The IT processes of any company can be divided into two groups: unique processes specific for this company or the industry it operates in, and standard processes. Standard (basic) IT processes exist in one form or another in all companies. They include popular corporate services, such as antiviruses, email, Skype, and DDoS protection. Such services are universally applicable to companies from all industries and all business sizes. They are demanded in virtually any organization.
For example, you do not need a custom project to deploy standard workplaces with pre-configured email and Skype for business. In such cases, it is much easier to use a standardized service offered by Softline, with which you can deploy any number of workplaces in no time without spending as much time and money as in a custom project.
The benefits of out-of-the-box services are:
- Minimal labor costs on the customer side
- High competences of Softline in this field
- Low price
- Maximum functions, licenses, resources, and volumes available.
What is an out-of-the-box service?
- An out-of-the-box service is a scalable service rendered to many customers without considerable changes in an out-of-the-box project.
- A conventional implementation project is not performed. The service can be provided within several days or hours after payment, and it comes with minimum necessary project documentation. For every new customer, all the procedures are launched based on a template, so the service is connected very quickly.
- The customer does not need to have specialists in this field. Softline employees support all services, and the customer only uses these services.
- There are other market players with similar solutions, so it is very easy for the customer to determine whether the price is adequate, compare the functionality of different solutions, and make a choice.
- The customer can make a custom project, but it will either have fewer capabilities or higher price because one-of-a-kind solutions do not benefit from the economy of scale. Hiring a dedicated specialist to work with custom solutions is unfeasible. As for quality, the benefits of out-of-the-box solutions are even more apparent: if a vulnerability, error, or failure is discovered for one of Softline customers, preventive measures are applied for all other customers, which eliminates the possibility that such a situation repeats. Companies that implement custom solutions learn only on their own mistakes.
Softline Virtual Office
This solution includes email and Skype for Business by subscription. All corporate communications are hosted in the cloud.
Softline Virtual Office includes everything employees need on a standard workplace: email, notifications, presence statuses, voice communications, and screen sharing.
Today’s cloud market players can be divided into two groups. The first one attracts new customers with low price. In the vast majority of cases, low-cost services almost always mean poor quality. Most customers start from services like these, opting for a low price.
The companies that are satisfied with periodical unavailability of email or Skype for Business continue to use these services because the entry price is really minimal.
However, more mature businesses, for which downtime and data loss are not an option, abandon these services. Learning from their mistakes, they choose a provider based not only on its price, but also SLA, guarantees, and technical solutions.
Cloud Veeam
This ready-to-use backup and replication service is designed for Softline cloud tenants and customers' sites that use some services from the Softline cloud.
A fully-operational enterprise-class version of Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 is deployed on 7 Softline data centers (2 of them are in Moscow, and five are in regions). The customers can use this solution to implement Disaster Recovery scenarios within the Softline cloud. Customers that purchased Veeam for their local site can use the Softline cloud as a backup or replication target.
We can back up the following objects of the customer:
- Virtual servers powered by VMware and Hyper-V
- Physical servers running on Windows and Linux
- Workstations of the key employees (chief accountant, executives, leading specialists)
Disaster Recovery solutions save you much money compared to the classical approach, following which the customer had to build a small data center with physical servers to create a backup site. It was rather expensive: from 30 to 60 % of the cost of the main data center. Veeam software and cloud provider services enable the three-fold decrease of this sum (from 30 to 60% to 10 to 30%).
The customers receive access to the cloud with pre-configured backup tools that are fine-tuned and operate smoothly. They can choose from several available backup and replication scenarios.
Simplified billing is a notable benefit of this service. For example, the payment for backup services depends only on two parameters: the number of objects to be secured and the disk space occupied by customer backup copies in data storage systems. No other factors—network traffic, number of additional backup points, etc.—influence the price.
The service is also useful for customers with their local sites: Veeam Cloud Connect enables data transfer via shared internet channels so that the companies do not need to purchase expensive hardware to establish network connectivity. It is possible to use deduplication when only unique data are transferred from the customer’s site to Softline site. As a result, the load on the existing customer communication channels decreases considerably.
