Why do we need disaster recovery plans and solutions?

This week, I visited a prospective client who was ready to invest in disaster recovery systems. They have an office in Brisbane, and an office in Christchurch. Here is the story as it was told to me...

"We were lucky in Christchurch, and have had no real news to report from an IT perspective. But, it made our management team think about disaster recovery planning – especially after what happened to us in Brisbane.

We knew the rain was coming, so we asked the branch manager to take home the back-up tapes and the server. Unfortunately, having an employee mentality rather than a business owner mentality, the branch manager decided the server was too much effort, and basically "she'll be right mate." So, he just grabbed the most recent backup tape and took that home.

Of course, the rain came and washed putrid mud through the whole office. Before any of our staff could attend the site, the authorities had removed everything that had come in contact with the putrid water and mud, so all of our IT equipment was gone, never to be seen again. Including the most recent backup tape that was still in the device.

It took 12 days to get the tape we had taken off-site restored to a new server, and – even then – we had lost two days of transactions and data changes. It was a nightmare..."

This company was really lucky – the odds of having a two-day old tape actually work are very low. But, there will still be files that failed to back-up that are lost, and they won't know what these are until the day they need them. Additionally, any corrupted files (also quite common) will not be apparent until the day they try to use them. Despite this, they are still the lucky ones, because, unlike many businesses, they got most of their data and IP back.

Now, let's consider the modern alternative...

This company could now have any changes to data streamed live via an ADSL connection to data centres in Brisbane and Sydney, where the image of their servers are constantly on standby. So, at the point where they powered down the Brisbane office in anticipation of the floods hitting, they could have switched to their virtual server in the data centre with up-to-the-minute data live and available for use. This would have meant downtime of only one to two hours, zero lost data, and minimal cost to the business – if any.

There are many back-up and disaster recovery solutions available on the market today. Many of them look good at surface level, but when you test them in earnest they fall short of expectations. No matter how large or small your business, you must invest in the protection and recovery of your data. Please seek advice and make sure the people you're dealing with take your recovery needs seriously. There are just too many poorly thought through back-up solutions in small businesses that will not see you through to a successful recovery.

Even if you have a good back-up you still need a sound recovery plan. Often the people we need most for a recovery are the ones who have family and friends in need and the humanitarian assistance needs to come before business recovery. So planning to make use of external resources can be a big risk reducer in the equation as well.

David Markus is the founder of Combo - the IT services company that ensures IT is never an impediment to growth.

Why will developers force us to the cloud, and when?

This week, I had a prospect ask me if they should upgrade their software to the new cloud version, or upgrade their old server that has no spare capacity. This got me thinking about the future, and the concept frightened me a little. Think about it – why would a developer want you to use your server once they've written code for the cloud?

Of course, they absolutely would not want you to, and here's why:

1. In IT, variables cost someone money to manage.

By that I mean if you write software for any computer running any version of the operating system, you have lots of testing to do at huge cost. If a client has a hardware fault that impacts your software, you and the client lose time and money chasing down the fault. If a client has, for example, a new antivirus application that blocks access to the application components, support must be provided at additional cost.

Each upgrade runs risks of causing conflicts with other systems leading to – you guessed it – even more costs.

2. Managing multiple versions of code increases costs.

With cloud-based software, the vendor has complete control over the software version and the platform it runs on. They only need to provide support for your browser, and even then they can specify the browser you must use. Each time they upgrade, they do it to the entire platform in one place on one platform of a known technology and vintage. Thus, it is easy to replicate faults and do testing.

3. The battle between software vendors and infrastructure.

When a company looks to buy software, they get quotes from software companies and select the software they want to purchase based on suitability and price. The cost is typically more than the company wants to spend, but they eventually come to the party. Only after the buying decision is made, will the software company stress the importance of the infrastructure that will be required to run the software. This typically blows the budget, and creates stress for the client and typically for the software company as well.

If the hardware purchased is under strength, or poorly set up, it will impact on the software company who will do more work to support the environment than otherwise required. Hence, more cost and more effort; not necessarily more profit.

