There Must Be A Better Way Of Choosing Cloud Providers!

 

Actually....there is a better way.

Here’s a free resource dedicated to help you with all the necessary decisions in implementing a cloud migration strategy (public, private, hybrid, multi....plus security)....taking all the potential stress out of the picture. For free help with sourcing and comparing potential cloud vendors....as well as with network design and security....simply ask at the below link. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3.

FREE Custom Cloud Network Design Help

Here's A Better Way Of Choosing Cloud Providers

Actually....there is a better way.

Here’s a free resource dedicated to help you with all the necessary decisions in implementing a cloud migration strategy (public, private, hybrid, multi....plus security)....taking all the potential stress out of the picture. For free help with sourcing and comparing potential cloud vendors....as well as with network design and security....simply ask at the below link. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3

FREE Cloud Services Sourcing Tool

Cloud Computing Humor

 

Here’s some cloud computing humor for you....

Also, here’s a FREE resource dedicated to help you with all the necessary decisions in implementing a cloud computing strategy (public, private, multi, hybrid...including security)....taking all the potential stress out of the picture. For free help with sourcing and comparing potential cloud vendors....as well as with a custom cloud network design....simply ask at the below link. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3

FREE Resource Helps Source And Design A Custom Cloud Network

This FREE Resource Is Every IT Professional's Secret Weapon For Network Sourcing And Design

 

Every IT professional responsible for their organization's network management is facing challenging times in today's economic environment. Your network requirements are only increasing (wired, wireless, cloud, security, digital, etc.), while your budget is stagnant or more likely being cut. That frustrating situation is unlikely to change anytime soon.

This FREE resource can be your secret weapon to surviving AND thriving. They can help you meet your network requirements, whatever they are, while also helping you to cut costs at the same time. That's what they do....and they're very good at it.

Simply tell thems what you're trying to accomplish at the link below....and they'll marshal all hands on deck to make it happen.

Free Network Sourcing And Design Help

What Are The Current Trends For IT Infrastructure Spending? (VIDEO)

 

Listen in as Avroheim Gottheil of #AskTheCEO and Misha Rangel of IBM discuss insights on a recent IT Infrastructure spending study that was conducted by Forrester Research.

The study can be accessed here: Forrester Study One of the key findings mentioned in the report is that on-premises solutions continue to play a key role in IT Infrastructure spending decisions, with 90% of IT decision-makers agreeing that on-premises infrastructure is a critical part of their hybrid cloud strategies. Another key finding of the report is that IT decision-makers anticipate that more than half of mission-critical workloads and 47% of data-intensive workloads will be run either on-premises or in an internal private cloud within the next two years. This does not mean that organizations have stopped investing in on-premises. Misha goes into this topic in greater detail during our discussion. Another key finding is that companies that delay IT Infrastructure upgrades are opening themselves up to serious vulnerabilities.

To take advantage of FREE assistance to engineer and design a solution for your organization’s network requirements (Wired, Wireless, Fiber, 5G, Cloud, SDWAN) .... including network security .... simply click on this link and ask. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3.

FREE Network Sourcing And Design Support

The Essentials Of Cloud Adoption Plus The Basics Of Cloud Architecture (VIDEO)

 

Let’s talk cloud architecture. In this video, A Cloud Guru Senior Community Training Architect Scott Pletcher walks us through the reasons companies decide to migrate to the cloud. We explore the difference between public cloud, private cloud, and multicloud, breaking down common migration approaches – and why virtualization and containerization are often part of a cloud adoption. While the decisions we make when building things in the cloud are plentiful and require years of practice, you’ll walk away from this episode with an understanding of the key concepts that will be valuable when building your cloud adoption business case.

