Sage Summit 2012: Cloud Computing for Accountants

What Nonprofits and Governments need to know about “The Cloud”

CPE Credit • In order to receive CPE credit for this session, you must be present for

the entire session. – Session Code: C-0365B – Recommended CPE Credit = 1 – Delivery Method = Group Live – Field of Study = Specialized Knowledge and Applications

• Visit the Sage Summit Connect kiosks to enter CPE credit during the conference.

Your Partner in Dialogue

Grant Howe • Vice President of R&D w/Sage

• 15+ years in Software Development

• Favorite food: Italian (anything with Alfredo sauce)

• @geekbyte if you want to tweet nice things

• @darthvader if you want to use the dark side

Confused by “weather” or not to go to the cloud? You're not alone!

A Cloud Primer

• What is the Cloud?

• Where is my server?

• What is virtualization?

• What is metered use?

• Why should I care?

Everyone Is Talking About It

What is the Cloud?

• Shared computing resources across many virtualized servers

• Gains economy of scale by sharing those resources

• Benefits: – Scalability, flexibility, and

fault tolerance

Where is my server?

• You just can’t hug a cloud server

Example of “blackbox” server

Image courtesy of tomshardware.com

“I am the cloud” Inside a server container

Where is my server?

“Trailer Park” Roofless Cloud Datacenter Concept

Image courtesy of tomshardware.com

Container o’ servers!

WHAT IS VIRTUALIZATION Cloud Primer

Before Virtualization • 1:1 relationship

between servers / hardware

• Memory / disk space / CPU tied to single server

• Lots of servers….

• Lots of wasted resources…

After Virtualization • Many:1 relationship between servers / hardware

• Memory / disk space / CPU shared across sets of servers

• Fewer and bigger servers to manage….

• Resource optimization…

• Dell PowerEdge Blade Enclosure

• 16 Hardware “blades” • Up to 8 CPU “cores” each

• Its possible to run 128 servers

in several square feet of space…..

What Magic is this?

• How do we fool many servers in to using the same hardware?

• How do we assure they play nice and the resources are allocated appropriately?

• Introducing the magic of the “Hyper-Visor”

What is a Hyper-Visor • A thin layer of magic software paint

• Fools the operating system (Windows, etc.)

• Manages allocation of resources

• Manages fault tolerance

• Provides a management interface to create and manage virtual servers

Magic Paint ->

How did we get to Cloud from Virtualization? • Traditional virtualization still required in house

servers

• People saw the value of having more small servers

• We all began buying bigger hardware

• But the number of virtual servers skyrocketed….

• So we bought more hardware....

• A vicious cycle!

• Now we have more hardware than ever before to manage and its even more critical than it used to be!

Server sprawl, you will!

The Cloud is Born • Amazon had built their own Private massive

virtualized environment

• They figured out how to build a massive hypervisor network that spanned their data centers

• It was a key business need for their growth to be able to scale quickly and efficiently on a massive scale

• Whoa, we could “rent” our computing power to other companies! $$$$$

• Amazon EC2 and S3 were born as metered use offerings to the general Public

The Cloud is Born

PRIVATE CLOUD Different Types of Clouds

Private Clouds • Pool of resources that are solely yours to allocate

• Most like the “Family Plan” we all know – No one outside your family can share that pool of minutes, but

you don’t get to use more than your total pool of minutes.

• Best for: servers that have stable resource usage

• Can be expensive if not fully utilizing resources

Private Cloud Providers

• Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)

• Offer dedicated hardware

• Sage Nonprofit partners with Rackspace on Sage Nonprofit Online

PUBLIC CLOUD Different Types of Clouds

Public Clouds • Shared resources and/or bandwidth

• Like a phone plan where you share minutes with your entire city, a “Neighborhood Plan”

• Best for: when you need to scale internet facing servers, like web servers

• Pay premium for flexibility and burst capacity

• Example: “The Oprah Effect”

Public Cloud Providers • Infrastructure as a service

(IaaS)

• Platform as a Service (PaaS)

• Shared hardware only

• Saleslogix and Sage One hosted on Amazon EC2

• Watch for new Sage offerings on Windows Azure

HYBRID CLOUD Different Types of Clouds

Hybrid Clouds • Creating a link between both a Public and Private Cloud so

they can work together

• If you could have a “Family Plan” and “Neighborhood Plan” on your phone and choose to which plan to charge the minutes – You could be more conservative with your dedicated minutes and

more generous with the shared ones.

• Best for: when you need to scale some services (web, fundraising) but not others (reporting, backend database)

• “Buy the base, rent the spike”

NOW FOR SOME ACCOUNTING!

Accounting in the Cloud

What are my options?

• Managed, hosted applications

• Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

• Licensed vs. subscription solutions

• Flexibility and choice

HOSTED APPLICATIONS Accounting in The Cloud: What are the options?

Hosted applications in the cloud

Pros • Offers remote access via

the web

• Eliminates need to have in-house servers

• Updates and backups managed by the provider automatically

• Cloud-based data protected from local server crashes, fire or flood disasters

Cons • Many hosted application

providers require you to own the software license up front and don’t offer subscription pricing

SOFTWARE-AS-A-SERVICE (SAAS)

Accounting in The Cloud: What are the options?

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

Pros • Generally offered to

customers by the software developer

• Almost always web-based

• Constantly evolve and add new features

Cons • Many SaaS providers

only offer subscription with no option for purchasing a license

• No ability to access data if discontinue subscription – Be sure to understand the

potential costs of future data conversion if you need to migrate to another solution

LICENSED VS. SUBSCRIPTION SOLUTIONS

Accounting in The Cloud: What are the options?

Licensed vs. Subscription Licensed solutions • May require a larger up-

front cost

• Retain ownership of the software license asset – Choose to install it in any

compatible environment you choose

Subscription pricing • Predictable, regular

expense schedule

• Attractive for organizations with a low tolerance for unexpected IT costs or large capital purchases

Example: Buy or lease a new car

FLEXIBILITY AND CHOICE Accounting in The Cloud: What are the options?

Flexibility and choice • Look for solutions that offer the best of both worlds:

– Hosted and accessed remotely online – Installed locally on your own server

• Select your system first – Then choose implementation that work best for your

organization

• Needs grow and change – Options to change your implementation in the future—without

the expense of having to switch your core accounting system

BEFORE YOU FLY… Top questions to consider before you implement

Questions to ask yourself

• What application(s) do we need hosted?

• How do these applications interact with us and other applications?

• How many man hours are spent each month maintaining servers, workstations, connectivity, software updates?

• Have we ever lost data?

• Do our users need remote access when working from home or traveling?

• What type of compliance do we need? (PCI, HIPAA, etc…)

IS SAGE NONPROFIT IN THE CLOUD?

www.SageNonprofit.com/SageNonprofitOnline

QUESTIONS / DISCUSSION

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• Session code for this session: C-0365B

Contact Us • Presenter Contact Information:

– Grant Howe – grant.howe@sage.com – @geekbyte

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Thank you for your participation.