With 2012 an increasingly distant memory, have you considered how your IT systems fared last year? Are you implementing any big changes in 2013? If you are an upper-level IT executive, statistics show that this year, you are probably redirecting responsibility from internal staffers to third-party resources. Whether you are an IT exec or a business owner, if you don’t have such a plan, let me provide some insight into this trend and explain why this strategy makes sense.

According to a survey of CIOs (chief information officers) and other top IT execs by the Society for Information Management (SIM), internal staff consumed 33% of firms’ IT budgets in 2012, down from 38% in 2011 and 43% in 2010. In 2012, outsourcing accounted for 17% of those budgets. In 2013, survey participants expect outsourcing to jump to 23% of the IT budget.

This outlook reflects a reality that’s increasingly becoming an imperative for many companies. The cost of adding IT professionals to the payroll outweighs the expense of outsourcing IT responsibilities to third-party managed service providers. This is true, not only for management tasks such as IT systems maintenance and monitoring (more about that in a later article), but for project-based staffing, as well.

For small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), it’s too expensive to have a full complement of tech staffers that can effectively cover every aspect of a firm’s IT systems and infrastructure. And, with IT evolving at lightning speed, it’s impossible for even the most talented IT pros to stay abreast of every breaking development. As a result, when SMBs embark on highly specialized projects, either the minimal in-house staff must ramp up quickly (with unpredictable results), or outside help must be brought in.

With on-demand IT staffing, firms can procure highly targeted expertise in small increments, ensuring all their projects are executed by someone who is competent in that particular IT discipline. These specialists provide the technical foundation to ensure project success and prevent budgets from scaling out of control. As a bonus, third-party, on-demand IT assistance is a ready resource that doesn’t ask for insurance and never calls in sick during crunch times.

Well-rounded IT service firms such as DynaSis offer this type of on-demand staffing, whether a company needs network engineers to design an expansion or a high-level planning expert to assist with a strategic infrastructure roadmap. Top IT execs are increasingly awarding a large percentage of their projects to outsourced experts. To learn how you can join them, give me a call.

by Dave Moorman

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is one of the most efficient IT cost-control mechanisms ever invented. As a bonus, it also eliminates the cost and hassle of equipment maintenance and reduces downtime dramatically.

So, how can infrastructure (hardware) be a service, and how does it provide these great benefits? IaaS, companies pay an IT provider a flat monthly fee for providing, installing and maintaining their IT infrastructure, such as servers, storage appliances and backup devices. There are no hidden fees or unpleasant surprises—the provider takes care of everything.

And, since the provider (and not the customer) owns the equipment, it has a vested interest in making sure everything stays in top-notch condition. When equipment nears the end of its life, the provider replaces it. Most also offer upgrade plans that enable customers to move to faster, more powerful equipment on a scheduled timeframe.

This solution is truly a win-win for the customer, and it amazes me that more firms aren’t taking advantage of it. Its benefits speak for themselves:

• Gain access to an immediate hardware upgrade without new capital outlay.
• Avoid the expense and hassle of selecting and purchasing IT hardware in the future.
• Transition hardware costs from a CapEx to an OpEx, eliminating the need for depreciation schedules and allowing full expensing each year. (This benefit may become especially valuable if the expanded Section 179 deduction is not renewed this year.)
• Work with an IT expert whose best interest is served by maintaining the hardware and ensuring it doesn’t fail.
• Implement business plans with confidence, knowing that appropriate hardware replacement cycles are built into the program.

The one caveat about IaaS is that you must be confident your new IT partner adheres to the highest standards of service to avoid an excessively long and painful transition to the new system as well as workflow disruption during routine maintenance.

If you would like to learn more about how these programs work and can be customized to your needs, give me a call. I’d be happy to help you navigate your way to embarking on a truly revolutionary approach to IT.

Two years ago, automotive, commercial and industrial lubricant supplier Halco Industries found a perfect IT support solution with DynaSis and Digital Veins, DynaSis’s proactive, 24/7/365 monitoring,  maintenance and support solution. This year, when Halco increased its office and conference space during a remodeling project, the firm called in DynaSis for help expanding its wireless network. The result has been increased productivity and satisfaction for on-site employees, outside salesmen and vendors, all at minimal cost.

