As a Nutanix partner, we've been watching this story with the VMware acquisition by Broadcom for over 18 months. Well, it's finally done. And users don't seem to be that happy. Let's talk about it, and see if you've got some better options (you do).
To begin, the acquisition of VMware doesn't help you in any way. Broadcom purchased VMware for a lot of money, and the only way they're going to make that money back is to cut a lot out of VMware. Increasing profit is pretty simple; you either sell more of your products, increase the price of the products you're already selling, cut back on the internal costs of the products you sell, or a combination of these (most likely). So far, we've seen Broadcom do the following:
Can you tell me which of these changes positively impact you in your role at your organization? You can't...because none of them are positive for you. It can't feel good to be a Broadcom customer right now. Them charging you for vSphere and vCenter when both are no longer products but instead are now features isn't cool. Nutanix gives you those functions as features of their AOS operating system. In other words, the two VMware products you most have a use for are free with Nutanix. And don't tell me the products don't work (they do...beautifully) or that your VMware trained guys can't figure them out (AHV and Prism) because they can get comfortable with both inside of about 5 minutes. So why keep up with the hassle? This is a fight you didn't ask for...but you sure got dragged into it. Let us help you. We can make it very easy for you to deploy Nutanix and migrate your VMware VMs over to Nutanix's AHV (again, the software and migration are free). In fact, the price to buy the Nutanix appliance (all new hardware) is most likely less expensive than what you're already paying for VMware itself. If you were ever looking for a SLAM DUNK, this is it. You weren't looking for the hassle, because it doesn't help your company sell more widgets, and that's where we can come in. We'll do the lifting for you. It's easy. Reach out and let's start a discussion, like many of your peers have already done. Thanks...
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This post is going to be about the current state of IT infrastructure. I think it's important...I hope you'll read it and let me know if you agree.
To start, my company, Roundstone Solutions, is a VAR/reseller/partner in the IT infrastructure space, and we make our money by selling products to our customers. We're very knowledgeable about IT infrastructure, having spent decades in the business. We always take an objective look at things, to try and help customers and prospects make the best decisions they can. For years, we've marveled at how customers get mesmerized by various vendors' claims about their products and then shovel millions of dollars at said vendors with hardly a look back to see if those claims ever materialized. It's as if the job of the IT purchaser is done when the PO is signed. No one ever really gets held accountable for their decisions, to see if the proposed benefits ever happened. In most cases, benefits were very oversold, but the money spent still was real money. With that in mind, my company's approach is to help educate end users so that they make decisions that will stand up to scrutiny today and in the future. That doesn't mean things don't change and that every decision ends up to be the best over time, but at least the process and resulting decision can be analyzed and defended at a later date. IT infrastructure decisions often come down to one of the following:
Sound familiar? It ought to, because that's how most of you do it. But is that really the smart way to do things? No, it's not. You owe it to yourself to do your homework UP FRONT. It's not hard to do, and I'm going to share how to do it. First, it's always about the workloads. Let me say that again...the workloads are what count. And workloads should run where they best benefit the organization, shouldn't they? Of course they should. You only have a few options for IT infrastructure to run those workloads. Those options are:
Now, how many of your really compare the alternatives? I'll answer that...almost none of you do. That's crazy. All of the options are different, with different experiences, security, backup, performance, management, and cost. So, how do you know you've made the right decision if you haven't looked at the options objectively. You can't, which is where the vast majority of IT infrastructure spend gets wasted. Millions more spent that could have been re-directed into innovation. As an IT executive myself, I urge you to be smart about how you make your IT infrastructure decisions. There's not one right answer to every situation, and you won't know which is best until you do the homework. So, let's say you agree to the above (and you should), how do you go about "doing the homework"? First off, you know that any evaluation by a vendor is going to end up saying that you need to buy the vendors' products. You need to do the evaluation yourself, using your data, not the vendor's data. And this is where my company, Roundstone Solutions, excels. We've developed an easy to use template for evaluating the various options. Contact me directly, and I'll be happy to share it with you. We want you to make the right decision, by workload. And you'll be able to defend your decision into the future. Thanks for reading...hopefully you can tell we're a bit different than the "typical VAR". Reach out at 925-324-1582 or tim@roundstonesolutions.com. To begin, Roundstone isn't a VMware partner. We've known VMware for 20 years or so, and know they invented server virtualization, which revolutionized the IT infrastructure industry. This provided users with unbelievable value, in that they could finally extract maximum value out of the server hardware they had purchased. All good stuff.
