IntroductionWelcome| 00:04 | Hi and welcome to Cloud Computing First Look.
I am David Rivers. Increasingly we are being
| | 00:09 | inundated with the cloud and cloud technologies.
Cloud computing is everywhere but not everyone
| | 00:15 | agrees on exactly what it is.
| | 00:17 | This course is designed to give you a good
understanding of what a cloud really is and
| | 00:22 | what technologies are available to you in
the cloud. This course should also help you
| | 00:26 | to decide if any of the cloud is right for
you and your business. If it is, you'll also
| | 00:32 | pick up some tips for making your
move to the cloud. Let's get started.
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1. Cloud Computing BasicsWhat is cloud computing?| 00:00 | Before we can begin to explore the cloud,
including strategies for migrating to the cloud and
| | 00:04 | cloud tools, we should really understand
what the cloud is. So let's begin with a quick
| | 00:10 | overview of the cloud and
what cloud computing means.
| | 00:14 | The label cloud computing really is a
metaphor for the Internet. If you've ever looked at
| | 00:19 | a network diagram, the Internet portion of that
network is typically represented by a cloud graphic.
| | 00:25 | Also important to consider, the cloud in a
diagram like this will typically represent
| | 00:30 | the part of the solution that is someone else's
concern. And this is what cloud computing is all about.
| | 00:37 | By leaving a good chunk of the networking
solution in someone else's hands, a business
| | 00:41 | can cut operational costs dramatically while
allowing your IT departments to concentrate
| | 00:46 | on strategy as opposed to
maintaining the data center.
| | 00:50 | But these days it would be overly simplistic
to equate cloud computing to the Internet.
| | 00:56 | A business might choose to access
applications that reside at a location other than their
| | 01:01 | own computers or servers. This would eliminate
the need to install applications, like an Office
| | 01:07 | Suite for example, locally on
every computer in the company.
| | 01:11 | And when any update or even upgrade becomes
available, there's no work to be done at your
| | 01:16 | end, because someone else is hosting those
applications and the updates are completed
| | 01:20 | by them and not you. They handle it all including the
costs of the servers that host those applications.
| | 01:28 | Of course data storage has become a big piece
in the cloud computing puzzle as well. With
| | 01:34 | some or all of your data stored in the cloud
we can cut capital expenditures since you
| | 01:38 | won't need to buy the
equipment needed to store everything.
| | 01:42 | And one of the biggest advantages to the
cloud is the ability to access your applications
| | 01:46 | and data from anywhere on any device that
connects to the Internet. Users simply log in
| | 01:52 | from wherever they are to use their
applications and access their data. No more copying files
| | 01:58 | and transferring them to multiple devices.
| | 02:02 | Of course with anything IT related there are
going to be some pros and some cons, and that
| | 02:07 | goes for cloud computing as well. And
Internet outage can be an issue in cloud computing,
| | 02:13 | cutting off access to your applications and data
and preventing you from getting your work done.
| | 02:19 | Sometimes a problem can be with the site
you're accessing. If they are having issues, and it
| | 02:23 | does happen, you are once again out of luck
trying to get at your applications and data.
| | 02:28 | It might be rare, but it's a
real possibility to consider.
| | 02:33 | And in some scenarios, if your company deals
with sensitive or proprietary data, it may
| | 02:37 | be necessary to store that data or run that
application locally and not on someone else's
| | 02:42 | machines. Healthcare organizations come to mind
in the sensitive patient data they deal with.
| | 02:48 | So that's a high-level look at cloud computing
including some of the pros and cons. In most
| | 02:53 | business scenarios you will see cloud computing
as an important piece of an overall networking
| | 02:59 | strategy and not the only solution.
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| Exploring the components of the cloud| 00:00 | To better understand cloud computing we need
to explore the elements of a cloud computing
| | 00:04 | solution. There are three main parts, each with its
own role and purpose, and first up are the clients.
| | 00:11 | Now clients are simply the devices end users
interact with to access the cloud to manage
| | 00:16 | their information. These can include desktop
PCs, laptops, tablets and mobile phones. There
| | 00:22 | are three main categories of clients as well.
| | 00:25 | There are mobile clients like Blackberries,
iPhones and Smart phones. There are thin clients
| | 00:31 | which are simply computers that don't have
their own internal hard drives and are used
| | 00:35 | to display information you access.
| | 00:37 | And of course there are thick clients as well,
which are your typical computers using a web
| | 00:42 | browser to access the Internet and connect to
the cloud. Next comes the data center which
| | 00:48 | is a server or a collection of servers
housing the applications you subscribe to.
| | 00:53 | Now these could be housed locally where you
would access them directly, or they might reside
| | 00:57 | somewhere externally where you would access
then via the Internet. And the third piece
| | 01:02 | of the cloud computing puzzle
is the distributed servers.
| | 01:05 | Like the data center, these are servers you
access via the cloud, but they might be located
| | 01:10 | anywhere around the world. By having servers
spread out geographically as opposed to storing
| | 01:15 | them all in one location, the service provider
has more flexibility and increased security.
| | 01:21 | If one server goes down in one location, the
service can still be accessed from another
| | 01:26 | location. To you the cloud subscriber, it's
as if there is one big server experiencing
| | 01:31 | no issues at all. Now that we understand the
main components of cloud computing, let's
| | 01:35 | dig a little bit deeper into the
actual infrastructure options of the cloud.
| | 01:41 |
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| Understanding the infrastructure of the cloud| 00:00 | Important to understanding how the cloud works is
the topic of infrastructure, more specifically
| | 00:07 | full virtualization and
something called paravirtualization.
| | 00:11 | Cloud computing is not the same for everyone and
there are many different ways the infrastructure
| | 00:15 | can be deployed. The actual infrastructure
will depend on the application and how the
| | 00:19 | provider of that application has decided
to build that particular cloud solution.
| | 00:24 | So there are big advantages to using the
cloud from our perspective, maybe our business
| | 00:29 | needs massive processing power, but we don't have
the budget, nor the desire to run it in house.
| | 00:35 | And on the other side of the coin, if we
require very little processing power it might not
| | 00:39 | make sense to purchase and run our own dedicated
server. The cloud is ideal for both scenarios.
| | 00:45 | Let's begin with something
called full virtualization.
| | 00:49 | In this setup, a complete installation of
software is run on a server, but is displayed on the
| | 00:54 | clients. Now with this type of deployment you
can be running all sorts of unique applications,
| | 00:59 | you can even be running
different operating systems.
| | 01:02 | Now this is just one way to access services on
the cloud where a remote data center delivers
| | 01:08 | your services in a fully virtualized format.
Full-virtualization has been very successful
| | 01:14 | where multiple users will be sharing a
single computer system, or where users need to be
| | 01:20 | isolated from each other and the control program.
And it's also very useful where one type of
| | 01:25 | hardware needs to be
emulated on another machine.
| | 01:28 | Now paravirtualization differs from full
virtualization in that it allows multiple
| | 01:33 | operating systems to run on a single device at
the same time. It does this by using system
| | 01:39 | resources like processors
and memory more efficiently.
| | 01:43 | Now unlike full virtualization where the entire
system is emulated, paravirtualization works
| | 01:48 | with an OS that has been adjusted to work on
a virtual machine, not every element needs
| | 01:54 | to be emulated with the paravirtualization
model. Because of this, paravirtualization
| | 01:59 | allows for better scaling than the full virtualization
model because it requires less processor utilization.
| | 02:06 | So there are certain deployments were para-
virtualization works best like disaster recovery for example.
| | 02:12 | If there's an equipment failure, guest instances
can be moved to other hardware until the equipment
| | 02:18 | can be fixed. Or how about migration? It's
simplified and faster with paravirtualization
| | 02:23 | because guest instances can be
removed from the underlying hardware.
| | 02:29 | And because of easier migrations, capacity
management is also easier to implement. Adding
| | 02:35 | processing power and hard drive capacity is
just so much simpler in a virtualized environment.
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| Cloud services overview| 00:00 | If you've ever heard the term as a service
tacked onto the end of another word like software,
| | 00:05 | storage or hardware, then you're already
familiar with some of the cloud service types that
| | 00:10 | are available out there.
| | 00:11 | When we see as a service at the end of an
offering, it usually equates to traits like
| | 00:16 | the ability to share resources among many, many
users. It also represents large scalability
| | 00:23 | and low barriers to entry, meaning services
that are easily available and affordable to
| | 00:28 | small businesses.
| | 00:29 | There's also device independence allowing
users to access the services on different
| | 00:33 | types of hardware, computers, laptops, tablets,
smart phones. And let's begin with a look
| | 00:40 | at a type of service that's very popular,
it's known as a SaaS or Software as a Service.
| | 00:47 | In this model, the application is hosted by a
provider as a service so customers access
| | 00:52 | the application via the Internet using their
own web browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox
| | 00:58 | or Safari, and because it is a service, the
customer does not need to purchase the software,
| | 01:03 | but will instead pay a
subscription fee to access the application.
| | 01:07 | Of course there are many benefits to this
model like cost savings for example; there
| | 01:11 | is no software or licenses to buy for each
computer. There is a lower learning curve
| | 01:16 | because users are already familiar with
their web browsers. There is staff savings since
| | 01:20 | fewer IT personnel are required to maintain
servers and software updates and the like.
| | 01:27 | Reliability is also a key benefit, although
prone to the occasional blips, the web is generally
| | 01:33 | very reliable. How about security? With SSL,
access to apps remains secure without complex
| | 01:40 | backend configurations
like using VPN for example.
| | 01:45 | And then there's customization. It is easier
to customize web apps of today than the older
| | 01:50 | apps that require tinkering with code. Along
with the benefits come obstacles, for example
| | 01:56 | unique needs. Customers with unique
application requirements may not be able to find what
| | 02:02 | they need in the cloud.
| | 02:04 | Same thing for portability, once you are
locked in with a vendor, it might be difficult or
| | 02:08 | may be expensive to port applications to
another vendor if a change is needed or desired.
| | 02:15 | And then there is also competition now from
open-source applications. Cheaper open-source
| | 02:19 | applications like open office.org for example,
make it a lot less expensive and easier than
| | 02:25 | ever for customers to install
apps on their own hardware.
| | 02:30 | And some examples of software as a service
that you might be familiar with salesforce.com,
| | 02:36 | customer relationship management service.
There is Google Apps and Office 365 for Office
| | 02:42 | automation. QuickBooks online gives you an
accounting services, DeskAway for project
| | 02:47 | management. And how about Halogen software?
