Where many new businesses and small businesses fall over is in the rushed forming of an IT infrastructure and IT system. In order to try and ensure that they hit the ground running, many organisations are more concerned with having an IT system up and running and in place as quickly as possible rather than considering the effects that a rigid infrastructure might have on their business in the future.
A successful new business can increase in size very quickly requiring new members of staff, new software and hardware, and even new systems to manage, store, and work with data. It’s during this expansion when the IT infrastructure will first be placed under the kind of stress it hasn’t yet experienced. A scalable infrastructure that was designed and developed with this very situation in mind will be able to cope well under the increased pressure and the IT team will be able to implement the necessary changes without too much additional work.
An IT infrastructure that does not include the provisions for expansion will either require a major redesign or will need scrapping and completely replacing. Both of these outcomes will cost a business money and, perhaps more damagingly under the circumstances, time. The new team members will have no IT access and existing team members will have to find a way to work around the problems that will quickly surface. When considering IT infrastructure design always consider that your business is going to expand in one way or another and make adequate allowances for that expansion.
There are many solutions available that offer scalability – talk to one of our consultants to see which solution is the best fit for your business
Wednesday, 27 July 2011
Vodafone unveils Facebook phone – the 555 Blue
Vodafone today (27 July) announced its latest own-branded device – the 555 Blue, an entry level, pre-pay smartphone specifically designed to put Facebook at the heart of the device. The handset is aimed at unlocking the as yet largely untapped growth of data in the pre-pay segment.
The 555 Blue will be available in the UK in August. The phone will cost around US$100 and will be available on a Vodafone Freebies pre-pay tariff, according to Patrick Chomet, group terminals director at Vodafone Group.
The device follows on from the Vodafone 858 Smart – an entry level Android smartphone on pre-pay. Chomet described the 555 Blue as being the next level down from the Smart in terms of affordability.
Chomet said: ‘We are not trying to compete with traditional OEMs. We can identify market trends and spot gaps in the market. We can accelerate those trends by putting out our own devices to bridge those gaps in the market. We want to democratise those trends and empower people, especially in developing markets.’
He added: ‘If you are going to produce a feature phone you need to pick your battle, be it a camera, music or social networking. We have concentrated on Facebook, as it has 250 million users worldwide. A third of Facebook transactions are accessed via a mobile phone.’
In the developed world, the handset will be targeted at teenagers, who cannot afford the more expensive smartphones only available on contract. The 555 Blue is designed to appeal to their love of social networking and messaging friends. In the developing world, the phone is targeted at the millions of people who do not have access to the internet, but who want an affordable way to communicate. Both markets are given access to the internet, but only have a light data use requirement.
Facebook is built into the core of the device and is designed to be ready to go, straight out of the box as soon as it turned on. Phone contacts are automatically synchronised with friends’ Facebook profiles. The device has a 2.4-inch landscape display and a QWERTY keyboard designed to make it easy to type chat, email, texts and status updates.
It also features a dedicated Facebook ‘F’ button. The F button is customisable in terms of assigning tasks, such as instantly posting a status update with photos or with links from the browser.
The 555 Blue features a fully integrated messaging service that brings SMS, MMS, email and Facebook together in one place. Photos can be uploaded to Facebook, emailed or Bluetoothed at the click of button. The device updates automatically every 20 minutes, although this can be customised.
The handset was developed by Vodafone in conjunction with Chinese manufacturer TCL. Vodafone developed its own operating system to keep costs down. The chipset is provided by Taiwanese manufacture MTK. The 555 Blue uses the Opera Mini 5 web browser.
(source - mobiletoday.co.uk)
The 555 Blue will be available in the UK in August. The phone will cost around US$100 and will be available on a Vodafone Freebies pre-pay tariff, according to Patrick Chomet, group terminals director at Vodafone Group.
The device follows on from the Vodafone 858 Smart – an entry level Android smartphone on pre-pay. Chomet described the 555 Blue as being the next level down from the Smart in terms of affordability.
Chomet said: ‘We are not trying to compete with traditional OEMs. We can identify market trends and spot gaps in the market. We can accelerate those trends by putting out our own devices to bridge those gaps in the market. We want to democratise those trends and empower people, especially in developing markets.’
