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The Cloud and the Risks for the Modern Practice

David Watson

Summary• Over 1500 Users+ • Over 150 Firms • Based in the South West of the UK • Three - Tier Three Data centres • Replicated Hardware • Totally Focused on Accountancy sector • Managed by IT Professionals…

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Hosted Accountants

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Benefits

• Why even consider moving to Cloud? • Honestly, Where are you now?

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Benefits

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Benefits• Where are you now?

– Flood – Fire – Backup

• Hardware Failure • Backup

– Restore – Bare Metal Rebuild

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Benefits• Tier Three Data Centre

– Double Everything • Power • Comms • Infrastructure

– 24 x 7 Support • Multiple Access Points • No Single point of failure

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Benefits

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Stringent environmental controls N+1 HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, Air conditioning and Cooling) systems VESDA® air-sampling smoke detection system Inergen® gaseous fire suppression Raised heavy duty flooring Under floor leak detection

Resilient power supply

UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) Independent PDUs (Power Distribution Units) Dual utility power feeds from separate substations On site diesel generator

Highly secure data centre and suites

24/7 CCTV and access control BMS (Building Management System) Engineer accompanied access

Shades of RAID• RAID

– Level 5 Redundancy - Latency – Level 6 Better Redundancy - Lower

Performance – Level 10 Speed – Best Performance , Lowest Risk

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Benefits• Cash flow • Flexibility • Updates • Remote Access • Like Lego !

• Allows you to run your business, not your IT

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Risks• Control • Single Point of Failure • Choice of Partner • Data Protection • Security • Speed

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Typical Costs• Pricing structures

– Per User, Per Month, – Some Setup Costs – More for lots of data – Extras for support options

• Flexible Contracts • Bespoke

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Cloud Journey• Seven Steps

– Scope – Planning – Implementation – Pilot – UAT – Final Data Cut – Go Live

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Free Trial