Each are talent and performance management
| | 02:51 | services, all done via the web.
| | 02:54 | Now using the same acronym as software as a
service is storage as a service. And this
| | 03:00 | specifically refers to a service provider
who offers storage space, some being specific
| | 03:06 | about what you can store
while others not so much.
| | 03:10 | For example if we look at Flickr and
Photobucket, they allow you to store your photos up in
| | 03:15 | the cloud. If you want to be able to store
anything not just photos, you might consider
| | 03:19 | other services like Dropbox or YouSendIt.
| | 03:23 | Then the next acronym which is HaaS or Hardware
as a Service is also known as infrastructure
| | 03:30 | as a service, because that's exactly what you
pay for. The next form of service in cloud
| | 03:35 | computing offers hardware instead of application,
so there's no need for customers to buy servers,
| | 03:42 | hard drives, racks and data center space.
| | 03:44 | The customer will put whatever they want on
it and use it just like they would if they
| | 03:49 | purchased the hardware themselves. Now some
good examples here are Amazon S3 which stands
| | 03:55 | for Simple Storage Service and allows customers
to store any data they want on Amazon servers.
| | 04:00 | And then there is something called Amazon
EC2 which stands for Elastic Compute cloud,
| | 04:05 | which is more for developers and provides
some the tools to build failure-resilient
| | 04:10 | applications and isolate
themselves from common failure scenarios.
| | 04:14 | Lastly and quickly is PaaS, or Platform as a
Service. Now in this case it's very much
| | 04:20 | like application delivery we see with Software
as a Service, but supplies resources to build
| | 04:27 | applications and services. So there is no need
to install software. Excellent for developers
| | 04:33 | in application development, design and testing,
also if you're into deployment and hosting.
| | 04:40 | Some examples of Platform as a Service include,
the Google App Engine, Windows Azure, and OPENSHIFT
| | 04:46 | from Red Hat cloud. So that's a good overview
of the different types of cloud services out
| | 04:52 | there. At the moment, storage
services are getting more and more popular.
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| Using storage and database services| 00:00 | Well now it's the time when we begin to delve
into what the cloud actually does. In a nutshell
| | 00:05 | cloud computing brings you applications so
you can view, manipulate and share data.
| | 00:10 | Many of the applications you may be familiar
with on your desktop computer also exist in
| | 00:15 | cloud computing; think about Office 365 for
example. The only real difference in cloud
| | 00:21 | computing is how you interact with these
applications and the most common interactions will be with
| | 00:27 | storage and database functionality.
| | 00:29 | We'll begin with database storage, and these
are typically repositories for your information
| | 00:34 | with links built in to make your information
more searchable. The information will typically
| | 00:39 | be spread out over physically dispersed
hardware, think about Amazon Simple DB for example,
| | 00:45 | which does present a number of pros and cons.
| | 00:48 | One pro is what happens when there's an issue
with one database system, because information
| | 00:53 | is dispersed, only a fragment of your
information is affected, not the entire database.
| | 00:59 | The database systems run in parallel which
allows the load to be nicely balanced among
| | 01:04 | various servers, thus improving performance.
It's also far less expensive to build a network
| | 01:10 | of smaller computers with the power of one
large one, and systems can be changed and modified
| | 01:15 | without causing harm to the entire database.
| | 01:18 | So what could possibly be the disadvantage to
database storage? Well how about complexity.
| | 01:24 | Database administrators will have extra work
involved in maintaining the system. With more
| | 01:29 | complexities, there's usually a need for more workers
on the payroll. And all those database fragments
| | 01:35 | need to be secure as do the
sites housing those fragments.
| | 01:39 | Also the integrity of the database can be
difficult to maintain if it's too complex,
| | 01:44 | or if it's changing too quickly. And lastly,
there are currently no standards out there
| | 01:49 | for converting a centralized database into a cloud
solution. So you're kind of on your own there.
| | 01:55 | Now the other type of storage you may already
be familiar with is synchronization, think
| | 01:59 | of Microsoft's Live Mesh or icloud from Apple,
where your content could be stored and refreshed
| | 02:05 | across multiple devices.
| | 02:07 | Upload that document you're working on from
your computer to the storage service and suddenly
| | 02:11 | you can access that document on your
phone, your tablet, your PDA, and so on.
| | 02:16 | So that's a quick overview of storage and
database services. Later in this course we
| | 02:20 | will dig even deeper into cloud storage
devoting an entire chapter to the topic.
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2. Evaluate whether Cloud Computing Is Right for Your BusinessThe three main cloud computing scenarios| 00:00 | When deciding whether cloud computing is right
for your organization, it helps to understand
| | 00:05 | your needs and the solutions available to
meet those needs. Let's begin by examining
| | 00:10 | three main scenarios for cloud computing
implementation. Although different organizations may use cloud
| | 00:15 | computing differently, the users will typically
fall into one of these three solutions, beginning
| | 00:21 | with Compute clouds.
| | 00:23 | Now Compute clouds allow organizations access
to on-demand computer resources that are highly
| | 00:29 | scalable and inexpensive. These resources
will run the code they're given, so it really
| | 00:34 | depends on the application
the user wants to access.
| | 00:39 | Now this scenario works well for any size
organization, although some larger organizations
| | 00:43 | may not see the advantage to this scenario.
They depend on standards management, monitoring
| | 00:49 | and governance capabilities, for example. The number
of service providers to choose from his diminished.
| | 00:56 | The next scenario is cloud storage. If your
organization needs to maintain files offsite,
| | 01:01 | cloud storage can be an ideal solution. There
are dozens of cloud storage vendors out there,
| | 01:06 | over a hundred including
Amazon S3, one of the most popular.
| | 01:11 | Next is cloud applications, and in this scenario,
you access and utilize software applications
| | 01:16 | via your web browser. This means your
organization need not host the software and IT personnel
| | 01:23 | are not needed to maintain
it. It's all on the cloud.
| | 01:26 | Now there are a lot of good reasons to
consider a move to the cloud computing scenario, but
| | 01:32 | the cloud is not perfect for every situation.
Here are some scenarios where you might want
| | 01:38 | to avoid the cloud, for example, HIPAA data.
| | 01:41 | If your organization deals with HIPAA data,
that's Health Insurance Portability and Accounting
| | 01:46 | Act, the cloud is no place for that type of
sensitive data and putting it there could
| | 01:50 | catch the attention of HIPAA auditors.
| | 01:53 | You may already be aware of this but there are
laws and policies that allow the government
| | 01:58 | freer access to data stored on the cloud
versus a private server. If it's sensitive data,
| | 02:03 | keep it off the cloud.
| | 02:05 | If you have an application that requires a
special set of hardware, a cloud solution
| | 02:09 | might not work best for you. And if your
application requires detailed control over things like
| | 02:14 | memory, hard disk space or CPU, again the
cloud may not be a good fit, because it's
| | 02:19 | the service provider who's in
control of these things on the cloud.
| | 02:23 | If your current solution is working beautifully
for you, there may be no advantage to moving
| | 02:28 | to the cloud. And lastly, if you're running
applications that integrate with one another,
| | 02:33 | you may want to avoid a move to the cloud
in this scenario. You can run into issues
| | 02:37 | with speed and reliability, so keep them
together, whether it's on the cloud or off.
| | 02:43 |
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| The operational benefits of the cloud| 00:00 | Let's take a look at how a move to the cloud
can help your organization operationally.
| | 00:05 | First of all, technology is paid for in
increments, so money can be saved in the long run. You
| | 00:11 | can store more data on the cloud than you
can on a private network, and if you need
| | 00:16 | more, no problem, just get some extra.
| | 00:19 | Your IT staff no longer need be concerned
about having the most recent updates to your
| | 00:24 | application since that's all handled by the
service provider. And if providers want to
| | 00:28 | keep their customers, you know they'll
keep their applications up-to-date.
| | 00:33 | It's easy to test out the applications you
need and deploy them to the organization.
| | 00:38 | If they're not working for you, it's easy to
switch to another application that does meet
| | 00:42 | your needs. And the cloud is out there and
always available, which means of course your
| | 00:47 | users can access the cloud after hours and from
anywhere, so long as they have an Internet connection.
| | 00:53 | So that covers many of the operational
benefits to moving to the cloud, but there are many
| | 00:58 | economic benefits as well.
We'll explore those next.
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| The economic benefits of the cloud| 00:00 | You know, big decisions about anything are
often made based on the economic benefit, and
| | 00:06 | cloud computing is really no different. Cost
is a big factor and the economic benefit to
| | 00:11 | cloud computing goes beyond equipment savings.
| | 00:14 | First of all, by moving to the cloud, it's
inevitable that you're going to rely on fewer
| | 00:19 | staff, fewer staff means savings in salaries
and benefits and allows an organization to
| | 00:25 | analyze their needs and find the
best people to remain on staff.
| | 00:29 | Cloud service providers are going to pay less
for hardware, networking equipment and bandwidth
| | 00:35 | than the average business. So if your
organization is not a government agency or a very large
| | 00:41 | enterprise, you can save on the cost of
hardware by simply not needing any. And then bump up
| | 00:47 | your subscription to the cloud if or when
you need more storage capacity or bandwidth.
| | 00:53 | With cloud computing, you pay for what you
use. It's kind of like leasing a vehicle,
| | 00:57 | in that, your monthly payments stay nice and
low and you're always going to be driving
| | 01:01 | something new. Technology changes at the
speed of light. So always having the latest and
| | 01:06 | greatest at an affordable
price is a huge benefit.
| | 01:10 | And then if we compare cloud computing to
conventional scenarios of getting apps up
| | 01:15 | and running, we realize one of the biggest
advantages to the cloud. Imagine the time
| | 01:20 | and cost of finding a host, configuring the
new machine, shipping it and then trying to
| | 01:25 | manage it. Well with the cloud, you can be up
and running with a new instance in seconds
| | 01:29 | literally and that represents huge savings.
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| The staffing benefits of the cloud| 00:00 | It only takes a few minutes to spin up a new
server with cloud computing versus the months
| | 00:04 | it might take to plan, prepare,
test and deploy your own servers.
| | 00:09 | By using the cloud, your users can access
data and applications from anywhere in the
| | 00:14 | world with a simple Internet connection. If
you signed up with a cloud service provider
| | 00:20 | and you have a service level agreement, you're
guaranteed that level of service and the best
| | 00:25 | part is if you report any bugs, it's the
vendor who fixes them. So you don't have to deal
| | 00:30 | with the patch yourself, in fact, it will most
likely be done in a way that is transparent
| | 00:35 | to you and your organization.
| | 00:37 | With cloud computing, your service provider
will want to keep you satisfied and keep you
| | 00:41 | as a customer, so it's in their best
interest to ensure the application is always being
| | 00:46 | improved. In the realm of software as a service,
small changes can be happening constantly,
| | 00:52 | adding up over time instead of a huge patch
that can cost you time and money to implement.
| | 00:57 | Many of the maintenance duties IT personnel
are responsible for with regard to software
| | 01:02 | are offloaded to service providers in a cloud
computing scenario. This frees up their time
| | 01:07 | to focus on improving the day-to-day operations
of a company rather than responding to support
| | 01:12 | calls to deal with software issues.
| | 01:15 | And lastly, the money you save in operational
costs and from your IT budget by using a cloud
| | 01:21 | vendor means more money that can be added to
your bottom line or redistributed to other
| | 01:26 | departments to boost productivity.
| | 01:29 |
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| Understanding the security risks of cloud computing| 00:00 | Cloud computing is indeed gaining traction
with businesses all over the world and the
| | 00:04 | benefits seem overwhelming, but before you dive
right in, you should be aware of the risks.
| | 00:10 | When searching for the right cloud vendor for
you, be sure to raise the following security
| | 00:14 | issues if they apply to your organization.