But, to be fair, 20 years is a long time, and a lot of things have changed since then, Everything except that you're all still paying VMware a heck of a lot of money for what has become "table stakes" in the IT infrastructure space. Simply stated, there's no technical reason why you need to be using, and paying for, most if not all of VMware's product line. Again, nothing against VMware, except that the market has moved past them. Still, IT users (who seem to move with a herd mentality) have been reluctant to move away from VMware. After all, many careers have been made supporting VMware, many technical people have their employment tied to the fact that they're "VMware experts" and, as we all know, objects at rest stay at rest, if you get my meaning. Until now. Now you have to act, because the purchase of VMware by Broadcom is hitting you now. You had nothing to do with it, but like it or not, you're in it. Which sucks, to be frank. But you can't sit there and not act. Your VMware partner has been fired by Broadcom, your products have been changed overnight, many of your products are being ended or sold to other companies, and you'll now be paying for all of VMware's products on a subscription basis. You have no choice. Or, do you? Why be held hostage when you don't have to be? No one likes to be forced to do things; we all like the freedom to do what we decide to do. So, this time, since you're being left with no choice, how about you finally make the move away from VMware? There are tens of thousands of organizations which have already done so, and I don't think a single one has gone out of business because they ditched VMware. Here's the answer...get away from VMware by deploying Nutanix, and with it, their Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV). AHV replaces VSphere. For free. Nutanix's Prism is the management tool that Nutanix uses. Prism replaces VCenter. For free. And Nutanix even gives you the tool to make the migration simple. For free. What are you waiting for? Give us a call and we'll help you start the process of getting your freedom back! How streamlining communications into a single platform can improve productivity, facilitate collaboration, and cut costs The average employee spends up to 20 hours a week using digital communication tools. And with numerous options available — like video conferences, email, phone calls, or text-based chat — keeping information streamlined is more complicated than ever. Unified communications as a service, or UCaaS, aims to solve this problem. These systems provide a single point of contact that unites multiple methods of communication, facilitating collaboration and enhancing productivity, all at a lower cost than traditional, internally managed communications platforms. Here, I’ll get into why organizations are transitioning back to outsourcing their communication networks, as well as the many advantages of UCaaS and how your business can benefit. The Circular History of UCaaSFor years, one company managed telecommunications in the United States: AT&T. As a result of this monopoly, innovation remained slow. With no competition, there was no need to develop better technologies, and AT&T could increase prices as much as it wanted. In 1984, the U.S. government dissolved the monopoly, splitting it into smaller, separate companies and forcing them to compete. With this dissolution, other companies started joining the industry, and you began to see more innovation within this space, as well as more competition for customer dollars. Then, in the 1990s, the internet exploded into the public consciousness, and more and more businesses started to use it as the backbone of their daily operations. In building their internal data infrastructure, they began investigating their communication infrastructure and realized that it ran on the same network. Companies asked themselves, “Why am I paying all this money to some third party when I could run my own communications network?” They started buying their own communication hardware and managing it themselves. Building and maintaining these systems wasn’t easy, but it was far less expensive than they were used to, so it was worth the investment. Fast forward a few decades to the development and widespread acceptance of centralized email platforms like Microsoft Outlook and Gmail. These options provided a cheaper way for businesses to communicate by email over maintaining their own email servers. Companies flocked to these options because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how the email arrives in your inbox, just that it gets there at low cost. Many of these companies realized they could also do the same for telecommunications. By unifying multiple forms of communication — voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing, text-based chat, business lines, personal lines, cell phones, and even fax — these companies could offer a far more compelling package and sell it at a fraction of the cost of building and maintaining a bespoke system on-premises. And so we’ve come full circle. Many businesses that built their own internal telecommunications networks are leaving that headache behind and embracing UCaaS platforms to streamline their business processes. 5 Advantages of UCaaS and Why You Should SwitchEven with the current rise of UCaaS, many organizations continue to use old phone systems to communicate and are reluctant to make the switch. While the migration process to UCaaS isn’t an inconsequential lift, there are several advantages of UCaaS that make the transition worthwhile.
What UCaaS Options Are Available?Currently, there are four big players in the UCaaS industry: Which company you go with will come down to a number of factors, such as cost per user or included features. For example, Microsoft Teams might be better for organizations that rely on Microsoft’s suite of products and services, while Cisco might be a better choice to power a customer service call center. We’ll Help You Get ConnectedIf you’re looking to transition to a UCaaS platform or want to bulk up your current communication infrastructure, Roundstone Solutions can help. We have years of experience aiding small businesses and enterprises in modernizing their IT and communication infrastructure and finding the best deployment solutions that fit their needs with the best vendors in the industry.
