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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!
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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! |
AuthorTim Joyce, Founder, Roundstone Solutions Tim’s Personal Blog…more good stuff  Archives
November 2024
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