Number one, sensitive data that is processed
| | 00:20 | outside of your organization comes with an
inherent level of risk because outsource services
| | 00:26 | bypass the typical, physical, logical and
personal controls that IT departments exert
| | 00:32 | over in-house programs.
| | 00:33 | So you should get as much information as you
can about the people who manage your data
| | 00:38 | and ask providers to supply specific
information on the hiring and oversight of privileged
| | 00:43 | administrators and the
controls over their access.
| | 00:46 | Next, you the customer are ultimately
responsible for the security and the integrity of your
| | 00:52 | own data, even when it's held by a service
provider. So use a cloud computing provider
| | 00:58 | who's willing to undergo the scrutiny of the
external audits and security certifications
| | 01:03 | like traditional service providers do. If
they are not willing, they are pretty much
| | 01:07 | signaling that customers can only use
them for the most trivial functions.
| | 01:11 | Ask providers if they'll commit to storing
and processing data in specific jurisdictions
| | 01:17 | and whether they will make a contractual
commitment to obey local privacy requirements on behalf
| | 01:23 | of their customers. If not, you won't know your
data is being stored, not even in what country.
| | 01:27 | Next, you may not be aware that data in a
cloud is typically stored in a shared environment
| | 01:33 | alongside data from other customers. Now
encryption may be effective, but it isn't failsafe.
| | 01:40 | You should ask a potential cloud provider
what is done to segregate data at rest. The
| | 01:45 | cloud provider should then provide evidence
that encryption schemes were designed and
| | 01:49 | tested by experienced specialists, because an
encryption accident can make your data totally unusable.
| | 01:57 | A cloud provider should tell you what will
happen to your data and service in the event
| | 02:01 | of a catastrophe. Any offering that does not
have redundancy built in and does not replicate
| | 02:07 | the data and application infrastructure across
multiple sites is vulnerable to a total failure.
| | 02:13 | So ask your provider if it's able to do a
complete restoration and how long that would
| | 02:18 | take. And lastly, in a perfect world your
cloud computing provider will never go out
| | 02:23 | of business or get acquired and swallowed
up by a larger company, but you have to be
| | 02:28 | sure your data will remain available
even if such an event were to occur.
| | 02:33 | So you should ask potential cloud service
providers how you would get your data back,
| | 02:37 | and if it would be in a format that you could
import into a replacement application. Those
| | 02:43 | are just a few risks to consider if you're
trying to determine if a move to the cloud
| | 02:48 | is right for your organization.
| | 02:51 |
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3. Explore Cloud Storage Overview of storage as a service| 00:00 | Let's begin with a look at cloud storage as
opposed to traditional storage techniques.
| | 00:05 | First of all, you can easily get at your data
from anywhere as long as you have an Internet
| | 00:10 | connection. Now this is going to be very
appealing to road warriors who can use any computer
| | 00:16 | or mobile device. There is no need to carry
around physical storage devices when they
| | 00:21 | need to be mobile.
| | 00:22 | And if your business has multiple branch offices,
they cannot get access to the same data stored
| | 00:27 | on the cloud. Now there is a wide variety of
storage service providers and a wide range
| | 00:32 | of services they provide. Some will allow
storage of many types of data while others
| | 00:39 | are more specific allowing you to store one
type of data, like email or photos. Just think
| | 00:44 | of Flickr or Photobucket, for example, where
you can store your photos and share them with
| | 00:49 | anyone you want, or check out mail.com if
you're interested in safely storing or archiving
| | 00:54 | your email messages, that
can pile up very quickly by the way.
| | 00:58 | Now some storage providers are small while
others can be quite huge. Google for example
| | 01:04 | has many data centers, one of which is the
size of a football field containing thousands
| | 01:09 | of individual servers.
| | 01:11 | So really, in simple terms, a cloud storage
system is at least one data server that is
| | 01:16 | connected to the Internet. Subscribers can
copy files to the data server and access those
| | 01:21 | files to copy them back or even manipulate them
directly on the server. Between the subscriber
| | 01:26 | device and the data server is what we call
a web-based interface where the subscriber
| | 01:32 | will go to log in and access their data.
| | 01:35 | Now the more storage space needed, the more
hard drives the service provider can add to
| | 01:39 | the system to increase capacity. Now in reality,
cloud storage systems will consist of dozens
| | 01:45 | or even hundreds of data servers and the
data will be stored in more than one area.
| | 01:51 | Now this redundancy is what makes cloud storage
safe and reliable, assuring clients that they
| | 01:55 | will be able to access their data at any time.
| | 01:58 | Now the main reason businesses use cloud
storage is for safety, not because they don't have
| | 02:03 | the space. If one data center goes down,
there's no need to worry about losing precious data
| | 02:08 | that is stored safely on
other data centers on the cloud.
| | 02:12 | And also very important to businesses is the
cost savings. Storage space is simply rented
| | 02:17 | from a cloud storage provider using either
a cost per gigabyte stored model or a cost
| | 02:22 | per data transferred model.
| | 02:24 | There is no need to buy your own infrastructure,
pay to keep it running, pay to keep it cool,
| | 02:30 | and you don't need to pay someone to maintain it.
That's all handled by the service provider.
| | 02:36 |
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| About storage providers| 00:00 | There is really no shortage of cloud storage
providers out there, there are hundreds to
| | 00:04 | choose from and the list continues to grow
at a steady pace. With cloud storage, you
| | 00:09 | have your general purpose providers and you have
providers that are more specialized in what they store.
| | 00:15 | We'll be taking a closer look at some of the
most popular tools and providers in the next
| | 00:19 | chapter, but for now, let's look at some
examples of specialized cloud providers. We'll begin
| | 00:24 | with Google Docs which allows subscribers to
upload documents, spreadsheets and presentations
| | 00:30 | to Google's data servers where they can be
shared and edited using one of the Google apps.
| | 00:37 | Specializing in web email messages are players
like Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Google's Gmail.
| | 00:42 | Email messages are stored on their servers
and users can access their email from computers
| | 00:47 | and mobile devices, like smartphones and
tablets, that are connected to the Internet.
| | 00:52 | You can upload your photos and create your
own photo albums with providers like Flickr
| | 00:57 | and Picasa who store millions of digital
photos on their servers. Everyone is familiar with
| | 01:03 | YouTube where you can upload and store your
video files, and more importantly, share those
| | 01:08 | videos with the rest of the world.
| | 01:10 | If you have a website, your files and data
can be stored on a provider such as GoDaddy
| | 01:15 | or HostMonster. Social networking continues
to be all the rage and providers like MySpace
| | 01:21 | and Facebook let members post pictures and other
content that is all stored on company servers.
| | 01:27 | And for all types of digital data, you can
use providers like MediaMax and Strongspace
| | 01:32 | who let users upload and store virtually any
type of data they require. Of course, there
| | 01:37 | are hundreds of options when it comes to
storage service providers out there in the cloud.
| | 01:42 | These are just a few of the big players out
there who continue to be successful in what they do.
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| Understanding cloud storage security| 00:00 | No matter what type of data you're going to
be storing in the cloud, you're going to want
| | 00:04 | it to be secure. So let's look at what cloud
storage providers do to keep your data secure.
| | 00:11 | Keep in mind that most systems will use a
combination of the following techniques beginning with
| | 00:16 | encryption, which is a complex algorithm.
It's used to encode your information.
| | 00:21 | So encrypted data looks like garbage until
it's decoded, and users need the encryption
| | 00:26 | key to decode encrypted data and without it,
cracking the encrypted data is extremely difficult.
| | 00:32 | It's not impossible, but most hackers simply
don't have the necessary computer processing
| | 00:36 | power required to crack the code.
| | 00:39 | Then there's authentication processes which
are used to protect data, which is simply the
| | 00:45 | requirement for a user to create a username
and a password to access their data. Lastly,
| | 00:51 | are authorization practices where clients
list people who are authorized to access the
| | 00:57 | data stored on the cloud system and with
authorization practices, you can have multiple levels of
| | 01:02 | access. So some people might have a limited
access to the data while others will have
| | 01:06 | full access. Think frontline workers
versus IT departments for example.
| | 01:11 | Now even with these measures of security,
there remains the concern that data stored
| | 01:16 | on a cloud system is vulnerable to hackers
or even disgruntled employees who might want
| | 01:21 | to alter or even destroy data
using their own access credentials.
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| Cloud storage considerations| 00:00 | Cloud storage continues to increase in popularity
as an attractive solution for many organizations.
| | 00:06 | Now while there are many advantages, there are
also potential pitfalls, so let's explore both.
| | 00:11 | Aside from the cost savings we have discussed in
previous lessons, it's important to understand
| | 00:15 | how cloud storage offers a great way to
protect your data. Having your data stored off-site
| | 00:21 | beats backing up your data and storing it on-
site in the event of a physical catastrophe.
| | 00:27 | Keeping your data stored safely off-site can
mean the difference between shutting down
| | 00:31 | your business for a few days to recover
and shutting down your business for good.
| | 00:36 | Now with cloud storage, you are not looking
at an all or nothing proposition, in fact
| | 00:40 | it might be smart to take a mixed approach
to cloud storage in the beginning, using it
| | 00:45 | for a few non-critical purposes. Until you
find a cloud storage vendor that meshes well
| | 00:50 | with your current IT systems, why not take
the appetizer approach of testing one or two
| | 00:56 | systems before going all in, when you'll find that
provider who can give you exactly what you need.
| | 01:02 | Of course, when your data is stored in the
cloud, there are potential hazards to consider.
| | 01:06 | It's rare and data is almost never lost outright,
but it is a reason to take caution when considering
| | 01:12 | a move to the cloud.
| | 01:13 | Now cloud storage providers will do everything
in their power to keep your data secure, but
| | 01:18 | there's always the chance that your data could
be stolen or viewed by unauthorized parties.
| | 01:23 | If you decide to use the cloud for storing
your data, it's a good idea to encrypt that
| | 01:28 | data and use secure data transmission with
technologies like SSL, short for Secure Sockets Layer.
| | 01:36 | Ultimately, the decision to use cloud storage
comes down to your organization and what you
| | 01:41 | want to store on the cloud.
