If you haven’t upgraded to Exchange 2007 yet, you might be looking to make the migration from 2003 to 2010.  If you’re ambitious, you may be ready to go from Exchange 2007 to 2010, to take advantage of one or more new features.

The primary new feature that existing and prospective clients are interested in is the new, built-in high availability feature that Microsoft says will allow you to economically deploy an email messaging continuity service within your organization.  We admit it sounds promising, and at worst, pretty cool.

Things to consider:

• Virtualization Pitfalls: If this will be a “local solution” and you’re going to virtualize the servers, they still need to be on at least two independent virtual hosts to avoid a single point of hardware failure.  Please note that very often email servers are not ideal candidates for server virtualization.
• Remote Site Considerations: If this will be a disaster recovery solution with servers in multiple locations, the number of considerations increases.  For example bandwidth for data replication, physical server access and security.
• Is it going to work? Exchange is a highly specialized enterprise communications system requiring expertise to properly implement and maintain.  Regular failover tests are 0ften overlooked, but are a necessary part of maintaining a reliable design.  Lastly this is a brand new feature that you might call “bleeding edge.”
• Unpredictable costs add up: Microsoft says this is a cost effective solution, but you may want to ask, compared to what?  Your additional costs for the increased number of servers will include some or all of the following unpredictable costs: travel, hardware maintenance and replacement, server maintenance, high availability/disaster recovery testing, solution specific administration, training, hosting, bandwidth and expertise costs (1099, Outsource IT or FTE).
• Alternatives: There are managed SaaS (Software as a Service) options such as Dell’s Message One product, or more inclusive messaging suites like Proofpoint and Mimecast that offer email continuity solutions.  They are fully managed at a fixed cost, and most importantly are proven solutions you can rely on.  Furthermore, options like Google Apps Premier for Enterprises offer a true Cloud Computing solution (high availability inherent) all rolled into the cost of the product, which is a fixed cost per user, per year.

Overall this seems like a feature best implemented after it is proven out as a preferred solution.  Even then it may only be advisable for large enterprise organizations who can truly realize the benefits and have the dedicated staff to expertly maintain the design.

You may have heard about Google’s effort to provide communities unprecedented Internet connectivity speeds of over 1 Gigabit per second.  At this point they’re asking cities to return RFIs (Requests for Information) so they can determine where to build their infrastructure for the trial runs.  A deeper look at their description of the fiber optic trial, dubbed “Google Fiber for Communities” explains their stated reasons for this strategic move.  A primary driving force behind this effort is to provide developers faster speeds in order to accelerate the next generation of app development.

The architecture required for speeds like this doesn’t exist on a large scale today.  In fact, Google will probably not be the first provider to offer these speeds, but they will certainly accelerate innovation.  The bottom line is that it’s clearly a strong push of Google’s Cloud Computing agenda.  If successful, this would provide an incredible catalyst to the SaaS (Software as a Service) industry, which is experiencing historical growth.  With Google Apps Enterprise, Gmail, Google Wave, Google Chrome, Postini and the rest of the franchise, SaaS is something Google knows a little bit about.

ARHD CTO Josh Lippy says “This is part of their grand plan to own the Internet.  By providing 1GB speeds, they’ll be able to push their thin client agenda to the masses.  Chrome operating system and chrome browser for all things computing.”

Google wants to do away with the traditional desktop operating system (that Windows thing), and replace it with a managed service.  Their offering will be an easy to purchase streaming thin client desktop service, most likely paid for based on usage.  The speeds Google is pursuing are the only way to ensure success.  Cloud Computing will take incredible leaps with that kind of speed, not to mention they could start offering television programming with that kind of throughput.  Is there a Google channel yet?

You can go to Google and search for “Google fiber” to learn more.

Just about every one of us has been disappointed by a laptop at some point either personally or on the job.  In Decemeber 2008, against my advice, my father bought my mother a (new at the time) Dell Studio laptop with a fingerprint reader and a backlit keyboard, fancy stuff.  I bought my wife a simple Dell Inspiron with a good mid-line spec but no unnecessary features.  Just over a year later my mother’s backlit keyboard and fingerprint reader have required servicing, and two months ago the hard drive failed.  She (nearly) lost her data.

The simple Inspiron I got my wife is running strong.  Lucky for my mother, her son works in IT and she was able to recover her data without paying $500-$1000 dollars.

These are the kinds of experiences that cause people to swear off certain manufacturers altogether, in the hopes of avoiding a repeat.  In some cases this is a valid approach, in others maybe not.  Either way you aren’t alone.

An analysis of 30,000 new laptops from SquareTrade has found that in the first three years of ownership, nearly a third of laptops (31 percent) will fail.

SquareTrade has more detailed information (the full PDF of the company’s study is available here) on the research on its website.   I will list some highlights but must mention that while this is very good information, it is not the only information and SquareTrade is not necessarily the authority.

> 20.4 percent of failures are due to hardware malfunctions. 10.6 percent are due to drops, spills, or other accidental damage.

> Netbooks have a roughly 20 percent higher failure rate due to hardware malfunctions than standard laptops.

> Most reliable brands : Toshiba and Asus, both with below a 16 percent failure rate due to hardware malfunction.

> Least reliable brands : Acer, Gateway and HP.   HP’s hardware malfunction rate is the worst in the analysis, 25.6 percent.

If you want to keep your notebook running for longer than a few years, you need to make a good selection and protect your equipment.   Heat and dust are your enemy, as are ill placed power cords (traffic areas) and curious toddlers.   For tips on making a laptop selection, come back in the future for my blog  on this topic.

Manufacturers: Vast Differences in Reliability

Welcome to ARHD’s first blog post! My name is Ryan Holt, the author of this blog, and I would like to take a moment to introduce myself. I started my career in the IT field over 10 years ago as one of only a few technicians at a startup ISP in the late 90s and I have been involved in the Help Desk and End User Support function ever since. I have always had a passion for making lasting improvements by improving processes, so although the technical part of the job was thrilling, my career gravitated towards leadership roles.

In 2004, I was hired at Educate Inc. where  I focused on quality control and reducing the number of help desk incidents with root cause analysis and prioritizing the development team’s efforts.  The result was over a 50% reduction in application related support calls.  The decision to replace the “legacy” software was re-evaluated and that initiative was placed on hold.  The software is still used today (5 years later).

In 2007, ARHD gave me an opportunity to join them as their Help Desk Manager.  I inherited a great team of people working in a very interesting virtual workforce model.  Since that time, ARHD has launched a fully staffed 24×7 Outsource Help Desk and I have been named the Director of IT Services.  In this role, I’ve taken responsibility for all of Service Delivery, including the Network Engineers, and I have been more involved in strategic direction, managed services development and quality control for Service Delivery.

This blog will be an educational resource where I will be sharing my thoughts on various technologies and support techniques. Please check in regularly to see my latest updates and feel free to leave any questions, comments or requests for information on topics you may be curious about!