Virtualisation Seminar Success

Local businesses from across Dorset took the afternoon out of the office on 2^nd May, to attend an event at C4L in Poole about Virtualisation and to find out whether this was the right step for their business.

Pat Conte, Chief Executive from Scale Computing flew over from America to speak at the event talking about Scale, its history and the range of HC3 products available. Also from Scale, Ian Smith, Technical Manager gave a live demonstration of how easy the product is to use. It’s often difficult to explain this, but ‘seeing was definitely believing’ for all attendees!

William Hill and Adrian Bromley from Infosyso spoke about Virtualisation and Backup respectively. Adrian’s example of a recent IT disaster showed how backup is vital to businesses continuity.

Finishing the session was a tour of the datacentre. Seeing the facilities in person, local companies could clearly see how secure their data would be in a datacentre environment.

The event was a fantastic opportunity to find out and see the three areas companies need to consider of virtualisation, backup and disaster recovery.

All in all it was a successful event giving local businesses food for thought on how to protect their business. If you missed this event, then don’t worry, we have another one planned for 11^th July, which you can book a place on now by clicking here.

Is virtual computing a big step? Is it the right step?

Your IT systems are vital to your business.  We are setting out to help business decision makers understand what IT people are on about with virtual computing.  Virtual computing can help businesses adapt and move their IT systems forward cost effectively without increasing IT staff numbers and running costs.  If you are running windows servers and are looking to upgrade your hardware and systems you should consider Virtual computing in your options.

We would like you to learn how Virtual Computing might apply to your business.

The Scale Computing HC3 (Hyper-converged) virtual computing and storage platform is designed to help small businesses move forward easily, particularly if they run a handful of windows servers with a small number of IT staff.

Find out more here

Are your servers getting old? What are the options?

Most businesses look to replace their key business servers every 3-5 years.  This can be an expensive, time consuming and potentially disruptive exercise, often with no real business gain.

The world of computing has changed and continues to change rapidly, so what is best for your business over the next 3-5 years?

Not a simple question.  The first step is to consider what is driving the change, as this will often help to decide the best approach:

1. I only need new hardware, the systems are working and there is no need to change.
2. I need to change the hardware soon but the systems changes are best left to another time when we are ready.
3. I am looking to change the hardware and the software.

There are several options associated to each of the above approaches.  To find out more why not join us for a short seminar we are holding on the 2nd May at C4L to show how virtual computing with Scale HC3 might be a way forward. Find out more here.

What server infrastructure do you need for the next 5 years?

We want to help companies and their IT support personnel, (in house or external) to find the right computing infrastructure for the next 5 years and beyond. 

If you are considering new hardware, or moving to new systems, we believe virtual computing should be considered as one of your options.  Virtual computing enables you to move from today’s systems to tomorrows systems with relative ease.  You can expand and extend your computing services more easily at a lower cost and reduced risk.  This is particularly the case when you bring in the Scale Computing HC3 approach where virtualisation and storage are combined. Read more

We are holding a short seminar on the 2nd May at C4L to show how virtual computing with Scale HC3 might be a way forward. Find out more here

Can virtual servers help my business?

Given the buzz in the IT press you would believe everyone has gone virtual or is going virtual.  This is just not the case.  While many businesses may have started or made tentative steps in this direction there are many who have not.  Whatever your position we believe the time is now right to investigate and understand the “virtual options” that may work for your business.

This is why we have teamed up with C4L and ScaleComputing to put on a seminar for small businesses to cover virtual computing and using a data centre to backup and keep your information secure (including DR).

We think this is a unique opportunity to see these technologies in one place, how they work together and what role they play for small businesses.

If you are looking at your computing infrastructure needs for the next 5 years this should be good for you.

Find out more here

Identify your key applications

People in small businesses tend to keep their heads down and press on, only occasionally stopping to take stock.  Given that we are all highly dependent on our applications and systems it is always good to periodically review which of them are most important.  

Do you have an up-to-date comprehensive list of all the shared business applications people use? Who uses each application? What happens if one goes wrong?  How does this affect the business?  How long can people work without it? What is the impact on the business and the individual?

In the event of a disaster which applications do you need first to keep the business working?

Start by creating a general overview, list all the applications the business uses, you may be surprised by the number.  Add the columns for the different questions and criteria.  Create a comprehensive list so that you can order and filter the list by the various criteria. This list is important because it brings everything together in one place and it becomes an important communication document within the business.

A Disaster Recovery Review should start with this overview, test it on your colleagues, are all applications listed, have you missed one, do people agree? 

The final step is to decide the priority business applications, as this will be the order of applications to look at in detail from a failure and DR perspective. 

New Year – Review your DR

Time to review

The New Year is traditionally a time to reset the clock, so it is a good time to review your Disaster Recovery process.  Now is a good time to add DR to your Agenda and keep it here, it is only too easy to put it back.

Last year we had one major call for DR (see Disaster DoesStrike) and several smaller less dramatic calls to use the backups.  The problem with computer systems is that they are continually changing and over a period of time these changes can add up to quite a large shift.  This is an issue for DR as the system that worked well last year may not work as well now.

Over the next few weeks I will look at various aspects of the DR review, but I think it would be a good idea for everyone to set time aside and book a short DR review in the next month.  Start small and book a couple of hours to start the process and keep the topic on your agenda.

Better still book yourself a “fire drill” to test your DR process.

A full DR incident might only be a once in a lifetime event, but it could happen any time.  Be prepared, don’t get caught out.