The Mythical, Magical Cloud By Kate Frasure, Customer Development Manager

I was standing in Verizon Wireless the other day to upgrade my phone. The salesman I was working with was describing to me the process of transferring the data from my current phone to the new one via the cloud back-up.

When I started to speak, I noticed my hand made a gesture as if I was talking about a physical ‘cloud’ in the sky. It’s amazing how the branding of essentially data that is just located in a big data center, offsite, has been made to appear more like a mythical, magical world where our data lives.

As one of our engineers pointed out to me, ‘the cloud’ has been around longer than you may think. If you ever setup a Hotmail or Yahoo email account, or even if you have a Gmail account today, you are utilizing the cloud for your mail because the email data is housed on a server in a datacenter somewhere in the United States.

Of course today, it is not just email anymore. You can now setup your entire business network infrastructure in the cloud and not only that, there are various services you can choose from. So who should you choose?

Unfortunately, there is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Each service offers you a variety of options and it is up to you to determine which mix of services best fits your business needs.

Lucky for you, we have put together a quick side-by-side comparison to help you get started. While there may be a variety of options out there, we decided to look at three of the most well-known, Amazon Web Service (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

	Amazon Web Service (AWS)	Microsoft Azure	Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
Year entered market	2006	2010	2014
Hours of downtime in 2014	2.69 hours	50.74 hours	Under 5 hours
Linux OS Support	Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Fedora Ubuntu CentOS Linux SUSE Linux (SLES and openSUSE) Enterprise	Canonical Ubuntu CentOS by OpenLogic CoreOS Oracle Linux SUSE Linux Enterprise openSUSE	Not currently available
Pricing & Models*	Per hour – rounded up On demand, reserved, spot	Per minute – rounded up commitments (pre-paid or monthly) On demand – short term commitments (pre-paid or monthly)	Per minute – rounded up (10 minute minimum) On demand – sustained use
Compliance	GovCloud – meets ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations), HIPAA, SOC 1-3, ISO 27001, FIPS 140-2 compliant endpoints, etc.	Azure Government – still very new
Pros	Scalability Auto-scaling offered at additional cost through CloudWatch Large partner ecosystem, having been in the market the longest Larger offering of third-party applications Archiving capability through Glacier	Seamless integration for heavily invested Microsoft users More modern, familiar and easy to use interface for those familiar with Windows Vast hybrid capabilities Primarily targets PaaS** Single sign-on (SSO) option for many applications	Better networking, with each instance living on its own network Instant auto-scaling for no additional cost Data storage and analytic tool capabilities
Cons	Requires cloud architecture knowledge	Has experienced significantly more downtime than AWS and GCP in the last year Not as much support for Linux, especially Red Hat	Not as geographically widespread Not as many offerings

*Pricing Models: on demand – customers pay for what they use without any upfront cost; reserved – customers reserve instances for 1 or 3 years with an upfront cost that is based on the utilization; spot – customers bid for the extra capacity available

**PaaS (Platform as a service): Vendor provides the infrastructure and an application development platform that generally includes the operating system, database and web server. Customers managed only their applications.

About the author:
Kate Frasure is a Texas-born, Colorado-raised project manager. In her role as Customer Development Manager at Managed Solution, she oversees the process of bringing new clients on board and various other IT projects. Her diverse communications background and attention-to-detail contribute to her passion to improve processes to see businesses succeed. She is continuously looking to find the organization and flow that accompanies a streamlined business.

• Leveraging Technology in the Classroom

• Building a Relationship to Last: The On Boarding Process

• What Your Business Continuity Strategy is Missing

• Guide to Mobile Device Management Software Options

Microsoft will sponsor Dale Earnhardt Jr. for two upcoming races this season, including Sunday's road-course race at Sonoma Raceway, as part of a technology partnership with Hendrick Motorsports.

Both NASCAR and Hendrick Motorsports will adopt the Windows 10 platform and Microsoft Azure to deliver technology solutions to help improve performance on and off the track.

“NASCAR and Hendrick Motorsports are perpetual innovators in motorsports,” Steve Guggenheimer, a Microsoft vice president, said in a news release. “This sport demands constant innovation, to have its boundaries pushed, so that the sport delivers the exciting experiences expected by fans."

NASCAR's 12-time most popular driver will also don the Microsoft colors for the Aug. 2 race at Pocono.

“I’m a big technology user and really enjoy Microsoft products,” Earnhardt said in a release. “Kicking off the Hendrick Motorsports relationship with Windows 10 is a unique opportunity, and there’s no doubt our ongoing technical partnership will help us raise the bar in many areas. It’s great to see Microsoft is having such a positive experience with NASCAR and wants to do more across the sport. We’re excited to be a part of that.”

