A Guide To Choosing The Right Technology Solutions For Your Business

Hello and Welcome…Every part of a modern organisation is reliant on technology, whether it’s computers,telephones or the Internet. Finding your way in the mass of information that is available can be daunting and time consuming for business owners. After all, you have better things to do with your time!

This guide has been designed to provide a high-level view for people like you, businessowners or those in a small business who are responsible for technology so that they canmake the most appropriate choices for their business.

You’ll be guided through some of the technology issues of the moment including…

Having your servers in your office

Connecting to the Internet

Co-Location – putting your servers in a Data Centre

Hosted Services – buying the software you need when you need it

Telephony and VOIP – how the telephone is changing

Disaster Recovery – getting going again after a problem

Each topic is covered in detail including…

What is it and when would you use it?

What are the Business Drivers that could make this technology worth considering?

What are the issues to be considered if you do use this particular technology?

Please enjoy and use this guide so that you will be able to make more informed decisions to ensure that the technology you use in your business works with your business.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss how you can use technology to help your business please call 0845 166 2983.

Regards

Ian WatkinsAuthor and Managing Director of Oxbridge Technology

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There is no doubt that as business owners we are under increasing pressure to make the best of the resources we have. As with any decision you take with your business it must be driven by the plan you have for your business.

How do you see your business growing over the next few years?

What new areas of business do you see opening up for you in the next few years?

Do you see the way your business operates changing over the next little while – for instance will Government legislation mean you have to provide more flexible working arrangements, will you have to be more innovative to retain or recruit the best staff?

All these questions should be considered carefully when looking at the technology solutions you have for your business or consider obtaining for your business. Will they support your business plans? Do your technology suppliers even ask you about your business plans or do they simply want to sell you the Next Best Thing without considering whether it providesyou with any real value?

As you consider technology for your business is there anything that will enable you toinnovate in your industry that your competitors don’t yet do? Will the correct use oftechnology enable you to improve your customer service whilst reducing your costs? Will it enable you to offer services to your clients that your competitors don’t?

One over-riding consideration you should have as you consider technology for your business is not to buy technology for technology’s sake but to buy the technology that brings real measurable benefit to your business. If a simple usable, flexible system will do what you need, then why buy anything more complex unless it will allow you to reallydrive your business forward, reduce your costs and help you make your people moreproductive and your company more profitable?

I will now go through the various IT and telephony options available to you as a smallbusiness owner that you might want to consider as you make choices about your businesstechnology. Ask your technology providers about these options and see whether they areable to help you innovate and drive your business forward. If they can’t, you might need to find someone who can help you effectively in the crucial area of applying technology to your business.

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Choosing the right Technology Solutions for your business

What is it?

Traditionally this is the solution that every business opts for once they get past a certain size.

Their IT supplier likes it as it is a nice project to install a shiny new server and an ongoingrevenue stream for maintaining it. The business owner feels nice and secure because he orshe can see that machine sitting in the corner and that all their data is “safe” within their four walls.

Business drivers

For the smaller business this is often the first step once storing files on individualworkstations becomes cumbersome or it may be driven by the need for shared centralisedemail or when a particular Line of Business application (such as accounts or stock control)needs to be shared by a number of people within the company. For larger companies it mightbe necessary to have more than one server to handle various tasks within the company.

Issues to be considered

When considering a server for your business there are some issues that should be considered:

A significant up-front cost to the business.

An on-going cost to the business for maintenance and repair.

The need to ensure that your precious business data is backed up and held securely offsite.

In the case of a disaster (fire or theft) the cost and disruption of replacing the machine can be significant.

Now some of these issues can be addressed by more progressive thinking on the part of your IT Provider:

You can buy the machine on a lease or loan which helps you spread the cost. Moreinnovative IT Providers will also offer you the option to rent your IT equipment fullymaintained at a low fixed monthly cost. This means that you not only know how much using the machine will cost you over the three year agreement you know how much thesupport will cost you for the three years too!

If you own your IT equipment you should enter an agreement with your IT Provider tomaintain your IT equipment for a fixed monthly cost. This should include preventativemaintenance, patch management and monitoring. Your aim with this should be to improve

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Having your servers in your office

the reliability of your IT systems so that your staff are more productive. If your IT Providerwants to charge you a fixed amount a month “and we’ll fix it when it breaks free of charge”then look for another IT Provider! They should be helping you gain value from yourinvestment in IT by making your IT systems more reliable at a fixed monthly cost, notoffering a reactive “insurance” scheme which brings no on-going value into your business.

