Automated offsite backup services are all the rage. Remote Data Backups, and Online Backup are among some of the best-known contenders.

Unlike online storage services, offsite backup providers offer not only gigabytes of offsite file storage but also automated backup software designed to automatically back up the data you specify. That’s a critical difference that should be noted: Online storage services don’t provide automated backup functionality. Sure, online storage services are cheaper. But they’re useless in protecting your data if you forget to manually back up files every day as they change or as new files are created.

Unfortunately, not all offsite backup services are created equal. Some of the services work better than others, and pricing varies, as does the quality of the automated backup software. Here are some things to keep in mind as you evaluate offsite backup providers.

#1: Reliable software

Backup firms, like any other service provider, will promise the world. But actually delivering on all the promises (simple backup configuration, HIPAA-compliant security, easy recovery, seamless integration in Windows, etc.) is another matter altogether.

I’ve sampled and deployed automated backup services from a number of providers. Some that propose to provide easy 1-2-3 backup operations fail to run, prove incompatible on server platforms, or generate cryptic errors.

Backups are too important to trust to chance. Make sure that the backup software you deploy works well on the OS platforms you require. Many automated offsite backup services run best on Windows XP, while others perform well on Windows Vista and Windows server OSes. The only way to really know is to test a service’s application before rolling it out on production systems. That’s why item #8 (free trials) is so important, but more on that in a moment.

#2: Storage plans that meet your needs
Some offsite backup services bill by the gigabyte. That’s fine. There’s no trouble there, other than the fact that the fee structure makes budgeting backup costs more difficult.

Other service providers, though, sell accounts with specific storage limits (100MB, 4GB, 10GB, etc.) and flat fees. Those plans work well and simplify budgeting, at least until organizations unexpectedly exceed their storage limits.

Look for service providers with storage limits or pricing plans that meet your organization’s needs while also proving flexible. Remote Data Backups, for example, makes it easy (just a few clicks) to upgrade from a 4GB account to a 10GB plan (or from a 10GB to a 30GB account). Clients need only pay the difference between the two storage plans (not start from scratch).

#3: Stellar reporting tools
A leading benefit of automated backup services is peace of mind. Knowing critical data is automatically being backed up offsite is more than just a relief. With critical data safely secured, you can move on to addressing other tasks.

IT professionals, though, are typically (and rightfully so) a skeptical crowd. So they want, or require, more than just a promise that critical data is being backed up; they need confirmation.

Only with detailed and accurate backup reporting (Figure A) can you be sure that systems and data are being properly backed up. Insist on file-level reporting with any backup service provider. In addition to a daily list of every file that’s backed up, look for reporting tools that list file sizes, time of transfer, and any error details.

Figure A



Remote Data Backups creates log files that track numerous details about each file that’s backed up.
#4: An approachable backup application
The backup application itself must be easy to use and as close to foolproof as possible. Many leverage Windows Explorer-like interfaces (Figure B), where you just need to check boxes for those files and folders that require backing up.

Take advantage of a trial period. Work first hand with the software. Confirm the service’s backup application and interface are sufficiently simple to avoid confusion but flexible enough to meet the organization’s needs.

Figure B



The Mozy Backup tool features a simple Explorer-like interface for specifying which files/folders should be backed up.
In most cases, backup software isn’t Microsoft Exchange aware (or can’t properly back up active databases). In such circumstances, confirm that you can automate an Exchange or database backup (using Windows’ built-in or another locally installed backup program) and have the alternative backup program park copies of the backups it creates in folders the backup provider’s software can accommodate. Better yet, seek backup applications that can manage active database and e-mail systems’ data (but be prepared to pay handsomely for the privilege — I’ve yet to find one that justifies the cost).

#5: Simple recovery
When hard disks fail, users accidentally delete files, or other systems errors occur, IT professionals need to be able to recover files quickly. Conduct tests of backup providers’ recovery functions to confirm that file recovery is simple, fast, and secure.

In other words, make sure it’s easy for you to recover data that’s been backed up offsite but that unauthorized parties won’t be able to do the same.

#6: Secure file transfer
Security has always been an issue with backups. Whether strategies involved giving one set of IT pros backup rights and another set restoration privileges, organizations have always struggled for a reasonable balance between security and operational efficiency when addressing backup issues.

Security remains a concern when selecting an automated offsite backup provider. Insist on deploying a service that meets HIPAA and SOX/Accounting security requirements. Most backup providers support at least 128-bit AES encryption and SSL security. Don’t work with a provider offering anything less.

Further, when creating automated offsite backup accounts, protect the account information (and recovery hashes or passwords) carefully. Distribute such keys sparingly and change them whenever technology employees leave the organization.

#7: 24/7 support
Disk failures and other data loss episodes don’t always occur during office hours, and they almost always require repair and recovery operations after hours (to minimize disruption to other users). Thus, you should confirm that your backup service provider’s technicians will be available when you need them most. Many backup providers boast 24/7 support. Before signing any contracts or purchasing service, make sure you’ll be able to reach its support personnel during odd hours should troubleshooting assistance ever be required.

#8: Free trials
The best way to determine whether an offsite backup provider works well for your organization is to sample its wares. Not only should you test the backup software application, support procedures, and reporting tools, but you should conduct a test recovery as well.

Only by walking through the process (creating an account, installing the backup client application, running backup operations, contacting technical support, reviewing report files, and performing a data restore) can you accurately determine whether a backup service provider offers an approachable backup program, quality support, and reliable reporting and recovery processes. Also, potential incompatibilities (between data files, databases, Windows, and the actual backup software itself) are too numerous to ever reasonably forecast, so the process of testing online backup tools on systems with similar configurations to those running in production environments will help eliminate any surprises and potential downtime when the time for real-world deployment arrives.

#9: Version tracking
Several backup providers support the ability to maintain multiple file versions. The ability to go back and reference several versions of a particular file can prove quite valuable.

When simple backup operations run, files from the previous backup (such as those backed up the night before) are written over. Most organizations back up data daily (at night). With such backup schedules, little time exists to discover errors (such as an accountant realizing he or she entered incorrect data in a budget file). If such errors aren’t caught within a day, of course, the budget file with the correct data will be written over by the file containing errors that night. With versioning file systems, several versions (or historical copies) of the same file can be maintained to recover from just such mistakes.

Look for this feature. It can bail out harried users who mistakenly corrupt good data.

#10: E-mail alerts
Numerous distractions demand IT professionals’ attention. Whether failed routers, nonfunctioning remote connections, new user accounts, or other common break/fix issues arrest your workday, backup operations must still be monitored. Unfortunately, in the heat of putting out fires and attending other crises, it’s easy to overlook backup issues until it’s too late.

Some offsite backup providers support sending alerts, bringing your attention to problems via e-mail. Without this feature, you might remain unaware that backups are failing or larger issues exist. By insisting on selecting a backup provider that supports forwarding e-mail alerts when backups fail or encounter errors, organizations can ensure their IT staff stays on top of backup operations and receive SOS messages when troubles do arise.

The routed vs. the routing
There has always been a great attraction for me to the networking protocols. I don’t know why I have always been fascinated by them, but they do interest me greatly. A good deal of my time has been spent studying and playing with the protocols contained in the TCP/IP protocol suite. What all those protocols have in common is that they are routed protocols. This begs the question of what routes them? A very good question indeed, and one that a great many books have been written about.

What I shall cover in this article is a breakdown of what routing protocols are. How they work, and what kinds of routing protocols there are. Things I won’t be covering are the Cisco IOS syntax used when configuring these routing protocols. Quite a few excellent books out there already do an admirable job of doing just that. Instead, as mentioned, I will concentrate on giving you a high level overview of what routing protocols are, the various types, and what it is that they do.

Onwards and upwards
Well we already know that the packets generated by our computers are comprised of routed protocols. These protocols in turn need to be routed if they are to reach their intended recipients. How does a packet ultimately get to its destination? Well this is accomplished via it being routed by a series of routers, and this is also done primarily via the IP address listed in the IP header. With this simplistic explanation in hand we will now take a look at the two categories of routing protocols.

The routing protocols themselves are broken down into two groups. Those are the IGP and EGP, or Interior Gateway Protocols, and Exterior Gateway Protocols. Much like their respective names infer, one group is used internally and the other externally. For example the IGP series of routing protocols are used on internal networks, and the EGP series of routing protocols is used on the actual Internet itself. What does that all really mean though? Well it means that when you do the initial configuration of your, in all likelihood, Cisco router that you will need to choose what type of routing protocol to install and configure.

Now is as good a time as any to list the various types of routing protocols for each group. Interior Gateway Protocols are comprised of the following;

IGRP: Interior Gateway Routing Protocol
EIGRP: Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol
OSPF: Open Shortest Path First
RIP: Routing Information Protocol
IS-IS: Intermediate System – Intermediate System
For Exterior Gateway Protocols there are;

EGP: Exterior Gateway Protocol
BGP: Border Gateway Protocol

Interior Gateway Protocols
We can see from the above noted examples of IGP protocols that there are several of them. Are they all used in today’s internal networks? Well I suppose they very well could be, but likely the most common ones used today are OSPF and RIP. With that in hand let’s go over RIP. RIP is what is called a dynamic routing protocol. What that means is that it will automatically figure out routing tables on its own. In other words the system administrator does not have to manually input all the various routes. That would be a serious pain in the butt!

So RIP will automatically compute the routes, as well as secondary routes to be used in case a primary path should fail. If you are thinking that this sounds like “load balancing” you would indeed be correct. Another key piece of information to remember about RIP is that it is a “distance vector” protocol. Seen as this article is only a high level overview I will say only that “distance vector” involves the method of discovering routes. For more information on this very important topic please click here. Some key points to remember about RIP are that it uses port 520 and uses UDP as its transport protocol.

OSPF is the other commonly used IGP. A key differentiator between RIP and OSPF is that OSPF is a “link state protocol”. This simply means that it uses a different way to build its routing tables. OSPF enabled routers will advertise metrics which contain the information that the other OSPF enabled routers will use to build its routing tables. It is as simple and as complicated as that. Further reading can be found here. Also, as above, some key points to remember are that OSPF supports multicasting and subnets. Lastly, OSPF uses IP, and not TCP or UDP.

Exterior Gateway Protocols
Well we covered the two main IGP’s at a very high level, but what about the EGP protocols? Well let’s indeed take a look at the two better known ones. BGP or Border Gateway Protocol is the routing protocol in use today by the routers which populate the Internet. By that I mean routers that are used by your ISP for example, or what are also called Internet facing routers. These routers form the backbone of the Internet and BGP v4 is what is currently running on them. Much like RIP above, BGP is essentially itself a distance vector protocol or algorithm. One notable fact about BGP is that it uses TCP for its transport protocol and will communicate via port 179. In other words, routing tables are exchanged using TCP for transport and done via port 179. With that said about BGP, what is there to know about EGP? Well realistically not a whole lot as it is not really used anymore. It has been replaced, if you will, by BGP. Should you wish to read more about it please click here.

Wrapping up
Well as you can see I was not kidding about the high-level overview of routing protocols. There have literally been thick books written on BGP alone. It really is impossible to cover all about these routing protocols in one article, let alone a book. What this article hopes to convey rather is the diversity within the routing protocols themselves, and the difference between them and the routed protocols. What can you do to learn more about these routing protocols? I have always been a big believer in putting concepts into practice. It is, in my opinion, the only way to really learn and furthermore cement lessons learnt.

To that end you should, if financially possible, pick up some used Cisco networking gear. They are not all that expensive to buy and will pay dividends in your quest to know more about how traffic is actually routed. Further to buying some networking gear I would advise you to use programs such as Nemesis which will allow you to craft RIP, OSPF, and IGMP amongst others. Being able to craft some routing protocol packets will also let you see how they react to certain stimulus. Packet crafting is how I initially taught myself about TCP/IP, and I would certainly encourage you to do so with these routing protocols. Doing so will force you to learn more about the protocol itself and how it works. Lastly, as mentioned, getting some networking gear really is the key as much of the protocol configurations must be done via this hardware. You will only get so far by actually reading. If you really are on a limited budget then you may wish to buy one of many available simulators.

Well this brings to an end my high-level overview of routing protocols. I hope that this is enough to whet your appetite and push you to further study this critically important area of computer networks. As always I welcome your feedback, and on that note till next time!

The BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) is critical to the proper operation of your computer. It is the first code that is executed at start-up and defines the way your motherboard will communicate with the system hardware components.

The decision to flash your BIOS should not be taken lightly. It is essential that you do it mistake free if you still want to be able to use your computer.

For the purposes of this article I am going to assume that you understand the risks of flashing your BIOS and have a good reason for upgrading your existing BIOS. If are not familiar with the basics of flashing the BIOS or if you are not 100 percent sure that flashing your BIOS is the right thing to do then please read the companion article Three Good Reasons for Flashing Your BIOS.

Disclaimer: Flashing the BIOS incorrectly can lead to an unusable system. Flash the BIOS at your own risk.

I have detailed ten common mistakes that are made during a BIOS upgrade listed in order from the beginning to the end of the BIOS flashing process.

1. Misidentification of your motherboard make/model/revision number
If you built your computer then you know the brand of the motherboard that you purchased and you will also likely know the model number. The revision number may be less well known to you.

If you purchased your computer prebuilt, as most people do, then you probably don’t know what is under the hood. You might be able to get the information by entering the serial number of the PC on a Web site, but when it comes to flashing your BIOS you need to be 100 percent accurate and the information on the Web site could be incorrect. The only way to know for sure your motherboard make is to pop off the side panel or open the case and take a peek. (Figure A) Look for the manufacturer, model number and a revision number. (Figure B)

Figure A

 

The motherboard make is printed on the motherboard. Do not get the name from the fans.

Figure B

The motherboard model can be printed on the motherboard or as in this case, on a sticker placed on the motherboard.

You can also get pertinent information from the initial POST screen. (Figure C) The first line in the upper left portion of the screen shows the BIOS maker and version. The second line shows the motherboard model, BIOS version and date. The lower left section of the screen shows the BIOS version date, motherboard model and BIOS ID.