Ready to get started? Get in touch today. Choosing between the public cloud and on-premises infrastructure requires careful strategy and due diligence Public cloud computing services are all the rage among business executives. But have you ever stopped to wonder why? Many of these leaders have heard (from cloud companies) that they can run more efficient infrastructure if they move it to the cloud. They see their competitors moving to the cloud. They figure it must be the right thing to do, so they follow the crowd without doing their due diligence. That can have catastrophic consequences for employee productivity and operational costs. The public cloud is a powerful tool, but it’s not the only option, and it may not be right for your organization. Here’s how to evaluate your infrastructure needs, survey the possible solutions, and pick the one that best fits your business. Is the Public Cloud Your Best Infrastructure Option?Many companies take it as given that using public cloud computing services is part of the cost of doing business. That kind of thinking can cause otherwise savvy businesses to waste up to 50% of their IT infrastructure budget on services they don't really need. Why does that happen? Because of three key factors:
Embracing ChangeGetting your systems up and running quickly has value. Outsourcing complicated elements like payroll and HR makes sense, especially when resources are pinched in the early days of your business. But as your business grows and changes, the best solutions for it may change, too. If you've spent a few years in the public cloud, it may be time to audit whether your investment there is still generating enough value. And if you find it's not, don't be afraid to choose a new option. Your newfound efficiencies may give you the edge over your competitors. For more on the value of cloud computing, read Understanding the Business Value of Cloud Computing. Public Cloud or On-Premises: What's the Difference?Every business has its own specific needs when it comes to cloud usage. Yours might be more compute-intensive, while someone else might need a lot of storage. These factors affect which IT infrastructure makes the most sense. In general, wherever workloads are unpredictable, the public cloud can work well. However, if demand is more stable, on-premises can be much more cost-effective. On-premises
Public cloud
How Do You Choose On-Prem vs. Public Cloud?It can be hard to nail down apples-to-apples comparisons between on-prem and public cloud computing services — but it's not impossible. The two most important factors to consider are how each option affects day-to-day operations and the organization as a whole. Operational factors include how a solution meets your workload's performance, security, and capacity demands. Organizational ones are less tangible, such as whether a board member has a contact at one provider, or whether your team has already been trained to use and maintain an on-premises network. After you've rated each solution from one to five on these factors, you can research individual cost factors:
The results of that research will help you decide which option is best for your business. To learn more about choosing between on-prem and cloud infrastructure, read Public Cloud vs On-Premises Cost: Which Is More Effective for Your Business? The Hidden Costs of the Public CloudOne day, public cloud computing services may reach the efficiency of a public utility like gas or electricity. Cloud companies are reaching toward that goal hoping that businesses will hook into their systems without a second thought. But that's not where we are today. Until we hit that level of efficiency, it's important to evaluate the cost of the public clouds — including the hidden ones. There are three basic components of cloud computing costs: compute, storage, and networking fees. Examining your historical usage rates for each will give you data to project how spend will increase as your business grows. But the true cost of public cloud computing services lies in migrating into or out of them. Migrating and Public Cloud CostsMoving all your apps and data to the cloud has an enormous price tag in terms of working hours. Throughout the process, you'll have to run two separate environments on different operating systems or hypervisors. You'll have to keep track of both, pay for them, and account for the differences in price for the duration of the migration. Plus, your employees will have to split time between the two. That's not exactly ideal for productivity. Should You Refactor?A lot of the value of being in the public cloud comes from the efficiencies of being "cloud native." If you want to enjoy those efficiencies, you'll need to rework all your systems and data. That has a huge upfront labor cost, and it also means your employees are stuck reworking old stuff instead of generating new value. Tracking Cloud UsageIf you opt into the public cloud, you'll need to monitor your usage to ensure you're still spending efficiently. Cloud providers are happy to let you pay for more capacity than you're using, so you'll need a third-party solution like NCM Cost Governance to stay on top of your costs. For more on the hidden costs of public cloud services, read How to Calculate Public Cloud Costs for Your Business. How to Migrate to the CloudThere are four common strategies businesses typically consider when moving to the cloud. Each has pros and cons. Lift and ShiftLift and shift migrations simply take the applications out of your current on-premises data center and put them in a public cloud data center. This strategy is fast and has a low upfront cost, but it doesn't take advantage of the efficiency benefits offered by the public cloud. That means you may end up paying double for the same outcomes you had before. RefactoringRefactoring means rebuilding your apps so that they're optimized to run in the public cloud. That helps boost efficiency, but it has an enormous upfront cost in terms of time and effort. Many businesses that attempt refactoring never complete the process because it's so much work. Lift and Shift on Bare MetalIn this strategy, you move your infrastructure onto private compute environments instead of public, shared ones. These private environments are still operated by a provider like Google Cloud, but they let you maintain direct access to your hardware, which means more control and the potential for faster, more efficient systems. This option's main drawback is its cost. In the public cloud, you're sharing infrastructure with other users. That helps keep costs down. Leasing your own private infrastructure removes that subsidizing effect. Plus, if you don't refactor your infrastructure, your efficiency gains may not be as big as you expected. Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) on Bare MetalHyperconverged infrastructure places a software layer between your hardware and your applications. This lets you run your apps as if they were on-premises, which means deeper configuration options and more efficiency without the need to refactor. The software layer basically refactors for you, saving you time and effort that helps offset the cost of the bare metal hardware and software integration. For more on how to migrate your business to the cloud, read Understanding the Different Approaches to Cloud Migration Strategy. Cloud Repatriation: How Shifting to On-Premises Can Help Your BusinessCloud repatriation is the process of shifting your workloads, apps, and data out of the public cloud and into on-premises infrastructure. If you've done your homework and found public cloud computing services aren't the right fit for your business, you're not alone. Even if it seems like every organization has moved to the public cloud, surveys show that up to 80% of them are repatriating at least some of their data back to on-premises infrastructure each year. Why? For several reasons:
How to Complete Cloud RepatriationSome organizations that have realized the public cloud is wrong for them still haven't repatriated. They may feel that repatriating isn't a priority, or that the process will take too much time and effort. But the truth is that repatriation will help their business in the long term, isn't complicated, and likely won't require more resources than you have on hand. You can begin the process with an inventory of your existing infrastructure and a comparison against the workloads you're running in the cloud. This will reveal how much new infrastructure you need (if any) and give you a starting point for configuring your on-premises systems. Matching your on-prem configuration to your cloud configurations will make it easier to pull your data out of the cloud and plug it back in smoothly. Once it's all out, you can deactivate your cloud operations and start saving. For more on repatriation, read How to Approach Public Cloud Repatriation in 2024. Hear From the ExpertsIf you’re still unsure whether the public cloud is right for your business, don’t worry: We’re here to help. At Roundstone Solutions, we’ve helped countless companies take stock of their needs and find the cloud solution that saves them the most time and money without compromising long-term growth. For actionable answers to your cloud questions, contact us today.
Well, the calendar has changed over from 2023 to 2024. And with it, we have a few thoughts as to what we hope to see in 2024.
If you're a regular reader of my Blog posts, you know that I'm a pretty matter-of-fact person, who is not afraid to give honest opinions about what I see in the market. I'm a big believer that anyone who is involved with IT Infrastructure has an important role for their company which needs to be taken seriously. And like things you take seriously, you need to do your homework so that you can make the best decisions. So, to start, I'm hoping we see more intelligent decision-making than in the past few years. I believe that a large amount of money spent in IT Infrastructure is wasted by users because of the lack of proper evaluation and decision making. In 2024, let's return to actually doing the homework BEFORE making decisions with IT Infrastructure. In other words, look at all of your alternatives honestly. Don't just blindly follow what you think all of the rest are doing. Do the work and evaluate your own company's situation to see what's best. Of course, I'm talking about blindly following everyone into the Public Cloud for your IT Infrastructure. Unless you're refactoring your applications to be cloud native, you're likely to find that lifting and shifting your workloads from on-premises to the Public Cloud has little effect other than increasing your costs and making management a more difficult thing. Ask yourself...how does this help my company to sell more of what we sell? If moving to the Public Cloud doesn't allow your company to sell a hell of a lot more products, than put your efforts into something that will. But you can't talk about the Public Cloud without this disclaimer...it makes sense for SOME workloads. Not all, but some. So use it for some, but not all. Another big topic as we start 2024 is VMware. Now that Broadcom has fully acquired VMware, their first few moves are very telling. For VMware users, your costs are going up. Plain and simple. But don't fear...you don't have to use VMware products. If you're a VDI user, they've already told you that they're exiting that business. So, as much as you might have liked VMware Horizon, they no longer like you that much. But the big win for everyone will be to move away from spending money for VMware products. As a partner of Nutanix, our customers have (for many years) been able to eliminate most of their VMware spend by using Nutanix with Nutanix's hypervisor, AHV. It works very well, and costs you nothing. Ask yourself whether you'd pay for something in your personal life that others give away at no cost. You wouldn't. So why do it in your business life? It makes no sense. Take the VMware spend and put it to better use by developing some new way to help your company make more money. Contact us and we'll show you how easy it can be. Overall, we think that 2024 could be the year that companies get smart about their IT Infrastructure spend. And we're going to help them do that. Happy New Year, and all the best for a prosperous 2024! The sharper focus, pooled knowledge, and other benefits of managed NOC services lead to better results The rush of businesses to the public cloud has been dizzying over the last few years. Some view our outlook on the matter as contrarian, but the truth is that it’s simply a reflection of our overall philosophy. We