A Growing Concern
In the two years since DynaSis came on board, Halco had grown its operation to 48 employees, and its reliance on the Internet had grown along with it. When the company’s lease expired, rather than moving to a larger building, Halco negotiated with the landlord to remodel the warehouse and use part of it for new offices and a second conference room. However, the firm’s current wireless network didn’t reach to those locations, so a reconfiguration was in order.

According to Halco Accounting Manager JoAnn Carney, the timing couldn’t have been better. “The existing wireless network already wasn’t getting it for us,” says Carney. “We have a lot of people on wireless, and we were always experiencing dropped signals.”

Carney called in a DynaSis IT Services team to explore the situation, and they recommended adding two SonicPoint wired access points, connecting to the SonicWall firewall device that DynaSis had installed earlier. The new access points would create a new network with greater range that would service both Halco employees and guests, with the two streams of traffic segregated to protect Halco’s servers.

The new network not only expanded coverage into the new offices and conference space; it also resolved the firm’s wireless overload problem. “They put one access point around a corner and another in the conference room. Since they put those in, we haven’t been dropping anything,” says Carney. “Everybody who works here could now get on the network at once, including the outside salesmen with their iPads, and we wouldn’t have any problems. That doesn’t happen often, but when it does, we would have a mass uproar if people could not connect.”

Untethered and Free to Work
During the same project, DynaSis installed a wireless projector—the Dell 4320—to make it easier for visiting salesmen and vendors to stream presentations from their mobile computers. Suspended from the ceiling, the projector supports both Wi-Fi and cabled connections. It also has a high lumen output, so it resolves an excess ambient light problem in the new conference room.

“We have 10 outside salesmen with iPads or laptops, and they don’t have a proper office,” says Carney. “A few of them come in every day for a couple of hours, getting mail; printing things. They use the conference room as their office, and also to make presentations. Plus, we have vendors who want to make presentations.

“With the new wireless projector and network, it’s easier for our salesmen and vendors to give presentations. Last week, the sales manager had a two-day hurrah, and there were eight people in and out of the office for two days straight, giving presentations. Everything worked perfectly.”

Equally importantly, Carney notes, is the support for mobile devices they have gained with the new wireless network. “We all have smartphones. I am around this building, all over the place, and I love that I now have freedom to move throughout the building. My office is at the end of the hall, and in the old days, the wireless would drop frequently because of the location.

“Now, I get email anywhere I go. I could use the phone’s 3G wireless, but this is so much faster. As soon as I cross the threshold in the morning, I hear a beep-beep reminding me to log in and retrieve my email over the wireless network.”

Problem Solved
Carney says they’ve only had one problem with the new network—right after the installation—and DynaSis came out to fix it promptly. “The wireless didn’t seem to be any better, but when we’d talk to them, it would be working,” she says. “I told them, ‘trust me, something is wrong with it. You just have to come out.’ They came right away, they spent many hours here figuring out what was wrong and they fixed it.”

Carney says those are two of the things she loves about working with DynaSis—they trust her when she says something is wrong, and they work on problems until they’re resolved. “Our last company was notorious – they would close a ticket and say we were fine when we weren’t,” says Carney.

“DynaSis is very good,” Carney concludes. “We don’t have an IT person here, and I don’t speak the language. They have to talk to me like I am a 3-year old.” She also praises DynaSis’s user-driven support system. “Every employee can contact DynaSis from their workstation and open their own ticket. People aren’t calling me and telling me they have a problem. They just open a ticket and the DynaSis support folks take care of it.”

When disposable medical supplies provider Remington Medical began searching for a new technology provider, management knew it wanted to be on the cutting edge of emerging technologies. With three locations—one outside the U.S. in the Dominican Republic—robust remote networking and data exchange was a core requirement.

"I wanted somebody who could handle those areas and had technical competency," says Remington Medical CFO Steve Garner." DynaSis, which already hosted Remington's email server and had previously provided other services to the firm—was ready with the perfect solution.

Early Adopter
Since DynaSis already had a relationship with Remington Medical, it was a natural fit for DynaSis's VP of Managed IT Services Chas Arnold to make a presentation, and Garner had full confidence in DynaSis abilities. "I always thought they were technically competent," Garner says.

