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Today is a big day in the history of our company. After 1,5 years of planning, preparations and infrastructural innovations, CE On-Demand is now ready to provision Microsoft’s latest cloud services, the Office 365 bundle to partners and customers in eleven countries of Central Europe and beyond.
Preparations for this day have been an active and exciting period for our technical, sales and marketing teams equally. Major respect goes to our genius development team, who were among the firsts in Central Europe to integrate the Office 365 offerings into our in-house developed administrative and provisioning platform, the Cloud Services Manager. This unique platform provides added flexibility and dynamic configuration of various cloud services based on customer demands. In addition, it allows partner-level integration with existing provisioning and billing systems. This combined setup makes the administration of cloud services - now enhanced with Office 365 offerings - easy and efficient.
We are the proud strategic cloud services provider of more than 20 white-label partners in the region, with the biggest and most renowned telecommunications service providers among them. We all agree that many of SMB customers, as well as large enterprises know the cloud is the future of IT, but they need help figuring out exactly what it means for their business. We work with these partners to help their customers on their IT needs every day and understand their concerns. By partnering with Microsoft to offer Microsoft® Office 365, our telecommunications partners and direct customers get the best of Office 365 with our customized expertise: local activation and provisioning with an enhanced Cloud Services Manager provisioning platform, local billing in local currency, local support 24/7, and the flexibility to bundle Office 365 with any of our existing cloud services from messaging, collaboration or communication tools to backup and recovery. On top of all this, all the customer data handled and managed on our cloud adhere to the international quality standards of ISO 27001 Information Security Management and are stored in local datacentres in the CEE region.
Probably the biggest advantage our partners can get from this new offering is, that they can provide Office 365 to their customers through a ready-made infrastructural platform, the Cloud Services Manager, so they don’t need to make any financial or technological investment to make the provisioning possible.
We’re excited about this new offering and hope you are too. For more information on obtaining Microsoft Office 365 through CE On-Demand, please visit www.ceondemand.com/EN/Services or contact office365@ceondemand.com
We’re looking forward to seeing you in the cloud!
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| Bringing technology and the cloud closer to our readers, I would like to clarify and mainly simplisize some terms and expressions related to our core business: cloud services provisioning. In my first blog I will give you some historical overview of the evolution of IT during the past decades, which will – I believe – bring you closer to understanding the workings of cloud computing today.
What we call „ Cloud computing” today is not such a new idea as it is a newer application of IT and Teleommunications technology. We have basicaly evolved over time from something called „Time Sharing” to „ Remote Processing” to „The Cloud”. If we take a look at the required parts in Cloud Computing, we see the following strata or componants: First , a secure platform in the form of preferably more than one secure Data Center. Second, racks of state of the art servers and routers located in the secure Data Centers from which the data switching takes place. Third, the telecommunications facilities (mostly fiber optics based) that transport packets of infomation at the speed of light along the information highway which is called the Internet. And fourth, the modified applications content or programs that resides in the system which are called down and used when needed.
So , its all about a user downloading programs, using them, and uploading the saved results to some remote server / computer via the Internet, untill the user needs the info and calls it down to work on it. Where the program and data actually reside is completely transparent to the user and he really does not care as long as he can access the program needed and the resulting data created.
So, what’s the big deal? Forty years ago, IBM discovered the merrits of time sharing. This basically meant that you could have a large mainframe computer that was hooked up to a network of „dumb” terminals via a local area network. This was great if you were in the same building or campus, becuase everybody could access the same data base which could be centrally updated and maintained. The terminals were cheap because they required no memory. Security and all access was controlled at the mainframe or Central Proccessing Unit ( CPU ) as it was called.
As time and technology improved , more and more Remote Processing was used because of the availability of faster telecommunications networks. Before fiber optics, there was a severe limitation of bandwith which was the biggest hour glass bottleneck in networking. This was overcome by Communications Satellite technology, and finally by Fiber Optic trunking which really opened the way for the Internet to functioning high speed mode. Real time communications had arrived.
To use this technology to the maximum, along came Google and Yahoo, who created an e-mail service that could be accessed from any place in the world, from any PC or Smart Phone. Time Sharing on a global scale! Meanwhile, the Father of all Software Applications who for years has been using licensing fees for their software and operating system and making a pile of money in the process took note. Microsoft woke up to the fact that with the emergence of Linux and open systems, EXCEL , Powepoint, and Schedual clones could be cheaply created and would work just fine. What a monopoly breaker! Now, applications could be put on the „Cloud” , or „on the Net” thanks to the super high bandwidth ringing the world in the form of Fiber Optic Trunks, and the high computing and switching capability of state of the art routers and servers. The new age of remote computing has migrated from the LAN to the Cloud bringing vast potential savings in hardware and software costs, scalable growth, and unlimited access almost anywhere in the world.
We are experiencing not a cyclical development but a spiral growth that is growing exponentialy. We just give them different names. The goal is the same. Communicating faster and better, and Central Europe On-Demand is leading the way.
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| In our previous blog post you could read about CE On-Demand’s in-house developed unique cloud provisioning and administrative platform, the Cloud Services Manager („CSM”).
CSM is constantly evolving and has many new features either available right away or under development. All development activities are driven directly by customer feedback and partner demands.
