Sage 100

We have a client considering Microsoft Azure or a third party to host Sage 100c Advanced with 10 users.  Any  thoughts on either?

------------------------------
Christy Pfleger
Business Software Solutions
------------------------------

Azure Windows Server is DataCenter which isn't officially supported for Sage 100.  We did run into one payroll issue on it in 2017, but @Lee Graham was able​ to change one line of code and get past it...For us it is free with the Azure credit that is part of Action Pack, but it's only a little two user system.

I would recommend going with one of the three hosting providers in 90 Minds.

------------------------------
Phil McIntosh
President
Friendly Systems, Inc.
Asheville NC
678.273.4010 ext 5
------------------------------

------Original Message------

Azure Windows Server is DataCenter which isn't officially supported for Sage 100.  We did run into one payroll issue on it in 2017, but @Lee Graham was able​ to change one line of code and get past it...For us it is free with the Azure credit that is part of Action Pack, but it's only a little two user system.

I would recommend going with one of the three hosting providers in 90 Minds.

------------------------------
Phil McIntosh
President
Friendly Systems, Inc.
Asheville NC
678.273.4010 ext 5
------------------------------

I believe @Steve Iwanowski has several of his clients Azure hosted. ​

------------------------------
Alnoor Cassim

Free Agent Developer and Consultant
CallForHelp.biz
Email: alnoor@callforhelp.biz
Orange County, CA
------------------------------

Yes, we have a Azure-only (IaaS) and Azure/on-premise hybrids.  We're a Citrix partner, so we use those tools to overcome most of the issues that Sue mentioned.  And we also use Azure Site Recovery to migrate the Sage Windows Server Standard up to Azure to overcome the marketplace only offering Datacenter (which Phil mentioned).  Overall, our clients are happy with the performance and up-time, though none of them went to Azure for cost-savings, and we made sure they were aware that cloud is still more expensive long-term.  Most went to Azure for security, redundancy or to consolidate their various locations.

My next wish is for Sage Premium to support Azure SQL and Azure Files, so that we can put Sage on top of those PaaS offerings, which will greatly reduce the need for IT maintenance and support.

------------------------------
Steve Iwanowski, NextStep Technology Advisors, aka DSD Lancaster PA ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-15-2019 19:52
From: Alnoor Cassim
Subject: Microsoft Azure vs Third Party Hosting

I believe @Steve Iwanowski has several of his clients Azure hosted. ​

------------------------------
Alnoor Cassim

Free Agent Developer and Consultant
CallForHelp.biz
Email: alnoor@callforhelp.biz
Orange County, CA
------------------------------

I have a customer with a very technically capable IT person who set up and completely managed the migration from an on-premises server to Azure. This happened about 3 years ago. They also use Accellos and have a couple of dozen users in a high transaction shipping environment.

Thankfully they worked through most of their issues. I think they had several things they had to overcome - some had to do with creating and using a virtual environment.

If your customer has: 

• Very technically capable IT staff
• IT staff that are willing to make changes to security/configuration to accommodate Sage 100

Then I think this is doable and is compatible. The customer should buy off that they will largely be 100% responsible for making this work and that Sage won't be much help in fine-tuning Azure.

From my perspective, for most customers, it's a much better idea to use an established host who specializes in setup and support of Sage 100 although Azure definitely seems workable.

My advice to a customer would be to use a third-party host.

------------------------------
Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
------------------------------

The fact you would have to have a very capable IT person on staff to justify hosting in the cloud defeats one of the primary advantages of having a cloud server.

------------------------------
Doug Higgs
Assistant Technical Support / Building Maintenance Specialist
Midwest Commerce Solutions, Inc
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-16-2019 06:46
From: Wayne Schulz
Subject: Microsoft Azure vs Third Party Hosting

I have a customer with a very technically capable IT person who set up and completely managed the migration from an on-premises server to Azure. This happened about 3 years ago. They also use Accellos and have a couple of dozen users in a high transaction shipping environment.

