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Tech Talk: IT Service Firm Upgrades Support

Elizabeth Wasserman — 2008-12-19T10:15:33-05:00

PlumChoice, a nationwide remote technical services firm headquartered in Billerica, Mass., helps troubleshoot IT problems for the home, home office, and small business customer. Rich Surace, senior vice president of operations, tells IncTechnology.com that by upgrading to an appliance-based virtual IT support technology the company is helping resolve a growing variety of problems with computers, PDAs, and other devices on a variety of platforms.

Elizabeth Wasserman: What does PlumChoice do?

Rich Surace: PlumChoice is the nationwide leader in providing trusted remote technical services for the home, home office, and small business on a 7/24/365 basis throughout the U.S. and Canada. We have comprehensive plans and service options, from simple one time service fixes to a complete protection plan that is charged monthly. We help our clients with computers, networks, cameras and CE devices, hardware and software needs. We also have multiple channels of distribution and we support a variety of channel partners, including telcos, ISPs, and others.

Wasserman: What was wrong with your IT support that you needed to upgrade?

Surace: It wasn't what was wrong but what was missing. What was missing was being able to extend our platform to provide a broader range of tech services. We had some technical challenges that did not allow us to provide certain types of support beyond the basic Windows and Intel -- or Wintel -- systems. We wanted to be able to extend our support to Macs and PDAs but until about 12 months ago we only had the ability to provide services to more traditional types of machines. This is a great competitive differentiator for us.

Wasserman: So what did you do?

Surace: We upgraded to something called the Bomgar Box. It's an appliance-based software for virtual support that allows companies to connect to remote clients and co-workers via the Internet anywhere in the world in seconds. It's a remote tool that has features such as collaboration and extension of services to devices where traditional remote tools haven't gone yet -- such as PDAs, digital cameras, and cell phones. We have two server-based units that reside in our co-location facilities through the U.S. We've now incorporated it into our support enterprise. It's one of many tools we use. The nice thing about it is the appliance resides in your building. We have control of how we deploy it and where we use it. It's now part of our overall service delivery platform, which we call SAFELink.

Wasserman: What benefits have you realized?

Surace: We can now get access to other devices that we didn't have access to before, such as Macs, PDAs, consumer electronic devices, such as your camera or cell phone or other mobile device. And our Partners can begin to create really unique services for the market. People use their cameras on their mobile phones all the time and they don't necessarily know how to transfer pictures, or sync their schedule between PC and PDA. Many of them also have MP3 players in their phones. Consumers use these devices for data, pictures, e-mail, voice mail, etc. The PDA is the handheld computer of the future. When customers have a problem with their device, we now can extend remote service to those devices and platforms.

Switch Blade: Migrating to Blade Servers

Jean Thilmany — 2008-12-18T14:31:10-05:00

Small-scale blade servers can slash small business energy and cabling costs and dramatically lower your server footprint. And installation and management are fairly straightforward. But are these reasons enough for a small to midsize business to make the move to blades?

Blades are self-contained servers designed for high density. A blade enclosure can hold multiple servers. These servers appeal to small-business demand to integrate data servers into a single chassis, says Scott Tease, IBM worldwide product manager for blade at IBM of Armonk, N.Y.

The capability to integrate more functions onto blades makes for a smaller footprint while providing the same services as standard rack-mount servers, says Steve Gillaspy, group manager, blade system division, at HP of Palo Alto, Calif. The decision to migrate in all or part to blade servers depends on a variety of factors that must be weighed byindividual business owners, Tease says.

Assessing blade applications and savings

The small-scale servers are particularly useful for certain applications like Web hosting, server virtualization, and cluster computing, he adds. Small businesses that need those capabilities should definitely check out blades. But if the costs to migrate don’t make sense for your company, migration should be put off, he adds.

To assess migration savings, first look at power and space needs, says Frances Lam, blade product manager at Sun Microsystems of Santa Clara, Calif.

Luckily, most vendors provide online assessment tools and calculators that can help assess costs, space needs, and tools associated with the move to blades. Many blade providers have also partnered with third-parties who conduct on-site thermal and power analyses, he adds.

The servers might reduce the amount of IT staff needed to manage them. Blades can be easy to install, he adds. A small business may not need specialized IT support. While a standard server needs power cords and network cables, the self-contained blades don’t have need for much wiring.

But just because the blade enclosure can reside in a room the size of a closet doesn’t mean small businesses with limited real estate can simply open a closet door and slip the blade enclosure inside, Gillaspy says.

“There is still the law of physics for every room,” he says. “Understand what your room is capable of in terms of heat and power because you’ll need to stay within those parameters.”

The cost of blade servers

Also, the cost of blades as compared to traditional servers can be pretty close. Savings come when energy costs are factored into the equation, Tease says.