VDI—a cloud-based desktop infrastructure
There are two types of cloud-based desktop infrastructure:
- Solutions for ordinary office employees
- Professional infrastructure with GPUs aimed to solve the design and computation tasks.
Virtual desktop infrastructure means that each user has a separate virtual machine running on Windows 10. As a result, there are no issues with drivers or compatibility. Unlike classic terminal farms, VMs do not compete for resources.
Differences between VDI and classic terminal farms
| VDI | Terminal Farms |
|---|---|
| Each user has a dedicated resource pool. When someone launches resource-intensive tasks, the experience of other users is not impacted. | If one of the farm users launches a resource-intensive task, it will start consuming the resources of other users. |
| Even if one of the client devices is infected with a virus, the malware is isolated on only one station. | If a user account is compromised or a virus infiltrates the system, the data of other users may also be lost. |
| Windows 10 runs on virtual machines, eliminating any possible driver or compatibility issues. | The terminal server runs on Windows Server, which leads to possible driver or compatibility issues. |
There are two types of subscription to virtual desktop infrastructure:
Classic VDI for office employees. These are standard Windows 10 workplaces with productivity applications available from the cloud. The main advantage of this option is that any companies having temporary projects, remote sites, etc. can provide their users with a connection to the workplace from any device. This approach guarantees flawless data security because only a picture is stored on the user workplaces. All programs, data, actions, and security tools remain on servers of the provider. Even if the user's device is infected with viruses, the malware will remain within the same workstation.
VDI for professional users with GPUs. Softline is an official partner of Nvidia, and we use Nvidia Tesla graphics cards in our cloud.
Any company that works with graphics, design, or projects that require visualization needs specialized professional workstations, and Softline can provide them. It is possible to increase or decrease the number of such virtual workstations at any time, depending on how many of them are needed at the moment. This approach suits best for companies that hire employees for temporary projects. In such cases, it is unreasonable to invest heavily in the acquisition of professional hardware and software, which will be unused after the project completion. The better alternative is to get temporary access to virtual desktops, on which specific design software.
STaaS–Storage as a Service
This service expands the customers’ data storage capabilities, whether they use the Softline cloud or on-premise storage. The amount of stored information has been increasing dramatically over the last decade—approximately tens of percent per year. As a result, most companies need more and more disk arrays for data storage.
Softline provides storage as a service for both "hot" data, which is accessed every day and "cold" data (document archives, logs, and video clips). In fact, these services are a component of our data systems connected with the customers' infrastructure via iSCSI. No one competes for or uses the customer’s computer resources. STaaS guarantees the performance and capacity of the storage system stipulated by the SLA.
Protection from DDoS attacks
This service has two possible models: placing a resource’s network channel in a permanently protected segment or moving it there only at the moment of attack.
- Permanent protection—the communication channels are initially and permanently located in the protected network segment. Protection is provided in 24x7 mode.
- Protection during the attack—standard communication channels are used. When an attack starts, resources are relocated to the protected segment, and a certain level of legitimate traffic is guaranteed. If you suffer from continuous or frequent attacks, we recommend keeping your resources in the permanently protected segment. The migration to the protected segment takes just a few minutes. In most cases, the damage to the customer's client or potential buyers during this period is insignificant.
Antivirus as a Service
We offer a subscription to ESET products in the Softline cloud.
You can purchase a virtual machine with a pre-installed antivirus in the Softline cloud. Our specialists will be responsible for configuring, updating, and supporting this antivirus.
The licensing model is straightforward: a single bill is charged for all services used. You don’t need to study the available virtualization solutions or choose the optimal licensing model.
Customers who purchase antivirus as a service suffer from only 5-10 attacks out of 100 possible, because even basic commercial antivirus significantly reduces the amount of malware that can infect the machine connected to the Web.
As we can see, Softline has an extensive portfolio of out-of-the-box solutions that cover most problems usually faced by businesses. If you still doubt which option to choose, please contact our experts to get professional advice.