“The One Thing”: Executing a Successful Migration to Office 365 - By Jeff Lizerbram, MCSA, Solutions Architect

When it comes to the topics of self-improvement and time-management, I am a bookworm. My latest favorite is by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan entitled “The One Thing: The surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results” (look for it on Amazon.com). In a nutshell, the authors guide the reader through small actions that can make a huge impact. Whether it relates to business, finance, personal life or other goals, it seems to be a method that all successful individuals use, but up until recently, it has never been really articulated on HOW they use it. Well, lately, I have been putting this mindset to the test, and during some recent Office 365 migrations that I have had the opportunity to lead, it seems The One Thing mantra has led to more seamless implementations than ever before. I wanted to take this opportunity to write about how I use The One Thing to successfully execute an Office 365 migration for large enterprises.

The authors of the book explain that the core to “The One Thing” is by asking yourself a question: “What is the ONE thing I can do, such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?” Using this question, and relating it to the task at hand, I was able to put together an Office 365 migration plan that was efficient, effective and helped an organization get from point A to point B with minimal effort in reduced time. And as an added bonus, the plan became a template that could be used for many other projects down the line.

Migrating an organization to Office 365 can seem like a daunting task – especially if the organization involves thousands of users, thousands more of shared and resource mailboxes, and hundreds of thousands of documents that need to be transitioned to OneDrive for Business. Asking the question “What is the ONE thing I can do to migrate [your company name here] to Office 365 such by doing it, everything else will become easier or unnecessary?”, it became evident the tasks that needed to be put in place, and in priority. And given a definitive time window to complete the project (let’s say 3 months), the question can be broken down even further to help prioritize the One thing that needs to be done at any given time:

“What is the One thing I can do this quarter?”
“What is the One thing I can do this month?”
“What is the One thing I can do this week?”
“What is the One thing I can do TODAY?
...that by doing it, everything else will become easier or unnecessary?”

Thinking through the project this way allows me to prioritize what is needed to Plan, Prepare and Migrate to Office 365. For example, the one thing I can do this Quarter is have my project plan signed-off, and on-time. This Month’s One Thing might be to complete fully accurate end-user and administrator documentation, so my customer has the information to execute and support their users after the migration is completed. This week’s One Thing might be to establish the end-point Office 365 connectors so that I can test and pilot Email and File migrations to Office 365. Today’s one thing is to gather all of the administrator accounts necessary to setup the environment – if you think about it, just having the login credentials necessary makes everything else easier, doesn’t it?

So with this mindset, I’m off to do another Office 365 migration. I hope this helps, not only for other Office 365 Solution architects out there, but perhaps for people in general as a way to organize life!

About the author:
Jeff Lizerbram has over 20 years of experience working in the information technology field. As a solutions architect for Managed Solution, with an emphasis on Microsoft Cloud products, Jeff contributes strong technical expertise designing and implementing scopes of work including migrating Email, SharePoint, local file storage and Skype for Business services, as well as other critical business systems, from on-premise or other hosted platforms to Microsoft’s Office 365. Jeff is actively planning and designing projects, writes technical as well as end user facing instructional guides, and trains staff and clients. When not working on projects or working with his Managed Solution team, Jeff loves spending time with his family and exploring the great San Diego outdoors.

Other blog posts by Jeff Lizerbram:

• 6 Ways to Fall In Love with Office 365

• Have a Happy Hybrid New Year! Hybrid Office 365

• The Case of Mistaken Microsoft Identity

• Still Paying for Mobile Device Management? Let Exchange ActiveSync Work for You.

• Batten Down the Hatches! Being Proactive with Office 365

• Manage Your Documents the “Right” Way: Office 365 Rights Management Services

• Factoring in MFA with Office 365: Seamless Multifactor Authentication Integration

• Show Me Your ID!

• Is your Office 365 deployment ready for the next major Disaster – Part I

• Is your Office 365 deployment ready for the next major Disaster – Part II

• To the Cloud or Not to the Cloud? Why Not a Little Bit of Both?

US researchers have created a robot that can use its body shape to move through a densely cluttered environment. The team from the University of California Berkeley based the robot on the humble cockroach and hope their design could be used to inspire future robot designs for use in monitoring the environment and search and rescue operations.

The Berkeley team, led by postdoctoral researcher Chen Li, designed the shell so it could perform a roll maneuver to slip through gaps between grass-like vertical beam obstacles without the need for additional sensors or motors.

The initial test results of the robot's performance are published in IOP Publishing's journal Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, released Tuesday.

Other terrestrial robots have been developed with the ability to avoid obstacles, but few have been designed to traverse them.

Researchers used high-speed cameras to study the movement of Blaberus discoidalis, otherwise known as the discoid cockroach, through an artificial obstacle course containing grass-like vertical beams with small spacing. Living on the floor of tropical rainforests, the Blaberus encounters a wide variety of cluttered obstacles, such as blades of grass, shrubs, leaf litter, tree trunks, and fungi.