Prices for the blades range from $7,000 to around $10,000. An enclosure to hold the individual blades will need to be purchased. They run from around $15,000 to $20,000. Standard servers can cost from around $8,000 to around $10,000, though no enclosure is necessary.

Small and mid-sized businesses that do opt for blades are luckier today than in years past. Vendors have been stepping up the marketplace with blade offerings catered to the small business. These blades are simple to install and runs on office power, Lam says.

Sun has developed a range of blade products for the small and mid-sized business data center, Lam says. At IBM, the BladeCenter S is tailored to small and mid-sized businesses looking to consolidate and simplify their server infrastructure, Tease says.

SIDEBAR: Blade Migration Assessment Tools

Some blade vendors and industry analysts offer online assessment to tools to help you determine whether blade servers make sense for your business.

Such tools can be found at:

IBM Blade Center Assessment Tool

How to Simplify IT and Unlock Resources

Mike Gorsage — 2008-11-25T13:16:43-05:00

Businesses today are operating in some of the most challenging financial conditions -- little access to credit, soaring energy costs, and record declines in consumer spending and confidence. And while some businesses are closing their doors, for those that stay open this is an opportunity to employ some survival techniques, whether they need it or not. Now is the time for businesses to reassess their landscape, particularly their information technology infrastructure, and determine what’s helping -- or hurting -- the bottom line.

Trading spaces

While servers often account for a large portion of a company’s IT budget, many companies are only utilizing 10 percent of the server space -- not exactly the best return on investment. Furthermore, it’s estimated that for every dollar companies spend on server hardware, they also spend anywhere from $7-12 on maintenance. This includes software licenses and power to run the servers, air to cool the servers, and employees to manage the servers. It may also include maintenance fees to cover broken or damaged equipment. It’s easy to see how expensive unused server space can be.

Therefore, it’s recommended that businesses move toward server consolidation, which not only decreases operating costs, but also aids in disaster recovery operations. By hypothetically reducing 50 servers to five, companies increase the storage usage while minimizing operational costs, and in the aftermath of a disaster, rather than duplicating 50 servers with minimal usage, companies only have to duplicate five at near full capacity.

Less is more

There are several options for managing a company’s servers, including physical and virtual consolidation. It’s not uncommon for a business to have multiple servers in remote locations. Some companies can opt to physically take all servers and move them to one central location, thereby reducing storage fees and costs to maintain data centers.

Data center costs are compounded heavily by IT power costs, making it likely that power and cooling costs will overtake hardware fees in the next few years. So virtualization is often the next step beyond physical consolidation, unlocking untapped server storage and networking resources.

Virtual reality

Through virtualization, a company can take 50 servers running one application each, and consolidate to five servers with 10 applications on each. Such consolidation sets the stage for cost savings moving forward including reduced hardware expenditures and server management. However, not only have companies utilizing virtualization processes reported savings on operational expenses, they’ve also reported reduced manual errors, increased new application deliverables for business mobility, and less manual maintenance.

Most importantly though, virtualization allows companies to reduce capital expenditures and focus on what they do best -- encouraging robust competition, improving customer experience, and reducing risk. Multiple servers sprawled across multiple locations increases the difficulty of managing data and the accompanying large network connections that can compromise network security.

Moving forward

Whether a company seeks to physically consolidate its servers or establish a virtual network, the key is to partner with a vendor that works with companies that are the size of where they want to grow to, rather than the size they are. These vendors can aid in keeping costs down by charging for what you need today, while providing the ability to expand to where you will be in the future.

While challenging economic conditions may complicate long-term planning, there are always ways for companies to add value, especially within the company’s IT infrastructure. The key is ensuring that the company’s infrastructure remains flexible enough to adjust to any potential change. Moving forward with effective IT simplification measures prepares companies to cut costs and improve efficiency. In addition, by effectively cutting costs, IT departments can now focus on leveraging emerging technologies that may previously have been unattainable because of budgetary restrictions. Now is the time for business leaders to take a good look at their business landscape and determine what’s helping -- or hurting -- the bottom line.

Mike Gorsage is the National Technology Practice Leader for Tatum LLC. Tatum is the nation’s largest executive services firm, providing financial and technology leadership to businesses of any size.

Has the Greening of IT Gone Too Far?

Alice Osborn — 2008-10-28T14:21:07-05:00

Everyone seems to be jumping on the green bandwagon, which is great for our environment, but how do we know when buying green is overkill?

“Green IT is an oxymoron," says Simon Mingay, an analyst with Gartner Research. "There’s no such thing, but with more efficient tools available, you will more than pay back any incremental costs.”

Studies show that businesses want to be energy efficient and that when it’s time to replace old equipment, whether it is a server or a desktop, IT managers make their replacement the energy efficient choice. However, most businesses do not replace a good system even if it is not energy efficient or if it still has many years left in its life cycle. Mingay agrees that you’re better off hanging on to the old equipment if it is reliable, and he says when it’s time to replace hardware “then making energy efficiency part of the buying criteria is absolutely critical.”

Businesses need to look at achieving energy efficiency in both their desktop and data center environments without compromising budgets and shrinking their return on investment.

Greening of the data centers

In the data center, many companies choose a virtualization solution, which may include integrating a software solution like VMWare with existing servers or may require buying larger servers to give power to the virtual machines. Energy efficiency can be achieved depending on how many servers there are. Consolidating servers is another green solution which reduces loads and ultimately saves costs. BDNA Corporation in Mountain View, Calif., helps companies save energy by using their GreenScan technology to run a server inventory. When the scan is complete it reveals how much power each server consumes, which determines the new server configuration. If new servers are necessary, then the scan takes into account the company’s current footprint and monitors the migration of the new location’s future equipment purchase.

Companies can deploy thin clients and use CPU power throttling for their high-end servers, where the servers throttle down during low use time and don’t waste power.

Data center solutions do require purchasing additional hardware and they do require more time to implement. Steve Brasen, analyst at Enterprise Management Associates recently conducted a green IT study which revealed that some data centers can’t reduce their power consumption since they need to be up and running 24/7. In reference to virtualization and hardware upgrades, Brasen says, “You should upgrade hardware because it’s time for more efficient computing, and not for just having an energy efficient solution. Choosing virtualization in order to go more green shouldn’t be the primary reason for deployment.”

Greening of the desktop area

In the desktop area, using power management tools such as turning off the machines at night, using spin down drives or hibernation tools lowers costs so companies don’t need to purchase new equipment. Brasen in the same green IT study found that when power management techniques were implemented in the desktop area, there was an average of 19 percent reduction in power. He also found that using laptops cost $23.26 in power consumption per year, versus desktops costing $149.10 per year. “So for 10,000 deployed desktops, which would consume 1.5 million in energy costs, and laptops, which cost $232,600, you could save $1.3 million annually,” he concludes.

”Going green is the great umbrella of social responsibility and reducing company cost,"

Avanish Sahai, vice president of BDNA marketing says. To achieve energy efficiency in the desktop area, "There’s simple stuff that can be done with dramatic effect. Get a policy with automated power management to turn off your computers and monitors and see a savings of 22 percent in IT costs.” Sahai adds that companies also need to educate their employees on how to use Windows’s hibernation controls and then set a policy and monitor it.

Mingay suggests companies check out Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool at EPEAT.net to find out which monitors, desktops, and notebooks are the best green choice as rated by the Energy Star 4.0 rating system.

Obstacles to green IT

The largest obstacle to implementing a green IT initiative is the budget and responsibility split between the facilities department, which handles the power budgets and the IT department. Sometimes a good green policy gets stuck waiting for the right data and implementation to make it happen. Ultimately, the CEO needs to provide the overall vision of green IT by implementing green governance, or corporate social responsibility bodies to oversee multiple projects across departments. Mark L. Cavaliero, CEO of SyTec Business Solutions in Raleigh, N.C., a network integrations firm, says he makes his green IT decisions by listening to his vendors, his clients, and his team of engineers. He also considers his budget. “We don’t like to waste anything and there’s also an economic incentive to help clients save money and to make our employees more productive," Cavaliero says. Regarding green IT, "It seems that the economic and benefits to society have lined up.”

Where green IT is headed

Brasen predicts virtualization will be the number one data center solution to achieve green IT over the next year and he also emphasized that the 19 percent average saved in the desktop area could be even greater. He states that opportunities do exist in both the data center and desktop area and that more companies will realize that you can reduce power consumption and produce ROI.

Implementing a green IT policy is no different from any other networking or security implementation. Both involve a thorough inventory of all hardware and software assets and both require the CEO to communicate policy and goals by example and leadership. Companies shouldn’t rush to buy green equipment without first checking the equipment’s agility first just as they shouldn’t implement an ad hoc green policy that doesn’t reach all areas of their organization. But by adopting power management strategies and replacing equipment nearing the end of its lifecycle with a more energy efficient models, companies can reap the benefits of sustainability, social responsibility and cost savings.

Is it Time to Toss Your Servers?

Minda Zetlin — 2008-10-01T15:20:02-05:00

Abaca Technology Corp., which launched in 2005, offers physical and virtual anti-spam appliances. The company uses Amazon’s EC2 cloud computing service to host the software that works with its appliances. Without EC2, it would have been much harder -- and much more expensive -- to launch Abaca, according to Bill Kasje, vice president of Business Development. “As a small company, we were able to get our servers up and running quickly,” he says. “We didn’t have to invest in a big infrastructure environment, or have backup power and redundancy, all the things our customers expect from us because email is a mission-critical application.” Though Abaca does deploy in-house servers, it would need at least four more, in a cluster configuration, if it were hosting its software in-house, he says. This way, Abaca’s IT team could focus on the company’s core competency: filtering spam.

For many small companies, the smorgasbord of newly available off-site or “cloud” computing offerings means they can reduce the number of servers they purchase and maintain in-house. In fact, according to James Staten, principal analyst as Forrester Research, they may no longer need servers at all.

“There are now options available over the Internet that didn’t exist before,” he explains. For instance, companies used to use servers for file sharing, but there are many Internet-based options such as Microsoft Windows Live, Dropbox, and so on, that provide the same options over the Web. “Backups can be done over the Web too,” Staten adds, “and it looks almost exactly the same as when you back up to a server. A lot of people have print servers, but that’s not really necessary any more either, with today’s network-based printers, or wireless-enabled printers with built-in print servers.” In fact, Staten believes, many small companies no longer need any in-house servers at all.

Better without servers

Why reduce or eliminate servers? “The number one advantage is it gets you out of the IT business,” Staten says. “You don’t have to worry about high availability.” [A high availability configuration ensures continued function by connecting two or more servers in a cluster so that one can “fail over” to the other in case of a problem.] You no longer need to worry about off-site backups, emergency power supplies, or how your company would preserver its data in a widespread disaster like a hurricane, since all these protections are now provided by an off-site by a service provider, and defined in your contract.

You can also get by with fewer IT staff, Kasje says. “We would have to have IT staff monitoring systems around the clock. All we have to deal with are the software issues, so that’s much easier. There is a whole class of problems we don’t have to address.”

Not having servers on site means much lower upfront costs, though it also means ongoing costs to pay for a service or server space. “You’re trading capital expense for operating expense that you can adjust up or down, depending on your needs,” Staten says. And while the day-to-day costs may be similar, or perhaps lower for owned equipment amortized over several years, off-site servers can provide lower cost if you take risk into account. “There are so many more things to account for,” he says.

Three off-site options

For companies that want to cut their server count and turn to Web-hosted options instead, there are three different basic options to choose from:

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) In this approach, an application is provided by a SaaS provider and runs on its servers. Your employees (or customers) use the Internet to log into the software. Well-known examples include Salesforce and Google Documents.
Hosted servers In this approach, you contract for server space -- or even an entire (real or virtual) server at your provider. In many ways, you can treat this off-site server as if it were a regular server, loading applications and data onto it as you see fit. However, the hosting provider maintains the server, usually providing backups, security protections and such. Rackspace and Hostway are two examples of this approach.
Raw cloud space “Cloud” is a relatively new term that is often used to describe any Web-hosted offering. Strictly speaking, it simply refers to the architecture by which software and/or data reside in a network or “cloud” of servers connected by the Internet, rather than on a single machine. You can lease raw space in the cloud, for instance, from Amazon’s EC2 service.

In this setup, you are still responsible for managing your own server space. If your provider had an outage, in the case of SaaS, the application would be up and running as before once the outage was over. In a hosted server setting, the provider would restore data on the servers, providing the configuration you had before the outage. In a cloud computing outage, once the outage was over, your IT staff would need to reconfigure and reload your online server with the applications and data that were there before. You would be responsible for ensuring backups, and also the security of your data.

Because of these added tasks, Staten doesn’t recommend pure cloud computing for small companies unless they also have solid in-house IT expertise. On the other hand, he says, “If you’re really tech savvy, these are great new options to avoid ever having a server within your walls.”

Whichever option you choose, Abaca’s Kasje recommends giving off-site computing a try. “You can step into this very easily,” he says. “And you should be able to figure out very quickly whether it’s something that can benefit your business.”

Alternatives to Microsoft Exchange

Marc Saltzman — 2008-09-02T17:55:58-05:00

Many small and mid-sized businesses rely on Microsoft Exchange servers and services to manage e-mail and collaboration processes.

But there are a growing number of alternative products on the market, each trying to chip away at Microsoft’s market share by delivering similar functionality for less money, making its software available on a non-Windows platform, or offering unique products and services not found in Microsoft Exchange.

What Microsoft Exchange is

Developed by the Redmond, Wash. software giant, Microsoft Exchange is the leading messaging and collaborative software solution, widely embraced by both small and mid-sized businesses and larger enterprises. Installed on a company’s premises, this server-based software is used for managing e-mail, calendaring, contacts, and tasks -- all part of the Microsoft Office suite on the client end. Exchange also supports mobile and Web-based access to company info. Additionally, Microsoft's offerings offers data storage, shared folders, and unified messaging solutions -- such as accessing your voicemail box via e-mail or listening to your e-mail over the phone.