Figure C

2. Failing to research or understand the BIOS update details
Even properly researching the changes in the BIOS upgrades may not be enough to completely understand exactly what was changed. Often these BIOS upgrade notes are written by techs with little or poor knowledge of English and rarely are the details noted in full. It is not uncommon to find something similar to this.X38-002A BIOS Upgrade

Fix to E6400 S3 resume problem

There are several issues with this. You need to know what E6400 and S3 are. Even after learning that an E6400 is an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and S3 is one of four sleep functions in the PC’s power settings, you then need to know if you have an E6400 CPU. If you do, are you using the S3 STR (Suspend To RAM) Sleep option in Windows and having problems with it?

You can’t expect your motherboard manufacturer to explain what E6400 and S3 mean, but they should be able to explain what the problem was that was fixed. Perhaps if more people requested this, more detailed information might be included in the BIOS update notes in the future.

Most BIOS updates are cumulative. You will need to review all of the BIOS update notes after your current BIOS version in order to know all of the changes made with the latest upgrade version.

3. Flashing your BIOS for a fix that is not needed
As you can see from the example above, it is often difficult to understand exactly what fix was implemented with a BIOS upgrade. It is equally difficult for the average PC user to determine if any of the hardware in their system is included in the fix. As a rule of thumb if your computer is operating normally, leave it alone.

If you are unsure if a BIOS update will fix a problem that you are having with your PC, you can ask for more information from the manufacturer. Be 100 percent sure that the BIOS update will fix any issues that you may be having before flashing the BIOS. Hoping a BIOS update will fix a problem that you are experiencing is a poor reason to risk a BIOS flash.

4. Flashing your BIOS with the wrong BIOS file
Most BIOS updates come as a zipped file containing the binary code file, the flash utility, and sometimes a README file. Flashing the erasable memory of your BIOS with the wrong code is almost certain to cause failure the next time you try to boot. Be careful when selecting the file. Many motherboard model names are similar within a single manufacturer. Download the file for the exact make/model/revision of your motherboard.

The flash utility included in the download should match the BIOS manufacturer information on the initial POST screen. In the example above, I have an Award BIOS from Phoenix Technologies (Phoenix Technologies and Award merged in 1998). The older version of the Award flash utility that I received in my BIOS update file was called AWDFLASH.EXE. The latest version is called AFU869.EXE. The acronym AFU . It also coincidentally 5. Using an outdated version of the manufacturer flash utility or tool
You may be tempted to pull out the CD that came with the motherboard or computer and use the utilities on the CD to flash your BIOS. It is well worth your time to download the latest utilities from your motherboard manufacturer or computer maker. There is usually a good reason why a new version of the flash program has been made available.

You will need to go to the motherboard manufacturer or computer makers Website to download the latest version of the BIOS code anyway, so plan to download the latest flashing utilities or tools at the same time.

6. Not following or understanding the motherboard manufacturers specific directions
Most of you reading this article and considering a BIOS upgrade are probably of the male persuasion. Like me you probably don’t like reading and following directions. This is one time when reading and following the motherboard manufacturer instructions are essential. Each motherboard has specific steps that must be followed to have the upgrade succeed.

One example of this is a jumper on some motherboards or a setting in some BIOSes that must be changed to enable BIOS memory writing.

Instructions for flashing your make of motherboard can usually be found on the manufacturers Website. Specific instructions are sometimes placed in a README.txt file that comes with the BIOS flash file. Look for and read the instructions in this file carefully.

If you have read all of the steps needed to flash your BIOS and there are some steps that you don’t understand, get help from the manufacturer or consider having a professional do the install for you.

7. Flashing your BIOS without an UPS or at higher risk times
It is best to flash your BIOS with a UPS installed to provide backup power to your system. A power interruption or failure during the flash will cause the upgrade to fail and you will not be able to boot the computer.

Don’t assume that this can’t happen to you. I was converting the file system on the root drive on a PC once at 2:00 in the morning when I heard a loud pop outside. The lights blinked and the conversion failed. Apparently a transformer had blown in the neighborhood interrupting my power just long enough to ruin my day, or rather night. I had to reinstall the operating system from scratch.

If you don’t have access to a UPS, flash the BIOS in the late evenings or when the risk of power outages are lower. Avoid flashing the BIOS during thunderstorms, windy days, high peak electrical usage, prime drive time or any other time when power outages are more likely.

8. Flashing the BIOS from within Windows with other applications running
Flashing your BIOS from within Windows is universally discouraged by motherboard manufacturers. If you absolutely must flash your BIOS from within Windows and are willing to accept the additional risks involved, close all running applications and unnecessary processes. Antivirus processes running in the background are notorious for causing problems.
TechRepublic has a list of services that can be disabled in XP and in Vista.

9. Flashing an overclocked system
Some information I found while researching this article recommended not flashing your PC while it is overclocked. You may be able to successfully flash your overclocked system, but why take the additional risks? I don’t recommend overclocking except for the most experienced users with minimal changes and only for good reason. If you have an overclocked PC, you should be familiar enough with the BIOS to be able to reset the settings to their default values. Play it safe and throttle back.

10. Failing to have a recovery plan if the BIOS flash fails
When things go wrong it is a good idea to have a recovery plan. If your flash utility offers it, make a backup of your existing BIOS code. If this option is not available, download a copy of your current BIOS version or find a utility that will back up your current BIOS code. The original BIOS file should be on a bootable floppy with the flash utility and ready to install.
Prepare in advance for a floppy read failure by making bootable backup copies to have on hand. Mark your floppies with the BIOS version to know which are the new, and which are the original versions. It is also a good idea to copy the files to a Temp directory on the hard drive to verify that the files can be read or you can run CHKDSK to verify that there are no bad sectors on the floppy.

Research possible recovery options in advance and print them out. If you plan for a failure you will be less likely to panic if one occurs. If a failure does happen to you, do not turn off your computer. A failed flash means that the BIOS is likely corrupted and a reboot will fail. Keep the support number for your computer written down and available.

Plan for the worst case scenario; consider keeping a backup PC handy and ready to use.

The Final Word
If you have noticed some themes in this article then you are quite perceptive, patient reader:
Prepare, Prepare, Prepare!
Minimize the risks
Become educated and do your research
Double and triple check your work
I hope that these ten tips will aid you the next time you upgrade your BIOS. Happy flashing

Your comments on AX4 & iSCSI high availability were very informative and provided a number of idea for improving on the described availability scenario. In this post, Scott Lowe continues the availability discussion.

You guys gave me some great thoughts in my last posting in which I discussed my AX4/iSCSI highly available architecture. In this posting, I will continue the thread and give you a look at what the Westminster College architecture will look like in a few weeks. Some of this information is based on ideas provided in your comments. Although I’ve had the basic architectural diagram in mind for quite some time, your comments have helped to refine it.

Let’s start with a look at how VMware ESX will fit into our architecture.