After examining the cockroaches the researchers tested their small, rectangular, six-legged robot and observed whether it was able to traverse a similar obstacle course. They found that with a rectangular body the robot could not often traverse the grass-like beams and frequently collided with the obstacles, regularly becoming stuck.

When the robot was fitted with the streamlined shell it was much more likely to successfully move through the obstacle course using a similar roll maneuver to the cockroaches. This adaptive behavior came about with no change to the robot programming, showing that the behavior came from the shell itself.

According to Li, "our next steps will be to study a diversity of terrain and animal shapes to discover more terradynamic shapes, and even morphing shapes. These new concepts will enable terrestrial robots to go through various cluttered environments with minimal sensors and simple controls."

Ad-Blocking Feature In iOS 9 May Cripple Mobile Advertising Industry By Christian de Looper, Tech Times

While it was not a main point at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, the next version of Safari may include an ad blocker by default, arguably one of the company's biggest announcements.

This is big news for online advertisers, who are in uproar over Apple's decision, which could have very worrying effects on the Internet industry in general.

Ad blocking itself is basically running a piece of software that blocks ads on most websites. While it has been fairly limited to a small percentage of people that used ad-blocking software in the past, a report from last year found that the use of ad-blocking was up 70 percent from 2013, with 41 percent of those aged between 18 and 29 using the software.

Needless to say, this is a big deal for advertisers, especially since this will be the first time that the software is offered on mobile devices. The move is seen as a pretty big jab at the likes of Google and Facebook, both of which make a significant majority of their money from online advertising.

Many users, however, are likely excited at the news because of the intrusive and frustrating way in which many advertisers implement advertising. If advertisers want users to consider not using ad-blocking software, they will need to find ways to include ads much in a more subtle way.

"Consumers have shown that they only want ads and extensions they really are interested in and not sent to them out of context," says Tim Bajarin, an analyst at Creative Strategies. "They play a role in the overall tech ecosystem, so Apple needs to make it easy for people to opt in or opt out. Apple is mainly responding to the demands of consumers who only want things they really care about."

Publishers are already struggling to find effective ways to generate revenue online as it is, and the move by Apple could significantly hinder this process. The move is made even more significant because of the popularity of Safari on mobile with the rise of the iPhone.

Of course, there are good reasons to use ad-blocking software. Ads often significantly slow the performance of a web browser. Not only that, but they include tracking technology, worrying many of the more privacy-aware among us.

"Unlimited tracking and web pages cluttered with direct-response ads has prompted consumers to look for solutions to block ads altogether .... Ultimately, our industry needs to move faster on these issues so that we can combat the low level of trust in digital advertising and avoid having a third party be the arbiter of what's allowed and what's not on our sites and apps," said Jason Kint, CEO of Digital Content Next.

Source: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/60272/20150614/adblocking-feature-ios-9-cripple-mobile-advertising-industry.htm

Tesla Partners With Battery Researcher to Lower Costs By Mike Ramsey

Nova Scotia professor Jeff Dahn is known for work innovating lithium batteries

Tesla Motors Inc. has locked a leading advanced battery researcher into an exclusive partnership designed to help the Palo Alto, Calif., electric-car maker sharply lower the cost of its batteries.

Jeff Dahn, a professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia known for his work innovating lithium-ion batteries like those Tesla uses to power its Model S sedan, will cooperate with Tesla researchers. Now working on a project with 3M Co. , he will enter a research partnership with Tesla when his current work is completed.

Financial terms weren’t available, but Tesla said it would sponsor Mr. Dahn’s research efforts roughly 6,400 kilometers from Northern California in return for his help solving Tesla’s cost problem. JB Straubel, Tesla’s chief technologist, said this week that lithium-ion battery costs need to come down significantly in coming years so the auto maker can offer lower-priced vehicles.

Tesla is the largest user of lithium-ion batteries in the world, and its cost of between $20,000 and $25,000 to produce a battery for the 85-kilowatt-hour Model S sedan is considered to be the lowest cost for a battery of that size. Based on Mr. Straubel’s expectation, battery costs will need to be cut in half for Tesla to meet a sales target of a cumulative one million vehicles by 2020.

“At this point, we don’t believe that range is the thing slowing EV growth. It’s cost,” Mr. Straubel said in an interview. “If we had twice the range, it would be more range than people needed. We are definitely on a road map to achieve half the cost.”

Mr. Dahn will focus on trying to put more voltage into batteries without damaging their longevity and reducing the cost of materials.

He patented a nickel-cobalt-manganese chemistry for battery cathodes that is now commonly used in the industry. He is also the leading researcher on why lithium-ion batteries fail.

“I am very excited in putting our tools to work to help improve the energy density and longevity of their cells,” Mr. Dahn said in a joint interview with Mr. Straubel.

