What Cloud Computing Can Do For You

Being a newcomer to technological innovation, or someone who has better things to do than get your hands dirty with it, managed cloud computing might just be the best thing since sliced bread for your business.

The facts are simple. Until the internet came along, you'd invest in software, commonly with a license, and install and run it on your computer systems - just like buying a music CD and using it in your house. Under the cloud model, the software is run online by using a third-party provider, and you can get on using your internet browser. You never install anything on your computer, and you won't ever actually 'own' any software: instead of buying a product, you are renting a managed IT service.

Understandably so, tech folks are very pumped up about cloud computing. To recognize why it is such a game-changer, we have to look in more depth at reasons why the cloud (also, for the reason above, also referred to as 'Software as a Service' or SaaS) is really so different, and how it results in business-friendly benefits.

Predictable and economical - a business-friendly financial model

The greatest benefit of the cloud is monetary. There isn't any upfront cost. You will pay a low, predictable, flat-rate monthly charge per user for the software that you use; which of course means you can scale up or down as your company needs demand. Once you take on more staff, you can activate new licenses quickly, and in the same manner switch off the tap if you scale-down. Cloud computing gives you the capacity to expand or contract the quantity of resources you're leveraging. Thus, the investment on technologies - which was previously a major capital expense for even smaller businesses - now will become an operational expense. The largest benefit of cloud computing is agility, the ability to change, to adapt to the emerging needs of the business.

In contrast to installed software, you will also always have access to the latest version. When a new edition of a service is created, it is immediately made available to all subscribers, providing you with access to tools which helps to keep your company at maximum competitiveness.

Running software online also brings with it some inherent benefits:

Work from anywhere: software which was set up on a computer only ran on that computer. Today's business owners do business from home and airport lounges as well as the office; and with the cloud, not only will you always have use of your software, you can also log in and just pick up just where you left off.

Collaborate with colleagues, clients and suppliers: you can use managed services to share use of your cloud workspaces. That means you are able to work on documents, proposals, presentations and so on with others, and broaden the borders of your working environment to customers, too.

Cut the danger of crisis and speed up disaster recovery: one of the key economies of scale involved in cloud computing is the fact that a good cloud provider will have better security and resiliency than you'll be able to ever hope to afford. They'll store your data safely and securely. If your business office was broken into (or, more likely, you leave your computer on a train), your data is still safe and immediately accessible online from another machine.

If you live in or around the Kansas City area and you want to learn more about cloud computing, managed IT services, or any other services that we provide, call Batts Communication Services today!

The Security Question: Can You Trust Someone Else With Your IT?

You can stack up to a pretty compelling argument for the cloud for small businesses; but there is also a degree of trust that you'll need to put in your provider. Putting your business-critical info in the hands of a third party necessitates a degree of trust. Batts Communication Services is here to provide you with the most secure IT Support, monitoring, and cloud computing solutions in the Kansas City, Missouri area.

Solid providers will explain their security methodologies and commitment to you. Your provider should also furnish you with an SLA, or 'Service Level Agreement' which commits to giving a guaranteed amount of 'uptime' (i.e. ensuring that their service is going to be available for 99.9% of the time). You're opening a vital aspect of your company to a third party, and it's your duty to lessen the risk of doing this. Be confident, if that third party is reliable, they'll do a significantly better job of looking after your data than you could on your own.

Our solutions will keep your computers secure, manage projects, make it easier to keep in touch with your clients, and pretty much whatever else you can think of - including plenty created for specific business sectors. Few businesses today can avoid technology entirely, and very few should want to - it's a key driver of commercial competitiveness. Batts Communication Services IT support and managed IT services helps make unlocking that competitiveness easy, flexible and without upfront expense.

Managed Hosting: Is It Right For Your Business?

Allowing us to handle your cloud computing through Managed Hosting enables you to really hone in on what you already know how to do, your business, while we take care of every aspect of your server. Rest assured knowing that you're in good hands.

