Virtual Desktops or VDI’s are cheaper and make your business more profitable

Vritual Desktop Infrastructure or VDI’s are desktops that are stored on servers often centralized on premise or in data centers.  This technology has a few very strategic advantages over a traditional desktop and server infrastructure. 

Problem, Desktops are not always there for my employees - Centralized VDI desktops can be highly available.  High availability means you have access to that device 99.99% of the time almost no standard desktop will meet this expectation.  They will get a bad Windows update or a virus minor or major or the user will make  a mistake or a bad uninstall or even just to upgrade and update business applications all cost your employees time.  Think of what an hour or a day of lost productivity out of your best worker costs you?    All desktop hard drives have a mean time before failure of 3-5 years.  You are buying something that will break and cost you money.

VDI is the solution because every time you log out the virtual desktop you were workign on is destroyed and when you log in you get  Windows 7 like its first day.  Any bad installs, or viruses are instantly gone.  On top of that your desktop is on redundant server grade hardware.

Problem: Upgrades cost me more time and more money.  To install that new program update on 50 machines takes our staff or consultants a whole evening or weekend.  Costing time and money

VDI Solution:  The update is applied to the template, tested live to ensure it works.  When confirmed that it works its deployed as people log out and back in their new desktop will have the updated program.  1 update regardless of the number of desktops.

VDI Fears:

1.  I like my desktop box

We will give you one of the most advanced thin clients, with dual, quad monitor support isntant access to USB devices.  Come see our demo or we will bring it to you and put it up against your desktop

2.  I don’t understand virtualization I feel more comfortable with a standard desktop. 

Virtualization just makes more resources more available and is getting easier and easier to mange

3.  This sounds complicated

This is all managed through a basic web interface or taken care of entirely by our highly skilled and trained staff.

4.  This sounds expensive

VDI’s, including 2 servers are on average half the cost of traditional desktops

5.  Im not ready to put this in the cloud

Thats OK we can intall it at your office

6.  What if my interenet goes down?

If you host it with us we will setup redundant internet links through multiple providers and technologies so you are always on 99.99% of the time

VDI’s are cheaper, better and will increase your productivity.  Call us today to see a LIVE demo!

Mobile Web – Fad or Fact?

A recent Morgan Stanley study predicts that by 2020 most web browsing will be done on mobile devices and not on desktop PC’s.

Some web statistics have current traffic to the average website with as much at 58% coming from mobile devices.  The question becomes, do you believe in the growth of mobile device surfing options?  Do you find yourself using your mobile device to find a business, phone number or product?  Odds are if you do it,  so do your customers.

If you find this to be the case, then the next question is…is your website designed for the “mobile revolution?”  In my experience, the answer is probably not.  Here’s why:

Most websites are written for 800 x 600 screens to satisfy the average user who access websites via a 15/17 inch monitor.  Something very different than the experience the user is subject to on their mobile device.  The solution?  Employ technology so your website can detect when the user is accessing the site via their mobile device.  This way, your web page can be displayed with the same content, but in a format compatible with browsing on a smaller, mobile device.  With critical information like the company phone number and location, you can convert more mobile users into mobile buyers.

Check our your Google Analytics to see the number of mobile users on your site right now.  Need help getting more information and statistics from your website, give us a call.

Can I Donate my Old Computers?

It’s quite common for companies to donate their old technology – particularly their computers – once they’ve replaced them.  Often their desire is motivated by tax advantages or philanthropic reasons. Yet, even in their desire to do something so generous it’s important to remember that donating used technology is a good thing only if there is still value in the systems that are to be donated.  And, let’s not forget that most companies will need to ensure there is no company data on the systems before they donate them.

How to Donate

There is an inherent risk in donating computers for any company.  As such, the trick is to balance out the risk for the company with the value provided to the organization receiving the computers.  Not always an easy thing to do, however, here are 3 common ways to donate – each providing a varying balance between risk and value.

