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Private Cloud Owners Regress with Egress Expense

Private Cloud Owners Regress with Egress Expense

Private cloud deployment is changing the way manufacturing and distribution companies install applications and store information.  While this is an exciting move for any business, the step from on-premise to cloud infrastructure can come with unexpected costs.  Many companies expect, and easily budget for, typical costs associated with the move to private cloud, but hidden expenses often blur into the fine print of the original pricing model.  Thus, it’s important for a manufacturing or distribution business to budget wisely when moving from on-premise to private cloud infrastructure.

 

Cloud costs vary according to several different factors, and data comes into play at all levels.  A company is its historical data applied to its future, or potential, data.  Private cloud protects the data of a business while also utilizing it in real-time, and this cloud data normally exists in one of three states:

 

  • Data moving in.  This is data as it moves into the storage location or as it is being uploaded.  This process is also known as data ingress.
  • Data moving out.  This is data as it moves out of the storage location or as it is being downloaded.  This is sometimes referred to as data egress.
  • Data “at rest.”  This can be data residing in a static manner in the storage location and not in transit on the network.

 

 

Data In, Data Out

 

Not surprisingly, costs are tailored around these types of data.  Storage budgets are related to the costs of data that is physically being held at a location.  Normally, the storage of “at rest” data receives the most attention, as cloud providers offer various pricing structures based on how much data is stored, where the data is located, how often it needs a backup, how often it tends to be accessed, and how quickly it needs to be retrieved.

 

Many cloud providers do not charge customers for data upload or ingress, and the reasoning is obvious:  the more data you upload, the more you get charged for “data at rest.”  But one of the most significant hidden costs of the cloud relates to data egress charges—the charges leveled by your cloud provider for accessing your own data.

 

Think of your old phone bill before the cell phone revolution—each call outside the local area was billable, and the costs varied according to the duration of the call and the location to which the call was made.  Egress charges work similarly and are based primarily on the amount of data transferred.  Over time, this becomes a matter of dialing for dollars.  Should the data transfer increase, the charges will follow.

 

At its worst, this could become a situation of data rationing, where users are instructed to minimize their pulls from the data source, to minimize costs.  This is akin to a mother in the 1980s locking up her new push button phone, out of fear that her toddler, enamored with the button tones, might mistakenly dial Hawaii.

 

Data rationing is hardly the outcome that one would expect from a move to the cloud, yet egress pricing models put companies in a precarious position.  This poses a challenge for companies new to the cloud.  Customers accustomed to comprehensive local area networks do not always realize the amount of data that leaves one area of the network to be consumed by another, and thus may be unaware of their ultimate egress requirements.  Also, companies may have difficulty in predicting spikes in usage.  Without understanding when data use may increase, manufacturing and distribution companies will have trouble predicting expenses.

 

 

Data Grows on Trees

 

Companies using applications that operate in a client-server manner may be similarly challenged when they choose to host their server in the cloud.  The data requirements of private cloud can be as surprising as they are significant.  A client-server application like Epicor ERP, for instance, is a rather chatty application, as it frequently performs “get” calls to refresh data, in relation to other transactions.  In such a case, each “get” would entail a “give” in the form of cold hard cash.  For companies utilizing manufacturing execution systems in which users are routinely downloading work instructions and product schematics, in support of manufacturing operations, the costs would further compound.

 

The complexity involved in manufacturing and distribution requires the innovation of private cloud technology.  To transition from on-premise architecture, Epicor ERP customers looking to host their application in a private cloud need predictable costs and reliable budgets—a pricing model that does not involve surprise charges linked to the amount of data traveling into or out of the cloud hosting environment.  Egress can cause a budgetary mess, but you have the option to choose a pricing model that doesn’t watch your every download move.  Your company can have the reliability and innovation of private cloud without any of the hidden data egress costs that currently abound in the fine print of the cloud market.

 

 

 

 

 

Looking for help moving your business to the cloud?  Check out our private cloud environment:  EstesCloud Managed Hosting (ECHO).  We don’t have ingress or egress charges—your data is your data, and you are entitled to it!  