We'll Do:
•   Initial Setup, Configuration, Hardening and Migration
•   Proactive monitoring and updates to keep you running
•   Managed Backups and log file review will keep your server running safe and performing well
•   Server Monitoring
•   Proactive Security Management
•   Control Panel Management
•   System Administration
•   Security Monitoring

Colocation is another very important term when it comes to cloud computing. It's often used in the data sourcing industry for off-site data storage, generally in a data center, like that of Batts Communication Services LLC. This is vital for businesses because the loss of data can be positively detrimental for companies of any size, up to and including disciplinary action for employees or even loss of their job. A sudden loss of data may come about as a result of fires, earthquakes, floods, or any other kind of natural disaster.

Data colocation technology has really started to make a big hold in the telecommunications industry. Colocation allows multiple customers to access network, server, and data storage space, joining them to a variety of service providers

Every customer needs something different, but no matter what the need, Batts Communication Services is here to help your business succeed. Give us a call today so that we do our part to make yours easier.

What Is Cloud Computing Anyway?

Cloud computing relies on the pooling of resources to attain coherence and economies of scale, much like a utility or electricity grid over a network. At the very foundation of cloud computing is the much larger concept of converged infrastructure and communing services. 

The cloud also concentrates on making the most of the possibilities of the collective resources. Cloud resources are normally not just shared by multiple users but are also dynamically reallocated for demand. This could work for allocating resources to users. For instance, a cloud computer facility that serves European users during European business hours with a specific application (like email) may reallocate the same resources to serve American users throughout North America's business hours with another application (e.g., a web server). This approach will optimize the usage of computing power thus decreasing ecological damage as well since less power, air-conditioning, rackspace, and so on are expected for a number of functions. With cloud computing, multiple users can access one server to retrieve and update data without purchasing licenses for separate applications.

The term "moving to cloud" also relates to an organization moving away from a traditional CAPEX model (buy the dedicated hardware and depreciate it over a time period) to the OPEX model (use a shared cloud infrastructure and pay as one uses it).

Cloud computing enables businesses to steer clear of upfront infrastructure costs, and concentrate on projects that distinguish their businesses as opposed to infrastructure. Cloud computing also allows enterprises to get their applications running quicker, with better manageability and decreased maintenance, and enables in-house IT to more rapidly relocate resources to meet changing and volatile business demand.

If you think that cloud computing is the next step to your business's financial success, visit or call Batts Communication Services at www.battskc.com or 816-353-4884. Don't be left behind when it comes to technology, make the call today!

What can Batts Communication Services do for you if you already have an IT department?

Here are a few tips to help your business IT budget drop with new technology and services that do the work for you!

Virtual Help Desk

We are able to offer your business a Virtual Help Desk. We'll inventory and label your computer systems with our Help Desk number. Your customers can “just call the Help Desk” whenever they want IT help. Our specialists will login remotely and solve the problem then and there.  We can escalate problems that call for an on-site presence to your IT Department. This guarantees faster response times to absolve user requests, offers standard support for remote facilities,  and frees your Information Technology Department to concentrate on business critical issues.  Furthermore, if your Information Technology Department is a "one-man show" this gives a backup resource for emergency situations.  Our Help Desk allows the majority of industry standard technology.  We've got a number of support options to select from.

Disaster Recovery

We provide a collection of catastrophe recovery and business continuity options for your Information Technology Department.  Ensure that your users are up and running even if your server is off-line with our DataGuard BDR device.  Have a mission critical e-mail server?  Not a problem, our e-mail spooling and continuity service will keep the communications moving whether or not your Exchange server is down.

Third Level Support

If your business currently has an Information Technology Department, we can supply third level support for more complicated problems.  We have Microsoft Certified Technicians available to help.  We support Microsoft servers and line of business apps including Microsoft CRM, Microsoft Exchange, Sharepoint and SQL Server administration.

