i-Tech Support provides end-to-end business solutions, specializing in the areas of Cisco Unified Communications (IP Telephony), Cisco Network Security and Wireless, Managed Network Services, Business Phone Systems, Citrix Thin Client Computing and LAN/WAN Design and Deployment.
i-Tech Support - Once again Cisco Premier Partner!!!
Well we have done it again! Because of our outstanding staff of technical, account management and marketing professionals, i-Tech Support, inc has been recognized for the SIXTH straight year as a PREMIER Partner!
This is no easy task and is a blending of many certified and specialized individuals, processes and procedures built around design, procurement, implementation and quality assurance as well as project management and the all important customer surveys. Surveys where the people we are really here to serve, our customer base, have given us nothing less than consistent fantastic reviews on the solutions and support we have provided to them!
Thanks to our clients and our team on helping us to retain this highly regarded designation!
In a slight turn from my last post about the joys of valentine's day shopping, I must alert you all to a new vulnerability that was released from Adobe regarding their reader product.
From the Agency for Enterprise Information Technology:
Overview: Within the last few hours, AEIT has been made aware of a 0-day exploit in Adobe Acrobat/Reader. This vulnerability is in the wild and currently being exploited. It allows code execution and there is no patch provided by Adobe. A workaround is currently available. All versions of Adobe Acrobat/Reader 9 and earlier are affected.
Work Around: Disabling JavaScript: Edit -> Preferences -> JavaScript and uncheck Enable Acrobat JavaScript
Systems Affected: Adobe Reader 9 and earlier version Adobe Acrobat Standard, Pro, and Pro Extended 9 and earlier versions (Read: All Versions of Adobe Acrobat/Reader 9 and earlier)
Of course, those with up-to-date virus/spyware definitions will be in much better shape than those without, but please be careful nevertheless!
If you have any further questions, comments, concerns or need any other expertise for your IT needs, you know who to call! ME! 407-215-1250 / jason@i-techsupport.com
Still struggling to find a valentine's day gift for your woman???
Its exactly 10 days from V-day! Cupid is always bugging you saying buy her a tennis bracelet, take her to an elegant candlelight dinner, or possibly pay for Hans to put his "hans" all over your mate with a swedish massage...some may say this is the ultimate chance for bonus points and bountiful love! I whole-heartedly disagree! And apparently so do our friends at Cisco...snatch up this gem and snatch up her heart! You can see me and my wife at exactly :19 seconds in...ENJOY!
On 12/17, in a uncharacteristic move, MS released a security that they deemed critcal enough to release pre-Patch Tuesday. According to sources this "vulnerability" allows remote exection of code upon visiting a web site which was built specifically to capitalize on this. The intruder could gain control of you PC and/or surreptitiously access data on your PC. PANIC!!!!!
Wait...don't panic. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms08-078.mspx , follow this link to the pot o'gold and click the appropriate link for your browser. Also, if your a frequent browser of don't fret unless you visit sketchy fly-by-night websites. If your browsing reputable sites like, Microsoft.com, Yahoo.com and such you wont be as risk to this flaw but please err on the side of caution and patch your PC today.
As we sit here in the midst of ever worsening economic news, you have to wonder what’s going to happen in our industry. We want to believe that we are all going to thrive, not just survive. We’re going to destroy our competition….well, you never know, but we have been focusing on some technologies that have driven us to start looking for new hires.
Do you know there’s something like 15,000 Cisco Unified Communications installs in Florida…and 95% of them are version 4 or older (version 7 was just released if you haven’t been keeping up).
These days, if you are in IT, you really need to focus on things that either drive down costs or boost productivity. Here’s a few “customer productivity” features that our customers are seeing with their upgrades (these are all version 6 and 7 features):
Upgraded Cisco Unified Personal Communicator – IM, presence, video, click to call, and web conferencing.
Unified Presence – Know who is available and how best to reach them. Cisco has some new plans for cross platform enterprise presence coming as an add-on in the near future. (I think this means that you’ll be able to IM people using AIM, Yahoo, or other IM clients outside of the internal organization through the Cisco UC system.)
Mobility – Single number reach plus dual mode. One number to call and one messaging system.
Visual Voice Mail – simplified message management.
Rich media conferencing – we use this all the time and it really makes a difference on an everyday basis to be able to use video to connect face-to-face. Easy to use web collaboration is a huge timesaver. I did a collaboration this afternoon on a proposal that would have taken until next week to complete if I hadn’t done it online with my Cisco rep. We worked it out in 20 minutes online.
