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The 5th Annual Information Technology for Business highlights VODA’s success with bridging the gap between the most innovative technology trends and the needs of small to medium businesses. The time is now to explore ideas for making your business more efficient. Learn how to optimize your operational efficiencies to improve productivity. This will help reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction and increase profitability. Join IT industry leaders as they showcase their technology products and services.
TITLE Sponsor: IBM
Date: May 26, 2010
The Coast Capri Hotel
1171 Harvey Avenue, Kelowna, BC
Time: 8:00am - 4:00pm
Grand Prize: Lenovo Laptop
For more information or to register visit: www.vodagroup.com
Server Replacement Success Story…
Alpha Design
Alpha Design has strategically placed their operation in the heart of the industrial sector of Merritt, BC in order to better serve the lumber, mining, ranching and milling community. Operating since 1984, Alpha Design has proven to be one of the leading design, engineering and installation firms in the central interior of BC. They have been certified with the Canadian Welding Bureau (CWB) for over 25 years, ensuring the consistent quality of their products. Alpha Design prides itself on service and offer a fully equipped machine shop, plasma cutting, TIG welding, MIG welding, line boring and aluminum welding to meet a wide array of client needs.
More information on Alpha Design can be found at http://www.alpha-weld.com
How it all began
Alpha Design used Voda to compile a detailed assessment of their existing computer system environment. Our discovery determined that Alpha Design was experiencing very long delays and lack of consistent availability in their main business application, ShopTech.
Alpha Design’s stated goals for IT were:
1. To minimize business downtime
2. To build a trusted long-term IT environment that could change
along with industry requirements
Like most privately-held businesses in the region, Information Technology is critical to daily operations, and the ability to achieve the above goals within a predefined budget was of the upmost importance.
Next steps
Voda recommended a robust new tier-one server with Microsoft’s SBS (Small Business Server) 2008 as the platform for running the latest version of the ShopTech software.
Minimizing downtime - This server hardware from IBM has numerous redundant features and is backed by a comprehensive 3 year warranty and on-site support from Voda. New backup procedures and tools were put in place, and backup verification logs are now being generated nightly. The monitoring tool-set that is part of Voda Care is now implemented and we are proactively informed of any system issues. If any issues are detected, Voda staff respond within a guaranteed time-frame to ensure a minimal to zero impact on Alpha Design’s operations.
Building for the long-term – the solution that was implemented is very scale-able and can grow and change as Alpha Design’s business requirements change.
In Conclusion
The project was another successful implementation by Voda. Alpha Design was very impressed with the fact that the project was completed on time, under budget, and with no interruptions to their daily business operations.
Quote from Alpha Design - "Voda Computer Systems has been very efficient and professional in helping us with this transition that has increased our productivity. They are a very helpful team."
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Next starts now. To learn more visit www.EMC.com.
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Trend Micro
Can cloud security protect your business?
As a smart entrepreneur, the biggest problem to contend with in regards to cyber criminals is that they're smart entrepreneurs, too. They're highly motivated and technically proficient hard workers.
What they're after isn't fame or notoriety. It's about money. Specifically, that means stealing data--personal and business facts and figures that can be used to generate illegal profits. It also means hijacking the computing power of your PCs and servers to steal other people's data in order to generate more profit.
It's true that businesses of all sizes are at risk and successful hacks at large corporations can pay off in a big way, but multinationals can also put up better defenses. Smaller businesses, by contrast, typically have limited IT resources, and the sheer number of firms in this category makes them irresistible. Even if your online transactions don't involve money or billing, you're still a fair target just by being connected to the internet.
So how do business owners avoid becoming another statistic?
Get in the cloud. Cloud-security's value proposition is focused on saving money by scaling to your business needs and improving productivity; it also allows you to stay connected wherever you are, whether you're using a laptop, desktop, or smart phone.
By working in the cloud, you get faster, more responsive protection without overburdening and slowing down your computers, especially as the volume of threats increase. Cloud security uses the internet and the security company's computers (data centers) to shoulder security technologies instead of relying on your PC's storage space.
But not all cloud-security is created equal. Before you make the final decision on which security product to purchase, I'd encourage you to ask these questions either to yourself, your channel partner or to the security vendor you're considering:
- Does the vendor offer cloud-security products that can actually stop online threats before they even hit your office, and without slowing down your computers? Many vendors claim to do this, but unless the technology is integrated in the products that's specifically tailored for your business, their claims can come up empty.
- Does the vendor have the size, expertise, and experience to not only invest, but maintain a cloud security infrastructure? An effective cloud security vendor needs global reach, a brigade of security experts, and multiple datacenters that can continue to scale to stop hundreds of millions of threats per hour around the globe.
- Is the technology mostly organically developed or through acquisitions? This is important because a big component of cloud security is how the technologies involved all work together. Companies that "grow" and develop their own technologies have a higher success in making sure they all meld together seamlessly which equals more effective protection.
The idea of the most effective protection not completely residing on your PC, but floating somewhere out there can be a hard concept for some self-sufficient business owners to accept. But, in today's borderless, electronic universe, relying on security outside of your businesses wall can be the safest measure of all.
Dal Gemmell is a senior global product marketing manager in the Trend Micro Small Business solutions team. As a global product marketing manager, he works in partnership with regional leaders to drive sales and marketing efforts.
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NEC Display Solutions
NEC Display Solutions, a leading provider of commercial LCD displays and projector solutions, recently announced the availability of its new VUKUNET web platform for digital signage networks. VUKUNET solves the main issues facing signage network owners and advertisers by providing a centralized, automated platform designed specifically to connect and distribute advertisements to digital signage networks. VUKUNET (www.vukunet.com) helps digital signage network owners actually generate income by connecting their screens which have available time & space to prospective advertisers.
