Posted by Nick Boccone on Sun, Aug 29, 2010 @ 07:35 PM
More often than not, we are witness to internal IT resources being pulled in way too many directions. Most of their time is spent fixing the broken rather than ensuring the core platform of the organization they work for is living up to the objectives of the company itself. Too often, the initiatives that are meant to drive growth and profitability for the business takes a back seat to operational demands and the daily grind.
The solution to this conundrum is to either grow the IT department to enable the critical initiatives to be resolved or to find an effective partner to manage network solutions for you. Both alternatives can present problems for an organization; hiring additional staff can be costly and often counter-productive, while finding the right solution-partner may be difficult to achieve.
Let’s explore what to look for in an effective partner to outsource routine tasks and infrastructure and manage network services for your organization. Here are some key points that should help you find a partner that will fit perfectly into your business plans:
- Your information doesn’t sleep; ensure the solution provides 24/7 support where needed
- Ensure that there are guarantees for performance and equipment
- There are always some limitations to these types of services; learn where the limits are
- Does the supplier have expertise in this area? Get references, talk to their customers
- Is the service provider monitoring 24/7/365?
- You and the potential partner should consider both current and future needs
There are several reasons that might attract you and your organization to look more deeply into going the route of a managed network service:
- Human Resource limitations in your current staff
- Protecting mission critical information
- 24/7/365 SLA requirements
- Failover or uptime guarantee requirements
- Lack of capital
- Expertise gaps in IT knowledge
- Infrastructure needs fluctuation (as in the case of seasonal businesses)
IT outsource solutions can vary in cost, service and discipline, so prior to venturing into this managed service opportunity, first determine where your organization is spending the bulk of its time and effort and find where the greatest return can be had. For example, a common area where both financial savings and service improvements can be found is in email administration and management. There are many suppliers that offer both hosted and on-site solutions that all but eliminate the internal staff requirements and more often than not, improve the uptime as well. Other IT managed solutions might include firewalls, load balancing, file servers, web servers, VPN tunnels, cloud storage, backup and more. Make sure that the managed service provider offers some sort of service guarantee and the service itself is hands-on and not just shipped back to your resources.
The underlying purpose of choosing managed network solutions is to enhance the performance, reliability and security of an organization’s infrastructure, while reducing implementation costs and capital investment. These outsourced services typically utilize experts in the discipline, the latest technologies and infrastructure, while reducing costs for individual organizations by spreading costs to many rather than to the few. It makes good business sense to get a more reliable end product than what you currently use and pay less for it.
Posted by Nick Boccone on Fri, Aug 20, 2010 @ 09:08 AM
As discussed in greater length in our whitepaper, TECH TRENDS for the Small and Medium Business, Apple has taken openness to new levels. You see, Apple were clever enough to ride the coat-tails of developers and created real opportunities for advancing their business and revenue while hardly lifting a finger. But, that ride may soon be over as the giant Google plans to open its own APP store in October.
In recent news http://goo.gl/4QGw Google has announced plans to open an APPS store, similar in many ways to Apple’s App Store. The main difference of the site, in my opinion, will be the lure of more and more developers. It appears that Google’s plans to establish an approximate 5% fee for apps to be listed should attract an entirely new set of professional developers and ultimately create an entirely new class of applications for the planet. Since developers will be able to earn more and most likely engage with a larger audience, the earning potential for the developments are significantly higher, with less risk.
This segment of the application industry is currently worth billions of dollars annually. And, as the proliferation of cheaper, better, faster, mobile devices become available, this industry will only continue to grow. By giving developers greater opportunities for profitability, Google will take a giant leap forward in eliminating pesky Apple as a viable business threat.
Who wins this war? Quite simply, the global community, and the developers who are smart enough to profit from the new currency…APPS.
I predict that the two greatest things that will come out of this news will be: fair pay to developers, which I hope will extend some-day to content developers, and ultimately a growing number of powerful applications that will serve our needs in more enriching & elegant ways.
Posted by Nick Boccone on Thu, Aug 19, 2010 @ 10:13 AM
Today marks a special day for all of us “type-G” personalities, the birth date of Gene Roddenberry (August 19, 1921).
Even those of you who are not technophiles can appreciate what Gene has given to our society to date. For instance, where do you think the inspiration for the modern mobile device came from? If you can stand it, check out an old episode of Star Trek-- in it, you’ll find many of the technologies envisioned to be a part of our everyday culture. Look no further than the mobile device you are carrying. Just where did you think the notion for the flip phone came from?
