses who have not invested in protecting their systems yet, and even those who do not carry out regular tests that the software solution in place can be relied upon if a disaster strikes.

Do not follow in the footsteps of RBS. Instead, invest in protecting your systems today. Cristie Software: predictable recoveries in an unpredictable world. To find out more contact a member of our sales team on: +44 1453 847000 or by using any of the links below:

Read what the Cristie Ball predicts for Cloud Computing in 2014;

Last year it was predicted that the rate of cloud adoption and migration would rise in 2013 and we can see that the Cloud has been brought to popularity.

As we reach the end of 2013 here are our top 5 predictions from the Cristie Ball for cloud and virtualization in 2014:

• Cloud adoption will continue to grow as businesses become serious about the Cloud as a business tool, with saving time and money being the strongest influences. Check out the links for more information.

• There will be a growing enterprise use of the public cloud as more and more enterprises are becoming increasingly comfortable and trusting of the security and scale of public clouds.

• Efficiently managing and storing information that may never be used again will be a huge issue for IT managers and administrators, especially with the costs associated with VM sprawl. It will become increasingly easier to lose control of the volume of virtual machines so it will be vital to implement successful policies in order to gain control.

• Adoption of the private cloud will continue to grow at a slower pace and mainly among finance and healthcare industries where there are compliance and security issues that require on-site data hosting.

• The quantity of Big Data in the Cloud will rapidly increase, especially with businesses requiring more and more storage for data. This will be particularly important for social media providers who will need a way of handling all the data as social networks and niche networks continue to grow. Social media will act as a big driver for cloud adoption in 2014, and we will see the beginning of Big Data-as-a-service.

Get yourself ahead of the game and migrate your systems today with:

CloneManager™ provides users with a facility to monitor and manage their server infrastructure and to pro-actively clone machines to other resources: physical; virtual or cloud. This allows users to optimize resource allocation, migrate machines to different environments and provides disaster recovery (DR) capabilities. 

For information on any of Cristie Software's disaster recovery software solutions contact the sales team on: +44 1453 847000 or by using any of the links below:

The disastrous effects of IT downtime!

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.

The ability to create solutions to problems before they exist will keep you miles ahead of the game when disaster strikes. Try to think outside the box when it comes to identifying disastrous situations that could occur. If it can go wrong, it will. Being over cautious and paranoid about the minutest of errors that may arise will help to keep you in control of your business. Even the smallest unintended consequences can cause serious damage. Constantly asking yourself ‘what if?’ will allow you to get a real handle on these issues.

  

To help inspire you to think of possible issues that could occur and get the clogs working here are a few pointers to consider:

•          Network outages
•          Cyber attacks
•          Employee sabotage
•          Viruses
•          Sudden loss of internet services
•          Malfunctioning equipment
•          Potential accidents
•          Knowledge gap of staff because of the speed of developing technology
•          Natural disasters –consider all!

Once all potential problems have been identified and logged, it’s time to create strategies which will overcome each of them. A good disaster recovery plan will cover all possible natural and man-made issues along with solutions to defeat them, and will act as an information insurance policy for businesses to get back on its feet quickly after any disaster occurs.

For seven simple steps on how to create a successful disaster recovery plan view this short guide.

Remember: with disaster recovery planning there is no such thing as being over-cautious.

Cristie Software: predictable recoveries in an unpredictable world.

For information on any of Cristie Software's disaster recovery software solutions contact the sales team on:   +44 1453 847000 or by using any of the links below: