The more we optimise and increase the efficiency of our businesses, the more we can increase the risk of a simple failure effecting everyone. A business server is a good example of this, if the server stops the business IT system can stop; a single failure stops everyone.
After a long period of calm and smooth operations at our customers we have had a couple of small but significant failures, where the "Fire Drill" has been called for. Some have worked better than others, but those that have been practiced worked best.
When there are no problems you tend to sit back and enjoy life, but after a few problems you tend to look around to see if there are any more coming. We have had cause to do this, any false sense of complacency has gone, things always go wrong when you are least prepared.
Do not put off the fire drills, practice them as you planned. This is a discipline worth keeping, you will be grateful you did.
Thursday, 30 October 2008
Tuesday, 28 October 2008
Hard Times- make your assets work for you
The business climate is very uncertain and we don't know how long this will last. One of our customers reported his worst week of sales for over 20 years. One thing is certain, most people are going to batten down the hatches and spend as little as possible for some time.
"Make do and mend" will be the watch words, we will have little money available for new investment . In the short term this could be a good thing for all of us, if we can survive, by forcing us to take stock and look at what we have and use our assets better.
Practically every business with an IT system does not make use of the tools available, the time is right to make your investments work harder for you. Now is the time to find out what you can do for yourself or with the minimum of help from others. We should challenge each other to find ways to make the tools we already have work harder, for now and the future.
"Make do and mend" will be the watch words, we will have little money available for new investment . In the short term this could be a good thing for all of us, if we can survive, by forcing us to take stock and look at what we have and use our assets better.
Practically every business with an IT system does not make use of the tools available, the time is right to make your investments work harder for you. Now is the time to find out what you can do for yourself or with the minimum of help from others. We should challenge each other to find ways to make the tools we already have work harder, for now and the future.
Sunday, 26 October 2008
Servers down, the "Fire Drill" pays off
One of our customers recently arrived at work to discover no one could get access to the Internet or print. Not a life and death situation, but very inconvenient for all 150 people in the organisation.
Fortunately in this case backup systems were available, and after a short period of trying to diagnose and fix the problems two new servers were up and running inside the hour. Normal service was resumed with minimal disruption to people and the business.
This was a short lived inconvenience because the risk had been anticipated. The quick response was possible because a routine "Fire Drill" had been practiced with virtual servers on Virtual Iron.
Disappointing to have a failure, but success in getting back to normal, well done to the IT team.
Fortunately in this case backup systems were available, and after a short period of trying to diagnose and fix the problems two new servers were up and running inside the hour. Normal service was resumed with minimal disruption to people and the business.
This was a short lived inconvenience because the risk had been anticipated. The quick response was possible because a routine "Fire Drill" had been practiced with virtual servers on Virtual Iron.
Disappointing to have a failure, but success in getting back to normal, well done to the IT team.
Friday, 24 October 2008
Buying and Selling, project approach
One of the hardest jobs we have is to give a "competitive" quote for work when the person or business buying is not clear on what they want or need. In fact most businesses have little expertise in buying IT systems and running projects of this type. IT project overruns are legendary and often do not deliver quite as intended.
There are many steps that a business can take to improve the chances of success; the first of these is to have a clear idea of what you want and ensure the people delivering know how to do it and have the right approach. I will return to this theme “of knowing what you want” in the future but for now I will concentrate on achieving the right result by using a structured approach. Organisations that deliver projects should be able to tell you how they will go about delivering the work. In many cases they will have some form of procedure they can show you and talk through, you should be able to discuss who is responsible for the different parts of a project, the deliverables and the timescale.
We have a generic project approach for installing Small Business Server which we have found to be very helpful and often use as a project starting template. Many of the large project and consulting firms have similar processes and templates, although they tend to be more complicated and more expensive!
There are many steps that a business can take to improve the chances of success; the first of these is to have a clear idea of what you want and ensure the people delivering know how to do it and have the right approach. I will return to this theme “of knowing what you want” in the future but for now I will concentrate on achieving the right result by using a structured approach. Organisations that deliver projects should be able to tell you how they will go about delivering the work. In many cases they will have some form of procedure they can show you and talk through, you should be able to discuss who is responsible for the different parts of a project, the deliverables and the timescale.
We have a generic project approach for installing Small Business Server which we have found to be very helpful and often use as a project starting template. Many of the large project and consulting firms have similar processes and templates, although they tend to be more complicated and more expensive!
Wednesday, 22 October 2008
Thin Client Portable Training System
Today we rebuilt our portable training system for a new series of courses on Office 2007 with Microsoft Exchange. With this kit of six bags, including a projector, we can set up a training room for six people in a matter of minutes. This is possible because current PCs are very powerful, in fact one PC has sufficient computing power to run a whole office.
We achieve this by using "Thin Client Technology" where all the work is carried out on one laptop (PC) and students use low specification laptops as simple terminals. Each terminal is basically a screen, keyboard and mouse communicating over a wireless network to the main PC. The courses can be set up and prepared in advance and the tutor has the ability to monitor and control each student session from his master PC.