Other cool stuff:
Expert Agent – Cisco has really leveraged presence and the Unified Call Center platform to help customers build a customer service delivery platform that leverages knowledge worker in customer interactions. You need to see a demonstration.
Unified Communications Widgets – The application integration continues to improve.
Want to know the best part about all of the above new features? You get it all for free if you’ve kept up your support contract. It’s the easiest cost justification out there! Our project teams are booked solid for the next couple of months – if you know Cisco implementation, we are hiring….
If you know of other technologies with a huge ROI, please comment!
Cost-Effective Solutions. Join Us on November 19th!
Hey Everyone!
Make sure you REGISTER NOW for i-Tech and Cisco's Upcoming Event about Cost-Effective Unified Communications Solutions.
During these tight economic times, i-Tech understands what needs to be done with your existing technology to cut your costs and increase profits. I don't want to spill the beans about our upcoming event, though. You know what?....
... I Don't Want You To Take My Word For It!
Go Ahead and See For Yourself - Join Us! - on November 19, 2008 and Experience i-Tech's Solutions that Your Business Needs.
Unbundle your phone company services to maximize your return on investment - Unified Communications Update
It happens every once in a while in our business. Have you ever had one of those “I can’t believe what I am seeing and hearing” experiences?
A few months ago I was attending a business conference and ended up sitting next to a fellow consultant and friend. While waiting for the presentation to begin, he was working out a project plan for a substantial (7 figure) Unified Communications network deployment. Looking over his shoulder, I commented about the “nice installation”. He turned to me and enthusiastically replied that his client was getting a return on his investment of less than 24 months by utilizing SIP trunks on an upgraded data network. He then proceeded to show me the business analysis that sold his client’s company on a major network system upgrade.
What is SIP?
SIP stands for Session Initiation Protocol and is the de-facto signaling standard for real time communications including Voice-over-IP (VoIP). SIP is an open standard which allows the carrier voice network to interoperate seamlessly with customer premise equipment. The logical voice channel established between them is a SIP Trunk.
The SIP protocol allows telecommunications to be efficiently converged onto a data network while maintaining toll or better voice quality. Cisco’s Unified Communications system connects natively to SIP circuits.
At this point I would like to point out that we’re not talking about using a service like Vonage over the Internet for your business telephone system. Those types of products have a “best effort” service level agreement and are usually not appropriate for business use.
Upgrade your data network for a lower cost, more reliable voice network?
Here’s the general idea for a business with multiple locations.
1. You bring in appropriate data circuits from your telco provider to connect all of your business locations (MPLS circuits are ideal). 2. Eliminate all of the local PSTN connections at the remote sites. 3. Port all of your local numbers to a SIP circuit coming into the main office.
Sound like a crazy idea? That’s what I thought when I first looked at the design. But now that we have reviewed and deployed these networks, I have become a SIP deployment evangelist. Because SIP trunks are delivered over existing IP infrastructure, businesses no longer have to purchase and maintain legacy TDM interface cards for delivered voice services. This reduces cost and points of failure. By utilizing a converged IP infrastructure, greater redundancy and uptime can be achieved at a lower cost. If the SIP trunk becomes undeliverable for some reason at the headquarters site, it can immediately and automatically failover to any of the remote sites, providing greater resiliency than is possible with a traditional PSTN configuration.
A key point in the design is to make sure that the data network is constructed using circuits with a service level agreement (SLA), like MPLS. This may appear more expensive than connecting remote offices over an Internet VPN but the additional cost is more than made up by the cost savings from eliminating all of the unneeded PSTN circuits at the remote offices.
If your business has to connect multiple offices and/or uses a substantial amount of long distance service, the return on investment for a Unified Communications System utilizing a combination of SIP trunks and data circuits will be significant.
None of the traditional network carriers in Central Florida provide the total solution above. All of the traditional telco companies have some kind of SIP deployment but as of today, they all seem to want to sell it over a dedicated circuit using the same type of rate schedule they have been using for traditional (PRI) voice offerings. And they cannot port local numbers that originate out of the local calling area. This means that if you have an office in say, Houston, that office would not have a local number to call into unless you pay for a physical connection in the Houston office.
At i-Tech, we have been using providers like Broadvox and Triad Telecom for high quality SIP trunks. We work with several regional and national carriers to provide the data networks depending on our clients remote office requirements.
