IT asset management

 These past few weeks have been incredible for us at Always Up IT.  We were awarded gold partner with Microsoft and our client relationships are expanding.  More and more of our customers are requiring advancement on their current services.  We are delighted that our customer base is continuing to grow and our product in the market space is leading in comparison with other companies.

We came across this article this week and wanted to share it with all our followers:

http://www.itassetmanagement.net/2012/07/04/software-asset-management-5-rule/

One of the most interesting paragraphs is this one:

“The SAM £5 ($7) rule

We have seen customers with three or four tools deployed all collecting the same data across thousands of devices, wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds in purchase, deployment and management costs!  Partnering with an experienced SAM service provider to outsource the software licence compliance element of SAM can be very cost effective. If you are paying either externally or internally more than £5 ($7) per device per annum; you are spending too much money!”

If you believe that you are a company who is in the above situation, then we would love to talk to you.  We can immediately cut your costs and help you become more efficient with your software licensing.  Many companies underestimate how much money per annum they will have to spend on software licensing.  In fact, it’s probably one area in which your accounts team don’t know they can reduce.  The cost of software licensing is built in to your budget as an IT cost, but we guarantee we can help you save money, so hurry up and let you accounts team know!

Now, here’s a bit of light entertainment for you.  Mashable, last week, wrote an article about the new version of Angry Birds.  It’s now Bomb the Zombies.  Check it out!  The game is fun and it’s free…

Bomb the Zombies is a universal app designed for the iPad and iPhone/iPod touch. It can be downloaded for free in the App Store. There is an option of purchasing a 599-coin pack for $0.99.

http://mashable.com/2012/07/13/bomb-the-zombies/

 

GOLD SAM Certification from Microsoft

 

We would like to say a big shout out to us this week!!!  

As a leading systems integrator and IT solutions provider, we recently attained Gold partner status with Microsoft for Software Asset Management (SAM). There are just a handful of organizations that have Gold SAM status in Australia and we are proud to say that we are now one of them.

We work with organizations to help them find efficiencies within their IT systems and processes and as such ITAM (IT asset management).  This has been a strong focus for us. Knowing where your software and hardware assets are deployed, how they are being accessed or used and how they are being procured, are critical to the successful functioning of IT.  If left unattended, then this can have far reaching compliance, financial and legal implications. Most organizations we talk to are under licensed in some areas and over licensed in others.

We provide an inventory service that identifies all the software licenses that are installed in the organisations and reconcile this against the purchase records that the vendors hold.  We then produce a report that:

• Gives a summary of the gap analysis that identifies any shortfalls and/or over purchase of licenses.
• Recommends a licensing strategy around Microsoft and other vendors for cost-effective license purchases.
• Provides usage metrics around software.
• Detailed approval and workflows for the purchasing of software licensing.

We also provide SAM as a service for ongoing maintenance of your asset inventory with best practises for IT procurement.

The invitation to the SAM Gold partner program is an endorsement by Microsoft of our expertise in delivering superior Software Asset Management services.

Congratulations to us and thank you very much for all your support.

The AUIT Team

Google’s New Compute Engine

Earlier last week Google announced the launch of their Compute Engine Service in the infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) space and it’s likely to upset both Amazon and Microsoft. 

Compute Engine Service is a rental of virtual servers, so that cloud-applications are scalable and can work at any load.  Google already offers Apps Engine, which hosts more than one million apps, and according to Google, Compute Engine is intended to serve the wider audience. 

The cost of Google Compute Engine will start at $0.055USD/hour, which is $0.03USD/hour cheaper than Amazon.  Whilst Google is attractive, Amazon still has the edge.  Google only supports Linux and Google do not have advanced cloud management providers like Amazon.  Therefore, the tools for developers and IT administrators are limited.

At the same time, Google also announced enhancements to Google Docs and Google Drive storage services.  Google Drive is now available on Apple’s IOS mobile operating system.

Google Drive is deeply integrated with Chrome OS.  It enables the user to save a document offline for viewing, such as when boarding a flight.  They can then edit the document offline and when they reconnect to the Internet, the edited document automatically synchronizes with the earlier version in Drive.

