Welcome to the September Edition of That's Correct!
It is crazy when you stop and think about just how quickly the end of the year is creeping up on us! But creeping it is, with under 15 weeks to go, one would expect the stores to start showcasing their usual decorative fanfare any tick of the clock.
Along with Christmas another cut-off date approaches; the dead-line for the Government’s 50% tax deduction on eligible assets. Have you made the most of this opportunity? With the potentially huge savings this tax break offers, investing in IT right now could be an extremely rewarding activity. Consider the impact on productivity that kicking 2010 into gear with brand new infrastructure would have!
Also, don’t forget to make a list of all those “odd-jobs” you’ve been meaning to tell us about. The festive season is typically a fantastic time to give your systems a little of that TLC the rest of the year is just to hectic to think about.
- Telstra’s recent “cut cable incident” brought home the importance of something as simple as an internet connection for one of our metropolitan clients. How heavily do you rely on the net and could you survive without it?
Everyone loves a bargain! This month we road test a couple of really good buys:
- Windows Foundation Server - This low cost operating system is sure to get small business operators talking!
- Hewlett-Packard’s ML330 Generation 6 Server - HPs next Gen Servers are all about getting the most out of your hardware investment.
Does your business rely on the Internet for its day to day operation? Probably more than you realise!!! The recent major Telstra communications cable cut in Sydney’s CBD highlighted to many companies that it is a critical part of their business.
The cable cut occurred at 9:30pm on September 15, 2009. The following day it became very apparent that it was going to take a number of days, perhaps a week, before all services would be restored.
One of our clients, Langes Lawyers, simply could not conduct business without an Internet link for a week. As their IT service provider they looked to Correct Solutions for ideas on how to work around the problem. We analysed what services they needed restored urgently and how to best go about it. If we could restore email to the outside world and incoming web access then their business would be able to operate at almost full functionality.
We chose to temporarily install a 3G wireless router to replace the normal ADSL network link. This worked particularly well and their business was up and running again well before the Telstra cable was fixed. (At the time of writing their main service still had not been restored some 5 days later!)
Correct maintains an amount of loan equipment from simple routers to complete servers that can be used in various disaster recovery scenarios to enable us to have our clients back up and running in as short a time as possible should disaster strike.
If you would like to discuss or have us assess your own disaster prevention/recovery plans then please contact us and we will be happy to review it with you.
Earlier this year, Microsoft launched a product called Windows Server 2008 Foundation. They chose the unfortunate date of April 1st to launch it on; many people didn’t take it seriously at first - but Microsoft certainly weren't kidding around when they designed this product!
Windows Server 2008 Foundation (called Foundation Server) is aimed at the low end of the market where budget considerations are high on the agenda. Effectively, Foundation Server has the full features of Windows Server 2008, with some constraints that make it ideal for use in small office environments that don't need the power of Small Business Server 2008; sites with less than 15 users in them.
So let's take a look at what those constraints are.
- There are some limitations regarding the physical hardware. The operating system will only acknowledge a single physical CPU – it will ignore any additional CPUs. Similarly, it only acknowledges up to 8GB of RAM – it will ignore any additional RAM.
- It is designed for small sites and thus has a limit of 15 User CALs (inbuilt) – you will get a warning message on the console above this number of users and the system will drop connections.
- A maximum of 50 RRAS (Routing and Remote Access Service) connections - the Routing and Remote Access service supports remote user or site-to-site connectivity by using virtual private networking (VPN) or dial-up connections.
- A maximum of 50 TS Gateway connections - a Terminal Services Gateway connection enables authorised remote users to connect to terminal servers and to remote desktops on the corporate network from any Internet-connected device that is running Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) 6.0.
- A maximum of 10 Network access connections via the Network Policy Server (NPS) - NPS acts as a centralised authentication and authorisation service for network access such as wireless and VPN connections.
- Cannot be virtualised - so it cannot be used as a Hyper-V Host or installed as a virtual server on a host; it is licensed to run only in a physical operating system environment.
- Cannot be used as a Domain Controller where there are more than 15 accounts in the domain.
- Cannot be used as a Domain Controller where there are trust relationships in place.
Ok, with those limits what can you use it for? As mentioned, Foundation Server is ideal for use in small office environments.
It is a cost effective way to implement core IT resources, such as file and print sharing, remote access, and security. It provides a network foundation from which you can centrally manage settings on your computers that are based on the Windows operating system and upon which you can run the most popular business applications. Coupled with Hosted Exchange Email and Hosted SharePoint, it can provide a good option.
It also provides a familiar Windows user experience that helps you manage users and safeguard business information and can be used as a Terminal Server (with additional TS Licenses) either alone or in a small SBS 2008 network.
The price point of a Foundation Server on base level hardware is around the $1600 mark which makes it very affordable to our small business clients.
Want to know more about Foundation Server and how it might suit you – call us now!
HP recently released a new server in the mid level SMB offering.
The ProLiant ML330 G6 server is now the 6th generation of their successful server range and the G6 systems feature the new Intel Nehalem Processors. The new CPU’s are optimised for environments such as the workloads that small business needs including Virtualisation environments. The CPUs come in a range of speeds and either single or dual CPU configurations giving us the flexibility to design a configuration for your specific needs.
Also important is that the system features the choice of low power CPUs for those wanting to achieve savings in running costs as well as super fast CPUs for those needing the ultimate in performance.
The ML330 G6 has capacity for up to 8 hard drives internally (4 as standard) via an extra expansion chassis. All systems have an onboard SmartArray 410i which is expandable to up to 512MB of battery backed write cache to improve performance for different RAID configurations. We can use with SAS or SATA drives depending on the clients requirements. Naturally SAS gives the best possible performance, where as SATA drives are the most economical for larger configurations.
Its RAM can be expanded to up to 144GB which is considerably higher than anything we’ve ever quoted for our clients before. We need to keep in mind however that when we design the system we need to design it either for ultimate performance or lower running costs – a common theme across the G6 range.
We've had the chance to test it out here in our offices for the past few months during the beta cycle of the product and been very impressed with it indeed. We feel it gives you, our clients more power than ever before at a price point that will make us both very happy.
That's all for this month! If you would like more information on any of these articles, please give us a call on 02 8831 8200.