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|
|
4. Explore Cloud Tools Exploring Google Apps| 00:00 | Google Apps is a suite of cloud-based Google
applications that brings together essential
| | 00:05 | services to help businesses. It is a hosted
service that allows businesses, schools, institutions,
| | 00:12 | access to a variety of Google
products on a unique domain.
| | 00:16 | If you own the rouxacademy.org for example,
and you sign up for Google Apps services,
| | 00:22 | everyone at your organization will get things
like a custom email address with their own
| | 00:27 | username. You also get a shared calendaring
system. Here you can create your own events
| | 00:32 | and you can share and allow others to
view your calendar and likewise with them.
| | 00:38 | Also, you'll find tools for creating web pages
and sites for your businesses. Again you can
| | 00:43 | share these sites, it's a great way to share
data and other types of content. And with
| | 00:49 | Google Drive on your Mac, or on your PC, or on
your mobile device, even in a web browser,
| | 00:55 | you get a single place for up-to-date versions
of your files from anywhere. In addition to
| | 01:00 | any file type you choose to upload here, Google Docs are
also stored here in the Google Drive automatically.
| | 01:07 | With Google Apps all your work is
automatically saved in the cloud. Google Apps will run on
| | 01:12 | virtually any mobile device like your iPhone
or iPod touch, an Android Device, Blackberry,
| | 01:17 | Windows Phone or any phone for that matter
with a browser. So this means you're always
| | 01:22 | going to have access to your email. You'll also
have access to your Calendar, your documents
| | 01:31 | and your sites. And you'll be working securely
no matter where you are in the world or what
| | 01:37 | device you're on.
| | 01:39 | For businesses, this means every employee
and everyone you work with can be productive
| | 01:43 | from anywhere using any device
with an Internet connection.
| | 01:48 | Now this is just the tip of the Google Apps
iceberg with so many more tools, features
| | 01:52 | and functions to explore. Now Google Apps,
for individuals and small teams, you can see
| | 01:59 | is free. And if you're thinking about Google
Apps for your business, you can actually run
| | 02:03 | a free trial to see if it's right for you.
There's even something called Google Apps
| | 02:07 | for Business with Vault that gives you access
to a whole host of additional features and functions.
| | 02:14 |
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| Taking a look at Microsoft Windows Live| 00:00 | If you happen to have a free Hotmail account,
you're probably already acquainted with Windows
| | 00:05 | Live. Now Windows Live is not really a product,
but more of a brand. It probably won't be
| | 00:11 | called Windows Live once Windows 8 is
released, but we'll call it Windows Live for now.
| | 00:17 | There's for example Hotmail, which we're looking
at right now. It's a free online email system.
| | 00:23 | You have some other apps like Messenger for
example, SkyDrive which gives you a whole list
| | 00:29 | of tools and features and functions which we'll
talk about in more detail in the next lesson.
| | 00:34 | Now all of these tools are free and they're
on the cloud. Of course, you're not storing
| | 00:38 | your emails locally on your own computer,
your messenger conversations are saved on
| | 00:42 | the cloud as well, and you need to be
connected to the Internet to access all of this.
| | 00:47 | Now a free Windows Live account will also
give you access to something called Windows
| | 00:52 | Live Essentials. Windows Live Essentials is
a little bit different, it's even more free
| | 00:58 | tools and services that you
can download to your computer.
| | 01:01 | Although, you'll be creating things like movies
with Windows Live Movie Maker, or editing photos
| | 01:08 | in your photo gallery, you have the option
still with your Windows Live account to store
| | 01:14 | all of that on the cloud if you so choose.
You do get 7 gigabytes of free storage space
| | 01:20 | with your free account and of course if you
need more, Microsoft will be more than happy
| | 01:25 | to sell you some, but it is
at a very affordable price.
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| Working with SkyDrive| 00:00 | Let's take a quick look now at Microsoft SkyDrive
which falls under the category of cloud storage.
| | 00:06 | It's a file hosting service that allows users
to upload and sync files and then access them
| | 00:12 | from a web browser or even a mobile device.
| | 00:15 | Now it is part of the Windows Live group of
online services and it allows you to keep
| | 00:20 | your files private, you can share them with
contacts, you can pick and choose who's allowed
| | 00:26 | to see those files or make the files available
to the public, and in that case, everyone will
| | 00:32 | automatically have access to them. Also with
publicly shared files, you don't require someone
| | 00:38 | to have a Microsoft
Windows Live ID to access them.
| | 00:43 | Now SkyDrive does offer 7 gigabytes of storage
for free to new users and additional storage
| | 00:49 | is available for purchase through a variety of
membership plans. Files up to 300 megabytes
| | 00:55 | can be uploaded just using drag and drop right
into a folder in your web browser, or you can
| | 01:01 | upload up to 2 gigabyte files via the SkyDrive
Desktop Application if you choose to install
| | 01:07 | it and there are apps
available for Windows or Mac OS X.
| | 01:12 | So in that case, again it's a simple matter
of dragging and dropping. If you wanted to
| | 01:17 | pick and choose your
folder, you could do that.
| | 01:20 | Now these desktop clients allow users to synchronize
their entire SkyDrive storage to their computers
| | 01:26 | for offline access and synchronization of
files and folders between multiple computers.
| | 01:32 | You can also get SkyDrive apps for your
mobile devices like your iPhone and iPad, or your
| | 01:37 | Windows phone for example.
| | 01:39 | These client apps allow users to browse, view,
and organize files. If you're using SkyDrive
| | 01:49 | on Microsoft Windows phones, using their
operating system, you can even edit Office documents
| | 01:55 | stored on the SkyDrive.
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| Syncing with iCloud| 00:00 | iCloud is very popular in the Mac community
and it's simply part of any new Apple device
| | 00:05 | you might own. Have a new Mac
with OS X Lion? You're iCloud ready.
| | 00:10 | How about a new iPod touch or iPhone with
iOS 5? Yup, you have iCloud too which is a
| | 00:15 | feature that automatically stores or pushes
your content securely to the cloud so you
| | 00:20 | have access to it from any of your devices
at any time. It's just a matter of enabling
| | 00:25 | it and choosing what content you want
to be able to access via the cloud.
| | 00:29 | Go to your System Preferences on your Mac,
you will find the iCloud icon in the Internet
| | 00:34 | & Wireless section, give that a click. And you
may be prompted to sign in to your account.
| | 00:40 | You can use your iTunes member login for example.
Once logged in, it's a simple matter of checking
| | 00:46 | the boxes for the features you want enabled in
iCloud. In this case if we select Calendars
| | 00:51 | for example, anything we add to our calendars
will be accessible from any of our devices.
| | 00:57 | Now you may notice at the bottom as well,
you do get 5 gigabytes of free storage space
| | 01:02 | with your account. But here's a good news,
your photo stream and purchased music, videos,
| | 01:07 | books and TV shows, they don't count towards
that space and if you do need more storage,
| | 01:12 | you can buy it by clicking the Manage button.
| | 01:15 | So we'll just close this up and imagine adding
an important appointment to our Calendar here
| | 01:20 | in iCal on the Mac. We just go in and add
the event, we'll type in Meet with Broker.
| | 01:30 | Once that's in our calendar, we have instant
access to it from any of our iCloud devices,
| | 01:35 | like an iPhone or an iPod touch.
That's the beauty of the cloud.
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| Using Dropbox| 00:00 | When it comes to cloud storage, one of the
most popular file hosting services around
| | 00:04 | is Dropbox. With Dropbox, you not only get
a place to store your files for free, but
| | 00:09 | you also get something called File
Synchronization and the ability to access your files from
| | 00:15 | any Windows, Mac or Linux computer, from
any mobile device, even from a web browser.
| | 00:21 | So you should never have to email yourself a
file ever again. Dropbox itself will appear
| | 00:26 | like any other folder in your list of
folders on your computer. For example here in the
| | 00:30 | Mac, in Finder, if we click File > New Finder
Window, we will see Dropbox at the very top
| | 00:36 | of the Favorites list.
| | 00:38 | We can also access our Dropbox from the menu
bar here in the Mac. An icon does appear by
| | 00:43 | default when you sign up for Dropbox in the
top right-hand corner. Clicking it displays
| | 00:47 | a menu where you can open a Dropbox folder
from here, launch your Dropbox website as
| | 00:52 | well, let's go to Open Dropbox Folder, which
does open up a new Finder window, but takes
| | 00:58 | us directly to our Dropbox.
| | 01:01 | Here we will see the contents, including default
files and folders like Getting Started.pdf,
| | 01:06 | a folder for storing your photos, and a Public
folder for anything you want to share. Now
| | 01:11 | you do get 2 gigabytes of free storage space
for any type of file you want to store and
| | 01:16 | of course you can pay for more if you need it.
| | 01:19 | To store files in your Dropbox, you just drag
and drop them like you would any other folder,
| | 01:23 | could be an individual file, group of files
or in my case an entire folder; click, drag
| | 01:28 | it into the window, release, and you've
actually moved the entire contents to your Dropbox.
| | 01:34 | Of course, the difference is that the files
are stored on the cloud now and any computer
| | 01:40 | or mobile device with Dropbox installed will
have that same folder giving you access to
| | 01:44 | your files from anywhere.
| | 01:46 | We can access our Dropbox from the web. Let's
go back to our Dropbox icon here in the Mac,
| | 01:52 | on the Menu bar and choose Launch Dropbox
Website. When you go to your website, you
| | 01:57 | are going to see the contents of your Dropbox,
the default files and folders, including any
| | 02:01 | changes like our new Exercise Files folder. When
we click that folder, we will view the contents.
| | 02:08 | Now you can even choose to share files and
folders with others who can then access your
| | 02:13 | Dropbox via the web using a link that you
send to them. As you hover over individual
| | 02:18 | files, you will see a link icon over here in
the right-hand side, and clicking that will
| | 02:23 | get you the link that you can send to them
via email. When they click the link, they'll
| | 02:27 | have access to that individual file
or an entire folder on your Dropbox.
| | 02:32 | So if we wanted to give people access to our
exercise files, we could get that link or
| | 02:37 | try right-clicking as well, you'll see Get
link from there, as well as Invite to folder
| | 02:42 | which does a whole lot more; gives them the link and
starts the email for you to send off the them.
| | 02:48 | Now if we make a change to the contents of
our Dropbox, doesn't matter where we make
| | 02:53 | that change, we will see those changes from any
other device or location, like a web browser.
| | 03:00 | So if we go back to Finder for example, and we
go into our exercise files that we've added
| | 03:05 | to the Dropbox and right-click the file Harley1.jpg,
and move it to the Trash, we deleted it from
| | 03:12 | our Exercise Files folder here in the Dropbox,
and if we switch back to the web and go into
| | 03:17 | our Exercise Files folder, sure
enough, it's gone from there too.
| | 03:21 | So if you are tired of sending yourself files
as attachments in emails, Dropbox might be
| | 03:26 | a nice alternative. If you wish there was
a more business-oriented version of this,
| | 03:31 | well there is. It's not free, it's called
Dropbox for Teams. You get support, all the
| | 03:38 | storage you need, additional admin tools and
more to meet the demands of your business.
| | 03:44 |
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| Working with Evernote| 00:00 | If you've ever carried a paper notebook and
filled it with notes, sketched out ideas,
| | 00:05 | wrote down phone numbers, to-do lists, or track
your spending, you know this method has its
| | 00:10 | limitations. For one, it's not all that
useful if you don't have your papers with you to
| | 00:15 | add new content or find existing content.