The savings we have anticipated for years is finally here
Many of us have experienced “The Fear” when faced with a revolutionary idea. First, you realize that the concept is so good that you need to initiate it immediately…before everyone else does. Second, you ask yourself, “If it’s such a great idea, why isn’t everyone already doing it?” Then, you tell yourself, “maybe they are and I’m missing the boat!”
I can tell you that this stuff is not bleeding edge technology. It works. It’s simple to deploy. You get a network upgrade that delivers faster and more reliable business applications, data, voice, video at a lower cost.
We are hosting webinars on implementing SIP where we provide a lot more detail and can field specific questions.
I’ve never recommended a secure technology solution as flexible, affordable, and hassle –free one I am writing to you about today. No kidding! So I warn you up front that this post will end with some blatant product promotion… I am shameless, but hopefully there is some worthwhile stuff here that will benefit someone.
For years I have been consulting with our clients about backup and recovery systems for their business networks. It’s not the most exciting product that we provide for i-Tech clients but it’s definitely the most important. As one of our clients, you will have probably heard stuff like this from us at least a hundred times….
Only 6 % of companies suffering catastrophic data loss survive, while 43% never reopen and 51% close within two years. Source: University of Texas
Roughly 70% of all successful attacks on computer networks were carried out by employees and insiders. Source: IDC Market Research
Most of us by now realize the importance of backing up our data. At i-Tech, we have successfully helped countless businesses recover from the potential disaster of lost business data when the inevitable has happened. But I will let you in on a not-so-secret statistic about the technology we have all been using to protect our businesses:
Over half of tape backups fail in some manner, so chances are that if you need to restore from tape, you’ll be out of luck.
There are a lot of reasons for the unreliability of tape backups. Tape, in contrast to disk, is physically delicate and easily compromised by environmental factors such as heat, humidity, and magnetic interference. Moreover, tape cartridges must be replaced frequently (every 6-12 months). Even when magnetic tape backups are successful, tapes themselves are subject to loss or theft, and may be in the possession of an employee or vendor unable to reach a recovery site. And there is the story going around about the receptionist that inserted the cleaning cartridge into the tape drive instead of a tape, leaving the company with no backup whatsoever.
A Clear Difference In the last year or so all of us have been really excited to work on a new, better technology solution for our clients. iBDR is both a service and a network appliance. Its Network Attached Storage (NAS) backs up all of your servers with no user or administrative interaction. iBDR also includes our online data vaulting services, streaming your data to our secure network operations center for ultimate security for your business data.
iBDR is i-Tech tested and proven – the ideal system for Business Disaster Recovery for Small and Medium sized businesses.
iBDR gives you frequent on site backups, on-site virtual server, remote storage, disaster recovery in the event of disaster and 24x7 management of the entire process is bundled at a price that is comparable to the overall cost of buying and managing tape backup.
Benefits of iBDR
Affordable • Offers offsite storage at an affordable cost • Provides a low cost, speedy disaster recovery process.
Secure • Data is encrypted so it is not accessible to anyone, either on the iBDR appliance or at the remote storage facility without the passkey.
Hassle-free • Eliminates the cost and time of managing on-site tape backup. We monitor and manage the entire process. • Allows near real-time backups-as frequent as every 15 minutes.
Flexible • Virtual Server technology completely eliminates any recovery downtime. If any of your servers fail, our server virtualization technology embedded in the Network Attached Storage (NAS) allows customer servers and applications to be restored and rebooted in less than 30 minutes in most cases.
The iBDR-1 version (accommodates up to 5 servers and 1 TB of data) is only $249 per month - comparable in cost to deploying a new tape drive.
Here is what the engineers say about the iBDR… And this guy is an engineer, not even a salesperson!
“The iBDR is at least twice as secure, three times as fast and at least one hundred times more hassle-free than any tape backup system.”
We have a trial program set up if you are interested – call me or email me for more info.
Mahalo! Richard Vaughn VP - Customer Satisfaction Group i-Tech Support, Inc.
The iBDR is a part of the Total Technology Services program from i-Tech.