He added: ‘If you are going to produce a feature phone you need to pick your battle, be it a camera, music or social networking. We have concentrated on Facebook, as it has 250 million users worldwide. A third of Facebook transactions are accessed via a mobile phone.’
In the developed world, the handset will be targeted at teenagers, who cannot afford the more expensive smartphones only available on contract. The 555 Blue is designed to appeal to their love of social networking and messaging friends. In the developing world, the phone is targeted at the millions of people who do not have access to the internet, but who want an affordable way to communicate. Both markets are given access to the internet, but only have a light data use requirement.
Facebook is built into the core of the device and is designed to be ready to go, straight out of the box as soon as it turned on. Phone contacts are automatically synchronised with friends’ Facebook profiles. The device has a 2.4-inch landscape display and a QWERTY keyboard designed to make it easy to type chat, email, texts and status updates.
It also features a dedicated Facebook ‘F’ button. The F button is customisable in terms of assigning tasks, such as instantly posting a status update with photos or with links from the browser.
The 555 Blue features a fully integrated messaging service that brings SMS, MMS, email and Facebook together in one place. Photos can be uploaded to Facebook, emailed or Bluetoothed at the click of button. The device updates automatically every 20 minutes, although this can be customised.
The handset was developed by Vodafone in conjunction with Chinese manufacturer TCL. Vodafone developed its own operating system to keep costs down. The chipset is provided by Taiwanese manufacture MTK. The 555 Blue uses the Opera Mini 5 web browser.
(source - mobiletoday.co.uk)
Thursday, 21 July 2011
How full proof is your Business Continuity Plan?
Question for your IT manager
Q. In event of a disaster (such as a fire) how quickly can you have us back up and running?
A. If they have considered the above – the answer should be less than 4 hours
The more your business relies on its IT systems, the more you need to consider how unexpected disruptions might affect your business. These disruptions could come in many forms, from fire and floods to theft or malicious attacks on your systems, such as viruses or hacking.
Business continuity planning improves your business’ ability to react to such disruptions. It describes how you will restart your operations in order to meet your business-critical requirements.
The main benefit of business continuity planning is enabling your business to recover quickly from unexpected events that disrupt your IT systems.
A business that can demonstrate an effective business continuity plan has a competitive advantage. For example, if you provide services to customers that are dependent upon your IT systems, like an internet service provider, then evidence of a sound plan can be used to win or retain customers. For instance, if your business is a partner in a supply chain, business continuity planning may well need to be an integral part of your quality assurance.
Your Business Continuity plan should aim to reduce the risks posed by disruption to your business processes. Measures that you need to include:
• A back-up and data recovery strategy, including off-site storage.
• The development of a resilient IT infrastructure with redundancies (spare capacity) in case of failure. For example, mirrored central server computers sited in different locations, each containing the same information, so that if one goes down, the other one is available to ensure continuity of service and alternative storage facilities.
• The elimination of single points of failure, such as a single power supply.
Q. In event of a disaster (such as a fire) how quickly can you have us back up and running?
A. If they have considered the above – the answer should be less than 4 hours
The more your business relies on its IT systems, the more you need to consider how unexpected disruptions might affect your business. These disruptions could come in many forms, from fire and floods to theft or malicious attacks on your systems, such as viruses or hacking.
Business continuity planning improves your business’ ability to react to such disruptions. It describes how you will restart your operations in order to meet your business-critical requirements.
The main benefit of business continuity planning is enabling your business to recover quickly from unexpected events that disrupt your IT systems.
A business that can demonstrate an effective business continuity plan has a competitive advantage. For example, if you provide services to customers that are dependent upon your IT systems, like an internet service provider, then evidence of a sound plan can be used to win or retain customers. For instance, if your business is a partner in a supply chain, business continuity planning may well need to be an integral part of your quality assurance.
Your Business Continuity plan should aim to reduce the risks posed by disruption to your business processes. Measures that you need to include:
• A back-up and data recovery strategy, including off-site storage.
• The development of a resilient IT infrastructure with redundancies (spare capacity) in case of failure. For example, mirrored central server computers sited in different locations, each containing the same information, so that if one goes down, the other one is available to ensure continuity of service and alternative storage facilities.