This diagram is very similar to the one from the previous posting with one change. At the bottom of the diagram, I show an ESX cluster, fully VMotion-enabled. Each ESX server has multiple connections to the iSCSI storage network as well as to the primary network the users use to connect to the ESX servers. Under this scenario, we will achieve a high level of service availability for all of the servers running on the individual ESX servers. We’ll get to a highly available architecture with our SQL servers — and well as some other non-ESX services — through clustering, which will also entail a setup like the one above.

The next scenario expands on the scenario shown in the previous discussion.

I mentioned in that posting that, for simplicity’s sake, I wouldn’t show the connections to our core switch — an HP Procurve 5412zl. One of the comments on the previous posting recommended that we use the HP 5412zl for our primary iSCSI VLAN rather than our Dell blade-based M6220 switch. Under this scenario, we would bond together the four uplink ports on the M6220 to the 5412zl. The only downside to this scenario is that all iSCSI traffic from our blade chassis will have to traverse both the M6220 and the 5412zl. An alternative would be to use one uplink port on each of the M6220’s to connect to the AX4 and connect the other pair of iSCSI ports on the AX4 to the 5412zl. Doing this, we would have only two ports available to bond together from the M6220s to the 5412zl. We will test both scenarios, but I suspect that we will go with the alternative scenario I just described as it provides a higher level of redundancy.

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iSCSI is here to stay and will eventually supplant a significant portion of the installed base of Fibre Channel SANs out there. Further, as organizations make their initial forays into block-level shared storage, iSCSI will beat Fibre Channel more often than not.

This week, HP announced their $360 million acquisition of LeftHand networks. Last year, Dell surprised the tech industry with a $1.4 billion purchase of the formerly independent EqualLogic. With these iSCSI snap-ups by true tech titans, iSCSI has officially arrived, is here to stay, and, I believe, will become the technology of choice for most organizations in the future.

This is not to say that iSCSI has been sitting in the background up to this point. On the contrary, the technology has taken the industry by storm. Both of these companies based their entire business hopes on the possibility that organizations would see the intrinsic value to be found in iSCSI’s simplistic installation and management. To say that both companies have been successful would be an understatement.

I’m a big fan of both EqualLogic and LeftHand Networks offerings, having purchased an EqualLogic unit in a former life. At that time, I narrowed my selection down to two options - LeftHand and EqualLogic. Both solutions had their pros and cons, but both were more than viable.

It’s not all about EqualLogic and LeftHand, though. The big guns in storage have finally jumped feet first into the iSCSI fray with extremely compelling products of their own. Previously, these players, including EMC and NetApp, simply bolted iSCSI onto existing products. Lately, even the biggest Fibre Channel vendors are releasing native iSCSI arrays aimed at the mid-tier of the market. EMC’s AX4, for example, is available in both native iSCSI and native Fibre Channel versions and is priced in such a way that any organization considering EqualLogic or LeftHand should make sure to give the EMC AX4 a look. To be fair, the iSCSI-only AX4:

-Does not support SAN copy for SAN to SAN replication
-Is not as easy to install or manage as one of the aforementioned devices, but isn’t bad either
-The bandwidth to the array does not increase as additional space is added
-It does not include thin provisioning, although this was rumored to be rectified in a future software release
-The AX4 supports up to 64 attached hosts

But, the price per TB is simply incredible and a solution based on a different vendor would not have been attainable. This year, I purchased just shy of 14 TB of raw space on a pair of AX4 arrays-4.8 TB SAS and 9 TB SATA-for under $40K. For the foreseeable future, I don’t need SAN copy and space can be managed in ways other than through thin provisioning. Over time, we’ll run about two dozen virtual machines on the AX4 along with our administrative databases and Exchange 2007 databases. By the time I need additional features, the AX4 will be due for replacement anyway.

iSCSI started out at the low end of the market, helping smaller organizations begin to move toward shared storage and away from direct attached solutions. As time goes on, iSCSI is moving up the food chain and, in many cases, is supplanting small and mid-sized Fibre Channel arrays, particularly in organizations that have never had a SAN before. As iSCSI continues to take advantage of high-speed SAS disks and begins to use 10Gb Ethernet for a transport mechanism, I see iSCSI continuing to move higher into the market. Of course, faster, more reliable disks and faster networking capabilities will begin to close the savings gap between iSCSI and Fibre Channel, but iSCSI’s reliance on Ethernet for an underlying transport mechanism brings major simplicity to the storage equation and I doubt that iSCSI’s costs will ever surpass Fibre Channel anyway, mainly due to the expensive networking hardware needed for significant Fibre Channel implementations.

Even though iSCSI will continue to make inroads further into many organizations, I don’t think that iSCSI will ever completely push Fibre Channel out of the way. Many organizations rely on the raw performance afforded by Fibre Channel and the folks behind Fibre Channel’s specifications aren’t sitting still. Every year brings advances to Fibre Channel, including faster disks and improved connection speeds.

In short, I see the iSCSI market continuing to grow very rapidly and, over time, supplanting what would have been Fibre Channel installations. Further, as organizations continue to expand their storage infrastructures, iSCSI will be a very strong contender, particularly as the solution is updated to take advantage of improvements to the networking speed and disk performance

The average person currently between the ages of 25 and 35 will probably have 8 jobs over their lifetime. Presuming they retire at age 70, that means they’ll spend about 5 years per job, give or take a year.
How long have you’ve been in the same role? Is it time to look around? Even if you don’t think that the time is ideal from your perspective, keep in mind that this economy may take that decision out of your hands.Here’s a good rule to observe: Leaving your fate in the hands of others is just dumb. It’s kind of like, “managing by crossed fingers”.
Companies are often under more duress than they seem. Burdensome loans or tough business agreements may outweigh how they appear to be doing from an outsider’s perspective. We see clear evidence of this pretty frequently with the latest bailouts. Just 2 days before the Feds saved Citibank (one of the world’s largest banks) the CEO made the statement that they had ample reserves to survive on their own.
Additionally, just consider the bosses of today: With fewer of them, they may simply be too busy to look after you, your growth, or even your employment. And let’s not forget that old adage about the world getting flatter all the time. There are a lot of individuals who would be very happy to do your job, often for less money.
So, get proactive. Here’s a checklist of the steps everyone should take at least once a year:
1. Keep your resume current. If you aren’t sure about how it should look, go to PongoResume for tips and ideas. I recommend it be just 1 page in length. Treat it like the headline on a newspaper - all you want to do is catch the eye of the reader and get a foot in the door. If anyone’s interested, they’ll reach out to you. Then you provide a more detailed paper.
2. Find headhunters / recruiters to work with. I suggest having a relationship with at least two individuals. Three is better. They can be national organizations or local - one of each is smart because different employer HR Departments will use different approaches, so this will cast a wider net. In most cases, headhunters are paid by the hiring company not the job seeker. If the one with whom you connect asks you to pay for their service, be cautious. Ask if they get paid by employers for filling their needs and if so how much. The best headhunters don’t charge individuals. When they do charge, it’s only a token amount to put you on file.
3. Cozy up to your new “career partner”. Most of the good ones are really busy. So you need to help them understand that you’re different /better/ very interesting. Ideally they’ll smell gold when they talk to you because you can show them how really good you’d be for any company that takes you on. Many people don’t like having to “sell” themselves; but the time you spend helping your headhunter to see your greatness; the better an outcome you’ll experience. Without looking like a spammer or some weirdo, send them interesting bits of information, and “drop in” on them by email simply to wish them a successful day. In the marketing business, this is called keeping “top of mind”.
4. When you do get to the interview stage with a prospective employer, ask the headhunter for her / his advice. Then take it. It’s not to your benefit to get into a debate with the headhunter about why you have a better idea about what to say or how to proceed in the interview. They probably know the client and they’ve definitely got more experience with this than you.
In the interview use the 40/60 rule. That means: let the other person talk 60% of the time. A common mistake of job interviewees is that they talk too much as they strive to show how great they are. At the very least it’s a turn-off. Worse, it may cause the interviewer to question your listening skills (never a good thing).5. At the end of the interview, ask how the interviewer sees you as a candidate in this search. I find that most will tell you honestly what they think. Thank them for their feedback. If possible, ask if you can call them to follow-up on the progress. Don’t accept the old, “leave it with me - I’ll get back to you” stuff. That will just cause you increased sleeplessness and more acid reflux.
6. The next day after the meeting, call the headhunter to brief him/her and also to ask what they’ve heard. Accept what they tell you. Don’t get defensive. (S)he is your career partner and has no reason to give you bad advice.
Afterward, write the interviewer and thank them for seeing you. Tell them a couple of reasons why you know you’d be a great fit for the job and company and say that you want it. Remind them you will call to follow-up on the progress of the search.
Always keep your headhunter up to date and copy him or her on your communications with the job prospect.
Good hunting!