Thankfully they worked through most of their issues. I think they had several things they had to overcome - some had to do with creating and using a virtual environment.

If your customer has:

• Very technically capable IT staff
• IT staff that are willing to make changes to security/configuration to accommodate Sage 100

Then I think this is doable and is compatible. The customer should buy off that they will largely be 100% responsible for making this work and that Sage won't be much help in fine-tuning Azure.

From my perspective, for most customers, it's a much better idea to use an established host who specializes in setup and support of Sage 100 although Azure definitely seems workable.

My advice to a customer would be to use a third-party host.

------------------------------
Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
------------------------------

Perhaps @Doug Higgs, however, I have on-premises customers with very capable highly technical IT providers and they often have just as many problems. This is especially true in high-security environments. Once they ​lock down servers with restrictive permissions all bets are off on how to resolve. Sage doesn't get involved beyond advising that everyone should be a local admin with full rights to \MAS90.  That just doesn't fly for most high-security companies -- especially not in the present environment of crypto viruses.

Sage, IMO, can add as many integrations as they want to Sage 100cloud. If they cannot provide the solution in an environment that doesn't require leaving the network somewhat exposed for malware attacks then Sage 100cloud on premises is going to gradually become a non-starter for larger and more sophisticated users.

Mom and pop are still fine. They grant everyone full admin rights and ask questions later.

The overall strategic problem for Sage is that the pricing of Sage 100cloud goes up annually which jettisons mom/pop users leaving the higher user count sites which are the ones needed tighter security permissions. Eventually, these larger sites could leave due to security concerns and that's when Sage 100cloud enters a faster downward spiral.

Being unable to adequately secure the Sage environment is a problem for many of my more technical sites. Not all of them are open to moving to SQL though that is one way to remove some of the problem inherent with needing to give users full rights to your accounting data folder.




------------------------------
Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-16-2019 08:18
From: Doug Higgs
Subject: Microsoft Azure vs Third Party Hosting

The fact you would have to have a very capable IT person on staff to justify hosting in the cloud defeats one of the primary advantages of having a cloud server.

------------------------------
Doug Higgs
Assistant Technical Support / Building Maintenance Specialist
Midwest Commerce Solutions, Inc
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 04-16-2019 06:46
From: Wayne Schulz
Subject: Microsoft Azure vs Third Party Hosting

I have a customer with a very technically capable IT person who set up and completely managed the migration from an on-premises server to Azure. This happened about 3 years ago. They also use Accellos and have a couple of dozen users in a high transaction shipping environment.

Thankfully they worked through most of their issues. I think they had several things they had to overcome - some had to do with creating and using a virtual environment.

If your customer has:

• Very technically capable IT staff
• IT staff that are willing to make changes to security/configuration to accommodate Sage 100

Then I think this is doable and is compatible. The customer should buy off that they will largely be 100% responsible for making this work and that Sage won't be much help in fine-tuning Azure.

From my perspective, for most customers, it's a much better idea to use an established host who specializes in setup and support of Sage 100 although Azure definitely seems workable.

My advice to a customer would be to use a third-party host.

------------------------------
Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990

This is what happens when you used software based on 1980's technology (Reagan was President when this thing was released) in 2019.

And after charging 20% for decades meaning many have purchased the software 5+ times over, nothing has fundamentally changed other than a new coat of paint...

------------------------------
Mark Chinsky
Clients First Business Solutions
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-16-2019 08:45
From: Wayne Schulz
Subject: Microsoft Azure vs Third Party Hosting

Perhaps @Doug Higgs, however, I have on-premises customers with very capable highly technical IT providers and they often have just as many problems. This is especially true in high-security environments. Once they ​lock down servers with restrictive permissions all bets are off on how to resolve. Sage doesn't get involved beyond advising that everyone should be a local admin with full rights to \MAS90.  That just doesn't fly for most high-security companies -- especially not in the present environment of crypto viruses.

Sage, IMO, can add as many integrations as they want to Sage 100cloud. If they cannot provide the solution in an environment that doesn't require leaving the network somewhat exposed for malware attacks then Sage 100cloud on premises is going to gradually become a non-starter for larger and more sophisticated users.