And eventually, you will run out of pages.
| | 00:20 | And searching through dozens of pages for
that important phone number you jotted down
| | 00:24 | last month, could take longer than you'd like.
| | 00:27 | Enter Evernote. Evernote is a cloud-based
service, designed for note-taking and archiving.
| | 00:32 | A note can simply be formatted text, it
could also be a full web page or a portion of a
| | 00:40 | web page. It could be a photograph, it could
be a voice memo for example, and it could even
| | 00:47 | be handwritten or what we call an ink note.
| | 00:51 | Notes can even have file attachments. Notes
can be sorted into folders, they can also
| | 00:56 | be tagged, edited, given comments, searched
and exported as part of a notebook. Of course
| | 01:02 | the beauty of Evernote is that it supports a
number of operating systems, so it can run
| | 01:06 | on your Windows PC running Microsoft Windows,
it can run on your Mac using OS X and it can
| | 01:12 | run on your mobile devices
using Android, iOS or WebOS.
| | 01:18 | It's cloud-based so you get online synchronization
and backup services. This means you'll always
| | 01:23 | have access to your notes wherever you are,
whenever you need them from any mobile device.
| | 01:30 |
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| Exploring Asana| 00:00 | Asana is fast becoming one of those cloud
tools that business people can't live without.
| | 00:05 | It's the ultimate task management tool that
allows teams to share, plan, organize and
| | 00:11 | track progress of the tasks
that each member is working on.
| | 00:15 | Now with the focus on speed collaboration
and ease-of-use, Asana radically improves the
| | 00:20 | way groups of people actually work together.
It is free and you can sign up with your name
| | 00:25 | and email address, or if you already have a
Gmail email address, you can sign up and sign
| | 00:30 | in using your Gmail
account credentials as well.
| | 00:35 | Now once you're logged in, you can start
setting up different workspaces for different groups
| | 00:40 | or different projects, and it's all done over
here on the left-hand side. You will want
| | 00:44 | to start with your company's name, and let's say I
work for a company named Two Trees Olive Oil.
| | 00:51 | Next, you'll choose what this workspace is
for, is it business, is it a nonprofit, may
| | 00:57 | be it's household or other. I am going to
leave it at Business and I am going to update
| | 01:02 | my workspace. That takes me to the next screen.
You can see Members is selected and we can
| | 01:07 | start inviting people to be
a part of this workspace.
| | 01:11 | Now I mentioned earlier that this is free.
Notice that we get up to 30 members in a
| | 01:16 | group. If we need more, we can upgrade to get
more members. But down below, you'll simply
| | 01:21 | enter email addresses and send invitations.
If you wanted to, you could also send the
| | 01:27 | link down below to a group of email
recipients, but that's up to you.
| | 01:31 | I am going to type in greg@twotreesoliveoil.com,
and I'll add his name which is optional and
| | 01:37 | send out the invite. Now the invite goes out
and you can see Greg is added to the list
| | 01:42 | and then anytime I can cancel the invite.
| | 01:45 | So we will close that up, and next we might
think about the projects we are working on
| | 01:50 | in this workspace. So over here on the left-
hand side again, you can see Two Trees Olive Oil
| | 01:55 | company. We can click there and next we see
Projects, Tags and People, and down below a
| | 02:01 | button for adding people
and creating new projects.
| | 02:05 | So let's say we want to create a new project
under this workspace called Two Trees Olive
| | 02:09 | Oil Company. Now if we wanted a header with
multiple tasks under the header, we simply
| | 02:15 | type in the name of our project, I am going
to type in Store Expansion which will have
| | 02:19 | a number of tasks, we just add a colon to the end
and when we hit Enter, it becomes the header.
| | 02:25 | Notice the cursor is flashing next to a check
box and here is where we just simply start
| | 02:29 | typing in the various tasks. So under Store
Expansion, Get permit, press Enter and you're
| | 02:35 | onto the next task. You can see we just
continually add our tasks until we have got them all.
| | 02:41 | What's really cool though is then we can start assigning
who's responsible for getting those tasks completed.
| | 02:46 | So after getting the permit, we will have
to research materials, and if we wanted to,
| | 02:52 | we could continue on adding additional tasks.
At this point though, you can see at the very
| | 02:57 | far right-hand side an arrow which appears
next to each of our tasks, and this allows
| | 03:02 | us to get to the details and when we expand
those details, you can see now we have the
| | 03:07 | ability to assign them to a teammate if we
wanted to or assign them to ourselves. Getting
| | 03:12 | the permit, I am going to assign to myself.
| | 03:15 | Now I am going to go down to Research materials
and expand that, and I am going to assign this
| | 03:20 | to a teammate, in this case, maybe Greg. All
I have to do is start typing in his name and
| | 03:25 | his name now appears as the person
responsible for completing that task.
| | 03:30 | Now all of this is accessible on your mobile
device as well so you can use that to download
| | 03:34 | the app and then review your tasks, even check
them off when they're completed. I just got
| | 03:40 | the permit, clicking the
check box marks it as complete.
| | 03:44 | So there's a lot more you can do with Asana
like synchronizing with your calendar for
| | 03:48 | example. You can use tagging to make it easy
to locate various types of tasks and there
| | 03:54 | are many other tools available inside Asana,
the end result though should be a more efficient
| | 03:59 | way to manage your projects and
ultimately be more productive.
| | 04:04 |
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| Staying organized with Highrise| 00:00 | Another cloud storage type of service that's
gaining popularity, especially in the business
| | 00:04 | world, is Highrise from 37signals. With Highrise,
you can store and share contact info for leads,
| | 00:11 | clients, vendors and
others right in the cloud.
| | 00:14 | You can also enter and review notes from calls,
meetings, emails, conversations and it also
| | 00:20 | lets you set up email and mobile phone
reminders to get things done. That's all done on the
| | 00:26 | web, so you'll always have the information
you need at your fingertips on a Mac, PC or
| | 00:31 | a tablet, for example.
| | 00:32 | Now you can create a free account like I have
here, or pay for different membership levels
| | 00:37 | if you have more users or need to track more
contacts or track more deals. Now here in
| | 00:44 | Highrise, you can see there are various panes,
down the left-hand side we can view our latest
| | 00:49 | activity also known as the Dashboard. We can
add contacts from the Contacts section or
| | 00:55 | edit existing contacts by selecting them and
making changes like Notes, Deals and even
| | 01:02 | use LinkedIn to stay in contact.
| | 01:05 | If you need to edit their personal information,
you can do that from the right-hand side as
| | 01:09 | well. You can also do the same with tasks. At
the very beginning, if you don't have any,
| | 01:15 | you will see information about adding your
first task. Simply give it a name, add when
| | 01:24 | it's due. You can even choose categories.
This one is a Call, and if you're sharing,
| | 01:30 | you can let everyone who has joined up look
at this task by clicking the check box. In
| | 01:35 | the end, clicking Add adds it and
you'll see it there with a reminder.
| | 01:40 | You can also do the same for cases and deals
and eventually when things begin to pile up,
| | 01:46 | you'll have a search capability that
will find exactly what you're looking for.
| | 01:51 | Because your info is web-based stored in the
cloud, you can use the mobile app to access
| | 01:56 | your data from your iPhone or iPod Touch.
By default, you'll be viewing the Dashboard.
| | 02:02 | You can select items to view their contents
and go back. Access your contacts from the
| | 02:09 | bottom, edit that information if you needed
to. Again, you can access the Dashboard and
| | 02:14 | you can also access your Tasks, so any new
tasks that were added, will appear here. You
| | 02:19 | can open up those tasks as well to gain access
to more detailed information. And if you need
| | 02:25 | to, check them off when they're done.
| | 02:28 | So if you need to keep track of customers
and contacts, deals and tasks, Highrise might
| | 02:33 | be the cloud-based CRM tool for you.
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| Using Prezi| 00:00 | If you're into making presentations, sometimes
nicknamed prezis, you may have used your computer
| | 00:06 | in a program like PowerPoint or Keynote to
create cool slides with cool effects to keep
| | 00:11 | your prezi interesting.
| | 00:13 | Well now there is a cloud-based presentation
software called Prezi, and it offers a new
| | 00:18 | way of presenting using a zoomable canvas.
Now pricing, if we look at their website,
| | 00:23 | is free of course, but you only get the core
features and a 100 megabytes of storage. For
| | 00:29 | an affordable price, you can upgrade, for
example at $59 a year, you get those core
| | 00:34 | features, you get five times the storage space,
and then you get to do things like make your
| | 00:39 | prezis private, use your own logo, and you
get premium support. With the Pro, you can
| | 00:44 | see there are even more
options and more power.
| | 00:48 | So all you need to do is sign up and then
log in to get started. Once logged in, you're
| | 00:56 | ready to start creating your new presentation.
It's like creating a slide presentation, but
| | 01:02 | you're not creating separate slides, instead
you work on a zoomable canvas or a white board
| | 01:07 | with paths taking you
from one area to another.
| | 01:10 | So we click New prezi, we will give it a title,
let's say we work for Two Trees Olive Oil
| | 01:15 | Company and we are going to be hosting a new
employee orientation. So we will type in Two
| | 01:21 | Trees Orientation and if we want, we can add
a description, it's totally optional for new
| | 01:28 | hires, click New prezi and we are ready
to start creating the actual slides.
| | 01:33 | Now the slides can be from scratch or blank, but
we can also use some of the built-in templates
| | 01:38 | to help us get started, and you can see they
already have the path set up in some sample
| | 01:44 | slides. So if we go with for example Understand
1 and click Start editing, there is our canvas
| | 01:51 | and you can see the layout.
| | 01:53 | All we do is go to the very first slide which is
really just an area on our canvas, double-click
| | 01:58 | to add text and we are entering the title,
type in Welcome to Two Trees. Down below,
| | 02:05 | if we wanted to, we could change the
formatting of our title and then double-click to add
| | 02:10 | some additional text, which is optional of
course, New Hire Orientation. There we go.
| | 02:16 | We will click OK and we have our
first slide, if you will, created.
| | 02:21 | Now we can use a wheel mouse to zoom in and
out, we can also use the buttons to zoom in
| | 02:25 | and out, and over on the left-hand side, you
can see we have the various areas of our canvas
| | 02:30 | represented like we would see
slides in a program like PowerPoint.
| | 02:34 | Ready to move on to the next one, we just
click it over here and we are ready to start
| | 02:38 | adding text. But if you already have slides,
another option is to go to the bubbles over
| | 02:43 | here in the left-hand side, we could click
Insert and if we have a PowerPoint presentation
| | 02:48 | we have been using to this point,
why not go get slides from there?
| | 02:52 | So clicking PowerPoint allows us to browse
for that particular presentation. There is
| | 02:56 | mine. I will select it and click Open. And
now we just wait for those slides over here
| | 03:01 | on the right-hand side. So here are our slides
and there are only four of them. We can pick
| | 03:06 | and choose the ones we want or simply insert
them all. And when we do that, we can choose
| | 03:11 | to have that path created in between our slides.
