Parallels Summit 2012 Tidbits

Want to have bagels at Summit with Parallels CEO Birger Steen? Here's your chance!
Forbes names Summit keynoter Marsha Collier #7 most influential woman in social media.

New Parallels SMB Cloud Insights™ Reports to be released at Parallels Summit 2012

What are SMBs' plans for cloud services in 2012? How will they choose their service providers? What are the fastest growing services to add to your business now? Find out the answers to all these questions and more at Parallels Summit 2012 February 14-16 in Orlando, FL.

Building on last year's report, the 2012 U.S. SMB Clouds Insights™ report will highlight growth in the U.S. SMB cloud services market over the past year and SMBs' 3 year plans for their cloud spending. Special new sections will also tell you the hottest SaaS applications and how to capture the opportunity in the huge cloud market for U.S. sole proprietorships.

Parallels Summit 2012 will also feature the release of the first Parallels SMB Cloud Insights™ reports for Latin America, focusing on Brazil and Mexico — two of the world's top emerging markets for SMB cloud services.

Register for the Summit to dive into these reports and craft your strategy for SMBs in 2012. These cutting-edge reports are available first to attendees along with exclusive sessions and discussions about the findings and how to apply them to your business strategy and tactics. Use code PN5P812 and your pass is complimentary.

December 2011

In this newsletter:

Quick links:

Headlines

New for Parallels Summit 2012: Summit Link networking tool

When you register for Summit you can be part of Summit Link, Parallels new networking tool that allows you to search for fellow attendees and set up 30 minute onsite meetings. Summit Link is free of charge for Summit attendees. Current registrants are already very actively using the tool.

Pre-scheduled online instructor-led courses now available — convenient, affordable and live

Parallels now offers open enrollment for instructor-led training courses via live virtual classrooms. You can attend pre-scheduled classes, along with other people interested in the same subject, for a special “per-person” price. The corresponding certification exam is included in the price of the course. You avoid the cost and effort of travel and save valuable time by attending training from the comfort of your own office or home. This training is offered for Parallels Plesk Panel, Parallels Virtuozzo Containers, Parallels Virtual Automation, Parallels Business Automation Standard, and APS. Go here for schedule and registration information.

New case study

Outsourcery uses Parallels Automation and its built-in APS support to enable cloud-based services to enterprises of all sizes, allowing the company to become the U.K.'s first provider of hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and the world's first provider to integrate it into the Parallels Automation platform.

Events

Parallels APS and Cloud Services Webinar Series for Service Providers — Tuesday, January 10th, 8:00am (PST)

Register today for the next monthly partner webinar. Cloud services providers should attend this webinar to hear directly from application and service vendors on the features and benefits of their applications and how vendors can help service providers profit by offering applications to small business customers. This is a great opportunity to find out how to sell high demand commercial applications and services and to learn how Parallels and the vendors can help you be successful in increasing ARPU and reducing customer churn. This webinar series features a wide range of proven and revenue generating application categories.

This popular and well-attended webinar series helps connect ISVs and cloud service providers to drive new business. Past products and companies highlighted include: Microsoft, BackupAgent, MXSweep, 4PSA, UNITY Mobile, Open X-change, Ksplice, Panda Security, Pinnacle Cart, goMobi, Infratel, OfficeDrive, Stopthehacker, Video Most, Parallels PACM, Attracta, CloudFlare, MessageSolution, SofCloudIT, LiveOffice, SmarterTools and SpamExperts.

You can also watch past webinars.

News from the Parallels Support Team

Parallels Global Support introduces a new process to improve our Support services. This new procedure is focused on the handling of Severity 1 tickets. Parallels Global Support refers to this as the ‘Moments of Truth' (MOT) process.

For Parallels Operations Automation (POA) and Parallels Business Automation (PBA), the MOT process will begin in the following situations:

When a crucial Parallels Automation component is not functioning
An issue with Parallels Automation that impacts a significant number of your end-users
A situation with significant business impact for you that has no workaround

To review the severity descriptions for POA and PBA please visit this site.

The MOT process will also apply to Parallels Business Automation Standard (PBAS) cases.

To review the ticket severity descriptions for PBAS please visit this site.

When you open a Severity 1 (Urgent) ticket Parallels Support will:

Assign the ticket immediately to a Support Engineer with the appropriate product expertise.
Assign a MOT process leader who will take full responsibility for the ticket until an acceptable workaround is provided. You will be provided with this person's name and contact details.
Provide you an action plan and update you regularly on the case status by phone and/or e-mail until an acceptable workaround is found.
If the Support Team requires assistance to provide a workaround, the MOT Leader will escalate the issue to the Engineering Team and organize an internal conference bridge to discuss the case. This process will engage the following parties:
1. Support Engineer with the appropriate product expertise
2. MOT Leader
3. Support Account Manager (or your Technical Account Manager for those customers who have a TAM)
4. Engineering team representative
In the case of a critical situation that is not resolved in a timely manner, the MOT Leader will involve senior Parallels Support and Engineering management.
Once an acceptable workaround is provided, the severity of the ticket will be downgraded.

If a workaround is in place but the issue is not fully resolved, Parallels Support will continue to work on the case or track it with Engineering if a hotfix is needed until it is resolved.

NOTE: Anyone who opens a ticket with the status of “Urgent” will soon see a change to the Parallels Support Portal asking for a contact number to be provided for the person(s) who we can work with on your team.

Tips and Tricks from Parallels Global Support

To help you with Windows 2008 and 2008r2 containers migration when using Parallels Virtuozzo Containers for Windows, please visit this Knowledge Base article.
Before migrating containers between hardware nodes it is necessary to compare the list of Microsoft updates on those nodes. To learn how to do just that, please see this Knowledge Base article.
For general Customer Support and Service, and updates from the Global Support organization, you can tweet to Parallels Global Support on Twitter @ParallelsCares.
Parallels Global Support introduces Knowledge Base on Twitter. Follow Knowledge Base on Twitter and you will see when new* Knowledge Base articles go live as soon as they are created or updated! @ParallelsKB.

*@ParallelsKB will tweet new and updated KB articles for the following products only: Parallels Desktop for Mac, Parallels Plesk Panel, Parallels Virtual Automation, Parallels Virtual Automation, Parallels Operations Automation, Parallels Business Automation — Enterprise, Parallels Business Automation — Standard.