Also, here’s a free resource dedicated to help you with all the necessary decisions in implementing a cloud migration strategy (public, private, hybrid, multi - including security)....taking all the potential stress out of the picture. For free help with sourcing and comparing potential cloud vendors....as well as with network design and security....simply ask at the below link. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Free Cloud Technology Sourcing And Network Design And Security Help

So You Want To Be A Cloud Architect? (VIDEO)

 

Build a career in the cloud as a Cloud Architect. In this video we’ll look at the skills you need for a successful career in cloud architecture, like cloud fundamentals, service knowledge, and communication skills, and how they fit together. We ask a Cloud Architect what a day in their life actually looks like and take a look at the big picture to understand all the pathways to reach a cloud architect role, to see what first steps you can take to begin your career journey.

38 Questions To Ask When Evaluating Your Cloud Strategy (INFOGRAPHIC)

 

Here’s a free resource dedicated to help you with all the necessary decisions in implementing a cloud migration strategy (public, private, hybrid, multi - including security)....taking all the potential stress out of the picture. For free help with sourcing and comparing potential cloud vendors....as well as with network design and security....simply ask at the below link. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Cloud Computing Strategy

How To Deploy Fully Configured Windows Workspaces In The Cloud For Your Employees In Minutes....Using WaaS (VIDEO)

Watch this video for an example of a provider we can source for you that enables employees to work from home or anywhere utilizing a set-up process that takes literally minutes to accomplish rather than days. You'll see a cloud workspace provisioned in minutes, complete with compute, pre-licensed software, security, shared folders and more employing Workspace as a Service (WaaS).

Our FREE support includes assistance sourcing and designing a customized cloud network solution to meet ALL your cloud computing needs.....covering public, private, hybrid, edge, and multi-cloud options. This includes comparing 100s of cloud providers with cybersecurity requirements also a major emphasis.

Simply submit a request by clicking on Free Cloud Network Sourcing And Design Support and telling us what you’re looking for. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3....and we’ll take it from there.

AI-Driven Cloud Automation & How to Orchestrate Company Transformation (VIDEO)

Irene Lyakovetsky of SaugaTalks discusses AI-driven cloud automation with Robert Hutter, Founder & CEO at FireStart and how companies can adopt it for their cloud ecosystem during their digital transformation journey.

Also, here’s a free resource dedicated to help you with all the necessary decisions in implementing a cloud migration strategy (public, private, hybrid, multi, edge - including security)....taking all the potential stress out of the picture. For free help with sourcing and comparing potential cloud vendors....as well as with network design and security....simply ask at the below link. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Free Cloud Network Sourcing And Design Support

Learn The Difference Between PaaS, SaaS, And IaaS Cloud Platforms - And Which You Should Use (VIDEO)

For companies of all shapes and sizes, managing and operating cloud platform services is becoming an increasingly important part of a business in the online world. While most would agree that shifting to a cloud-centric operating structure is necessary, many don’t know the difference between the various types.

If you are considering moving your business operations to the cloud, you must select a cloud platform that fits your unique needs and functionality. Not all cloud frameworks are built the same - some are best for application use, others for infrastructure deployment. As you begin to consider your options, do your homework and select the pathway that is best for your current and future needs.

Top three most common cloud services:

● Platform as a Service (PaaS)

● Software as a Service (SaaS)

● Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Also, here’s a free resource dedicated to help you with all the necessary decisions in implementing a cloud migration strategy (public, private, hybrid, multi, edge - including security)....taking all the potential stress out of the picture. For free help with sourcing and comparing potential cloud vendors....as well as with network design and security....simply ask at the below link. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Free Cloud Network Sourcing And Design Support

EVERY COMPANY IS ON A CLOUD JOURNEY

When you get to know Bigleaf, you’re going to find that their core focus is pretty different from much of the SD-WAN industry.  If you look across the SD-WAN landscape, what you are largely going to find is architectures built for site-to-site networking, in other words, remote to HQ or remote to a Data Center.  This is the old MPLS model, only now with Internet connections.  If that’s what you’re looking for, you have a lot of options out there. At Bigleaf, rather than focusing on site-to-site architectures, they’re using their SD-WAN intelligence to build a new type of internet.  They offer a “cloud-ready” internet, they’re now layering in SD-WAN intelligence to ensure a high-quality experience at the application level for both Cloud-based content and site-to-site VPN traffic.