If you have on-site systems then you must have a reliable and tested backup in place. Your IT Provider should be carrying out these tests during their regular maintenance of your systems. The key to remember here is that a backup is only any good if you can restorefrom it. If you don’t test that, then you don’t really have a backup. It is a sobering statistic,but 80% of businesses that suffer some form of catastrophe (such as fire or theft) neverrecover and are out of business within three years. Some simple procedures can make sure that you aren’t part of that statistic if disaster does strike.

You may also want to consider off-site backup of your most sensitive data. This is whereyour data is backed up over the Internet to a secure site. If you need to recover your datathen you simply restore from that remote site. This option doesn’t suit every business, butyour IT Provider should be able to advise you as to whether it is right for you. Do take carewhen choosing an off-site backup provider. If you hold sensitive personal data you shouldthink carefully before letting your backups be hosted outside of the European Union becauseof Data Protection legislation.

There are other systems that build on this principle and that will take an image of yourserver(s) and or critical workstations, store those locally and then copy them off-site. The big advantage of these services is that you can recover your machines quickly and easily to a different machine. Your IT Provider will be able to advise whether these servicesare the best option for you.

Summary

On-site systems are the way many businesses go when they need a server. It has advantages that the system is on-site and can be seen and touched but can have disadvantages when it comes to recovering from a disaster and needs a significant amount of on-going support.

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What is it?

The services that a business gets from being connected to the Internet such as email and the ability to trade on-line (either buying or selling) means that virtually every business is now connected to the Internet.

Only a few years ago many businesses had one computer with a modem attached and that was the “email and Internet” machine that anybody who needed to could use. With theadvent of broadband services to most of the country nearly all businesses have installed an always-on broadband Internet connection.

The advantages are many. It is a fixed monthly cost and as many people as need to can access web sites and other services.

Business drivers

Email and the need for access to supplier’s web sites and on-line ordering systems and so on have become mainstream applications and uses for the Internet in the last few years.The cost is relatively low and can be secured by a centralised firewall system.

Staff that need email can get email delivered directly to their desktops and this bringsproductivity gains because they can easily attach documents, quotes from your pricingsystems to emails and send them quickly and effectively to your customers anywhere in the world.

Issues to be considered

There are disadvantages too. Staff can waste time on the Internet. The recent furore aboutFaceBook and it’s suitability for use in the workplace demonstrates that and there is growingconcern about deliberate as well as accidental data leakage via email. Clearly having yournetwork connected permanently to a public network where anything can happen means that you need to take some sensible precautions to ensure that your network is secure. This is something that your IT Provider should be doing as a matter of course.

If your company needs more bandwidth than can be provided by a standard broadbandconnection you have a few options. The first thing to determine is whether your bandwidth is being used for non-business use. Is anybody running anything on their PC that is constantlydownloading files from the Internet or using some other type of on-line application that iseating your valuable bandwidth? Is your bandwidth being used by spam being downloadedto your email server before it is dealt with? You should look at these issues and ensure that the Internet Connection you are paying for is being used effectively! Your IT Provider will be able to advise you and demonstrate what bandwidth is being used for what.

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Connecting to the Internet

If you determine that you do need more bandwidth then there are a few options available to you:

You should consider bonding ADSL broadband connections together. This means that you get twice the upload and download speed of a single connection and it is possible to bond up to 6 ADSL lines together. If you do need this sort of bandwidth then you will need abroadband provider who knows what they are doing when it comes to configuring andsetting up such services. Again your IT or telephony supplier should be able to help you.

If however you need more reliable Internet connectivity than you can get from standardADSL broadband there are other options available. Some Exchanges have a service known as SDSL available on them (check at www.samknows.com to see whether your exchange has the facility) and this is a more reliable service that provides the same connection speed in both directions. If you don’t have SDSL available then you should consider a leased line.In the past these were prohibitively expensive for small businesses, but prices are droppingand you do get a very reliable permanent connection. Your telephony provider should beable to give you more details on these options.

The future

Telecommunications are changing at a startling rate and you may well have heard of BT’s new 21st Century Network that they are bringing on-line between 2008 and 2012. This network will enable a whole new range of services including much higher broadbandnetwork speeds with a higher degree of reliability. You can check out progress and moredetails about BT’s 21st Century Network and Broadband services in general atwww.samknows.com

This will mean that you will see new services and higher speeds available on your Internet connection. These changes will have an effect on any decisions you might makeabout telephone systems and that is discussed further in the section on Telephony.

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What is it?

As Internet connectivity becomes faster and more reliable then you may wish to considerlooking at hosted services to provide some, if not all, of your IT requirements.

These services can range from off-site anti-virus and spam scanning of email through to having your Line of Business application hosted on a remote server.

Business drivers

Hosted services are particularly valuable to companies where they aren’t yet big enough to need a server of their own, where the workforce is very widely dispersed around the country (or the world) or where the cost of installing their chosen solution on their own systems isprohibitively expensive.

