Earlier on this month I was fortunate enough to find myself jetting off to the spectacular city of Rome for NetApp’s annual Technical conference, Insight 2011. The aim of which is to provide NetApp employees and Partner Companies the opportunity to gain an in-depth review of new NetApp technologies and have a sneak-peak into what NetApp are planning in terms of products and developments in the near future.

Arriving at Insight I was astounded at the size of the event:

• 2000+ delegates
• 26,600 hours of Technical Learning
• 200+ breakout sessions

As expected, new storage hardware was discussed in detail with the new FAS2240 receiving a lot of attention.

The FAS2240 is aimed at the SME market and as such has a price to match. Perhaps the most impressive feature of this hardware is its scalability; capable of storing up to 432Tb with the ability to transform the FAS2240 into a standard disk shelf which can be incorporated without any data migration into a larger NetApp storage platform. This all fits in very nicely with the new “Start Right, Keep it Simple, Grow Smart” strategy.

Storage Efficiency technologies are an area that NetApp are very proud of. So much so that Dave Hitz (Founder and Vice President of NetApp worldwide) made it the topic for his breakout session and keynote speech. What was very impressive is some of the statistics that were covered:

Using FlashCache, SATA can be used instead of SAS to achieve the same performance meaning less than half the cost, power and rackspace. Oh and you get double the storage capacity!

Deduplication carried some very impressive figures, so far worldwide has saved NetApp customers over 5 Exabytes of data!! To put that into perspective that’s 5,000,000,000 Gb! The message with Deduplication was simple..

Just turn it on!

So what can we expect NetApp to bring over the next year or so?

Well, the term “infinite and immortal” has become more popular in recent months with NetApp folk, this is their vision of the future for their storage platforms. Infinitely scalable in both size and performance and immortal through hardware resiliency. Reflecting back on the breakout sessions I attended it’s clear to see that they’re on the right track.

With Data ONTAP 8.1 cluster-mode (due early 2012) linear scale-out performance can be achieved by simply adding another node which in turn adds to the overall reliability and resiliency of the storage cluster as a whole.

There is also a strong belief that ‘Big Data’ will be the cloud of 2012, with NetApp’s recent announcement of the e-Series aimed at High Performance Computing, Seismic data and full motion video data capture they may be ahead of the curve.

Gardner’s Hosted Solutions offers a tiered approach to backup and continuity services and unlike many “cloud” based backup services; our solutions are tailored to meet your needs.

Benefits include:-

1. Know exactly where you data is stored
2. Keep your business online with our tailored Business Continuity solution
3. Move away from out dated backup methods
4. Backup your data at any time day or night
5. Protect against accidentally deleted files and hardware failure
6. Option to back-up your entire server infrastructure to Gardner

Are you concerned about the vulnerability of your IT systems and the effect that a major loss of service or data could have on your business? In many cases today, IT systems are critical to the day to day operations of an organisation. Data loss can be devastating and in some cases fatal to a business, yet many still rely on out dated tape based methods and often don’t know where their data is stored. Some businesses feel that robust backup and continuity service is too expensive and an option for large companies only.

Using Gardner Systems Hosted Solutions you can be confident that your data is secure. Find out how to protect your business, contact our Hosted Solutions team on 0151 220 5552 or email hosting@gardnersystems.co.uk.

Find out more here:

http://gardnersystems.co.uk/solutions/hosting/

Like most organisations, Gardner has its’ share of footy fanatics and enthusiasts. We have had an internal league since the inception of the Premier League in 1998. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea but what is surprising is just how many of our day to day business contacts enjoy discussing football.  These days it is much easier to run a league using the online services provided by the Premier League at fantasy.premierleague.com

We’ve gone a bit further now though and got sponsorship from NetApp and Microsoft to award small prizes to winning managers in our league. Each month we will send £20 in gift vouchers to our manager of the month.

If you want to add your team to our league, just contact Paul Stringfellow (pauls@gardsys.co.uk) and he will send you the registration link.

You may of seen us mention recently the increased amount of work we’ve been doing with the Liverpool Business Continuity Management Forum, LBCMF is one of the most effective City Council initiatives we’ve worked with here.

The forum pulls together businesses and expertise from across the region to provide help and advice on how business can build business continuance plans.

The great thing for us as an IT company, is that this puts IT into context as part of continuity plans, IT maybe important, even critical for most businesses however, it is by no means the only thing that needs to be considered. The forum outlines everything from where to setup a new office in the event of a catastrophic failure, to understanding a “grab bag” and what should be in it. Understanding the bigger picture of continuity and DR planning is key to developing an effective plan.

