BITSoftware / Blog

From Government departments through small local companies, information can be extremely valuable to organizations. However, this useful information often ends up trapped in files or databases, inaccessible to the average employee or user. Also, the explosion of information stored in multiple formats that needs to be accessed by both internal staff and a distributed workforce (dealers, vendors, etc) only complicates the problem. The need for organizations to quickly respond to market changes, innovate, and accelerate their time to market increased in direct proportion to their structural complexity. So, it’s no wonder that 39% of a knowledge worker’s time is wasted on searching for information or recreating existing content.

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

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