Endpoint Security: A Powerful Endgame

Endpoint Security: A Powerful Endgame

 

You already know you need protection from the cybersecurity threats circulating the market, but you might not have the time to know the specifics—like what endpoint security is or why you need it.  If you have devices accessing a network, then you have an endpoint that needs protection.  This elusive endpoint is simply any device that interacts with your network—the touchpoint between your network’s perimeter and the outside world.  The bring-your-own-device (BYOD) movement that’s currently shaping the business world makes network security challenging because it creates a high demand for comprehensive endpoint security.  You need to protect your customers and your business by protecting your team, and this begins with endpoint security.

 

 

 

Bring Your Own Disaster

 

The BYOD movement introduces a number of specific challenges in securing networks.  The proliferation of devices interacting with a network, both in kind and in number, increases the number of endpoints and thus also increases the potential vulnerability of a network.  Each new endpoint is a potentially exploitable gateway.  The propagation of vulnerabilities demands a solution that can address this new circumstance.  The solution that companies are increasingly utilizing to address their evolving needs has come to be known as endpoint security.  Endpoint security helps ensure that all devices interacting with a network are compliant to the necessary security standards, protecting both the network and the devices themselves.

 

Endpoint security differs from traditional antivirus in the way that it detects and responds to threats.  Traditional antivirus operates by comparing a program’s signature to a database of known malicious programs.  Programs flagged as malicious would be stopped by the antivirus agent.  This method of threat prevention is, by design, a step behind the attackers.  Traditional antivirus can only detect malicious programs that have already been logged in the antivirus agent’s database.  This creates problems in detecting new threats—what are sometimes called zero-day attacks.  This also creates problems with newer “signatureless” attack methodologies that work to obscure their signatures, to work around the known signatures that antivirus looks for.

 

The question here is one of prevention vs. one of detection:  antivirus focuses on preventing attacks.  While this sounds logical, the tools available at its disposal, as we have seen, are limited.  Should a malware attack slip through, antivirus is ill-equipped to deal with it once it’s inside the network.  This brings in the need for more dynamic, behavioral-based detection methodologies that can leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect suspicious application behaviors and react accordingly.

 

Leveling Up

 

Modern endpoint security platforms operate in a multi-level manner, protecting networks and network devices in multiple phases of vulnerability and response.

  • The pre-execution phase: This level is for threats as they enter the network.
  • The on-execution phase: This step is for threats that have entered the network and are in the process of acting out their program logic.
  • The post-execution phase: This involves the steps to mollify threats that have executed.

Combining static prevention with dynamic detection, modern endpoint security platforms leverage machine learning to detect threats on execution.  This becomes beneficial, not only for signatureless attacks, but also for “file-less” attacks that are operating exclusively in memory.

As part of our EstesCloud security stack, we work with several vendors to provide broad and comprehensive endpoint detection and response.  AI, combined with our SOC (Security Operations Center), provides the level of endpoint security that cannot be addressed by traditional antivirus.  Our cybersecurity solution comes with a strong warranty—cyber threat protection provides you with financial support of $1,000 per endpoint, or up to $1 million per company, securing you against the financial implications of a ransomware attack if your company indeed suffers an attack and our team is unable to block or remediate the effects.

 

 

 

Is your company in need of a security assessment?  Learn more about how EstesGroup can protect your business.

COVID-19 Remote Work Support: Message from CEO Bruce Grant

COVID-19 Remote Work Support: Message from CEO Bruce Grant

COVID-19 Remote Work Support: Message From EstesGroup

Dear Clients, Partners & Friends– 

I wanted to share an update on what EstesGroup is doing today to keep our community safe and our delivery services moving forward, as well as specific steps we are taking to continue to deliver the solutions your business relies on.  I encourage you to regularly check our website, which contains the latest operational updates and links to additional information on specific events.  We will also be reaching out individually to clients and partners over the next several days.