• The elimination of single points of failure, such as a single power supply.
Outsourcing Vs In house for SMEs
Small businesses have as much of a need for good IT infrastructure as large ones, perhaps even more so. The smaller business often has less resource in terms of the preparation and deployment of an effective IT and communications infrastructure. This means that establishing a network, preparing a disaster recovery plan, writing bespoke software, and ensuring that your network is protected from viruses and spyware can sometimes take a back seat to other internal projects. Outsourcing may be the best solution to this unique problem.
Networks, systems, and business software all play an integral role in profitable business. In order to employ a skilled and efficient IT team to perform all of these tasks it would cost a prohibitively large amount of money that very few small businesses can reasonably afford. Once a network has been established, software written, and a disaster recovery plan formulated, you may be left with a large IT team that has very little work on their hands.
IT outsourcing can combat many of the problems associated with establishing a new business or running a small business and meeting its IT needs. Every aspect of the IT Infrastructure from design and development to maintenance and optimisation can be outsourced to a skilled team. In contrast to employing your own extensive IT department this negates the need to pay annual salaries or even to buy the software and hardware that they would require to complete the tasks in the first place. IT outsourcing makes sense to the small business as well as medium to large enterprises.
Networks, systems, and business software all play an integral role in profitable business. In order to employ a skilled and efficient IT team to perform all of these tasks it would cost a prohibitively large amount of money that very few small businesses can reasonably afford. Once a network has been established, software written, and a disaster recovery plan formulated, you may be left with a large IT team that has very little work on their hands.
IT outsourcing can combat many of the problems associated with establishing a new business or running a small business and meeting its IT needs. Every aspect of the IT Infrastructure from design and development to maintenance and optimisation can be outsourced to a skilled team. In contrast to employing your own extensive IT department this negates the need to pay annual salaries or even to buy the software and hardware that they would require to complete the tasks in the first place. IT outsourcing makes sense to the small business as well as medium to large enterprises.
VMware vSphere 5 will continue to set the standard in virtualization
The foundation of VMware’s cloud infrastructure suite is VMware vSphere, the most trusted, widely deployed virtualization platform in the world. Architected to support the broadest range of virtual and cloud infrastructure needs, VMware vSphere is broadly utilized by enterprises, small and mid size businesses (SMBs), public cloud service providers and as a foundation for the growing virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) market. An increasing number of customers are standardizing on VMware vSphere as their strategic IT platform. As such, VMware vSphere has attracted a broad ecosystem of industry leaders that support and extend this foundation.
What’s New in VMware vSphere 5?
• Next-generation ESXi hypervisor delivering industry-leading performance and scalability while setting a new bar for reliability, security and management efficiency.
• ‘Super VMs’ with four times more powerful virtual machines to scale and handle the most resource-intensive applications; virtual machines can now scale up to 32 vCPUs and 1 TB of RAM.
• Simplified and more comprehensive high availability and disaster recovery.
• Intelligent policy management of data centre resources to automate previously manual process (e.g. deployment and patching of vSphere hosts, dynamic placement, balancing and service-level agreement-driven profiles for storage).
• Flexible hybrid cloud management from a single pane of glass.
• Broader industry support from software and hardware providers, including more than 1,400 independent software provider (ISV) partners which support running more than 2,500 applications on vSphere.
What’s New in VMware vSphere 5?
• Next-generation ESXi hypervisor delivering industry-leading performance and scalability while setting a new bar for reliability, security and management efficiency.
• ‘Super VMs’ with four times more powerful virtual machines to scale and handle the most resource-intensive applications; virtual machines can now scale up to 32 vCPUs and 1 TB of RAM.
• Simplified and more comprehensive high availability and disaster recovery.
• Intelligent policy management of data centre resources to automate previously manual process (e.g. deployment and patching of vSphere hosts, dynamic placement, balancing and service-level agreement-driven profiles for storage).
• Flexible hybrid cloud management from a single pane of glass.
• Broader industry support from software and hardware providers, including more than 1,400 independent software provider (ISV) partners which support running more than 2,500 applications on vSphere.
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