We support a very wide range of customers including many who employ internal IT staff to manage their internal systems. With a broad range of engagements and differing levels of personal experience and training across internal IT staff we see a very wide range of methods being employed to use "Cloud" technology for various functions. Unfortunately we see many methods being used that make no sense at all.

The appeal of cloud technology is to reduce costs, increase mobility and flexibility, and reduce dependency on your own facilities. These benefits can be realized in the right situations and with the right deployment approach, but definitely not if you;

• Deploy a hosted file sharing system, such as DropBox, SkyDrive or Google Drive, to staff who work in the same office with an existing server system - the end result will be angry end users suffering poor performance not only when accessing files but also the Internet, as the connection will be saturated with synchronizing files between their computers and the Internet.
• Choose to host every function and facility you require externally with the most popular provider of each service - the end result will be that your low cost cloud based system will cost far more than it needs to, and far more than the system you already had.
• Fail to consider the connectivity available to your end users at all of the locations they will need to work from. All forms of remote access require good connectivity to work well, but the deployment of cloud services that end users perceive as being more generally accessible than systems you may host at your office often results in end users seeking to work remotely from new locations and at different times.
• Choose hosted services without confirming that the full functionality required by the end users is included - the end result will be very unhappy end users and, in most cases, a reversion to the more familiar applications that the end users were already happy with.

Cloud services require the same level of thought and consideration as any other IT service, and while it is easy to get it wrong it is also not difficult to get it right. We recommend that before changes are made careful thought is applied to the original requirement that are being met, and some external and objective advise is sought to confirm that the changes being considered will actually deliver the benefits being sought.

Email is a critical part of day to day business. Given this, it suprises us how many people ignore the risks associated with email protection against spam and viruses.

You have all seen the Viagra emails in your inbox before and are aware that these are spam emails but in today's world spam emails have come a long way, cleverly disguising themselves as genuine bank emails, courier deliveries and other services that you use on a daily basis. Some of these emails will ask you to open attachments, where others have links for you to reset passwords or obtain further information that can look quite genuine. Others may be trying to warn you of a virus that will destroy your computer, when indeed that it's actually a hoax itself!

We at RODIN have seen just about all of these over the years and you would be surprised how many competent computer users are still caught out by these emails, let alone users who are not quite that tech savvy!

It is a common mistake to assume that you are OK because you have anti-virus protection. Most of these types of emails have no viruses within them, so your virus scanner will allow the emails through untouched as they are a simple message asking you to click on a button. It's when you follow these instructions that the issues occur, because even though you have virus protection, by clicking on these links you can actually allow the virus or malware to disable the protection you have, leaving the computer exposed!

It's not uncommon for us to be cleaning up infected workstations. In some cases the quickest and best way to resolve the infection is to format the hard drive and start over again. This can cost large amounts of money, plus downtime to the operator and the business.

We generally find the best option is to implement a spam filter to protect your environment from these emails ever reaching your computer to begin with. You would be surprised how many of these unwanted emails reach your domain everyday and how nice it can be to work with a clean inbox!

SPAM filters can come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from software you install on your pc or server, to cloud based solutions that filter your email before it ever reaches your network, saving you bandwidth costs and server resources. They all offer different features and some can actually protect you against unforeseen risks, such as backing up your email during an outage or even re-sending emails in the event of a disaster.

If you are having issues with SPAM in your current email environment, or currently have a SPAM filter in place but would like a review to see what new options are available to you, please get in touch. You may be surprised at how little cost you can protect your network and get peace and mind against all kinds of email threats!

Have you been in the situation where your Internet connection has gone down, you have deadlines to meet and your business has effectively come to a halt? Depending on your business an internet connection may be optional, however for more and more businesses these days an Internet connection may be the single most important tool for your business to operate. Many people do not realize this until your connection fails and you can no longer complete a transaction for a sale, lookup stock and prices or even log in to your computer. Depending on the length of the outage and the number of staff you have on board, the cost of wages and appearance to clients can start to take a toll and cost your business thousands of dollars.

With Internet connections getting cheaper and cheaper and more demand being put on the ageing copper Telstra network, it makes sense to purchase a secondary internet connection (through a different ISP than your main connection) that can either be used in parallel to your current connection or to sit idle and only be used in the event of a failure. Firewalls can be configured to automatically switch to these connections in the event of an outage or can be configured to split your Internet usage up and send certain types of traffic (email or remote access for example) via one link, while web site traffic is sent via another link. Combine this split of traffic with the automatic failover scenario and you have a powerful configuration for day to day operations and a backup plan in place for the event of an outage.

Mobile technologies such as 3G and 4G are becoming more available, high speed and reliable through a number of providers and can be used as a valid backup connection that is not dependent on traditional phone line connections and can be the only option in a large outage that may spread across multiple providers. These types of outages are rare, however do occur with Australia's large dependency on Telstra's network behind the scenes.

If your business is currently depends on the Internet for day to day operations and you have a single Internet link, it may be time to review this and look at your options. The one day ayear you need to use that backup Internet connection may end up saving you more than you realise!

Many companies are not aware of this one simple question and are happy knowing they have 'a backup'. The truth is, backup is one of the most important questions surrounding your I.T systems! 

There are many options when it comes to backup systems and how they are implemented. Some examples are traditional data backups, image backups and new cloud based backups that store your data over the internet. Although some options do give you a full backup of your data, the time to restore from this backup is often not considered.

For example, if the backup system you choose to implement protects only your data to tape or external drive, and you had a number of these that you rotate and store in a filing cabinet, you may consider yourself to have a working backup.

But what happens if a server completely fails and you have an office full of staff that can't operate without your company files or CRM package? From this point you may need to repair or replace the server, reload the operating system and applications,  reconfigure as required and then copy data from your backup to bring your system back online. This can take days to complete and be costly in terms of labour, not to mention the cost to the business of stalled operations.

The same can be said for many cloud based backup services. It may be a cost effective solution at te time, but if a major failure occurred and this was your only means of backup, how long can you operate until all of your data is downloaded from the cloud based service over your Internet link? This can be days, if not weeks, depending on your data set and internet connection speed.

This is where image backups can pull you out of trouble. An image backup is best described as a snapshot of your server and data at a given point in time. Think of it as taking a photo of your entire server (operating system, software, data, etc), with the ability to restore it to any piece of hardware (including a new server) if needed. Add to this convenience the ability to schedule incremental images taken at multiple points throughout the day (hourly for example), and you have a very powerful backup system.

Have you ever spent hours working on an important proposal or report and when going to print the final copy at 4:30 in the afternoon, the file is no longer there? With an image back up, this is no problem;  just look inside any of the images that were taken throughout the day and find the file in its last saved state! If you were running  traditional backup systems that only run at night, you would have lost the file forever.

Our Technicians cannot stress enough the importance of a strong, safe back up system. We have seen many scenarios where an image back up system would have prevented major down time to businesses. Another very important aspect of the backup system is the storage and security of your backup devices. Many people don't realise that if a disaster occurs and the backups are kept in the office, then their backup system may be useless. If a fire or flood was to wipe through your building and there was no backup stored off-site, the entire system could be lost.

The same rules can be applied from a security perspective. If the backup devices are stored in the office and were to be stolen, whether it be by an employee or an intruder, you could have all company files, databases and emails available to the wrong people. Obviously, policies should be in place to avoid this in the first place, however backups should always be password protected.

The planning and cost involved in ensuring you have a rock solid backup system in place is well and truly worth it; especially when you consider the costs and damage to the business if your network was down for an extended period of time.

Speak with RODIN for any questions or advice on a suitable backup system for your business.