In addition to needing a new IT provider, rapidly growing Remington Medical also needed to upgrade its technology infrastructure. Initially, Arnold recommending Remington Medical move to DynaSis's cloud computing solution, ITility by DynaSis. However, Garner had previously researched cloud computing and says he "hadn't reached the comfort level of having my operating data stored offsite."

At the time, DynaSis was rolling out Ascend, a new Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering. For a low, fixed, monthly fee, DynaSis installs, monitors and maintains a custom-engineered, end-to-end, on-premise hardware and software solution. The fee includes remote monitoring and maintenance of the entire infrastructure from DynaSis's network operations center, and users can access the 24 x 7 helpdesk, 365 days a year through a trouble-reporting icon on each workstation.

Ascend was a perfect match for Remington Medical, as it enabled the firm to avoid the substantial capital outlay of new equipment. As part of the solution, DynaSis also provides secure Web-based access to the company's applications and data for remote users in offices outside the Georgia headquarters. With Ascend, Garner knows the company will remain on the cutting edge, as DynaSis handles all necessary software and hardware upgrades as part of the contract.

"Ascend appealed to me because it includes things I like, such as its ability to backup my whole system rather than rely on tape system," says Garner. "It was a mental step for me, rather than having to lose control of my hardware completely."

In the Clouds
With the transition to the new system complete, Garner is thinking ahead. Despite not being ready for cloud computing just yet, Garner says Ascend is the perfect transitional step that will enable his firm to harness the power of the cloud, down the road. “Moving to a cloud-based solution is a more real and practical possibility today than in the past,” says Garner. "ITility by DynaSis is probably where we’ll head. If I were a brand new company, ITility by DynaSis would make a lot of sense. There are a lot of advantages, and we’ll probably get there eventually."

For now, he's content with Ascend and DynaSis, which completely eliminates the need for him to have even a single in-house IT staffer. "Chas was smart enough to keep our relationship going," says Garner. It took five years, but it paid off for him."

A DynaSis Case Study
When Goldleaf Data outgrew the capabilities of its managed IT services provider, it knew it needed a change. However, management wanted more than a vendor prepared to support a larger staff. Goldleaf sought a firm that would provide rapid, on-site response when support issues could not be resolved over the phone; one with dedicated personnel who understood that downtime was unacceptable.

“We now have more employees—more PCs to support,” says Chavarous Kennebrew, Data Analyst I with Goldleaf Data. “Our other vendor was not able to meet some of the time restrictions we have. We are a data reseller, so we cannot be down.”

Goldleaf Data had worked with DynaSis previously, under an earlier management team. When the company was ready to make a switch, they chose DynaSis again. “We were happy with them before, and the services they offered were competitive based on what we saw with other firms in the area. We went back to DynaSis.”

Full-Service; Genuine Commitment
With Digital Veins, Goldleaf receives a comprehensive menu of support services, beginning with 24/7/365 critical systems monitoring, automated software updates and network patch management to automated backups, network policy enforcement and managed security. Goldleaf also enjoys helpdesk, onsite support and after-hours service (remote or onsite) for infrastructure components covered under the plan.

According to Kennebrew, DynaSis’s support platform is one of the great benefits they have realized through Digital Veins. “The process for support—whether it is a call or placing a ticket online, is easy to use,” says Kennebrew. “I prefer to pick up the phone and call someone—and there has always been someone to help me when I call. That is definitely important.”

In describing the commitment and tenacity of DynaSis’s staff, Kennebrew cites a specific incident, noting, “We were up and down with rolling blackouts prior to DynaSis. One of their support technicians—Jim—was here to do Job A, but he stayed here through Job B to Job M until we reached resolution,” says Kennebrew. “DynaSis has a very knowledgeable; very dedicated staff.”

Kennebrew reports that Goldleaf Data is planning to upgrade some of its network hardware to reduce network bottlenecks, and DynaSis will also be assisting with that project. “Their services are great, and they have been very well received,” Kennebrew continues. “If I were looking to refer someone to an IT support company, DynaSis is the first company I would suggest.”

When MendenFreiman LLP decided to change technology service providers, the company had a specific set of requirements. Their prior firm had failed to provide the necessary level of round-the-clock service and support—an issue that could cost the firm dearly in terms of lost productivity and client goodwill. When MendenFreiman Director of Operations Allan D. Freiman met with DynaSis in 2007, he knew he had found a provider that could meet the firm's high expectations. Five years later, the partnership continues to grow and thrive.