 

EstesGroup Continuity and Wellness Activities Update

 

Remote Work Tests
As part of our ongoing preparedness with respect to the COVID-19 spread, we are activating business continuity plans to continually test various teams’ remote work capabilities. This is done to ensure we maintain service levels and resolution times, regardless of where our teams are physically located.  We were founded as a remote-work company, and we have refined our tools and procedures over the past 16 years of operations.  As such, we feel confident that we can continue to deliver the exceptional remote service you have come to depend on from EstesGroup.

 

Limited Travel
In line with CDC recommendations, we have decided to limit much of our team’s travel schedules. Our teams are ready and able to conduct most of our delivery work virtually, as they have for many years. While we’ll miss our face time, we feel this is the right choice to support the health of everyone.

 

Remote Delivery Enablement
Some of our clients have asked for assistance in preparing their teams for better remote and home-based work, including security, access, backup, and remote connectivity.  We welcome any questions you may have or assistance you may require in helping to make your remote working environments as efficient and effective as possible.

 

Health and Safety
Finally, the health and safety of our colleagues, their families, and our communities are the highest priority. We continue to encourage everyone to follow the preventive measures recommended by the CDC to stay healthy and slow the spread of the virus, including:

  • Clean your hands frequently
  • Avoid touching your face
  • Stay home if you feel ill

EstesGroup is well-positioned and prepared to work through this pandemic. Although we feel our plan is good for our partners, our colleagues, and our community, confusion may arise as we move through this situation. We ask for your patience as the situation progresses.  Please feel free to reach out at any time with questions or concerns.

 

As always, stay safe and healthy, 

Bruce Grant / CEO
970.372.4526 office
703.624.2759 mobile
[email protected]   
www.estesgrp.com

What Are My ERP Private Cloud Options

What Are My ERP Private Cloud Options

Not All Clouds are Created Equal: Reviewing Your ERP Private Cloud Options

 

It’s no secret that cloud computing has been increasingly finding its way into businesses by providing reliable solutions to increasingly challenging problems.  But for ERP customers with complex environment maps, an unmitigated move to the cloud might feel risky.  For this reason, some customers look for middle options between full cloud deployments and on-premise installations.  Private cloud hosting is one such midpoint, and it’s not uncommon for customers to approach the opportunities of cloud computing in search of a private solution.  But will this option leverage the obvious benefits of the cloud, while effectively providing the necessary support for your complex ERP ecosystem?

 

Your ERP installation is rarely an isolated entity—it is part of an integrated ecosystem of applications and processes, with various third parties, bolt-ons, and in-house applications interacting with the core ERP system.  As such, an ERP system is not always easily extracted from its ecosystem, as such an extraction is something akin to major surgery.  If you’re looking at handling this complexity with private cloud ERP deployment options, there are basically two management directions you can take.  You can build a private cloud using AWS, Azure, or Google, or you can work with an already established team of experts in private cloud hosting.  Let’s explore these options in greater detail.

 

Private Cloud in AWS/Azure/Google

 

The big players in cloud computing entered the application hosting game a while ago – Amazon, Azure, and now Google.  The option here would be to build out your virtual machine architecture within one of these clouds, and install your applications within this architecture, while working in turn to integrate your company-specific application ecosystem with the new ERP infrastructure.

 

While this eliminates the hardware investment of an on-premise install, you are still responsible for all the administration activities, at the server, application, and database levels.  And if your Epicor Admin should win the lottery, you are left scrambling for options.  If you lack the internal resources and need to bring in assistance in the administration of the application, you are now adding another party to work within this ecosystem.  Moreover, to your monolithic cloud provider, you are still just a number, and the service levels you can expect to receive will indicate as much.  Will the hosting company be responsive and listen to your apps and your business needs?  Is there a human voice to reach out to when issues occur?