I think everyone in our business noticed this news article last week -" Keys to the City – San Francisco Cisco WAN. " It’s about the fired rogue IT employee that held the City of San Francisco’s network hostage because he was the only one with the root passwords to the wide area network. He had set up the city’s network with a protocol in their Cisco equipment that erased the configurations if anybody tried to access the equipment without the right password. In this case, if the network configuration was erased, the computer services for the entire city would have been down for a minimum of weeks, if not months while the entire rest of the IT staff reconfigured the whole network. Although there was a happy ending to the story, basically the employer (the city) was screwed!
Does this seem like an anomaly? Think again. I see this situation a lot here in Central Florida. It’s usually not as blatant nor on such a massive scale, but let me give you an example.
I met with an IT manager last month who proudly took us for a tour of his facility. His company had about 100 employees and the network was built and maintained by him and one other full-time staff member. I won’t name the specific brand names of the equipment here. The new IP telephone system was an Asterik-type system that loaded onto an appliance server and could use generic SIP endpoint phone sets from several manufacturers. He pointed out the low-cost managed Layer 2 POE switches as well as an excellent firewall that was self-configured on a generic server appliance. He was using a Linux-based email server because he read about “problems” with Microsoft Exchange 2007. The application servers were for the most part a combination of Linux and Microsoft Servers on generic hardware.
Among the IT manager’s upcoming projects was the implementation of a document management system. He indicated that he had recently been invited to a vendor-sponsored presentation for a well-known commercial document management system but was put-off by the pricing associated with the end-to-end solution and was looking for other solutions that he could build into his network.
As we toured the facility he commented that when he was hired, the company had no network to speak of. He built the entire network from scratch, using all of the best and cost-effective products he could find and deploy. In other words, the network was a conglomeration of point solutions that very few people would ever have the capacity to support or trouble shoot. Did I mention that the documentation for this network was at least a year old because the IT staff was busy servicing the day to day needs of the company and didn’t have time to formally document any changes?
One of my Account Managers had brought me in to meet this IT manager because he was apparently looking for some backup assistance and support for this network. I could tell that he was in dire, if unspoken need of a technical resource that could back him up for emergency support as well as when he wanted to take a two week vacation. When asked how many people I had on staff that could support the technology he had deployed, the bottom line was that we couldn’t touch this company’s support requirements for any amount of money. The guy had built a great network, don’t get me wrong. But the company in general, has a big problem at hand when the IT manager decides to move on or gets hit by the proverbial bus.
I see this “IT Hero” syndrome every month as I am called on to consult with businesses. He is the lone wolf that ends up being responsible for the company network. They don’t want to give up control over “their” systems. These employees pose a real risk to their company if they leave the job or are unable to work – or if they just want to strike back for some reason. Nobody else has the knowledge to work around them.
The solution at an enterprise-sized company with a big staff is to cross train the IT department – make it so no one person controls and solely understands the network. If you spread responsibility for your systems over several employees and adopt change management processes and policies, the harm any one person can inflict is limited.
Building an IT team without relying on an IT Hero requires business discipline and a substantial budget. But in the SMB world, businesses usually don’t have the luxury of a big IT staff. This is an issue that we can help with at i-Tech Support. Our Total Technology Support program provides SMB businesses with the benefit of a team of IT staff without the cost of a large in-house department. For many of our clients, we act as an extension of their in-house network services department.
You’ll know you are on the right track when you can send your lead IT employee on vacation without asking for their cell phone number and hotel in case something “comes up”.
Mahalo! Richard Vaughn VP - Customer Satisfaction Group i-Tech Support, Inc.
i-Tech’s Video With Amazulu is Live @ Cisco.com/smb
i-Tech's Video is Live @ Cisco.com/smb
Yes, that’s right i-Tech Support, Inc., is on the Cisco Systems website (www.Cisco.com/smb) in a High-Definition Video made by Cisco’s Video Team. This video showcases i-Tech’s Total Technology Services and a client of ours, Amazulu, Inc., which won a national competition, Make Mine a Million $ Business™ program to help women micro entrepreneurs build sustainable enterprises.
Make Mine a Million $ Business™ sponsor Cisco Systems, Inc., awarded up to $25,000 of Cisco Unified Communications and computer networking equipment along with consulting services from us.
An open checkbook from a company like Cisco Systems would be a technophile’s dream prize. But Claire (President of Amazulu, Inc.) and the rest of the amaZulu staff, like many people at other small businesses, are not necessarily experts in the latest communications technology. That’s why we were brought in to help accommodate the firm's growth and provide a competitive advantage.
What Did We Install For Them?