The VUKUNET platform is completely agnostic, meaning, ads can be distributed to screens from any manufacturer, not just NEC and networks that are using any content management system (CMS). There is no charge to become a member of VUKUNET. It consists of VUKUNET Ad Manager, which enables networks to run ads on screens and an optional VUKUNET CMS, which is a fully-equipped SaaS (Software as a Service) Content Management System available for free to VUKUNET Ad Manager participants or NEC Display hardware customers.
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Kingston: Extending Battery Life
Extending the life of notebooks the easy & affordable way... with a Kingston ssdnow v series drive.
Every year the performance of major computer components increases in speed and efficiency. From processors to RAM to video cards, growth in data speeds is exponential. However, one major component lags behind: traditional hard drives. Even the most powerful quad core CPU is forced to wait for data from a sluggish mechanical disk.
Enter the Solid State Drive.
With read speeds 4 to 5 times that of a typical 5,400 rpm hard drive, SSDs are the solution to the data bottleneck most computers are saddled with.
The difference between SSDs and hard drives is in how each stores data. Traditional hard drives use a spindle to read a rapidly rotating magnetic disk, similar to a turntable. SSDs store data on an array of NAND flash chips and contain no moving parts. This not only provides greater durability — a solid state drive can survive severe jarring far better — but also results in faster load times and less power consumption.
However, not all SSDs are created equal. Low-cost models often deliver performance that’s worse than the average 5,400 rpm hard drive. High-quality SSDs can be prohibitively expensive, costing as much as $500 for 128GB. Plus, transferring files, programs and the operating system from one drive to another is a task usually so daunting that most users won’t take the trouble to attempt it.
The Kingson SSDNow V-Series eliminates the hassle and expense of updating your computer from ponderous mechanical drives to performance-enhancing SSDs. The low cost of the V-Series, starting at under $150 for a 64GB, makes upgrading affordable. And the included upgrade kit makes data transfer simple and easy. As a bonus, the kit allows you to utilize your old hard drive as a portable storage device, perfect for backups and media files.
Best of all, the blazing fast V-Series SSD can supercharge even a budget notebook so it outperforms systems which cost hundreds of dollars more.
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VODA Tip
Just bought a netbook and want to install Windows 7, but don’t have a DVD drive?
- Download LC ISO Creator and create a .ISO file of you DVD.
- Use the Windows 7 DVD/USB Download Tool to make a USB drive bootable, with the Windows 7 install. (You will need a USB drive greater than 4GB)
- Insert the USB Drive into your netbook, set your netbook to boot to the drive, and then install Windows 7.
* It will actually install faster from the USB drive versus a DVD-rom, so give it a try next time you need to reinstall on your desktop too!
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Quote of the Month
Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome.
— Samuel Johnson
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Product of the Month
Barracuda Backup Service
Integrated local and offsite backup for fail-safe disaster recovery
The Barracuda Backup Service is a complete and affordable data backup solution. The Barracuda Backup Server provides a full local data backup and is combined with cloud storage to replicate data to two offsite data centers. This approach provides the best of both worlds - local backups via a dedicated backup appliance for great performance and fast restore times, and disaster recovery data protection through secure cloud storage at Barracuda Networks. Data deduplication is applied in line at a block level to reduce traditional backup storage requirements by 20 to 50 times while also reducing backup windows and bandwidth requirements.
Powerful, Complete Solution
Designed for organizations of various size and need, the Barracuda Backup Server maintains a local copy of data and efficiently transfers the data offsite without placing additional burden on production servers. Offsite cloud storage at Barracuda Networks is monitored and managed by Barracuda Central as part of the monthly Barracuda Backup Subscription. For the occasions when all data is not equally business critical, the Barracuda Backup Service makes it easy to select only the most critical data to be stored offsite for disaster protection. The Barracuda Backup Service includes technical support and emergency assistance with restores in the event of a system failure or disaster.
Deployed in varied and complex IT environments, the Barracuda Backup Service protects mission-critical business information. The Barracuda Backup Agent software for Windows, included with the Barracuda Backup Service, provides complete native backup of Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Windows system state and Windows file system data. In addition to the software agent backup, the Barracuda Backup Server supports other backup methods natively without installing any additional software or agents. The Barracuda Backup Server can back up data directly from network file shares using industry standard protocols. It can also connect directly to Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise to provide message-level backups for more granular restoration of user email messages.
Easy-to-Use and Maintain
The Barracuda Backup Service Web user interface makes it easy to manage backups and conduct data restores across multiple Barracuda Backup Servers at one or more locations. The Web user interface provides access and control of settings, reports, restores, statistics, and account information in order to manage diverse Barracuda Backup Servers and subscription plans. In addition, customers receive automated alert notifications upon detection of conditions affecting backups.
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Ask the VODA Expert
Q:I need to import my Internet Favorites to my work computer, how do I do it?
A:
It will depend on what web browser you are using. If you are using Internet Explorer, do the following to export your favorites:
1. On the File menu, click Import and Export, and then click Next.
2. Click Export Favorites and then click Next.
3. Click Favorites and then click Next.
4. Browse to where you want to save the Bookmark.htm file which will contain your favorites. You can save it on your desktop to make it easy.
5. Click Next and then click Finish.
If you are using IE7 and don't have the File menu they right click on the toolbar and select Menu bar.
To import your favorites do the following:
1.Copy the Bookmark.htm file from your other computer to a disk, CD or flash drive.
2.Open Internet Explorer on your work computer and click on File and then Import and Export and click Next.
3. Click Import Favorites and then click Next.
4. Browse to where you saved the Bookmark.htm on your disk and click Next.
5. Click on Favorites and click Next.
6. Click on Finish.
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