Peer to Peer Magazine

MORE WI-FI, LESS HARDWARE: TAKING IT TO THE CLOUD In actuality, I now recognize three types of cloud experiences: • The personal cloud — iTunes, Dropbox, etc. for applications that aren't inherently business-related but still get used during business hours; • The private cloud — like our helpdesk, Exchange server environment, DMS, etc., which can sit anywhere or be outsourced; and • The public cloud — like Rackspace, Gmail or the Meraki Cloud Controller, where we don't have control over the services, but we use them because we trust that the services will be provided as promised. What you get out of the cloud is convenience, and what you have to give in return is trust. No doubt that for some services we trust "our way" more — such as hosted email exchange — but for many things, the cloud provides a consistent user experience, more conveniently. Our attorneys might not care whether things are convenient for IT, but they do care about that consistent user experience: It should work just the way it worked the last time. The cloud-managed Wi-Fi provides that consistent user experience. The entire environment, office-to-office, uses the same SSID or key and password for devices. Meanwhile, I'm able to deliver that consistent experience because I can manage 60+ devices through one interface and make changes from anywhere. Of course, I had to develop trust in order to deliver my Wi-Fi management to the cloud. But every day I've been with this system, I've had the same service I had on day one, as promised. The experience is consistent, and there's never been a time when I couldn't reach the controller. A physical controller could have been right next to us, but if it had problems, there was no redundancy. The cloud has built-in redundancy. Meraki also features two-factor authentication and daily penetration testing to secure the management platform. With a solution that works so well for us, my only hope is that the company's zest for innovation and great service continues well into the future. ILTA Brian Clayton leads Taft's information technology, practice support and records management teams. He has over 18 years of experience in legal technology senior management, spending the last six years at Taft. Brian recently became a member of the Enterprise Content Management Peer Group Steering Committee. He can be reached at clayton@taftlaw.com. Building Better Tables of Authorities AUTHORITY® BEST VErSIOn Stunning Performance riBBon interface Cut & Paste Less Training Simplified Editing Instant TOA Preview Quick Search Function How Fast Is Remarkably Fast? "Best Authority Version 3 will scan a 236-page document with nearly 4,000 citations in less than 90 seconds." Ian Levit, Vice-President, Levit & James Inc. Visit http://www.levitjames.com Contact Ian Levit ilevit@levitjames.com or 703.771.1549 Peer to Peer the quarterly magazine of ILTA 35

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