Virtualization Can Keep Small Businesses Alive

virtualization can keep small businesses alive

vmw-virtualization-defined

Eliminating Hardware Updates and Improving Security

If you haven’t yet realized how virtualization can keep your small business alive, you need to see how essential it’s becoming in a volatile business world.

We’re living in a time now when running a server on your own not only costs considerable money but also poses serious risks. With hacking and other threats going on nearly every minute of the day now, a small business is constantly vulnerable to potential shutdowns.

Virtualization is a major solution because you can move much of your hardware into virtual mode as a way to cut down on server space. You’re essentially compressing everything down so all the physical hardware you’d have to buy is internal.

A small business particularly benefits thanks to numerous virtualization methods that can remove the potentials of nightmare scenarios.

Creating Virtual Machines

A major expense for small business is keeping up with the expense of hardware. Virtualization allows a small business to nearly eliminate hardware and virtualize an operating system. Called virtual machines, you can eliminate the need to install a physical operating system on your network. You also don’t have to worry about a virtual machine conflicting with a host operating system or even other virtual machines you’re running.

In all, you create a better efficiency that lets you use a virtual machine for a specific task without bogging your server down.

More Efficiency with Your Physical Server

All small businesses soon realize how running a server can be expensive. When you have to put all your data there, you’re going to need to spend more money for more server space as well as cooling technology to keep it from overheating. Virtualization helps you to cut down on needing to purchase physical servers to keep up with your hardware demands. With that much capital savings, a small business doesn’t have to play as much risk as they already have.

Data Recovery and Business Continuity

Virtualizing any sort of infrastructure in your small business and making copies of it is one of the most efficient ways toward data recovery should you ever need it. It’s a very simple process to copy something virtualized without taking huge amounts of storage space. That can be very important if your main server gets destroyed and you have copies of your virtualized network available on smaller servers in other locations. Buy loading up your virtualized infrastructure there, your business continuity won’t be any concern.

CIO.com also mentions how live migration is being used now in virtualization for business continuity purposes. This involves moving your virtualized infrastructure to other servers without having to worry about powering the servers down first.

It’s time your own small business looked into virtualization to start saving you money on the constant issue of finding ways to expand. Here at AE Technology Group, we’ll help you get set up with virtualizing your business infrastructure and show you how to manage it properly.

Contact us if you need us for any other IT services in your small business. We work as consultants and can give you many other solutions to help you save money, including moving your network to the cloud and superior network support.

Citrix Partner Service Provider Long Island New York

citrix partner service provider long island new york

Citrix Cloud Computing Long Island
What is Citrix?

Citrix delivers apps and desktops to over 1.5 billion devices around the world. When it comes to cloud computing, it is the #1 proven solution by over 1,500 partners and based on the same technology used by 99% of Fortune 500 companies. AE Technology Group delivers those same services and benefits to small and medium size businesses at SMB prices.

The Ability to Work From Anywhere

As a SMB, you probably want to be mobile and have the flexibility to work wherever you want, on whichever device you want, but may lack the resources to do so. AE can help you adopt these cloud services with a one vendor, one solution approach where everything you need from email and word processing to billing and CRM is provided in one easy to use desktop software. The migration is fast and affordable and there is really no learning curve since Citrix brings you the applications you’ve come to know and love and use on an everyday basis to all your devices, be it smart phone, laptop, tablet, or desktop PC.

In a 2012 SMB Cloud Adoption Study from Microsoft:

  • 71% of small businesses need solutions for mobile workstyles
  • 60% don’t have the resources to implement new technology solutions
  • 56% prefer a single source IT solution
  • 50% think cloud is important to their business

How can I learn more about Citrix?

Call or message AE Technology today and we’ll schedule a live demo to show you how you can solve all these and more with Citrix.

Toll free: (877) 771-AETG | Contact Us | Citrix Small Business Overview

Cloud Computing: Why education and classrooms should embrace it

cloud computing why education and classrooms should embrace it
Cloud Computing in Schools

It’s a classic cliche: “There is one constant in the universe: Everything Changes.” Some changes are small, but then there are changes like cloud computing, which have the potential to thoroughly change the industry.

Cloud computing in schools started being used in larger universities first, but slowly filtered down into elementary schools as people got more comfortable with the technology. Cloud computing takes advantage of a shared, virtual server to work on. This saves money because you can share software licenses while increasing capacity and adding capabilities. But what can you do with it?