When you think about it, every company you interact with is on a Cloud journey of some type.  These journeys can be any of the following:

• First build – It usually starts with personal use, and every company is seeing that (individuals using their apps).
• Second build – At some point, department leaders want specific technologies for their teams.
• Third build – The next step for most companies is when an executive decision is made to move a company-wide technology to the Cloud. At this point, the entire company’s operations are tied to Cloud performance.
• Fourth build – Finally, many companies adopt a Cloud-first mandate. That means any new technology the company buys is expected to be Cloud-based.
• Fifth build – There’s an important distinction between the first two and second two stages.
• Sixth build – In the last two stages, IT or some central department is provisioning the software like they always have. But in the first two, IT may have no idea that these technologies are being used, even though they have become critical to day-to-day operations in the company.

For SMBs, SaaS is the new normal. Here’s a look at the number of SaaS apps per company:

It’s important to note the average company has fifty-one to one hundred employees who use seventy-nine different applications.

CLOUD NETWORKING CHALLENGES

The first cloud networking challenge is that cloud technologies rely on the Internet, and no matter what kind of circuit you run, internet performance is unpredictable. This can lead to expensive downtime that’s frustrating to the company and potentially job-threatening to the person responsible for networking. The second challenge is that IT is no longer the sole gatekeeper of software provisioning. This means that even with all the IT resources in the world, critical technologies are being used that can’t be accounted for. Lastly, working from home is now the new normal.  As of mid-March, eighty percent of organizations have encouraged or required their employees to work from home. This means at least 311 million people in at least 41 states, three counties, eight cities, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, are being urged to stay home.

Today, millennials and Gen Z workers make up only thirty-eight percent of the workforce, but in 2028, they’ll amount to fifty-eight percent. Because of that, it’s no wonder that almost three-quarters of companies will employ some remote workers, while thirty-three percent of workers will be fully remote.

Bigleaf offerings solve challenges both in the office and in-home offices. And this is how we do it:

BIGLEAF’S SERVICE ARCHITECTURE AND FEATURES

Bigleaf’s edge router is your disaster-proof connection to their Cloud Access Network. At the customer premise, they ship out their Bigleaf router pre-configured with the customer’s circuit details. When it arrives, it’s designed to be a self-install on the WAN side of the customer’s existing firewall.  The customer will plug their Internet connections into the WAN ports (they have four WAN ports), then they’ll plug a cable from Bigleaf’s LAN port to the WAN port on their firewall.  During the last step, they’ll issue a new public IP block out of their gateway, which the customer will enter into their firewall.  That’s it. No feature changes are needed on the firewall.

Their solution is completely firewall-friendly, which means they work transparently with any firewall.  While most other SD-WAN solutions either need to replace the firewall or require significant feature changes in the firewall to get their device to work, Bigleaf’s onsite router works with all existing firewall policies.

VIEW FROM THE HOME OFFICE

There are multiple demands on the Internet connection from households with more than one person.

• Could have two people working from home
• Students who are doing eLearning all day long
• Other family members or roommates streaming Netflix movies or gaming

Even if there’s just a single person working from home, internet connections are notoriously unreliable and unpredictable. This creates frustration and poor performance when it comes to trying to get work done from home. WithBigleaf Home Office you get:

To learn more about BigLeaf and take advantage of a comparison of 100s of other SDWAN and managed cloud vendors ... including FREE network design and sourcing support ... simply ask at FreedomFire Communications.

How To Create A Successful Cloud Migration Strategy

A successful migration requires significant planning and preparation before any data is moved. If you simply start moving your data and workloads, you are sure to run into technical, financial, and productivity issues. To help prevent these issues from occurring, you should incorporate the steps discussed in this article into your migration strategy.