Issues to be considered

The main issues to consider when looking at hosted solutions for your business are:

Internet connection reliability. If your connection goes down how are you going to continueto carry on your business? If all your critical business data is “out there somewhere” whatwill you do if your broadband goes down because someone has dug the cable up? There aresolutions available to provide redundancy on your Internet connection and your IT Providershould be able to help with finding the best one for you.

“British Contractors is a two lady operation that places Oil & Gas Engineers into clients

in the Middle East and the ex-Soviet Republics. One of the partners lives in London, the other

in Portsmouth. The partner in Portsmouth travels frequently to the Middle East on business.

While using their ISP’s POP3 email service they were constantly having problems with email,

both with reliability of delivery and knowing who had got what and knowing what had been

sent to whom. We implemented a hosted Exchange solution which gave them the ability to

share each others Inbox and Calendars and to keep all their email in one place. When one of

the partners travelled abroad instead of using her ISP’s mail service she used Outlook Web

Access, which meant she was able to leave her laptop behind and access her email from her

hotel’s Business Centre. This enabled her to keep up with her email and also she knew that

when she replied that reply would go into her Sent Items folder enabling her to keep a full

track of all her email correspondence.”

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Hosted Services – buying the software you need when you need it

If your hosting provider decides to upgrade to latest version of software then you have no control over when that happens. This may mean that you will need to retrain your staff to use a new interface but more importantly if the hosted software connects to any other systems you run you will need to check whether it will still work or not.

You need to ensure that you have backups of your data from the hosted service

If the hosted provider goes out of business then your data goes with them. If you are using a widely available solution (such as a hosted Microsoft program) then you should be able to move your data to that new provider. If however it is a closed system only available from one provider you will have a more challenging time setting up with another provider. This is of course no different than if you buy a software package to install on your own server and the software vendor then goes out of business.

It has also been known for a hosting provider’s server to fail and for the backup to be corrupt. This has meant that their clients have lost all their data on that server. Having a backup of your own data will protect you from this eventuality.

If you need a strong audit trail of who has done what on your server then hosted solutions may not be ideal. By their very nature hosted solutions have someone from the hostingcompany accessing your server for maintenance purposes. This cannot be avoided but it does mean you have less control over who is accessing your data.

Summary

For the right business need a hosting solution provides a cost effective way of accessingmany business applications for a fixed monthly cost and with minimal setup costs. Like any solution used correctly with the right precautions taken to protect your business assets it should be considered as an option for your technology needs.

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What is it?

Co-Location is the halfway house between having the server on your own premises andusing a hosted solution. You have your own server installed in a Data Centre and you accessyour systems over the Internet.

This means that you have complete control over what happens on the machine as if it was in your office. That of course also means that you are responsible for it’s maintenance, forbackup and for recovery should anything go wrong. It does mean however that you knowwho is accessing your server as your IT Service provider is responsible for all maintenanceand updates on the machine.

Business drivers

You may be asking what the advantages are over having the server in your own office.

You might choose a co-located solution if you have a need for your own staff who aren’tbased at your office, outside contractors or customers to access information held on thatsystem with a need for high availability or bandwidth. The cost of providing that highavailability or high bandwidth to your office may be prohibitive. A data centre already has the infrastructure in place to provide what you need.

You may choose to co-locate a system to prevent business interruption in a disaster scenariosuch as a fire or theft. Although a fire could happen at a data centre it is much less likely thanat your office and the Data Centre will have highly effective fire suppression systems in placeto contain a fire.

You might be in a small office or in a shared office and simply finding room for a server could be a challenge! If your workforce is normally not in the office then they may find it quicker to connect to a co-located server than to one in your office at the end of a slowbroadband connection. If you are in a shared office it may not be possible for your staff toaccess the systems within your office because of the limitations of the shared office network.

Because you completely control that system any regulatory or audit issues are completely under your control.

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Co-Location – putting your servers in a Data Centre

Issues to be considered

Internet connection reliability. This is very much the same issue as for hosted services. If your connection goes down how are you going to continue to carry on your business? If all your critical business data is in a data centre 50 miles away what will you do if yourbroadband goes down because the line develops a fault? There are solutions available and your IT Provider should be able to help with finding the best one for you.

There is a cost associated with having your server in a Data Centre. Your IT Service Provider should be able to give you accurate costs for co-location at a reputable Data Centre in your area.

Summary

Again for the right business need co-located systems give you the flexibility and reliability of hosted solutions with the high bandwidth that comes from using a well-connected DataCentre. You have the advantage of having exclusive access to the machine and all the datastored on it so it is more secure than a Hosted Solution.

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What is it?