So, it is inevitable that we will all adopt cloud computing quite quickly as the software developers get on board with the benefits of removing the infrastructure layer. As for when, well, it has already started with Google apps and Microsoft slugging it out for our email services and desktop applications. One offers cheap, the other offers quality tools we already know how to use. Both are making thousands of sales and are building their reputations. Both offer platforms for the developers to host applications, and will soon have hundreds of products to offer us. So, the when is really as soon as the vendors have the confidence to stop supporting installed applications, or as soon as you get savvy to the savings available and shift.

I hope you're already contemplating how you will adapt your business systems using cloud alternatives to today's already-dated technology. No doubt we are on the verge of another IT bubble as this IT technology cuts significant waste and frustration from the IT industry, and drives massive profits for the industry leaders who get it right. The battle is on for this new market place, and there are many viable contenders and, as yet, no clear industry leaders. So, seek guidance on what technologies are stable and worthy of your attention, and look out for the wannabes who will get tossed aside as the market leaders emerge.

Remember that moving from one cloud solution to another for a line of business applications will be a major expense in terms of migration of data, reworking of workflow processes and staff training, so make sure you get it right the first time.

David Markus is the founder of Combo - the IT services company that ensures IT is never an impediment to growth.

What has happened to the Microsoft Partner Channel, and is it good for my business?

The SME sector and its IT providers have just been hit by Microsoft’s adjustment to its qualification of partners globally.

This will impact 400,000 businesses that have some level of Microsoft partnership. I can actually no longer refer to the ‘certification of partners’ as the term ‘Certified Microsoft Partner’ has been dropped.

Until last month, a small IT provider could relatively easily obtain a level of Microsoft partnership with just two certified staff. Now, the bar has been raised in an attempt to help the market place choose the right partner. My spin on this is that it got too easy for small providers to become Gold Partners, and so the larger companies could not distinguish themselves in the market place anymore. Of course, I didn’t think that five years ago when I became the smallest Gold Certified Partner in Australia!

Over the past few years, larger technology companies were pushing Microsoft to introduce a Platinum level to improve the ability to create market place awareness of supplier capability and scale. The program has now been given the overhaul it needed.

Now, tech companies qualify as a Microsoft Partner, and go on from there to score technology-based competencies at either Silver or Gold level. Four qualified staff are now required in a field to gain Gold status, as well as reference sites and many other hoops to jump through.

Of course, all of this is very political and relevant to my industry, but what does it mean for you – the customer?

Well, it means you can actually qualify the capabilities of a company based on the industry awards they hold once again. The grading value has been returned, and a company with a Silver or Gold level competency in technology probably has some genuine skills in that area. Just like when you hire a new staff member, you look to qualifications to improve your chances of getting the best person for a job, you can now apply this to your outsourcing choices too.

If you need help figuring out what kind of partner you need, and at what level for a particular skill type, there is help available from Microsoft.

The last update I got from Microsoft suggested that less than 25% of previous Gold Partners have been able to transfer to a Gold Competency, so the plan has worked just the way it was designed to. While this is harsh for the small businesses that have been marked down, it will make it easier for you to find the right people to provide your future IT services.

If your business is small and needs budget solutions, you will seek a partner with a Silver Competency. If your business is larger or more demanding on IT functionality, you will seek a partner with a Gold Competency.

David Markus is the founder of Combo - the IT services company that ensures IT is never an impediment to growth.

I’m being told that the clouds are elastic, but what does it mean?

We've already discussed the fact that the clouds are green. And, yes, it is possible that they're elastic as well. Sounds a bit like mint bubble gum to me!

But, what do we really mean when we talk about elastic technology?

One of the great benefits of many of the cloud solutions is that they offer capacity on demand or, in other words, supply to meet demand. Essentially, you never get more than you need but always get as much as you need. This differs from local systems in that we build new capacity in-house based on predicted future requirements. Of course, we don't always get the future demand right, so sometimes you need to upgrade or expand sooner than predicted, but more often you have a lot of spare capacity that is not used before the machine is retired of old age.

Whether you are upgrading early or finishing up at end of life with spare capacity, you will always be paying for more capacity than you require on any given day.