want companies to do their homework. Here’s a great example: Sometimes it makes sense to keep your IT department fully on-premises, and sometimes it makes sense to export parts. Using managed NOC services just makes sense for the majority of businesses. In other words, if you’re Visa, Paypal, or another massive company that lives on the bleeding edge of network security, the advice in this article probably isn’t for you. But for everybody else, here’s why you should give managed NOC services a chance to prove their value. Before we establish why, let’s be clear in what we’re talking about. What Are Managed NOC Services?Managed NOC services are companies that handle the day-to-day administration, maintenance, and security of your network operations center (NOC) for you. Let’s break that down a little more. NOCs are the nerve centers of business’ IT operations. They’re responsible for making sure your network works and all the users and applications within it can communicate with each other when and where they’re supposed to. The security operations centers (SOCs) within them ensure that nobody else can crash the party. There are effectively two ways to approach the duties of a NOC:
Here at Roundstone, we think that most businesses who do their homework will find that the latter option is a better fit. 5 Reasons Why Managed NOC Services Are the Smarter ChoiceOur years of experience in advising clients across a range of sectors tell us that using a managed NOC service is probably the smarter choice for your business. Here’s why. (In a hurry? Here’s your TL;DR: Each of these five reasons feeds into the fact that managed NOC services can give you a better security posture, and that’s not part of your business you want to skimp on.) Sharper FocusNOC services only have one job. Their business model is built on making the network experience of their clients better and safer, and they invest all their resources into it. When you do it yourself, you only dedicate a piece of your overall operations to the cause. Your internal team must manage the numerous moving parts of keeping a NOC online as they attend to other tasks. “Keeping a NOC online” isn’t good enough when we’re talking about the nerve center of your business. It needs to be proactive in dealing with emerging threat vectors and vulnerabilities because the bad guys only need to outfox you once to shut your business down. Pooled KnowledgeManaged NOC services have a narrow focus applied broadly. Working with many customers across multiple industries gives them experience in dealing with many different types of attacks and in-depth knowledge of how systems interact. They then use that broad exposure to strengthen the security they offer to each individual customer. Even if you’ve been lucky (or pay generously) enough to assemble one of the best security teams in the field, their exposure will be more limited. They’ll struggle to keep up with the shared experience a managed NOC service naturally accumulates in the course of doing business. Better CustomizationYou may already be saying “wait a minute” on this one. Doesn’t rolling your own internal solution almost always mean better customization, even if it ends up being more expensive or time-consuming than working with a third party? In this case, the answer is no, not really. Managed NOC services have a robust set of tools to use and experiences to draw from. This gives them a much broader breadth of options to choose from. They will also have the practical wisdom to tell you which options are good ideas and which ones may not work out how you want them to. After all, information security is one thing you never want to take big, risky swings on. One of the vendors we partner with is Arctic Wolf. Security operations are their only business, and they don’t care what platforms, hardware, software, or tools you may use. They will manage them. Now, once they learn what you want to accomplish, they will likely be able to say, “Hey, here’s a better way to do that.” Their narrow focus applied broadly means they can make more intelligent suggestions, and you can decide on which ones to use together. Time and Resource SavingsWhen you manage your own NOC, it’s you against the world. Like we said before, you have to be on your A-game all the time, while attackers in every time zone only need to take a lucky stab once to potentially destroy your organization. And yes, you may still be able to do it competently all by yourself. But think about what you have to give up to make that happen: time, resources, training time, compensation (more on that in a bit). Even if they only did it as well as your team could, bringing in a third-party managed NOC service would still let you step back from the many nuts-and-bolts tasks of managing a NOC. That’s a lot of extra time and resources you could reinvest in your teams and products. And that’s a lot more likely to make an impact on your bottom line than the pride you feel in keeping it all in-house. Cost and TalentSpeaking of your bottom line, business leaders often point to inflated costs as an argument against using assets such as managed NOC services. That’s true for many areas of IT outsourcing and we very much encourage that kind of critical thinking (even if we wonder where it is in many other areas of buying business IT solutions). Here’s the problem: the market for high-level NOC talent is competitive as hell right now. Many of the most skilled and experienced workers in the space favor “hired gun” work at places like managed NOC services, where they can flex their specialization as they deal with a whole portfolio’s worth of networks, tools, and threats. The rest are getting scooped up by huge firms that can afford their skyrocketing salaries, like Visa and Paypal. If you want industry-standard network security, you need to go where the industry-standard network security engineers are. Since managed NOC services put them on your company’s case without needing to cover a whole team’s ultra-competitive compensation, they’re typically the better choice value-wise. Still Uncertain? We’ll Help You Make the Right ChoiceAll of this is wisdom from our experience working with a range of clients. We can say, generally speaking, that you’ll be better off working with managed NOC services for all the reasons outlined above.