You can use cloud computing for just about anything you would normally do as a group on a computer. For example, as part of an IT class you might work on a program together. Each person can log onto their own computer, access the shared, virtual server with the software, write their bit of code, then upload and save it onto the server space for the others in the group to access.

You can even do something similar for an English class. If each student has a part in a story to write, then they can use the same system using different software. This can also be used for group presentations and many other things.

Let’s take Taunton’s Bristol-Plymouth Regional Technical School, for example. This high school has decided to make their own private cloud, and move all their infrastructure onto it.

“This cloud network will be accessible from anywhere and from any device providing full school workstation environments including access to applications, printers and file storage,” Lisa Roe, the director of technology said.

This isn’t as hard as it sounds, either. At AE Technology Group, we understand the importance of security, safety, and usability for schools. Contact us to learn more about what solutions you can integrate within your school and on your budget. We’re looking forward to seeing your cloud computing dreams a reality.

Getting Ahead with a Hosted Email Solution

getting ahead with a hosted email solution

email
Email hosting is one of the most valuable and important resource these days, which operates email servers. There is an increase in the demand for email services because of the large number of people sending as well as receiving emails daily. Getting a hosted email solution is seen to be an important and attractive option to many companies. This is because it is one of the ways of getting new customers.

Email hosting means that the hosting company performs all the email functions for its clients. Such functions include basic functions such as sending and receiving email messages as well as complex functions such as global searching and database processing. Once a company agrees to provide a hosted email solution to its clients, it must also agree to maintain the privacy as well as the security of the client’s email accounts. The servers on which the email accounts of the clients are stored need to be reliable.

According to PCWorld, hosted email solutions provide you with extra features for your email, which are going to give your business a great boost. Such features can include IMAP support, which ensures that you can download offline email client. In addition, you have the chance of getting additional cloud storage for your email messages and get support for you custom email addresses. With email hosting services, you have access to collaboration tools that will integrate with email.

Email hosting offers premium email, which is usually at a cost compared to the free webmail or email that is advertisement supported. These services are offered at low costs. Small and medium sized companies require hosted email solutions to help them get ahead in their business. It is possible for a business to get email hosting solutions that are specific to their needs to make sure that the solutions work effectively.

Small businesses are advised to give their businesses a chance to grow before paying for any hosted email solution. This ensures that they get to pay for the email hosting services once they have several employees and are in need of the different types of features such as collaboration tools and shared calendars, which come with email hosting. This is because transition from one email hosting solution to another can be hard once your business experiences rapid growth. Contact us for more information on email hosting and to get the email hosting solutions that will suit your business best.

IT Support Why Cloud Network Migration Requires Guidance

cloud computing the future of disaster recovery
Cloud Computing

The business buzz surrounding cloud computing has the tendency to make it sound like an instant cure for every IT conundrum. Make no mistake, an effective cloud network migration will improve all of the following difficulties that dent the IT budget:

  • total cost of ownership (TCO) of IT resources
  • recurring expenses for proprietary software licenses
  • software upgrades and configurations management
  • cost of securing data resources, including malware protection, security architecture, and certified personnel
  • cost of hardware and labor needed to manage data storage
  • recurring costs and potential liabilities for backup and disaster recovery

However, cloud migrations require strategy. Leading cloud infrastructure providers have actually made it possible to spring up a fully-functioning virtual server in a matter of minutes. However, it is a tremendous folly to start signing up for services without any expert advice.

Cloud technology has taken years to mature, and has grown in scope and complexity. There is a small but knowledgable community that has come to the forefront of this field. The following issues, for example, are all questions that an experienced IT migration partner can resolve:

  1. Is it necessary to build a custom network with infrastructure as a service (IaaS), or can applications be simplified with the platform as a service (PaaS) model?
  2. Which storage solutions and software as a service (SaaS) applications will fit best with the business model and give the best ROI?
  3. How will data management and disaster recovery be addressed?
  4. Is scalability going to be an issue? Does the company have reasonable expectations of growth and, if so, is the IT infrastructure able to scale with it?
  5. Are there areas of the business model that have never been boosted by IT, and can a cloud migration reveal opportunities for any efficiency that has been looked over?

Rather than attempting a migration on your own, contact a trusted partner such as AE Technology Group.

AETG has a proven record of improving operations via a strategic and tailored move to the cloud, and can also manage the newly adopted services so that you can focus on your business mission.