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Solving the Problems with QuickBooks PRO in a Multi-User Environment

As your company grows, your Quickbooks file that was once the domain of a single employee needs to be accessed by multiple employees. Running Quickbooks Pro or Premier in multi-user mode from an employee's workstation is cumbersome and error prone. Quickbooks Pro or Premier are not designed to work from file servers, so one user's workstation must be dedicated as the "multi-user" server, always running Quickbooks. Large company files run slowly and reliable backups must be done manually.

The solution is Quickbooks Enterprise on a Windows Server with Remote Desktop Service (Terminal Services) enabled. Employees use Microsoft's free Remote Desktop Connection application to connect to a virtual Windows desktop, send reports directly to their local printer and can even generate and copy files to their personal computer. Until the advent of cloud computing, setting up a Windows Server with Remote Desktop Service was a huge undertaking- the skilled engineer time and cost of hardware and software procurement, installation, configuration and licensing can very easily cost upwards of $10-15,000.

Windows Servers From Cloud Controllers on Amazon EC2

A better solution than building an in-house Windows Remote Desktop Terminal Server is to turn to Amazon Web Services EC2 cloud computing platform. These fully licensed Windows Servers can be made accessible from the internet or "locked down" with a dedicated VPN connection to your office. And if you have other applications you want to make available in the Remote Desktops we can install these as well. And you get all the benefits of true cloud computing- easily scalable storage and computing resources as you need them on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Benefits of letting Cloud Controllers manage your Quickbooks Enterprise cloud server include:

• activating and managing AWS account services and support
• application and license installation and assistance obtaining licenses
• planning and administering data retention and backup policies
• pro-active administration with 365/24/7 monitoring and alerting of server availability, application response, storage usage and data backup
• planned or unplanned maintenance of the server or user data volumes
• user account setup- including Active Directory/Open Directory/OpenLDAP account integration
• login problem support
• assistance migrating the Quickbooks Enterprise application to another cloud provider or your on-premise infrastructure upon cancellation of service
• eligible for pay-as-you-go support (see subscription details)

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Subscribe Now!                 Launch a Free Trial!

QuickBooks Enterprise on Windows Remote Desktop Terminal Server

Product Summary

• Your licensed copy of Quickbooks Enterprise (and other applications as needed)
• Windows server licensing fees are built-in to hourly AWS runtime charges!
• Deployed on an Amazon EC2 Windows 2003 R2 m1 server instance, managed and monitored by Cloud Controllers following AWS best practices
• Application and user data storage isolated on independent Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS) volumes for maximum protection and fast recovery from failure
• 365/24/7 monitoring and alerting of server availability, application response and storage usage
• Scalable for up to 65 concurrent users and terabytes of data (contact sales for a detailed estimate and demo)
• No vendor lock-in! Configured for secure management without depending on 3rd party management services

Product Support

Bundled and Pay-As-You-Go support charges

Bundled benefits covered by Cloud Controllers Hourly Runtime charges include the following:

• activating and managing AWS account services and support
• application and license installation and assistance obtaining licenses
• planning and administering data retention and backup policies
• pro-active administration with 365/24/7 monitoring and alerting of server availability, application response, storage usage and data backup
• planned or unplanned maintenance of the server or user data volumes
• user account setup- including Active Directory/Open Directory/OpenLDAP account integration
• login problem support
• assistance migrating the Quickbooks Enterprise application to another cloud provider or your on-premise infrastructure upon cancellation of service
• eligible for pay-as-you-go support (see below)

Pay-As-You-Go support is available at the rate of $99 an hour, billed in 15-minute increments, and generally applicable only to incidents where a remote screen sharing session (such as system administrator mentoring or VIP end-user support) is requested by an authorized contact at your company or incidents where Cloud Controllers is asked to participate in a conference call with Quickbooks Enterprise application support on your behalf.

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Billing Procedures

A $25 setup fee is charged at sign-up and covers configuring your Amazon Web Services account and services needed for your cloud server(s). Billing for your server is done at or around the 1st of each month for the previous month's server time and support. You will see two charges on your credit card statement each month:

• Charges from Amazon Web Services on or about the first of each month for the previous month activity, itemized by service which will include:
  
  • EC2 server runtime
  • Amazon EBS and S3 (data storage)
  • if applicable, Amazon VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) or other AWS services configured for your application with your consent.
• Charges from Cloud Controllers on or about the first of each month for the previous month activity, itemized by service which will include:
  
  • Bundled support and management services
  • Any Pay-As-You-Go support charges from the previous month

NOTE: QuickBooks or other applications licenses fees are not included or billed by Cloud Controllers, but assistance purchasing directly from Intuit and other software vendors is included in the bundled support above. Pricing is available here on the Intuit website.

Additional Billing and Support information is available here.

Terms and Conditions

By purchasing this subscription you understand you agree to the following:

• You grant Cloud Controllers permission to create an Amazon Web Services account for your company dedicated for use by this server product and other Cloud Controllers server products your company may subscribe to in the future.
• You grant Cloud Controllers permission to create an AWS Identity and Access Management policy and associated user for use by Cloud Controllers support personnel in administering your server.
• You understand that Cloud Controllers will only subscribe this AWS account to AWS services needed for your server configuration
• You understand that once the initial configuration of your AWS account is complete, Cloud Controllers will request a password reset from Amazon Web Services for the account which will effectively transfer all control of the account to the user of the email address designated by your company.
• Your understand your company may terminate your subscription to this server product at anytime by informing Cloud Controllers by email, live help chat, US Mail or telephone call.
• Your understand anyone from your company with access to the email address associated with your Amazon Web Services account credentials can terminate the actual server through an AWS management console or API command and you understand that Cloud Controllers is not responsible for any data loss that occurs at a result of improper termination by anyone other than Cloud Controllers support personnel.
• You understand that in the event you cancel your subscription to this product, Cloud Controllers will provide you with best practices advice regarding moving your application and associated data to another cloud provider, data center or on-premise hardware.
• You understand that you are agreeing to abide by Amazon Web Services terms and conditions (click to review all of them here).

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