But when you’re making a decision for your business in particular, you shouldn’t stick with generalities. It always pays to take a step back and assess your unique challenges and goals, and figure out your own path from one to the other. We’re happy to help you mark out that path for your business. If you’d like to learn more about potentially working with managed NOC services, or have any other questions about your organization’s IT infrastructure, contact us today. It will be worth your time. Ransomware attacks are a question of when, not if, and your business needs to be prepared If you store business data digitally, odds are good that you’re eventually going to get hit by a ransomware attack. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can move on to the critical question: What do I do to prepare? Here’s how to position yourself for the best possible ransomware incident response. Every Business Is a TargetMore than 8 in 10 ransomware attacks hit small and midsize businesses. Why? Because they’re big enough to be worth the risk but not quite big enough to have invested in cutting-edge security. That’s especially true if the company isn’t in the tech sector, which tends to be more security-minded. Think of these ransomware guys as neighborhood crooks. When they’re roaming the streets deciding where to break in, the posh gated community with security staff and more cameras than trees is too much work to crack. On the other hand, the cramped apartments with boarded-up windows can’t pay enough to be worth the risk. But the single-family homes with standard locks? That’s the sweet spot. Why Don’t We Hear About More Attacks?There were more than 600 million ransomware attacks in 2021, so why do so few make it to the news? Simple: Companies don’t want you to know when they’ve been hit. If news of the attack were to get out, their customers, clients, and partners would all lose faith in them. That could have a catastrophic effect on their market value, as it did when Clorox went public with news of its attack in September. Plus, it flags your business as potentially vulnerable to future attackers. If a company can handle an attack without the public ever finding out, it almost always will. (Even though sharing that info could help the entire industry stay safe.) How to Execute Ransomware Incident ResponseLet’s get one thing out of the way: There’s no magic to ransomware incident response. The best-case scenario requires thinking ahead (more on that later). If you get hit before you’ve taken the right precautions, all you can do is contain the damage. Step One: QuarantiningWhen you learn you’ve been hit, the first thing you should do is revoke system access from anybody outside your company. Then, you can quarantine your existing systems to prevent any further network communications. The bad guys are in now; don’t let them dig their claws in any deeper. Step Two: Find a Clean BackupMost breaches happen long in advance of when the attack is triggered or discovered. The bad guys will sneak something into your system, let it sit there, and then all of a sudden it will activate. That lag between the breach and the attack could mean your backups are compromised going back further than you expect. If you’re going to restore your business to working order, you need to bring a completely clean copy of your data into your systems after they’ve been re-secured. In chronological order, go back through your backups, scanning for vulnerabilities. The more recent your clean backup, the better, because all the business you’ve done since will be jeopardized or lost. You’ll have to rebuild everything from that backup on, which is almost impossible to do. That’s a huge part of why ransomware kills so many businesses. Step Three: Find New InfrastructureOnce you’ve found a clean backup, you’ll need to plug its data into new, clean infrastructure. Many public cloud vendors will provide that infrastructure. Other companies have secondary systems of their own for disaster recovery. If you’re in that group, it is absolutely essential that you make sure your backup site didn’t also get hit. Should You Pay the Ransom?It’s the $1 million (or more) question: Should you pay what the bad guys demand? If you do, you may be able to get your systems up and running pretty quickly. The problem is, you won’t know if they’re clean. The bad guys could easily have left other exploitables in the system that they can set off again six months down the road, and then you’re back at square one. The best approach is to look at the numbers. How much value are you losing to this outage? If you’re losing $2 million per day and they’re asking for a $3 million ransom, it may be worth paying because the business disruption would outstrip the payment. Either way, you’ll need to reset all your systems to zero and go through reinstalling everything. How to Prepare for Ransomware Incident ResponseUp until recently, companies thought if they spent enough on security products, they would be safe. But this only works for so long. Cyber security experts are constantly trying to stay a step ahead of bad actors, and most of the time, they do. But the bad guys only need to be right once to get in. And one day, they will. That’s why cybersecurity is never a static situation. You can never think, “I’ve done this one thing; now I’m set forever.” You are not. But you can come close. How? With a Software-as-a-Service third-party data isolation and recovery solution. Here’s how it works: Every day, your vendor makes a backup of all your data. It encrypts that data and stores it in data stores in the public cloud. No one on your team can access it without going through the vendor. That results in an isolated and immutable backup of your critical business data. This is key to ransomware incident response because attackers who break into your system and try to ransom your data no longer have power over you. You can just restart your apps on clean infrastructure, pull the data from your backups, and continue business as usual. The bad guys would need to hit both your system and the vendor’s simultaneously, which is all but impossible. That means your data stays hidden and protected. Stay Safe With RoundstoneThese SaaS security solutions are relatively new. They’ve only gained traction over the last two or three years, and not everyone has caught up yet. But here at Roundstone Solutions, we’re on the cutting edge of cybersecurity. We can connect you with vendors such as Cohesity, whose FortKnox software can help keep your data secure even in a ransomware attack. To find the right security solution for your business, contact us today.
