Big Picture - August 2015 - (Page 18)

inside output Cloud Coverage Cloud computing may be the one constant in changing technology. | by Craig Miller S BIG PICTURE August 2015 ome of you have been in this industry long enough to remember customers delivering or personally picking up PageMaker and Quark print files on clunky SyQuest drives. There was no internet to magically send files over. Luckily, today, things have changed. The vast majority of our print files are delivered over the web, and all our clients and design and pre-press departments exclusively use Adobe Creative Cloud. Our management conducts business on Office 365, which is also cloudbased. These programs and their method of delivery, collaboration, and communication point the way for our entire industry. It would be unwise for us to think that the future doesn't hold the same disruptive technology changes that we have experienced in the past. We currently have a server room with racks of expensive state-of-the-art computers. We have a dedicated archival system that some would refer to as network-attached storage. We must have more than a dozen powerful workstations for graphic design, CAD/CAM, and RIPs - a sophisticated wired and wireless network - and 100 mbps (megabits per second) of fiber connection to the outside world. That would have been an unimagined amount of IT for a small print company like ours a decade ago. Moore's Law governs all things computer. It roughly says the number and density of transistors on a chip will double every two years, which basically translates into a doubling of speed. Anyone who wants to keep up with current technology will be replacing everything with circuit boards at least every three years. It will be time for us to upgrade our entire infrastructure in the not-too-distant future. As resolutions grow, so do our data needs. And as we add 3D printing, CAD, and scanning, the need for ever-more sophisticated enterprise resource planning (ERP) software DEFINING THE CLOUD One option is having a cloud-hosted platform service rather than expanding the physical network at our plant. With this option, we may be able to significantly downsize our physical network. But what is the cloud? The cloud is simply a metaphor for the internet. Basically, it's a way to store and access data and programs over the internet instead of having that capability at your facility or home. Think of having the hardware physically present as local computing and storage. Having those same computing and storage functions occurring remotely in internet server farms is the cloud. Hosted platforms are a subsection of cloud computing. They take advantage of a software technology that enables you to access virtual computers in the cloud. These virtual computers can be configured to run any operating system and be as powerful and as flexible as you need them to be. Need CRAIG MILLER is a principal shareholder in Las Vegas-based Pictographics, (pictographics.net) where he is also director of military and law-enforcement projects. 18 drives our efficiency and competitiveness. We also host multiple websites and plan to expand our web-to-print and storefront capabilities. All of this has required our little printing company to have a competent IT staff since the late '90s. We fear that we may be required to expand our IT staff to support this expanding network if we don't embark on a different path. http://www.pictographics.net

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Big Picture - August 2015

Big Picture - August 2015
Contents
Insight
Wide Angle
Upfront
Inside Output
Dynamic Signage
Air Superiority
Rock ‘n’ Roll Media
R+D
Explorer

Big Picture - August 2015