To now build on the great work these guys have already done, they are offering free training to Merseyside businesses to help them develop their own continuity plans. I would certainly strongly recommend you take a look at this, the information these guys can provide, could one day be critical to the survival of your business.

So here’s the offer….

FREE TRAINING FOR BUSINESSES

Liverpool Business Continuity Management Forum is offering FREE training for small/medium businesses and voluntary organisations throughout 2011.

The fledging forum has only been operating for twelve months but has already attracted over 180 members. The forum meets regularly to discuss hot topics and promote business resilience throughout the greater Liverpool area.

The training curriculum is primarily aimed towards companies who are new to the concept of business resilience, but is open to all organisations. The aim of the programme is to provide step-by-step guidance for businesses to develop their own contingency plans. The plans when written should enable companies to recover quickly from incidents ranging from small fires right up to terrorist attacks.

Experienced professionals from a diverse range of private and public sector backgrounds will lead the exciting free seminars.

An introduction to the three training events is to be held during Global Business Continuity Awareness Week on the 22nd March in Liverpool with the programme concluding in December with a prestigious awards evening. Companies who stay the course will receive trophies and certificates of professional development. If you are interested in attending the training events please contact BCM@liverpool.gov.uk for further information.

So drop them a note and see how Steve and the team at LBCMF can help your business.

Some time ago (September 2009) we made a blog post about being able to provide maintenance services for HP servers delivered by IBM. We have received a lot of interest on this topic as purchasing IBM ServicePacs for HP Servers could be cheaper than buying them from HP. This offer remains available through ourselves, the details are outlined below.

Service detail

The IBM ServicePac is a simple, cost-effective way to purchase a range of support services and is particularly suited to those small and medium sized organisations who want the full backing of a world-class IT services provider yet at a competitive price.

IBM ServicePac offers a fixed term and predefined scope and is available through Gardner’s. The IBM ServicePac range is wide and includes hardware maintenance services, software support services, implementation services and education.

This ServicePac is available for a selected number of HP® servers including P class blades, Proliant DL and ML servers.

Highlights

• Provides pre-packaged hardware maintenance services for a one time payment
• The hours of cover are 7 days a week , 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
• Gets your systems up and running fast, with over 30% of support calls currently fixed remotely
• 4 hour on site response time following problem determination
• Helps to minimise downtime and expense
• 1or 2 year contract term
• Network of UK stores with over 42,000 parts stocked

IBM delivers these services using the same systems, methods, resources and contact centre that are used for IBM products. This means that the service is delivered to the same high standard as other IBM services. This is not a subcontracted service.

ServicePac options are designed to be easy to use and order. Plan your support by making a single payment and be confident that IBM is delivering the service you need. Contracting has never been so simple. Each ServicePac is a self-contained contract and simply needs to be registered with IBM to activate service.

For full description including ServicePac Selection Guide and HP ServicePac Guide please visit:-

http://www-935.ibm.com/services/uk/index.wss/offering/its/n1629769

It was yesterday (3rd February 2011) announced by Microsoft that the SBS2011 Essentials Release Candidate is available for download!

This is the first opportunity for anyone interested in SBS 2011 Essentials to get their hands on a copy of the server OS for trial purposes before the official product is released. This 25 users (maximum), cloud based system is fundamentally different from any other version of SBS that has gone before in that advanced features such as Email, SharePoint and AV are provided using cloud services.

This stripped down version is priced for small businesses allowing them to only pay for the features they need and nothing they don’t.

If this sounds like something you’re interested in, use the links below to download a copy or alternatively subscribe to our blog for regular updates.

Here are some helpful links:

1. Official SBS 2011 Download page

2. SBS 2011 Official YouTube channel – contains helpful tutorial videos

3. Microsoft’s Official SBS website

In a major new business initiative Gardner Systems is collaborating with City Safe and Liverpool Vision to offer greater security to businesses in the historic Baltic Triangle area of the Liverpool Waterfront.

This area of the city is a very interesting area comprising a well-defined district of original waterfront buildings off Jamaica Street. It is now home to an eclectic group of ambitious businesses occupying a fascinating range of different types of buildings. This can however bring its’ own challenges as entrepreneurs try to offer increasing services levels from properties which please the eye but can be difficult to sustain.

IP camera systems have offered these businesses a level of collaboration and versatility not open to them from conventional CCTV. In a ground-breaking project, Gardner is deploying IP cameras in ways which offer users secure remote access, versatility and date stamped images to help guard these enterprises still further.

An initial ten businesses have selected internal and external camera solutions which offer the ability for them to collaborate and develop an enhanced neighbourhood watch scheme upon demand.

