I disagree with the negative comments about the cloud. Being in the cloud is far better on several fronts than on-premise installations, both for customers as well as TR. First there is no conceivable way that clients can secure their data as well as TR can. As an example, in the TAP business there was a separate security group that had to contact some customers because we could see when they attempted to process returns through electronic filing that were duplicates. In other words, one of the two firms had been hacked and data stolen. This happened far more often than one would expect.
Then there is the issue of being current on the software without interruptions for updates. And in some firms, they just didn’t update, running the risk of being several versions behind that might have critical fixes on them and newly released forms. This is a positive also for TR as the company can push out releases very fast. If of course they have appropriate staff to get the work done.
And what about disasters – hurricanes, tornados, etc. - where a firm may not be able to relocate their servers timely?
And what about firms that are lousy at backing up data, or tend to sc--w that process up? Maybe not even know if a backup ran? No need to worry about that with data in the cloud. TR would have that covered.
For TR the cloud is the dream world where the company doesn’t have to support customers on different versions and can be confident they are all up to date.
Also, for non-tax products, they are just “alive” with constant features upgrades, therefore there is far less need for major updates that might only happen every year or even two with on-premise software?
What does TR have to be really good at in the cloud world?
• Security, obviously given the sensitive data they are holding. TR is target, so it has to be among the best companies in the world at system security.
• An excellent testing process for those “fast” releases. The releases have to be rock solid with less time potentially to get them out the door.
• The DevOps team plays a major part in cloud software, and they have to be outstanding on two fronts. First, they need to be up to date on all the latest techniques for implementation of AWS or Azure. How you can implement is constantly changing. Sloppy or outdated techniques may lead to more downtime or less efficiency for the business. Remember that one of the major advantages of using AWS or Azure is that servers can be ramped up as needed. You pay for what you need only. Another major advantage is that an occurrence as described with Amazon out across the board is an extremely rare occurrence. They have a worldwide network where resources can be shifted as needed. The second reason DevOps needs to be outstanding, is in the event of problem. If there is a problem, they will be able to recover much faster.
I could go on and on about the advantages of the cloud, but I’ll stop there.
I’ll close with a comment about the lack of support of TR for the cloud. In TAP several years ago the budget was drastically cut and pretty much shut down the Onvio line development. I’ve seen negative comments in this forum about the line. They were made in ignorance. It wasn’t the team or the tech. It was the company cutting the budget, most likely to cover the financially disastrous “Aumentum” acquisition.