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Feature Articles - 2008SharePoint - Don't Miss Out! (5/08)SharePoint is an extremely simple way for organizations to organize, share, and communicate information using websites. This can be limited to internal use or can be extended to clients and partners.If you are running Windows Server 2003, Small Business Server 2003 or Server 2008, you’ve got access to SharePoint Services whether you know it or not. It has to be “turned on” but there’s no more licensing to be purchased – you’ve got it!
So – what can SharePoint Services do for you? Improve Collaboration – rather than emailing or even updating documents on your file server, SharePoint provides a method of checking documents out and checking them back in that allows you multiple users to edit a document without stepping on each other’s toes. Nurture Your Office Community – between people who work remotely, branch offices, staff who spend most of their time at client sites and staggered working hours, internal company communication can be difficult. A SharePoint site provides the bulletin board of the 21st century - enabling your staff to post and view announcements, share pictures, post and participate in surveys and much more. Keep Projects on Track – once your SharePoint site is up and running, creating a new site to track a specific project (or client or event) takes a matter of minutes. You can create a list of tasks, including due dates, and provide email notifications to the responsible parties. Workflows allow you to initiate tasks automatically based on pre-defined conditions. You can setup a distribution list that is customized for each website, allowing the relevant participants the appropriate level of involvement. Facilitate Communication and Knowledge – Discussion boards and Wikis (think Wikipedia – these are just knowledge articles that are created and edited by a group) are simple to setup using SharePoint – and can be great brain-storming tools before a project or brain-dumping tools after project completion. Access Information – if you have a body of information (HR policies, sample proposals, product documentation, forms, etc.) that needs to be accessed and shared by your company, SharePoint provides a great way to do it. And – all this is done through website that just about anyone in your company can design, modify or change. It is just really easy (think the level of expertise to use Word) to create a SharePoint site that has very powerful implications for your business. If you’re interested in seeing what SharePoint can do for you, consider one of our special offers: **We’ll turn on SharePoint Services, configure your initial website and provide two hours of training – all for only $1,000. This should get you off and running! Contact Elisha Ehnes if you’re interested – 703-528-8300 x130 or Elisha.Ehnes@beinetworks.com. **Attend our upcoming seminar on SharePoint Services – Tuesday, June 24 at 8:30 am at the BEI office in Reston. Offsite Backups – Why, What, Where and How (4/08)Maybe you’ve heard someone say it, or even thought it yourself – “It’s all about the Restore.” Having a backup is great – but what does it backup (what data at what point in time)? How fast can you get it on your production network when you need it? Does having a “backup” do you any good if it takes two days to re-build a server or PC (once you get replacement hardware) before you can even restore the data?Why Backup Offsite?The traditional approach to backups has been tape, which is losing favor for a variety of reasons:
So, disk-based systems have been taking over, with generally very favorable results. Disk-based backup systems:
What Should I Backup Offsite?But, the next question is naturally – how do I get this information offsite – without carrying disks offsite and (usually more problematic!) depending on people to remember to do it? Before we address “How” let’s consider "What" we’re going to backup offsite – unless you have unlimited funds and bandwidth, doing everything probably doesn't make sense…
Our general recommendations for what to backup offsite includes:
The question you should think about - What would you need to get your organization up and running running after a major disaster? Where and How Should I Backup Offsite?First of all, we’re only considering business class offsite backup options. There are many free or nearly free options for home use, and many work quite well in the home environment. For a business that depends on availability of data, we’d suggest you insist upon these features:
We'd suggest that you’d really like to have these features (but note that they may add cost):
So, how do we recommend you go about it? With 0-10 GB of data (and no images) we like eSureIT for Business.
For large amounts of data, we recommend two options:
(to see configured examples using these solutions download the presentation referenced at the end of this article) The world of offsite backups is constantly evolving – just like the rest of information technology! A couple of options we are following include Microsoft Data Protection Manager (DPM), which provides continuous data protection for Microsoft application and file servers and the option of virtualization for near real-time disaster recovery. We’ll be talking more about both of these in the months to come. The critical message to take away is that offsite backups should be a piece of your business planning. Think about what would happen to your business if you lost all your data – can you afford NOT to do it? For more information, take a look at Mike Jennings’ presentation from BEI’s April 16 Seminar (download presentation) or contact Devin Leshin on 703-528-8300 x129 or devin.leshin@beinetworks.com.
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