Server Monitoring

We offer around the clock tracking to help your Information Technology Department.  Our monitoring software monitors uptime, memory usage, disk usage, and vital services on your servers. If your server goes off-line or produces an alert it immediately makes a ticket in our system. Our professionals will try to solve the problem remotely or escalate the ticket to your Information Technology Department for remediation.

Hosted Exchange

If your Exchange server has to be swapped out or upgraded you may give consideration to relocating to a Hosted Exchange solution. For a designated monthly fee, you will get limitless disk usage, smart phone support, SPAM filtering, and no longer need to cope with the expenses or hassles of maintaining an internal Exchange server. We also provide trustworthy e-mail spooling and continuity services to get rid of recovery time during e-mail cutovers.  All our hosted servers can be found in a data center here in downtown Kansas City. They're backed up every night and supervised around the clock.

Hosted Business Anti-Virus

Before you decide to renew your antivirus subscription, give us a call first.  We offer Hosted Symantec Endpoint for people who have to have a business class antivirus solution. For a flat monthly fee we'll supply the software and monitor your computer systems for virus and malware infections around the clock. If an infection is located, our server will immediately try to isolate or eliminate the virus. When problems are determined, a ticket is immediately created in our system for our Technicians to fix.

Dedicated Server Hosting

Before you buy that new server give consideration to hosting your application on our Dedicated Servers.  We'll supply the hardware, infrastructure, support and around the clock monitoring of your dedicated server for a flat monthly charge.

Hardware Procurement

We're a Dell Premier Partner, and an HP Reseller. If you're looking for a new server, workstation, or laptop contact our Technicians and we'll suggest a Dell or HP system according to your specified needs.  As a Premier Partner we sell that equipment less expensive then anybody. You'll save $100s or perhaps $1000’s on your Information Technology budget simply by contacting us first.

So if you're a business in the Metro Kansas City, Missouri area and any of these services appeal to you, give Batts Communication Services at 816-353-4884.

Cloud Backup and Server Hosting To Help Make Your Business Run Better

Back your computer information up to the Cloud with confidence.  Right now Batts Communication Services offers automatic on location and off location backup options.  Whether or not you require simple file level backups or more advanced DataGuard BDR devices (Backup and Disaster Recovery) we've got you covered.  We take the anxiety out of back-up – by safely and regularly duplicating your company's data.

Batts Communication Services of Kansas City, Missouri can web host your server in our top of the line Data Center. We can easily have a shielded, current, and virus protected server up to meet your needs quickly including website hosting ability, Microsoft SQL Server, SharePoint, Microsoft CRM, or Terminal Server, depending on your specific requirements.

Our Cloud-Based Servers Include:

•   Completely individualized designs
•   Free antivirus software
•   24/7 server resource monitoring
•   Operated at our secured information center in down-town Kansas City, Missouri
•   Virtualized servers
•   Day-to-day system backups

Managed Anti-Virus
We offer a completely centralized, maintained and hosted antivirus and anti-spyware service with Symantec Endpoint technology.  Just set up our zero-configuration installation file on your computers, servers and laptops and you will never need to do anything with them ever again!  If any computer in your system is corrupted with a virus our computer software will immediately try to get rid of it and notify our Help Desk night or day if the removal isn't effective.

 Our Cloud-Based Antivirus Includes:
•   Free company antivirus software
•   24/7 malware and adware monitoring
•   Active risk scanning
•   Advanced root kit identification and removal
•   Regular antivirus and malware upgrades

Hosted Web Filtration For Your Business

Keep up with the web connection for your business with our Hosted Web Filtration service.  It's made to stay low-cost for smaller and medium-sized companies.  You can now prohibit employees from opening up productivity wasting internet sites such as Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook.  With our help, you can also also safeguard your system against the newest malware and spyware risks.

Our Hosted Web Filtration Service Includes:

•   Block internet site based on category
•   Whitelist or Blacklist certain internet sites
•   Guards computer systems and smart phones from malware and spyware
•   Certain staff can sidestep restricted web pages
•   Absolutely no hardware or software to install