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	<title>Geeknick</title>
	
	<link>http://www.geeknick.com</link>
	<description>By Engineers, For Engineers - VoIP, Security, LAN, WAN, Virtualization</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Mon, 30 Aug 2010 20:47:55 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Ironport DLP</title>
		<link>http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/ironport-dlp/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/ironport-dlp/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 30 Aug 2010 20:47:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alex Jerrold</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Unified Communications]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geeknick.com/?p=249</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>I find that the Ironport DLP policies are a bit confusing, maybe even misleading.  Many of them in their description say that it will classify emails with Social Security numbers, or account numbers, but in fact they require more than just those specific matches to be considered <span id="more-249"></span>part of the policy.</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>Many of the policies require something the match other than the specific term.  Lets take the policies that match social security numbers,&#8230; <a href="http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/ironport-dlp/" class="read_more">Read the rest</a></p><p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/ironport-dlp/">Ironport DLP</a> is a post from: <a href="http://www.geeknick.com">Geeknick</a></p>



Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://www.geeknick.com/network-security/droppingtraffic/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Dropping Traffic in IOS'>Dropping Traffic in IOS</a> <small>Everyone is familiar with access-lists as a way to drop...</small></li>
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			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I find that the Ironport DLP policies are a bit confusing, maybe even misleading.  Many of them in their description say that it will classify emails with Social Security numbers, or account numbers, but in fact they require more than just those specific matches to be considered <span id="more-249"></span>part of the policy.</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>Many of the policies require something the match other than the specific term.  Lets take the policies that match social security numbers, such as Graham Leach Bliley.  This requires not only the social security number, but also some identifying information, such as name and address.   The rational behind this is that a social security number without context is usually not very useful, if you think about it a social security number can easily  derived by just putting 9 numbers together with a “-“ between the third and fourth number and the sixth and seventh.</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>So, what if you want to use the vast array of dictionaries available to the DLP policy manager, but want to match and take action no matter what?</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>The easiest thing to do is create a custom policy.  With this you can grab any of the dictionaries in the DLP engine, such as various nationalities social security numbers, or states drivers license numbers.  Put a policy together using just those things and have it hit.  But leaving the policy like that is not good enough, you must also adjust the sliders at the bottom of the DLP policy page.  Normally the ignore is set for 0-9, meaning that a single social security number may not actually trigger an action even though it did match.  My suggestion is to move those sliders so that low starts at 1 and set your actions accordingly.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/ironport-dlp/">Ironport DLP</a> is a post from: <a href="http://www.geeknick.com">Geeknick</a></p>


<p>Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://www.geeknick.com/network-security/droppingtraffic/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Dropping Traffic in IOS'>Dropping Traffic in IOS</a> <small>Everyone is familiar with access-lists as a way to drop...</small></li>
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		<title>Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) Explained</title>
		<link>http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/digital-signal-processors-dsps-explained/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/digital-signal-processors-dsps-explained/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:19:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mike Cavanaugh</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Unified Communications]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cisco CCIE CCNA DSP UC VoIP Voice Codec g711 g729 g722 iLBC]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geeknick.com/?p=236</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>A high Level Explanation of Digital Signal Processors (DSPs)</p>
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<p>

</p>
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<p>For more videos, check out my youtube channel by clicking the link bellow:</p>
<p><a title="Networking Technologies Explained" href="http://www.geeknick.com/recommends/Networking_Technologies_Explained/3/" target="_blank"><strong>Networking Technologies Explained</strong></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/digital-signal-processors-dsps-explained/">Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) Explained</a> is a post from: <a href="http://www.geeknick.com">Geeknick</a></p>


<p>Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/voice-codecs-explained/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Voice Codecs Explained'>Voice Codecs Explained</a> <small>A high level explanation of Voice Codecs 1 of 2...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/multi-protocol-label-switching-mpls-explained/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) Explained'>Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) Explained</a> <small>A high level explanation of MPLS For more videos, check...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/quality-of-service-qos-explained/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Quality of Service (QoS) Explained'>Quality of Service (QoS) Explained</a></li></ol>&#8230; <a href="http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/digital-signal-processors-dsps-explained/" class="read_more">Read the rest</a></p><p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/digital-signal-processors-dsps-explained/">Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) Explained</a> is a post from: <a href="http://www.geeknick.com">Geeknick</a></p>



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			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>A high Level Explanation of Digital Signal Processors (DSPs)</p>
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</p>
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<p>For more videos, check out my youtube channel by clicking the link bellow:</p>
<p><a title="Networking Technologies Explained" href="http://www.geeknick.com/recommends/Networking_Technologies_Explained/3/" target="_blank"><strong>Networking Technologies Explained</strong></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/digital-signal-processors-dsps-explained/">Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) Explained</a> is a post from: <a href="http://www.geeknick.com">Geeknick</a></p>


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<li><a href='http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/multi-protocol-label-switching-mpls-explained/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) Explained'>Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) Explained</a> <small>A high level explanation of MPLS For more videos, check...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/quality-of-service-qos-explained/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Quality of Service (QoS) Explained'>Quality of Service (QoS) Explained</a> <small>High level explanation of QoS For more videos, check out...</small></li>
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		<title>Data Center Bridging</title>
		<link>http://www.geeknick.com/datacenter/data-center-bridging/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geeknick.com/datacenter/data-center-bridging/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 06 Aug 2010 12:42:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mike Lundy</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Data Networking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Datacenter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Data Center Bridging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ethernet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Flow Control]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[IEEE]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[QoS]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geeknick.com/?p=229</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>Data Center Bridging is a collection of standards being worked on by the IEEE in an effort to provide a more robust form of Ethernet for data center communications.  In doing so, the standards bodies and manufacturers hope to provide a single communications mechanism for all devices within the data center.  To understand the changes needed to enhance Ethernet, it is important to understand where it began.</p>
<p>Ethernet is the dominant transport technology in networking&#8230; <a href="http://www.geeknick.com/datacenter/data-center-bridging/" class="read_more">Read the rest</a></p><p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/datacenter/data-center-bridging/">Data Center Bridging</a> is a post from: <a href="http://www.geeknick.com">Geeknick</a></p>