Now, I know the show was campy, cheesy and often laughable, but the truth is that Gene’s vision of the future inspires scientists, engineers and politicians globally. For that we should all be thankful!
Say what you will but we admire his spirit and promise to continue to work on warp drives, transporter systems and the prime directive in his honor. Thanks Gene!
Posted by Kevin Cearns on Thu, Aug 19, 2010 @ 06:50 AM
I wrote an article a few years ago on my personal blog about the rise of multi-core processors and their impact on development and applications. I've recently stumbled across a few articles related to my original thoughts and given the availability of 12 core CPUs for the average consumer, I thought it relevant to post again.
The parallel problem was bound to be noticed eventually and will only become increasingly prevalent in the year and years to come. I came across an interesting article this evening and thought I'd put some of my own ideas down.
Multicore processors represent, to some extent, the notion of distributed computing in a local and encapsulated way. Writing software that takes advantage of both distributed processors and multicore chips is an entirely different paradigm to which most developers are unaware.
Both AMD and Intel have said they will ship processors using a mix of X86 and graphics cores as early as next year, with core counts quickly rising to eight or more per chip. But software developers are still stuck with a mainly serial programming model that cannot easily take advantage of the new hardware.
I am working my way through Programming Erlang, Software for a Concurrent World by Joe Armstrong. Erlang is a programming language designed for building highly parallel, distributed, fault-tolerant systems. It has been used commercially for many years by Ericsson to build massive fault-tolerated systems that run for years with minimal failures. Erlang appears to be gaining in popularity, whether this popularity continues or diminishes is irrelevant. What's important to understand is that our perceived notion of computing, both how to build it and program for it, is changing. Actually, it's not really changing. Large scale distributed systems have been commonplace for decades, what's different is the potential for harnessing this computing power now sits on your desk. Whether it be your recently purchased Mac Pro, or a cluster of commodity PCs, unless your program can execute in parallel, you will never see the potential.
"The industry is in a little bit of a panic about how to program multicore processors, especially heterogeneous ones," said Chuck Moore, a senior fellow at AMD now serving as chief architect of the company's so-called accelerated computing initiative. "To make effective use of multicore hardware today, you need a PhD in computer science. That can't continue if we want to enable heterogeneous CPUs."
My hunch is the chip manufacturers, like the article suggests, will eventually hide the need to program parallelism. For my part, I'm going to continue playing with Erlang. Whether it plays a role in my day to day technical needs is uncertain, but it will be fun.
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Posted by Nick Boccone on Mon, Aug 16, 2010 @ 06:32 PM
I recently finished a book by Nicholas Carr entitled The Big Switch. If you haven’t read it, put it on your list! It’s a wonderfully written and well-thought-out book from cover to cover. I’m certain it will give you insight, and in many ways, will offer connections to your future business.
Carr’s correlation between the evolution of electricity as a utility versus the evolution of I.T. as a utility was of particular interest to me. With so much opportunity to streamline traditional IT-department processes and functions through utilization of Internet-based services, our organizations can now achieve much more for much less. This fact alone will enable most businesses to concentrate on fulfilling objectives that help deliver on their core product instead of devoting time and energy to supporting infrastructure. The time is near when we will simply plug in to the util-IT and pay only for what we need and are using. In many ways, we are already there.
Imagine having to build the infrastructure and a supporting department in order to generate the electricity to meet your own company’s needs. To most of us, this idea is well beyond our comprehension as electricity has become as ubiquitous as rain. In order to get the electricity we need, we only need to “plug” into the utility. So, when we need an expert to connect us to the utility, we call an electrician and then pay the utility only for the hydro we use.
Technology as a utility is not quite that simple for all businesses…yet. However, as telecommunication bandwidth improves, the opportunity to store, share, collaborate, backup and distribute information will become even less of a burden for our organizations. Those of you reading this article may not see this future, but our children will. And their children will probably never know that I.T. was not always a plug-in service.
Posted by Nick Boccone on Sat, Aug 14, 2010 @ 08:25 AM
Google today changed some features on their highly used gmail eMail system that both pleased me and also led me to think that they still don't come close to meeting the richness of Zimbra Collaboration Suite. 
Gmail has, in their words, "pruned our pixels" and made it easier to get to your contacts and tasks. Don't get me wrong, I think gmail is a terrific cloud-service; but, with respect to Zimbra however, it just pales by comparison. Our dollar for dollar evaluation, Zimbra comes out on top...way on top!