Over the last few years one of the most significant changes to take place for small businessesin the technology arena is the rapid moving together of IT and telephony. The word used to describe this is “convergence” and it is one of the buzz words used to confuse businessowners along with “Voice over IP”. I hope by time you have read this I will have helpedyou understand what this could mean for your business.

Up until recently data traffic (stuff moved between computers) was carried over a differentset of cables to voice traffic. In the last couple of years most telephone equipment providershave changed their systems so that voice traffic is sent in the same way as traffic is sentbetween two computers. This is known as “Internet Protocol” or IP for short, hence the name Voice over IP (VoIP). This name is also used to describe services such as Skype who use the Internet for cheap phone calls. However here we will use VoIP to describe the waythat business telephones communicate with the PBX in your office and then explore whatextra services that will give you in the future.

Because your phones now use the same “IP” language to talk with the telephone system as your computers do to talk to each other, true IP telephony solutions bring about a majorchange in the way your computers and telephones work together.

Issues to be considered

If you are looking at a new telephone system ask the vendor to demonstrate how theirsolution helps by bringing the information you have on your computer systems and theirtelephones together. You should expect to see the ability to dial from within applications orto dial by simply highlighting the telephone number and pressing a key on the keyboard aswell as the ability to screen-pop information about incoming callers should you require that.

You should be able to use the telephone system to interrogate your business systems to help with handling calls better without any expensive add-ons or extra licences. If they can’t demonstrate this sort of functionality then be suspicious that all they are offering is the same old telephone systems as they always have but have just “dressed up” the way the telephone handset communicates with the PBX so that they can say they have an “IP”Telephone system!

With the extra services that BTs 21st Century network will make available using VoIP toreplace your telephone lines will become feasible. At present I would suggest that youshould continue to use ISDN for your voice trunks out of your office but that you shouldcertainly consider VoIP for inter-office communications and if you want to use geographic

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Telephony and VoIP – how the telephone is changing

numbers to give your clients or potential clients a local number to call. For instance we arebased in Peterborough, but if we wanted clients in Huntingdon to call us on a local numberwe would get an 01480 number and have that routed to our office over an IP Trunk. Again if you are buying a new telephone system make sure it will support IP Trunks out of the boxwithout any extra equipment being needed

You may want to consider using a hosted IP Telephony solution. This has the advantage that you do not have an upfront cost associated with purchasing a telephone system and it works well for companies that have a geographically spread workforce. Effectively your PBX is hosted on a server somewhere and you get all the functions that you would expect from a high-end PBX system. Again the same caveat applies as with any hosted orremote system. If you lose your Internet connection, you lose your phones. We would onlysuggest this solution if you have a high availability leased line in place. In our opinion thecurrent broadband connections are not reliable enough nor do they give adequate quality to be used for your main telephone system.

Summary

I would say that we will see the greatest change in the way voice calls are handled in the next few years. As with any technology investment, don’t hold off buying something becausethere will always be something newer or better or smarter or faster just around the corner.Just be aware of the main changes that are coming and ensure that the solution that you buy takes account of those changes that can already be seen.

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It isn’t a nice thing to think about. The idea that something catastrophic might happen toyour business premises is something we would all rather ignore and hope it doesn’t happento us but it is a known fact that something like 80% of businesses that suffer a catastrophe of some kind are out of business within 3 years.

Any good implementation of technology for any business must consider the effects of adisaster on how the business will keep running and it should be one of the questions thatyou ask all your technology suppliers. It is important that all the technology you use in yourbusiness is designed with Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity in mind. It doesn'thave to be expensive and it certainly won't be as expensive as going out of business!

These are probably the key questions you should be discussing with your technologysuppliers:

If something happens to my premises or my equipment how do we recover from it?

If something happens to one of our essential members of staff, what do we do?

If something happens to your premises how are you going to continue to give me service? (in other words, if your suppliers have a disaster, how will they cope?)

You should ask these questions of all the systems you have and build a plan as to how you will react to each problem if it occurs. Your IT Service provider should be able to help youwith building a Disaster Recovery plan so that you know and your staff also know what to do in case of a problem.

Ian Watkins has been working in IT for 25 years with experience in a wide range of clientsfrom one-man (or woman!) bands through to multi-national corporations. His over-ridingpassion is to help his clients get the most from the money they spend on technology and to enable them to drive real business value from their investment.

Oxbridge Technology has been helping businesses of all sizes get the most from theirtechnology for the last 10 years and has helped numerous clients to improve the reliabilityand usability of their IT systems.

Ian can be contacted on 0845 166 2983 or by email at ian.watkins@oxbridgetechnology.co.uk

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Disaster Recovery – getting going again after a problem

About Ian Watkins and Oxbridge Technology Ltd