1. Remove the hard drive prior to donating the computers.  This presents licensing and “usability” issues for the organization receiving the computers, but it definitively protects the company.  This method presents very little risk, but provides limited value, as well, because the operating system and any other software that came on the computer (such as Microsoft Office) are now gone.
2. “Clean” the systems.  There are multiple software packages that can aid in this process using one of them is probably the most efficient way to prepare the systems for donation.  The downside here is that there is that preparing the systems can require a fair amount of prep time.
3. Reimage the systems.   This is really nothing more than a highly-secure way to clean the systems, however, it can be pretty labor intensive – especially if you don’t have an image already or you are working with systems that have different hardware.  An excellent approach if you can stomach the preparation time/expense.

From a practical standpoint, it may be an option to manually remove some data and donate the systems without being certain all the data was removed.  This is often an option for companies that are in non-regulated industries who have an existing, strong relationship with a nonprofit.  Of course, as an IT provider we can never recommend this approach and obviously, if your company is in a regulated industry (legal, medical, insurance, etc.) this isn’t an option.   Ultimately, the best thing to remember is that donating systems that are in bad shape doesn’t help anyone.  And that before you decide to donate, consider the costs and value of doing so.

Disaster Recovery – The Basics

More and more I see companies who are backing up their data in quality ways, using a combination of good equipment, strong processes, and industry recommended best-practices.  Make no mistake – I’m happy about this.  But I’m also seeing many of these same companies who are considering their backup to be their disaster recovery plan.  Unfortunately, no data backup, no matter how good, is a disaster recovery plan.  Now, I’m not trying to preach about disaster recovery…well, okay, that’s a lie.  I’m planning on doing a little preaching.  But truly, there is a difference between a disaster recovery plan and standard data backup plan.  Ultimately, disaster recovery is the means to an end with the “end” being business continuity.  And everyone likes business continuity, right?  So whether you decide to put together a full-blown disaster recovery plan or just stay with your current data backup, knowing the difference can save your business lots of money.  Okay, I’m done preaching.  Here’s some valuable information about what makes up a good disaster recovery plan, and how to put one together…

Note:  A true disaster recovery plan includes phones, facilities, data, and more.  I’m just focusing on the data portion of things in this article.

Generally, “disasters” come in three flavors:

• Hardware failure (bad hard drive, motherboard, network card, etc.)
• Software failure (“bluescreen” is a familiar term for a reason)
• Physical failure (flood, fire, etc.)

So let’s keep things simple.  Good disaster recovery generally includes a mix of the following components:

• Quality data backup (preferably onsite and offsite)
• Imaging
• Redundancy

Let’s explore each of these in a bit more detail.

Data backup:

• Onsite – use a hard drive backup system (preferably a quality internal/external chassis that has removable drives).  In terms of reliability, ability to restore quickly, and length of service, hard drives are simply better than comparable tape systems.
• Offsite – Offsite backup solves a number of security & operational concerns, and is very cost effective these days (about $1 per GB per month is pretty common).  Because it’s automated, you don’t need to worry about people remembering to take data offsite and you can control the amount of data that is backed up offsite.

Imaging:  Imaging is the process of taking a “snapshot” of an operating system.  When applied to server systems, the use of imaging can literally save tens of thousands of dollars in recovery costs.  Imaging fails when it comes to restoring data granularly (a single e-mail, a single document, etc.), but for true disaster recovery, imaging can’t be beat.

Redundancy:  Creating a network devoid of “single points of failure” is almost always too expensive to employ, but the concept can be used effectively to significantly reduce the chance and effect “failure” can have on your business.  Some good uses of redundancy would be:

• Quality server design (multiple hard drives, fans, power supplies, etc.)
• Use of a quality SAN (Storage Area Network) in a virtualized server environment (VMware software is great in these environments)
• Server redundancy (two servers deployed in a fully redundant architecture).  Stratus Avance is amazing software that accomplishes this at a price small and medium sized businesses can absorb easily.
• Network switches deployed in a balanced architecture with enough capacity to assume full connectivity should one fail.