Don't want to do that, just click Cancel and
| | 03:16 | select the slide that you want to bring
into your canvas by clicking and dragging.
| | 03:21 | Now at this point, you can click the check
mark to edit the slide or if you weren't sure,
| | 03:26 | you could also cancel it by clicking the red
X. I am going to click my green check mark
| | 03:30 | and there's my new slide, I can zoom into it,
I can move it around, I can delete it.
| | 03:36 | Let's just zoom in and if everything
looks okay, we can leave it the way it is.
| | 03:41 | We will click Exit up here at the top which
saves up our presentation, it now appears
| | 03:46 | in the Your prezis tab area, and we can go
back and edit it, but at this point we could
| | 03:51 | also start playing our slide show. You can
see how it moves to the next slide. We can
| | 03:56 | go back. If we scroll a little further down
on the screen, we can go back to editing,
| | 04:01 | adding additional slides, we can also edit
together, collaborate on a project and invite
| | 04:06 | people to work on your project. You can also
invite people to a presentation, download,
| | 04:11 | save a copy and there's
delete when you're done.
| | 04:15 | So all in all, it's a new way to create,
collaborate and share presentations, but using the cloud.
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| Working with Yammer| 00:00 | When it comes to social networking, Facebook
and Twitter are two very famous cloud apps
| | 00:05 | for staying connected, but they are also very
public. Yammer which we are going to explore
| | 00:10 | now, brings the power of social networking
to the enterprise in a private and secure
| | 00:15 | environment. Businesses can be more productive
through short frequent answers to a single question.
| | 00:21 | Now there is a free desktop application that
you can download and install. Or if you prefer
| | 00:27 | you can access Yammer via your web browser.
It allows you to do a number of different
| | 00:31 | things like connect with people to share ideas
instantly, ask questions and hold discussions.
| | 00:38 | For example, we can click in the field What
are you working on? Type in something quickly
| | 00:42 | like cloud computing and click Update, and
it will be updated or posted to all of your
| | 00:49 | colleagues, they know exactly what you're
doing. If they wanted to they can respond
| | 00:53 | to those things as well.
| | 00:55 | You can also connect to content and
collaborate with others in a dedicated workspace. For
| | 01:00 | example, if we go over to our Groups Directory
here on the left-hand side, we'll see a number
| | 01:04 | of different groups that we can join, or
those that we're already joined to, we can even
| | 01:09 | create our own new groups. I am
going to join the Content Group.
| | 01:13 | Now you can also create external networks to
collaborate with business contacts outside
| | 01:18 | the organization. If we go up to Create a
New Group, you'll see there are two options
| | 01:22 | here, Internal Group or an External Group.
If we go here we need to give our network
| | 01:27 | a name, a description and you'll see
there are Permission Options as well.
| | 01:32 | Of course the real beauty of any cloud app
like Yammer is you can use the free mobile
| | 01:37 | app on your iPhone and iPad or your Windows
phone, Android device, even on a Blackberry
| | 01:43 | to stay connected to coworkers from anywhere.
We can stay up-to-date on what's going on
| | 01:48 | through our feed. We can go right to the full
menu system, and when we're done, simply go back.
| | 01:59 | Yammer is a great way to keep in touch and
up-to-date with your contacts in a secure
| | 02:03 | environment. You sign up for free and get basic
networking capabilities or pay for different
| | 02:09 | levels of customizability and
admin tools according to your needs.
| | 02:14 | At the highest level, you can even integrate
Yammer with other business applications like
| | 02:18 | Salesforce, SharePoint and SAP to enable
seamless collaboration across the company.
| | 02:25 |
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|
|
5. Migrate to the CloudMaking a cloud migration plan| 00:00 | Migrating to the cloud requires some careful
planning, if you want to get it done right
| | 00:04 | and with as little hassle as possible. So
let's explore a good roadmap for moving into
| | 00:09 | the cloud. Number one, get educated. You can
start by getting a rough picture of your current
| | 00:15 | infrastructure and calculate
equivalent cost in the cloud.
| | 00:20 | You can get a very good general estimate of
your cost savings by simply getting the CPU
| | 00:24 | and memory footprint of your current machines,
as well as your current bandwidth usage, and
| | 00:28 | then look up prices at Rackspace Cloud or
Amazon EC2. Once you've verified the savings,
| | 00:35 | it could provide you with the
ammunition you need to get that green light.
| | 00:39 | Next, access which parts of your application,
typically database, must either reside in-house
| | 00:46 | or at a managed host. If your apps have any
HIPAA or PCI requirements for example, learn
| | 00:52 | the impacts of moving them to the cloud as
well. And why not hire some pros? Bring in
| | 00:58 | professionals and leverage all their successes
and failures. Lots of other people have made
| | 01:02 | the discoveries and encountered the pitfalls. So
seek out these experts and use their experience
| | 01:08 | to catapult your project ahead.
| | 01:10 | Especially at these initial stages a cloud
expert can provide invaluable insight and
| | 01:14 | get you and your team up to speed
quicker than they could on their own.
| | 01:19 | After you understand what the cloud is and
how it can change what you do, ask yourself
| | 01:24 | what you want to accomplish from a migration.
Brainstorm a list of everything you could
| | 01:29 | accomplish and then one by one add them to
the priority list by asking the question,
| | 01:34 | if we could only do one of
these, what would it be?
| | 01:37 | After doing this exercise with your team,
you should come out with a prioritized list
| | 01:41 | of what you need done. Now there are some
questions you should be asking yourself. First
| | 01:47 | of all, are you looking to just enhance your
current systems such as utilizing a physical
| | 01:52 | distributed CDN, or are you looking to jump
ahead in the cloud possibly re-architecting
| | 01:58 | your apps and infrastructure to do things that
were not possible in your old infrastructure?
| | 02:05 | How about compliance and legality issues? If
your organization requires any HIPAA, PCI
| | 02:11 | or SaaS compliance or audits, make sure your
legal and compliance teams are aware and of
| | 02:17 | course they endorse your steps into the cloud.
| | 02:21 | You should plan for a multi-server session
handling as well. In a multi-server environment,
| | 02:26 | you need a reliable way to handle sessions
across multiple servers. And take baby steps.
| | 02:32 | Start small and make the small mistakes before
trying to tackle big problems. Only attempt
| | 02:37 | to define a long-term cloud roadmap after
you have several successes under your belt.
| | 02:43 | Next, you might want to do a series of test
migrations to find and work out the kinks.
| | 02:49 | Migrate to a test site, or a test cloud, and
do extensive internal testing against all
| | 02:54 | of your concerns. There are tools like
JMeter to verify how much load your new site can
| | 02:59 | take and investigate what's wrong if
it doesn't meet your expectations.
| | 03:04 | You can run a load test on your migrated
infrastructure and see if it's performing as expected and
| | 03:10 | take your time and try to break things. You won't
get such a chance when you try to cut over live.
| | 03:17 | The next step in your plan is to prepare for
live cut over to the migrated site. A good
| | 03:23 | thing to do would be write a granular step-by-step
checklist of what you need to do for the cutover
| | 03:28 | to live. Remember prior
planning prevents potential pitfalls.
| | 03:33 | Plan for your database dumps and outages.
You'll need a snapshot of your user data at
| | 03:38 | the very last second before you bring your
site down to dump the database. So plan for
| | 03:43 | disruptions, schedules, product availability
around the days and hours that your migration
| | 03:49 | will take place, and plan to have your team
working in the middle of the night when load
| | 03:54 | is generally at its lowest.
| | 03:56 | You should also build a rollback strategy.
Don't assume that any part of the migration
| | 04:00 | will go smoothly, instead ask and answer the
question of what would happen if everything
| | 04:05 | went wrong? It's almost a given that part
of your cutover will not go as planned.
| | 04:12 | Planning is so important to a successful
migration to the cloud. In closing, here are some tips
| | 04:17 | that every organization should consider when
they create their plan for migrating to the
| | 04:22 | cloud. Number one, start small. Pick one
application and use it as a test project for the cloud,
| | 04:29 | migrate mission-critical applications slowly so that
you don't have to adversely affect those processes.
| | 04:35 | Think about participation. A system is only
successful if it's used by the staff, addressing
| | 04:40 | issues involving security, remote access,
training and multi-language support will help
| | 04:46 | with adoption. And know the cost. Dig into
all the costs associated with a cloud-based
| | 04:52 | environment compared to your existing
infrastructure and remember that software as a service is
| | 04:56 | billed on a pay-as-you-go basis, and of
course, you need to choose the right provider. Do
| | 05:02 | your research and make sure that you have the
right company and features for your business needs.
| | 05:08 |
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| Analyzing service and service providers| 00:00 | When considering a move to the cloud, it's
important to understand the services and service
| | 00:04 | providers available to people and
organizations of different levels. In this lesson we'll
| | 00:10 | identify the three levels and some of the cloud
services and service providers tailored to each.
| | 00:16 | Let's begin with those three levels. Firstly,
there are a number of cloud services that
| | 00:20 | are targeted at individuals or even small
businesses, and you're probably already familiar
| | 00:25 | with many of them like Gmail and Acrobat.
| | 00:28 | Then comes the mid-market or medium-sized
businesses, cloud services and providers in
| | 00:33 | this range will be less familiar, but there are
specific tools and services that can benefit
| | 00:38 | organizations that fall into this category.
| | 00:42 | Lastly is the enterprise class or larger
organizations who have their own set of cloud offerings
| | 00:48 | and their own set of challenges
when considering a move to the cloud.
| | 00:52 | Now the easiest way to move to the cloud is
at an individual or a small business level.
| | 00:58 | There are plenty of services out there that
can help individuals and small businesses.
| | 01:02 | Let's take a look at some.
| | 01:04 | There is iCloud which is transitioning from
MobileMe, it's an Apple offering that synchronizes
| | 01:10 | email, photos, contacts and all your computers
and mobile devices, so long as they have access
| | 01:15 | to Apple's cloud servers. How about Google
Docs from Google of course, provides Office
| | 01:20 | automation applications, you'd normally associate
with your desktop like word processing, spreadsheets
| | 01:26 | and presentations. Because it's cloud-based,
sharing and collaboration is simplified.
