May 27, 2009

Windows 7 – XP Mode

Posted by Elliot Lawrence under Windows 7 | Tags: , , , , , , , |
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I have been working with Windows 7 as my main laptop operating system since approximately the release of the beta – I have run it on an older machine and now I run the release candidate on a brand new machine. The specs of my laptop are Toshiba Satellite, 2 Ghz Core 2 Duo T6400, 64 Bit, 4GB Ram and all the trimmings. One item it does not support is Intel VT. And this is key.

I actually had a need to use the XP Mode add on to Windows 7 which is available for download for use with the release candidate. Great, a real world need for compatibility and a good test scenario, or so I thought. My problem to be solved was that of running the Juniper Netscreen VPN client which doesn’t support 64 bit operating systems or Windows 7  (first point very frustrating, second point fair enough).

I read the provided documentation and quickly discovered that XP Mode (which is a pre-configured virtual machine containing Windows XP) does not support processors that do not have Intel VT. This I found strange as Virtual PC 2007 SP1 the standalone product does work without Intel VT. For people who don’t believe documentation, I can confirm after installing it all and ignoring what the software developer said,  that it is indeed correct. It really doesn’t work without Intel VT.

My conclusion then is that though XP Mode sounded pretty useful, especially for this kind of issue, it is actually going to be mostly useless to most people. I have 10 PCs available to me and only one has Intel VT support (and that’s because I ensured it did).  My brand new shiny laptop which is mid range is therefore no use to me in supporting legacy apps. So I am back to manually installing Virtual PC 2007 SP1 as I always have to support any legacy requirements. That’s fine for me but much more of a headache for the average IT department that wants to roll our Windows 7 64 Bit but has to support not 64 bit compatible applications.

I realize that more expensive laptops and desktops will support Intel VT and if you want XP Mode you will need to buy one of those, but it seems a little shortsighted not make it work on any hardware platform as initially it sounded like a great idea.

 

March 31, 2009

Clouds and Hosted Apps

Posted by Elliot Lawrence under Clouds and Hosted Apps | Tags: , , , , , , , |
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I read with interest the other day that Google notified its users that an issue with the software in Google Docs had inadvertently allowed some subscribers unauthorized access to files that were not theirs. Now it is fair to say that Google, Microsoft and the other hosting companies do a very good job in keeping these systems secure and available. Well at least that’s what we believe.

My point is, that this highlights a consideration when choosing “cloud” computing services or “web hosted applications” as we called it not very long ago. It should always be weighed in the pros and cons, that  when choosing a service or application that is outside your direct control or the that of the company, you share twin risks. The security of your data and the availability of the aforementioned. Obviously there are usually lots of pros, including availability anywhere with Internet access, price, lower ongoing costs.

So back to the cons – it should be said that if you do put data in the cloud then consider firstly the sensitivity of your data and how well protected it is and if it meets your company’s security standards. You should go through strict evaluation and request technical details of how the service will protect your data.

From the availability standpoint, I am fairly confident that 24 x 7 availability metrics of these hosted services will be at least as good as your business can deliver and that’s if you are a very large, deep pocketed corporate. If you aren’t then 99% or 99.9% availability will be a good and realistic achievement. Now, I have experienced system issues with certain suppliers of hosted email in the past and in that customer’s case we had to move from the provider to internal systems and so far (touch wood) it has worked out better, but I don’t believe this to be the norm.

Saying that, I have moved my own business email out to Microsoft hosted Online services as I like to eat the cake I am serving up and so far it tastes good!

 

March 20, 2009

6 Ways to Cut IT Costs …

Posted by Elliot Lawrence under 6 Ways to Cut IT Costs, Outsourcing, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Part 5 - Outsource IT or parts of it

Outsourcing is probably a dirty word to some, especially when it is referring to jobs being sent overseas. That is not what I am referring to here, though it is difficult to know where the employees are if you use a large corporations services. I am talking about outsourcing either components of your system or perhaps all of it, but in the case of all of it, it should be done in a considered way or it may not work for you.