"If we are down for an hour—we don’t have access to our data —it literally costs us thousands of dollars an hour in lost productivity," says Freiman. "When we took a tour of DynaSis's facilities and met some of the staff, we saw an opportunity to maintain significantly more uptime with DynaSis than with other vendors."

Keeping the Legal Eagles Flying

Unlike firms that maintain a strict workday schedule, says Freiman, MendenFreiman's business frequently requires its staff to work nights and on weekends. To maximize attorney productivity and reduce the stress of working long hours, the company considers it paramount for staff to have remote access to the firm's databases.

"Our office hours may stop at 5:30, but we may have people working into the night," says Freiman. "We manage all relevant documents and emails so our staff can go to one place and retrieve everything we’ve done for a particular client. If we don’t have access to that data, then we’re not going to be able to meet deadlines and our clients are going to look elsewhere."

To support MendenFreiman's on-site servers, DynaSis initially implemented its 24/7/365 remote monitoring and support solution. This service also included a secure, remote-access portal through which authorized staff could access firm files from any Internet-connected location.

Since that time, DynaSis has been maintaining the company's servers in the background, applying fixes and performing other tasks that ensure maximum uptime for MendenFreiman. If a problem arises, DynaSis's Help Desk Support team stands at the ready. "DynaSis monitors our servers 24 hours a day," says Freiman. "I am very happy with the service. I like that I can get online and open up a support ticket and get status update notifications continuously."

Moving to the Cloud

After five years with Novteach remotely managing MendenFreiman's on-site servers, Freiman reports the company is moving to adopt DynaSis's fully cloud-based solution, ITility by DynaSis, and a test environment is already in the works. "This past summer, we had some server issues and our disaster recovery solution, because of our volume of data,  had a 24-hour window to up time. That prompted us to look at totally fail-safe solutions," says Freiman.

"With ITility by DynaSis, the DynaSis data center will provide a disaster recovery system that is better than what we could afford on our own," he says. "The goal is to do away with our servers and rely on DynaSis to manage our IT needs even more than we do now."

A  Solid Foundation

Freiman says his firm is comfortable making the shift to a cloud-based environment because of the excellent support and service DynaSis has provided from the outset. "DynaSis has been very accommodating to our users, even when they are working at night or on weekends," says Freiman. "They are always very customer driven and have continued to show exceptional customer service even under extreme circumstances."

In summation, Freiman notes, "We pay DynaSis a monthly fee for their service, and we look at that as an insurance premium. DynaSis has given us the confidence to make client commitments and know that we can keep them. The more we keep those commitments, the stronger our client relationships will be, and the more business they will bring us through referrals. The ability to be up and running is worth every penny."

Have you ever been so frustrated at a piece of office equipment that tossing it out of a window seems like a reasonable option? The machines that give us unprecedented productivity can also bring grownups to their knees. Let’s face it, we've all banged a keyboard, shook a monitor, or kicked the desktop tower during these times of frustration.

What else is there to do?

You can always lease the machinery instead. Sick of spending unnecessary amounts of time and effort, thousands of businesses gave up maintaining their office printer/Fax/copier over a decade ago. Today, Xeroxes are only a small part of a much larger system. Instead of outsourcing that one piece, your entire IT infrastructure can be leased or bought via subscription, saving you time and money while giving you access to unprecedented opportunities.

ITility by DynaSis by DynaSis - The Future Of IT

While businesses gave up banging their heads on the copy machine, they continued the struggle with their computer infrastructure. Every day, thousands of SMB’s around the United States struggle to maintain their aging, depreciating computers and servers. Instead of focusing on their core competency, improving customer relationships, and expanding business, they are forced to expend resources just to keep their current systems operational. These businesses are in essence running their own utility power plants instead of tapping into the existing computing grid.

Do you worry about how you receive your electricity?

IT can be like any other utility. Other people more qualified  can build, maintain, and scale your IT system. You never have to worry about it. Simply flick a switch and you have what you need, when you need it. Like your Xerox, IT infrastructure can be leased or acquired via subscription instead of bought. You never have to worry about how IT works, hiring IT personnel, or making sure your system can properly scale. Through DynaSis, IT systems can be scaled up and down on a monthly basis, per-user.