How this strategic partnership accelerates hybrid cloud deployment Among the biggest challenges IT leaders face in the current technology landscape are figuring out their cloud strategy and modernizing their infrastructure. Two of the most prominent companies helping IT teams navigate these challenges, Cisco and Roundstone Solutions partner Nutanix, have long been competitors in the hybrid cloud infrastructure space. That all changed in July 2023 when Cisco announced it had forged a “global strategic partnership” with Nutanix. This partnership aims to “simplify hybrid multicloud and fuel business transformation.” While this collaboration is still in its early stages, its potential to “deliver the industry’s most complete hybrid cloud solution” is exciting for those in the technology space. But what does this really mean, particularly for existing Cisco users? Let’s take a closer look at this collaboration and how it helps IT organizations overcome operational hurdles. Understanding the Nutanix/Cisco PartnershipFounded in 1984, Cisco has been a pioneer in networking and telecommunications for nearly four decades. It specializes in “smarter, more secure routing” via “future-ready routers for every network.” In 2016, Cisco entered the hyperconverged infrastructure space with the release of the Cisco HyperFlex Data Platform, its proprietary hybrid cloud software solution. Meanwhile, Nutanix has focused primarily on cloud computing since its 2009 inception and was the first in the hyperconverged infrastructure space. This often put the two companies at odds, as HyperFlex was a direct competitor to Nutanix’s offerings. Cisco customers could technically use Nutanix software, but Cisco didn’t officially support it. This partnership changes all of that. Among its benefits is the ability to simplify infrastructure operations with a single hyperconverged solution that leverages both companies’ strengths. This gives IT managers more flexibility as they continue to adapt the latest technologies, SaaS innovations, and multi-cloud operations. Or, to put it in Cisco’s words, “You can deploy hybrid-cloud infrastructure faster and focus on business outcomes with a seamless end-to-end experience.” Here’s how it all works together: Under the banner of Cisco Compute Hyperconverged with Nutanix, Cisco’s servers, storage, networking, and SaaS operations will integrate with the Nutanix Cloud Platform. This gives businesses working in the cloud a solution that combines “Cisco’s award-winning SaaS-managed compute portfolio with Nutanix’s market-proven cloud platform software,” according to Cisco Senior VP and General Manager Jeremy Foster. Those who take advantage of this “technology alliance,” as Nutanix calls it, will also have access to Cisco’s top-of-the-line security features like Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense Virtual. It’s the best of both worlds: An industry-leading multicloud solution integrated with industry-leading security. Cisco began rolling out the integrated solution in late 2023. One side effect of this partnership is that, as of September 2023, the Cisco HyperFlex Data Platform has entered its end-of-life stage. Cisco will be retiring the platform over the course of the next year or so, allowing Nutanix’s cloud platform to take center stage. Next Steps for HyperFlex UsersWhile the phrase “end of life” might cause an IT manager’s hair to stand on end, there’s no need to panic. The transition away from HyperFlex will be gradual; you’re not going to lose access to your work in the immediate future. Cisco HyperFlex Data Platform sales will end in September 2024, and software maintenance will continue until September 2025. That said, existing HyperFlex customers should definitely start thinking about what’s next and try to avoid investing any more time and resources into the platform than they have to. For many HyperFlex users, the most natural move will be to move cloud operations over to the duo’s “turnkey hyperconverged solution,” which is “optimized for a wide range of workloads and capacities.” Generally speaking, Nutanix users report a number of benefits, among them simpler operations, scaling flexibility, and improved system performance — all at significantly lower costs than the public cloud. Of course, switching to a new IT infrastructure is never as simple as pushing a button or pulling a lever, but the right partner can help make the migration as painless as possible. Streamlining the TransitionWhen it comes time to migrate from HyperFlex to Nutanix HCI, Roundstone Solutions can help. As a specialist in hyperconverged infrastructure, Nutanix is our leading partner, and we’ve been helping businesses move to more modern IT solutions for over 10 years. We’ll work with you to find the best solution for your specific needs. Want to learn more? Get in touch.
