Commercial Investment Real Estate

MAY-JUN 2014

Commercial Investment Real Estate is the magazine of the CCIM Institute, the leading provider of commercial real estate education. CIRE covers market trends, current developments, and business strategies within the commercial real estate field.

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33 May | June | 2014 CCIM.com Private Clouds In the 24/7 environment of commercial real estate, staying in com- munication is of vital importance. T at's why today's real estate companies must adopt long-term solutions to meet their business continuity needs following disasters. A modern business continu- ity plan that uses private cloud technology along with time-tested procedures provides a critical backup plan for managers facing the issues caused by damage or failed public infrastructure. A private cloud safeguards a company's system from on-site mis- haps and network failures and allows management to continue via remote operations both distant and local. It is a secure and conve- nient way to network your organization virtually and allow people to work from anywhere — from home, dif erent of ces, or even the local Starbucks. In terms of security, a private cloud of ers greater control over a company's data because it is a separate and secure network that is managed by the organization, whether it's a real estate investment trust, property management f rm, or brokerage of ce. T is arrange- ment better protects sensitive data such as lease information and sales contracts. However, since most real estate companies cannot af ord to imple- ment and maintain their own data network, server, and storage plat- form, private clouds are a growing alternative that of ers customiz- able space on a distributed infrastructure. Shared hardware and base sof ware "distributes" only the portion of storage and processing power that the company network needs to operate ef ciently while remaining reliable, fast, secure, and f exible. All computing, memory, and disk performance are dedicated to each distinct organization. Private clouds provided on distributed architecture can save an organization 75 percent or more as compared with implementing it internally. While the private cloud on distributed infrastructure can cost approximately 20 percent to 30 percent more than upgrading the typical existing client/server network, it provides all the redundancy and business continuity that conf guration provides today. Real estate organizations running critical enterprise resource planning systems on conventional licenses such as Yardi, MRI, and JD Edwards are able to transition to the private cloud while continuing to utilize the in-place licenses they own today. T is is critical for supporting legacy environments. BYOD — Bring Your Own Device Companies that use private cloud infrastructure can allow employ- ees to use their own smartphones, tablets, and laptop computers to conduct company business. T e company no longer needs to sup- port the employee-owned hardware because they are relegated to "dummy terminals": no processing occurs locally; it all happens at the data center. It also frees up everyone to work in a uniform envi- ronment from anywhere. For example, Mac users can perform their jobs in a Windows desktop environment by simply downloading an app. T is enables all employees to enter the corporate environment from wherever they are (at home, on vacation, while traveling for business), from devices they choose to use, and collaborate and share f les within a secure digital platform. For example, employee-owned iPhones, iPads, and Android phones and tablets have invaded the real estate landscape. T ese devices allow users to access both personal and work-related email accounts, creating better time management of work and personal lives, and instant access to work documents, such as providing space plans to potential tenants or equipment service manuals for repair technicians. T e BYOD trend has saved companies thousands of dol- lars a year as company-provided-Blackberries and Blackberry servers have been dramatically reduced. Apps such as 2x Client RDP/Remote Desktop allow employees to access their work Windows desktop and applications on their mobile devices. Managing by Exception T e notion of 24/7 monitoring is being turned on its head, thanks to next-generation remote video monitoring. T is new technology precludes the need for live-guard security at your of ce, apartment 3 2 - 3 5 F - 7 T e c h T r e n d s - M a r l o w . i n d d 3 3 32-35 F-7 Tech Trends-Marlow.indd 33 4 / 2 9 / 1 4 3 : 0 4 P M 4/29/14 3:04 PM

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