Introduction

For many companies, email has become a more important communication tool than the telephone. Internal employee communication, vendor and partner communication, email integration with business applications, collaboration using shared documents and schedules, and the ability to capture and archive key business interactions all contribute to the increasing reliance on email.

Businesses of all sizes, from multinational enterprises to small and midsize businesses, are using the messaging and collaboration features of Microsoft Exchange to run business functions that if lost, for even a short amount of time, can result in severe business disruption. No wonder Exchange has become a critical application for so many businesses. When these businesses look at high availability solutions to protect key business applications, Exchange is often the first application targeted for protection.

Improving the availability of Exchange involves reducing or eliminating the many potential causes of downtime. Planned downtime is less disruptive since it can be scheduled for nights or weekends - when user activity is much lower. Unplanned downtime, on the other hand, tends to occur at the worst possible times and can impact the business severely. Unplanned downtime can have many causes including hardware failures, software failures, operator errors, data loss or corruption, and site outages. To successfully protect Exchange you need to ensure that no single point of failure can render Exchange servers, storage or network unavailable. This article explains how to identify your failure risk points and highlights industry best practices to reduce or eliminate them, depending on your organization’s Exchange availability needs, resources and budget.

Exchange Availability Options

Most availability products for Exchange fall into one of three categories: traditional failover clusters, virtualization clusters and data replication. Some solutions combine elements of both clustering and data replication; however, there is no single solution that can address all possible causes of downtime. Traditional and virtualization clusters both rely on shared storage and the ability to run applications on an alternate server if the primary server fails or requires maintenance. Data replication software maintain a second copy of the application data, at either a local or remote site, and support either manual or automated failover to handle planned or unplanned server failures.

All of these products rely on redundant servers to provide availability. Applications can be moved to an alternate server if a primary server fails or requires maintenance. It is also possible to add redundant components within a server to reduce the chances of server failure.

Get Rid Of Failover – Get Rid Of Downtime

Most availability products rely on a recovery process called “failover” that begins after a failure occurs. A failover moves application processing to an alternate host after an unplanned failure occurs or by operator command to accommodate planned maintenance activity. Failovers are effective in bringing applications back online reasonably quickly but they do result in application downtime, loss of in-process transactions and in-memory application data, and expose the possibility of data corruption. Even a routine failover will result in minutes or tens of minutes of downtime including the time required for application restart and data recovery resulting from an unplanned failure. In the worst case, software bugs or errors in scripts or operational procedures can result in failovers that do not work properly; with the result that downtime can extend to hours or even days. Reducing the number of failovers, shortening the duration of failovers, and ensuring that the failover process is completely reliable, all contribute to reducing Exchange downtime.

Local server redundancy and basic failover address the most common failures that cause unplanned Exchange downtime. However, data loss or corruption, and site disruptions, although less common, can cause much longer outages and require additional solution elements to properly address.

Evaluate Unplanned Downtime Causes

Unplanned downtime can be caused by a number of different events:

-Catastrophic server failures caused by memory, processor or motherboard failures
-Server component failures including power supplies, fans, internal disks, disk controllers, host bus adapters and network adapters
-Software failures of the operating system, middleware or application
-Site problems such as power failures, network disruptions, fire, flooding or natural disasters

Each category of unplanned downtime is addressed in more detail below.

How to Avoid Server Hardware Failures

Server core components include power supplies, fans, memory, CPUs and main logic boards. Purchasing robust, name brand servers, performing recommended preventative maintenance, and monitoring server errors for signs of future problems can all help reduce the chances of failover due to catastrophic server failure.

Failovers caused by server component failures can be significantly reduced by adding redundancy at the component level. Robust servers are available with redundant power and cooling. ECC memory, with the ability to correct single-bit memory errors, has been a standard feature of most servers for several years. Newer memory technologies including advanced ECC, online spare memory, and mirrored memory provide additional protection but are only available on higher-cost servers. Online spare and mirrored memory can increase memory costs significantly and may not be cost effective for many Exchange environments.

Internal disks, disk controllers, host bus adapters and network adapters can all be duplicated. However, adding component redundancy to every server can be both expensive and complex.

Reduce Storage Hardware Failures

Storage protection relies on device redundancy combined with RAID storage to protect data access and data integrity from hardware failures. There are distinct issues for both local disk storage and for shared network storage.

Critical Moves To Protect Your Local Storage

Local storage is only used for static and temporary system data in a clustering solution. Data replication solutions maintain a copy of all local data on a second server. However, failure of unprotected local storage will result in an unplanned server failure, introducing the downtime and risks involved in a failover to an alternate server. For local storage, it is quite easy to add extra disks configured with RAID 1 protection. It is critical that a second disk controller is also used and that disks within each RAID 1 set are connected to separate controllers. Using other RAID levels, such as RAID 5, is not recommended for local disk storage the write cache is lost.

Secure Your Shared Storage

Shared storage depends on redundancy within the storage array itself. Fortunately, storage arrays from many storage vendors are available with full redundancy that includes disks, storage controllers, caches, network controllers, power and cooling. Redundant, synchronized write caches available in many storage arrays allow the use of performance-boosting write caching without the data corruption risks associated with single write caches. It is critical, however, that only fully-redundant storage arrays are used; lower-cost, non-redundant storage array options should be avoided.