The days of building your own utility power plant are over. Stop kicking your desktop, there are professionals at DynaSis who can troubleshoot it for you 24/7/365. While we build you a system that provides access to more power than ever before, you can focus time and energy on the things that make your business great. All you need to do is flip the switch and we’ll be there with desktops, servers, and software in tow.

According to Wikipedia, green IT is alive and strong:

The goals of green computing are similar to green chemistry; reduce the use of hazardous materials, maximize energy efficiency during the product's lifetime, and promote the recyclable or biodegradability of defunct products and factory waste. Research continues into key areas such as making the use of computers as energy-efficient as possible, and designing algorithms and systems for efficiency-related computer technologies.

And Google has launched a major green initiative with $350 million on the line:

Whether we’re deciding how best to invest $350 million in renewable energy or wondering how technology can help Amazonian tribes protect their land, questions are at the heart of our green efforts. Our search for answers often leads to changes in operations, sparks innovative research or reveals opportunities for collaboration. Our learning process is ongoing, but the questions we ask — and the answers we discover — bring us closer to true sustainability.

Spending money for the sake of being green, like installing $15k solar panels that will take 100 years to generate a return, is at least impractical and at worst more wasteful than the “green” label might imply. A truly green solution saves you money because it is more efficient, and therefor, less wasteful than alternatives. You may want to reduce CO2 emissions to save the environment, or you can think that being green is just a marketing label, but would like to save money. Either way, you can save money and gain power by taking advantage of virtualization technologies. Virtualization is considered a green IT solution because it reduces both cost and CO2 emissions.

The problem with current IT configurations is that businesses are unnecessarily paying for an inefficient system. Most computer servers run at an average of 15% utilization. The other 85% sits idle consuming energy, producing nothing in return. Virtualization dynamically allocates resources among servers to increase utilization and efficiency. You can save CO2 and money by deploying a virtualization solution and open up new possibilities. Add in Telecommuting to your strategy and you see an increase in employee availability and productivity. Whatever green means to you, it is great to have a concern for the environment and how you might effect it. To DynaSis, green IT means increasing efficiency while using less power, providing telecommuting where applicable and leveraging technologies to do our part. So does green IT exisit? We think so!

Virtualization is a high tech sounding word, but for most businesses it translates into a great way to save money, increasing reliability and improving your bottom line. The goal of virtualization as a technology is to centralize administrative tasks and support while improving scalability and efficiency. It’s serves as a way to do more with less. You will have:

1. Less Hardware

Hardware investment is one of the most expensive components of a businesses IT infrastructure. After thousands of dollars spent, the hardware depreciates and becomes obsolete in a blink of an eye. Virtualization allows businesses to centralize their hardware so that more software can be run on fewer machines. Without the steep cost of investment, your money can be spent on other forms of IT that offer a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

2. Better management and support

Less machines means less support to keep everything running. Not only will you need less support to tend to your IT, but those who do will have far more power at their fingertips. With the servers virtualized, your support team will be able to accomplish all of their IT tasks remotely and closely monitor all of the activity. Spending less time on servers means having the ability to spend more time   users. Since virtualization does not rely on the performance of any one machine, it can be easily moved about. Therefor, upgrades, patches, and installations can occur seamlessly without the need to turn machines on and off. Scheduled down times becomes unnecessary.

3. More Flexibility

Having a virtualized infrastructure gives businesses the ability to easily evolve their technology. Scalability is inherent in virtualized environments. So downsizing and growing will not dramatically impact the cost of your IT. In fact, decreased cost and downtime will shore up resources for new technologies that provide more benefits.

4. More Security

Less support and less machinery increases your overall security. Since your IT is controlled in a defined space with a small group of people, monitoring network activity for malicious activity is easily manageable. When anomalies are detected, isolating, quarantining, and fixing the problem will ensure that it does not effect all of your IT operations.

Simple IT

Virtualization is a technology that boasts that less is more mentality. By using less hardware servers you have the ability to receive more power, flexibility, and security. All the while, you are also using less money to get you there. At DynaSis, we are a proud provider of virtualization support and services. Anything that helps to make your IT profitable is our bottom line. It’s as simple as that. Check out our Ascend Hybrid-Cloud Solution to see how we can upgrade your infrastructure leveraging virtualization.