Our local cloud is suitable for the local market in Israel

You cannot replace the traditional service you have received so far from a company that lives here and understands its role as a strategic partner for information technology issues, with a phone number that you call in times of need to receive a non-binding answer in English, with an Indian or Brazilian accent.

The cloud is undoubtedly the most exciting development in the field of information systems, since the organizations learned how to use the Internet to promote their business. The idea that IT services will become a standard resource, provided to those who need it, ready to be used on demand (On Demand) and consumed like electricity or water, without the need for independent infrastructure beyond a local network and endpoint equipment (Utility Computing) - a magic move for every business manager who dreams of being freed from "The dictatorship of IT". Because it is not just a matter of reducing capital investments, which are at least partially offset against increased current costs. The cloud, we are told, makes it possible to realize business plans with unprecedented agility, to simplify IT management as a competitive asset to achieve a better alignment of expenses with business goals, to allow small-medium businesses (SMB) to benefit from IT services that were previously only available to the largest (Enterprise ) and to forget the chronic headache of renewal cycles: purchase-implementation-identifying gaps-repairs and upgrades-implementation and relearning-erasing previous investment-examining updated options-and again, purchase...and God forbid. In the cloud model, all these are other people's problems and you can devote all your attention to managing your business and achieving its financial goals.

Only one cloud clouds the spectacular vision: the transition to nirvana is not usually a pleasure trip on still waters.

How much does it cost you?
"People forget that the greater the technological change, the greater the exposure to business risks" - says Guy Hochman, CEO of Genie, a company that outsources IT services to businesses and operates a "private cloud" dedicated exclusively to its customers. "When talking in the IT industry about risk management, one tends to think of malicious intrusions by hackers, natural disasters and acts of sabotage by internal organizations. They forget that the greatest damage is caused by people within the organization or in its service, whose intentions are good and only their skills do not stand the test. Consultants of various kinds often talk about the high price of an hour of downtime as a result of virus penetration or a disk crash. They don't like to talk about the cost of dealing with a stuttering system as a result of mistakes made during a "simple" migration to the cloud; And the emphasis is on the word "simple". Because what seems like a simple technical challenge, can be incredibly complex from a business point of view. For example, every manager can sort the IT services he needs into two categories: core systems, which under no circumstances will leave their corporate datacenter, and "shell" systems that can be thought of replacing with a cloud service. Only a few can accurately analyze and quantify the risk, that the core systems will not function efficiently, if this or that application will respond more slowly as a result of the internet latency of communication with the cloud. How much will it cost you? In my experience, in many cases much more than what you have saved and will save in the foreseeable future."

As we know, the first to adopt the cloud services model were software developers and integrators, who needed a temporary platform for the purpose of running and quality testing of innovative solutions before they go live, in the "real" business environment. These people are not only highly sophisticated users, who know how to find their way around intractable problems for mortals, but also work in a sterile environment, without embarrassing exposure to the market and with time constants much longer than those that characterize a production system. The result is that the unfounded opinion has spread that the cloud is just waiting for you and that anyone who thinks twice before jumping into the water is a fool. "I don't feel comfortable as a party crasher," says Hochman, "but it is important for me to explain to the business audience that there is room to proceed carefully in the planned stages, so that it is possible to return to the previous situation in case of an unexpected problem, and especially when it is necessary to be accompanied by experts with business understanding - and not Only in keyboard agile technologists. The latter may know everything about the adjustments that need to be made to the computer code, but it is doubtful whether they understand much about managing changes in organizations or about hedging risks They say: 'We can solve any problem if it comes up...' and go explain to them that the basic principle in risk management is to avoid situations where problems may surprise you."

The Cloud School of Arts
The school's solution to this cognitive dissonance for large organizations is a private cloud. The idea is to adopt the cloud configuration for all its operational advantages - but to implement it within the private data center, on the organization's website, with minimal need for external services and internet communication. This is not an attractive solution for the SMB sector, because in cloud computing, size determines viability. The reason why cloud service providers are able to price the service below the costs of self-service and still make a profit is that they enjoy economies of scale.

"The cloud is, in the bottom line, an ideal platform for providing an outsourcing service," says Hochman. "From a technical point of view, of course there are significant differences between a service that is provided locally by servers located "at the end of the corridor" and a similar service that arrives via the global network, from a data center that you have never seen and it is doubtful that you know where it is located. But from a business point of view, that is, from the angle of the relationship between The customer to the service provider, this is Outsourcing for all intents and purposes, and it does not matter if the service is only a platform or SaaS, and especially, as you have learned to prefer a classic outsourcing provider according to his understanding of your business needs, his availability and responsiveness 365×24, his commitment to a true partnership and his ability to discuss with you on complex issues - the same goes for a cloud service provider. You cannot replace the traditional service you have received so far from a company that lives here and understands its role as a strategic partner for information technology issues, with a phone number that you call in times of need, to receive a non-binding answer in English, with an Indian or Brazilian accent."