Here’s an article pulled from Mashable to explain how Google Drive compares with its competitors.

http://mashable.com/2012/04/24/google-drive-compared/

Now that Google Drive is finally a reality, how does it stack up against the cloud competition?

Google’s new cloud-based document and storage solution is priced aggressively and boasts best-in-class integration with other Google services — including Google Docs. As you can see from our hands-on, Google Drive is an impressive product.

Still, the cloud storage and collaboration space is more competitive than ever before. Google faces competition not just from cloud companies such as Box and Dropbox, but from Apple, Microsoft and Amazon as well.

Storage and Pricing

Google is pricing Google Drive at a VERY aggressive level. For $30 a year ($2.50 a month), users get 25GB to use for Google Drive and Picasa, plus 25GB of Gmail storage.

This is more than what Amazon and Microsoft charge for an additional 20GB, but less than the price of Dropbox, Apple and Box.net.

For $60 a year ($5 a month), Google offers 100GB of Drive and Picasa storage (plus 25GB for Gmail), which clocks in below Amazon, Apple, Dropbox and Box.net. For penny pinchers, Microsoft’s offer of 100GB of additional storage — on top of the 7 or 25GB that users already get with the service — is just $50 a year.

Dropbox and Box are among the more expensive services.

A 100GB Dropbox account costs more than three times what a Google Drive account costs. In this area, Google is clearly trying to undermine its competition on a per-GB pricing basis.

In the case of Box, the company’s real focus is on business users. Box’s pricing is also significantly higher than Google Drive; however, that differentiation is also part of the company’s focus. As Box has told us on multiple occasions, it wants to replace Microsoft SharePoint in the SMB and Enterprise space. While Google is also looking in this direction, Box has a bevy of services and integrations that are focused on replacing a company’s central file server.

Upload Limit

The most limiting factor of the majority of cloud storage and collaboration services isn’t the total amount of storage — it’s the limitations on upload size.

Google has an impressive 10GB limit on files or folders. This is significantly more than the 2GB limit imposed by most cloud services. Only Dropbox’s desktop apps for Mac, Windows and Linux do better. With Dropbox, the only limitation is the size of a storage plan.

Collaboration and sharing

Like Microsoft’s SkyDrive and Box, Google Drive offers in-browser access to files and folders, including document editing via Google Docs.

And like SkyDrive, Box and iCloud, third-party applications can plug into Google Drive to retrieve or store files. This makes keeping apps synchronized across devices and platforms much more seamless.

Mobile Integration

Although Google Drive’s Android app is already around, Google is making iOS users wait for access to the app. This is in contrast to Dropbox, Box and SkyDrive, which all offer official or unofficial solutions for multiple mobile platforms.

Amazon and Apple are behind in the mobile access game. Apple makes iCloud exclusively available to iOS 5 users, and Amazon’s Cloud Drive only integrates with Android (and the integration is limited at that).

Desktop Integration

Part of the reason that Dropbox has such a loyal following is because of its fantastic Desktop integration. Mac, Windows and Linux users can automatically sync and share files from their native file systems without having to bother with desktop uploads.

This is a similar approach to the one Box has taken with its Box Sync service for Windows, and to what Microsoft employs for SkyDrive for Windows and Mac.

Google Drive’s desktop app works essentially the same as SkyDrive — in other words, it isn’t as tightly coupled with the file system as Dropbox, but it does the job.

Final Thoughts

Which cloud storage service an individual or business decides to use is a decision that should encompass more than just comparing specs and pricing. Take time to use a service and see how it integrates into your workflow before plunking down cash on an upgrade.

For users and businesses heavily tied to Google Docs, Google Drive will likely make sense. For those that love Dropbox or need some of Box’s more robust features, Google Drive might not fit the bill. For Microsoft Office users, consider giving Microsoft SkyDrive a try — it works well and also offers online access to basic web and editing apps.

Ultimately, neither offering from Apple nor Amazon is likely to compete with Google Drive — the products are focused on different use cases.

We’d also like to give Canonical’s Ubuntu One a shout-out. We didn’t include it in our direct comparison because of its more limited options, but for Windows and Ubuntu users, its free service is worth a look as well.

Tell us your thoughts on the cloud storage and collaboration space. Does Google Drive have the goods to compete? Let us know in the comments.