We just finished taking down our booth at the Exact Macola Evolve 2014 tradeshow  in Grapevine, Texas. Surprisingly, the booth took about one hour to take down and it all fit into the case. We were unsure what would happen since it arrived in three boxes, and we had never even constructed it before. I guess you can tell how much confidence we had to show up at a show with no experience building a booth. We got a ton of comments on our race-inspired backdrop. Most of the attendees wanted to know what we did. It was our first year to be at the show, so we expected these questions, but as soon as we mentioned Citrix and “Cloud”, peoples’ eyes lit up. We could tell these were topics that were top of mind to many of the attendees.

Scott and I did attend one session, the opening large group session announcing the features for Macola version 10, being released at the end of Q2. They focused on four critical areas, but the one that caught my ear was workflow. Having seen a number of organizations in the same industry operate in drastically different fashions, I’ll be interested to see what the workflows look like, how structured they are, and how malleable they are. We use a collaboration tool called “Podio” for internal projects, and we’ve experienced a number of frustrations with getting it tuned just right. I cannot imagine the meetings and decisions that took place to get workflows decided for the next release, and I’m sure it will be a shock for many of the users as they try to use the tools provided. Trying to use the resources provided to you more effectively is a constant battle.

After the show we headed to Austin to have dinner with a vendor. On the way down I was hosting the first call with the Direct Sales Team. Scott was driving. When I looked over my laptop screen at the dashboard, I noticed he was going more than 100mph. The car was vibrating. I described the scenario to the guys on the call and commented “If you hear my voice tremorring, that’s why.” They laughed.

I’m looking forward to doing more tradeshows with users of software that we have virtualized. I think there’s a LOT of opportunity at these shows, and we can demonstrate our expertise when we comment to them that we virtualized industry/line of business specific software years ago when even the architects couldn’t accomplish it. So many IT leaders at the show were impressed with what we’d done, but they simply hadn’t heard of us before then. That’s what we’re out to change.

Thinking about moving to Amazon Web Services? Address these 4 Concerns FIRST

We’ve been hearing a lot of debate recently about using Amazon Web Services for all or part of a cloud infrastructure. Many people sing their praises whole-heartedly, and we here at ManageOps have even explored their offerings to see if there was an opportunity to bend our own cost curve. But there really is a mixed bag of benefits and features. How do you know if the move is right for you? We’ve narrowed it down to 4 concerns you should address in light of your own circumstances before making the move.

1. Business impact

First of all, let’s analyze the business model for AWS. Amazon rents out virtual machines for a reasonable price per desktop. But in order to get their best price, you have to pony up 36 months of service fees in advance to rent the space. If you’re an enterprise with three years of IT budget available, this is a great deal. If not, take a closer look.

The pricing from AWS also assumes that virtual machines will be spinning-down 40% of the day. If your workforce mostly logs in within an 8:30am – 6:00pm time frame, you will greatly benefit from this pricing. If your employees have much more flexibility in their schedules (due to travel, seasonal workload spikes, or shifting hours for coverage), then you may need to look at another provider.

AWS also allows for 1GB of data to flow into their cloud for free, and only charges for the outflow of data. This is great for storage if you only use it sparingly, or in the case of a disaster, but can add-up quickly if you need to access your data frequently. While this doesn’t seem to be a concern now, as businesses exchange more and larger files, the cost of this pricing model could quickly outweigh the benefits.

2. Operations impact

The operational capabilities of Amazon truly are world-class. However, to achieve scale and offer its best price/experience the lowest cost of operations, AWS has one set way of operating and its customers are required to interact with AWS in this one way alone. So AWS may not offer the flexibility that would make it easy for you to add services to your existing operations.

If your firm fits AWS’s standard use case, it could lead to an easy transition, but if you have unique requirements, the friction caused with your organization could quickly lead to discord, operational changes, and many other business costs while trying to fit the mold AWS promotes.

3. Technology impact

The technology benefit of AWS is really second-to-none. Their infrastructure has the best hardware and capabilities offered by any of the cloud vendors. The efficiencies of scale mean you can get access to best-of-breed hardware faster than you would otherwise. The only caveat is this could give you a false sense of security.

How we approach business is to think of all the things that CAN go wrong, because many times they eventually do. We coach our customers to prepare for the times when technology will fail. And fail it will. We have consistently seen multi-million dollar technology fail unpredictably, even in hundred million dollar installations. These cases are NOT supposed to happen, and may not happen frequently, but they will happen. And if the failure impacts your business, it doesn’t matter how expensive the underlying technology is. And when the technology does fail, will you be able to get a senior engineer on the phone to immediately address your concerns?