Global cloud infrastructure
"Our cloud was born out of responding to the needs of outsourcing customers, whom we have been serving for quite a few years in a variety of forms of engagement," says Hochman. "Like everyone else, they heard about the cloud. Like everyone else, the business managements have no clear idea of what this entails. But they learned to trust the judgment of Genie experts, who would never confuse the client's interest with personal ambitions. If the customer is not ready to move to the cloud, if the calculation of total cost of ownership (TCO) does not justify migration, if the nature of the business raises questions about its ability to digest changes without labor pains, if the processes that require upgrading are not optimal in the cloud model, we will not recommend migration just because it is We will be portrayed as updated and more sophisticated. And if there is room for changes, we will prefer to make them in the protected area of Genie's private cloud."

"We invested over NIS 7 million in the establishment of a robust cloud infrastructure, divided between two nodes in Israel, accessible through two independent national networks, to achieve survival and business continuity under any conditions. Now we are building the third site abroad, in Greece, to also meet the standards The strictest in the world. These are underground sites that are protected against all natural hazards and are immune to man-made damage. In addition to physical protection, they are constantly monitored by a firewall and malware prevention software In everything that is required according to the global standard for Tier 4 security, and for this special cloud we have developed a complete set of dedicated products for the unique services that Genie provides to the SMB clientele - which numbers hundreds of customers."

You too deserve great IT
The biggest attraction of the cloud for the SMB sector is the hope that on this platform even a small-medium business can benefit from complex applications that require sophisticated infrastructures. However, it is not always worthwhile to switch from the traditional systems, which are already embedded in the organization and provide the solution developed here - or one that has already been localized and proven itself in the Israeli market - from the private servers to new SaaS systems, which are usually adapted to the conditions existing in a different market, American or European. The software developed by Genie is designed to enable migration to the cloud without disrupting the current work on the client side, without relearning processes and screens and without the need to "re-stitch" the applications to each other, while preserving the customization made in the original implementation and configuration changes made during previous version upgrades.

"The basis of the private cloud is a set of software that creates for each customer a virtual platform for storage, running applications and communication that is completely separated from any other customer, but is a natural continuation of the corporate data center," says Hochman. "In order to enable a safe transition to the cloud, in a gradual and controlled process, while studying and solving specific problems before they develop into something destructive, it is necessary to go through a "hybrid" intermediate state. Some of the systems continue to work in the server room, while another part is already alive and kicking in the cloud. The challenge is to move this step in a "transparent" way for the users, who continue to feel "without", while the system enjoys all the advantages of "with".

This capability is provided by Genie's unique GShare platform; On this platform, all the organization's files are managed in a unified storage system, secured and backed up with piety and accessible only to those with privileges, regardless of the physical location of the files. The file system is properly managed for your most valuable business asset and is protected through a permission management mechanism, user authentication, suspicious behavior monitoring, strong encryption and continuous backup, thus enabling the running of complex business applications without compromising performance and response times. It also supports employee mobility, thanks to user interfaces optimized for tablets and smartphones, in an Android or iOS environment, with full functionality that is no less than what you would get on a PC screen."

Support for all mobile platforms
The communication aspect of the GShare platform also brings to the Israeli market innovations that are not possible with simple cloud services. For example, in the past, mobile users supported by cellular communication had to make do with relatively low bandwidth for wired connections or suffer limited functionality of the interface. In a simple migration to the cloud, there is no optimization according to the type of connection, and the result can be long response times and screens that come up annoyingly slowly. "The developers of GShare implemented a technology called chunking in the communication solution - cutting into small pieces, and when it is necessary to refresh the screen after a point change, only the small section that contains changes is transmitted from the server to the user, similar to the method in which you create a backup of "delta" and avoid copying the entire file" - notes Hochman .

But not only infrastructures and platforms have found their place in Genie's cloud. "We offer GShare customers a selection of business applications adapted to the Israeli business environment, and in particular, a response to the special requirements of small-medium businesses. Among other things, you can find in the basket of applications that are available in our cloud as SaaS - accounting solutions, credit card processing, logistics, relationship management Clients, portal hosting and more. All these applications work naturally in the GShare environment, without the need for re-integration, even if part of the work process actually runs in the cloud, while other parts are still hosted on the traditional servers.

From the user's point of view, the question: 'which application runs on which platform', has no meaning. Everything is transparent. But the business manager has a decidedly non-transparent line here: we show the way to realize the business potential of the cloud with complete security, without any interruption to the flow of work, without the risk of unexpected disruptions, without the deletion of investments in the existing software and without the fear that following the closure of the corporate data center no There will be a way back," explains Hochman and concludes with a promise: "The Genie company is usually aimed at the SMB sector, but when it comes to the cloud, maybe you don't need to be so specific. The current trend, of transferring the responsibility for Line of Business applications to the relevant business departments, actually presents department managers with challenges similar to those of SMB, and to them we say: come, you too will feel safer in Genie's cloud."

From IT Magazine,
Israel's Business Computing Monthly.