Over the past week I’ve spent time with various peer groups in Sydney including HTG, a specialist group of leading IT and Managed Services providers globally of which I Know IT is a member, as well as Connectwise, the leading platform for these same types of organisations.

One of the key discussions that has shadowed this and previous meetings is the sudden influence of Apple over the organisations we service.
Up until recently, many company’s had a predominant IT platform and were either staunchly PC with perhaps a handful of Macs not connected to many of the mainstream resources such as servers and backup systems, reserved for those who refused to work with anything else – versus Mac, where people would actually leave the company if so much as a PC were to be found in the organisation for fear of Microsoft penetrating their minds. [...]

What is cloud? The cloud is the Internet. Before cloud was a buzz word, cloud was (and still is) illustrated on a network diagram signifying access to a service or a device outside the company LAN (local area network).  Really, it’s just a picture of a cloud that is used as a communication tool for what the network looks like.
Before discussing, debating or digesting terms like private cloud,
public cloud or hybrid cloud, in simple terms “the cloud” is any service you use outside your 4 walls. This blog is in the cloud. Your Internet banking is in the cloud and, one day perhaps, many of your business tools you use today within your company network will be in the cloud too.

There has often been a clear divide between business owners as to whether one should purchase equipment outright versus rent, lease or finance equipment.  Often these decisions were based purely on cash flow or tax advantages as well as many company’s preferring not to be beholden to a financier.  However,  recent economic uncertainty is not the only driver in changing these attitudes and is leading many CFO’s and IT decision makers toward more palatable pay-as-you-go options.  These options include HaaS (hardware as a service) but have also recently been referred to as IaaS (infrastructure as a service) or TaaS (technology as a service).

Substantial tipping points have occurred in technology, so much so that owning a piece of hardware or software that is likely to be superseded in a matter of 2-3 years (or less) [...]

An increasing demand on corporate resources has seen company networks under perform, Internet run slow, applications not as accessible as they used to be and remote employees and contractors struggling to connect to company IT systems. This has been amplified in 2011 with the rapid adoption of mobile devices and an increasing shift on websites to incorporate video, audio and rich interactive content.

Of course, most business owners aren’t complaining when web sites such as Facebook and YouTube are slow and inaccessible – but it’s this social media phenomenon coupled with more intuitive ways to use technologies especially mobile devices that is changing networking so much so that many IT departments and IT support providers struggle to keep up with the demand on resources. The cost of upgrading networking equipment can also be prohibitive leading to band-aid approaches such as blocking or “throttling” internet access rather than addressing (or embracing) the future technology needs of the company. [...]

January is often a time when business owners set their mission, make plans for the year ahead and focus on the organisations vision. Well, January is half way through and today I was fortunate enough to be in Canberra and visit the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex which is run by NASA and the CSIRO. Not only was the giant satellite awe inspiring in and of itself, but the centre is full of historic articles, videos and pictures documenting astonishing feats of technology over the past 50 or so years. I’m a bit of a techie (in case you hadn’t gathered) so when I think of how far we’ve come from developing rockets to putting a rover on Mars it truly does show the value of setting a mission!

One thing caught my eye – it was the objectives for Project Mercury. A team of individuals were formed in 1958 with the following ‘mission’.

To orbit a manned space craft around earth;
To investigate mans ability to function in space;
To recover both astronaut and spacecraft safely

That’s not just a stretch goal – to many that was mission impossible!

But yet, the project was successful. In 1961 (just 3 years later) the US launched Alan Shepard into space for a total of 15 minutes. Not long after, more goals were set, more missions were established and many have shaped our lives (who knew that NASA invented CDs and sunglasses?).

Given the enormity of such an undertaking, during a time when much of this technology was yet to be developed it demonstrates just how capable our organisations can be when we clearly articulate a mission.

Unless you’re in the deep space business your mission probably differs from this one (and if you are in the deep space business I’d still love to hear from you)- tell me, is your 2012 mission a big stretch, a small goal or nothing at all?

If you have one, or you’re even thinking about one then it would be great to hear from you – what is your 2012 mission?

Having been an avid iPad supporter since they came about, lately I’ve been tempted by other tablet devices – pretty much anything running Android.. And soon I’ll be salivating over a Windows 8 tablet.

But I keep getting stuck on the fact that I have so many apps, not to mention my iTunes music and tv shows I’ve bought that are paired up with my Apple devices.

Don’t even get me started on even considering an alternative to my iPhone.

