This is a 20 person firm and Lacerte’s slow death of DMS was the final nail in the coffin. It has to happen this off season.
They already utilize CCH for PM and Engagement, so I think that is the way things will fall. I’ve been pretty happy with CCH support for the software they currently use. I haven’t gotten to sit in on any webinar yet, but CCH is really pushing the client to only consider the cloud offering. I don’t really get why there is the huge push from accounting LOBs to ditch the on premise. Even with on premise they get yearly recurring software license fees. I know they promise roses and eternal bliss, but I’d like to see them actually do a data conversion to see how well that actually works. I’m working on a list of questions and concerns that need to be addressed at the next meeting. Bill From: Jonathan Link [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2014 8:29 PM To: Bill Humphries Subject: Re: [NTSysADM] I'm sure you've heard already... I wanted to come back to this after basically saying indeed, in response to seeing the security or lack thereof. I work for a 40 person accounting firm, and I saw you're assisting with a move from Lacerte. I can't speak to that migration, but we are in the beginning phases of assessing cloud providers and moving our operations to the cloud. We probably won't be doing it anytime soon, but we're going to do a bunch of due diligence here and TCO comparisons. One of the things to be cognizant is vendor lock in that comes with going with Thomson's or CCH's cloud offerings. From what I've seen, getting access to the underlying data is something of a challenge and unknown quantity, so switching to a different provider at a later date may become cost prohibitive. We are a Thomson, UltraTax shop, but last summer evaluated the CCH Tax offering again. On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 11:42 PM, Bill Humphries <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: I have an accounting firm that is ditching Lacerte and all the other vendors are pushing nothing but cloud options at them. Most of the security talk has been "let us tell you how the datacenter is secured." No talk of real factors such as how passwords stored, multifactor authentication availability, backing up your own data, etc. One of the vendors did provide a couple of PDFs for security. One sheet was like a SAS 70 checklist with a blurb stating we have a policy for this for each section. The other PDF was outlining the IBM datacenter they use and that IBM maintains their security and backups. The one interesting thing in that is that they claim that all the backups are through Tivoli to tape and then cloned for offsite storage. That is a lot of tape. Bill -----Original Message----- From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] On Behalf Of Susan Bradley Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2014 10:49 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: [NTSysADM] I'm sure you've heard already... I just called up my cable company to reconfigure my ever increasing cable bill and renegotiated the costs. So the idea that cloud services has a defined cost structure I would debate on. My personal experience in all cloud services is that some have gone up, some have gone down. :-) As the premise options become a. more expensive b. less attractive and quite frankly as we dinosaurs age out/retire/the youngsters that only use Google apps take over/ this will all change. No one here is not saying all of this is not happening, I'm just not willing to accept some of the ideas that the vendors provide are the key advantages. It's an advantage for them for sure. As the vendors themselves stop developing premises based software - (and this is the key movement I see in the SMB space) - because it's cheaper for them (less support for us pesky desktops with lord knows how many versions of OS), easier for them to build the infrastructure where they want it, and better for them as they can plan on the revenue subscription model. As Rod said, it's the app model taking over. It is what it is. All of us will deal. But outsourcing isn't always best for a firm (ask the NSA and their outsourced admin Snowden) and has it's risks as well as the benefits that shouldn't be overlooked. Ask the hard questions of the vendors and don't just click through those eulas (as we in small biz do). Ask who has the encryption keys, etc etc. (spreadsheets from the cloud security alliance as examples) https://downloads.cloudsecurityalliance.org/initiatives/ccm/ccm-v3.0.1.zip https://downloads.cloudsecurityalliance.org/initiatives/cai/caiq-v3.0.1.zip Many of the vendors are still putting in place key elements and still fighting jurisdictional issues. (Examples: http://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2014/06/04/unfinished-business-on-government-surveillance-reform/ http://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2014/07/01/advancing-our-encryption-and-transparency-efforts/ Susan Bradley Meet up with me, Amy, Philip and Jeremy at the Brain Explosion in Florida this September. I'll be talking about protecting your network http://www.thirdtier.net/brain-explosion/ On 7/22/2014 6:47 PM, Ken Schaefer wrote: > > I s*trongly* urge the guys (and gals) on the list that think like the > previous post to take a step back, and ask yourself “why are these > cloud providers becoming popular?” This is a bit of a long post, but > bear with me – but it might help shape your future career. > > For large enterprises, we went to outsourcers a long time ago – MSPs > also had some limited penetration in the SME market. But traditional > outsourcing involves a fair amount of vendor management overhead, so > it was significant barriers for SMEs (and even large organisations). > Despite these costs and barriers, people still outsourced. Why? > > There’s only a single reason IME. > > Look in any ITSM framework (ITIL is the obvious candidate here), and > you’ll see a section in Service Architecture called “Financial > Management” – how do develop business services that provide value > whilst also being profitable (or at least, break-even). In many > organisations, due to the thinking in some of the posts in this > thread, it was impossible to quantify the actual cost of IT. Consider > the very simple financial model below. It doesn’t even have a service > catalogue – it just attributes general ledger costs (actual cash > outgoing) back to business units. *Most organisations had IT units > that were incapable of figuring this out*. > > Instead, IT