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			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Data Center Bridging is a collection of standards being worked on by the IEEE in an effort to provide a more robust form of Ethernet for data center communications.  In doing so, the standards bodies and manufacturers hope to provide a single communications mechanism for all devices within the data center.  To understand the changes needed to enhance Ethernet, it is important to understand where it began.</p>
<p>Ethernet is the dominant transport technology in networking and by design allows for data loss.  When Ethernet was originally created it was based upon a bus technology using coax cable with taps to provide connectivity to individual devices.  Ethernet was designed with CSMA/CD which is Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection.  This mechanism allowed Ethernet to recover from collisions due to two or more nodes attempting to communicate at the same time.  This mechanism allows for data to be lost and retransmitted on an Ethernet network.</p>
<p><span id="more-229"></span>Data Center Bridging is an effort by the standards bodies including the IEEE to enhance traditional Ethernet for use within the data center to provide a unified technology for all data center communications including network, storage and management.   The minimum enhancements to Ethernet to support Data Center Bridging are Priority Based Flow Control, Enhanced Transmission Selection, and Data Center Bridging Exchange Protocol.</p>
<p>Priority Based Flow Control creates eight separate virtual links on each physical link.  Each virtual link can be paused independently from the others.  This allows the creation of a loss free virtual link across the physical link.  In addition, quality of service can be configured for each virtual link.</p>
<p>Enhanced Transmission Selection allows differentiation between traffic of the same priority class.  This leads to the concept of priority groups.  Traditional QoS mechanisms allow for different traffic classes. ETS creates priority groups within the classes for further control over network traffic.</p>
<p>Data Center Bridging Exchange Protocol is used by devices to discover one another and exchange information about each device’s capabilities.  By creating a protocol for capabilities exchange, devices can better understand the capabilities and limitations of their peers with a Data Center Bridged environment.</p>
<p>Data Center Bridging allows customers the ability to create a converged network within the data center that incorporates networking, management and storage onto a single transmission medium.  It simplifies the cabling within the data center and allows organizations to adapt rapidly to changing business needs.  For more information on Data Center Ethernet see the links below.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/recommends/http_www.ieee802.org_1_pages_dcbridges.html/41/">http://www.ieee802.org/1/pages/dcbridges.html</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/recommends/http_www.cisco.com_en_US_partner_netsol_ns783_index.html/42/">http://www.cisco.com/en/US/partner/netsol/ns783/index.html</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/datacenter/data-center-bridging/">Data Center Bridging</a> is a post from: <a href="http://www.geeknick.com">Geeknick</a></p>


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		<title>Security – More than just ACLs</title>
		<link>http://www.geeknick.com/network-security/security-more-than-just-acls/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geeknick.com/network-security/security-more-than-just-acls/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:18:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alex Jerrold</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Network Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geeknick.com/?p=226</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>In an age where people think network security, they see access-lists, firewalls, IPS and other appliances to assist, the resiliency of the network seems to have faded into the darkness.</p>
<p><span id="more-226"></span></p>
<p>So many times the security of the network devices, or the access into the network is laid out in such a way that should one of those devices fail, the network is down.  In this case, no one even attacked you and you are&#8230; <a href="http://www.geeknick.com/network-security/security-more-than-just-acls/" class="read_more">Read the rest</a></p><p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/network-security/security-more-than-just-acls/">Security &#8211; More than just ACLs</a> is a post from: <a href="http://www.geeknick.com">Geeknick</a></p>



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			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In an age where people think network security, they see access-lists, firewalls, IPS and other appliances to assist, the resiliency of the network seems to have faded into the darkness.</p>
<p><span id="more-226"></span></p>
<p>So many times the security of the network devices, or the access into the network is laid out in such a way that should one of those devices fail, the network is down.  In this case, no one even attacked you and you are in a spot where you must route around the failed security device, and with concern for uptime, you may do it in a manner that is far less secure than if you had never had the device in the first place.  Why?  Usually because you are trying to patch the hole quickly, and inadvertently leave a security hole, which, if you had never owned the device, you would have thought through and secured this method of connection.  These holes commonly show up as missing lines in the ACLs due to IP schema changes, or a routing issue that is now bypassing more of your security than you intended.</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>The solutions are numerous, but when developing a solution there are always the four &#8220;P&#8221;s that must work together.</p>
<p>Performance &#8211; How well will the solution work should there be a failure and how fast can it be implemented and how much will the reduced  performance cost in terms of business.</p>
<p>Probability &#8211; How likely is it that there will be a failure of this device given its own internal redundancy</p>
<p>Price &#8211; Do I need to explain this one?</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>So the obvious answer, is that if price weren&#8217;t a factor, buy two of everything have two circuits from two providers, bring in power from two power grids, have two cores switches, each with two fibers to redundant distribution layer, to redundant access layer to servers with redundant NICs and vmware to move all of the servers to another diversley geo-located site should this site get destroyed.</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>More likely you should look at ways to, within a budget, mitigate the consequences of a failure.  Let&#8217;s say you have an Inline web filter that is going up to a pair of Cisco ASAs.  Well, your inline web filter is a single point of failure sitting in front of a redundant solution.  So what do you do if you can&#8217;t afford another webfilter and need to know that should it fail you can still maintain business.</p>
<p>First &#8211; make sure you keep your warranty up on the web filter and have fast replacement.  This doesn&#8217;t cost nearly what a second webfilter would, and reduces your performance risk from an outage time perspective.</p>
<p>Second &#8211; Design with this in mind.  See if you can use your webfilter a different way.  Maybe as WCCP where should it go down, you can fail open. If you must stay inline, assume it will fail closed (even if it advertises itself differently).  Then plan disaster recovery around that.  In this case you may have two VLANs involved.  One for the inside of the web filter and one for the outside.  The inside VLAN is a routed VLAN on your layer 3 switch.  You are routing to your ASAs directly.  To do this you connect the inside of your web filter to the inside VLAN, and the outside interface to a non routeable VLAN on the layer 3 switch.  You will then connect your ASAs&#8217; inside interfaces to that same outside VLAN.  This forces the traffic through the webfilter and is a very common setup for this scenario.  Should the webfilter go down, you change the VLAN on the ASAs to the inside vlan, and you have internet access again.  You have lost the web filter obviously, but hopefully your performance impact isn&#8217;t that great until the replacement unit can arrive.</p>
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<p>By doing this you can also ensure that the inside vlan, is secured in a manner that your company policy is congruent with should a failure occur.</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/network-security/security-more-than-just-acls/">Security &#8211; More than just ACLs</a> is a post from: <a href="http://www.geeknick.com">Geeknick</a></p>