 

Private Cloud Through the Estes Group’s ECHO Managed Hosting

 

EstesGroup’s EstesCloud Hosting, or ECHO for short, is our hosting platform. For one monthly price, we include all the functionality and support you need to keep your hosted applications running properly for your business.  While providing the access level that companies look for in private cloud solutions, we also provide the support and expertise that a big box store cloud partner can’t provide.  One phone call puts you in touch with our support team.  Well-versed in Microsoft’s full stack, we cover your servers with 24x7x365 EstesCloud Monitoring.  We cover the backups and disaster recovery, and we protect your users with EstesCloud identity management under the security of EstesCloud-managed Firewalls.

 

We have experience in moving many customers to a private cloud environment, while working with them to integrate their hosted ERP platform with their family of related applications.  With this experience comes the knowledge in working with protocols, networks, VPNs, and database connections, and we leverage this knowledge when engaging a customer.

 

In summary, some of the benefits of the EstesGroup’s ECHO Private Cloud Hosting solution include:

  • Known monthly expense, with no large capital expenses
  • Growth with your business supported by continual and customized service
  • Proven backup and disaster recovery playbooks
  • Easy, secure access from anywhere you wish
  • No Server Maintenance
  • No need to upgrade or repair hardware

 

When it comes to deploying your ERP architecture, there are clearly a number of different options, and the implications of the decisions made will have a lasting effect on your company’s future.  Are you considering spinning up your own private cloud to host your ERP application?  Drop us a line first, and let us help you explore your options.

Interested in learning more about Managed Hosting for Epicor ERP or Prophet 21 ERP?

 

Visit our Managed Epicor ERP Hosting page

Visit our Managed Prophet 21 ERP Hosting page

Epicor MRP Keeps You On-Time and Customers Happy

Epicor MRP Keeps You On-Time and Customers Happy

ERP!  ERP!  How do I love thee?  Let me Count the Ways: A Robust Materials Resource Planning ( MRP ) Engine

 

 

One of my favorite movies growing up was The Wizard of Oz.  One of my favorite scenes was when the “Wizard” was exposed as the “man behind the curtain,” pulling levers and revealing the secrets of the kingdom.  In the business world, this phrase has morphed into meaning a person who elusively controls the intricacies of a large enterprise—and no one really knows the who, what, when, or how of the magic behind the success.  MRP (Materials Resource Planning) is like this “man behind the curtain.”  Incredibly powerful, MRP manages the forces of supply and demand, keeping everything under control.

 

 

There are basically three questions that a manufacturer has, and MRP answers:

  • What does the customer want?
  • How many do they want?
  • When do they want it?

 

While those three questions seem relatively simple in nature, executing them in an efficient and profitable manner can become an extremely daunting, or even impossible task if you don’t have the correct tools.  Fortunately, the Epicor MRP Engine is a highly sophisticated but user-friendly process that can help companies increase on-time performance, lower inventory and improve efficiency.  MRP takes all three of these questions and looks at them holistically, to manage all variables that can occur on a shop floor.

 

What product does the customer want?

 

To answer this, MRP first looks to see if the part is purchased or manufactured.  At the core of the system is the type-attribute of the part.  Epicor defines a part in three ways: purchased, manufactured or sales kit.  Purchased Parts can have a defined lead-time and are used in determining when product can be available if stock is not available.  Manufactured Parts are built-up with routings and bills of materials.  MRP will take into account the time it takes for each operation, dependent on the quantity and material availability, to determine when the product will be available to ship, based on capacity on the shop floor.  Sales kits can be a combination of purchased and manufactured Parts and will use either or both types of logic to determine availability.

 

What quantity does the customer need?

 

Based on demand from forecasts or actual Sales Orders, the system looks at the current inventory level.  If there is insufficient inventory, it will suggest to the Purchasing Department to buy some if it’s purchased or will suggest to the Planning Department to create a job to make some, if it’s manufactured.

 

What is the customer’s timeline?