Tesla’s Nevada factory is expected to produce 50 gigawatt hours of battery packs a year. In 2014, all the lithium-ion battery plants in the world only produced 30 gigawatt hours.

It was Tesla’s factory goals that attracted Mr. Dahn. “Once I heard of that I went to Tesla and wanted to know if they would be interested in sponsoring our work.”

One of his areas of expertise is silicon anodes, an alternative to graphite, which is more expensive.

In addition to improvements in chemistry, Tesla is aiming to reduce its battery costs by bringing in-house the suppliers and processing of lithium, cobalt, graphite and nickel. Experts estimate that materials make up 60% of battery costs.

“We are making steady progress on all that. Want to be cautious and take our time and make sure we have partners that have the right road map,” said Mr. Straubel. “I am happy with where those internal discussions are at.”

Venkat Viswanathan, a Carnegie Mellon Universitybattery researcher, said news of the partnership has swept through elite research institutions.

“It’s a pretty big deal. The partnership with Jeff makes perfect sense. He is a true pioneer in the field,” Mr. Viswanathan said.

Source: http://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-partners-with-battery-researcher-to-lower-costs-1434553116

Vote Vinetta into SD Humane Society’s 2016 calendar!

Our own Jennell Mott's puppy Vinetta is on the list for inclusion in the 23rd Annual San Diego Humane Society's annual fundraising calendar!

Jennell is a community activist and an animal enthusiast and we would love nothing more than for you to support the Humane Society along with Managed Solution and Vote for Vinetta today.

100% of the proceeds benefit the animals in Humane Society’s care!

The Photo Fundraiser is a meaningful way to celebrate your pet while caring for animals at San Diego Humane Society who are waiting for a home of their own. Each year, San Diego Humane Society proudly presents a colorful, full-sized calendar celebrating our beloved pets. In 2016, they will once again share over 20,000 calendars with their supporters.

Jennell Mott, Business Operations Manager & Community Relations at Managed Solution is Vinetta's Mommy. Vinetta is a 9 month old white French Bulldog who sometimes gets mistaken for a little piglet.

Vote for Vinetta to be featured in the 2016 SD Humane Society calendar

2016 calendars will be available for purchase in October 2015 at Humane Society’s retail stores located at the Oceanside, Escondido, and San Diego Campuses, or online at www.sdhumane.org.

Voting ends 8/31/2015 at 11:59:59 PM

The below video was shown at San Diego Humane Society 28th annual Fur Ball in 2014

About San Diego Humane Society

Serving San Diego County since 1880, San Diego Humane Society operates campuses in San Diego, Escondido, and Oceanside.

San Diego Humane Society provides vital services to animals and people by sheltering and adopting animals, providing positive reinforcement training classes, investigating animal cruelty and neglect, presenting education programs for youth and adults, and much more.

They are a private, nonprofit organization that is not affiliated with any other humane society or SPCA. San Diego Humane Society receives no government funding and is supported solely by contributions, grants, bequests, investments, proceeds from our retail store, Muttique, and small fees for services.

Managed Solution demonstrates its commitment to people through contributions, charitable sponsorships and employee volunteer programs in the communities where we work and live. To learn more about Managed Solution’s charitable sponsorships, visit our community page.

Does certification contribute to professional credibility? YES, according to Certiport survey

Study Overview

Employees with Microsoft Office Specialist certifications clearly contribute to a more knowledgeable and productive working environment. A study of 14,000 Office Specialists and 1,200 supervisors of Office Specialists from North America, the United Kingdom, and Japan confirms that employees with Office Specialist certifications contribute to a more knowledgeable and productive working environment. Office Specialist certifications in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, and/or Project improve the workplace not only for employees and their employers but also for their customers.

FAST FACTS:

• Office Specialist certification increases employee competence, productivity, and credibility.

• 85% of supervisors say Office Specialists are more productive because of their Office Specialist certification.

• Office Specialist certification proves individuals have the ability to effectively use Microsoft Office desktop programs.

• 89% of supervisors say Office Specialists are more proficient users of Microsoft Office programs.

• Office Specialist exams test relevant skills employees actually use in the workplace.

• 86% of supervisors say Office Specialists are more credible than non-certified employees.

• Office Specialist certification supports the hiring process by providing a useful measure for screening and selecting individuals for employment.

• 71% of supervisors use Office Specialist in hiring, promotion, and advancement decisions.

Study Design

This study was conducted to determine the value of Office Specialist certification to the individuals certified in
one or more Microsoft Office programs and to supervisors of certified Office Specialists. Over 14,000 Office
Specialists and 1,200 supervisors of Office Specialists were given web-based surveys to evaluate the effect of the
certification on their working environment and to rate the value of the certification on employee performance.

View the full report - Microsoft Office Specialist Improving the Workplace EBook.