| | 01:32 | Adobe Acrobat. That's right! Acrobat known
best for its PDF reader also provides an online
| | 01:37 | word processor, cloud storage for your documents,
collaboration tools and an online PDF converter.
| | 01:46 | Ever heard of Evernote? It's a cloud-based
tool that allows you to capture and store
| | 01:50 | virtually anything like text, images and
video and then indexes that content to a virtual
| | 01:56 | database that makes it easy to find what you're
looking for, for many computer or mobile device
| | 02:01 | that's connected to the Internet.
| | 02:03 | There is Photoshop Express, basically a cloud
version of Photoshop that allows you to upload
| | 02:09 | images, edit them right online and store them
in a gallery all in the cloud. There are plenty
| | 02:16 | more cloud services targeted to individuals
and small businesses, but these are some good
| | 02:21 | and popular examples.
| | 02:24 | Next come the cloud services that are aimed
at the mid-market or medium-sized businesses
| | 02:28 | whose needs will differ when considering a
move to the cloud. Typically medium-sized
| | 02:33 | businesses and up will want to use the cloud for some
applications while running other systems locally.
| | 02:39 | Now a great example of a mid-market cloud
migration tool is force.com. So we'll keep
| | 02:44 | our focus on this one example. The force.com
migration tool is a Java-based utility and
| | 02:51 | it's therefore most useful in development
projects where you need to populate a test
| | 02:56 | environment with a bunch of setup changes.
| | 02:58 | Making these types of changes using a web
interface would be slow, taking much more
| | 03:03 | time. It's also useful in multistage release
processes and repetitive deployment. Now force.com
| | 03:11 | includes hundreds of apps many of which are
free. Here are just a few of the most popular
| | 03:16 | apps on force.com. We'll begin with Gmail to
SalesForce.com browser button for Firefox;
| | 03:22 | it's a button you can add to your browser so
when using Gmail, you can click it to send
| | 03:28 | your email and simultaneously copy it as an
activity on related lead and contact records
| | 03:34 | inside SalesForce.com.
| | 03:36 | Appirio Calendar Sync for SalesForce.com and
Google Apps is a simple tool for synchronizing
| | 03:43 | your SalesForce.com calendar with your Google
Apps calendar. Sales Activity Dashboard creates
| | 03:49 | visibility for the types of activity
salespeople are engaging in on various opportunities.
| | 03:55 | Appirio Search for SalesForce.com and Google
Apps lets users find and add Google Docs to
| | 04:01 | any SalesForce.com object without switching
screens or copying URLs. And then there's
| | 04:06 | something called Conga Merge which allows users
to create content rich output like proposals
| | 04:12 | and quotes from Word and
Excel templates or PDF forms.
| | 04:17 | Enterprise-class organizations will experience
an even more complex migration to the cloud
| | 04:22 | mainly due to their size where they may be
multiple sites, branches or even offices,
| | 04:29 | but there are cloud tools and providers that
are ideal for these types of organizations
| | 04:33 | as well. You probably heard of Microsoft Exchange.
Microsoft offers Exchange Online and SharePoint
| | 04:40 | Online for any size business.
| | 04:42 | Now these are online versions of their
traditional server and client applications so it really
| | 04:47 | simplifies a move to the cloud. Microsoft
also offers a number of migration tools called
| | 04:52 | Microsoft Solution Accelerators to help
businesses plan, deploy and operate the services.
| | 04:59 | VMotion is the main tool for migrations from
VMware. It leverages the complete virtualization
| | 05:06 | of servers, storage and networking to move
an entire virtual machine instantaneously
| | 05:12 | from one server to another. How about VMware
vCenter Converter which allows for the migration
| | 05:18 | of physical servers to virtual servers and
could be run on many different types of hardware.
| | 05:24 | And then there's Hyper-V Live Migration. It's
an easy-to-use point and click product that
| | 05:30 | is part of Microsoft Server 2008 and is used for
moving virtual servers to different machines.
| | 05:37 | So no matter the size of your organization
and the complexity of your current systems,
| | 05:42 | it's good to know there are cloud services
and service providers for every scenario.
| | 05:48 |
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| Releasing data using the wave approach| 00:00 | A wave approach is often used by
organizations when moving to a new operating system for
| | 00:05 | example, IT departments will migrate
groups in waves until everyone is upgraded.
| | 00:10 | With the wave approach to migrating to the
cloud, you'll be releasing your data to the
| | 00:14 | cloud in waves or phases. And this gives you
the opportunity to test the waters where you'll
| | 00:20 | learn if the solution you signed up for is
what you were expecting and is the vendor
| | 00:24 | the right one for you.
| | 00:26 | So you'll begin by releasing your smallest
and least important data to the cloud. Now
| | 00:31 | you might not see a real jump in performance
right away here because this is the data you
| | 00:36 | likely don't access as often
as your more important data.
| | 00:40 | If you're not satisfied with the end result
you can now take corrective action. So this
| | 00:44 | might mean changing up services or even
changing up your service provider altogether.
| | 00:50 | Now once things start working the way you need
them to, you can start to add more important
| | 00:54 | data. Now you'll begin to see improved
performance and you can continue to release the rest of
| | 00:59 | the data you want up on the cloud.
| | 01:02 | The task of releasing your data to the cloud
does not have to be as daunting as it might
| | 01:06 | first appear. With a planned approach and
methodical manner, your migration to the cloud
| | 01:11 | can be smooth and successful.
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| Securing data| 00:00 | Before migration to the cloud you need to
learn about the options that are out there.
| | 00:05 | Since software as a service applications are
so easy to purchase with a credit card, many
| | 00:10 | IT organizations don't even have a clear picture
of how many seats of various cloud applications
| | 00:15 | are actually being used within their enterprises. So
that's the first issue that needs to be rectified.
| | 00:20 | The next step is to determine what information
is being stored and processed in these clouds,
| | 00:26 | and put the right data protection model in
place to ensure sensitive and private information
| | 00:31 | is being properly safeguarded.
| | 00:33 | For newer areas where cloud-based solutions
are being considered, like CRM or Customer
| | 00:38 | Relationship Management or Human Capital
Management, CIOs should work closely with their security
| | 00:44 | and legal teams to identify what legal and
sector-specific compliance guidelines they
| | 00:50 | need to follow in order to
protect sensitive information.
| | 00:54 | In organizations that need to create their
own set of guidelines and best practices for
| | 00:58 | their own scenario, these guidelines should
include allocating certain types of information
| | 01:03 | into sensitivity and privacy categories and
specifying policies on who should get access
| | 01:09 | to certain types of information and how the
information should be protected. For example,
| | 01:14 | will it be encryption or tokenization?
| | 01:17 | Once you've actually moved into the cloud,
certain security procedures should also be
| | 01:21 | in place. For example, data protection controls
need to be in place in both pre and post cloud
| | 01:26 | environments, but post-migration data has to
be tracked and accounted for from storage
| | 01:31 | to transmission to
processing and back to storage.
| | 01:35 | There really can't be any gaps in
accountability and access control and monitoring definitely
| | 01:40 | needs to be in place. This can be more of a
challenge obviously in cloud environment
| | 01:44 | since some data require higher levels of
security than others and access to data from outside
| | 01:49 | the enterprise like from contractors or
suppliers has to be accounted for as well.
| | 01:56 | One best practice is segregation of data into
categories based on sensitivity and privacy
| | 02:02 | filters, and proactive data protection policies
being put in place based on policies associated
| | 02:08 | with each of those categories.
| | 02:10 | So protecting data is not an easy job. Security
in the cloud requires a lot of effort before
| | 02:16 | migration ever happens and forever after. But
just know that cloud can be safe if you're
| | 02:21 | willing to do the legwork
that good security requires.
| | 02:26 |
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| Establishing a training plan for staff and other stakeholders| 00:00 | One important piece of the cloud migration
puzzle is staff training. A sudden switch
| | 00:05 | to cloud computing is not something you
simply want to spring on your people and let them
| | 00:09 | fend for themselves.
| | 00:10 | To help ensure a successful migration, you
need to have a plan of attack for getting
| | 00:15 | the people in your organization up to speed
and ready for the switch. This should happen
| | 00:21 | during the execution phase of your migration.
| | 00:24 | Number one, communication is a key requirement when
making a change of any kind in any organization.
| | 00:31 | If you're planning on a migration to the
cloud, your people need to know what's coming.
| | 00:36 | Communication also needs to come back from
them, so you know who is going to require
| | 00:40 | what kind of training. At this stage, you're assessing
the needs of your people with respect to training.
| | 00:46 | Information sessions and materials should
be considered every step of the way. With
| | 00:50 | cloud computing a change in process and
procedure at the very least is forthcoming, so you'll
| | 00:56 | need to inform your people of
the new policies and procedures.
| | 01:00 | Information sessions outlining the changes
with instruction materials to take away or
| | 01:05 | links to posted information will ensure
everyone is on the same page. Quite often the tools
| | 01:11 | people will use remain the same or similar,
think Microsoft Office 365 versus the Office
| | 01:17 | Suite, but the way they are used will change and it's
these changes that need to be clearly illustrated.
| | 01:23 | If tools are going to be changing along with
process and procedures you'll want to ensure
| | 01:27 | training on those tools is going to be made
available to your staff, and training or support
| | 01:32 | staff should go first.
| | 01:34 | Ideally, the training for staff will occur
simultaneously with the launch of the new
| | 01:39 | tools. Typically in larger organizations, the
tools and training will be made available
| | 01:44 | to a group at a time, such as by department or
type of staff. Training can be live sessions
| | 01:50 | internally or over the web, or online training
like you can get at lynda.com. Odds are good
| | 01:56 | you'll find training out there for any
of the cloud tools you're migrating to.
| | 02:01 | You'll want to evaluate the effectiveness of
the training your people receive so you can
| | 02:05 | make adjustments as needed as you train each
group thereafter. The best evaluations for
| | 02:10 | collecting useful feedback happen after users
have had a chance to use their training in
| | 02:15 | the workplace for a period of time.
| | 02:18 | And just as important as the initial training
is to provide continued education and support
| | 02:22 | to your users. Training materials should be
easily accessible as a refresher and updates
| | 02:28 | should be communicated as they happen with the
appropriate supporting materials and ongoing sessions.
| | 02:35 | All in all, a good training plan is going
to help to ensure a smooth transition for
| | 02:39 | everyone in the organization.
