Free Microsoft Sponsored Cloud Seminar

The Cloud - Your Questions Answered

Eitex are hosting a number of free cloud seminars this year, the first event is to be in March (dates to be confirmed). Industry leaders Microsoft, FusionCRM and Simply Unified will also be presenting.

 

The seminars will cover:

• The cloud - what is it?
• Cloud products including Office 365, SharePoint, Exchange, Lync and CRM Online
• Your questions answered - Q&A Session
• Business Benefits
• Xbox giveaway

Register your Interest:

To register your interest in the events please go to http://www.eitex.co.uk/office365events.asp

The Future is Bright with The Cloud

SMB’s no longer need to spend large sums of money to implement the same standard of technology as larger corporations.

Cloud services offer huge benefits over traditional on-premise server based IT solutions including:

• Reduced costs – less hardware, software, licenses and support overheads.
• Improved Accessibility – access your email, documents and data such as quotes, invoices and manuals from anywhere with an internet connection, at any time .
• Increased Productivity – providing staff with the ability to work from anywhere means that winter weather, transport problems and strikes don’t have to interrupt your business!

In addition, Microsoft Office365 comes with Lync technology which provides the ability to hold secure virtual meetings whilst sharing and collaborating on documents and project materials with staff, suppliers and clients.

Eitex are now Microsoft Cloud Accelerate Partners which means we are helping businesses of all sizes take advantage of the benefits offered by online “Cloud” services such as Microsoft Office365.

If you would like to try Office365 you can do so for free here.

For more information on Eitex and Office365 visit our website at: http://www.eitex.co.uk/microsoftoffice365.asp

I keep hearing about the cloud, but what is it?

Traditionally a network for a small to medium sized business consists of one or more servers, and a number of client machines / laptops etc. Today this largely remains the same, however the cloud is available as a viable option to replace servers and / or services on the network, but what is it?

Essentially the cloud is a large number of servers which are stored in a data centre by companies such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple and such like. These servers offer tools, email, backup facilities, file sharing, online applications and much more which are often driven by your web browser. Your web browser (Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari) is essentially a window through to the data centre where the product or service resides.

Largely the functionality and user experience remains the same for the end user. Applications which are driven via your web browser and designed to look and feel like they are an application, and people begin to use them naturally. The main difference is at the back end, where the servers are.

When we explain the cloud to our customers we begin by explaining the role of an email / Exchange server, as this is something which most companies have, and is something which is easy to explain. The Exchange server traditionally sits on the network and provides clients with email, this is something most users can visualise. Now imagine moving that server to Microsoft, Microsoft will look after the server for you, and the functionality on your network will remain the same. Users typically will not notice a difference. This very basically is Exchange in the cloud. The next thing we explain is that Microsoft won’t use your server, they will use their own, and Exchange in fact will be stored on several servers not just one, and probably will span across two or more data centres.

The benefit of this is that the system is far more resilient than any system you could economically build for a small or medium sized business. Another advantage is that the software is managed, maintained and updated by the software provider which saves money on IT Support.

Please see the following links for more information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOxA1l1pQIw

http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/office365/online-software.aspx