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		<title>Save Money with Data Center Virtualization and Vmware Vsphere 4.1</title>
		<link>http://www.geeknick.com/datacenter/save-money-with-data-center-virtualization-and-vmware-vsphere-4-1/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geeknick.com/datacenter/save-money-with-data-center-virtualization-and-vmware-vsphere-4-1/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Jul 2010 20:11:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rolf Versluis</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Datacenter]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geeknick.com/?p=220</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<div>
<p>VMware vSphere is the most widely used and  robust <a href="http://www.geeknick.com/recommends/data_center_virtualization/35/"><strong>data  center virtualization</strong></a> platform in the industry. It  gives   the highest levels of responsiveness and availability, which are  required by the most demanding data centers throughout  the world.</p>
<p>VMware vSphere will help you to cut  capital and operating costs and provide  you additional  control over  your computing system . You will be able to lighten the load of  your IT  personnel  and can use</p></div><p>&#8230; <a href="http://www.geeknick.com/datacenter/save-money-with-data-center-virtualization-and-vmware-vsphere-4-1/" class="read_more">Read the rest</a></p><p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/datacenter/save-money-with-data-center-virtualization-and-vmware-vsphere-4-1/">Save Money with Data Center Virtualization and Vmware Vsphere 4.1</a> is a post from: <a href="http://www.geeknick.com">Geeknick</a></p>



Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://www.geeknick.com/datacenter/virtualization-%e2%80%93-a-new-era-for-computer-systems/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Virtualization – a new era for computer systems'>Virtualization – a new era for computer systems</a> <small>After working with PCs and Servers for many years we...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://www.geeknick.com/datacenter/hardware-requirements-for-virtual-machines/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Hardware requirements for Virtual Machines'>Hardware requirements for Virtual Machines</a> <small>When buying a new server, or any piece of computer...</small></li>
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			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div>
<p>VMware vSphere is the most widely used and  robust <a href="http://www.geeknick.com/recommends/data_center_virtualization/35/"><strong>data  center virtualization</strong></a> platform in the industry. It  gives   the highest levels of responsiveness and availability, which are  required by the most demanding data centers throughout  the world.</p>
<p>VMware vSphere will help you to cut  capital and operating costs and provide  you additional  control over  your computing system . You will be able to lighten the load of  your IT  personnel  and can use just about any server hardware, operating  system, and applications you like.</p>
<p><strong>What is new in vSphere 4.1:</strong></p>
<p lang="en-US"><strong>vCompute </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p lang="en-US">Memory  	Compression -Minimizes memory contention and 	provides application  response.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p lang="en-US">DRS  	Host Affinity &#8211; Set policies when using Dynamic Resource Scheduling 	to  ideally keep an application 	residing on a specific server.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p lang="en-US"><strong>vStorage </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p lang="en-US">Storage  	I/O Control-Set storage quality of service 	priorities for each  virtual machine to 	prioritize availability of storage pools.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p lang="en-US">Array  	Integration-use new storage protocols between vSphere 	and storage  boxes for quicker Storage 	vMotion events and virtual machine set up.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p lang="en-US"><strong>vNetwork </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p lang="en-US">Network  	I/O Control-Set network quality of service 	priorities per flow type  for 	preferential access to network resources.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p lang="en-US"><strong>Scalability </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p lang="en-US">More 	virtual machines  per cluster: 3,000.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p lang="en-US">More 	physical hosts per vCenter Server  instance: 	1,000.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p lang="en-US">More 	virtual servers per vCenter Server  instance: 10,000 	powered on:15,000 registered.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p lang="en-US"> </p>
<p lang="en-US"><strong>Availability </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p lang="en-US">VMware  	vMotion &#8211; Improvements to vMotion 	allow quicker response and 	 availability allowing up to eight vMotion migration 	events in parallel.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p lang="en-US"><strong>Security </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p lang="en-US">Active  	Directory integration-Single sign-on capability for user 	 authentication at the vSphere host for centralized user 	management.  Easily assign privileges to 	users or groups and roll out permission  rules across hosts.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>VMware <strong>server virtualization  solutions</strong> can help you to make the most of your IT assets. It  can help to reduce the capital expenditure of the data center by as much  as 60%! Reductions in real estate, cooling, and power requirements can  help you to reduce energy costs by as much as 80%!</p>
<p>If you are not already deploying server  virtualization with shared storage, you should know that it can  significantly cut costs. A good way to start is to have a server  consolidation analysis completed which will give you an estimate of what  types of capital and operational cost savings you can get with a server  virtualization upgrade.</p>
<p>Find out additional information about the  benefits of <a href="http://www.geeknick.com/recommends/server_virtualization_technology/35/">server  virtualization technology</a> as well as full <a href="http://www.geeknick.com/recommends/data_center_virtualization/35/">data  center virtualization</a> from your local information technology value  added reseller, who can also help you with the upgrade.</p>
</div>
<p>Author: Rolf Versluis</p>
<p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/recommends/Adcap_Network_Systems_Inc./36/">Adcap Network Systems, Inc.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/datacenter/save-money-with-data-center-virtualization-and-vmware-vsphere-4-1/">Save Money with Data Center Virtualization and Vmware Vsphere 4.1</a> is a post from: <a href="http://www.geeknick.com">Geeknick</a></p>


