New client engagements are an exciting venture as they pose new challenges that our team is always ready to take on. Over the many years we have been serving the business community there continues to be a common theme among companies that view IT as nothing more than a necessary toolset for accomplishing various business tasks, a lack of technology records and maintenance. Here are a few of the first items we look at when assessing the use of IT within any business: documentation, data/server room, and age of computers.

Documentation
Do you have access to a basic network diagram of your infrastructure?
Do you a diagram of all the equipment and their role in the server room/data closet?
Who maintains administrative passwords and are there multiple sources with this information?

When performing an initial assessment this basic information about the network is necessary, but if it is not readily available it can take up to 2 – 3 hours to get familiar with the network before any solid change recommendations can be made. Making a change to the network, or applications, without proper documentation is taking quite a risk. This is a really simple piece of the IT puzzle and if you don’t have proper documentation then STRESS to your IT partner, or administrator, to provide it for you to have on file. Once you have it, it should be reviewed and updated at least once a quarter.

Data Closet/Server Room Conditions
How does your data closet/server room appear?
Is equipment properly labeled? Is the room clear of clutter?
How well is the room ventilated?

This room should be a show piece for businesses. In most cases the investments companies are making should make this room something to be proud of. It is the “engine” of your business and should be taken care of as such. Data storage systems, servers and network appliances are always running and they create heat that needs to be displaced to protect the functionality and life of the network. Show your infrastructure off to your clients. While they may not understand what is “under the hood” they will respect your business for how you protect your investments.

Age of Desktops/Laptops
What is your system refresh policy?
Is it based on age, job function, or machine life?

We see this all over the map at our new clients but the majority of businesses refresh desktops/laptops within 3 -4 years for most users. The thing to keep in mind is that while the system may seem to run fine they do degrade in performance over the years. Basic PC users are running applications/web browsing several hours a day 5 days a week. We suggest: have your management team poll your end users from time-to-time on how long it takes to accomplish their basic tasks. Most users simply get used to things taking more “time” than is needed because their system’s performance has just slowly degrades over time. Also, older systems tend to take more maintenance, which over time a 3 – 4 year old machine will start to become a cost center as support is needed to maintain that machine and keep it running as optimally as possible.

While these are just a few items we review and discuss with new and current clients, we are dedicated to helping you protect your IT investment, provide timely and efficient support, and making recommendations that provide timely ROI. In a lot of cases businesses are only as good as the investments they use to get the job done. Make sure you are assessing and ensuring that your “investments” are allowing your business to operate at an optimal level. Contact us for an assessment today.

For small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), the impacts of a disaster can result in loss of or lack of access to data, applications, and work facilities. Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005 impacted countless businesses, from retail stores and hotels to major corporations. Those with disaster recovery plans in place fared much better than those without such contingency plans.

More SMBs Beginning to Plan for Disasters
While the business impacts of disasters—such as the loss of data and communications infrastructure, leaving a business unable to function—are widely understood, SMB have been slower to develop disaster recovery plans as compared to larger organizations. But that appears to be changing. According to the Yankee Group’s 2006 U.S. Small and Medium Business IT Survey, after security the other major concerns of SMBs are now backup and restore and then application and data availability. Globally, spending on data protection and recovery management among all businesses will surge from $58 million in 2006 to more than $200 million by 2011, according to research from IDC.

Yankee Group analyst Gary Chen found that among SMBs, “Most are on the edge, where a couple of bad events could shut down business. They need regular backup, either traditional scheduled file-based or continuous. And they need to have it off-site and tested, to ensure they can bring up critical applications and data if headquarters is wiped out.”

People, processes, training, and planning are also part of effective disaster preparedness. Here are five key steps to consider when implementing a program for your company:

1. Understand what data and systems are critical to business continuity
Many governments have mandated the remote replication and storage of financial, medical, and certain other kinds of data. Businesses have realized that their data and applications are their life blood. Make sure you know where all of your company’s critical data and applications are located and that they can be integrated into a remote backup solution.

2. Identify and fix single points of failure in your network, business processes, and people
In network design, redundancy eliminates single points of failure. Make sure that network elements — including switches, routers, and other components — are redundant and enabled with software failover features. Review business processes and job responsibilities to ensure that there are similar “failover,” should a process or employee become adversely affected in a disaster.

