Is Cloud Software Right for Your Business?
Find Out Why Cavano’s Perennials Moved Their Software to the Cloud.
Cavano’s Perennials began in 1972 as a small cut flower business on a five-acre farm in beautiful Kingsville Maryland, near Baltimore. George Cavano owned a business at a market in Baltimore City, selling, among other things, house plants and cut flowers. George and Marlene Cavano began growing cut flowers, and ‘field’ mums. They also sold flowers right from the farm itself. Some of their customers began requesting that they make perennials available in pots, and so they did. Today, operating from two locations, Cavano’s Perennials Inc. is a thriving nursery/greenhouse operation with 50 employees, growing more than 1,200 varieties of plants and is delivering fine quality plants to garden centers, landscape contractors, re-wholesalers and municipalities throughout the eastern United States. I spoke with Andy Dagilis, Customer Anticipation & Sales Manager at Cavano’s Perennials about his experience with GrowPoint Cloud.
What Challenges/Problems Necessitated A Change?
We were running GrowPoint at our office on a single server, and as we grew the server was not powerful enough. It was running data and the application, and other storage. It is also an older network. It was not the best environment for that size server. We were ready for another server, for many reasons, namely the hardware was having issues. We knew we wanted to upgrade the hardware. I talked to Rick Goff at AGS and talked to other companies as well. Rick introduced the idea of GrowPoint Cloud, and I liked that I didn’t have to buy as expensive a replacement server.
Does GrowPoint Cloud Improve Your Business?
Yes, the speed is much faster. With an undersized server, the wiring and network being old, the biggest improvement is the performance – that and having automatic backup. AGS has a responsible team responding quickly with the very few times I have needed support. The speed at which GrowPoint Cloud moves data over the internet and creates an application snapshot is swift. I do not feel GrowPoint should be run locally at all, it is remarkably improved in GrowPoint Cloud.
How Did The Cost Of Purchasing New Hardware For Your Business Factor Into Your Decision To Run GrowPoint On A Cloud Computer?
It did not, I know depending on the types of instances, the number of users, one can reduce the cost of a local server. In our case, our server was so antiquated, and our users had grown by so much, we replaced our local server anyway. If we had not experienced so much growth and need for other applications we could have bought a moderate server and had greater cost savings. I talked about the size of the server and speed to continue running locally, Rick Goff from AGS explained I did not need all of that on the cloud. We bought the local server because we had other needs for our business that had nothing to do with software on AGS, as we had been convinced to run AGS on the cloud. We were given opportunity to test the configuration with test data as well. We were sold on the concept after the test drive.
How Did Concern About Poor Internet Connection Factor Into Your Decision To Move To GrowPoint Cloud?
It was definitely part of my initial hesitation, I wanted to wait before I leaped. I spoke to others who already used GrowPoint Cloud, and I am willing to do that for other growers too. I heard some nurseries have issues in rural areas, but I have not had problems with internet connection on GrowPoint Cloud. It was a concern, because storms could cause it to be down, if my primary application is online, what would I do? Rick came up with an application to create a zip file of my data to have a parallel copy of the GrowPoint databases on my local server. If I am down for more than 3 hours, I use the backup. I was running a copy every night. GrowPoint also copies it for me, but I copy it too. I initially did it every day, then once a week, then once a month, now I do not remember the last time I created my emergency zip copy, because I haven’t needed it, we’ve not been down for 3hrs or more. Not even 1 1/2hrs. We’ve been lucky in our area.
Have You Benefited From Connecting GrowPoint Cloud on a Computer From Anywhere?
Heavens yes, from home, several of us are enjoying working from home and anywhere. It is seamless, and secure. It works great.
Have You Had Any Security Issues With GrowPoint Cloud Resulting In Loss Of Data Or Data Corruption?
I was told by Jon Bebus at AGS, that people have tried to access it from unrecognized IP addresses, but the AGS system thwarted it. I have had employees forget their code and make 3 attempts to logon and get locked out. But no, there has been no security issues on the Cloud.
Are Their Significant Differences Running GrowPoint From Your Own In-Office Server Vs. GrowPoint Cloud?
Yes, it is much faster than the old timey server we were using.
How does Printing Reports And Printing Labels From GrowPoint Processes Work Since Moving To The Cloud?
It is working great. The way we use remote desktop connection, when establishing connection initially we invoke local disk drives, include peripherals, include printers, if you set up appropriately it is seamless printing remote from the cloud. And we use Labelview , export an ODBC file…it works like a charm!
Final Thoughts
I like the structure of how AGS is sold, that the application’s monthly fee is a good price. The product is service related and the AGS team is responsive. I am appreciative of my account manager, the programming team, the sales people…all I have dealt with, are wonderful.
We waited 6-9 months before shifting to the cloud, and should not have waited, because it is running so much better. It is as if the software is designed to be running like this. With a nice powerful server on the cloud, snapshots transferring quickly, it runs like a charm! Much better than running application and data on an antiquated network. The change was obvious and immediate.