Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

Toora Loora! …or however
that’s spelled. (And stop asking what it means. We’ll tell you, when you tell us
what ‘fa la la la la’ is all about! In any event, we wish you a very happy day of it. We’re taking a bit of a day off from the e-news but still wanted to take a moment to stay in touch.

As we’ve said before, La Feile a Phadraigh is more a religious holiday in Ireland than anything else. So here’s a link to some
information on the real Patrick. Patrick was known for tolerance and for
outlawing slavery in Ireland a thousand years before anywhere else in Europe. He
also demanded equal rights for women—many women were leaders of the Church in
Ireland until the 10th century.

Til Next Time!

Ciaran’s Corner: Cloudshare. Not Cuckooland!

We’ve been looking hard at Microsoft’s Cloudshare—a web site that offers virtual software hosting. I’ve talked about this before and I’ve expressed great skepticism about ‘software as a service’ for an application like SAFE.

But Cloudshare has provided us with a great way to do something that you all, at one time or another, want to do… staging. In other words, it lets you and your IT company create a virtual version of your server and all it’s applications and test all it’s features thoroughly. And then, when you’re ready? It lets you download that image to your live server for deployment. How cool is that?

Very cool. Most of you would dearly love to be able to have a second server to test changes to your operating system, SQL Server, SAFE, Ollie, Microsoft Office. Whatever. But how many of us either want to (or can afford) to have a completely redundant second system of servers and applications laying about simply as a ‘backup’ or ‘test stand’? Not too many. Cloudshare makes this sort of testing/staging not only possible, but downright simple.

Again, I don’t want to make Cloudshare out to be something it’s not; we do not believe it is a place for live deployment of SAFE or Ollie. But for demonstrations? Testing? Data conversions? Upgrades? It’s an idea who’s time has come.

In the near future, we’re going to be deploying all our applications and some sample server setups to Cloudshare so that you can see how it can help you with your IT needs. In the meantime, if you’re on the verge of any major change in your computer system, please check out Cloudshare (or contact us).

And—as always: please let me know what you think.

Cheers,

Ciaràn Marron

Technical Support Manager

cm@suntowersystems.com

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End of E-News From The Suntower, Volume 910