4. Flexibility impact

The ability for AWS to match your business needs during hyper-growth and/or significant volatility could make the business case alone. With AWS’s web interface, your internal technology leader can order additional computing capabilities and they will be ready as soon as you hit “Enter.” The days of placing hardware into a room, hooking up cables, creating and testing images are truly over for all cloud users, and AWS does shorten the timeline for creating these technologies from minutes to seconds. Companies with significant growth who are doubling or tripling in size within a year many years in a row are a perfect match for AWS. No question.

Your final decision…

To sum it all up: AWS works well for you if:

• You have a scale of operations and support for tens of thousands of users
• There is three years of IT spend on the balance sheet and it can be invested today
• You are a typical player in your industry, which fits AWS’s definition of your industry
• Your IT needs to meet business demands that fluctuate exponentially, immediately, and unpredictably
• You take advantage of some advanced features for business continuity

For an more in-depth discussion on this topic, check out this: LINK. For an in-depth cost analysis, check out this: LINK. Please note, you will have to be a Citrix Service Partner to access the cost analysis.

We just arrived at the Gaylord Texan Resort for the Exact Macola Evolve 2014 Conference. The conference attracts users and prospects from many industries including retail, manufacturing, logistics, accounting and other industries. The Gaylord Texan Resort is like a mini-indoor city, but nothing in Texas is ever really “mini”. Google image search this place and you will be amazed. I think it’s a ten minute walk from the convention center to my hotel room, through a 9 story atrium.

Before the conference started, we met with Rafael Sanguilly and Giovanni Sanguilly. I had met Raf at the Ingram Micro Cloud Summit in Miami a couple of weeks earlier, and had breakfast with him when I was in Long Beach a few days later for the Long Beach Grand Prix. This time, all four of us could talk, get to know each other, and explore opportunities together. We spent two hours talking about life, work, and everything in between, ultimately coming away with a list of ideas on both sides for how to improve our businesses. I’m looking forward to working with people that are so genuine and caring, and willing to think creatively about solutions. This is yet another testimonial to the IM Cloud Summit, as well as these two professionals.

Scott and I manned our booth for the first Solutions Center exhibit last night. Lots of people stopped by, as we are the only Cloud provider at this conference. There was curiosity, intrigue, confusion, and some disbelief about the capabilities of Cloud solutions. In fact, one IT Leader stopped by our booth and explained his predicament: He has spent so much money on a Citrix installation and it still wasn’t’ performing the way he (and the business) wanted. He’d actually already gone through 6 Citrix consultants who could not fix the issue. We asked him to give us a try, and being west coast based he had a meeting invite and e-mail from our Professional Services Director before he left the event at 8:30pm. When he said he didn’t think we could do what no one else has done before, we simply smiled and said “Let us be the first.”

The following days will have more time spent with attendees in the Solutions Center, and a couple of meetings with some leaders in the Macola family who are in charge of product strategy / roadmap, as well as partner relationships. Our first meeting went very well, and I’m looking forward to the next one. I think we are the kind of firm that Macola leadership wants to work with, and we have the technical skillset many of their users need. This conference is really shaping up to be transformational for ManageOps.

If you’d like more information on our Macola Cloud Solutions, please check out our Exact Macola page.

Our great friend and strategic partner, Michael Fraser of VDI Space  posted a great article on LinkedIn today about the psychology aspect of going virtual (cross-posted by permission):

The Psychology Behind Taking Desktops Virtual

Desktop virtualization is not a new technology; it has been around for years. The desktop is going through radical change. Think of desktop virtualization as puberty. I can sum it as one phrase – RADICAL CHANGE. What end user likes CHANGE, let alone RADICAL CHANGE? There is a true emotional attachment to the desktop. An end user is like a teenager, in the sense of the fact that they feel an entitlement to have their desktop setup however they want, and if they cannot, they will try every way to rebel and customize their system. A lot of organizations have their users all setup as administrators, so like a teenager, can you imagine if you had total freedom, and then one day that freedom is taken away. How would a teenager react? They would be very angry. This is how end users view desktop virtualization. Even the smallest change can send end users off the deep end. This is not the end users fault. It is human nature to dislike change. The one sure thing in the technology world is change. Realizing this, we need to dish out what we as IT professional have a hard time doing, compassion. Now, I am not trying to be all new age when I say this. We have to realize that change is difficult, so we need to do things that will help mitigate the end users stress levels when going through this major shift in how end users will be using their desktops.