3. Create a workforce continuity plan
If employees can’t get to their offices for days, weeks, or longer, it is important to understand what kinds of remote access solutions they need to continue being productive, based on their individual job requirements. For example:

• Back office workers need access to applications and data and can probably use e-mail or instant messaging to communicate.
• Other categories of employees whose jobs require a lot of collaboration may need high-availability voice-over-IP (VoIP) services along with access to corporate data and applications. The benefit of IP and Ethernet in a disaster is that they are so pervasive compared to other technologies that devices are truly plug and play.

Executives and employees who must interact with customers, partners, or the press may need remote communications solutions with guaranteed quality of service (QoS), a VoIP phone with guaranteed toll-quality service, and collaborative software applications like Cisco MeetingPlace, which allows audio- and videoconferencing.

4. Create a disaster recovery plan
A formal plan should be initiated and endorsed by senior management and should involve all levels of personnel in your company. An inclusive process of gathering information and drafting the plan will create the necessary sense of everyone’s ownership in and responsibility for disaster recovery. Every company’s plan is unique, but common elements include:

• Risk and threat analysis
• Leadership and succession plan
• Emergency response plan
• Internal and external communications requirements
• Human resources responsibilities
• Facilities management
• Availability of information and communications technology
• Cooperation with first responders, public officials, vendors, partners, and customers

5. Train your staff on disaster response
Training and practicing facilities evacuation and other emergency responsibilities for certain types of disasters relevant to your business could have dramatic consequences related to personnel safety, business continuity, data confidentiality, and asset security in the event of a real disaster.

Anyone who has tried to manage a geographically dispersed work team knows how challenging it can be to keep the lines of communications open and efforts well-coordinated. Time zone differences delay communications, different communications styles cause misunderstandings, and activities are difficult to schedule. To complicate matters, it’s not easy to make sure that everyone has the latest progress updates, project information and changes to customer requirements.

Too many companies are still relying on phone calls, emails and expensive on-site meetings to manage their team collaboration and keep projects on schedule. That’s unfortunate when current technology can help build a connected work team and make long-distance collaboration so much simpler.

Here are five tips for using online collaboration tools to build connected work teams:

#1 Maintain one version of the truth
Many of the challenges in project management stem from individual team members not having the latest version of documents such as work orders, project status reports, or technical documentation. When team members don’t have the latest information, it’s easy for them to spend time doing project-related activities that are no longer called for or that have already been done.

Tools like Microsoft SharePoint can allow you to maintain the latest versions of important project documentation, manage who can make changes to documents, and track those changes. There’s never a question of who has the latest version when SharePoint is used effectively. Having documents stored centrally on SharePoint also helps make documents easily accessible to every member of the team.

#2 Schedule effectively
All project management teams need to hold meetings in order to be effective. The larger the team, the more difficult it can be to find a time that works for everyone. Companies using email to manage schedules will often send a round of emails asking everyone to send back the time that works best for them. It’s the meeting manager’s responsibility to sort through these emails and pick a time. This is a highly inefficient process, and by the time everyone had responded to the request, it’s likely that many schedules have changed. The scheduling process begins again, or the meeting proceeds with critical team members absent.

You can avoid the inefficiencies and irritations of scheduling meetings by making sure your team members understand how to share their Outlook Calendar. This will help the meeting manager schedule meetings at a time when those who absolutely must attend are available.

#3 Hold effective online meetings
Meetings can be made even more effective by using tools like Microsoft Live Meeting that allow the team to share documents and presentations related to the status of the project. Running presentations online helps engage team members in the discussion and ensure that every team member is focused on the matter at hand and not skipping ahead.

#4 Increase accessibility
When a team member needs to contact another about a project detail, emails and phone calls are the traditional route. But emails are too easy to ignore or overlook, and a phone call often results in a lengthy game of phone tag. Newer technologies such as text messaging can be used, but if the other party doesn’t respond, you’re left to wonder if the text was ever received.

Microsoft Office Communications Online can help team members contact each other quickly and avoid lengthy emails, phone tag, and untimely interruptions. With Office Communications Online, you can see which team members are online and available. A simple question such as “got a minute?” can bring team members together at a moment’s notice and avert work-stopping interruptions.

#5 Ensure 360° project management
Tools like Microsoft Project Management can help manage the progress of even the most complex projects. For simpler projects and every day team work, easy to use tools like Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online can make sure everyone has visibility into project status and customer requirements.

Email is still the communications backbone for many companies, nothing beats a face-to-face meeting for building team bonds, and a phone call is often the quickest route to getting an answer. However, project teams have far more tools available in their toolbox today to build well-connected teams and to help keep projects on schedule.