The formula for how to calculate cloud costs has more variables than simple computing power, storage, and network concerns When a developer builds a new apartment building, they connect it to local utilities without a second thought. Whether it’s Pacific Gas & Electric on the West Coast or Con Edison on the East, these providers are so much more efficient than any alternative that there’s no question of cost, let alone of trying to generate power and gas independently. Many businesses think of the public cloud in the same way, never bothering to learn how to calculate cloud costs. Although the public cloud aims to work like other utilities, the truth is that it’s nowhere near that efficient. Infrastructure costs are only the beginning; the hidden costs can turn a relatively small commitment into a behemoth investment. So before your business spends past the point of no return, let’s take a more holistic view of what moving to the public cloud costs. How to Calculate Cloud Costs: Compute, Storage, and NetworkingAt first, understanding cloud costs seems as simple as any other IT infrastructure investment. After all, they share the same three basic components. Your costs will break down across compute, storage, and networking fees. How much processing power do you need from virtual machines? How much cloud storage space will you use? And what will it cost to keep your systems in contact with one another? Answering these questions starts with examining historical data. For example, what quantity of compute power has brought your business to where it is today? Next, you can consider your growth projections. After all, the bigger your company grows, the more it will require of all three components. Look at how your demand for each has developed and use that to extrapolate forward. When doing this work for on-premises cloud infrastructure, you can treat these costs as capital investments and amortize them over several years. That makes them a simple, predictable recurring cost for budgeting. With the public cloud, the thinking goes, you can just monitor your costs and scale up or down as needed. You’ll need to watch for ever-changing costs based on your usage and on potential rate changes set by your provider, which makes accounting a little trickier. But there are a lot of costs you’ll run into long before you even face that challenge. How Migrating Adds to Public Cloud CostsIf you’re considering a shift to the public cloud, you’re probably thinking something along the lines of “Well, we’re not data center experts. Someone else can probably run one for us better than we can ourselves.” That may be true. But here’s the first wrinkle: You have to actually move your apps and data to the cloud. That’s not an overnight process — in fact, it has an enormous cost in terms of working hours. Throughout the migration, you’ll have to run two separate environments. Those two environments may use different operating systems or hypervisors. That means you’ll have to pay for and keep track of two differently priced environments for the length of the migration. Your employees will be forced to split their time between the two, and any software you use to manage the two environments will raise the overall cost of the migration. Refactoring: How Much Time Invested Is Too Much?When you move to the public cloud, you must decide whether to refactor your apps to make them “cloud native.” Doing so is a little like cleaning out a computer you’ve used for many years. Over that time, it’s accumulated thousands of files, most of which you probably never use. Your computer might run more smoothly if you went in and deleted all those useless files. But doing so would take a lot of work, and the computer works well enough as is. Is that work worthwhile? That’s refactoring for the cloud in a nutshell. It lets you benefit from the additional efficiencies of the public cloud, but the upfront costs in terms of labor are immense. Most companies expect to get the efficiency bonuses of the cloud without doing this work, and they wind up blindsided by it in the middle of a migration. As business leaders, we have to ask ourselves whether these time investments are worth the efficiencies they unlock down the line. Furthermore, are they worth their immediate economic costs? All the time employees spend refactoring an app is time they aren’t using to innovate or produce new value. If you’re in business to make a profit, you need your employees working toward that goal rather than treading water. The Cost of Being WrongIf you commit to the public cloud only to find it doesn’t suit your business, you may find yourself in a serious scrape. If you haven’t refactored your apps, moving back to on-premises is going to be extremely expensive and time-consuming. If you have refactored, there’s no turning back. You’ve invested too much, and you’d have to spend even more to undo that work. This is why knowing how to calculate public cloud costs is so crucial; if you only start to worry about these issues mid-migration, it’s already too late. Tracking Cloud Usage to Maintain EfficiencyWhen you use on-premises cloud infrastructure, your costs are mostly capital, though some are operational. They don’t change based on usage, so it doesn’t matter if you max out your capacity or forget to touch it at all. In the public cloud, costs are based on usage. The more you use, the more you pay. And if you’re using the same amount of infrastructure in the public cloud as you were in your on-premises solution, you’re likely to see your costs roughly double. Of course, the whole point of moving to the public cloud is to use only as much as you need. That way, at least in theory, you can pay a higher rate but still come out ahead. But achieving that level of efficiency isn’t as easy as it sounds. Cloud vendors don’t provide tools for monitoring usage versus capacity. The way they see it, if you’re paying for capacity that you don’t need, that’s your problem. Using third-party software such as NCM Cost Governance (formerly known as Beam) by Nutanix can help avoid overpaying. This solution tracks workloads in the public cloud and empowers you to spot inefficiencies. It can also compare the rate you pay with your vendor against what other vendors would charge you — and against what an on-prem solution would cost. Of course, changing cloud vendors means migrating your apps and data a second time, but at least you’ll know what you’re missing. Let Roundstone Solutions HelpSome workloads make sense in the public cloud. Some make sense on-premises. Doing your due diligence, evaluating your options, projecting out costs for migrating and refactoring, and making only measured moves; there’s no better way to know for sure which cloud solution is the right one for your business than to do your homework. And there’s no one better to help than Roundstone Solutions. We’ve aided startups and enterprise businesses alike in getting the most out of their cloud use, and we’re ready to help you, too. Get in touch today to find out more.
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AuthorTim Joyce, Founder, Roundstone Solutions Archives
March 2024
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