Mom and pop are still fine. They grant everyone full admin rights and ask questions later.

The overall strategic problem for Sage is that the pricing of Sage 100cloud goes up annually which jettisons mom/pop users leaving the higher user count sites which are the ones needed tighter security permissions. Eventually, these larger sites could leave due to security concerns and that's when Sage 100cloud enters a faster downward spiral.

Being unable to adequately secure the Sage environment is a problem for many of my more technical sites. Not all of them are open to moving to SQL though that is one way to remove some of the problem inherent with needing to give users full rights to your accounting data folder.




------------------------------
Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 04-16-2019 08:18
From: Doug Higgs
Subject: Microsoft Azure vs Third Party Hosting

The fact you would have to have a very capable IT person on staff to justify hosting in the cloud defeats one of the primary advantages of having a cloud server.

------------------------------
Doug Higgs
Assistant Technical Support / Building Maintenance Specialist
Midwest Commerce Solutions, Inc


Original Message:
Sent: 04-16-2019 06:46
From: Wayne Schulz
Subject: Microsoft Azure vs Third Party Hosting

I have a customer with a very technically capable IT person who set up and completely managed the migration from an on-premises server to Azure. This happened about 3 years ago. They also use Accellos and have a couple of dozen users in a high transaction shipping environment.

Thankfully they worked through most of their issues. I think they had several things they had to overcome - some had to do with creating and using a virtual environment.

If your customer has:

• Very technically capable IT staff
• IT staff that are willing to make changes to security/configuration to accommodate Sage 100

Then I think this is doable and is compatible. The customer should buy off that they will largely be 100% responsible for making this work and that Sage won't be much help in fine-tuning Azure.

From my perspective, for most customers, it's a much better idea to use an established host who specializes in setup and support of Sage 100 although Azure definitely seems workable.

My advice to a customer would be to use a third-party host.

------------------------------
Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990

"I have on-premises customers with very capable highly technical IT providers and they often have just as many problems. "

Exactly... That's my point @Wayne Schulz .  If hosting Sage 100 remotely requires the same effort as an on premise server then one of the most important advantages of cloud hosting is eliminated.... that is... a fully managed and maintained server, that doesn't... reducing or eliminating the cost of a server, backup solution, server management labor etc.  

I agree the larger organizations require a more secure environment... at all levels: public firewall, active directory / group policy, and file and folder level security.  These larger organizations seem to be most often requesting SQL for both the security, backup and restore options, reporting speed, and all of the other multitude of benefits of a relational db.

------------------------------
Doug Higgs
Assistant Technical Support / Building Maintenance Specialist
Midwest Commerce Solutions, Inc
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-16-2019 08:45
From: Wayne Schulz
Subject: Microsoft Azure vs Third Party Hosting

Perhaps @Doug Higgs, however, I have on-premises customers with very capable highly technical IT providers and they often have just as many problems. This is especially true in high-security environments. Once they ​lock down servers with restrictive permissions all bets are off on how to resolve. Sage doesn't get involved beyond advising that everyone should be a local admin with full rights to \MAS90.  That just doesn't fly for most high-security companies -- especially not in the present environment of crypto viruses.

Sage, IMO, can add as many integrations as they want to Sage 100cloud. If they cannot provide the solution in an environment that doesn't require leaving the network somewhat exposed for malware attacks then Sage 100cloud on premises is going to gradually become a non-starter for larger and more sophisticated users.

Mom and pop are still fine. They grant everyone full admin rights and ask questions later.

The overall strategic problem for Sage is that the pricing of Sage 100cloud goes up annually which jettisons mom/pop users leaving the higher user count sites which are the ones needed tighter security permissions. Eventually, these larger sites could leave due to security concerns and that's when Sage 100cloud enters a faster downward spiral.

Being unable to adequately secure the Sage environment is a problem for many of my more technical sites. Not all of them are open to moving to SQL though that is one way to remove some of the problem inherent with needing to give users full rights to your accounting data folder.




