How IronTech can help your business open a new branch office

March 5th, 2009
So it’s that time of year again.  Budgets are in place and it’s time to make the big purchases (yes, even in this economy).  For a lot of companies, an office expansion may be on the agenda.  Adding a new location to your existing IT infrastructure is a lot easier to do that you might think.  Having IronTech involved in the initial planning is a guaranteed way to ensure your infrastructure will meet the demands of your company and is scalable for future growth.

First, are you opening a new physical office location or are you adding employees that are telecommuters?  If you just want to add telecommuters who work from home or other location, skip straight to bullet 4.

 

Here are some points to keep in mind for a new office:

 

1. Structured Wiring – For a new office location/branch office, your biggest IT expense is going to be the structure wiring.  You need to make sure the new office space is wired with CAT5e network drops in each office/cubicle before moving in.  Ensure there are ports for both data and voice.  All this will route back to a patch panel in a wiring closet (aka IDF closet) which is where your telephone system and other network equipment will go.

 

2. Internet & Phones- The next step is choosing an ISP.  Should you go with a cable, DSL, T1, or point to point circuit back to the main office?  This question can be answered by the number of employees you have in this new office, what applications they need to be able to access, and if you want bundled voice services.  For typical businesses, a cable modem with a static IP address (business cable) will suffice.  Expect to pay around $80 per month through a company such as Comcast.  It used to be that businesses had no choice but to go with a T1 when they needed high bandwidth with uptime guarantees but cable internet service has really taken a chunk of business away from T1 providers in recent years offering even better bandwidth and similar uptime guarantees.

 

But what if your employees need to transfer huge files (think large 100 MB documents or images) back and forth between the main office and the new office all throughout the day?  This would unfortunately would be unbearable with a cable modem or DSL connection if everyone in your office was trying to move files between location over a site to site VPN to your main office.  If your bandwidth is a limiting factor, the next option is to purchase a point to point circuit or MPLS circuit between the two offices.  A point to point circuit it as fiber line that is run between the two offices by your provider and guarantees an “always on” link between the two offices with no overhead.  An MPLS circuit is similar but offers even higher availability and redundancy through a concept called “mesh networking” which puts both your offices in a “mesh network” where only data destined for one location is allowed to pass through while regular Internet data is routed normally.  A point to point circuit usually starts at around $400 per month or more and an MPLS circuit is usually $600 per month or more.  This can get a little overwhelming for a small or medium size business so please call and speak to a Network Engineer at IronTech before proceeding to order service from your provider.  The last thing you want is to be sold a service solution by a telecom salesman and it turns out to be the wrong type of circuit for your companies needs.  IronTech has seen this happen time and time again which is why we always tell our clients to let us help you find the right king of service for you.

 

The last thing to consider is your phone system.  If you go with a VoIP (voice over IP system) designed for small businesses such as Microsoft Response Point which is geared for companies with less than 50 employees, the costs of your phone solution can be much less by making calls over your Internet connection rather than standard phone lines:

 

Microsoft Response Point

 

And don’t forget your remote users.  Softphones come into play as a convenient way for users in remote locations to still make and answer phone calls as if they were in the office without having to carry around a physical phone with them.  A softphone is just an application that runs on your PC or laptop that emulates a physical phone and allows you to make and take calls over the Internet and through the office phone system.

 
3. Router & Switch- So you have an Internet connection, but now what do you do to get everyone in the office up and running?  You need a business class router from Cisco or Sonicwall.  Don’t run out to Best Buy and pickup a $40 Linksys residential router.  This is not going to fit the needs of a small or medium size business.  Sure it can get you online and give you WiFi with a very basic firewall but that’s as far as a residential router goes.  A business class router offers so much more and has built-in in security features aimed at hardening a business network.  When shopping for a business class router, make sure to purchase one with “Site to Site VPN” capability.  What this does is create a secure VPN tunnel between your main office’s router and the router in your new office which effectively makes it seem as if you were in one big office.  This is the ideal scenario for any business.

 

cisco-1800-series-router-install-houston

There are many other features of a router you need to consider which are a bit beyond the scope of this article such as WAN failover, intrusion detection, Radius authentication, content filtering, VPN endpoint, deep packet inspection firewall, etc.  Make sure to have an IronTech Network Engineer go over your requirements before making a purchase.  You don’t want to purchase something that is overkill for your office but at the same time, you don’t want to purchase something that doesn’t have what your business needs.

 

Most of these routers have integrated switch ports but if your office has 50 users, then you definitely need to get a standalone switch or two.  Depending on your phone solution, you might even need to get a PoE switch (Power over Ethernet) so that your phones receive power through a standard network cable and you don’t have to plug in an AC adaptor.

 

4. Remote Access- Ok, so now your office is online and people can work but how do they get the data on the servers at the main office?  Here you have different options available to you which again depend on what business needs have to be met.

 

  • -Microsoft Terminal Services- A server at your main office will become a “remote access” server which will allow users in the branch office to remote in securely over the Internet and use this server as their desktop.  All their files will be stored on the server and will be backed up so if the hard drive on their computer in their office goes out, they will never experience a loss of data.  A Terminal Server is a very fast solution and is already included with every Microsoft Server operating system.  You just need to purchase the additional user licenses which is around $80 per person that connects to it.  With Microsoft Terminal Services running on Windows Server 2008, a new application publishing feature called RemoteApp is also available.  Read below on Citrix and application publishing below.
  • -Citrix XenApp- You might have heard your friends at other companies talk about Citrix but called it “Presentation Server” or “MetaFrame Server”.  The new name is for Citrix’s application publishing suite it is XenApp and Citrix has made it better than it was ever before.  With Citrix XenApp, instead of a user remoting into the server and using a desktop like with a Terminal Server, the Citrix server instead “publishes” just an application only to the user.  So the user never has to leave their desktop behind, the application is “pushed” to the user.
  • -VMware ThinApp- A similar application virtualization technology from the leading provider of virtualization solutions, VMware.
  • -VPN (Virtual Private Network) – The old classic way of remote access.  A VPN creates a secure connection between computers.  If you have a dial up VPN (such as Microsoft RRAS which is included with every Server operating system), a user can dial in on demand to the network and have access to file shares and data as if they were in the office.  For a VPN between offices, this must be accomplished at the network layer between routers and it will always “stay on”.  The problem with a VPN is that it can be unbearably slow if your bandwidth on both sides is not fast enough to keep the secure tunnel up and running stably.

 

There are just the more popular remote access methods that IronTech Solutions implements and supports.  Your business needs me require a combination of platforms or even something else entirely.  Call us and discuss your needs and we will tailor a solution fit for your business.

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Infrastructure Optimization: IronTech’s roadmap from a Reactive to Proactive IT environment

January 28th, 2009

Your IT infrastructure can be more than just a service – it can be a crucial strategic asset to your organization. Microsoft developed the Infrastructure Optimization Model (IOM) as a gauge for organizations and provides a logical roadmap to progress from reactive to proactive IT service management that IronTech provides to businesses all over Houston and Dallas.

 

What category does your IT currently fit in?

 

  • Basic – You’re fighting fires
  • Standardized- You’re gaining control
  • Rationalized – You’re enabling your business
  • Dynamic – Your IT infrastructure is a strategic asset

 

Most of our clients come to us somewhere between a Basic or Standardized infrastructure level. This is what IronTech likes to refer to as a “Reactive” state. At the Basic level, the company is either has a server (or needs one) but all PCs are still on a workgroup rather than a domain. They is no IT policy in place and each machine is managed locally by the user. There is no Active Directory (central management). At the Standardized level, the company has at least one server and all computers on the network are joined to the domain and using Exchange. Beyond that, there is not much standardization because there are no active IT policies in place to manage the environment. At some point in time, an IT guy setup the environment but since then it has never been managed or even backed up correctly. These companies have been fighting fires daily until they call us.

 

IronTech then takes these clients to the Rationalized level overnight. This is no exaggeration. Our certified technicians can typically resolve whatever issues or misconfigurations exist in a network within 8 hours (1 business day). Then we setup our proactive monitoring of disk space levels, event log monitors, CPU and page file monitors, daily spyware and virus scans, weekly disk defragmention, daily backup monitoring, and a number of other proactive measures on all servers, desktops, and laptops. Now the company is in a “Proactive” state because they are no longer fighting fires. Issues are no longer popping up every day that brings business to a halt. Whenever a user has an issue, an IronTech technician is just a phone call or trouble ticket away and can fix most issues that might crop up in an average of 45 minutes. This is a real figure based on our current ticket resolution rate for our clients.

 

Finally, our clients realize how important having a properly managed Proactive IT environment is and are elevated to the “Dynamic” level. Their company is fully aware of the strategic value their infrastructure provides in helping them run their business efficiently and staying ahead of competitors. It connects people, processes, and information in a way that drives results for the company. IronTech not only provides the support, but also the direction for the IT infrastructure of the company as it grows. This “Dynamic” level of IT is the ultimate goal for IronTech for all our clients.

 

Microsoft IOM Core

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 There are 5 criteria that improve and evolve as a company reaches each level:

 

Identity & Access Management – The solutions in place that should be implemented to manage and protect identity data (synchronization, password management, and user provisioning, etc), and how to manage access to resources from corporate mobile users, customers, and partners outside of a firewall. An example IronTech always used to describe this is going from a workgroup environment to a domain environment using Active Directory technology built-in to Windows Server platforms such as Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Small Business Server, etc.

 

Desktop, Device, and Server Management – The solutions in place to manage desktops, mobile devices, and servers as well as how to deploy patches, operating systems, and applications across the network. This criteria also provides guidance on how you can leverage virtualization and branch office technologies to improve your IT infrastructure. IronTech’s managed services systems will provide this part of your IT infrastructure.

 

Security and Networking – The solutions implemented in your IT infrastructure to help guarantee that information and communication are protected from unauthorized access. These solutions have mechanisms to protect your IT infrastructure from denial attacks and viruses while preserving access to corporate resources. Believe it or not, IronTech has run across clients that were using consumer grade routers in their environment instead of business grade routers such as Cisco, Sonicwall, Checkpoint, Juniper, etc. and have helped migrate them to these business grade platforms for a robust network environment.

 

Data Protection and Recovery – The solutions in place to provide structured backup, storage, and restore management. As information and data stores proliferate, organizations are under increasing pressure to protect that information and provide cost-effective and time-efficient recovery when required. Clients at the Basic level sometimes do not even backup their environment. Standardized clients typically use single tape backup decvices coupled with industry proven software such as Symantec BackupExec. Clients that reach higher levels usually implement offsite tape backup rotations, image level backups, disk based backups, tape vault libraries, server or storage standby failover, or even system snapshots backed up offsite in 15 minute or greater intervals.

 

IT and Security Process – The processes in place to cost-effectively design, develop, operate, and support solutions while achieving high reliability, availability, and security. While rock-solid technology is necessary to meet demands for reliable, available, and highly secure IT services, technology alone is not sufficient; excellence in processes and people (skills, roles, and responsibilities) is also needed. This is an ongoing process that envelopes all other solutions above. Typically small businesses at the Basic level do not take into consideration or have the skill necessary to plan and implement these processes. When IronTech takes a client to the Rationalized level or higher, the role of creating these processes becomes a combination of IronTech and the people at the company working hand in hand to build the processes that ensure a secure, stable, and cost effective environment.

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Outsourcing your IT in a recession economy

January 2nd, 2009

This past year has been very tough for our economy and as of Dec 1, we are officially in an economic recession (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27999557).  The vast majority of industries in the US have felt the crunch this year.  Many long standing businesses in the US have gone bankrupt such as Circuit City, Linen & Things, Bennigans, Steak & Ale, and others.

 

Traditionally for many companies, the first costs to cut are usually in the IT budget as we all saw and experienced with the 2000 dot com bubble burst.  Many companies learned a valuable lesson from that and we saw a surge of IT outsourcing happen in those days.  Many companies outsourced their software development departments to India and China and the US economy saw a lot of unemployment in the software development industry.  Infrastructure support of course could not be outsourced for any company since you need engineers onsite to build and support your environment.  Back in those days, you only had the option to rely on your inhouse IT support people for this.  As a result, infrastructure support and systems administrators did not feel this kind of unemployment impact.  Unfortunately for businesses, this meant they had to ride out the costs of having inhouse IT support at a premium price.  Over the years, the managed services of infrastructure grew larger and companies like IronTech Solutions answered the call to help support these businesses that were looking to lower costs of IT across the board and not in such niche areas as software development.