This is only one example of Thin Client. We have a number of customers who use this technology successfully every day, often with staff completely unaware of the technology being used. There are many advantages to this approach, particularly as we have found the support costs are about one third of similar offices with standard PCs. Anyone can log on to any screen and keyboard in the office, they always see their own desktop and are able to pick up where they left off. In addition offices in different towns can be connected via the Internet, so people in the remote office can use the same information and resources very easily and conveniently. We have found this technology is very successful for the vast majority of office users who tend to use the mainstream office applications. We now believe that Thin Client should be considered as a first option for most office environments.
We achieve this by using "Thin Client Technology" where all the work is carried out on one laptop (PC) and students use low specification laptops as simple terminals. Each terminal is basically a screen, keyboard and mouse communicating over a wireless network to the main PC. The courses can be set up and prepared in advance and the tutor has the ability to monitor and control each student session from his master PC.
This is only one example of Thin Client. We have a number of customers who use this technology successfully every day, often with staff completely unaware of the technology being used. There are many advantages to this approach, particularly as we have found the support costs are about one third of similar offices with standard PCs. Anyone can log on to any screen and keyboard in the office, they always see their own desktop and are able to pick up where they left off. In addition offices in different towns can be connected via the Internet, so people in the remote office can use the same information and resources very easily and conveniently. We have found this technology is very successful for the vast majority of office users who tend to use the mainstream office applications. We now believe that Thin Client should be considered as a first option for most office environments.
Resilience - flexibility to cope with system failures
What happened the last time you had a power cut, were you able to work? The answer is probably no, without power your business can not operate. You will probably lose your light and heating as well. Fortunately power cuts tend to be rare and short, the damage is small and most small businesses do not have a contingency for this. You are more likely to suffer a computer system failure that could disrupt one or more of your business processes.
What happens if your PC stops, your internet connection fails, you cannot send or receive email or your server breaks? All of these failures are predictable and can be mitigated in a number of ways so that business can continue. We like to design systems that have levels of resilience built in to take into account some component failures. These measures can be quite simple; can you log on to another computer and carry on working, can you collect your email direct from the internet or use web mail. If your server stops do you still have access to recent shared files? These are examples of resilience; measures put in place to enable people to continue working when elements of the system go wrong.
The level of resilience you need depends on what level of disruption you can tolerate, the likelihood of failure and cost of measures to mitigate the failure. Can you survive without email for a day? What happens if you accounts program stops? What if the payroll needs to go out? Have you considered how resilient your systems are, do things keep going wrong through no fault of your own?
We have found that with a little thought and preparation procedures can often be put in place (at a minimal cost) that will reduce the impact of a fault. People can continue to work, reducing stress and allowing time for a fix to be made.
Once you know what to do, you can practice for system failures (carry out a “fire drill”), but that is a topic for another day.
What happens if your PC stops, your internet connection fails, you cannot send or receive email or your server breaks? All of these failures are predictable and can be mitigated in a number of ways so that business can continue. We like to design systems that have levels of resilience built in to take into account some component failures. These measures can be quite simple; can you log on to another computer and carry on working, can you collect your email direct from the internet or use web mail. If your server stops do you still have access to recent shared files? These are examples of resilience; measures put in place to enable people to continue working when elements of the system go wrong.
The level of resilience you need depends on what level of disruption you can tolerate, the likelihood of failure and cost of measures to mitigate the failure. Can you survive without email for a day? What happens if you accounts program stops? What if the payroll needs to go out? Have you considered how resilient your systems are, do things keep going wrong through no fault of your own?
We have found that with a little thought and preparation procedures can often be put in place (at a minimal cost) that will reduce the impact of a fault. People can continue to work, reducing stress and allowing time for a fix to be made.
Once you know what to do, you can practice for system failures (carry out a “fire drill”), but that is a topic for another day.
Monday, 20 October 2008
Giving Small Business what big business has
We set out (some time ago) to give smaller businesses the tools and advantages that larger businesses have. One major problem was that small businesses did not know what is available and how IT tools can help them; this is now rapidly changing as people come to use the internet and email every day. We are now starting to forget how we worked before these tools were in everyday use.
Small business owners, managers and employees do not yet fully appreciate the infrastructure and skills that are needed to run and maintain their IT systems. They cannot afford the overheads borne by larger companies but they need the same functionality, with better support and reliability.
Over the coming weeks and months I hope to explore and comment on topics of interest to people who use IT as part of their everyday business. Our aim is to help people improve their lives at work and as a result the services and products they supply to their customers (who pay the bills and hopefully keep coming back for more).
Small business owners, managers and employees do not yet fully appreciate the infrastructure and skills that are needed to run and maintain their IT systems. They cannot afford the overheads borne by larger companies but they need the same functionality, with better support and reliability.
Over the coming weeks and months I hope to explore and comment on topics of interest to people who use IT as part of their everyday business. Our aim is to help people improve their lives at work and as a result the services and products they supply to their customers (who pay the bills and hopefully keep coming back for more).
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