Access to shared storage relies on either a fibre channel or Ethernet storage network. To assure uninterrupted access to shared storage, these networks must be designed to eliminate all single points of failure. This requires redundancy of network paths, network switches and network connections to each storage array. Multiple host bus adapters (HBAs) within each server can protect servers from HBA or path failures. Multipath IO software, required for supporting redundant HBAs, is available in many standard operating systems (including MPIO for Windows) and is also provided by many storage vendors; examples include EMC PowerPath, HP Secure Path and Hitachi Dynamic Link Manager. But these competing solutions are not universally supported by all storage network and storage array vendors, often making it difficult to choose the correct multipath software for a particular environment. This problem becomes worse if the storage environment includes network elements and storage arrays from more than a single vendor. Multipath IO software can be difficult to configure and may not be compatible with all storage network or array elements.

Say Goodbye to Networking Failures

The network infrastructure itself must be fault-tolerant, consisting of redundant network paths, switches, routers and other network elements. Server connections can also be duplicated to eliminate failovers caused by the failure of a single server component. Take care to ensure that the physical network hardware does not share common components. For example, dual-ported network cards share common hardware logic and a single card failure can disable both ports. Full redundancy requires either two separate adapters or the combination of a built-in network port along with a separate network adapter.

Software to control failover and load sharing across multiple adapters falls into the category or NIC teaming and includes many different options. Options include fault tolerance (active/passive operation with failover), load balancing (multiple transmit with single receive) and link aggregation (simultaneous transmit and receive across multiple adapters). Load balancing and link aggregation also include failover.

Choosing among these configuration options can be difficult and must be considered along with the overall network capabilities and design goals. For example, link aggregation requires support in the network switches and includes several different protocol options including Gigabit EtherChannel and IEEE 802.3ad. Link aggregation also requires that all connections be made to the same switch, opening a vulnerability to a switch failure.

Minimize Software Failures

Software failures can occur at the operating system level or at the Exchange application level. In virtualization environments, the hypervisor itself or virtual machines can fail. In addition to hard failures, performance problems or functional problems can seriously impact Exchange users, even while all of the software components continue to operate. Beyond proper software installation and configuration along with the timely installation of hot fixes, the best way to improve software reliability is the use of effective monitoring tools. Fortunately, there is a wide choice of monitoring and management tools for Exchange available from Microsoft as well as from third parties.

Reduce Operator Errors

Operator errors are a major cause of downtime. Proven, well-documented procedures and properly skilled and trained IT staff will greatly reduce the chance for operator errors. But some availability solutions can actually increase the chance of operator errors by requiring specialized staff skills and training, by introducing the need for complex failover script development and maintenance, or by requiring the precise coordination of configuration changes across multiple servers.

Secure Yourself from Site-Wide Outages

Site failures can range from an air conditioning failure or leaking roof that affect a single building, a power failure that affects a limited local area, or a major hurricane that affects a large geographic area. Site disruptions can last anywhere from a few hours to days or even weeks. While site failures are less common than hardware or software failures, they can be far more disruptive.

A disaster recovery solution based on data replication is a common to protect Exchange from a site failure while minimizing downtime associated with recovery. A data replication solution that moves data changes in real time and optimizes wide area network bandwidth will result in a low risk of data loss in the event of a site failure. Solutions based on virtualization can reduce hardware requirements at the backup site and simplify ongoing configuration management and testing.

For sites located close enough to each other to support a high-speed, low-latency network connection, solutions offering better availability with no data loss are another option.

Failover Reliability

Investments in redundant hardware and availability software are wasted if the failover process is unreliable. It is obviously important to select a robust availability solution that handles failovers reliably and to ensure that your IT staff is properly skilled and trained. Solutions need to be properly installed, configured, maintained and tested.

Some solution features that contribute to failover reliability include the following:

-Simple to install, configure and maintain, placing a smaller burden on IT staff time and specialized knowledge while reducing the chance of errors
-Avoidance of scripting or failover policy choices that can introduce failover errors
-Detection of actual hardware and software errors rather than timeout-based error detection
-Guaranteed resource reservation versus best-effort algorithms that risk resource over commitment

Protect Against Data Loss and Corruption

There are problems of data loss and corruption that require solutions beyond hardware redundancy and failover. Errors in application logic or mistakes by users or IT staff can result in accidentally deleted files or records, incorrect data changes and other data loss or integrity problems. Certain types of hardware or software failures can lead to data corruption. Site problems or natural disasters can result in loss of access to data or the complete loss of data. Beyond the need to protect current data, both business and regulatory requirements add the need to archive and retrieve historical data, often spanning several years and multiple types of data. Full protection against data loss and corruption requires a comprehensive backup and recovery strategy along with a disaster recovery plan.

In the past, backup and recovery strategies have been based on writing data to tape media that can be stored off-site. However, this approach has several drawbacks:

-Backup operations require storage and processing resources that can interfere with production operation and may require some applications to be stopped during the backup window
-Backup intervals typically range from a few hours to a full day, with the risk of losing several hours of data updates that occur between backups
-Using tape backup for disaster recovery results in recovery times measured in days, an unacceptable level of downtime for many organizations

Data replication is a better solution for both data protection and disaster recovery. Data replication solutions capture data changes from the primary production system and send them, in real time, to a backup system at a remote disaster site, at the local site, or both. There is still the chance that a system failure can occur before data changes have been replicated, but the exposure is in seconds or minutes rather than hours or days. Data replication can be combined with error detection and failover tools to help get a disaster recovery site up and running in minutes or hours, rather than days. Local data copies can be used to reduce tape backup requirements and to separate archival tape backup from production system operation to eliminate resource contention and remove backup window restrictions.

Consider Issues That Cause Planned Downtime

Hardware and software reconfiguration, hardware upgrades, software hot fixes and service packs, and new software releases can all require planned downtime. Planned downtime can be scheduled for nights and weekends, when system activity is lower, but there are still issues to consider. IT staff morale can suffer if off-hour activity is too frequent. Companies may need to pay overtime costs for this work. And application downtime, even on nights and weekends, can still be a problem for many companies that use their systems on a 24/7 basis.

Using redundant servers in an availability solution can allow reconfiguration and upgrades to be applied to one server while Exchange continues to run on a different server. After the reconfiguration or upgrade is completed, Exchange can be moved to the upgraded server with minimal downtime. Most of the work can be done during normal hours. Solutions based on virtualization, which can move applications from one server to another with no downtime, can reduce planned downtime even further. Be aware that changes to application data structures and formats can preclude this type of upgrade.

Added Benefits of Virtualization

The latest server virtualization technologies, while not required for protecting Exchange, do offer some unique benefits that can make Exchange protection both easier and more effective.

Virtualization makes it very easy to set up evaluation, test and development environments without the need for additional, dedicated hardware. Many companies cannot afford the additional hardware required for testing Exchange in a traditional, physical environment but effective testing is one of the keys to avoiding problems when making configuration changes, installing hot fixes, or moving to a new update release.

Virtualization allows resources to be adjusted dynamically to accommodate growth or peak loads. The alternative is to buy enough extra capacity upfront to handle expected growth, but this can result in expensive excess capacity. On the other hand, if the configuration was sized only for the short-term load requirements, growth can lead to poor performance and ultimately to the disruption associated with upgrading or replacing production hardware.

