Case Study: Moving to Cloud and Windows 8

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April 3, 2013

Case Study: Moving to Cloud and Windows 8

By Jerry D. Norton

Technology Associate of Candela Solutions LLC

We’ve long dreamed of the day when our information would be available anywhere we need it and whenever we need it. We’ve also dreamed of a unified look and feel for all of our computer systems and portable devices. Having things operate the same on all of our devices is the utopia we have been waiting for. And so, having a break in my schedule over the holidays I decided to upgrade my PC to Windows 8. In addition, I wanted to take cloud computing to the extreme and see how far we can take this concept.

Specific goals of this project were:

Establish one user interface on all my devices Access my information anywhere

Access my information on any of several devices; smart phone, laptop computer, desktop computer and tablet At long last, get rid of 32 bit applications and take

advantage of the stability and consistency of 64-bit applications/plug-ins

Adopt Microsoft’s anti-virus and anti-malware solution And to finally retire my Franklin Planner™ notebook and

to go paperless

This project, for the most part, was a success! But this upgrade was conceptually different than all other PC and Windows upgrades, to date. Not only does this upgrade represent a shift in the way work is performed, it also represents a change in how end-user workstation money is spent.

Background

My Lenovo laptop is plenty powerful and in decent condition so I decided to use it for this endeavor. As I would recommend to anyone trying to use an existing PC, start with a total scrub by reformatting the hard drive and install a fresh Windows 8 Professional operating system.

Coinciding with this PC upgrade, I also purchased a new smart phone. My goal was to purchase a Windows 8 Mobile smart phone but my preferred carrier did not offer it. I compromised by purchasing a Samsung Galaxy S III. Although the Samsung is an excellent phone in its own right it does not run the Windows 8 Mobile operating system. I learned some lessons in this regard which I will discuss later in this article.

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As an advisor specializing in IT security and controls it was imperative that this new ecosystem meet the highest standards for security and integrity. This meant that I only considered smart phones with

encryption capability, strong authentication options, and remote wipe. And of course my laptop/tablet hard drives must be encrypted.

Scorecard

So how did this project turnout?

Goal Resulting

Grade

Comments One user interface

on all my devices

A-This aspect of the project was a success! The only issue I faced was one of bad timing whereby a Windows 8 Mobile Phone was not yet available from my preferred cell phone carrier when I needed it. This is no longer an issue. When my Samsung Galaxy S III is replaced I will acquire a Windows 8 Mobile Phone. Yes, it is possible and practical to have one user interface for all your computing devices.

Access my information

anywhere

A

I have merged together my results on the goals of “anywhere” and from “any device” as they both hinge on the practicality of Microsoft’s SkyDrive™ technology. Microsoft SkyDrive™ is working well. Data files are automatically synchronized between my tablet, laptop computer and desktop computer. The SkyDrive Software for Android phones does not automatically synchronize data but does allow Manual synchronization. This means that I can access my data files anywhere I have Internet access and also when I’m offline.

For E-Mail, using IMAP allows shared view of messages across all the devices.

Access my information on any of several devices

A

C

Windows 8 Professional 64-bit does not allow you to mix 32 and 64 bit applications. The newest version of Microsoft office allows 64 bit installation and that part works great. However I have a 32 bit versions of

Microsoft Visio™ and also Microsoft Project™. There is no known way to upgrade them to the 64 bit versions but only to buy them again. For Visio I replaced it with a new and wonderful product called GraphoLite™. For

Microsoft Project I still don’t know what I’m going to do because I share these files with co-workers. If I need to buy a new version of Microsoft Project then that will double the software cost of this whole effort.

