Supporting mobile email on multiple handsets

Everyone wants mobile email - but not every mobile phone is suitable for business email. Use these tips and tools to secure Exchange servers and make them work with more than Windows Mobile handsets.

Backing up: save the data, save the day

All hardware fails – and backup is seen as boring and unreliable. That combination is the perfect opportunity for you to provide a service that provides business continuity and ongoing revenue. But how do you design the right backup system?

Backup goes online and offsite

Remote backup services can offer the speed of disk, the security of tape, and the simplicity of a consumer service. But how do you ensure that remote backup services comply with your clients’ data policies and integrate with their existing IT set-ups?

Protecting against power issues in a small office takes more than picking a UPS

Protect computers from power problems and you can extend their working life as well as avoiding downtime and possible data corruption. Losing data on a laptop or desktop is bad enough, but losing a server to a power surge or power cut can be much more severe, potentially even a threat to the business. Losing a mail server or a major database can lead to serious data corruption that will take you time, perhaps even days, to resolve. During that time, your customer’s business is being impacted, and even if they’ve ignored your advice they’re likely to blame you, so you need to explain the danger and convince them to protect their systems.

Failover, not fall over - how to keep running when the hardware fails

Failure is not an option in business and redundancy is the solution. You can offer customers systems that keep running when the hardware fails.

Server failure used to mean widespread panic and a scramble to find backup tapes and a spare server to restore onto. Inevitably this meant business interruption, user frustration and even data loss. Recovering from a backup can take hours; even planned maintenance can take the server down during business hours leaving users unable to work. Today there is no excuse for this situation.

Backup Tools

Backup software
Simplification is the most important thing when designing a backup system. Look for software that runs across all the operating systems you are backing up and that has the right agents and plug-ins for the applications your customer uses.

Designing a backup plan

Work through these steps when you first engage with a customer over a backup plan.

Spacemonger - pinpoint what’s taking up the space on your hard drives

The best thing about Spacemonger (www.sixty-five.cc/sm, $24.95) isn’t that its intuitive display of how space is used on a hard drive allows you to pinpoint what’s taking up the space on your hard drives in a matter of seconds. The screen area shows a colour-coded and hierarchical treemap where the size of the box for each directory or file is in proportion to the space it takes on the drive. Hover the mouse over any element to see a popup with more detail, and scroll the mouse wheel to zoom down to level of individual files.

Mac printing in a Windows world

When a Mac turns up at a previously Windows customer, one of the things you’ll need to help them do is get it to print to the existing network printers rather than buying a new printer just for the Mac.

Remote Support

The phone rings; “My email isn’t working.” Now you have to decide: do you drive across town to give in-person support, or try to find a solution from where you are sitting? Personal visits for every support request are impractical, but telephone support can be frustrating and, at worst, a waste of time when a visit proves necessary after all.