<p>Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://www.geeknick.com/datacenter/virtualization-%e2%80%93-a-new-era-for-computer-systems/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Virtualization – a new era for computer systems'>Virtualization – a new era for computer systems</a> <small>After working with PCs and Servers for many years we...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://www.geeknick.com/datacenter/hardware-requirements-for-virtual-machines/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Hardware requirements for Virtual Machines'>Hardware requirements for Virtual Machines</a> <small>When buying a new server, or any piece of computer...</small></li>
</ol></p>
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		<title>Reduce VoIP Network Downtime with Improved Core Network Services</title>
		<link>http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/reduce-voip-downtime-core-network-services/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/reduce-voip-downtime-core-network-services/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:12:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rolf Versluis</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Data Networking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Unified Communications]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geeknick.com/?p=195</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>When the IT staff plan for upgrades, especially a VoIP deployment, a lot of attention is focused on servers, applications, switches, routers, and network security. Almost no attention is paid to the core network services that allow users to access all these wonderful systems, and are in fact essential for VoIP to even work at all.</p>
<p>If users are unable to access the applications that they need over the network, or if customers are unable&#8230; <a href="http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/reduce-voip-downtime-core-network-services/" class="read_more">Read the rest</a></p><p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/reduce-voip-downtime-core-network-services/">Reduce VoIP Network Downtime with Improved Core Network Services</a> is a post from: <a href="http://www.geeknick.com">Geeknick</a></p>



Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://www.geeknick.com/data-networking/why-do-i-need-vlans/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Should I use Supernets and Secondary Address in my network ?'>Should I use Supernets and Secondary Address in my network ?</a> <small>Many network administrators are using secondary addressing and supernets as...</small></li>
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			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>When the IT staff plan for upgrades, especially a VoIP deployment, a lot of attention is focused on servers, applications, switches, routers, and network security. Almost no attention is paid to the core network services that allow users to access all these wonderful systems, and are in fact essential for VoIP to even work at all.</p>
<p>If users are unable to access the applications that they need over the network, or if customers are unable to access the Internet-based Web services or applications that they need, all business transactions come to an immediate screeching halt. Since application access is so important, it is worthwhile to look at how to make sure everything in the system works reliably.</p>
<p>There are four core network services that have to be up and running for users to be able to access their applications. These are:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>DHCP stands for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol.</strong> This service is what hands the user an IP address on the internal network when they connect. No network communication can take place without having an IP address, as well as the other information that the DHCP service provides, which is a default route and the IP addresses of the DNS servers. What most people don&#8217;t know, is that usually the DHCP service is provided by a non-redundant Windows server, or by a router that provides little visibility into the operation of the service. DHCP is essential for VoIP systems.</li>
<li><strong>DNS stands for Domain Name Service. </strong>This service is what translates easy to remember names on the network, like a URL in a browser, to the IP addresses that the applications running on computers require. Without DNS, any network-based applications cannot be used. DNS is usually provided centrally by redundant windows servers, and externally by multiple small linux boxes running BIND. Unfortunately, sometimes the Windows DNS service has stability issues, and it is tedious and error prone to update the BIND applications on the Linux boxes.</li>
<li><strong>NTP stands for Network Time Protocol. </strong>There are many applications that require proper time on the servers and workstations, especially SIP-based voice applications and network security applications. NTP is in many cases served from redundant windows servers.</li>
<li><strong>IPAM stands for IP Address Management.</strong> It is important to have an overall IP address management method in order to ensure that DHCP and DNS are working properly. Entire new subnets are added in a VoIP deployment, so this is especially important then.</li>
</ol>
<p>As you can see, high availability core network services are essential to the proper operation of everything on the network, and especially <strong>VoIP</strong>. In your next upgrade planning cycle, it is worthwhile to look at improving the availability of the core network services of <strong>DHCP, DNS, NTP, and IPAM</strong>.</p>
<p>Find out more about <a href="http://www.geeknick.com/recommends/Core_Network_Services/1/">Core Network Services</a> here. Rolf Versluis is a Cisco Certified Voice Professional and engineer with Adcap Network Systems, Inc., with offices in <a href="http://www.geeknick.com/recommends/Atlanta_and_Miami/2/">Atlanta and Miami</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/reduce-voip-downtime-core-network-services/">Reduce VoIP Network Downtime with Improved Core Network Services</a> is a post from: <a href="http://www.geeknick.com">Geeknick</a></p>


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		<title>Hardware requirements for Virtual Machines</title>
		<link>http://www.geeknick.com/datacenter/hardware-requirements-for-virtual-machines/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geeknick.com/datacenter/hardware-requirements-for-virtual-machines/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Jul 2010 19:21:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Daniel Ruiz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Datacenter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cpu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hardware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[memory]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[performance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[requirements]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[virtual machines]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[virtualization]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vm]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vmware]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geeknick.com/?p=185</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>When buying a new server, or any piece of computer for that matter, we have the task of choosing the components that will determine how the system is going to perform and how reliable its going to be. For instance a video gamer  needs to be sure to get a very capable video card for handling graphic intensive games, on the other hand,  a server should be capable of running at least a  Raid 1&#8230; <a href="http://www.geeknick.com/datacenter/hardware-requirements-for-virtual-machines/" class="read_more">Read the rest</a></p><p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/datacenter/hardware-requirements-for-virtual-machines/">Hardware requirements for Virtual Machines</a> is a post from: <a href="http://www.geeknick.com">Geeknick</a></p>



Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://www.geeknick.com/datacenter/virtualization-%e2%80%93-a-new-era-for-computer-systems/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Virtualization – a new era for computer systems'>Virtualization – a new era for computer systems</a> <small>After working with PCs and Servers for many years we...</small></li>
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			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>When buying a new server, or any piece of computer for that matter, we have the task of choosing the components that will determine how the system is going to perform and how reliable its going to be. For instance a video gamer  needs to be sure to get a very capable video card for handling graphic intensive games, on the other hand,  a server should be capable of running at least a  Raid 1 (Mirroring) hard drive configuration to protect the data stored in them.</p>
<p>With Virtual Machines, the story is a little bit different.<span id="more-185"></span></p>
<p>Let&#8217;s say you have a very powerful server that is being used as a file server: probably its CPU and most of its memory is underused. Sometimes you have a server that has a lot of applications running at the same time eating all the CPU and memory to the point that its performing poorly.</p>
<p>With virtualization technologies you have much more control on the resources you are going to assign to your servers, the cap being how powerful and fast is your virtualization infrastructure.</p>
<p>One of the things we need to let go is the assumption that our virtual machines need the same amount of resources as if they were physical ones. Do you need 4-CPU Cores on a Server that has no software optimized for multiple CPUs? Are you sure you actually need 8 GB to run those web applications running on IIS?</p>
<p>Enterprise Virtualization environments offer statistics and overviews on how our vm are actually performing. I recently installed a SQL Server environment from physical to virtual and they were really happy on how the new server / vm was performing: it had more cores and double the RAM (8 in this case). They were surprised when I told them: yes, you have multple cpu cores and 8 GB of memory on that server, but I just gave it 1 core and 2 GB of RAM. They asked me why aren&#8217;t we giving it more resources so it can run much more faster. I then showed him the performance statistics on the vm and he was kind of suprised, the CPU was barely doing anything and the  memory usage was only about half.</p>
<p>Now the client has more resources to create new virtual machines to the box that before could only hold just one.</p>
<p>And it doesn&#8217;t stop there.</p>
<p>For example Vmware ESX is capable of optimizing the memory usage when you are running several virtual machines with the same OS (Windows Server 2008 R2 for instance) by sharing the same memory blocks. How? Different vms running the same OS share a lot of the same instructions in memory because they share the same code, so instead of running and loading the same code into memory several times, it does it just once.</p>
<p>Using this kind of performance monitors you can a better control on how your servers are going to perform, how much they really need and how much free resources you are going to have for future virtual machines.</p>
<p style="font-size: 12px; color: #808080;"><strong>Author: Daniel Ruiz<br />
 Adcap Network Systems – Atlanta and Miami<br />
 Great Local Engineers Creating Systems that Work!<br />
 Posted at </strong><a href="http://www.geeknick.com"><strong>Geeknick</strong></a></p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/datacenter/hardware-requirements-for-virtual-machines/">Hardware requirements for Virtual Machines</a> is a post from: <a href="http://www.geeknick.com">Geeknick</a></p>


<p>Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://www.geeknick.com/datacenter/virtualization-%e2%80%93-a-new-era-for-computer-systems/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Virtualization – a new era for computer systems'>Virtualization – a new era for computer systems</a> <small>After working with PCs and Servers for many years we...</small></li>
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		<title>Should I use Supernets and Secondary Address in my network ?</title>
		<link>http://www.geeknick.com/data-networking/why-do-i-need-vlans/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geeknick.com/data-networking/why-do-i-need-vlans/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2010 19:23:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mike Lundy</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Data Networking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bridge]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CSMA/CD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ethenet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[IP address]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[malware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[multicast]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[virus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[VLSM]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[worms]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geeknick.com/?p=171</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>Many network administrators are using secondary addressing and supernets as a way to &#8220;simplify&#8221; their IP networks.  While there was value in the early days of networking for this practice, many IT managers learned a painful lesson.  To better understand why this should not be considered a best practice for IP networks, it is important to look at the underlying technology of most networks to understand the risks.  That underlying technology is of course Ethenet.&#8230; <a href="http://www.geeknick.com/data-networking/why-do-i-need-vlans/" class="read_more">Read the rest</a></p><p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/data-networking/why-do-i-need-vlans/">Should I use Supernets and Secondary Address in my network ?</a> is a post from: <a href="http://www.geeknick.com">Geeknick</a></p>



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			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Many network administrators are using secondary addressing and supernets as a way to &#8220;simplify&#8221; their IP networks.  While there was value in the early days of networking for this practice, many IT managers learned a painful lesson.  To better understand why this should not be considered a best practice for IP networks, it is important to look at the underlying technology of most networks to understand the risks.  That underlying technology is of course Ethenet.</p>
<p><span id="more-171"></span></p>
<p>Ethernet was developed as a broadcast medium.  At its core Ethernet uses Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD).  Ethernet at its inception used collisions as a way to handle congestion and give every user access to the communications medium.  As networks grew, the need arose for improved bandwidth to the end user.  Prior to the invention of the switch, bridges were used to reduce the collision domains in an Ethernet network.  Switches are essentially multiport bridges that eliminate collisions and deliver dedicated bandwidth to the end device.  It is important to note a this point that while switches control the unicast traffic to the end device, they forward all broadcasts and multicasts to all ports on that VLAN.</p>
<p>
 In a large switched environment broadcast storms soon became a major issue causing numerous network outages.  At this point, the need to reduce broadcast domains became a major design issue.  This introduced the concept of VLAN’s.  By deploying VLAN’s in the enterprise, network managers were able to reduce the size of the broadcast domains in their networks.  This is why many organizations migrated to RFC1918 address space to allow them to assign a subnet to a building, floor, department or other criteria without running out of public addresses.</p>
<p>
 So the question becomes do I stick with a single class C subnet that gives me 254 addresses per VLAN or do I use variable length subnet masks and supernetting or secondary addressing to create larger broadcast domains.  The answer to this question is a definitive NO!  It is important to remember that one of the enemies in a network is broadcasts.  Supernetting or using secondary addressing increases the broadcast domain and can be detrimental to end user and network performance.</p>
<p>
 To better understand this issue, we need to review Ethernet as a transport mechanism again.  This is where the OSI model comes into the picture.  At the physical layer, the modern transport medium for Ethernet is unshielded twisted pair cabling.  The next step, data link layer in this case is Ethernet.  The third layer, Network is where IP comes into play.</p>
<p>
 Every station in an Ethernet broadcast domain receives all broadcast and multicast traffic in that domain and must process that packet to determine if it is destined for that machine.  After it receives the broadcast Ethernet packet, it strips off the Ethernet header and passes that packet to the Network layer.  At this point the end station determines if that broadcast packet needs further processing.  Regardless of whether the packet was destined for that end station, it must still perform processing on the packet.</p>
<p>
 As you can see, supernetting or using secondary addresses can be detrimental to network performance because of the increased processing at the end workstation.  In addition, it gives worms, viruses, malware etc access to a greater number of devices due to the increase in users in a common broadcast domain.  The next time someone asks you to supernet or use secondary addresses in your network just say no !</p>
<p >Author: Mike Lundy</p>
<p>Posted at <a href="http://www.geeknick.com">Geeknick</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/data-networking/why-do-i-need-vlans/">Should I use Supernets and Secondary Address in my network ?</a> is a post from: <a href="http://www.geeknick.com">Geeknick</a></p>


