Building a Windows IT Infrastructure in the Cloud

Chapter 5. Do You Have Some Time to Chat?

If you’re reading this in electronic form you probably haven’t noticed that you’re about halfway through the book. Now is a pretty convenient time to take stock and talk a little about what’s next.

By now you have the following IT elements running:

• Your own private cloud using a VPC

• Your own DNS management system using Route 53

• A secure means of connecting to your VPC, courtesy of OpenVPN

• A functioning and properly configured Windows domain

• Working enterprise email using Microsoft Exchange

Those are things that any real infrastructure must have.

This next half of the book is about the things you might like to have. They include:

• Enterprise chat services

• IP telephony

• Automated management and health services

When all of these things are configured and running, you’ll be the envy of all the neighbors!

So let’s start at the top of list and set up an enterprise-class chat service.

Chat? Really? Isn’t That So 1990s?

Like bell bottoms and boy bands, chat services are making a comeback.

Skeptical?

Take a look at any person under the age of 30 and how they use their cell phone. Sure, sometimes they’re talking on it, but most of the time they’re texting back and forth with friends and family. Sometime in the middle of 2011 the amount of time the average person spent on a cell phone using data services like texting actually surpassed the amount of time they spent using the phone for its principle function—voice communications.

Need more proof that chat is the new voice? ...