Zimbra Collaboration Suite -- My 5 Favourite Features
1. Over-the-Air Sync. I don't know about you, but I do not solely work in one space. I rely heavily on my mobile devices to get me through daily challenges. No longer having to delete emails twice or import a calendar or update a contact through tethering keeps all my information current to the minute.
2. User Interface. Version 5 was wonderful, but version 6 has made navigation through the suite a breeze with little or no training required. For one example: I often drag and drop an email drop it on a calendar date and a meeting is automatically generated with details filled in from the email and includes recipients...I just modify slightly and send. Simple.
3. Sharing. Nearly everything inside of the suite itself is sharable amongst your peers--a big reason why it's called a "collaboration suite". Share everything from RSS feeds, documents, resources to calendars.
4. Administration. With the ability to assign a variety of permission levels, individual users have more control of setting up the suite to suit their individual needs and reduce the overall requirement for technical help. I love the control and personalization!
5. Instant Messaging. Perhaps my favorite feature of all (much to the chagrin of my colleagues I'm sure) is the ability to speak to all of my collaborators instantly, receive feedback and track that conversation for later use in other streams of communication. Either working remotely or multi-tasking at my desk, IM brings me closer to the team around me...it's just like being there.
For my money (and little money indeed) the greatest value around is with Zimbra Collaboration Suite 6.0!
Posted by Nick Boccone on Mon, Aug 09, 2010 @ 07:38 AM
If you are not backing up data, all data, then take these first steps to ensure your information will be available to you when you need it. Too often, small businesses don’t back up their information at all or with any regularity and simply rely on their servers and desktop computers to always work. The cold hard reality is both computers and servers fail on a regular basis (A study conducted by Bianca Schroeder and Garth A. Gibson, Carnegie Mellon University, indicated a common drive failure occurrence rate of 2-4% and up to 13% for some systems) and when that failure day comes, is when we typically get “the” call. “Can you restore my data?”
It’s true, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The cost to protect your business in the event of hardware failure is minutely small in comparison to trying to either recapture lost data or recreate lost data altogether. We know, we’ve seen it time and again. Imagine the effort it would take to recreate even one week’s worth of work and the frustration it would cause you and your associates.
If you have RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) set up, that is a good first step, however, all you have really done is to protect yourself from drive failure. You have not protected yourself from either server failure or accidental deletion of files. Furthermore, most instances where RAID is deployed only accounts for the server data and not information stored on individual workstations themselves. A solid defensive strategy needs to consider all data from all sources in your environment.
The forgotten data is regularly at the desktop level and is very difficult to recover. A server may be backing up all data shared on it, but does not incorporate much of the work created on our personal PCs. Many tools are available to nearly eliminate this common issue but continues to be overlooked as far as data recovery is concerned.
Too often, we are brought into situations where regular backups appear to be working when in actuality, the data being captured as a business continuity safeguard has been compromised. Typically this occurs because the initial backup protocol that has been established either fails or the back-up requirements change, making the data-set virtually useless. At the very least the costs for reintegrating the data back into your organization is ridiculously high and needlessly so.
Nearly Fail-Proof Back Up Solutions:
1. Layer in as much redundancy as your operation can afford
2. Establish a back-up standard which includes desktop level
3. Automate a backup response
4. Check your backup or have it checked regularly (once per week)
5. Plan at least one restore of back-up data every 3 months and confirm it has functioned properly
6. Review your back-up standards yearly
Posted by Nick Boccone on Wed, Aug 04, 2010 @ 01:12 PM
I like to think of DNS (dynamic name system or dynamic name server) as the ultimate universal translator in human/computer relations. Most of us can’t decipher what this number 173.35.50.129 means to our lives. But in essence, it is simply directing digital traffic (users/consumers/readers/etc.) to a specific website, in this case,
www.entuit.com. So, when I type
www.entuit.com into a url, a query is sent to some servers until a match for the number that corresponds to the name is found. Once the match is found your information becomes available to the querying browser. This process is completed in nano-seconds.
If you have a website then you also have DNS records being hosted somewhere. In effect, telling the world that your website or email can be found "here". Too often, organizations trust their hosting companies or web site developers with the registration of their domain name because they do not understand the process completely. If you had someone purchase your domain name for you, they are likely listed as the registrant of that domain. At the very least, they have control over where your DNS records live. If this sounds like a situation you're in, it is imperative that you gain control of your domain name and DNS records.
There are basically three roles required to register a domain name: the Registrant, an Administrative Contact and a Technical Contact. If for instance, I want to move our DNS records from one provider to another, as the registrar I have the privilege to do so. Otherwise, I am at the mercy of the 3rd party registrar who either can or cannot make the change (say an accident or death) or may or may not want (perhaps a soured relationship) to be of assistance.