Partial Outsourcing

The first type of outsourcing I want to cover from a perspective of saving money is that of outsourcing one or more components – which could be an application or service that you currently run in house but could be done better by partners, either because it is not your core competency or it simply can be done cheaper in an alternative fashion.

My favorite current example of a component of IT being outsourced is that of email and in particular Microsoft Exchange. First of all, Exchange is a fabulous product that has been one of Microsoft’s best over the long haul and I have been involved in many implementations over the years and have never had a customer unhappy with the product or delivery. However, Exchange is a complicated product that requires continuous management and maintenance performed by someone with good messaging skills – there is more to it than meets the eye.

So consider this, even in the smallest organization, say with 5 users all with mailboxes, all requiring calendaring, contacts, tasks etc, the cheapest way to have the benefits of MS Exchange is probably to buy Small Business Server and a basic piece of hardware. Now the cheapest server with SBS 2008 costs around $3000 in the box, and that doesn’t include setup, backup and restore or anything else. Once it is in and all up and running, you then have the ongoing management costs, the upgrades, the electricity, etc.

Microsoft also provides Exchange via their Online Services (as do others but I haven’t been impressed by several other offerings I have tested) and for around $40 per month you can get your 5 mailboxes, the exact same benefits but literally none of the other costs from purchasing to managing and maintaining. You could enjoy the same features using the online edition for 6 years before it will cost you more than the initial outlay for hardware and software for your own internal version. To me that makes economic sense for any small or medium business.

The decision point as to whether it is relevant to you will be the number of users you have as there is a cross over point where it may not be so viable but I believe this could be a very high number in the thousands due to the increased levels of hardware and software you need to support big installations. Also for consideration is whether you use the server for other tasks. SBS will definitely provide other benefits that make it cost effective, as the server in a small environment will be performing multiple roles. Once you have Exchange on its own server the online version works out even better. I would love to see many companies taking advantage of this and having a professional email domain name to go along with it!

Total Outsourcing

Total outsourcing or outsourcing your entire IT operation provides definite savings if managed correctly. By removing your employee costs (and maybe re-allocating them to business growth tasks) and moving to a fixed cost contract you can save a large amount of money per year. A fixed cost contract means no more payroll, no more benefit expenses, no more overtime when the servers go down at 6pm on a Friday and instead hopefully a team of people who specialize in running IT for a business as their main task. They will have the procedures and skills in place to deliver a consistent security baseline, alert you to issues before they occur and be able to present to you improvements as technology develops and becomes relevant to you.

Here are a couple of thoughts:

1. If you do outsource, consider that local outsourcing is the way to go as you need to know that the company will have people on the ground to understand your environment and service needs quickly in the event of a problem - also the IT team external or otherwise is a key function of your business and knowing who they are is critical for success.

2. Key to saving with outsourcing is ensuring your IT house is in order before committing to a relationship, otherwise your fixed cost quickly becomes very variable. By this, I mean that if your systems are not standardized and rationalized first and you just handover a mess, then you are going to endure ongoing issues that will generate additional charges on top of the standard rates. Systems should already be built to a well documented standard then the outsourcer will only have to perform to the contract rather than performing continual ongoing fix projects. It is these fix projects that generate the extra fees and all of a sudden make outsourcing less effective.

Now for the shameless plug – Squeeze Technology (www.squeezetech.com) can hook you up with either of these options if you so wish and can help you evaluate which is more beneficial to you, as always, these are multi-faceted issues.

 

March 17, 2009

6 Ways to Cut IT Costs – Automated Desktop Infrastructure

Posted by Elliot Lawrence under 6 Ways to Cut IT Costs, Automated Deployment | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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6 Ways to Cut IT Costs …

Part 3 - Automated Desktop and Applications

A disproportionate amount of time is spent by technical staff, end users and management in making sure that applications are installed on PCs where a user is going to work, in additional to providing a stable operating system for those applications to reside on.