How appropriate that some very forward looking companies based in one of Liverpool’s historic areas are embracing the very latest in digital technology to transform their business security.

There has been a lot of talk since the start of the year on Cloud / Hosted services but no-one really explaining what it is or why it’s important. And trust me, it is important !

Welcome to Bootcamp

Lesson 1 – cloud and hosted services are the same thing, just called different things by different people.

Lesson 2- cloud computing is a concept

Lesson 3 – there are different types of clouds

Talking Clouds

The concept of cloud computing is simple, it looks at computing from a functional perspective and not that of the system builder or Administrator. For example cloud computing says “I want the ability to send email without paying for a server” or “I want the ability to backup my data without worrying about changing tapes”.

Most people aren’t concerned with how their services work, instead they are more concerned with the quality of service they receive. Cloud is all about consuming the facilities you need when you want, where you want and receiving a consistent service managed by someone else. This is provided via an Internet connection to the hosting company.

Nowadays, you can have a wide range of services provided to you via the Internet including:

• Office applications (word processing etc)
• Email
• Data Backup
• AntiVirus Protection and Systems Management
• Collaboration software
• Everything you need really.

So why is cloud important?

From a business perspective, less management and guaranteed levels of service for fixed monthly fees. With only paying what you need at the time you need it, businesses can reduce their costs dramatically.

Going forward, all major technology vendors including NetApp, IBM, Google, Microsoft have recognised cloud computing. Microsoft’s has even based its latest planned server OS for SME’s (SBS Aurora – blog post here) on cloud services to provide its core functionality – a big gamble? At the moment, possibly, cloud is new an misunderstood. In 3 years time when this OS is released, not at all because at that point cloud will be a well known platform.

This week I have been preparing for an OS upgrade at a customers site. Currently they are running Small Business Server 2003 (SBS) but are upgrading to SBS2008. This led me to the SBS website and to my surprise, the new version of SBS was available to download as a Beta OS (excellent!).

So, SBS2008 has been around for 2 years now, as with other versions of SBS before, it is suitable for up to 75 users and contains the following:

1. MS Exchange Server
2. SharePoint site for collaboration
3. Remote Web Workplace
4. File and Print sharing

In short, all the things that businesses need to get going licensed as one product, installed on one server.

So, what does the new SBS contain I hear you ask….well, in short, nothing much. But, it is radically different from other versions of SBS previously released and contains 2 versions.

SBS7 (codename)

This version of the new SBS is an on premise solution, it runs on a single server and contains the usual MS Exchange, SharePoint, File and Print etc. This is likely to only contain product updated from previous versions of SBS. [more details here]

SBS Aurora (codename)

Now this is cool! With all the talk of cloud computing Microsoft have included it in the core functionality of this product. This does not contain MS Exchange, SharePoint or CRM out of the box but can provide them by consuming Microsoft’s BPOS services.

No worrying about backing up your Exchange, because Microsoft do it for you.

No worrying about losing emails if your server crashes, because Microsoft do it for you.

Great!

This product will reduce the outgoing cost for Small Businesses by allowing them to pay only for the services (Email, SharePoint, CRM) they need on a monthly basis whilst allowing Administrators to manage the system as if it is inhouse. [more details here]

We expect this to be a great product which will provide everything that an SME requires, nothing that it doesn’t. Watch this space!

Recently here at Gardners there has been a lot of work going on with the people from  Axis Communications. Axis are the worlds largest producer of IP cameras.

Normally when mentioned that the camera is connected to a computer network people tend to think of webcams, small, basic devices that connect to your computer used for chatting with your friends. This simply isn’t the case, with the advancement of camera technology picture definition has been vastly improved and impressive features added including::

• High Definition
• Thermal imaging
• Infra-Red imaging
• Facial recognition
• Automatic Number Plate Recognition
• PIR sensing
• LED lighting
• Motion detection

As these cameras are Ethernet based they can be easily incorporated into your existing network infrastructure to allow easier manageability, scalability, reliability and flexibility. Images can be backed up to a data store on your network or using Gardners service offerings, backup the images to us also ensuring that you always have a copy of your images.

Pilot Scheme

We have recently begun our trial scheme for our Axis offerings. During the past couple of weeks we have been contacted by some of the North-West’s largest companies interested in this technology and are piloting the cameras with them.

If you wish to get involved with this free of charge trial scheme, we have a range of IP cameras available suitable for any purpose. If you are considering replacing your current security cameras, installing new ones, or are simply interested in the technology and want to trial some IP cameras please just let me know.

Email: jasonf@gardsys.co.uk

Twitter: @enrjfitz

Phone: 0151 220 5552