Over the years, there have been very few changes in how we measure Windows performance. Windows Server 2008’s implementation of the Windows Reliability And Performance Monitor introduces new features to the venerable Perfmon tool.
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No matter what the screen’s title bar has labeled through the years, Perfmon is one of the most important tools a Windows administrator can have at their disposal. Windows Server 2008 brings new features to the table, while still providing the same counter functionality you are accustomed to using for troubleshooting and administering Windows servers. Here is a list of some of the key new functionality of the Windows Reliability And Performance Monitor (I’m still going to call it Perfmon) in Windows Server 2008.
Data Collector Set: This is a template of sorts of collector elements that you can frequently reuse. This makes it easy to compare the same collectors over different timeframes.
Reports: Perfmon now offers reports that provide graphic representations of a collector set’s captured information. This gives you a quick snapshot so you can compare system performance as recorded in the timeframe and with the selected counters. In this report, you can perform some basic manipulations to change display, highlight certain elements of the report, and export the image to a file. Figure A shows a Perfmon report.

Reliability Monitor: Perfmon now provides the System Stability Index (SSI) for a monitored system. This is another visual tool that you can use to identify when issues occur in a timeline fashion. It can be beneficial to see when a series of issues occurred, and if they went away or increased in frequency.
Wizard-based configuration: Counters can now be made up using a wizard interface. This can be beneficial when managers or other non-technical people may need access to development or proof-of-concept systems for basic performance information. Further, the security model per object can allow delegated permissions to make this easier to manage.
To get to Perfmon, you can still just run it from a prompt. The standard user access control (UAC) irritation applies to this console, but otherwise, getting there is easy.

Oh yeah. You’re going to work for yourself, be your own boss. Come and go when you want. No more kowtowing to The Man, right?

Running your own computer consulting business is rewarding, but it’s also full of numerous and competing challenges. Before you make the jump into entrepreneurship, take a moment to benefit from a few hundred hours of research I’ve invested and the real-world lessons I’ve learned in launching my own computer consulting franchise.

There are plenty of launch-your-own-business books out there. I know. I read several of them. Most are great resources. Many provide critical lessons in best managing liquid assets, understanding opportunity costs, and leveraging existing business relationships. But when it comes down to the dirty details, here are 10 things you really, really need to know (in street language) before quitting your day job.

#1: You need to incorporateYou don’t want to lose your house if a client’s data is lost. If you try hanging out a shingle as an independent lone ranger, your personal assets could be at risk. (Note that I’m not dispensing legal nor accounting advice. Consult your attorney for legal matters and a qualified accountant regarding tax issues.)

Ultimately, life is easier when your business operates as a business and not as a side project you maintain when you feel like it. Clients appreciate the assurance of working with a dedicated business. I can’t tell you how many clients I’ve obtained whose last IT guy “did it on the side” and has now taken a corporate job and doesn’t have time to help the client whose business has come to a standstill because of computer problems. Clients want to know you’re serious about providing service and that they’re not entering a new relationship in which they’re just going to get burned again in a few months time.

#2: You need to register for a federal tax ID numberNext, you need to register for a federal tax ID number. Hardly anyone (vendors, banks, and even some clients) will talk to you if you don’t.

Wait a second. Didn’t you just complete a mountain of paperwork to form your business (either as a corporation or LLC)? Yes, you did. But attorneys and online services charge incredible rates to obtain a federal tax ID for you.

Here’s a secret: It’s easy. Just go to the IRS Web site, complete and submit form SS-4 online, and voila. You’ll be the proud new owner of a federal tax ID.

#3: You need to register for a state sales tax exemptionYou need a state sales tax exemption, too (most likely). If you’re in a state that collects sales tax, you’re responsible for ensuring sales tax gets paid on any item you sell a client. In such states, whether you buy a PC for a customer or purchase antivirus licenses, taxes need to be paid.

Check your state’s Web site. Look for information on the state’s department of revenue. You’ll probably have to complete a form, possibly even have it notarized, and return it to the state’s revenue cabinet. Within a few weeks, you’ll receive an account number. You’ll use that account number when you purchase products from vendors. You can opt NOT to pay sales tax when you purchase the item, instead choosing to pay the sales tax when you sell the item to the client.

Why do it this way? Because many (most) consultants charge clients far more for a purchase than the consultant paid. Some call it markup; accountants prefer to view it as profit. But you certainly don’t want to have to try to determine what taxes still need to be paid if some tax was paid earlier. Thus, charge tax at the point of sale to the customer, not when you purchase the item.

#4: You need to register with local authoritiesLocal government wants its money, too. Depending on where your business is located and services customers, you’ll likely need to register for a business license. As with the state sales tax exemption, contact your local government’s revenue cabinet or revenue commission for more information on registering your business. Expect to pay a fee for the privilege.

#5: QuickBooks is your friendOnce your paperwork’s complete, it’s time for more paperwork. In fact, you’d better learn to love paperwork, as a business owner. There’s lots of it, whether it’s preparing quarterly tax filings, generating monthly invoicing, writing collection letters, or simply returning monthly sales reports to state and local revenue cabinets.

QuickBooks can simplify the process. From helping keep your service rates consistent (you’ll likely want one level for benchwork, another for residential or home office service, and yet a third for commercial accounts) to professionally invoicing customers, QuickBooks can manage much of your finances.

I recommend purchasing the latest Pro version, along with the corresponding Missing Manual book for the version you’ve bought. Plan on spending a couple of weekends, BEFORE you’ve launched your business, doing nothing but studying the financial software. Better yet, obtain assistance from an accountant or certified QuickBooks professional to set up your initial Chart of Accounts. A little extra time taken on the front end to ensure the software’s configured properly for your business will save you tons of time on the backend. I promise.

#6: Backend systems will make or break youSpeaking of backend, backend systems are a pain in the you-know-what. And by backend, I mean all your back office chores, from marketing services to billing to vendor management and fulfillment. Add call management to the list, too.

Just as when you’re stuck in traffic driving between service calls, you don’t make any money when you’re up to your elbows in paper or processing tasks. It’s frustrating. Clients want you to order a new server box, two desktops, and a new laptop. They don’t want to pay a markup, either. But they’re happy to pay you for your time to install the new equipment.

Sound good? It’s not.

Consider the facts. You have to form a relationship with the vendor. It will need your bank account information, maybe proof of insurance (expect to carry one million dollars of general liability), your state sales tax exemption ID, your federal employer ID, a list of references, and a host of other information that takes a day to collect. Granted, you have to do that only once (with each vendor, and you’ll need about 10), but then you still have to wade through their catalogs, select the models you need, and configure them with the appropriate tape arrays, software packages, etc. That takes an hour alone. And again, you’re typically not getting paid for this research. Even if you mark hardware sales up 15 percent, don’t plan on any Hawaiian vacation as a result.