Implementing an infrastructure with automated desktop builds and applications that install wherever the user goes will dramatically cut the amount of time spent by all parties, but especially IT staff, in keeping the show going. End user productivity can be measurably enhanced when you take away the frustration of getting the tools they need and fighting with the system.

Most businesses don’t realize that Microsoft ships all the tools you need to “hands free” install Windows and any application. Sure you can buy Systems Center Configuration Manager or a third party product too, but all you need, especially in a small and medium business (10 to 1000 seats) environment is included.

What’s the Deal?

A scenario: a new user joins your organization (yes this must be a public sector example!), you un-box their PC that meets the corporate standard, plug it into the network, power on and hit a few keys. Shortly afterward you have a pristine operating system installed with all the base configuration, core applications and security settings deployed and applied. The new user sits in front of the PC, signs in for the first time and immediately the 3 specific applications they require are installed in a few minutes. Finally, the system is automatically patched for the latest security holes.

If the user then has to use a PC over the other side of the building for a week, they can sign in at that PC and once again the users applications will install instantly for them and their environment will be exactly as they expect.

Finally, if the user encounters a problem with the system, you can simply pick up the old system, swap in a pre-built one, and have the user log in.

What Do I Need?

So how do you achieve all this.

Well firstly it has been possible since the NT4 days – give or take a few items. Some of the components and tools have been renamed (some many times),some have been improved, expanded and gained sophistication, they have even given you a multitude of ways to do the same thing, but bottom line you can have a fully automated (that reacts to new hardware and devices), centrally controlled, standardized desktop infrastructure out of the box. No extra costs, no extra software and this is just the tip of the iceberg of whats available FOC.

Here’s what you need:

  1. Windows Server (2008 preferably)
  2. Windows XP (or Vista or Windows 7)
  3. Active Directory (included with Windows Server)
  4. Group Policy (included with Active Directory)

That’s it. Now, you can add to this, embellish, but this solution will scale to many sites and many thousands of users, desktops and applications.

At this point people will stop me and say, yes but we use Ghost and it only cost $70 to do the whole company. My usual answer to this is twofold, Yes, Ghost is great the first few times for automating a build. It is very fast and when you only have one to two types of PC it is easy to manage, however once you have multiple hardware types, multiple configuration standards then Ghost loses it’s appeal quickly. More importantly though, Ghost rightly has to be licensed per system managed and one retail copy supporting 500 users is actually breaking the law.

Anyway, you will already have all the items on my list , even if you are a Small Business Server operation.

Remind Me of The Benefits?

Ok, so by doing this kind of infrastructure you can ensure that users have the applications they need wherever they go, always installed in the prescribed way with no deltas. You can ensure that, all PCs are built and maintained to corporate standards for usage, approved applications, system lock downs, security policies and all this without ever having to get out of your seat.

The savings flow through also in greatly reduced support calls and desk side visits. This means you can re-deploy helpdesk staff and minimize the waste of your user’s time – which over a year adds up to significant numbers.

We have seen 40% drops in overall logged calls when this is applied and it is viable for any size business – though once you scale, you will definitely want to consider further tools or systems that address particular enterprise requirements.

The Same Only Different

Over the years I have seen organizations avoid dealing with a proper managed desktop infrastructure by going down solution routes that have been totally inappropriate and horrendously expensive and eventually deemed a failure, when they had the tools and proven methodologies to make this work. In the past, Terminal Server / Citrix was the solution du jour for avoiding the problem of delivering a managed desktop, all it did was move the issues to the data center but you still had the desktops out there essentially un-managed, and I see the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure is trying to become the new flavor. Beware! See a future blog on this topic.

For more information on this, please see my web site for the expanded version of this topic (www.squeezetech.com).

