Cloud

Clouds come down to Earth, and prices go up, with a bang

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The end of easy money, Elon Musk’s re-organisation of Twitter, and inflation have brought reality to cloud service platforms with a speed no one predicted.
Those us operating ordinary businesses have always known that cash flow is king and profitability is the definition of success. The idea that we might have a few thousand extra employees we don’t need any more would be crazy. But 300,000 redundancies later, and still counting, reality is catching up to the tech sector with a vengeance.

What does this mean for the customers ?

Price increases.

Every cloud business now has to have a plan to get cash positive and profitable, otherwise they won’t be able to access any further funding.
We expect to see quite eye-popping increases in cloud service pricing across the board over the next 12 months. To give one example, Google Enterprise platform pricing has gone from $12 to $28 in a year. That’s 133% “inflation”!

JustWorks Analysis

We have always advocated for the value of cloud services for what they enable, not what they save, based on our real life experience of tech deployment and our understanding of the mechanics of cloud services. Cloud services liberate businesses to operate more flexibly and adapt faster to changing markets. They transfer the burdens of lifecycle management, data backup, and security to the same people that write the apps – that’s more efficient but it does not eliminate the costs.
Increased attention to cybersecurity locally, nationally, and globally is combining with these changes to increase the cost of technology for every business. We may not welcome it, but it is unavoidable.

How JustWorks can help

Over 25 years we have built a business that stands on the same side of the table as our customers. We take on the risks of vendor selection, reliability, demand surge, and design. We also negotiate deals that leverage our scale and channel relationships to provide access to superior features and better pricing than any customer could on their own.
We may not be able to protect you from the general direction of price rises but we will do our upmost to make the transition as smooth and manageable as possible. Having JustWorks on your side means you can be confident that we are working every day to control costs and increase value.
To keep cybersecurity costs down we launched our SecureWorks service last year. This service provides the most cost effective way for businesses to boost their defenses and establish compliance. Customers have seen their audit scores move from D- to B+ in just a few months.

Whatever you want to do, we can help you do it better, faster, cheaper and more simply. If you are considering any changes, let us know how we can Make IT Simple for you.

Every Cloud Needs a Pilot

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In 1996 we pioneered the managed services concept and helped create the Managed Services Provider model that so many others claim to be doing today, but while they were catching up we were driving ahead and recognizing that for some business the day was coming when racks of servers in their offices would be a thing of the past.

That day has arrived. Starting this year JustWorks is now delivering completely cloud-based I.T. infrastructure for businesses with no physical servers, no Active Directory™, and no worries!

Incredibly efficient, effective and simple cloud services that span the range from file services to directory to telephony and online meetings are now all available from JustWorks with 0 delay, $0 startup and 0 commitment. Everything works together, everything is secure, and everything is managed by your very own cloud pilot – it just works!

Navigating this new cloud world is not for the faint of heart, littered with the wreckage of failed vendors and integration turbulence. That’s why you need an experienced pilot who can navigate the skies with you every step of the way. We Make IT Simple. Just step on board for a fixed monthly fee per user and the next thing you know you’ll be relaxing in the comfort of your very own private jet through the clouds, answering your calls anywhere in the world, opening offices with just a WiFi access point, and onboarding new employees in minutes.

Contact us if you’re interesting in joining our growing list of cloud enabled customers.

State of IT 2017

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As we start the New Year it’s appropriate to look at the state of I.T. and give you the JustWorks perspective on where the best path forward will take us.

First we need to remember that the basic structure of a computer has not changed: a computer uses a processor to process data that is kept on storage. The proximity of the processor to the storage is still absolutely key, and that affects how “cloud services” work, or don’t work. The larger the data being processed, the more important it is that the processor and the data it is working on are joined by a fast connection, so applications like CAD and accounting cannot tolerate a situation where the processor and the storage are separated by the typical Internet link available to most businesses today. Either the data needs to be local (in the same place, like the office) to the computer, or the processing needs to be done remotely, close to where the data is.

Using this model we can more easily understand the different cloud services that are available.