------------------------------
Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 04-16-2019 08:18
From: Doug Higgs
Subject: Microsoft Azure vs Third Party Hosting

The fact you would have to have a very capable IT person on staff to justify hosting in the cloud defeats one of the primary advantages of having a cloud server.

------------------------------
Doug Higgs
Assistant Technical Support / Building Maintenance Specialist
Midwest Commerce Solutions, Inc


Original Message:
Sent: 04-16-2019 06:46
From: Wayne Schulz
Subject: Microsoft Azure vs Third Party Hosting

I have a customer with a very technically capable IT person who set up and completely managed the migration from an on-premises server to Azure. This happened about 3 years ago. They also use Accellos and have a couple of dozen users in a high transaction shipping environment.

Thankfully they worked through most of their issues. I think they had several things they had to overcome - some had to do with creating and using a virtual environment.

If your customer has:

• Very technically capable IT staff
• IT staff that are willing to make changes to security/configuration to accommodate Sage 100

Then I think this is doable and is compatible. The customer should buy off that they will largely be 100% responsible for making this work and that Sage won't be much help in fine-tuning Azure.

From my perspective, for most customers, it's a much better idea to use an established host who specializes in setup and support of Sage 100 although Azure definitely seems workable.

My advice to a customer would be to use a third-party host.

------------------------------
Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990

​Wait!  The Azure platform is not "technically" supported by Sage, yet that is where they choose to put their Production Management Partner Preview access.  Hmmmm.

------------------------------
Madeline Stefanou
RKL eSolutions, LLC
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-16-2019 08:18
From: Doug Higgs
Subject: Microsoft Azure vs Third Party Hosting

The fact you would have to have a very capable IT person on staff to justify hosting in the cloud defeats one of the primary advantages of having a cloud server.

------------------------------
Doug Higgs
Assistant Technical Support / Building Maintenance Specialist
Midwest Commerce Solutions, Inc
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 04-16-2019 06:46
From: Wayne Schulz
Subject: Microsoft Azure vs Third Party Hosting

I have a customer with a very technically capable IT person who set up and completely managed the migration from an on-premises server to Azure. This happened about 3 years ago. They also use Accellos and have a couple of dozen users in a high transaction shipping environment.

Thankfully they worked through most of their issues. I think they had several things they had to overcome - some had to do with creating and using a virtual environment.

If your customer has:

• Very technically capable IT staff
• IT staff that are willing to make changes to security/configuration to accommodate Sage 100

Then I think this is doable and is compatible. The customer should buy off that they will largely be 100% responsible for making this work and that Sage won't be much help in fine-tuning Azure.

From my perspective, for most customers, it's a much better idea to use an established host who specializes in setup and support of Sage 100 although Azure definitely seems workable.

My advice to a customer would be to use a third-party host.

------------------------------
Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990

Christy - we have shifted several clients from their typically aging on-premise server to the Azure hosted environment.  As Sue indicated, there are technology issues to be dealt with, but nothing extraordinary.  As long as they have a reasonable Internet connection, it should be straight forward.

You asked about hosting via Azure or a third party.  By a third party, I presume you meant a hosting option other than Microsoft, Amazon (AWS), and Google.  If that's the case, it would be hard to make a comparison w/o knowing who the 3rd party hosting entity is.  With the proliferation of the big 3 hosting orgs. mentioned above, the business case for offering or using 3rd party hosting is getting ever more challenging.  

If you need some help hosting a client via Azure, we will be happy to help.

 
Jeff Mack
Integrated Computer Systems
425-820-6120
jeff@ics-support.com
http://www.ics-support.com
https://www.mtwocloud.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-mack-1660906/

 

 

"... a reasonable Internet connection..."
I'd say reliable is more important.  In a previous lifetime, I worked at a data center and was told a story from before I started there.  It was in the auto-sector supporting JIT operations for a number of international assembly plants.  WAN links were frame relay with dial-up backups (with internet / VPN's not being mainstream at the time).  Well... in the middle of winter, a snow plow took out the utility box, tearing the wires out of the ground.  People were running machines out to cars so they could drive them to an alternate location on the network.  Being down for more than a few minutes was bad... a few hours: catastrophic.
(While I worked there we moved primary servers to be onsite, managed remotely, while backups were in the data center).
Moral of the story: don't build a solution without considering the risk of losing network connections.