The desktop is a very intimate tool for end users. It is something they spend more time with than their own family. This creates an emotional bond. The traditional desktop is a tangible object; a user can reach out and touch it, and make it their own.

Do you remember when you bought your first new computer? When that computer arrived you took it out of the box, and you took ownership of it not only physically but also subconsciously. You imprinted on it, and made it yours, an extension of yourself. Well this is how almost all end users view their own desktop, an extension of themselves. They sort their icons a specific way. They line up apps just like they want on the taskbar. There is a picture of their family on vacation on their desktop. The personal emotional connection to their desktop is real. So we need to put this into perspective when we look into desktop virtualization. There has to be a plan in place to ensure that the transition to desktop virtualization is somewhat transparent to users.

A proof of concept is the best way to start, and involve the end users to help gain trust in the difficult transition. Pick from all different kind of users to do the POC. The most difficult users, those who will give good feedback, power users, you get where I am going. Do not just go with the easiest users, as they might get the POC to go from a concept to production, but you will run into issues when the power users complain and ask management to rip the entire system out. Trust me, it will happen.

One of the main drivers to get an organization to go to desktop virtualization is Windows 7 or 8 upgrade. This by itself is RADICAL CHANGE from Windows XP (now past EOL), or from Windows 7 to Windows 8. Now you can deploy Windows 7 or 8 virtual desktops, but what of the end user experience? Their current desktop might be converted to a thin client, or an actual thin client will be installed. Existing monitors will be used, because they still work. But something is missing, all of those little apps the end user installed themselves are nowhere to be seen. The desktop icons look like a war zone, complete chaos to the end user. Things get worse, as there is a whole new interface that is completely foreign.

What does the end user think now about the virtual desktop deployment? Remember perception is everything, and you only have one chance to win over the end user, and that is the first time they have to log into their virtual desktop.

Now you can see why a POC is important right out of the gate before a production deployment. It helps vet out a lot of these underlying user issues. There are always tweaks to the new environment, but remember the old adage, “Failing to plan, is planning to fail”.

The next step is to take virtual desktops to the cloud. The biggest hurls, Microsoft licensing and user experience. Stay tuned to additional articles on Desktops-a-a-Service. 🙂

 

To read more blog posts by Michael Fraser please head over to VDI Space’s blog.

Mr. Gorcester and other ManageOps leaders will demonstrate cloud capabilities.

Woodinville, WA, April 16, 2014– ManageOps’s CEO, Scott Gorcester, and CSO, Karl Burns, will attend the Exact Macola Evolve event in April at the Gaylord Texan Resort in Grapevine, Texas. ManageOps will exhibit their expertise of Macola deployments in virtual environments including public-, private-, and hybrid-clouds. While a number of cloud providers offer standard infrastructure, ManageOps has the experience of implementing enterprise software packages across many industries from wholesale distribution to manufacturing. ManageOps’s expertise spans many parts of the value chain from Point-of-Sale solutions to integrated, back-office support. ManageOps currently hosts customers running Macola software in their business.

Exact Macola Evolve will take place April 22nd – 25th in Gaylord, Texas. The event will include a number of Solution Sessions, exhibition hall, networking functions, and multiple speakers with backgrounds in industry, technology, and leadership. More information can be found on their website.

Scott Gorcester is the founder and chief executive officer of ManageOps. He and his team designed and built the technology stacks in use by ManageOps today, currently serving thousands of users across multiple industries across the nation. Prior to founding ManageOps, he was president of ManageOps, an IT company he founded in 1994. ManageOps was one of the original 100 Citrix resellers and Scott was one of the first people to use the technology to provide early cloud computing solutions for clients in 1994.

“We are very pleased to be among this group of professionals to collaborate on solutions that retail establishments can use to offer improved customer intimacy while achieving lower operating costs. We are excited to share our experiences and help other companies navigate the complexities of technology to get the most value out of them.” – Scott Gorcester

ManageOps, based near Seattle, WA, is a Cloud Services provider with expertise in cloud solutions based on Microsoft, Citrix and other technologies.  Sold mainly through channel partners, the ManageOps cloud platform is stable, secure, scalable, and flexible enough to meet the needs of businesses of all sizes.  ManageOps works to earn the respect and trust of partners and clients by providing creative technology solutions with friendly and accessible customer support.  Learn more at www.ManageOps.com.