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		<title>Speeding up Slow Internet Application Performance</title>
		<link>http://www.geeknick.com/data-networking/speeding-up-slow-internet-application-performance/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geeknick.com/data-networking/speeding-up-slow-internet-application-performance/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:16:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rolf Versluis</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Data Networking]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geeknick.com/?p=143</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>A friend of mine runs a company that runs training labs for IT users all over the world. He had a problem with his latest application, which was a lab simulator for a complex server, storage, and virtualization environment. The problem was, everybody outside the United States was experiencing extremely slow performance.</p>
<p>Application performance over the Internet is a tricky thing. It depends on a number of different aspects of the TCP/IP stack working correctly.&#8230; <a href="http://www.geeknick.com/data-networking/speeding-up-slow-internet-application-performance/" class="read_more">Read the rest</a></p><p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/data-networking/speeding-up-slow-internet-application-performance/">Speeding up Slow Internet Application Performance</a> is a post from: <a href="http://www.geeknick.com">Geeknick</a></p>



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			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>A friend of mine runs a company that runs training labs for IT users all over the world. He had a problem with his latest application, which was a lab simulator for a complex server, storage, and virtualization environment. The problem was, everybody outside the United States was experiencing extremely slow performance.</p>
<p>Application performance over the Internet is a tricky thing. It depends on a number of different aspects of the TCP/IP stack working correctly. <span id="more-143"></span>TCP is a protocol that is optimized for reliable transmission of traffic over a medium in which packets are expected to be dropped. It does this through a combination of packet retransmission requests, packet sequence ordering, and TCP windowing. TCP automatically adjusts to the available bandwidth by using dynamic windowing, and it always starts with a small window and ramps up to the point where TCP packets dropped that have to be retransmitted, so there is always a slow start in any Internet connection. Because of the TCP windowing, if any packets are dropped during a TCP/IP session, the window size gets smaller and effective bandwidth for the application drops.</p>
<p>What happens when TCP/IP traffic is transmitted worldwide, especially over the Internet when it goes through a number of different service providers and their peering points, is that packets are dropped as a matter of course. Due to the inherent nature of the protocol and situation, this means bandwidth, performance, and latency are going to be poor for an application requiring interactivity. Large organizations have always done with this issue by building out a worldwide private Wide Area Network.</p>
<p>Our engineers have been working with customers for years upgrading and improving their wide-area networks in order to deliver the best application performance to the remote sites possible. We are very familiar with how this is done when using a leased circuit service such as MPLS, both with QoS at the routers, and Wide Area Application Acceleration. This has been much more difficult to do with applications delivered over the Internet to individual users, and in most cases we haven&#8217;t even tried.</p>
<p>What my friend needed, was a way to do application acceleration for individual users over the Internet, without installing any applications on their PCs, or putting any special hardware at their location at all. This is trickier than it sounds, since each of the reasons for TCP bandwidth limitation have to be addressed in order to have the application work properly. After the TCP protocol issues are addressed, then the information needs to be compressed at the head end and expanded at the remote site, which would effectively increase the available bandwidth for the application and then accelerate the application speed.</p>
<p>If he were to build out this, he would need a special acceleration server at his data center, and then another acceleration server at the Internet point of presence closest to each of its customers. The servers would have to be able to send packets to each other in a multiple redundant routes, perform compression using all the available current algorithms, have dynamic DNS to reroute the request to the server closest to the end-user, and the monitored all the time to make sure everything was working properly.</p>
<p>Obviously, this would have been a cost prohibitive exercise for my friend. Fortunately, he found a company that offers this type of acceleration as a service.</p>
<p>In fact, this company has tens of thousands of service deployed in most datacenters worldwide, which can be used for dynamic content delivered over the Internet. Examples of content that can be accelerated include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Improve VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) performance.</li>
<li>Speed up any end-user applications delivered by HTML or IP.</li>
<li>Remote office and end-user VPN acceleration.</li>
<li>Speed up large file transfers.</li>
<li>WAN supplementation or replacement.</li>
</ul>
<p>Most organizations typically do a test run with whatever application is causing the most issues and problems at the time. This can be a VDI deployment to remote users that is experiencing unacceptably slow performance, slow remote desktop protocol sessions, slow enterprise application performance, or other similar issues that users or customers are complaining about.</p>
<p>If you are experiencing slow application performance over the Internet, you should definitely look for a company that&#8217;s able to provide this service. A local reseller that is competent and experienced in improving network performance would be able to recommend a solution for you.</p>
<p>____________________________________<br />
Author: Rolf Versluis<br />
<a href="http://www.geeknick.com/recommends/Adcap_Network_Systems/2/">Adcap Network Systems</a> – Atlanta and Miami<br />
Great Local Engineers Creating Systems that Work!<br />
Posted at <a title="Geeknick" href="http://www.geeknick.com" target="_self">Geeknick</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/data-networking/speeding-up-slow-internet-application-performance/">Speeding up Slow Internet Application Performance</a> is a post from: <a href="http://www.geeknick.com">Geeknick</a></p>