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| Predicting and responding to change| 00:00 | In reality, cloud computing is still somewhat
in its infancy, much like the Internet was
| | 00:05 | back in the mid 90s. So there's no doubt that
cloud is going to evolve over time and will
| | 00:11 | be something different to what we
call the cloud at this very moment.
| | 00:15 | Gartner is a well-known research company that
has some interesting thoughts on the future
| | 00:20 | of cloud computing. They've broken it down
into three phases. Phase 1 which we are right
| | 00:25 | now dates back at 2007 according to Gartner, and is
considered a time of pioneers and trailblazers,
| | 00:32 | or a development phase. It's exciting, it's
catching on, but it's going to need more time
| | 00:38 | and many more changes in the market
before it becomes a mainstream IT effort.
| | 00:43 | Phase 2 which Gartner is predicting will run
through 2013 at least will be a time of market
| | 00:49 | consolidation. Now we're already starting
to see some overcrowding of providers big
| | 00:54 | and small offering a wide range of services. And
this usually results in acquisition activity,
| | 01:00 | I just think of Google and all their
acquisitions like YouTube Android and Picasa.
| | 01:05 | By the end of 2015 Gartner predicts a period of
mainstream critical mass and commoditization.
| | 01:12 | We should see a shift from innovation in phase
2 to stability, cost, investment protection
| | 01:18 | in phase 3; a result of increased
competition and intra-cloud application solutions.
| | 01:25 | So how do we respond to this change? Well
first, even if you have all of the apps you
| | 01:30 | need and they're all working well for you, it
doesn't hurt to see what others are developing.
| | 01:35 | You might just find an app that does what
yours does only better or in a better way.
| | 01:41 | On a deeper level analyze the applications
to see if there's some kind of fundamental
| | 01:45 | change to understand, how apps are
revolutionizing your industry. And like the apps, keep up
| | 01:51 | on the vendors or
providers and not just your own.
| | 01:55 | Keep an ear to the ground when it comes to
new vendors and read what others are saying
| | 01:59 | about their vendors. One might be a better
match for you, but you won't know unless you're
| | 02:03 | paying attention. A tool like Cloud Status
can help. It lists different cloud providers
| | 02:09 | and their overall performance.
| | 02:11 | The bottom line is, cloud computing has
already evolved and it will continue to do so. So
| | 02:17 | continue to look for more ways that
it can benefit your organization.
| | 02:22 |
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6. Evaluate Cloud Performance in Your BusinessMonitoring performance after transitioning to the cloud| 00:00 | Once you've made your move to the cloud, your
work isn't done. It will be important to ensure
| | 00:05 | a continued good experience. Monitoring the
performance of your cloud systems will help
| | 00:10 | to make this happen and there are a number of
tools out there to help make sure you continue
| | 00:14 | to get what you're paying for
from your service provider.
| | 00:18 | Let's begin with establishing a baseline and
metrics. You researched your vendors before
| | 00:23 | signing on with them and there is some research
you should be doing afterwards as well. Here
| | 00:28 | is some variables you should be
checking regularly for fluctuations.
| | 00:32 | Number one; connection speed, which is the
speed at which you connect to the cloud. This
| | 00:37 | is actually an analysis of your Internet
Service Provider not your cloud vendor, but you do
| | 00:42 | want to see a consistent number here as opposed to
fluctuating connection speeds with high and low spikes.
| | 00:48 | Another variable is the datastore delete time,
or how long it takes to delete the datastore.
| | 00:54 | You'll want to be checking datastore read times
as well, or how long it takes to read data.
| | 01:00 | Another variable deployment latency, or how much
debt time there is between when an application
| | 01:05 | is posted and when it's actually ready to use.
And lastly lag time, which is basically
| | 01:12 | how slow this system is running. If you're
seeing a deterioration in any of these numbers
| | 01:16 | over time you may need to
consider making some changes.
| | 01:19 | So how do you monitor performance of the cloud and
get actual numbers for some of these variables?
| | 01:25 | Well there are some tools available to you
right now with more on the way. Let's look
| | 01:29 | at some of them right now.
| | 01:31 | Check out speedtest.net to access a speed
testing tool to see if you're getting consistent
| | 01:36 | speeds from your Internet Service Provider.
For monitoring your cloud systems and vendors
| | 01:42 | the vFabric Hyperic from VMware is a popular
set of tools. Each Hyperic plug-in tracks
| | 01:49 | dozens and sometimes hundreds of metric values per server,
plus events, log entries and configuration file changes.
| | 01:57 | And there is something called CloudStatus,
another excellent option at hyperic.com. It
| | 02:02 | offers free real-time health and performance
monitoring of Amazon and Google cloud services.
| | 02:09 | Of course there are many more tools out there
and many more to come, so performing regular
| | 02:13 | searches on cloud monitoring services might
be a good plan for finding the services you
| | 02:17 | need to ensure your cloud computing
experience is always at its best.
| | 02:22 |
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| Fine-tuning cloud use| 00:00 | Once you've made your migration to the cloud
and you're monitoring performance, opportunities
| | 00:05 | to fine tune or improve performance may present
themselves. Let's look at some tips for fine-tuning
| | 00:10 | your cloud computing performance
beginning with cloud storage for data storage.
| | 00:16 | If your cloud system makes use of
infrastructure as a service, here are some tips that can
| | 00:20 | help to optimize your cloud performance. First,
segment data by performance requirements.
| | 00:26 | Some data is needed immediately while other
data does not need to be recalled as quickly.
| | 00:31 | For example, there's a difference between data
associated with critical business processes
| | 00:36 | and historical or archive data. More critical
process data should be stored on high-quality
| | 00:42 | machines that are made for the fastest storage.
Whereas, that historical archived or backup
| | 00:47 | data, it can be placed on slower machines.
| | 00:50 | Now this can reduce unnecessary data from
clogging critical storage system, so ask your
| | 00:55 | provider if data can be segmented according
to performance needs. Next, provision data
| | 01:01 | with proximity to users. The closer the data
is housed to the end-user, the faster it can
| | 01:07 | be received and processed.
| | 01:09 | So when you're evaluating providers,
understand where data centers are physically located
| | 01:14 | in respect to your organizations and users.
Using detailed management tools and controls,
| | 01:19 | allocate cloud request to be handled by the
network closest to the users. Data proximity
| | 01:26 | speeds delivery by reducing the number
of jumps from source to destination.
| | 01:31 | And employ data backup and disaster recovery.
Data backup and disaster recovery solutions
| | 01:37 | are necessary to ensure that data is
continuously available even if disaster strikes. Disaster
| | 01:44 | can range from power outages and natural disasters to
threat detection securities, cyber attacks and more.
| | 01:52 | So let's talk about optimizing your cloud
backups. When you start performing your cloud
| | 01:57 | backups you might be surprised at how slow
the whole process can be. Here are some tips
| | 02:01 | now for optimizing the process.
| | 02:04 | Back up the most important files first. With
cloud services, an initial backup has to happen
| | 02:10 | before incremental backups can happen on a
regular basis. The initial backup can take
| | 02:15 | weeks and months depending on your data and the
connection speed, so prioritize your content.
| | 02:22 | For example, you might want to choose
important office files to be backed up before image
| | 02:27 | files and then executables. Use bandwidth
throttling. You may never have heard of this.
| | 02:33 | The initial backup with cloud services can
really eat up your resources thus having a
| | 02:38 | negative impact on your other cloud
services, grinding them to a virtual halt.
| | 02:43 | Bandwidth throttling might slow down your
backup, but it will have less of an adverse
| | 02:47 | affect on your other services allowing you to
work efficiently while your backup process runs.
| | 02:54 | Back up newer files first as well. In the
event of a catastrophe users will most likely
| | 02:58 | need access to their newer files first. So
another option when performing the initial
| | 03:03 | backup, on top of backing up important files
first, is to have your newer most important
| | 03:08 | files backed up first.
| | 03:11 | And use de-duplication. Most cloud service
providers include de-duplication options during
| | 03:16 | backup operations. So make sure to use them,
so you're not backing up copies of the same
| | 03:21 | files. It cuts down the amount of data being
backed up and the time to perform the backup.
| | 03:27 | And lastly, keep local backups as well. Now
this one is a bit of a pain and extra work,
| | 03:32 | but it can come in handy one day in the event
of a non-catastrophic disaster, like losing
| | 03:38 | a single server. By continuing to create and
store backups on premise, you'll spend a lot
| | 03:43 | less time restoring from a local backup
then you would downloading from the cloud.
| | 03:49 |
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| Additional resources| 00:00 | One of the easiest ways to ensure you're working
efficiently and at the highest possible performance
| | 00:05 | level is to know exactly what you're doing.
So ensuring users fully understand the cloud
| | 00:11 | tools they're working with and using them
properly will make for an efficiently run
| | 00:15 | business and optimal
cloud computing experience.
| | 00:19 | Well lynda.com can be an excellent resource;
for one, evaluating cloud tools, and two,
| | 00:25 | learning how to use the cloud tools you decide
to incorporate into your business. Here are
| | 00:29 | some courses available to lynda.com
subscribers right now with many more on the way.
| | 00:35 | Number one, Google Docs Essential Training
with Susan Cline can get you familiar with
| | 00:40 | Google's set of cloud-based office applications
for creating, storing, and sharing documents,
| | 00:44 | spreadsheets, and forms online.
| | 00:48 | Gmail Essential Training and Gmail for Power
Users, also from Susan, will teach you everything
| | 00:53 | you need to know about Google's email service.
Up and Running with Evernote, from me, David
| | 00:58 | Rivers, will get you started with this cool
cloud tool for capturing content from anywhere
| | 01:04 | and always having easy and fast access to
it from any computer or mobile device.
| | 01:09 | Picasa 3 Essential Training from Dean Howard
can get you comfortable with Google's cloud
| | 01:14 | storage applications specifically designed for
storing, editing and sharing digital photos
| | 01:19 | on the cloud. How about Up and Running with
Office 365, another course from me that will
| | 01:25 | introduce you to this cloud application from
Microsoft, or software as a service, for creating,
| | 01:31 | editing and sharing Word documents, Excel
spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations
| | 01:37 | all on the cloud.
| | 01:39 | And then you'll find a whole host of social
networking courses at lynda.com like Facebook,
| | 01:44 | LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube training. So
if any of these tools are of interest to you
| | 01:49 | in your migration to the cloud, browse the
lynda.com library to find them and look for
| | 01:54 | new cloud titles too,
because they're on their way.
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ConclusionWhere to go from here| 00:00 | Congratulations! You've reached the end of
Cloud Computing First Look. You should now
| | 00:05 | have a better understanding of what the cloud
is and how cloud computing might benefit you
| | 00:10 | and/or your business.
| | 00:12 | But perhaps you'd like to know more, more
about the cloud, more about specific cloud-based
| | 00:17 | tools or maybe you'd like to get a better
understanding of one particular area of cloud
| | 00:22 | computing, well we at lynda.com
want to hear from you.
| | 00:26 | We've posted a blog and we invite you to share
your thoughts and questions. We'll use your
| | 00:30 | feedback to make regular updates to this course,
so that like the cloud itself, it will continue
| | 00:36 | to evolve to meet your needs.
| | 00:38 | This is David Rivers thanking you for watching,
and I do hope to see you again in another
| | 00:42 | title from lynda.com.
| | 00:45 |
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