I have experienced difficulties with Java whereby it wants the 32-bit version loaded in addition to 64-bit version. Adopt Microsoft

Anti-Virus

A

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Obsolete paper

day planner

B

For years I have carried around a medium sized or small day planner notebook. This is my second attempt at converting to electronic notes and obsolescing the handwritten note pages. I have selected Microsoft OneNote™ whereby I create a page for each day to collect my notes. And these pages are synchronized across all my devices. I can capture notes on any of my devices. This is working better than I expected however I have two open issues. First there is a glitch in the

Android version of OneNote; pages created on the smart phone go to the wrong location on a desktop and they can’t be moved to the correct folder. Also, I may resort to a yellow pad when at a client site while rapidly taking intense notes. But these handwritten pages should be easily scanned into the appropriate OneNote page. This is proving to be a difficult transition. But, importantly, so far it is working!

Lessons Learned

SkyDrive - I am successfully storing all of my files on SkyDrive with two exceptions. First there is a file size limit of 2GB and I occasionally shoot video with files bigger than that. Of course uploading files this large also takes a long time as well so I have decided to retain these very large video files on local server. Second, I mistakenly put my e-mail data file in SkyDrive. It worked! But it was very slow. So I had a double impact on the Internet bandwidth because my mail client is interacting with the remote e-mail server and also interacting with the SkyDrive. Kiss your internet connection good-bye if you do this. So I recommend that you put your e-mail file(s) on a local drive or wisely utilize Microsoft Exchange Server if your company has it.

Too much help from the vendors, as Microsoft, Samsung, and others still treat us like children and are getting in the way. I would prefer to automatically synchronize files from SkyDrive to the encrypted SD card in my smart phone. This would allow instant access to those files for editing and searching but it’s not an option. While this would use a lot of bandwidth with my cell phone carrier, this is a decision I am willing to make. Said another way, your SkyDrive files are not available on your smart phone unless you manually in advance pull them down to the device or download them at time of use. Microsoft is

overriding your desire to store and automatically synchronize files on your local encrypted memory card in your smart phone and not allowing it. I disagree with Microsoft’s perceived limitations and their assumption that the Internet will never get cheaper than it is now or that customers will not use the WiFi connectivity on their smart phones; I wish we had that choice ourselves. Microsoft, please think forward and not just about the current situation!

Who decided that we can’t see e-mails over two weeks old? On the Windows Mail client in the modern interface (on the PC and tablet), and on my Samsung smart phone, the system automatically removes the e-mail more than two weeks old. This means that you must be on-line and have a sturdy Internet connection to access any e-mail received more than two weeks ago. Furthermore, it dilutes the value of searching through e-mail to find one when you need it quickly while traveling. To access the “more-than-two-week-old e-mails”, I need to log onto the web interface on the smart phone and access them thru the web browser. Again the vendors, Microsoft and Samsung, have assumed that we are using weak

authentication, and thus force this purging of e-mails. Maybe there is hope for a Blackberry revival after all.

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Be cognizant of cloud costs as once you exceed 7GB you must start paying modest amounts of money to Microsoft for your cloud storage area. This is expected and reasonable. But this issue is confused because there are other vendors for which I am paying more for cloud storage for their specific

applications. I have software for tracking business receipts and thus subscribe to NeatReceipts™ for cloud Storage Services too (at a cost which, by itself, exceeds my Microsoft SkyDrive fees). And I use a password storage product called Password Genie to store my passwords securely in the cloud so I can access them on any of my devices; and of course there’s a fee for this too…for each device. I

recommend a strategy of trying to put all of your data files, as much as possible, into the one SkyDrive (or similar) file storage cloud service. It will be expensive if you try to purchase cloud Storage Service for all of your individual applications. Rather, try to select applications whose data files can be stored in the lower-cost cloud of your choice.