“I wouldn’t say it’s the ‘de facto’ server solution but it’s certainly the leader in both revenue and the number of organizations,” says Mark Levitt, vice president of collaboration and enterprise 2.0 strategies at the Framingham, Mass.-based IDC research firm.

“Because Microsoft has established itself as a provider of many applications and products, companies see value for a single source that offers a variety of management solutions, all using the same underlying Windows platform,” Levitt says. “Plus all upgrades and patches for multiple products can be handled by one company, which is very appealing.”

The trouble with trying to compete

According to Gary Chen, a senior analyst for enterprise research at the Boston, Mass.-based Yankee Group, e-mail management is “pretty much a two horse race” between Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Domino and Notes.

“Exchange is definitely the leader -- they've come up a lot over the past few years -- though [IBM] Lotus Notes has really put a lot of effort into making a resurgence, and they have some interesting things on their roadmap,” says Chen. "Exchange can be hard to manage and the alternatives are cheaper, so [competing products] may find a niche for themselves.”

Along with IBM Lotus Notes, Chen says Novell GroupWise is also a popular alternative for mid-sized businesses.

“There are clear advantages to going with an accepted platform like Exchange, though,” concedes Chen. “In terms of the skills, ecosystem, and add-on products that you can take advantage of, Microsoft applications dominate [small and mid-sized businesses] and mid-market, and Microsoft has been integrating heavily with Exchange and SharePoint.” For some companies, e-mail isn’t a top priority, adds Chen. “Many rely on advanced functionality, applications that might be critical to their business, like unified messaging and shared folders – something Exchange does well.”

PostPath and others

Levitt says there are many alternatives to Microsoft Exchange. Along with IBM Lotus Domino and Notes and Novell GroupWise, competing integrated collaborative environments (ICE a.k.a. “groupware”) include Oracle Collaboration Suite, Yahoo!'s Zimbra Collaboration Suite, and PostPath, “which looks just like an Exchange server to other Exchange servers and to Outlook clients,” says Levitt.

Sina Miri, spokesman for PostPath, which Cisco agreed to acquire on Aug. 27, says their clients prefer PostPath to Microsoft Exchange Server for a few reasons. The most critical is PostPath performs better on all hardware, says Miri. “This is especially true with modest and even low-end hardware, plus it’s low maintenance due to its architecture and the use of the file system as opposed to Exchange and its Jet database,” explains Miri.

Standalone e-mail server software competitors include Sun Mail Server, CommuniGate, Ipswitch, MailSite, Gordano, Mirapoint, Scalix, and the Unix-based Sendmail. Levitt says free hosted consumer-oriented webmail services are often used by individuals for business purposes -- such as Yahoo!, Gmail and Windows Live Hotmail -- or free mailboxes bundled into Internet connectivity services, such as AOL, Comcast, Earthlink, Research in Motion, Verizon, and so on.

Linux, too

Linux has grown to be a low-cost alternative to Windows, says Levitt, and so companies like IBM, Novell, and Sun “have embraced the alternative operating system with competitors to Microsoft Exchange, which operate on the Windows platform.”

The open-source movement can’t be ignored, says Levitt, especially with relatively high upfront costs for Microsoft Exchange, “not to mention ongoing upgrades, some of which you have to pay for, as well a licensing complexities when you’re dealing with multiple computers.”

On the flipside, however, it might be harder for IT people to manager alternative software, which might add to your bottom line. “Many rush to open-source products because there is no initial check to write, but you don’t get anything for free,” cautions Levitt. “There are always associated costs when you’re dealing with a product not as well established or supported as Microsoft Exchange.”

Server Snafus: Pitfalls to Avoid

Minda Zetlin — 2008-05-26T09:42:25-05:00

Buying a new server or servers means making decisions about storage and processing power, applications to install, where the server will be located, and how it will be powered. Get it right, and you'll provide infrastructure to help your company grow and thrive. Get it wrong, and you can wind up spending thousands on technology that creates more problems than it solves.

Here are five mistakes small businesses often make when purchasing servers:

1. Thinking short-term

"The number-one thing we see companies do all the time is underestimate capacity and buy too small," says Cameron Niles, principal, Syzygy 3 an IT consulting and integration firm. "They get into a situation where the configuration meets their initial needs, but in a year or a year and a half, they're constrained."

How do you buy now for future needs? Begin by considering the technology's life cycle -- that is, how long do you want to be able to use it before it needs replacing? "For small and medium-sized companies, that's usually three to six years," Niles says. Of course, every company is different. But, Niles says, "As a general rule, a smart thing to do is to for storage needs to double every year."