Let me just define capacity loosely for the sake of making sense here. I am discussing capacity of infrastructure required to run applications. Essentially, this is the capacity of server hardware such as:

• Data storage (eg. hard drives)
• Memory (eg. RAM or cache)
• Access to processor power
• Network bandwidth
• Power
• Cooling
• Backup and redundancy capabilities

In the server room, many businesses moved to virtualisation to reduce this problem so all the systems share the spare capacity locally and overall there is less spare capacity required. This is a great intermediary step to the next step of using larger shared systems.

So, why do we talk about the cloud systems as being elastic? Well, because you can ramp up your demand as you need it, but you can also scale it back down again. For example, if you were to build a platform to sell tickets to a single concert being held at the MCG, you would expect that in the first hour of online sales after the show was promoted and ticket sales were opened you would need a lot of computer power. Later the same day, you would need considerably less and so on until the show was on – at which point you wouldn't need any computing power for ticket sales.

Of course, this is an extreme example and there are many more subtle ones in day-to-day business. But, stay with it for now... If an application like this is hosted on a local purpose built server we can expect it to overload initially, providing the keenest of ticket buyers with a bad experience. If, however, the solution is built on the Oracle Exalogic platform or the Amazon EC2 platform, for example, the initial hit would simply cause the system to scale up and supply more capacity. (For the geeks, let me just acknowledge that this assumes the application has been written to make use of the underlying scalable nature of the infrastructure).

To a small business with just a few servers, the important part of elastic solutions is that you only need to pay for what you use and you only use what you need. Be warned though, it is very important to determine what your needs will be prior, as hosted elastic servers can be very expensive if the utilisation is not well managed. In some models, I have seen it cost four to five times as much as building your own server on premise.

So, really, the question for you to ask of the people trying to sell you elastic solutions that sound really impressive is, "So, tell me what would I need to buy to run that here in my office, what would it cost me to run it in a data centre and what will it cost me to run it in the cloud?" Of course, if you anticipate huge spikes in demand and would need to invest many thousands of dollars to cover the peak few hours of use each year, the sums may stack up.

As with all big dollar technology decisions in business, if you are not sure you are making the right decision, get another opinion; preferably from someone you know who can provide a sensible comparison based on extensive industry knowledge.

David Markus is the founder of Combo - the IT services company that ensures IT is never an impediment to growth.

My IT person is miles ahead of me, but is he far enough ahead to look after me?

This is a real problem faced by many business owners. If you're paying others to look after IT in your business (which is often absolutely necessary for non-IT business people), there is always a looming risk involved. In short – how do you know that they're actually looking after you?

Here is a scary admission. I've been an in-house IT guy, responsible for the upkeep of 75 mission-critical computers in a business where management lacked strategic IT capability. Looking back, I was resistant to introducing change because I knew that change was going to push me out of my comfortable complacency. I looked after this organisation as a young contractor and then as an internal IT manager. I now know I was only part of the required solution.

I was a technician and a technical manager of small projects. I was very good at my job and so it was assumed that I was a great all-rounder, and could plan the future strategy as well. Fifteen years later, with a wealth of broad IT and business experience under my belt, I now know that I stood in the way of progress in that role. Fortunately, I went on to work in much larger organisations with strategic IT leadership above me, and a team of capable technicians below me.

I would go so far as to say that when the person setting the strategy is the same person who has to deliver the technology and implement it, you already have a serious problem. At the core of this problem is the fact that there is no accountability. You will either have a good strategist who fails to deliver, or a good technologist who stays busy for lack of a strategy. Complex systems require a team approach. And it takes technological leadership to encourage a team of people to design a future-proofing technology plan, leap into the unknown, discover the paths and technologies, do the learning and deliver the solution in a cost-effective, timely and useful way.

Without the leaders striving for better solutions and laying down objectives, plans and measures, and keeping score, the technical team quickly retreats to maintenance mode. It takes an extraordinary individual to play this scenario out solo and provide the solutions to your business needs.

A real danger sign from my perspective is when the person advising on strategy is keen to pick up tools and fix a fault. This indicates a technical manager who can't delegate because he believes others will only let them down. We know from the E-Myth that this is neither scalable or strategic.

So, even if you have your own IT team, it is a good idea to find a strategic industry leader to partner with. This ensures that your team is getting the input it requires to keep the technology you invest in at the leading edge – driving productivity and growth for your business.

David Markus is the founder of Combo - the IT services company that ensures IT is never an impediment to growth.