 

These days, businesses are more and more dependent on their IT infrastructure than ever before and the impact of the recession on IT outsourcing worldwide has been no slowdown at all.  The outsourced IT industry in Houston and Dallas has seen no slowdown all year.  In fact, IronTech has been signing on new clients for managed services exponentially every month as more and more businesses realize the benefits of having an entire IT department supporting them at a fraction of the cost of hiring one fulltime onsite administrator.  IronTech has also steadily been increasing our staff augmentation services as well with some companies that have a fulltime admin on site, but just need an extra hand with the day to day support of the business both onsite and remotely. 

 

Most small & medium size businesses and their owners are feeling a credit and funding crunch right now.  The solution that most have found is to optimize resources and lower costs wherever possible.  This is where choosing managed services/outsourcing can lead to high profitability for a business because the costs are so low, even with 24/7 support such like IronTech provides.  Companies want to stay flexible and have a highly skilled workforce, while reducing capital expenditures.  Forrester Research says that managed services will see a marked increase for the next few years as more companies realize that benefit of outsourcing their IT according to a study released on Dec. 15, 2008.  Besides the macro economic forecasts, this is increase is lead by two factors:

 

Faster technology change – In the SMB world, think Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Small Business Server 2008, Exchange 2007, Sharepoint Services 3.0, Response Point, Hyper-V, VMware ESXi, etc.  These new technologies offer companies a blizzard of new capabilities without a big hit on their IT budgets.  In fact, these technologies all cut costs in an environment compared to their predecessors.  The companies that choose to invest in these new technologies will see a higher ROI as well since these technologies can lay a foundation in an environment that can upscale for years to come.  Additionally, managed services through IronTech can offer safeguards for all this change.  Do you really want to spend your IT budget in sending your existing IT to training or do you want certified experts in these technologies ready to work for you now?

 

We are on the verge of a technology investment cycle – Even with the economic uncertainty, Information Technology is on the verge of a huge investment cycle.  The IT industry typically operates in a cycle of innovation and growth followed by a cycle of refinement and digestion.  Forrester Research believes that 2009 through 2017 will be a period of innovation and growth unlike any previous cycles.

 

With the savings on capital expenditures, nimbleness of the network, certified skilled workforce, and ability for a business to focus on core business instead of IT, IronTech Solutions expects to see a period unprecedented growth in IT Outsourcing in Houston and Dallas in 2009.  As an award winning managed services provider, IronTech provides desktop support for all users and applications, 24/7/365 server monitoring and support, automated patching and security audits within an environment, server and application hosting in our state of the art Tier 4 data center, and CTO services to provide your company direction in infrastructure as your core business grows.  Our pay as you go business model allows small and medium size businesses to easily scale up or scale down based on the number of users at the company and what business needs have to be met.  All this is provided at a low monthly flat fee so there are no unexpected costs and a business has total control of their IT budget.

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Server Virtualization for SMBs explained

December 13th, 2008

Server Virtualization refers to a complete operating system that runs in a guest virtual machine (VM) on the host operating system.  This host operating system is know as a “hypervisor” (such as VMware ESX, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, and Citrix XenServer).  This guest VM is completely independent of the host operating system and can be moved from one server to another or even run on another hypervisor platform entirely if converted.  Since each guest VM is completely enscapsulated, you have the ability of running multiple VMs on one server.  The hypervisor which sits between the physical hardware and the guest VMs manages the shared resource allocation of the server.  This allows you to take advantage of the resources of a physical server that would otherwise sit idle.  When you tally up the cost of electricity, air conditioning, space, battery backups, etc., you will find that if your environment has many servers, the costs can get very high very quickly.  This is where server virtualization has it’s greatest benefit.  Add to this the flexibility of moving your server to another server on the fly in the event of a hardware failure of disaster scenario, virtualization goes from being a “cool trend” to a “must have” for many companies these days.