 

March 10, 2009

6 Ways to Cut IT Costs and Maximize Your Current Investment

Posted by Elliot Lawrence under 6 Ways to Cut IT Costs, Virtualization | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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As I hinted yesterday, over my next 6 posts, I am going to be talking about real ways to cut IT costs which are relevant now - in difficult economic circumstances - but are equally relevant during more normal times.

Part 1 – Virtualization

For people too busy to keep tabs on the latest technical developments, Virtualization has been a huge buzz for at least the last 3 or 4 years, though it is debatable that only now is it really hitting the mainstream and becoming a useful tool to organizations of all sizes.

What is Virtualization?

In a nutshell, virtualization is the creation of an operating environment that functions separately from the host system it is running on. There are many flavors available from Server to Desktop to Application and a number of players in the market, the main ones being Microsoft, VMware and Citrix.

Why Should My Company be Interested?

There are many benefits but here are a few key benefits to your business that are game changers when using Server virtualization.

  1. A physical host server can run many virtual machines all running different operating systems and different applications. One server, for example, could support 8 separate virtual machines that you would have had to host on 8 separate physical servers. This one benefit means a reduction of 7 servers in your server room, 7 less machines to power and 7 less machines generating heat that you would have to spend yet more money on to keep cool. We have 7 less pieces of hardware to maintain and 7 less sets of components to fail. You get the idea.
  2. If your business needs to deploy a new application, lab or throw more resources at an existing system, virtual servers can be brought online in seconds and made ready to service the business demand. Your infrastructure becomes dynamic and can be matched to changing requirements. No longer do you need to purchase more hardware, wait for the systems to be assembled delivered, racked and then prepped. Resources can be made immediately available.
  3. Have you still got an old NT4 server running a key application on a dusty server that you know is going to give up at a critical moment. By using physical to virtual conversion, you can have the system up and running on a virtual platform in no time and that old dinosaur can finally be removed along with the legacy support issues.
  4. Most servers run at low utilization and could be doing more -by making a server pull it’s weight you get a much better ROI on any server hardware investment, reduction in electricity bills which could be cut down to 20% of what they were and the green credentials that go with that, let alone the ongoing monetary savings.
  5. If you were to render a virtual system inoperable, you can have a new one back up and running in seconds without impact to your users. No system rebuilds necessary or long outages (assuming you keep backups and haven’t corrupted your data, but that’s another story!)
  6. If you mix Server Virtualization with a few other technologies like iSCSI, you can have a fault tolerant, highly available system that used to be the realm of the biggest organizations for next to nothing in expenditure. Its possible to rig this up on three laptops!


OK, What Types of Virtualization Are There?

Here goes in a nutshell:

Server Virtualization

Server virtualization creates a separate operating system environment that is logically independent from the host server but to an end user or applications installed they will not know any different.

Desktop Virtualization

Desktop virtualization can come in several styles, the first allows you to run the actual desktop system on a server and the users access it by using a remote protocol, so all your desktops are in one place even if you users aren’t. In its second guise, a user can have a virtual machine running on their desktop which gives them a second system (or more) to use for a particular application. This is popular with Mac owners who run a version of Windows in a Parallels box on MacOS.

Application Virtualization

Products such as Microsoft App-V use an idea where each application runs in it’s own cut down environment or sandbox, that is in a layer separate from the host OS. It can remove the issue of conflicts, multiple installs, relentless updates on each PC as instead it can be managed in one central place and delivered on demand.

Presentation Virtualization

The final type is actually Terminal Services with a new name, where the desktop or application is run on a shared server and only the screen images and mouse and keyboard are sent between the user and server. It is a great choice for remote working.

Some of the above options deliver different benefits that suit specific situations that I will cover in future blogs. The main thing to remember as always is that if the system isn’t designed and managed carefully it can easily cause issues just as in the physical world.

So as you can hopefully see, Virtualization benefits are many-fold, from reduction in hardware, electricity costs, servers costs, C02 emissions, management costs but also giving your business infrastructure a dynamic edge and agility that can be switched on in an instant.

And the best bit? The vendors are falling over themselves to give you the software for free!

 

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