This doesn't mean you have to buy everything today that you'll need for the next six years, he says. "You don't need to build the Death Star right out of the gate," Niles says. "But you do need to have a strategic plan that takes future growth into account. That's where a lot of small businesses go wrong -- they just look for the cheapest way to get it done now."

2. Thinking you can plug it in and walk away

"Sometimes people don't give a lot of thought to what people, processes, and tools they will need to keep a system running," Niles says. For instance, you should ask not only what an application can do, but who will support it in your area. If severs will be in geographically spread out locations, how will your IT staff effect repairs? Will they have to travel to the other locations, or will they be able to log on to the server and restart it remotely?

Another common mistake, he says, is for businesses to buy one server that contains a tape drive so they can back their vital data up to tape. "No one ever thinks, 'What will I do with the tapes if the server breaks?'" Instead, Niles recommends a multi-disk backup system that triggers an automatic alert if any disk malfunctions. "With a good alerting procedure you can see that and get it swapped out before you lose any data."

3. Putting too much essential data on one server

"People try to save by combining features and applications on one server," Niles notes. While some combining is okay, he says, "Put too many different processes on too few servers, and an outage can take out e-mail, accounting systems and files, instead of just one of those."

On the same principle Nile recommends creating at least two partitions on each server, giving the operating system its own partition. That's because, when servers crash, some fixes require wiping and reinstalling the operating system. A separate partition can save your data and applications from getting wiped as well.

4. Not knowing your servers' power needs.

"A lot of folks today don't know how much power their servers are pulling," says C.C. Fridlin, vice president of product management for Avocent Corp., which provides IT infrastructure. Replacing an old server with a newer one can triple its power needs, he says. "You could wind up repeatedly tripping a circuit breaker, and not know why."

Larger data centers typically use an uninterruptible power source (UPS) to provide adequate power for each server, manage power spikes and dips, and provide battery power if the electricity goes off. If you have applications that simply can't go down, then a UPS might be a worthwhile investment, especially if your company is in an area where electric storms or other factors cause frequent power interruptions.

5. Not knowing your servers' environmental needs

"Small companies sometimes put servers in a janitor's closet," Fridlin notes. "There's a drain at the bottom with running water underneath, and mops -- lots of humidity. There's no ventilation -- it can feel like 120 degrees in there. Then they wonder why their equipment breaks."

Servers need to take in air no warmer than 70 or 75 degrees, generally speaking. But it's important to note where: most servers take in air at the front and blow it out the back. So it's obviously a bad idea to have the back of one server facing the front of another. In fact, Fridlin says, if you have empty spaces in a server rack, it's smart to install blanking panels -- metal plates provided by the rack manufacturer -- to discourage air flow between the front and the back of the rack.

You should also avoid over-cooling your work area. "Some companies cool it down to 58 degrees to protect their equipment," Fridlin says. Chill temperatures won't hurt servers, but may have other drawbacks. "Obviously it'll drive your power costs up," he notes. "And, if the servers don't have a dedicated air conditioning unit, your employees will complain about how cold it is. They may start plugging in space heaters under their desks." That can create a fire hazard, among other problems.

There are many challenges in buying servers, and of course this list can't cover all of them. But avoiding these sadly common mistakes is a good place to start.

Five Reasons to Virtualize Servers -- Now

Renee Oricchio — 2008-05-26T09:24:11-05:00

According to Gartner, roughly two thirds of all servers sold are shipped with Microsoft’s server software. Each generation is more powerful and sophisticated in what it can handle, the latest being the highly anticipated release of Microsoft Server 2008 that came out in February of this year.

For the smaller business, prices start around $1,000 for the standard version and just under $500 for the no frills Web-only server application. Depending on the company’s size and budget, those Windows-based servers can be a major expense.

It probably wouldn’t please the average business owner to know those servers, for all that sophistication and computing power, are likely running at less than 20 percent utilization.

In other words, imagine a rack of five servers totaling over $5,000 in software and collectively they are running at the full capacity of just one of those servers, while the power of four servers sits idle and unused.

“Windows servers have become more powerful over the years. Most applications just don’t require all that extra power,” says Frank Scavo, president of Computer Economics based in Irvine, Calif. Scavo points to Unix and Linux servers as more efficient running at about 50 percent utilization -- significantly better than Microsoft, but still woefully under used as a resource.

The much-talked about trend, virtualization, is one way to get more bang out of your server bucks. But there are more reasons to virtualize, as you'll see below.

Virtualization 101

Traditionally, IT departments organize their servers by task. Typically there’s an e-mail server, a file server, perhaps an accounting server, and even a server for all the printing. With virtualization, tasks are handled across multiple machines and even platforms, instead of the one task, one box approach.

“Think about it at the desktop level. The more applications that are open, the more likely it’s going to freeze up and crash. You don’t need that on your servers,” says Scavo.

