Eli the Computer Guy

Archive for the ‘Hosted Software Solutions’ Category

I have had to deal with the whole, "Who owns your data?" question for years due to many businesses using Internet based database web applications.  The companies that host these applications have a very streamlined process for turning the data my client currently has into a format that they can use.  Migrating the data back out of their application is not necessarily so easy.

Now that companies are trying to host EVERYTHING for their clients this is becoming a bigger issue.  I recently realized this when I went to download my documents out of Google Apps.  There was no simple procedure!  I ended up having to use a third party piece of software to mass download the documents that I had created.

Imagine the nightmare you could run into if you had ten, twenty, or one hundred employees using a hosted solution for your document storage!  In the past if you had a file server, and you wanted to migrate, you had to worry about time to transfer the data to a new system, and then maybe mess around with some permissions issues.  Now, with a hosted solution, you might be screwed.  Imagine individually downloading each and every important document.

Just something to think about.  I’m all for Hosted Solutions, but if you have a nasty provider it could cause major problems.

After migrating one of my clients to hosted Exchange and Backup solutions with very few problems I excitedly convinced another client to do the same.  With the first client I was very cautious in my implementation to make sure that nothing went wrong.  I first migrated them to MailTrust Hosted Exchange and then waited a few weeks to make sure there were no major issues.  There were a couple of minor problems, but nothing earth shattering.  Once I saw that Hosted Exchange worked fine I migrated them to Mozy Pro for an online backup solution.  Again this went off without a major problem.

Armed with this test case I went to my other client and performed the migration to MailTrust Hosted Exchange and Mozy online backup all in the same day.  And that’s when all hell broke loose. 

The fundamental problem is that both pieces of software require a large amount of data to be uploaded through the rather small DSL connection.  This does not effect Mozy Backup , but it devastates the Hosted Exchange.  Since there is so much congestion on the WAN connection the authorization process between the Outlook client and the Exchange server gets mucked up. For some reason at times the user will enter their Outlook password and it will not be accepted.  They will then keep entering the password trying to gain access, but due to the authorization failure they end up locking themselves out of the account.  In short it turns into a nightmarish cycle where the user enters there password, locks themselves out, and then can’t access Exchange.  And of course being users they continuously try this every 5 minutes for the rest of the day ensuring they will never break the lockout cycle.

The one solution I have found for the lockout problem is to tell the user that if Outlook does not accept their password that they should close Outlook entirely and then open it backup and try again.  This seems to at least keep them from locking themselves out of Exchange and usually gets them access.

My main piece of advice is just to only implement one hosted solution at a time.  Even with small clients (this is an office of 4 users) the upload demands can tax the entire system to the point of breaking.

Quickbooks now has an online version of it’s software.  I have seen it used and it seems pretty nice.  You get to have up to 3 concurrent users for $10 per month.  It has all the normal features that the Pro version does except it is missing Inventory control, PO’s and the ability to handle credit cards.  If this does not bother you then you should really think about this service.  You do not have to worry about losing your data it your PC dies, software does not have to be installed on your PC, and at $10 per month it’s about the same cost as if you purchase the regular version every year or two.

Check it out at oe.quickbooks.com/ .

As of this morning Eli the Computer Guy had made the transition to a non-Microsoft office.  I believe that Google Apps provides all of the services necessary for the average user at a fraction of the cost of Microsoft Office and without the nightmare in technical support problems.

We are currently alpha testing Google Apps and will provide a full review after we have been using it a few weeks in a production environment.

I believe that this will be one of the first steps in relegating Microsoft to being a small component of our software solutions and not the dominant player that it now is.

If you are interested in using Google Apps for your business you can check it out at http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/editions.html .

We will be offering migration consulting and services once we verify that everything works properly.

First Update:

To upload your current Outlook mail to Gmail use the Gmail Uploader Utility at  http://mail.google.com/mail/help/email_uploader.html .  This migrates all of your mail up to Gmail.

To Sync your Calendar and Contacts with a Microsoft Smart Phone follow these instructions: http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=138636&topic=14299 .

Second Update

Everything is working pretty well.  The Gmail Uploader Utility worked like a champ on all my guys computers.  We had absolutely no problems.

The Calendar and Contact Sync was a bit awkward to setup, but one it was up and running it works well.  My advice is to turn on the sync feature within Google a day before you try to setup your smart phone.  We had some problems because we thought we were messing up the smart phone configuration, and it was simply Google was taking its sweet time after I turned on the sync feature within the Domain Control Panel.

The first really frustrating down side is that you cannot wild card search within your email. (i.e. type in "bob" if you are trying to find emails from "billybobob".)  Not even the age old * does anything.

Our first small business migration to hosted Exchange has gone extraordinarily well. The client had a Windows Small Business Server 2003 with Blackberry Enterprise Server installed and we migrated them to MailTrust.com hosted Exchange with Blackberry Support.

Hosted Exchange is made possible by the fact that since Outlook 2003 Outlook has been able to connect to an Exchange Server using HTTPS. In 2008 Microsoft made available a Hosted version of Exchange for service providers. So now you sign up with a provider of Hosted Exchange, point your Outlook and Smart Phone at their server and you have all the functionality of Exchange and none of the headaches.

The process went so smoothly that I was able to migrate 13 users with computers and 5 Blackberries in under 5 hours at the client site. Essentially all you have to do is export their current email to a .pst file, run a configuration script on the computer and then import the .pst file into the new account on Outlook. To setup the Blackberries you simply wipe their handset and then use the Enterprise Activation to activate the phone.

The administration of the service is done through a simple web console, and you do not need any high level skills to set it up. If you need to add a user, or increase the size of a mailbox, you just click a few buttons and you’re done.

There are a number of Hosted Exchange options out there. The 2 we recommend to our clients are MailTrust.com and 1and1.com.

1and1.com is very inexpensive at $6.99 per mailbox. We have used them for web hosting and POP3 email and have been very happy with them over the years.

MailTrust.com is a bit more expensive, but they support Blackberry Enterprise which 1and1.com does not. Mailtrust.com runs $12.50 per regular mailbox and $22.50 per Mailbox with Blackberry Phone.

Both services support Microsoft’s ActiveSync for Smart Phones with no additional fees. Additionally both services give you a license to download a copy of Outlook 2007.

Unless you are a company that is large enough to have your own full time technicians you will find Hosted Exchange is a more economical solution then having your own Exchange  Server. When I ran the numbers I figured it would take 3-4 years for the Hosted Exchange to come to the same price as if you purchased your own server. BUT you do not have to worry about your server crashing if you use the hosted service, and when it comes time to upgrade it will be much easier/ cheaper to do with a hosted option.

I feel so confident in hosted solutions that my company will no longer actively sell servers to clients. Although the profit margins are much better for installing servers I cannot honestly tell any of my clients that it’s a good idea.

Please remember when deciding on which provider to go with that cheap is not necessarily a good thing. Hosted Exchange may look simple from where you sit, but the back end of it is extraordinarily complicated. Make sure that you purchase service from a company that has been around a few years, and does not seem like a fly by night operation.