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If you would like more information about this topic, please contact Laura Gorcester at 425.939.2704 or email at Laura.Gorcester@www.manage-ops.com..

Last night was the finale of the Ingram Micro Cloud Summit. This was a conference I hope to come back to next year. The sessions were great, the location was amazing, and the people/events were top notch. The three days concluded with an Awards Ceremony, which was really just a chance for everyone to get all gussied up and strut their stuff. Immediately afterwards, everyone strolled over to the Piano Bar across the street and got the chance to show off why we are in technology.

That’s the play-by-play of the event, but there was something else consistent here: industry peers who were looking to work together, to create packaged deals and offerings together, basically everyone seemed to be looking for opportunity not to sell, but to create solutions for their customers on many more fronts than their current offerings could satisfy. There were also loads of industry experts willing to share their experiences and expertise to every attendee. In fact, I checked out a session led by Erick Simpson of MSPU covered here: http://searchitchannel.techtarget.com/news/2240217838/Ingram-Micro-Cloud-Summit-2014-MSP-best-practices Erick was willing to share the knowledge he and his company have gained over the past two decades, knowing that the customer base for all who attend would benefit.  It was this eagerness to make everything better for all MSP customers that resonated with me.

It reminded me of my days in Management Consulting. One of our senior leaders trained a group of up-and-comers in the Boston office. His 3 part framework was (summarily): “First, you define how much money there is in front of the customer. Then you describe what is in the way of the customer getting to that money. Finally, you prescribe a set of actions that would need to take place for the customer to get that money. Only if you have provided value to the customer and served his interest with integrity, you have earned to right to answer his question of ‘How can your firm help us get there?’ “

A very similar philosophy was described to the audience during a session led by Rafael Sanguily. Raf is the CEO of Tensai Consulting, a leader in the IT Services Marketing and Advertising space. Raf’s session was the last one in the event guide, and I only attended it because an attendee mentioned he was a good presenter. By the third day of a conference, with 4-5 sessions per day, your mind gets pretty numb. But I was sitting up straight and fully engaged in the teachings, having them hit memory chords from my previous training. Rafael’s session talked about the difference in activities between being a sales person and a sales professional. Raf preached knowing your customer’s industry, their strategy, their roadmap, their performance metrics they focus on, their backgrounds and where they had struggled. Basically, Raf was saying “If you don’t know what it’s like to BE your customer, they won’t BE your customer.” At least, that’s how I would phrase it.

Looking back, I can see why people at this conference were so engaging, and why they mentioned Raf’s sessions with such enthusiasm: They had learned to be better servants to their clients, thus increasing their business. And this wasn’t a conference to find new sales, it was really a conference to find ways to better serve their clients’ needs when they returned home. Maybe that’s the way we should look at ALL conferences. It’s the way I will from now on.

You may have heard that a new critical vulnerability has been identified that has affected many Internet Web servers – specifically those that use certain versions of “Open SSL” as a means of encrypting user sessions. We have inspected all ManageOps.com Web sites, and verified that none of our sites have this vulnerability. However, it is possible that other Web sites you use on a regular basis are, or were, vulnerable. You can find a list of the top 1000 Web sites and their status (“vulnerable” / “not vulnerable”) as of roughly 12:00 UTC yesterday at https://github.com/musalbas/heartbleed-masstest/blob/master/top1000.txt. It is possible that many of the sites listed as “vulnerable” at the time have since patched their servers. However, if you have accounts on any of these sites – and the “vulnerable” list includes some high-profile sites such as yahoo.com, flickr.com, okcupid.com, slate.com, and eventbrite.com – you should immediately change your passwords.

There is also a useful tool available at http://filippo.io/Heartbleed/ that will allow you to check out a Web site if you are unsure whether or not it is vulnerable.

For the more technical in the crowd who are wondering how this vulnerability affects Web security, it allows an attacker to extract data from the memory of a Web server in up to 64K chunks. That may not sound like much, but if enough 64K chunks are extracted, useful information can be reconstructed, including username/password combinations, and even the private encryption key of the server itself. http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2014/04/08/openssl-heartbleed-cve-2014-0160/ contains a list of the specific versions of OpenSSL that are vulnerable to this exploit.

Mr. Burns and Mr. Fraser will be in attendance throughout the conference.