------------------------------
Kevin Moyes
Technical Systems Analyst
Munjal White Consulting Co.
Toronto ON
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-16-2019 10:43
From: Jeff Mack
Subject: Microsoft Azure vs Third Party Hosting

Christy - we have shifted several clients from their typically aging on-premise server to the Azure hosted environment.  As Sue indicated, there are technology issues to be dealt with, but nothing extraordinary.  As long as they have a reasonable Internet connection, it should be straight forward.

You asked about hosting via Azure or a third party.  By a third party, I presume you meant a hosting option other than Microsoft, Amazon (AWS), and Google.  If that's the case, it would be hard to make a comparison w/o knowing who the 3rd party hosting entity is.  With the proliferation of the big 3 hosting orgs. mentioned above, the business case for offering or using 3rd party hosting is getting ever more challenging.

If you need some help hosting a client via Azure, we will be happy to help.

Jeff Mack
Integrated Computer Systems
425-820-6120
jeff@ics-support.com
http://www.ics-support.com
https://www.mtwocloud.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-mack-1660906/

 

 

Call me jaded but I think the business case for offering and using a 3rd party hosting firm is stronger now than ever before.  After being in the cloud business for 20 years and hosting Sage 100 (formerly MAS 90/200), I-BN has watched AWS and Azure enter the cloud market place over the past few years. And I would say this even if I wasn't an I-BN employee…bigger doesn't mean better, all it means is bigger. 

Is there value in your cloud provider knowing the software? We host Sage and SAP Business One, that's all we do. AWS and Azure rent servers to anybody and everybody. Example: A client calls with a problem with EDI Transaction Manager and we're able to point them in the right direction for resolution. I doubt you get that kind of knowledge at AWS or Azure. Example: A partner writes a Crystal Report and it runs slow as molasses. One of our guys looked at it and figured out the report was checking over 800,000 lines of data every time it ran. I know you won't get that at AWS or Azure.

Is there value in knowing how an ERP runs in the cloud? I-BN always recommends that we install Sage 100 and Business One in our cloud because a cloud is not the same as on-premise. Like everyone is saying in this string, there's added security, firewalls, added tools not normally used on-prem, clients use the software differently, they use different extensions (add-ons) and the list goes on. Example: The SBO mailer in Business One periodically hangs but doesn't stop or create an error message that can be caught by a monitoring system. We install a script to automatically restart it during slow use times of the day to avoid it hanging up. Example: We publish a PDF writer that wants to update everybody every time you use it which slows performance. We install a group policy that avoids this constant updating and only require it to update the terminal server. You're not going to find that knowledge or expertise at AWS or Azure.

We're a Citrix partner and most of the problems in this string have been solved especially since we've employed the new Citrix Netscaler or Application Device Controller. The Citrix ADC allows you to group people with different security, permission and access needs. It's much more secure and solves a lot of administration woes. Plus it has better support for Chrome Books and Macs.

Call me jaded but I think the business case for offering and using a 3rd party hosting firm is stronger now than ever before. All the big do is get bigger. The 3rd party entities have to get better or they go away.

------------------------------
Bob Tobey
I-Business Network, Cloud Channel Manager
I-Business Network, LLC
Marietta GA
678-627-0646 x231
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-16-2019 10:58
From: Kevin Moyes
Subject: Microsoft Azure vs Third Party Hosting

"... a reasonable Internet connection..."
I'd say reliable is more important.  In a previous lifetime, I worked at a data center and was told a story from before I started there.  It was in the auto-sector supporting JIT operations for a number of international assembly plants.  WAN links were frame relay with dial-up backups (with internet / VPN's not being mainstream at the time).  Well... in the middle of winter, a snow plow took out the utility box, tearing the wires out of the ground.  People were running machines out to cars so they could drive them to an alternate location on the network.  Being down for more than a few minutes was bad... a few hours: catastrophic.
(While I worked there we moved primary servers to be onsite, managed remotely, while backups were in the data center).
Moral of the story: don't build a solution without considering the risk of losing network connections.

