Cloudy Skies Ahead

This was a big week for the borough as it relates to IT. This week brought the beginning of email cloud computing. After a couple of months of investigation and discussion we headed into the cloud earlier this week!

After migrating myself on Tuesday to "the cloud"" a few other were migrated as the week came to a close. The first "victims" included the Police Records clerks, Communication Officers Widmayer, Jones, Lt. Morris and finally Staci King. All were migrated into the Microsoft Cloud without incident. Next week I hope to move the Housing Office, Finance Office, Recreation Office, Borough Council, and a couple more communication officers into the cloud.

Many have asked me recently "why are we moving into the cloud"? Here are some quick answers to these questions:

Why Move Into the Cloud?
1. Less cost to the borough because of reduced hardware and licensing.
2. More efficent data protection.
3. Improved archiving (14 days to 10 years).
4. Ability to continue sustaining a strong ROI (return on investment) for IT.

As I go through this process I will meet with everyone to talk about this exciting change.

Exploring Cluster One

I realize that there is no information here that can really help you in a technical way but I found this video of Pink Floyd's "Cluster One" matched with some amazing images from the Hubble telescope. It is awe inspiring. Watch this, relax and remember that the universe is unbelievably and unknowingly mass and our problems are nothing in comparison. This piece of music is simply Gilmour's guitar and Rick Wright's keyboards. Genius.

Backing Up Your Files with MOZY

All this talk of the cloud has me revisiting cloud services for the home user. One of the most popular “cloud services” today is in the area of remote backups. As the earthquake and tsunami in Japan has sadly demonstrated, natural disasters do strike, usually without warning. If a natural disaster, fire or theft was to occur to you and your computer was unavailable or destroyed are your files safe?

Because our computers are becoming more and more critical remote backup service providers have been cropping up everywhere these past few years. The Borough of West Chester has been remotely backing up critical data files for years. Should you?

If you store financial files, tax documents, letters, family photos and video you probably should be backing up remotely. There are many providers with many price points. Be sure to check these providers out and protect your files today.

What about Mozy?
Mozy is a great backup service. This service lets you store files online and retrieve them remotely, which is all you really need from an online storage service.

The real reason that Mozy is attractive as an online storage solution is the price; this service’s subscription is practically unbeatable. Another advantage for using this service is the strong security features. Because it is designed to be a backup service, this service has a lot of security measures in place that other online storage services don’t have. If you want to make sure that your data is safe, this service is one of the best places to store it.

Regardless of what you call the service or what it was initially designed to be, this service is a spectacular choice. The combination of cheap storage space with useful features and strong security make this service the perfect place to store files, photos, videos, documents and anything you want to safely store outside of your home computer.

Another great ability of Mozy is that you can back up to 3 computers and remote (usb) drives. Many services such as Carbonite charge additions fees for devices and drives outside of the primary computer. This cost can add up.

Cost for Mozy's Services
2GB for free
125GB, up to 2 computers for $9.99 per month
You can learn more about Mozy at mozy.com.