To help those organizations to discover information that previously were not „findable”, Google developed Google Search Appliance (GSA). With its ability to search for information stored in over 220 file types across multiple enterprise systems (CRM, ERP, financials system, business intelligence systems, Google Docs, Google Sites, graphic file format, etc), GSA is a relatively simple, highly scalable intranet search solution that has brought universal search capabilities to several different organizations.

Using Google Search Appliance, your company can increase employees productivity by making it easy for them to find what they’re looking for, when they need it. Also, it can improve customer satisfaction by providing fast, reliable search results and seamlessly integrating with common contact center applications. GSA can also reduce administration time, because some of the more powerful features are available right out of the box, so less time and resources are spent implementing a world-class enterprise search solution.

But this is not all. Because in the last years, more and more companies started using cloud-based applications from Google (more than four million businesses already run Google Apps), Google Search Appliance got a new feature, Cloud Connect, which lets employees search across on-premise and cloud-based content from a single search box, delivering more comprehensive results and improving productivity.

Cloud Connect displays relevant, personalized results from Google Docs and Google Sites alongside results from more traditional repositories, like file shares and content management systems. Easier access to collaborative documents, spreadsheets, presentations and sites with Cloud Connect speeds up how quickly coworkers can complete projects. For companies that already deployed Google Apps and Google Search Appliance, the Cloud Connect feature brings “universal search” to another level, with more accessible business systems and content now spanning from cloud to ground.

As you move your business to the cloud, Google Search Appliance can be an important bridge between on-premise and cloud-based systems, while enhancing employee collaboration and strengthens your company`s ability to access and disseminate organizational knowledge.

Sources: google.com/enterprise, Google Official Blog, Computer World, PC World

Now, Gmail business customers get a huge help. Because Google launched a new feature for Google Apps for Business, Google Vault. Vault is an easy-to-use and cost-effective solution for managing information critical to your business and preserving important data. This new app can reduce the costs of litigation, regulatory investigation and compliance actions. And lets IT staff make sure that all relevant emails are stored forever, then gives them an easy way to search those emails. Vault helps protect your business so you can quickly find and preserve data to respond to unexpected customer claims, lawsuits or investigations, with an instant-on functionality and availability of your data a few clicks away. With Vault, you will find the information you need, when you need it.

Vault also lets IT staff set policies for when an email should be deleted. For instance, when an employee leaves the company, Vault could be set to automatically delete all emails to and from that employee within 90 days. That could be useful because Gmail (unlike traditional email systems) is designed to store everything forever.

Moreover, Vault gives management, IT, legal and compliance users a systemized, repeatable and defensible platform that will reduce the costs and risks of doing business.

Vault is built on the same modern, 100% web-based architecture as Google Apps. Unlike traditional solutions, it does not require a complex and costly IT environment, and can be deployed in a matter of minutes. For start, the new feature for Google Apps for Business works with Gmail and Google Chat sessions, but not over long time it will work with other data in Apps, like documents stored in GDocs, as Google`s officials said.

Sources: Google Official Blog, Business Insider, Wikipedia, Google Apps

When it comes to the cost of the cloud, it is important to analyze all cloud`s models:  Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). Those three different service models for the delivery of cloud computing provide companies with the ability to mix and match the best service model to the business needs of their organization, based on requirements and payment options and depending on the vertical industry and specific applications portfolio.

Then choose the model or combination of models that offers you the most benefits at the lowest cost. Because each model has its own costs, based on a various factors, from storage space needed to monthly traffic. To arrive at a total pricing for a cloud service, user organizations must take note of individual service elements that a provider bills for and how these are calculated. For instance, does the provider bill based on within server traffic, storage space needed, server CPU time or a combination of these factors along with other elements?

Another important factor in determining the total cost is the type of service required: dedicated server to running applications in the cloud, cloud-based backup or basic hosted storage. The easiest way to break down pricing is to focus on the primary services offered, because most cloud providers split their services into three areas: servers in the cloud, storage in the cloud, sites and applications in the cloud.

You must know that there are two pricing models for cloud computing services: pay as you use or subscription based pricing. Under first pricing model, customers are charged based on their usage and consumption of a service. This pricing structure makes users fully aware of the cost of doing business and consuming a resource, since the cost comes out of their pockets, or, in the enterprise world, their own budgets. The second model is the simplest pricing option, where the customer is billed on a fixed monthly basis. For example, a virtual machine can be offered at a fixed cost per month. The consumer is billed the same amount every month without consideration for actual usage.

To determine a pricing model that provides profit to a company that uses cloud services, it is necessary to know the direct and indirect costs of providing these services. Costs can be initial or ongoing. Initial costs, also known as capital expenditures, or CapEx, include the costs to acquire assets such as hardware and facilities (power and cooling infrastructure, server, network, and storage hardware, software licenses, including operating system and application software, cables, etc). Ongoing costs (OpEx) include all costs for keeping the business or facility running, such as: payroll, facilities, hardware and software maintenance, backend cost, etc.

When you calculate the monthly cost for cloud computing deployment, you must take into account both capital and operational expenditures. For capital expense cost items, the cost of each item needs to be amortized over the life of the item. By combining the OpEx with CapEx, the total monthly costs of the cloud deployment can be determined.

If you have a limited budget, work with projects or cannot predict which resources you’ll need over a longer period, then you choose “the pay as you use” pricing model. If you require more control over the hosting budget and want to use the cloud for a longer period, you must choose the subscription based pricing.

Sources: Cloud Spend Management, Google Tools, ComputerWorld, PC World, Cloud Tweak, Cisco Systems

As I already said in a previous post, there are a number of questions that show up frequently enough regarding the cloud computing and the switch to cloud. And the decision to migrate or not to cloud solutions hangs often by the answers to those questions.

The first question is „What is the true meaning of the Cloud?”. As with any major technology transformation, there are many definitions of cloud computing. In very simple terms, cloud computing is a new consumption and delivery model for information technology (IT) and business services that is characterized by: on-demand self-service, location independent resource pooling, rapid horizontal and vertical scaling, pay-per-use. And the exciting impact comes from enabling new service consumption and delivery models that support business model innovation.

The second is „What applications should I move to the cloud and what changes to my network do I have to make to use Cloud?” A wide variety of applications are good candidates to be moved to the cloud.  Legacy applications are certainly great candidates for offloading from your internal data centers. Web servers and web applications like SharePoint, .NET, Drupal, WordPress, Blogspot, Wikis, corporate intranets are all good candidates. As most cloud`experts said, when selecting applications for the cloud you need to be aware of the distance between the data center and the cloud region you’ve selected. According to Forrester Research, the changes to a company network are minimals. Because we taking about an outbound traffic only, nothing inbound. Therefore are no changes to your network configurations.

„How can I implement the Cloud computing security?” is the third question that show up frequently. When an organization decides to move to the cloud, it must first determine its foundational controls which form the backbone of the company’s security principles. Plans must be laid out in order to secure the company’s assets so that when the company subscribes to cloud computing, all the needed security controls must already be in place. Also, the company will have to be workload-focused instead of cloud-focused. When moving to the cloud, the organization must take into consideration each workload, so that it will be able to enforce a security program which is focused on the workload with a possibility to implement non-traditional security measures.

Now, having the answers for the most important questions asked before switching to the cloud, your decision related to adopting or not adopting cloud computing technology can be easily taken.

Sources: educause.eu, infoworld.com, ComputerWorld, Forrester Research