Switch E-Mail to IMAP: There are two basic models for e-mail. For years we used a method called POP or POP3. With this technology when you receive e-mail it brings the e-mail down to your personal computer and then removes it from the server. The obvious advantage was that your e-mails were always on your PC whether or not you are on the Internet. But this technology has become a problem now that we all have multiple devices and that we are more-often connection to the internet. So the alternative, and more-recently adopted approach, is to use IMAP. This system leaves the emails on the host server but synchronizes them with your personal computer, and smart phone, and tablet, or all of these. When a file is deleted on one device it is deleted on the server and ends up being deleted on all of your portable devices. I should note here that Microsoft uses their own proprietary technology with Hotmail (and the newer Outlook mail service) but it operates like IMAP. Most e-mail service providers can allow you to interface to their systems using either POP or IMAP but you definitely want to use the newer IMAP Service. Conceptually this is similar to our conversation above on SkyDrive. An e-mail change made on any device gets automatically copied and synchronize to all the other devices.

Costs and budgeting: there is a clear shift in IT spending related to the cloud. Instead of buying products you more frequently are subscribing to services. For examples: Instead of buying large hard drives I pay Microsoft to store my files. Instead of buying Microsoft office I have subscribed to their annual service. And I prefer it this way! Costs are spread out based on usage and the current number of users, not in a chunky once-every-few-years-fashion and with large capital expenditures.

Also, at this time the Microsoft Anti-Virus and Anti-Malware product is available at no charge. These cost savings offset the annual fees described in the previous paragraph.

Television: I have come to realize that the only electronic device that I use on a daily basis which does not, or cannot, run the Microsoft’s “Modern” interface is my television. Redmond, WA, - what are you waiting for?

Conclusion

I am pleased. I am close to having the same user interface on all my computing devices, including my smart phone. This has been a dream for decades. As with any technology upgrade, research is needed in your environment…but the potential is huge!

Notes for the Technical Staff

Samsung has devised a set of security features for their smart phones that are desirable for businesses. The acronym and marketing name for this is SAFE™. Be aware that using

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encryption on a Samsung smart phone disables biometric authentication (facial recognition), swipe authentication, motion authentication, voice recognition, swipe pattern recognition and short PIN’s. The only remaining way to wake up a phone is with strong passwords. However, it is unreasonable to expect your staff to enter an 8 or more digit complex password dozens of times each day just to wake up the phone. The saving grace here is that you can reset the wake-up password down to 4 digits (letters and numbers) after the initial setup and also extend out the minutes-before-locking feature to something more than the typical 5 minutes or so. I strongly recommend that you conduct a thorough test before placing a large order for the Samsung SAFE smart phones.

For tablets, you almost assuredly must purchase one that runs Microsoft Windows 8 Professional in order to get the hard drive encryption option. The lighter Windows 8 RT does not support encryption at the software level…although there is a slight chance of finding a vendor who supports RT on top of hardware level encryption.

Because Microsoft SkyDrive, like DropBox, first works off of a local hard drive folder and then later synchronizes them to the cloud in background, I have had great success using larger Microsoft Access databases with SkyDrive. Just be patient because it might take even a couple of hours for your changes to show up on another device. Microsoft Office365 now has a feature that causes the buffers for all Office 365 programs (Excel, Word, Access, etc.) to write

immediately to SkyDrive. But I have disabled it because I would rather have the synchronization occur in the background rather than while I am waiting. But, if multiple people are modifying the same document then immediate posting will be needed.

SkyDrive could possibly obsolete your SharePoint server in Office365. But, from a pricing standpoint, and if you have a lot of people sharing the same data, then SharePoint will be less expensive. It is best to pay once for the storage space instead of for each user who might access it.

*****

Jerry D. Norton is a Technology Associate of Candela Solutions. He can be reached at

[email protected].

Candela Solutions LLC is a new breed of CPA firm building value for clients through strong governance, risk management, and compliance services. Visit our website at www.CandelaSolutions.com for more information.

This is an article reprint from the Governance Issues™ Newsletter, Volume 2013, Number 1, published on April 3, 2013

© 2013 Candela Solutions LLC, 6375 S. Pecos Road, Suite 224, Las Vegas, NV 89120. Copyright: The Governance Issues™ Newsletter is meant to be distributed freely to interested parties. However, any use of this article must credit the respective author and Candela Solutions LLC as the publisher. All rights reserved. Use of the newsletter article constitutes acceptance of

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