------------------------------
Kevin Moyes
Technical Systems Analyst
Munjal White Consulting Co.
Toronto ON
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 04-16-2019 10:43
From: Jeff Mack
Subject: Microsoft Azure vs Third Party Hosting

Christy - we have shifted several clients from their typically aging on-premise server to the Azure hosted environment.  As Sue indicated, there are technology issues to be dealt with, but nothing extraordinary.  As long as they have a reasonable Internet connection, it should be straight forward.

You asked about hosting via Azure or a third party.  By a third party, I presume you meant a hosting option other than Microsoft, Amazon (AWS), and Google.  If that's the case, it would be hard to make a comparison w/o knowing who the 3rd party hosting entity is.  With the proliferation of the big 3 hosting orgs. mentioned above, the business case for offering or using 3rd party hosting is getting ever more challenging.

If you need some help hosting a client via Azure, we will be happy to help.

Jeff Mack
Integrated Computer Systems
425-820-6120
jeff@ics-support.com
http://www.ics-support.com
https://www.mtwocloud.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-mack-1660906/

 

 

I'll put Bob's message in a slightly different frame. "Do you want to put the customer's IT in the cloud, or do you want only to put their ERP application there?"

If the customer is trying to get all their servers and apps in the cloud, then internal IT know-how and support is needed. It's a big task. Azure, AWS, etc are then some of what they need to consider.

But if the customer is just trying to get the Sage apps out of their premises and into a more reliable, accessible and trouble-free place, then a 3rd-=party hosting provider like those mentioned is MUCH simpler. In our experience, those providers truly turn the Sage app into a utility. Customer logs into it 1st time, every time from the office or where ever. They don't care about the server credentials. The vendor hooked up the needed connections between the Sage app and whatever files and related services (<g class="gr_ gr_1050 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling" id="1050" data-gr-id="1050">ecomm</g>, EDI, etc) in the startup. So it's transparent to the customer. 

Even customers that have internal IT should embrace this. It minimizes security issues, and it gets local IT meddling out of the mix. 

"Should I use Azure or AWS?" This is the wrong question for most Sage 100 customers. Only you can explain to them why.

------------------------------
Jerry Norman
Smartbridge Partners
Austin TX
512.419.1444 x112
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-16-2019 15:45
From: Bob Tobey
Subject: Microsoft Azure vs Third Party Hosting

Call me jaded but I think the business case for offering and using a 3rd party hosting firm is stronger now than ever before.  After being in the cloud business for 20 years and hosting Sage 100 (formerly MAS 90/200), I-BN has watched AWS and Azure enter the cloud market place over the past few years. And I would say this even if I wasn't an I-BN employee…bigger doesn't mean better, all it means is bigger.

Is there value in your cloud provider knowing the software? We host Sage and SAP Business One, that's all we do. AWS and Azure rent servers to anybody and everybody. Example: A client calls with a problem with EDI Transaction Manager and we're able to point them in the right direction for resolution. I doubt you get that kind of knowledge at AWS or Azure. Example: A partner writes a Crystal Report and it runs slow as molasses. One of our guys looked at it and figured out the report was checking over 800,000 lines of data every time it ran. I know you won't get that at AWS or Azure.

Is there value in knowing how an ERP runs in the cloud? I-BN always recommends that we install Sage 100 and Business One in our cloud because a cloud is not the same as on-premise. Like everyone is saying in this string, there's added security, firewalls, added tools not normally used on-prem, clients use the software differently, they use different extensions (add-ons) and the list goes on. Example: The SBO mailer in Business One periodically hangs but doesn't stop or create an error message that can be caught by a monitoring system. We install a script to automatically restart it during slow use times of the day to avoid it hanging up. Example: We publish a PDF writer that wants to update everybody every time you use it which slows performance. We install a group policy that avoids this constant updating and only require it to update the terminal server. You're not going to find that knowledge or expertise at AWS or Azure.