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		<title>VoIP Business Telephone System Upgrade Planning for Mid-Size Organizations</title>
		<link>http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/voip-business-telephone-system-upgrade-planning-for-mid-size-organizations/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/voip-business-telephone-system-upgrade-planning-for-mid-size-organizations/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 Jun 2010 22:15:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rolf Versluis</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Unified Communications]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/voip-business-telephone-system-upgrade-planning-for-mid-size-organizations/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>So your organization is finally planning on upgrading the old PBX, you&#8217;ve got a big project on your hands, and you are looking for the first things that you need to do to plan this beast out. Well have no fear because I have been on the planning, design, deployment and support side of the voice over IP business for 10 years and will give you a big picture overview of what the next 3&#8230; <a href="http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/voip-business-telephone-system-upgrade-planning-for-mid-size-organizations/" class="read_more">Read the rest</a></p><p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/voip-business-telephone-system-upgrade-planning-for-mid-size-organizations/">VoIP Business Telephone System Upgrade Planning for Mid-Size Organizations</a> is a post from: <a href="http://www.geeknick.com">Geeknick</a></p>



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			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>So your organization is finally planning on upgrading the old PBX, you&#8217;ve got a big project on your hands, and you are looking for the first things that you need to do to plan this beast out. Well have no fear because I have been on the planning, design, deployment and support side of the voice over IP business for 10 years and will give you a big picture overview of what the next 3 to 12 months are going to be like for you. <span id="more-120"></span></p>
<p>The first thing that you have to know is what the reasons are for the deployment. It is important to keep the reasons for the upgrade in mind when planning and selecting the new system, so as not to get sidetracked into less important reasons during the process. Here are the most common good reasons ones that we run into:</p>
<ul>
<li>The old PBX is failing or breaking down all the time.</li>
<li>People are complaining about how old the phone system.</li>
<li>There are potential monthly cost savings by converting to SIP trunking.</li>
<li>You are hearing about improved productivity from other companies using voice over IP systems.</li>
<li>There are a lot of new features available that you need.</li>
</ul>
<p>There are, however, other benefits to upgrading the existing phone system that you may not have thought of and will come out during the process:</p>
<ul>
<li>Your old data network gets an upgrade as part of the cost of the new phone system.</li>
<li>There will be an ability to improve business processes.</li>
<li>There are many ways customer service and vendor interactions can be improved.</li>
<li>Faster handset moves, adds, and changes.</li>
</ul>
<p>This guide assumes that you are looking at getting an on premise voice over IP-based phone system. The other options of getting in on premise traditional PBX system or a hosted voice over IP system are not discussed because they are a minor part of the overall market at this point.</p>
<h2>Planning the VoIP Upgrade</h2>
<p>So, where do you start? Well, the first step is assessing your current phone system and data network. You have to find out what the current capabilities are that you have, what people like about the system and what they don&#8217;t like about the system, and especially how the people that are big users of the PBX on the customer and help desk interaction side make use of the current system and want to improve it.</p>
<p>From a calculation standpoint, what it means you have to figure out a bunch of things for every site:</p>
<ul>
<li>How many analog and digital phones you have.  Which analog handsets can be replaced by low end IP phones (usually all of them will be).</li>
<li>How many outside lines you have in the form of voice T-1&#8242;s and analog ports</li>
<li>Number and type of data T1&#8242;s at every site. (A T1 can be used for voice, Internet, WAN, or a combination).</li>
<li>Current wide area network per site bandwidth and utilization.</li>
<li>Current local area network switches quantity and location; quantity of used ports per closet.</li>
<li>Any special requirements for ACD, IVR, call recording, handset paging, and application integration.</li>
</ul>
<p>If you want to get funding support for this you have to get a handle on what your current monthly costs are. Current monthly costs include charges at every site:</p>
<ul>
<li>Internet and wide area network circuit costs.</li>
<li>PBX lease costs.</li>
<li>PBX monthly service costs. Average cost of additional PBX service on a monthly basis.</li>
<li>Cellphone costs, since some of these can be offset using single number reach.</li>
<li>Monthly conferencing costs.</li>
<li>Monthly maintenance and support on all network hardware and software that may be replaced.</li>
</ul>
<p>Once you have calculated what your current monthly costs are you&#8217;re ready to figure out what the budget for your new project is. The best outcome to the new project would be that your new monthly costs are lower than your current monthly costs, after accounting for new equipment installation services and everything else to put the new phone system in place, when financed over a 3 to 5 year period with a one dollar buyout at the end so you own the new system. You may find out during the course of this planning that it will be necessary to get  new phone and wide area network connections in order to realize the desired return on investment, so make sure you keep your monthly circuit costs and your financing of equipment, maintenance, and installation separate.</p>
<h2>Choosing VoIP vendors and resellers</h2>
<p>There are two choices to make next. One of the choices is to determine the manufacturer of the new phone system that you want to purchase, the other choice is to pick a local vendor who&#8217;s going to do the design installation and support of the new system. To get the best price and the best service on the new system you should go about this in a very specific way. Customers have found in many cases that it&#8217;s best to get a phone system from a manufacturer who has good local resellers that will do a good installation of the system, a smooth cutover, enabling all the features that they want, and then support them well in an ongoing fashion afterwards. The size of the reseller that you probably want to work with depends on the size and needs of your organization. I recommend that you work with the reseller who is big enough to handle your business but won&#8217;t be overwhelmed by it and is small enough that your business is important to them and they&#8217;ll bend over backwards to take care of you.</p>
<p>So how do you find a reseller that&#8217;s the right size for you? This is where you go back to the phone system manufacturers to get some options. The major phone system vendors are the best source to find out the local resellers. The major vendors of voice over IP systems at this point in time are <a href="http://www.geeknick.com/recommends/Cisco_Systems/16/" target="_blank">Cisco Systems</a>, <a href="http://www.geeknick.com/recommends/Avaya/17/" target="_blank">Avaya</a>, <a href="http://www.geeknick.com/recommends/Mitel/18/" target="_blank">Mitel</a>, <a href="http://www.geeknick.com/recommends/Shoretel/19/" target="_blank">Shoretel</a>, and <a href="http://www.geeknick.com/recommends/Digium_Switchvox/20/" target="_blank">Digium Switchvox</a>. If you contact these vendors either online or through their local salespeople you can ask them for a recommendation of their top three resellers who would do a good job for you. After you get those reseller names from the vendors try to get their recommendation of whom that you should really work with, then call that reseller, as well as the other two.  At this point you should have three equipment vendors, three resellers for these vendors, and will have nine good options of a local business that will do a great job for your voice over IP upgrade.</p>