The last piece of a good disaster recovery plan is the plan itself.  Now that you have all these quality pieces in place, you still need to have a plan in place should a disaster strike.  Here are a few good ways to start putting your plan together:

1. Know your operational costs (by the day, by the hour, etc.).  Granted, this is only half the equation (operational costs don’t include the impact downtime will have on your clients, nor does it include other opportunity costs you may have), but it is an absolutely necessary ingredient for creating your plan.
2. Define your tolerance for downtime.  Some businesses can handle a day or two of downtime.  Others can’t afford an hour of downtime.  Determining how your tolerance for downtime will go a long way in putting your disaster recovery plan together
3. Define a budget.  If you know your operational costs are $25,000 per day (for instance), you then have good information from which you can create an appropriate budget for avoiding downtime.
4. Design your network appropriately (data backup, imaging, redundancy, etc.).
5. Put it on paper.  Just like everything else in business, putting it on paper helps make it happen.

Are you Ready to Throw the Notebook for a Netbook?

What’s the difference between a notebook and a Netbook?  Steve Jobs believes Netbooks are just cheap slow notebooks and everyone should but an iPad but perhaps they have a place in the modern business.

I would define a Netbook as a smaller laptop with longer battery life, an atom or similar low power consuming processor and typically do not have optical drives.

For the last 10 years companies have had to decide between larger expensive desktop replacement laptops or desktops or the expense of both for mobile employees.  Now for the price of a laptop you can often purchase a solid business class desktop and a Netbook.

Yes most Netbooks won’t break any processing records, but they will allow remote access to your office, work on word processing and other basic functions.  Netbooks also typically have longer battery life and with their smaller size they weigh less and are easy to just throw in a bag on the go.  One major objection or fear we get is the lack of CD/DVD drive.  First USB DVD drives are inexpensive if you can’t let go.  Secondly all Microsoft products on Open Licenses have to be downloaded anyway since Microsoft moved away from sending discs to it’s partners/  Even Windows comes with an easy program which can make you a USB boot disk that will install Windows 7 for you quickly and as easily as a DVD.  (Windows 7 USB Tool can be found here: http://store.microsoft.com/help/iso-tool ) Lastly any disc you have now can be quickly made into and mounted in a virtual DVD drive using a free ITP favorite MagicDisc found here: http://www.magiciso.com/tutorials/miso-magicdisc-history.htm

Looking for some reccomendations?  ITP staff favorite Netbooks are:

HP – HP Mini 210

Dell – Inspiron Mini 1018

Sony – Vaio X Series

Call us for a quote or help picking out a Netbook for your next trip for as low as $300.00.  Steve, they might be cheap but they work.

How Much Power Should the Internet Police Have – And Who Are the Internet Police?

Time to look at a sensitive, exponentially issue-inducing question: who should police the internet and how much policing should they, or anyone, be allowed to do? In this blog, we will be looking at the topic of domain name policing in particular.

We are constantly reminded of the anonymity and opportunity the internet affords its users. These freedoms are one of the founding principles of the internet: that it be an open canvas on which anything can be painted and anyone we want can view it. The internet was supposed to be a virtual land where the most typical, average person could stake a claim and make a small piece of it their own.

Like all newly-settled worlds, however, it cannot remain so forever. Various organizations have come about to monitor the internet and keep its users and their information safe. The Internet Corporation for the Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit in contract with the U.S. government, exists to manage internet addresses and oversee the addition of new domain suffixes. The most popular suffixes currently in use are .com, .net, and .org.

 A recent article on CNET.com once again brings to light the issue of domain name – and ultimately internet – governance. The United States government, among other governments both national and local, is looking to gain more power to allow or deny domain names. This has been a battle that has been raging in the internet background for as long as it has existed, and is a topic filled with shades of gray. For the past seven years, the domain suffix .xxx has been contested over by three camps: those who wish to use it, those who wish that it not be used at all, and those who wish not to be forced to use it.

Many adult content webmasters want to have the suffix .xxx be as useable as .com or .org, to give them their own space on the internet and make them easier to find. Currently .xxx is not a functioning domain. The United States government and many conservative organizations do not want the .xxx domain to exist, seeing it as comparable to allowing an adult video store on the same block as the white house.  On another end of the argument are those who see this new domain as a way to keep all of these adult content websites in one centralized location, so no one can accidentally stumble upon them or so they can be blocked more easily. Some adult content webmasters, and some webmasters who have sex education information on their websites, or others whose main purpose is not adult content but some exists on their site, do not want to be forced to join this new domain.