If your DNS is registered by a 3rd party and you are not the registrar, do yourself a favour and contact your hosting company or the person/company who registered the domain name and have the records changed. Make sure your business is listed as the registrant. Ask for access and password information and the registrar lock that is specific to you and regain control of your domain. This incidentally, should be at no additional cost to you.
There are a variety of free tools that can help you determine who is indicated as the registrar and the one we like to use is www.dnsstuff.com.
Seize the DNS!
Posted by Kevin Cearns on Tue, Aug 03, 2010 @ 06:39 AM
A recent article on CNN Money explains how Apple is now number 3 in portables, passing Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba and Dell.
We speak a lot about mobile access to your data. Mobility is one of the pillars of our business, primarily because of devices like the iPad. Today's smart phones enable access to the web and rich content in a way like never before. The small form factor lets you access your businesses information regardless of where you are. That company spreadsheet, PDF or document you need is as close as your pocket.
One of the limiting factors for long term use has been the very thing that makes smart phones so powerful: their size. Netbooks started to push the expectation of mobile computing, sacrificing usability (really, can you work on that 7" screen all day) with some of the power we've come to expect from our laptops or desktop computers. In many ways the iPad leap frogged the netbook market by providing both computing power and a compelling user experience. The numbers are starting to prove it.
I sat in a coffee shop yesterday morning close to a table of women sharing stories about their grandchildren. One of them pulled out an iPad and started to show the others pictures of hers. After a few minutes of picture gazing talk quickly turned to this miraculous device she could use and share with so easily. I think Apple has 3 more buyers in its future.
Posted by Kevin Cearns on Sun, Jul 25, 2010 @ 09:15 AM
We are big proponents of utilizing Cloud services where it makes sense. I thought I'd take the time and list a few of the services we use daily.
These services form the foundation of our business giving us access to collaboration, help desk ticketing, customer and account management, community management, web site and blog administration and hardware/application infrastructure. Any small to medium sized business could utilize some or all of the services to advance their business with leading technology solutions using a no risk, capital free model.
Zimbra
At Entuit Enterprise Solutions Inc. we tend to "eat our own dog food". We provide hosted Zimbra Collaboration Suite services so it's only fitting we utilize it internally for all of our email, contacts and calendaring. We share calendars amongst ourselves and make use of the instant messaging functionality to keep in touch with each other throughout the day.
Google Docs
We use Google Docs for our documents, spreadsheets and presentations. We believe firmly in the web as a platform so living in the browser is a natural extension of ourselves. Google Docs gives us the ability to collaborate in real time on presentations and proposals. As a business that works in a virtual office, it's an invaluable tool for us.
Zendesk
Keeping ahead of issues and providing a timely response to support requests is critical to us. Zendesk provides us with a web based help desk ticketing system and gave us all of the tools we needed in a matter of minutes - as long as it took to create the account. With their web or email based system, coupled with iPhone and Android apps for mobile access, we are able to stay on top of customer support issues from anywhere.
Salesforce
Managing leads, contacts, accounts and opportunities is critical for any business. Salesforce provides us with these tools and much more. Using the Salesforce API and development environment we are able to extend their product to fit our specific needs. We are also able to develop applications outside of their environment utilizing their API to avoid duplicate entry and enhance our custom applications with customer information.
Hubspot
We just started using Hubspot to manage inbound marketing on our web site. We also use it for our blog (you're reading this on the Hubspot engine). Essentially, no leads equals no new business - it's that important.
AWS (Amazon Web Services)
Amazon gives us instant access to pay as you go infrastructure. Need a server, distributed storage or database, it's as easy as logging into your administration console and starting one up. Instant infrastructure with a credit card.
Google App Engine
Slightly different than AWS, Google App Engine provides a platform to deploy custom applications on without worrying about the hardware or network. It scales up and down to meet demand so you only need to focus on providing applications that satisfy yours, or your customers, needs.
Skype
We use Skype for a few things. I use it for making phone calls when I'm at my desk, we also use it for meetings using the video conferencing functionality. Sometimes we'll be on a skype video call editing a proposal in Google Docs - now that's 2010.
Facebook/Twitter
Some would argue these are not really Cloud services but they do provide a platform for application development and service. We have a large Facebook community and we utilize it for some of our advertising. Facebook is a critical way for us to communicate with our customer base. We use Twitter mostly for system status updates but blog and Facebook posts are fed to it as well.
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