  • “True cloud” services are where both the processing and the storage are provided by the vendor, so all the user needs is a window into their systems — a good example is QuickBooks Online, where the data and the processing are done on Intuit’s servers and all you need is a web browser to see the results.
  • “Hybrid cloud” services are where the processing and the storage are not always colocated. A good example of these type of services are the cloud file services, where the files exist in the cloud but are also replicated locally so that they can be used by your (local) computer. Hybrid solutions typically require both some local systems and some remote (cloud) systems to deliver the solution effectively.

For the majority of businesses the world of cloud services has not advanced to the point where they can replace their local applications, and it may well be many years before that is true. So most businesses are stuck in between the old world of local networks and servers, and some combination of the true and hybrid cloud services.

The way forward is to be ready to move applications to the cloud when that becomes feasible, and in the meantime get as much advantage as possible from hybrid cloud services without breaking what works on the local, office-based network. This is what we have designed JustWorks 7 to deliver.

jw7JustWorks 7 is our seventh major design revision in our 21 year history, and just happens to neatly coincide with 2017 as the launch year. In designing JustWorks 7 we have preserved the ability of our customers to continue to run the applications they need on their office network, while also providing the benefits of a distributed cloud file system that is available from anywhere on any device. Customers can share their data securely with partners and vendors, enable remote working, and still have lightening fast access in the office.

JustWorks 7 provides a platform that supports local applications today, and is ready for those applications to move to a cloud service provider as soon as our customers are ready to do that. Our design is a “hybrid cloud” that prepares our customers to move to “true cloud” when the time is right.

Our new design moves the core collaboration tools of email, calendaring and file sharing so that they are cloud based, but easily accessible from the office too. The reference design for JustWorks 7 is based on using Microsoft’s Office 365 services for email, but can also accommodate anyone who would prefer to use Google, Amazon or another vendor for email. The JustWorks 7 cloud file service works equally well irrespective of which vendor is providing the email services.

JustWorks 7: designed for the future, and today.
We make IT simple.

New “cloud” services for 2016

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JustWorks has added some key new services to our full service managed systems portfolio. All of these services are available as extensions of your existing services, and they have all been tested by JustWorks in production.

To provide advanced services for the new “cloud” era we are offering new services to meet the following needs:

  • Messaging, fax, conferencing & phone in single unified service
  • File sharing accessible from any device, any where at any time
  • Security enhancements for your Internet connection

Messaging, fax, conferencing & phone

We are happy to announce that we have partnered with RingCentral to bring you fully unified communications in the cloud.
RingCentral can completely replace your phone system, or just add additional functionality to what you already have. The service includes “follow me” phone numbers so that you only ever need to provide a single phone number for your business contacts to reach you, no matter whether you are sitting at your desk or on the road (even where you have WiFi but no cell phone signal!). The service also includes unlimited calls and SMS messaging in the continental USA, fax and voicemail to email integration, and last but not least online conferencing for phone, screen sharing and HD video.
You can find out more at www.ringcentral.com or just call us and we can walk you through how it might fit with your needs.
Pricing ranges from $40/month for your whole company, to $40/user/month for full phone functionality including a desk handset.

File sharing accessible from any device, any where at any time

JustWorks has partnered with Egnyte to enable the extension of your in-office file sharing out into the rest of the world, all while maintaining the high levels of security you have come to expect from JustWorks solutions.
Once we have setup your cloud file server, you will be able to access all your files from any web browser, smartphone, tablet or remote computer, with ease. You can also create connections for your vendors and subcontractors to share specific files/folders securely with them.
You can find out more at www.egnyte.com or just call us and we can walk you through how it might fit with your needs. The first 2 users and 1Tb is included in our Manage service level, and pricing is $20 or $40 per user/month after that, depending on what version you choose.

Security enhancements for your Internet connection

We have migrated all JustWorks installations to the Sophos security platform – there’s nothing you need to do, this is part of our service.
Now that the Sophos security system is in place at your offices we will be able to enhance your Internet and network security with better WiFi security, email encryption, and load balancing over multiple Internet connections.

We will also offer Sophos Reflexion email security as an alternative for email SPAM filtering, as McAfee are discontinuing their service.
We will be in touch with you when we roll this out to your site.

We are excited to be able to offer these new services, and look forward to making them simple for you take advantage of.