We're a Citrix partner and most of the problems in this string have been solved especially since we've employed the new Citrix Netscaler or Application Device Controller. The Citrix ADC allows you to group people with different security, permission and access needs. It's much more secure and solves a lot of administration woes. Plus it has better support for Chrome Books and Macs.

Call me jaded but I think the business case for offering and using a 3rd party hosting firm is stronger now than ever before. All the big do is get bigger. The 3rd party entities have to get better or they go away.

------------------------------
Bob Tobey
I-Business Network, Cloud Channel Manager
I-Business Network, LLC
Marietta GA
678-627-0646 x231
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 04-16-2019 10:58
From: Kevin Moyes
Subject: Microsoft Azure vs Third Party Hosting

"... a reasonable Internet connection..."
I'd say reliable is more important.  In a previous lifetime, I worked at a data center and was told a story from before I started there.  It was in the auto-sector supporting JIT operations for a number of international assembly plants.  WAN links were frame relay with dial-up backups (with internet / VPN's not being mainstream at the time).  Well... in the middle of winter, a snow plow took out the utility box, tearing the wires out of the ground.  People were running machines out to cars so they could drive them to an alternate location on the network.  Being down for more than a few minutes was bad... a few hours: catastrophic.
(While I worked there we moved primary servers to be onsite, managed remotely, while backups were in the data center).
Moral of the story: don't build a solution without considering the risk of losing network connections.

------------------------------
Kevin Moyes
Technical Systems Analyst
Munjal White Consulting Co.
Toronto ON


Original Message:
Sent: 04-16-2019 10:43
From: Jeff Mack
Subject: Microsoft Azure vs Third Party Hosting

Christy - we have shifted several clients from their typically aging on-premise server to the Azure hosted environment.  As Sue indicated, there are technology issues to be dealt with, but nothing extraordinary.  As long as they have a reasonable Internet connection, it should be straight forward.

You asked about hosting via Azure or a third party.  By a third party, I presume you meant a hosting option other than Microsoft, Amazon (AWS), and Google.  If that's the case, it would be hard to make a comparison w/o knowing who the 3rd party hosting entity is.  With the proliferation of the big 3 hosting orgs. mentioned above, the business case for offering or using 3rd party hosting is getting ever more challenging.

If you need some help hosting a client via Azure, we will be happy to help.

Jeff Mack
Integrated Computer Systems
425-820-6120
jeff@ics-support.com
http://www.ics-support.com
https://www.mtwocloud.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-mack-1660906/

 

 

------Original Message------

I'll put Bob's message in a slightly different frame. "Do you want to put the customer's IT in the cloud, or do you want only to put their ERP application there?"

If the customer is trying to get all their servers and apps in the cloud, then internal IT know-how and support is needed. It's a big task. Azure, AWS, etc are then some of what they need to consider.

But if the customer is just trying to get the Sage apps out of their premises and into a more reliable, accessible and trouble-free place, then a 3rd-=party hosting provider like those mentioned is MUCH simpler. In our experience, those providers truly turn the Sage app into a utility. Customer logs into it 1st time, every time from the office or where ever. They don't care about the server credentials. The vendor hooked up the needed connections between the Sage app and whatever files and related services (<g class="gr_ gr_1050 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling" id="1050" data-gr-id="1050">ecomm</g>, EDI, etc) in the startup. So it's transparent to the customer. 

Even customers that have internal IT should embrace this. It minimizes security issues, and it gets local IT meddling out of the mix. 

"Should I use Azure or AWS?" This is the wrong question for most Sage 100 customers. Only you can explain to them why.

------------------------------
Jerry Norman
Smartbridge Partners
Austin TX
512.419.1444 x112
------------------------------