is simply see as a sinkhole of random requests for money – > need to replace the SAN. Need to replace a server. Need to buy some > network bandwidth. But what’s the **value** provided by that kit? What > applications is that kit supporting – is the app bringing in $1m > running on $2m of expenses? What business units are consuming this > expense? Can they justify the bills being spent by IT to support them? > > **THS** is why outsourcing (and now Cloud) is popular. *Cloud gives a > very defined set of services, for a very defined set of costs* (and > it’s also OPEX to boot – which is usually a bonus). A business can see > how much a printed page is costing, or 1GHz of CPU or 1GB of mailbox > storage, or 1 CRM user. All the licensing, hardware, labour, network, > IT service management etc. is wrapped up into a single $x/month, and > it comes in a nice service catalogue format. > > Certainly this is more of an issue for larger enterprises today, than > it is for smaller companies. But as the barriers to engaging an > external provider continue to fall (and they will), it will become > more and more attractive to all parties. Companies **will** buy IT > services just like they buy marketing, legal, utilities, property > management and cleaning services today. > > **If** your IT BU can get ahead of the game, and turn itself into an > actual IT Service Provider (and reading something like ITIL Service > Architecture and Service Design books is essential here, IMHO), then > you stand a chance of still providing IT services internally. If not, > then it will simply become too attractive to go with an external > provider, and just buy commodity IT services from an external IT > Service Provider. > > This is just the top of the iceberg, and I’m happy to elaborate if > there’s any genuine interest in the topic. I have seen a reasonable > amount of moaning about “the cloud” on the list though, and a bit of a > failure to understand why it’s popular. The drivers above are not > going to change – they are just going to increase. So, as IT folk, we > can either ride the wave, or get dumped on the beach. I know which I’d > rather prefer, even if it isn’t the career I anticipated when I > started out. Hopefully the above gives you a bit of visibility into > one facet of what IT architecture involves JFiguring out how we do the > above is one facet of working as a service management architect (if > that’s a route you choose to go down). > > Cheers > > Ken > > *From:*[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> > [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] > *On Behalf Of *J- P > *Sent:* Wednesday, 23 July 2014 11:06 AM > *To:* NT > *Subject:* RE: [NTSysADM] I'm sure you've heard already... > > a) 200 per month to manage > b) storage, minimal as its SQL based and the database compresses at > roughly 90% (again this is one particular case) DB is <1GB , post > compression less than 100mb > c) host was already pre-existing , so the hardware was already in > place , and under warranty, and i normally add extend support once the > initial 3yr 5x9 expires > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > -- > > From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> > To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> > Subject: RE: [NTSysADM] I'm sure you've heard already... > Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 00:48:47 +0000 > > a)How much is that host (and associated network equipment, storage, > security appliances etc.) depreciating per month? > > b)What the additional management overhead of another VM? (backup > space, DR testing, ongoing patching, new outage windows) > > It’s never as simply as “just add another VM”, otherwise running > 100,000 VMs would cost just as much as 1 VM > > *From:*[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> > [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] > *On Behalf Of *J- P > *Sent:* Wednesday, 23 July 2014 10:17 AM > *To:* [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> > *Subject:* RE: [NTSysADM] I'm sure you've heard already... > > I was referring to the vendors cloud , i.e. "we'll host our XYZ > software on our servers/cloud for you" thus giving management the > illusion that it's more cost effective , no hardware to maintain, no > "outages" , no IT cost etc.. > > They don't take into account "well based on users and modules, it will > be 900 per month" > > When in reality , just add a VM guest to an already existing host and > voila > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > -- > > From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> > To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [NTSysADM] I'm sure you've heard already... > Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 23:57:32 +0000 > > That's becoming less of an issue. You can now create your own local > server and app images and upload them to Azure to run in a VM of your > creation. Eliminates the compatibility issues. > > Sent from my Surface Pro 3 > > *From:*J- P <mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> > *Sent:* Tuesday, July 22, 2014 6:49 PM > *To:* '[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>' > <mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> > > At one non-profit I work for , when upgrading/updating to latest > accounting application version , the salesperson himself said > > "based on the amount of modules you use, you would be wise to host in > on premise" > > > > > > Jean-Paul Natola > > > Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 14:23:53 -0700 > > From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> > > To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> > > Subject: Re: [NTSysADM] I'm sure you've heard already... > > > > I still have a fair bit of line of business apps that aren't in the > > cloud (granted that's a yet) and if that vendor moves to the cloud > > it's highly unlikely to be in Microsoft's cloud. > > > > Meanwhile back at the cloud we pick really sucky passwords and we > > are not solving the access problems of divergent cloud vendors. > > > > Small businesses that are just starting out may be more Google apps > > ready than Microsoft cloud ready. > > > > > > Susan Bradley > > Meet up with me, Amy, Philip and Jeremy at the Brain Explosion in > Florida this September. I'll be talking about protecting your network > > http://www.thirdtier.net/brain-explosion/ > > > > On 7/22/2014 2:16 PM, Rod Trent wrote: > > > The Cloud is all about small business - at least from Microsoft's > perspective. >