 

This is where the Epicor MRP logic will take the first two questions and analyze two things: If we don’t have it in stock, can we buy it in time to deliver it, or do we have enough material and resources available to build how many they want?  And it does this by taking into account not just one particular Sales Order, but all of the Sales Orders, and all of the inventory stocking levels and Job demands within a plant.  Obviously, this is a very tall order, and in a dynamic manufacturing environment, things are often changing on a daily, if not hourly, basis.  Because the MRP process can be such an intensive hardware resource demand, Epicor can be configured to run on a schedule (often times at night), either by looking at net change (to only work on those things that have changed since MRP was last run) or by being regenerative (to recalculate all demand).

 

Epicor also has the ability to run MRP for a specific part.  Have a customer that needs a part ASAP?  Now instead of having to wait for MRP to run, management has the ability to see the potential status of a job in a matter of minutes, and not hours, as MRP only has a single part to analyze.  The MRP process can also be limited to a plant, product family, or commodity class—reducing the time and resources required to generate the needed supply records.   Epicor MRP also supports multi-level pegging, which gives users the ability to trace the supply to each discrete source of demand.  This process also drives the projected Sales Order shortages and is an incredibly powerful tool to manage customer satisfaction.

The Epicor ERP system, in conjunction with its versatile and powerful MRP process, allows your organization to “see behind the curtain” at an organizational level, revealing what the current demands for your products are and if you have the necessary supply to meet demand in a timely and profitable fashion.

 

There are lots of things to love about Epicor’s E10 ERP application.

 

Want to know a few more?  Read our “ERP! How do I love thee?” series and give us a call with any questions you may have. 

5 Ways EstesGroup Helps with Your CMMC Compliance

5 Ways EstesGroup Helps with Your CMMC Compliance

You might be reading this post if you are researching Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), your company needs to become compliant, or your company is already compliant with CMMC but you have need of more IT services. In 2019 the Department of Defense announced a new cybersecurity protocol named CMMC that all DoD contractors (and some of their supply chains) would need to adhere to starting in 2020. There are 5 Levels of CMMC Certification, and EstesGroup can be an asset to companies in any of the levels.

 

5 Ways EstesGroup Helps with Your CMMC Compliance

  1. EstesGroup helps you identify the technology and/or services you need to meet your CMMC Level Requirements.  
  2. EstesGroup can improve your Process Maturity by helping evaluate your Procedures, Policies, or Practices. Once we’ve reviewed those processes, we can help update them to ensure you meet your CMMC Level and other compliance requirements. 
  3. There are 17 Domains that CMMC is built on. EstesGroup has the experience, tools, and services to support your business across nearly all of these domains.  
    • EstesGroup routinely deploys tools and managed services that directly support these CMMC domains: 
      • Access Control, Asset Management, Audit and Accountability, Configuration Management, Identification and Authentication, Maintenance, Recovery, Risk Management, Security Assessment, Situational Awareness, Systems and Communications Protection, and System and Information Integrity. 
    • EstesGroup can consult on and support technology used in these domains as well, but these domains typically require internal personnel or a third party on-site.  
      • Awareness and Training, Incident Response, Media Protection, Personnel Security, Physical Protection, and Risk Management 
  4. EstesGroup Managed Services (ERP Hosting ECHO & Managed IT) employ many of the standard Cybersecurity measures required for CMMC. We regularly monitor our internal and client assets for threats, perform preventative maintenance, and update technology or processes to meet or exceed cybersecurity requirements.  
  5. EstesCloud Hosting (ECHO) services enable many CMMC requirements without significant impact to you, your users, or your bottom line. By hosting your servers or software solutions in a managed cloud environment, you can compartmentalize your compliant systems and protect them at the highest CMMC levels, without locking down your whole office. For more details, see our page on EstesCloud Hosting for Aerospace & Defense  

 

 

To Learn about CMMC, read our blog What is CMMC: Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification?”

 

EstesGroup is a Managed Services Provider working with Manufacturing and Distribution companies by providing ERP Hosting (ECHO), Managed IT, Epicor ERP, and Prophet 21 ERP services.

 

Have questions about CMMC or do you want more information on how EstesGroup makes companies more secure? Contact us today!