How To Create A Successful Cloud Migration Strategy

To learn more about all your options for cloud computing services...as well as free assistance with network design and sourcing...simply ask and tell us what you’re looking for here:

Cloud Services    

It’s FREE support and as easy as 1, 2, 3.

How Do I Build A Cloud Ready Network?

Before you jump right into cloud migration you need to make sure this is done right FIRST.

Enterprises that decide to move processing to a cloud provider must prepare their networks for the migration. That will almost certainly mean upgrading WAN links, but enterprises shouldn't start talking to internet service providers until they've performed a careful analysis of the applications they plan to move.

How Do I Build A Cloud Ready Network?

To learn more about all your options for cloud computing services...as well as free assistance with network design and sourcing...simply ask and tell us what you’re looking for here: 

Cloud Services

It’s FREE support and as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Choosing The Right Cloud Migration Approach

The criticality of cloud migration lies in not just preparing for the short term benefits of the cloud in terms of speed, scalability, and cost savings, but essentially laying the foundation of a greater strategy: To be able to respond more quickly to changes in the market, scale your growth, and drive innovation in the long run.

With proper assessment of your needs and goals, your organization will be able to create a solid migration plan that meets both short and long term objectives of your business.

Choosing The Right Cloud Migration Approach

Here’s a free resource dedicated to help you with all the necessary decisions in implementing a cloud migration strategy (public, private, hybrid)....taking all the potential stress out of the picture.  For free help with sourcing and comparing potential cloud vendors....as well as with network design....simply ask at the below link.  It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Cloud Services

The Hybrid Cloud For High Availability

The private cloud remains the best choice for many applications for a variety of reasons, while the public cloud has become a more cost-effective choice for others. This split has resulted — intentionally or not — in the vast majority of organizations now having a hybrid cloud. But there are many different ways to leverage the versatility and agility afforded in a hybrid cloud environment, especially when it comes to the different high availability and disaster recovery protections needed for different applications.

This article examines the hybrid cloud from the perspective of high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR), and provides some practical suggestions for avoiding potential pitfalls.

The Hybrid Cloud For High Availability

Be aware that there’s also a FREE resource to help you with all the necessary decisions in implementing your cloud migration strategy (pre and post)....takes all the potential stress out of the picture.  For free help with sourcing and comparing potential cloud vendors....as well as with network design and security....simply ask at the below link.  It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Cloud Services

TO MAXIMIZE THE CLOUD....FOCUS ON THE NETWORK

Here’s an important new maxim for the cloud era.... The power of your cloud is only as good as the power of your network.

Let’s face it, the leading public cloud providers have made their services so easy to use and readily available, we tend to forget that underneath these global clouds are massive conglomerations of infrastructure residing in modern, highly virtualized data centers all around the globe.

The availability, security and performance of these clouds are wholly reliant on the underlying networks that connect these data centers. But the importance of the network goes beyond what the cloud provider does within its own infrastructure, as critical as that is.

For consumers of public cloud services, it is equally essential to connect to the cloud using network products and services that can empower your modern digital business initiatives—whether digital transformation, big data analytics, moving business-critical apps to the cloud or anything else. It makes no sense to invest heavily in mission-critical cloud applications and not make the relatively small investment of connecting everyone to those applications in a best-of-breed fashion.

This white paper goes in depth on just what you need to consider in order to maximize your cloud efforts.

TO MAXIMIZE THE CLOUD....FOCUS ON THE NETWORK

There’s also a free resource to help you with all the necessary decisions in implementing a cloud migration strategy....takes all the potential stress out of the picture. For free help with sourcing and comparing potential cloud vendors....as well as with network design....simply ask at the below link. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3

Cloud Services

Learn All About Rapid Scale's Cloud Computing Solutions

WHO IS RAPIDSCALE?

RapidScale was founded in 2008 and is now known as the number one managed cloud services provider with a global footprint. They strive to be the most customer-oriented managed cloud services provider in the industry. Their objective is to understand your organization’s long-term goals around delivering, supporting, and managing IT. RapidScale’s personalized cloud solutions reflect the understanding that no two businesses are the same and their cloud solutions shouldn’t be either.