 Over 115 new domain name proposals are expected this year, and some raise controversies, such as the .gay domain. Whose responsibility – or right – is it to say whether or not the .gay or .freetibet domains can be used? If the former were used, it may upset millions of conservatives. If the latter were used, it may upset a government with rule over billions of people. Yet what about the people who want to use those names? What about their rights? They aren’t breaking any laws.

The debate over domain name allowance is explosive because it induces issues about freedom of speech and how much of a role governments should be able to play in the direction and access of the internet. Another example of governmental power over the internet is seen recently in Egypt, where the government shut down the internet in the entire country in an attempt to control its people. Is it right for a government to control something that belongs to no one, and yet belongs to everyone?

What Value Does Virtualization Provide?

It makes no difference whatsoever how amazing a technology is if it doesn’t provide a defined value for your business.  Below are the typical values businesses can expect to receive from deploying virtualization technology:

• Agility – Virtualized environments provide an incredible platform for adapting your company’s technology quickly in support of changing business goals and direction.
• Scalability – Adding new functionality to your company’s technology almost always presents numerous, critical, and complex concerns ranging from loss of productivity to significant capital expenditure. Virtualization simplifies this issue by eliminating hardware concerns from the equation.  In fact, a properly designed virtualization infrastructure will support relatively large changes in your company’s technology with very little complexity or out-of-pocket expense in comparison to a non-virtualized environment.
• Disaster Recovery – The ability to take an “image” of your server has been around for some time.  This ability is valuable from a disaster recovery standpoint because instead of rebuilding your server from scratch, you can simply reinstall the existing image of your server on a different piece of hardware which saves incredible amounts of time.  However, taking an existing image and installing it on a different hardware platform has always been at best difficult, and at the worst, nearly impossible. With a virtualized environment, however, this concern is eliminated because virtualization breaks the one-to-one ratio between your server hardware and software.

Note:  Management – Managing your company’s technology is a significant expense regardless of the size of your company or the market you’re in.  Yet, because technology is critical to productivity for almost every business these days, it is an expense that is absolutely necessary.  Virtualization doesn’t necessarily add to the management time required, and in certain circumstances, it can help reduce management time by removing the complexity of managing different hardware platforms.  However, it can also add some processes to your existing management routine, and if you don’t have professional, in-house IT support, you may need to leverage the services of your existing IT consultant a little more.

How Does Virtualization Work?

From a very high level virtualization architecture  is pretty straight forward.  You take one very powerful server and you install virtualization software on it.  Once you have the virtualization “layer” installed, you then install any desired server systems on top of it.  This effectively creates a platform for a one-to-many hardware-to-software relationship.  Of course, all the hardware and software specifications need to be taken into account cumulatively to properly design and deploy a virtualized environment.

What is Virtualization

The simplest way to explain virtualization may be:  the ability to run multiple operating systems on a single piece of hardware.  Of course, this is my personal definition and is specific to the context of how SMB’s typically use virtualization.  For a more formal definition, Wikipedia has a pretty good one.  Anyhow, in practice, this means that if your business employs 3 physical servers running Windows Server operating systems you could purchase one server and run all three instances of your Windows Server operating systems on that single piece of hardware. 

At first glance it may not seem that revolutionary, but virtualization is changing the way technology is used across all market segments. Really.

Virtualization 101 – Is it a Good Solution for SMB’s?

Virtualization as a technology has been around for quite some time, but it has only become prevalent within the SMB community over the past few years.  There are many reasons for this including cost, market viability, network infrastructure requirements, and more, but those barriers have been mostly removed over the past few years, making virtualization one of the most interesting and potentially valuable technologies for business today.  Yet, as we enter 2011, many businesses still don’t understand the values virtualization can provide them, nor do many businesses understand how to analyze whether virtualization is a good fit for them.  Well, read on and find out the practical aspects of utilizing virtualization technology for your business.