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  • Telecoms

    Working with Blackberry enterprise server 5.0

    A new BES brings a very different way of working with BlackBerrys, with a new Web-based administration console that makes life simpler and more complicated at the same time.
    read more
  • Telecoms

    Bringing VoIP in house

    For business, IP telephony and voice over IP is starting to displace conventional phone services. According to industry analysts Forrester, as many as 47% of businesses in Europe and the US have either deployed, or are rolling out, an IP-based phone system.
    read more
NetworkNetwork Resources

How to migrate a firewall

How to  migrate a firewall the ITX how to guide

   
Network

Managing and migrating firewalls

Firewalls can provide you with a host of information about what’s going on inside and outside your customer’s network. But that information isn’t necessarily easy to manage and analyse.

   
ServerBusiness Continuity

Recovering from mail server disasters

If your best client were to lose their mail server and the emails on it, how crippling would that be? Most businesses both large and small depend on email. If a company relies on email, you need to have the tools and techniques ready to solve their problems for the day disaster strikes.

   
Network

Configuring the anti-spam tools in Exchange 2007

Spam isn’t just annoying - it’s a security risk and a prime source of malware and phishing attacks. The new version of Exchange has more effective tools to keep it at bay. Configure the anti-spam tools in Exchange 2007 with our step-by-step guide.

   
Network

Dealing with spam in Exchange 2007

Spam isn’t just annoying - it’s a security risk and a prime source of malware and phishing attacks. The new version of Exchange has more effective tools to keep it at bay.

   
Client

Deploying Virtual Desktops using VDI and VMware ESX Server

There is no question that 90% of the work in deploying VDI is in the planning and preparation.

   
ServerClient

Getting to grips with VDI

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is being promoted as the solution to all that ails the desktop. The truth is somewhat different.

   
NetworkClientTelecoms

Managing Skype in business

Skype means free or cheap calls but it’s based on peer-to-peer file sharing principles. How can you tame consumer VoIP tools for use in a business network?

   
ServerNetworkBusiness Continuity

Rebuilding a NAS appliance RAID array

Disks fail, and RAID arrays need rebuilding. Be prepared for the worst – and keep your clients’ data safe.

   
Server

Consolidating servers with VMware Server

VMware’s virtualisation tools are some of the most popular around. They don’t have to be expensive either; the free tools are ideal for small and medium businesses.

   


Next
issue March 2010

To read a sample please
download Jan/Feb 2009
IT-Expert-Magazine-Vo2-Ed1.pdf

 

MS-SMB-Report-2009
Download the Microsoft SMB
Insight Report 2009

“Because they can respond so quickly as business conditions change,small and midsize companies have an advantage in a volatile and uncertain economic climate".

Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft

IT EXPERT TOP TIP

None of your customers are complaining about viruses, their network being slow or strange things happening on their new PDAs and laptops; is it time to take the afternoon off? Maybe, but before you do, make sure things will look as good next week by making sure you know what you’re defending against. Microsoft has a set of resources at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/cc514043.aspx covering the current threat landscape and showing ways to help protect your clients and their customers, including analyses of data collected from millions of users, strategies, mitigations and countermeasures. read more

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WELCOME

 If it ain’t broke, should you fix it? Actually, yes. The one thing most of your customers need is backup, because they’ll be out of business so this issue we take a look at the trickier systems to back up – databases and Exchange. But to get the most from their opportunities, your small business customers need to be innovating – because the bigger businesses they compete with are going to be. 

According to a survey done by the Economist Intelligence Unit for Accenture, 63% of businesses are going to increase their IT budget in 2010, 75% say IT has to give the business more flexibility – and over 80% said that yes, the cost of projects is very important when they’re trying to get them signed off (no surprise there). 

Incidentally, a third are planning to keep costs down by setting project requirements and sticking to them, which means you need to ask the questions that let you spec the project correctly in the first place. Expect to be asked to drop your charges and to include open source software (which too many businesses still assume is always cheaper, so make sure you know what’s actually cost effective). Think about services you can offer that will save them money by avoiding disruption; GFI’s MAX and LANguard tools help you create monitoring services that cover the full range of small business systems with very little effort and you can prevent most of those irritating and avoidable configuration problems more easily than you think with a free tool in all modern versions of Windows and Windows Server, Group Policy Preferences. 

The survey says businesses want to rationalise and replace existing systems: if that makes you think of virtualisation, 37% of businesses agree with you. Remember that replacing kit means dealing with what gets replaced; we take a look at both the problems and the business opportunities in recycling hardware. They also want to invest in CRM (which we looked at last issue) and improving business processes, in data analytics, compliance and supply chain management. VoIP might help them with that and we look at both the budget option, based on Skype, and the full in-house VoIP systems you can specify and video surveillance is coming down in price as it shifts to IP-based systems. 

We’re also seeing enterprises accelerating their Windows 7 deployments; according to analysts Forrester two thirds will migrate to Windows 7 in 2010, making it the new business standard OS. That’s a significant change given that analysts IDC says 72% of businesses across Europe are still using XP with only 15% on Vista – again, you’ll want to remind the small businesses you work with that they want to get the benefits of Windows 7 sooner rather than later. 

Things aren’t back to business as usual it does look like there will be more business in 2010 – but you’ll have to think strategically to win it. Dell’s director for SMB advanced technologies Aamir Paul has some ideas about what the small businesses you work with will need this year and how you can position the products and services you offer them to suit that. See more of the interview on our Web site, along with all our previous features.

 Mary Branscombe Executive Editor 

P.S.
Smartphones continue to go from strength to strength in business and if your customers are buying the new Bold and Storm BlackBerrys they’re going to want you to upgrade them to BES 5 to get the extra features; in this issue we have a full step-by-step guide to make it easier.

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