<p>Be aware though as soon as you start this process of contacting vendors you are going to start getting phone calls because people know that you&#8217;re interested. Now, that may be a way that you can find out who&#8217;s the most eager to get your business, but it also might just give you just indication of who has the most aggressive salespeople. So be very clear to everyone what your expected timeframe is going to be, that you plan to take your time and select the best vendor, and if they bug you excessively that will put them on the bottom of your list. By the way, you should start this process at least six months before you want to have a new phone system up and running. It is going to you 2 to 3 months to select a vendor, another month to figure out pricing and financing, and from when you say go it will take about two months to get the equipment then another month to fully set up and cut over to the new phone system.</p>
<h2>Vendor expectations</h2>
<p>What you should expect from these vendors is that they are going to want to meet with you to determine what your needs are, do a walk-through of your existing systems, and find out any special requirements that you have. They will then try to sell you on some specific feature that their system has that nobody else has and try to get you to see a demo of their system. I recommend that you see the demo of their system, don&#8217;t buy into any of their must have exclusive special features, then ask them for a list of reference customers about your size and requirements that you can call and talk to to see how things went.</p>
<p>Definitely call these reference customers and see how the reseller did during the design phase, how competitive their pricing was, how they did during the installation, and what their support was like after the sale. During this part of the engagement is when you have the most leverage and you can get the most things for free. By all means take the time to get some good lunches and get to know the people that are going to potentially doing work for you for. Furthermore find out who is actually going to be doing the installation for you, if they&#8217;re going to be coming from out of state, or if they are local and are going to be available for support after the installation. Don&#8217;t be afraid to ask this question as it is perfectly valid and definitely will have a bearing on the outcome of the project and should be a decision factor for you.</p>
<p>At this point you should have proposals from every one of your vendors and you can start comparing them. Some phone system vendors will try to give you just a monthly cost with a summary description of the parts, then say hey that&#8217;s the way it&#8217;s done. Since most of the voice over IP vendors are coming from the data side of business they expect that you&#8217;re going to be wanting a line item pricing and a bottom-line cost. You can then use this to decide what you want finance or not. If you&#8217;re not getting this ask for line item pricing and the specific part and model numbers of equipment and a complete breakout of what the annual maintenance costs are going to be.</p>
<p>Annual maintenance is broken down into three areas. Annual product maintenance which provides for support and replacement of hardware and software, upgrade maintenance costs which allows you to upgrade the applications, and a local vendor support contract. All three areas of maintenance are valid. The first two are very important and should be bought in just about all cases, and a local support contract should be purchased if you are not going to have someone qualified to operate the equipment after it&#8217;s installed.</p>
<p>Since this is a voice over IP system you should expect that you&#8217;re going to be able to run the system over a new data network and not on a separate network that you put in parallel to the existing one. This means that the company that is putting in your voice over IP phone system should have excellent networking capability and be able to demonstrate that they understand Quality of Service, which is tuning the network equipment to differentiate between different types of data, then prioritize the voice traffic. This is easy to do on a local area network, somewhat challenging to do on a wide-area network, and difficult to do over a firewall connection to the Internet. If you are looking at doing SIP trunking make sure the vendor shows where they are going to apply quality of service on all the SIP voice paths.</p>
<h2>Making a VoiP phone system decision</h2>
<p>So at this point you should have your line item proposals with all the pricing, with all the installation and maintenance included, have seen the demos, and have gotten a chance to meet with the local vendors and contact their reference customers and asked some basic questions. Step back and asked real basic questions at this point. Ask the vendor if there&#8217;s anything that you&#8217;re missing. Ask the vendor if any parts are over engineered. Ask the vendor if this is the best price, then go one step further and ask the reseller if there&#8217;s any way to get better pricing out of the vendor. Sometimes there is an end of fiscal quarter or year coming up and it&#8217;s possible to get a few extra points discount or some other concessions thrown in.</p>
<p>During the process you&#8217;ve probably eliminated some vendors from consideration, because you&#8217;ve been trying to narrow your list of nine vendors down to about three. For those six vendors that you eliminate call and give them a good reason so that they definitely know why they&#8217;re out of the running and what they can do about it in the future with other customers. For the other three, let them know that they made the shortlist and give them the timeframe for when you&#8217;re going to perform the evaluation and the decision.</p>
<p>Go through whatever decision-making process your organization uses and settle on one vendor. As you go through the final contract negotiation with this vendor, the other two on the shortlist who haven&#8217;t made it are going to be calling you nonstop unless you let them know that you have placed the order with somebody else and that they&#8217;re out of the running. This is a small industry and there are not a lot of companies that do a good job in this space; I recommend next you let them know that they did not make the cut in a nice professional way and that you appreciate all the hard work that they did on your behalf. At some point in the future you may be calling them for assistance, and you want to make sure that you parted on good terms.</p>
<p>Finally, as you start the installation with your vendor of choice, make sure you work closely with their project management team and get them all the information that you&#8217;re looking for as quickly as possible. This is going to make your installation go much smoother, faster, and successful.</p>
<p>Hopefully this guide has been helpful to you in describing the process of how to go through and choose a voice over IP solution vendor, as well as give you some idea of what to expect. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments on any parts of this. If you have specific questions about your situation, please contact one of the fine account managers at <a title="Adcap Unified Communications" href="http://www.geeknick.com/recommends/Adcap_Network_Systems/21/" target="_blank">Adcap Network Systems</a>.</p>
<p>____________________________________<br />
Author: Rolf Versluis<br />
Adcap Network Systems – Atlanta and Miami<br />
Great Local Engineers Creating Systems that Work!<br />
Posted at <a href="http://www.geeknick.com" target="_self">Geeknick<br />
</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.geeknick.com/unified-communications/voip-business-telephone-system-upgrade-planning-for-mid-size-organizations/">VoIP Business Telephone System Upgrade Planning for Mid-Size Organizations</a> is a post from: <a href="http://www.geeknick.com">Geeknick</a></p>


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