How about you? Have you been tempted by other devices but can’t
make the shift? What are your reasons? Is it your app library, the cost, Apple addiction? Lack of comparable features? Interested to hear your comments.

With summer finally getting underway here in Sydney and the new year well and truly arriving in style, it’s time to reflect on what was trending in 2011 on JamesVickery.com.au. Perhaps you missed them last year, so here are the top 5 articles from 2011.

#5 Solved! Simple Solutions to Common IT Problems

Seems quite a few readers of our blogs wanted answers to common IT problems. These IT problems are still relevant to many businesses today and this was our 5th most read article of 2011.

#4 Microsoft, A Dying Dinosaur or Cunning Giant?

There was much discussion about Microsoft last year and their perceived loss of market share to other industry giants like Apple and Google. Seems that this was our 4th most read article of 2011.

#3 Should You Buy an iPad?

Well, the iPad has come a long way even in this short space of time. I don’t know what I’d do without my iPad and Citrix Receiver or my favourite app for keeping meeting notes synched across all my devices – OneNote. And, now that many of the annoyances of the first series of the iPad have been beaten out – this was our 3rd most read article of 2011.

#2 What on Earth is Cloud?

So much talk about cloud, it’s all a bit confusing – so this 7 part series aimed for blue skies with a little cloud. The series was our 2nd most read article in 2011.

But.. it seems Australian’s in particular were just wanting to know how to get away from work with their laptops, iPhones and iPad’s, and the number one article, with more than 1500 views was (drum roll please..)…

#1 How To Get Online When Travelling Overseas

This go to guide for getting online overseas was in response to numerous calls and emails to our service desk from so many clients either travelling for leisure or heading off to overseas conferences (or a bit of both) It seems that we all need to be connected no matter where we are, so this was the #1 article in 2011.

Stay tuned to JamesVickery.com.au this year for new articles, more tips, advice and free content from myself and the I Know IT team to help you grow your business through technology.

Happy new year!

Union strikes, volcanic ash, A380 engine failures and total ticketing system failures in the news these past 2 years alone doesn’t inspire one to plan and grow a business around travelling interstate and overseas.  Regardless of the latest Qantas union/industrial/corporate action the reality is that air travel is becoming riskier – not so much due to safety, but due to loss of productivity at an economic scale and to business.  (I won’t weigh into the debate about Qantas here though most can probably glean my point of view from my Twitter or LinkedIn feeds).

I believe that when problems are presented that technology has a solution and whilst most of us in business agree there is no substitute for a face to face, a lunch, a handshake and a look in the eye to seal the deal – the reality is we may all need to think differently about how we engage one another if flying becomes any more prohibitive than it is now.

For some businesses this will mean a fundamental change in technology and perhaps a cultural change from the top down to encourage the use of converged communication (voice, video and data) to communicate with prospects, customers and employees alike.

Although it may be tempting to just set up a Skype account or encourage the use of GoToMeeting, the only way to truly change behaviours will be to make an investment in the infrastructure so that it is easy and fluid to communicate this way.  Much like a grounded aircraft, it will be hard to maintain confidence in particular technologies if they are constantly suffering from outages, poor performance and poor customer service.

This is a common story today amongst businesses who were early adopters or semi-adopters of voice and video technology.  Without investing in adequate services such as dedicated Internet services for voice over IP and video over IP calls and without rolling out adequate facilities at branch offices and campuses to meet the voice and video needs of the organisation – the technology has gone stale resulting in a fall back to costly flights and out of town stays.

The question today is [...]

Recently I was fortunate to catch the SonicWall SuperMassive Roadshow as it passed through Sydney and it definitely was a sign of big things, well massive things, to come from the growing firewall vendor.

So what is the SuperMassive? The E10800 is a SonicWall, a network firewall with 64GB ram that can filter data through it’s deep packet inspection firewall, the same one on every SonicWall, at 40 GBPs (yes, that is 40 gigabytes per second, and they will make a bigger one if you want).

Say your business grows.. I mean really grows, well this SonicWall can handle 80,000 site to site VPN tunnels,  16,000 VPN clients and 512 VLANs.

It’s about twice the size of your server.

Why so super massive? The SuperMassive was the culmination of a number of decisions at SonicWall. A change in architecture to a different processor a few years ago, new partnerships and mergers and the ability to build a firewall that could offer deep packet inspection with performance by using cores. These days our phones are dual core, our servers are at least quad core, so  it made sense. Add to this an idea to build something huge by adding more cores, partly to prove they could and show off, and secondly to see what it really could do. [...]