We ended up installing Cisco’s newest Unified Communications Express system, Cisco 7961 and 7941 IP multi-line desk phones and 7921 Wireless phone sets. The UC Express system included a built-in firewall for securing their Internet connection. Cisco 1242 wireless access points provide infrastructure that allows for seamless roaming through both of amaZulu’s new buildings, even the warehouses and showrooms. Employees can seamlessly roam anywhere and still have access to secure network applications. The new Cisco 7921 wireless phones allow full functionality for up to 6 phone lines so nobody is tied to a desk. Everyone can do their job from anyplace in the business.
As they moved into their new facilities, we gave them training on the new system. We also set-up our Total Technology Services over the entire system.
What Did Amazulu Think?
“The technical support we get from Jason Goldberg and his staff at i-Tech is unique in this industry. They are so quick to solve problems and time is money!” says Claire. “Once our new Internet and phone line was up, everything seemed to be plug and play with no hitches.”
At i-Tech our number one goal is to be a one-stop total technology support provider to all of our existing customers, leads, and prospects. With an onboard, high-skilled staff of Cisco, VM Ware, and Microsoft Certified staff we have the assets, partnerships, and expertise to conquer any business technology projects. There are no other partners in Central Florida that even compares to what we have to offer to the Small and Medium Businesses. Whether you are looking to enhance your current network...or if You are looking to build your network from the ground up, We Have You Covered.
Call Us Now (407-265-2000 x 236) or Email Us (info@i-techsupport.com) and schedule a Cisco Unified Communications Demonstration in our office or at yours, whichever is convenient to you. Why would you want to experience a Cisco UC Demonstration?
Well just to mention a few reasons...
1. Organizations using unified communications clients saved an average of 32 minutes daily per employee because presence technology enabled staff to reach one another on the first try.
2. Use of softphones resulted in an average savings of $1,727 per month in cell phone and long distance charges. Mobile workers also saved 40 minutes each day, enjoyed greater business communications convenience, and generated annual productivity gains of 3.5 days per year through business continuity impact.
3. Organizations using unified messaging reported that employees saved 43 minutes per day from more efficient message management while mobile workers saved 55 minutes per day.
4. Companies using integrated voice and Web conferencing reported a 30 percent reduction in conferencing expenses (by making integrated conferencing capabilities available in-house and on-network) and an average savings of $1,700 per month in travel costs.
...Call Us Now and Experience Cisco Unified Communications in a FREE Demonstration in our Office or Yours - I can be reached directly at (407)-265-2000 x 236 or via email by clicking here.
I personally look forward to hearing from you soon!
Alot of my clients have been asking me about Microsoft’s Vista operating system…”What’s the deal with Vista?” “Why don’t we install it for our business clients yet?” “How could Microsoft have screwed up so badly with the first major upgrade to their OS in years?!”
Vista does not work well on business networks at this time. My personal experience has been that business software applications, especially legacy applications that people still need to run in their business, are not playing well with Vista.This also goes for legacy hardware. Much of the installed hardware either does not have Vista drivers or requires a driver upgrade to work on Vista. That's why most IT departments are not excited about converting to Vista and just staying with XP for now.
There are some reasons that new hardware and applications are not completely certified and running on Vista. Microsoft implemented a new policy for software writers and hardware manufacturers where they would submit their stuff for a formal certification/testing process to Microsoft before releasing anything new.This is very well-intended and would solve a lot of the ongoing issues that we have made money solving for our clients over the years.The process started taking too long as Microsoft did not have the resources to keep up with the process in a timely manner.So the other companies did not wait for formal certification to release their new products. I think that the certification process is still in place, just not implemented as originally intended.
If you are a consumer, it is easy to buy a new Vista machine, load the latest and greatest Quicken, i-Tunes, video games, etc.You buy yourself a new multi-function printer/scanner/fax, hook it up to the Vista machine and you're off and running.Most businesses neither cannot, nor want to do a wholesale replacement of every piece of hardware and software on their networks.So Vista will get adopted gradually and that is why Microsoft has been forced to extend the lifespan of XP.
BTW, there is a new service pack, SP3 for XP, that came out last month. Microsoft had no intention of ever releasing another service pack for XP. Microsoft was forced by the market to incorporate some of Vista's features into XP, included in SP3.
Bottom line - Vista was not adopted immediately, as Microsoft had hoped would happen.But it will take over gradually, as equipment and software gets upgraded over time.
I hope this helps shed some light on the issue for you.