WHITE-GLOVE SERVICE

To make it easy for their customers, RapidScale has a full suite of white-glove services, not just from starting the conversation but also through service delivery. RapidScale provides exceptional attention to detail, assurance of a smooth transition and managed migrations. They also provide 24x7x365 support, with complete end-to-end management and monitoring of a client’s environment. Rapidscale is focused on building long-term relationships with their customers.

COMPANY GROWTH

Acquisition of Vonage’s Hosted Infrastructure Segment

• Growth of client base and revenue
• Growth of RapidScale team
• Expanded East Coast footprint
• Office in Tysons, VA

Expansion of Raleigh Office

• Building out new office space
• Growing a team of 30 employees, including talent in egineering, accoung management, support and more

THEIR CLOUD SOLUTIONS

CloudServer (Infrastructure as a Service)

When people think about cloud, infrastructure as a service is one of the first things that comes to mind. For RapidScale, that’s what a lot of their customers go to them for, it is one of their number one revenue generating platforms.

Some of the CloudServer benefits are:

• Simplicity – Replace on-premise servers, support, upgrades and backups with CloudServer.
• Economics – Pay as you go consumption pricing.
• Scalability – CloudServer services are hosted in multiple data centers in the United States, Europe, and Asia for maximum scale and geographic diversity.
• Performance – Ability to add vCPU, vRam, and storage on-demand to ensure optimal application performance.
• Security – Customers are isolated in protected resource pools and VLANs to ensure maximum physical and virtual security.

Detailed Service Description and Deliverables:

• RapidScale Provided Virtual machines
• Virtual Machines include:
  • Operating system as specified on order
  • vCPU, vRam, and Storage as specified on order
  • Unlimited Data Transfer (Internet Bandwidth)
  • Public and/or Private IP Addresses
    • Public IPs must be justified per ARIN standards
  • Admin Access to operating systems and provisioning portal
  • Monitoring, emergency reboots, connectivity, 24×7 support

Standard and Management Features:

 

CloudDesktop (Desktop as a Service)

When you take the end user into consideration and how they interact with an environment and applications, you realize that more and more end users are working from home. RapidScale can provide a desktop as a service solution in a secure way across any device.

The Benefits:

• Security – Lock down legacy PCs by forcing them to RapidScale’s CloudDesktop platform, and we take care of support, patching, backups, and virus protection
• Productivity – Users can access their CloudDesktop from anywhere at any time, while administration is centrally controlled
• Performance – RapidScale maintains the highest performance enterprise infrastructure available on the market today – 10G Core Network, Cisco UCS Compute, NetApp All Flash Storage
• Scalability – CloudDesktops can be upgraded on the fly with little to no impact to the end-user

CloudOffice (SMB Bundled Solution)

CloudOffice is a bundled, multi-tenant virtual desktop solution that includes a Windows 10 desktop experience, company file share, user profile storage, Microsoft Office 2016, as well as many other common productivity applications. Self-service provisioning of desktops and applications via a robust portal is also a key feature of the CloudOffice service.

CloudMail

RapidScale’s fully managed CloudMail offering allows businesses to enjoy the benefits of Hosted Exchange without the server management, troubleshooting, device setup, and much more. Managed cloud customers also have access to their 24x7x365 customer support for time help.

Features:

• Benefit from the latest version of Microsoft Exchange
• Automatic updates with ActiveSync across all devices
• Built-in integrated email archiving, retention and discovery capabilities that save costs and simplify the process of preserving business communications
• 50GB per mailbox

CloudRecovery (Disaster Recovery as a Service)

Benefits of CloudRecovery:

• Increased uptime and data protection for business critical applications
• No capital expenses
• Predictable costs
• Low RPO/RTO times

To learn more about RapidScale visit  Custom Cloud Services