Add in similar trials and tribulations with your marketing efforts, billing systems, vendor maintenance, channel resellers, management issues, etc., and you can see why many consultants keep a full-time office manager on staff. It’s no great revelation of my business strategy to say that’s why I went with a franchise group. I have a world of backend support ready and waiting when I need it. I can’t imagine negotiating favorable or competitive pricing with computer manufacturers, antivirus vendors, or Microsoft if I operated on my own.

Before you open your doors, make sure that you know how you’ll tackle these wide-ranging back office chores. You’ll be challenged with completing them on an almost daily basis.

#7: Vendor relationships will determine your successThis is one of those business facets I didn’t fully appreciate until I was operating on my own. Everyone wants you to sell their stuff, right? How hard can it be for the two of you to hook up?

Well, it’s hard, as it turns out, to obtain products configured exactly as your client needs quickly and at a competitive price if you don’t have strong vendor relationships. That means you’ll need to spend time at trade shows and on the telephone developing business relationships with everyone from software manufacturers and hardware distributors to local computer store owners who keep life-saving SATA disks and patch 5 cables in stock when you can’t wait five days for them to show up via UPS.

Different vendors have their own processes, so be prepared to learn myriad ways of signing up and jumping through hoops. Some have online registrations; others prefer faxes and notarized affidavits. Either way, they all take time to launch, so plan on beginning vendor discussions, and establishing your channel relationships, months in advance of opening your consultancy.

#8: You must know what you do (and explain it in 10 seconds or less)All the start-your-own-business books emphasize writing your 50-page business plan. Yes, I did that. And do you know how many times I’ve referred to it since I opened my business? Right; not once.

The written business plan is essential. Don’t get me wrong. It’s important because it gets you thinking about all those topics (target markets, capitalization, sales and marketing, cash flow requirements, etc.) you must master to be successful.

But here’s what you really need to include in your business plan: a succinct and articulate explanation of what your business does, how the services you provide help other businesses succeed, and how you’re different. Oh, and you need to be able to explain all that in 10 seconds or less.

Really. I’m not kidding.

Business Network International (plan on joining the chapter in your area) is on to something when it allots members just 30 seconds or so to explain what they do and the nature of their competitive advantage. Many times I’ve been approached in elevators, at stoplights (with the windows down), and just entering my car in a parking lot by prospective customers. Sometimes they have a quick question, other times they need IT help right now. Here’s the best part; they don’t always know it.

The ability to quickly communicate the value of the services you provide is paramount to success. Ensure that you can rattle off a sincere description of what you do and how you do it in 10 seconds and without having to think about it. It must be a natural reaction you develop to specific stimuli. You’ll cash more checks if you do.

#9: It’s all about the brandingWhy have I been approached by customers at stoplights, in parking lots, and in elevators? I believe in branding. And unlike many pop business books that broach the subject of branding but don’t leave you with any specifics, here’s what I mean by that.

People know what I do. Give me 10 seconds and I can fill in any knowledge gaps quickly. My “brand” does much of the ice breaking for me. I travel virtually nowhere without it. My company’s logo and telephone number are on shirts. Long sleeve, short sleeve, polos, and dress shirts; they all feature my logo. Both my cars are emblazoned with logos, telephone numbers, and simple marketing messages (which I keep consistent with my Yellow Pages and other advertising).

I have baseball hats for casual trips to Home Depot. My attaché features my company logo. My wife wears shirts displaying the company logo when grocery shopping. After I visit clients, even their PC bears a shiny silver sticker with my logo and telephone number.

Does it work? You better believe it. Hang out a shingle and a few people will call. Plaster a consistent but tasteful logo and simple message on your cars, clothing, ads, Web site, etc., and the calls begin stacking up.

Do you have to live, eat, and breathe the brand? No. But it helps. And let’s face it. After polishing off a burrito and a beer, I don’t mind someone asking if they can give me their laptop to repair when I approach my car in a parking lot. Just in case they have questions, I keep brochures, business cards and notepads (again, all featuring my logo and telephone number) in my glove box. You’d be surprised how quickly I go through them. I am.

#10: A niche is essentialThe business plan books touch on this, but they rarely focus on technology consultants directly. You need to know your market niche. I’m talking about your target market here.

Will you service only small businesses? If so, you better familiarize yourself with the software they use. Or are you targeting physicians? In that case, you better know all things HIPAA, Intergy, and Medisoft (among others).

Know up front that you’re not going to be able to master everything. I choose to manage most Windows server, desktop, and network issues. When I encounter issues with specific medical software, dental systems, or client relationship software platforms, I call in an expert trained on those platforms. We work alongside to iron out the issue together.

Over time, that strategy provides me with greater penetration into more markets than if I concentrated solely on mastering medical systems, for example. Plus, clients respect you when you tell them you’re outside your area of expertise. It builds trust, believe it or not.

Whatever you choose to focus on, ensure that you know your niche. Do all you can to research your target market thoroughly and understand the challenges such clients battle daily. Otherwise, you’ll go crazy trying to develop expertise with Medisoft databases at the same time Intel’s rolling out new dual-core chips and Microsoft’s releasing a drastically new version of Office.  (閱讀全文)

Let’s face it, we all deal with the fault on a PC or network as a matter of routine, but how often do we consider that we also need to fix the customer? It may be that their confidence in the equipment/service/company has been strained and maybe even broken, and it may be that some work may be needed to restore the customer’s faith in your work.

Is it enough to mend a fault and leave? It may be that the customer has concerns that a few words and a minute or two of listening might make the difference between leaving a happy customer and leaving somebody considering a move to another support service. A few nods and an “I see” or two and some other empathetic noises can make all the difference. One of my worst failings is to listen to the customer, right up to the point where I think I know what the problem is, then I switch off as I start the fix. There may be more to the problem than I’ve heard from the user, and I have often had to backtrack and hear the rest of the story.

In my keenness to get on and fix the fault, I often forget about the customer and get too involved in the technicalities. I recall an incident when the customer had been reporting some minor fault or other on an almost daily basis. After a couple of “no fault found” callouts, I began to wonder if the problem was with the equipment or with the user, so I decided to get them to show me the fault instead of just describing it. It very soon became obvious that the problem lay with a lack of training, and I was able to sort out the problems quite quickly.

I seem to spend a lot of my time banging on about people skills or soft skills, as they are often referred to. Sometimes you can win with soft skills where you fail on the technical fix. Sometimes we have to give bad news, or maybe we can’t fix the fault straightaway; we may have to wait for parts or get a problem fixed on a remote service. It is the way we communicate this kind of information to the customer that determines whether we leave them happy or anxious that we haven’t appreciated the seriousness of the situation.

How do we give bad news without annoying the customer? First, we have to understand that no matter how well you communicate a problem, you can’t always leave the customer happy. It is foolish to think otherwise and could lead to your suffering a lot of stress in the process. Give the news straight and tell the customer what you are going to do about it. If that isn’t good enough, ask what they would like you to do. If you have an idea that might provide a workaround to the problem, run it past them. You will nearly always be able to come to an agreement that will mollify both parties, but it is important to remember that, provided that you have done all you can, you can leave with a clear conscience. Above all else, don’t take the problem home with you. (閱讀全文)