Web Site Design & Implementation do you know your OS?

Did you know that your website probably has an operating system?

That’s right if I go to your website I can go to View Source and tell what the web site implementer used to create your website.  Whether it was created from scratch in Dreamweaver or using Microsoft .NET or a PHP CMS like Joomla or something entirely different and custom.  You would never install new servers or workstations without knowing the operating system but most web sites go up without the clients asking about why the platform the designer has decided is the best solution.

The web clients that come to us come for 1 of 3 reasons:

1. Their site is outdated and ugly
2. Their site needs to rank higher in the search engines
3. Last but most common someone wrote the site and now they are gone or non responsive and they have no idea how to make changes or add pages/features.

We use an standards based CMS (Content Management System) this gives our clients the modern features of today’s websites with the flexibility to both edit their own content as well as have a solid platform that ITP or any vendor could come in and work on.  ITP has no interest in selling you a custom system as a method of trapping you into being our client.  Our clients stay with us because we create great web sites that increase their business profitability and exposure.

ITP’s process for web site design includes all of the following key components:

1. Design (Look and Feel)
2. Platform (Manage Your Content)
3. Content Writing (Our writers can help you get through that mental block and create pages of Search Engine Friendly Content)
4. Proper Search Engine Friendly Coding (All that magic computer geeks know to get you noticed)
5. Functionality (Need e commerce, registration system?)
6. Project Management (A proven process of gathering information, executing and informing you through the process)

Want a solid web hosting platform to go along with it?  We do that too.  Check out our advanced cloud based web hosting platform.

Hyper-v installation and Server 2008 or SBS 2008

Is it time for an upgrade or a new server and looking at the new small business server 2008 and getting  a little confused?  Want to give virtualization a try?

SBS 2008 Premium is a licensing steal by Microsoft.  It provides your with physical and virtual licesenses for SBS 2008 and Server Standard 2008 32/64 bit.  As well as a full SQL 2008 license.

That is 5 licenses for the price of one and a modest price at that.

Ok, so you are sold on the license but what hardware to buy?

Things to consider when buying hardware for a virtualized environment:

1. Buy Mainstream – (Dell, HP, Major Brands) Why?  No not a sales pitch per se but this is new for Microsoft so they go to Dell and HP for driver support first not the stuff you can buy from random build our own sites.  Sorry.
2. Get the right processor – make sure you are buying a virtualization ready or newer processor.  This is an Intel Processor most likely made in the last 2 years at least
3. RAM – the more the better.  If you use server core installation of windows server 2008 and hyper-v the non GUI install still has a RAM overhead so 12GB of RAM total will really probably give you about 10.5GB of RAM for your virtual machines.  I would say 12GB is a minimum for running 2 64bit servers.  That will give each about 6GB of RAM.
4. RAID – pay attention to the RAID card make sure it is from a major manufacturer and has some way of indicating failure since the virtual machines will not be able to detect it.
5. SAN – (Storage Area Network) is an array of disks in a separate box.  While the new Hyper-V beta is the only starting to support live migration.  I just want to make sure we always let clients know between v=Vmware or future Microsoft a shared storage device is required for live migration ( for this discussion lets ignore this for now)

Install Considerations Read more »

Restoring a virtual machine in real life

You may have heard or read the hype over the last 10 years about the “cloud” and “virtualization” to consolidate your network hardware.  It all sounds “neat” and a little confusing but how does it really help?  Let me share a real story of a time when virtualization has made a difference in our business.  (Note names have been changed but the facts in this case are real)

I had been working hard getting a 2 NFR licsenses from Lexis Nexis Time Matters enterprise working on 2 servers, one in our main office in Milwaukee and one in our Madison office.  The purpose was to demonstrate the use of SQL replication technology.  That is SQL’s ability to keep to SQL databases perfectly in sync.  This mixed with Time Matters 9.0 Enterprise can create 2 or more databases all over the U.S. which stay in sync in real time but individuals can still connect locally not using VPN, Terminal Server or Citirix.  Neat stuff and very useful for some of our mid to large clients.

I digress.  I was using a vmware virtual machine of Server 2003 to demonstrate mostly because I could work on it on my mac in vmware fusion when I had time and then could ultimately transfer it to a more powerful machine in the Madison office whenever I needed it.  Using a virtual machine or a “VM” allowed me to configure the server and have all those settings maintained no matter which machine I hit “play” on.  Really it can be that simple.  Vmware stores the entire OS, settings, files in a matter of a couple files which can be transfered and with vmware player (free, http://www.vmware.com/download/player/) you push a green play button and your in action.

True story, the morning of the demo for the client the hard drive on the machine I was going to demo it on failed.  I did not panic I did not even call our main office.  Instead I drove to our datacenter with the vm on a usb hard drive.  Plugged it into one of our existing servers and hit “play”.  The demo was never reschedule on our client and I think our sales team at ITP may have even been a little impressed.

Vmware, Hyper-V or Xen – virtualization is coming to the SMB market and to the home user.  I answer virtualization questions daily from friends, family and colleagues.  I called a maintence guy in Florida to ask about the internet setup for one of our traveling clients and he said “Hey, you got a minute for a question about vmware fusion…?”

I will work up a post on virtualiztion basics so that we can demystify virtualiztion.  It is not marketing this technology makes business sense.

Spam Defense Basics

Spam Management

I ran across a client today that was just getting hammered by spam – like two hundred time-wasting messages every day.  Just listening to his frustration with it all got me thinking…why are people still suffering with spam problems?  Why don’t they just do something about it?  I think the answer is that they don’t know that something can be done about it.  Thankfully, today there are a number of effective options for combating spam.  First, however, it’s important to establish a few truths about spam:

1. Spam is expensive!  It costs you time.  It costs you money.  It costs you business (ever accidentally delete that important e-mail in the midst of deleting all your spam?).
2. For the foreseeable future, spam is here to stay.  It is just part of the growing behemoth that is the Internet; one of the bad aspects of cheap, easy communications.
3. Spam is a problem that can be significantly minimized, if not completely solved, without a ton of expense.

The good news is you don’t have to just sit there and take it.  Here’s a good, basic blueprint for fighting the spammers… Read more »