To the end user, the alternative is a seamless experience. Virtualization happens on the backend. It’s the ability to integrate resources, leverage them together to handle a single functionality, and all but eliminate down time since one server covers for another if there’s a problem. A company might use multiple servers to replicate a backup data base off site or handle more complex applications.

These days, virtualization is often mentioned in the same breath as cloud computing. To make a distinction between the two, cloud computing is a data grid of perhaps thousands of computing devices used as needed by outside users and organizations. It’s a nimble way to scale up and down with user demands.

Virtualization is the programming that handles the mechanics of that. Virtualization is not limited to cloud computing, which is virtualization on a grand scale. Smaller organizations can take advantage of this strategy on a much smaller scale with as little as only a few servers involved on site.

Whether its through a subscription based service with a cloud computing provider, like Amazon.com’s new Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service, or implementing some virtual machine software (VMWare) on site, virtualization is quickly becoming a very attractive option for businesses and organizations of all sizes. Here’s why:

Increase server utilization. As highlighted by Scavo, this is the heart and soul of virtualization. Getting the most out of your available computing power to accomplish whatever the task may be, whether it’s creating redundancies or enabling the network to handle more complex applications by allowing them to multi task across multiple appliances.
Decrease spending. Virtualization saves money by requiring fewer servers to do more. “Through virtualization, companies can consolidate their server population on average by 25 percent. I know of one company that went from 18 servers to three and saved $90,000,” says James Browning, a vice president of research at Gartner
Conserve energy. Servers and computers generate a lot of heat and at the same time easily break down if they aren’t kept almost refrigerator cool at all times. There’s a reason why IT professionals tend to wear long sleeves year round. The data room is typically chillier than football in November. With the rising costs of utility bills as a factor for every business right now, virtualization can be a fast track to big savings. That same company noted by Browning that saved $90,000 by reducing its number of servers; saved another $10,000 annually in utility bills.
Safeguard data. Archiving data and replicating the network off site through virtualization is a recipe for an all but bullet-proof disaster recovery plan. Plus, it’s competitively priced compared to some of the other popular backup choices for small to midsize companies, like using a storage area network (SAN) or disc to disc backup.
Increased flexibility. As mentioned already, by automating computing tasks across multiple sources, the likelihood of downtime is almost non-existent. If one source fails, another picks up the slack. Additionally, the IT department no longer has to be married to one single platform. “With virtual servers, you can run multiple operating systems, like Windows and Linux, on the same physical server,” points out Scavo.

SIDEBAR: Getting started

Every company’s computing needs are different and no one understands those unique needs better than the IT staff or consultant already managing the network. Business owners should encourage them to research virtualization, looking at case studies of what it’s done for organizations of similar size and corporate mission.

Scavo highly recommends laying out the investment for a little training, as well. Send your IT manager to a conference or have a client representative from one of the VMWare vendors, like EMC, come on site to demonstrate what their product can do.

As for Microsoft and those Windows servers running at 20 percent capacity, those days might soon be over with the release of Hyper-V when it comes out later in 2008.

Hyper-V technology, designed to partition virtual functions away from the processor, is Microsoft’s VMWare solution to get more out of their servers. At a thousand dollars a pop for entry level versions of Server 2008, that’s a good thing.

When to Fix a Server In-House

Joel Keller — 2008-03-27T12:59:34-05:00

If you're a small or mid-sized business owner, one of the things you quickly come to realize is that support is expensive. Either you pay through the nose for a support contract for your hardware and software, hoping that it'll come to the rescue when you need it, or you take a chance and go without support, hoping that something doesn't break that will incur a high one-time cost for time and materials.

Hardware and software manufacturers understand this, which is why they're giving their customers more self-service options than ever before. They're also making their product more self-serviceable, allowing the customer to make fixes without having to call in a field technician. But, at the same time, environments are getting more complicated, leading customers to go down more blind alleys than ever before.

As complicated as all this sounds, however, the decision on whether to call in support comes down to one major factor: how much downtime your company can tolerate.

How long you can be down

"Many times, it comes down to a cost equation, and that cost includes cost of downtime," says Flynn Maloy, worldwide marketing manager of HP's technology services division. Their goal is to provide complete support solutions to customers, whether they've bought HP servers or not. "Even with our small customers, we have a conversation: 'What does it cost you to go down for an hour? What is the uptime you're looking for?’"

Server manufacturers like HP have all made it easier for customers to service their own hardware. Hot-swappable fans, hard drives, and other modules are designed to be easily removed and replaced while the server is still online. Monitoring tools, such as HP's Insight Manager, and remote operation boards, such as the company's Lights-Out management package, allow customers to have more control of what they're seeing.