Woodinville, WA, April 7, 2014– ManageOps’s CSO, Karl Burns, and VDI Space’s Michael Fraser, will attend the Ingram Micro event April 7-9^th in Hollywood, FL. Ingram Micro is the world’s largest wholesale technology products distributor. This is the channel’s largest cloud computing event where channel partners and vendors collaborate on how to improve the overall industry and share ideas on both products and practices.

Ingram Micro’s Cloud Summit will take place April 7^th – 9^th at the Westin Diplomat of Hollywood, FL. The event will include a number of solution sessions, exhibition hall, networking functions, and multiple speakers with backgrounds in cloud computing technology. The event is sponsored by industry titans such as Ingram Micro, Gartner, SPC International and more! More information can be found on their website.

“This is an exciting event to be a part of as the future of the cloud industry is being discussed by both our partners and our vendors. I’m looking forward to the great conversations about emerging topics we are all facing. I’m also looking forward to meeting more of the Partner community.”   – Karl Burns, CSO of ManageOps

ManageOps, based near Seattle, WA, is a Cloud Services provider with expertise in cloud solutions based on Microsoft, Citrix and other technologies.  Sold mainly through channel partners, the ManageOps cloud platform is stable, secure, scalable, and flexible enough to meet the needs of businesses of all sizes.  ManageOps works to earn the respect and trust of partners and clients by providing creative technology solutions with friendly and accessible customer support. Learn more at www.ManageOps.com.

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If you would like more information about this topic, please contact Laura Gorcester at 425.939.2704 or email at Laura.Gorcester@www.manage-ops.com.

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On Monday afternoon, I walked by the beautiful 3 story atrium and into the conference center attached to the Westin Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, FL. It was torturous. After experiencing a March in Seattle which had 3x the normal amount of rain, I was so excited to see the beautiful blue sky and feel the 70 degree temperatures. And it was just a few feet beyond me as I walked down the long hallway to the Conference Center.

Minutes later, I headed into my first session titled “Effective Executive Leadership Skills” led by Gary Beechum of SPC International. If you haven’t met Gary, you really should. He’s no-nonsense, direct, inspirational and articulate. He often references he time in the military and even uses some of the tools he picked-up while in the Army in his presentation. I definitely learned some things to bring back to our Leadership Team. One of the best parts of his presentation was the 14 Traits of Leaders.

At the reception that followed our classroom sessions I met a ton of new people. Many were from across the country and wanted to work with a firm like ManageOps, and some who wanted to partner with us to deliver new bundles to customers. Our story really resonated with the attendees. There are a number of MSPs looking for a white-labeled cloud offering, and people would actually overhear my conversation and ask me for a card. I think one of the great benefits of this conference was since it was focused on “cloud” there weren’t MSPs who didn’t have any idea about how they were going to deliver cloud services. Many had come to the conclusion that they would rather hire-out a solid cloud vendor instead of re-invent the wheel and build their own hardware. Our story was like music to their ears. And we’ve even written about it recently here.

All-in-all, the first day of the conference has been so valuable that I’m excited not only for the rest of the conference, but for working more closely with Ingram Micro over the coming months.

Karl Burns

I have worked hundreds of trade shows in my career and my judge for a successful show is typically how many potential customers attend and their interest in the products and services on display. When I arrived at ICS West around 11am Wednesday, and saw the line to registration would easily take up the length of an NFL football field, I knew this had the makings of a great show. I was at the show with Mike Fraser of VDI Space and we decided to grab a quick bite and come back to registration in an hour. That proved to be a wise move as the registration area was empty and we breezed through registration.

When we got up to the show floor it was quite a spectacle! The Sands Convention Center is huge at over 2 million square feet and there was a virtual metropolis of booths some big enough to run a business in, and of course business was what was going on all around us! Mike and I met up with his business partner Christian Petrou and set off to visit some exhibitors we know.

First stop was Mobotix a German based company  that Christian and Mike work with who specializes in high resolution network camera technology. Mobotix was showing off their high-res video and slick easy to use touch displays for access control.

Next stop was Entertech Systems the market leader of Biometric Access Management and Time & Attendance “cloud” and “on premise” systems across North America. Entertech offers a “Template In The Cloud” service. Entertech is the North America agent for Suprema Inc.’s  family of readers (finger, face, card & PIN),

Another stop had us in the Nedap booth. Nedap Indentification Systems are famous for their uPass Vehicle Identification products and other impressive hardware.

ICS West is a must see if you are involved in the Access control industry, I look forward to next years show!

Scott Gorcester