  

vmware_virtualization

 

ESX, Hyper-V Server 2008, and XenServer Enterprise are all “bare-metal hypervisors” which means they do not require an operating system installed on the server at the time of the hypervisor installation.  They are in essence their own OS.  You will notice however that ESX is based on Linux Redhat and Hyper-V is based on Server 2008 Core.

 

The other kind of hypervisor is the software hypervisor that requires a host OS already installed on the server or desktop to run.  Examples would be VMware Server, XenServer Standard, Hyper-V (the one that ships with Server 2008, not the baremetal version above that you have to download online).  The good thing about using a software hypervisor is that you don’t have to reformat an existing server to install a hypervisor.  You can continue using the existing server as you always have with the added benefit of having one or more virtual servers running right along side it.  The downside of using a software hypervisor package within a host OS is increased overhead. 

 

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  There are so many virtualization options available, which one is correct for small and medium size business?  Most SMBs typically enter the virtualization market for two reasons:

 

1. High availability of a server (such as a mail server, web server, etc.)
2. Total cost of ownership & ROI (the company realizes that buying yet another physical server is not cost effective)

 

The next question an SMB should ask is how much is it going to cost to virtualize and consolidate your servers?  Without going into too many details and comparisons of features, the typical small to mid size business can virtualize for free using a free hypervisor as long as your exisitng physical server will support it:

 

1. VMware Server – FREE
2. Hyper-V Server 2008 – FREE

 

While other hypervisor options include many different features, using VMware Server or Hyper-V Server 2008 are two ways an SMB can see what a hypervisor can do for them without the making a huge investment in buying Enterprise class software such as VMware ESX or XenServer Enterprise.

 

VMware Server should be considered the entry level hypervisor for SMBs.  This is absolutely free and will install on your existing Windows 2003 Server just like any other application.  The hardware requirements are flexible.  The only thing you have to worry about is having enough RAM available for your guest machines.  VMware Server cannot be used for high availability, you will have to purchase it’s bare-metal big brother ESX.  Using VMware Server is a great way to see how powerful virtualization can be in your environment first hand.  If you choose not to go the virtualization route for whatever reason, just uninstall it from your server just like any other application.

 

Hyper-V Server 2008 is a free download on Microsoft’s website.  One important point to note for Hyper-V is that since it is a bare-metal hypervisor, you cannot install it on an existing server without first formatting it.  The hardware requirements of Hyper-V also have to be met.  The biggest problem SMBs usually face is that their existing server is not 64 bit and the processor does not support hardware assisted virtualization (Intel VT or ADM-V).  Most SMBs will likely have to purchase a new server for this purpose since these hardware specs have only been in the market for just over a year now.  So for an SMB that wants to get a taste of actual bare metal virtualization at the cost of purchasing a new server, Hyper-V is an excellent choice.  The good news is that this is completely scalable.  If you want to purchase additional servers and setup multiple Hyper-V servers, you can basically “daisy chain” them all together and create a high availability solution.  If one physical server were to fail (let’s say a power supply goes out), it will Quick Migrate the servers to other physical servers as long as you have some kind of shared storage setup between all the servers.  Your users will never know something has happened since the migration is seamless.

 

In summary, there are many configurations and flavors of virtualization available these days.  The solution you need will depend on what requirements your business has and what the budget is.  IronTech consulants are certified virtualization specialists that can help you choose what’s best for your company on a variety of offerings from Microsoft, VMware, and Citrix.  We have virtualization demonstrations available in Houston and Dallas and can even give you a “loaner” server to virtualize some of your servers to show you how seamless yet powerful server virtualization can be.

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IronTech Small Business Disaster Preparedness & Recovery whitepaper released

November 21st, 2008

IronTech has released a whitepaper for SMB DR and BCP (Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning). With the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, SMBs need to have these guidelines firmly established in their organizations. Email us at info@irontechsolutions.com for a PDF version of this whitepaper.

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SBS 2008 is officially an IronTech solution!

November 12th, 2008

Small Business Server 2008 has officially been released by Microsoft. Read more about it here:

http://www.microsoft.com/sbs/en/us/default.aspx

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