Customers seek self-service options

Thanks to the Internet, customers have more self-diagnosis options than they had even a few years ago. In a 2007 study of small businesses, New York City-based Jupiter Research found that, when searching for customer and technical support, FAQs and self-service searches were adopted at nearly the same rate (over 90 percent of those surveyed) as more traditional phone and e-mail support. But satisfaction levels were lower for those methods: 41 percent for FAQ and 45 percent for search versus 58 percent for e-mail and 57 percent for phone. Text chat and community forums were being used less than FAQ and search, but yielded similar satisfaction statistics.

"People do like to be in control. They like to go online and figure the problem out before they get on the phone," says Sonal Gandhi, the main analyst on the Jupiter report. "The only reason people turn to the phone is that they can't find the answer they're looking for or it's more complicated than what they can find online."

Managed solutions for complex environments

Indeed, environments have gotten so complicated that customers sometimes go down the wrong path, blaming the hardware when it could be the software or network that's to blame. Maloy quoted an internal HP survey conducted in 2006 that showed that only 20 percent of total system downtime could be attributed to hardware failures. The other 80 percent were attributable to what he called "people and process" factors such as software failures, human error, network problems, security breaches, and other issues.

These wild-goose chases end up taking time, and even in a small business, downtime can potentially cost a business a lot of money. "There are certainly customers out there that roll the dice more," and go without a support contract, says Maloy. "Once things get a little out of hand to the people who are running it, then they seek coverage."

That's where companies such as HP step in, offering managed support of entire environments. The service arms of global companies like HP and IBM have groups that are dedicated to providing services for small and mid-sized businesses, with service packages that are scaled and priced to fit the needs of smaller shops. Solutions range from hosting software on shared servers managed by the outsourcing company to having people on-site on a full-time basis.

Some companies, says Gandhi, are using a "hybrid" model, where the management of only new applications and environments are outsourced, and the current environment is still taken care of in house. "It really depends on how crucial the application is for running the business," she says.

Router-mania: Best Draft N Buys

Todd Wasserman — 2008-02-25T17:47:14-05:00

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has yet to sit down and formally ratify standard 802.11n, but that hasn’t stopped a flood of “Draft N” routers from hitting the market.

Should you wait for the IEEE to formally bless the standard before you go out and buy equipment?

Probably not. Most observers agree that the Institute’s blessing is merely a formality at this point. After all, many of the companies rolling out Draft N routers are on the IEEE.

Draft N complications

But here’s a more likely complication: You install Draft N routers, which are purported to be about six times faster than the previous “Wireless G” iteration (which maxed out at 54 Mbps under laboratory conditions) and find that they perform pretty much the same.

That’s likely because although you have Draft N routers, the equipment on your PCs is still old school. Unless you bought a PC equipped with Intel’s Centrino technology after August or so, your PCs won’t clock an uptick in speeds. “The biggest potential for disappointment is not having client hardware in sync with the router,” says Chris Silva, an analyst with Forrester Research, of Cambridge, Mass.

Indeed, when Austin Smith, the owner of Digital Son I.T. Services, an Atlanta value-added reseller (VAR), pitches Draft N upgrades to small business clients, he stresses that they are not likely to see an immediate improvement. “I basically have to sell it on the features they’ll be gaining when the standard’s completed,” he says. Though PCs are beginning to sport Draft N compatibility (and Apple’s MacBooks are already up to speed), other hardware, like digital cameras, have yet to catch up.

Backwards compatible hardware

Nevertheless, unlike previously updated equipment, most Draft N hardware is backwards-compatible, which means at least while customers are waiting for the IEEE to make its decision (likely in the third quarter of 2008), customers can still use their legacy equipment.

Proponents of Draft N say it’s worth the wait. Not only is it much faster, but the wireless coverage is noticeably better, says Ivor Diedricks, senior product manager for Linksys, of Irvine, Calif. Before Draft N, users might lose their connection if they moved their laptop over two feet or so, but “in the case of [Draft N] you don’t have dead spots.”

In the meantime, though, a Draft N upgrade is likely to be anticlimactic. That was the case with CornerStore Entertainment, a nine-person Atlanta firm that manages musical acts (including crunk artist YoungBloodZ). Jeffrey Joseph, president of CornerStore, says so far it’s hard to get excited about the upgrade: “We decided to buy the [Draft N] router thinking it would be six- to ten-times faster only to find that the devices we need aren’t available yet.”

SIDEBAR: Best Buys in Draft N Routers

If you’re interested in starting the draft N upgrade process, here are some small business-targeted routers:

• Linksys offers a full line of Draft N routers including the WRT350N, which starts at around $150.

• D-Link also offers the DIR-655 Xtreme N Gigabit Route, which starts at $115.

• Belkin’s N1 Wireless Router starts at $99.

• Netgear’s WNR834B RangeMax Net Router starts at around $90.