These features were introduced recently:
User portal first phase: simple one click launch of web applications, user level settings and support page for end users Exchange 2010: aliases, send as, send on behalf, full permissions, company disclaimer Sharepoint 2010: all featuresets, private or public websites, shared or dedicated application pools, per user permissions On-premise Active Directory integration for large Enterprise clients Domain validation for adding customer owned domains Automated domain registration option for most common TLDs Pending delete status: deleted objects are just marked for deletion and can be recovered within a pre-defined period Right click menus for easier navigation Enhanced error reporting, search and access to activity history Improved performance with caching and optimizations
These will be available soon:
Microsoft Office 365 syndication interface - allows bundling services from the global Microsoft cloud with our regional cloud Lync provisioning first phase Lync is the follow up product to OCS with a single, enhanced client and better user experience Within the first phase we will enable PC2PC communication, while telco integration will come with the Hosters Pack later on
Blackberry Enterprise Server provisioning Migration proxy for seemless migration of up to millions of mailboxes from legacy email platforms Public trial registration wizard User interface redesign
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| Central Europe On-Demand has always had a partner-focused business strategy. Doing cloud services provisioning with a partner-oriented focus also means that ever since the existence of the company we have payed special emphasis on the quality and functionality of our technological platform and have invested most of our energies and resources on establishing and developping a provisioning platform that can best serve the needs of our customers and partners, and contributes to our vision of raising the standards of cloud services provisioning within Central Europe.
CE On-Demand’s in-house developed provisioning and administrative platform has gone through rebranding early this year and instead of the former simple technical expression of „control panel” we named it „CE On-Demand Cloud Services Manager” and started its trademarking process.
Our Cloud Services Manager („CSM”) is available for all of our authorized partners and customers via our website, through the „Services login” link in the top right corner.
To give a short overview on CSM, let’s see its major benefits:
- Fully customisable
- Direct access to all services, applications, settings, downloads and assistance
- Capable of integrating the most modern and innovative services, like Microsoft Online Services Syndication Interface enabling sales of Office 365
- Enhanced functionalities, ability to connect BlackBerry clients as well
- Remote Applications of third parties and fax services made possible
- Electronic invoice generation capability
- Integrated migration proxy for smooth migration of large number of POP3/IMAP4 mailboxes with unknown passwords to CE On-Demand platform
- User-friendly interface
To use the CSM you have to be an Admin, possessing a valid username and password. In our next blog on CSM you can read more on its latest features and future plans of development.
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| In this blog post I would like to share my views on the opportunities available for both enterprises and service providers with Cloud Services in today’s business environment.
But let me start with clearing up some definitions first.
A new model of enterprise software delivery and consumption has captured the market in the last decade, a model known as cloud computing and cloud services provisioning. To put it very simply, cloud services provisioning is the delivery (and monetisation) of any software application as a service and consumed through an Internet connection – be it fixed, mobile, or wireless.
I believe that the cloud services model is only one part of a broader opportunity that is unfolding for IT companies and telecommunications service providers alike. For example, in the last two years, market penetration of smart phones has grown considerably as subscribers are purchasing them for both business and personal communications. This opens a clear opportunity for subscribers to access productivity-enhancing applications, such as e-mail, and for mobile operators to insure customer satisfaction and retention by delivering those services as part of a data bundle.
All major telecommunication operators we know have or are developing a cloud computing strategy. Those with mobile operations are already working to position e-mail as the first cross-segment fixed-mobile convergent play. Many mobile operators are positioning Blackberry, Nokia messaging, and other e-mail services to the market, with an eye towards eventually consolidating subscribers onto one, ubiquitous platform.
Most telecommunications service providers are looking for a next generation messaging service, which is:
· Device agnostic
· Relevant to any segment
· Based on a recognised brand, dominant in the IT industry
· Run on a scalable platform
· Easily positioned across an array of price-points and service levels
· A logical consolidation platform for all messaging services in the network
· The first step towards more robust communication modes such as voice, video and Web-conferencing.
In-house implementations of such services have a dark side though: enterprise-grade business applications come at a cost, which many companies view as prohibitively high. A more careful analysis of on-premise applications shows that the real cost of ownership is not in the CAPEX requirement of purchasing the infrastructure, but in the operations and maintenance of these systems, which is generally a non service level agreement-based activity.
Statistics show that once a company outsources a commodity or utility service, it is more likely to outsource subsequent services. This opens an opportunity for telecommunications service providers to continually increase the footprint and depth of their customer relationships, while fundamentally differentiating services with new bundles and price-points.
Telecommunication service providers have a means of delivering what enterprises need at a fraction of the cost of on-premise solutions without the infrastructure and operations costs. “Private brand” or often called as “white-label” hosted solutions, like those delivered by Central Europe On-Demand, allow telecom companies to launch services such as e-mail and Web-conferencing under their own brand immediately, CAPEX-free, and with the focus on driving-up subscriptions and top-line growth.
We have a number of white-label Telco partners already using our cloud services in the region like Avea in Turkey or Romtelecom in Romania. They have already been persuaded by the efficiency, productivity and cost-effectiveness of cloud services and are successfully delivering these innovative services to their customers, making users happy and satisfied with enterprise-grade business solutions.
Looking into the future we aim to have more and more happy partners with satisfied customers, and eventually a raising number of users of cloud services regionally and globally.
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We launched this blog to share our experiences about cloud services provisioning in Central Europe.
We've been in the business for 2,5 years, active in the telecommunications business for decades now. We know this industry intensely and we all beleive in the future of Cloud IT.
Since our business is geographic- and partner focused, you'll mostly hear about our experiences, adventures, successes and challenges in and around cloud services provisioning through partners, mainly Telcos, in CEE and broading up to Central Europe lately.
We aim to help evangelizing cloud services in CEE with in-depth thoughts and views on the industry and to generate valuable discussions about cloud, cloud computing, cloud services in the region. Therefore, your comments and thoughts are very important for us and are more than welcome!
We hope you'll be a frequent flyer in our Clouds!
Happy reading and see you in our cloud blogosphere frequently! |
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You are reading Central Europe On-Demand's Cloud Blog. We launched this blog to share our experiences about cloud services provisioning in Central Europe. The Authors of this blog are all industry experts and telecommunications veterans. Your comments are most welcome! |
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