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Posts tagged ‘Purchasing Computers’

Dec 7

Cost Savings
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Creating a Private Microsoft Office 365 Style Private Cloud in your Company

Goals

This project is intended to provide a secure intranet environment for the multiple offices of Your Corporation with the features of secure services including zones for document collaboration, E-Mail with Exchange, remote PC access from tablets, and the ability to have multiple users collaborate on the same documents simultaneously. Corporate instant messaging and online meetings are also desired features. In short, an environment should be created on local servers in one office and be usable by the other offices. Security considerations include a secure locked area for servers at least consisting of a lockable server cabinet for access control and removable drives. Removable drives should be consistent in size and type across all servers so that they can be changed without powering down the servers. The parity information on the drives should allow for rebuilding of information on a freshly inserted drive. Two load-balanced web servers with firewalls will serve as application servers. Additionally, a firewall appliance can act as a second level of firewall protection. The firewall appliance should be a Linux-based model with statefull packet inspection, because this is a complementary firewall strategy to that of Windows. This strategy has been successfully used by clients including NYU School of Medicine and our own offices. The servers needed are: Lync Server 2012, Lync Edge Server 2012, SQL Server, Exchange Server 2012, Office Web Apps Server 2012, IIS Web Server (A component of Microsoft Server 2012), and SharePoint Server 2013. Using the most recent products will bring You in line with the upgrades for Office 365 scheduled tentatively for the end of December 2012. Investing in the latest technology has risks involved with using the newest technology including undiscovered performance issues. As an alternative, the earlier versions of the software can be purchased and used. Backup will be relegated to a dedicated appliance that provides continual automated backup, one backup appliance for each server. These appliances can be carried away from the premises if needed just as easily as the removable hard drives.

Martin Low of the Web and I, Inc. is available to serve as the functional lead and project manager, and he is working from his office to select experts for an installation and integration by technical experts in each server type which can take place over two days convenient to Your Company on that weekend Mr. Low will configure SharePoint, oversee technical staff, clean up the contact list for the Exchange Global Address List, and assign security roles to users at Your Company

Following installation, Mr. Low will initiate training operations at the pleasure of Your Company He can initiate training in the main office in the first week and can provide additional training at other offices in person or through web meeting. In person training is recommended, but the wishes of Your Company will prevail.

Your Company has expressed a concern with server maintenance including software and hardware maintenance hours and expenses. Software maintenance can be had through technical experts in the individual server products by remote access or in person locally from an area accessible to Katonah. We recommend using local resources for increased security. Maintenance of the servers from a mechanical standpoint has a few possible approaches. The Web and I is experienced in the sourcing and construction of quality servers brand new from parts. The advantage to this is the lower costs of the servers Your Company needs to purchase. However the Web and I can also purchase the necessary servers from Dell at a discount through Dell Outlet. The advantage of using Dell for critical equipment is that Dell has service plans that guarantee on-site service including any needed parts all included in low-cost annual plans. The Web and I, Inc., despite our ability to make our own computers also chooses to use Dell because of the security our organization needs for the computers which run our mission-critical applications. The Web and I, Inc. represented by Martin Low will do a study of projected expenses for purchase as well as ongoing expenses for maintenance prior to the commencement of the Project. A formalized project management strategy will be used in accordance with best practices.

Implementation Methodology: Project Management

Accountability

There are people who need to be assigned responsibility for actions, decisions, and policies concerning the management of the implementation and governance, all within the scope of their role within the project. In other words, someone puts SharePoint in place; and project management helps this by defining the what, when, why, and where of this implementation.

Sustainability

While preserving the integrity of the platform delivered to the organization, the platform must meet present needs, but also future organizational requirements. These new technological capabilities need to be managed and governed to grow. Project management helps by providing methods so that issues concerning the economic (user requirements in terms of added features or products), social (the ability to enhance and connect people), and environment (the infrastructure can be scaled, for example) are protected and managed.

Resiliency

A SharePoint implementation needs to be robust to survive. All systems must have the ability to provide and maintain an acceptable level of service in the face of faults and challenges to normal operation. Project management provides processes such as configuration management, planning for backup, disaster recovery, monitoring, and performance levels.

Supportability

These technologies need to be looked after. Project management defines the quality-control measures to be enacted by the team that is responsible for the implementation.

As a Project Manager Mr. Low needs to ensure that when describing the four above elements to the Your Company that they understand there is a timeline to put in these technologies. Best practices do not allow for letting the client put together the timeline themselves, because they will start by reasoning that anything they don’t do is easy to do. Designing a platform for mission critical operations cannot be completed in two weeks, for example.

Accountability, supportability, resiliency, and sustainability cannot be assured in a week. Those are continual processes, and to make sure you can apply those means planning through to implementation. The estimated project timeline is one month. Two days for installation of the servers, and one month for ongoing training, quality assurance, contingency planning, and more.

Securing Office Web Apps Server communications by using HTTPS

Office Web Apps Server can communicate with SharePoint 2013, Lync Server 2013, and Exchange Server 2013 by using the HTTPS protocol. In production environments, we strongly recommend that you use HTTPS. You’ll have to have to install an Internet Server certificate that can be assigned to the server that runs Office Web Apps Server (if you are using a single server) or to the load balancer (if you are using multiple servers that run Office Web Apps Server).

With Microsoft server products, properly integrated and implemented, there is no need for expensive Wide Area Network (WAN) solutions, as these server products can be accessed securely over the Internet with 256 bit encryption.

Next Steps

  1. Approval of Project Outline by Your Company
  2. Contract Signing and 10% down payment of consultation budget. (the Web and I, Inc. will sign any confidentiality contracts you may require at this time by authorized signer Martin Low.)
  3. Plan for Procurement Methodology to  be completed by the Web and I, Inc.
  4. Approval of Procurement Methodology for hardware by Your Company
  5. Project Budget to be prepared by the Web and I, Inc.
  6. Project Budget to be approved by Your Company
  7. Project Kick-Off Date selected by Your Company
  8. Staff Selection Completed by the Web and I, Inc.
  9. Staff Approval by Your Company
  10. Technology Maintenance Plan to be completed by the Web and I, Inc.
  11. Technology Maintenance Plan to be approved by Your company
  12. Disaster Management and Recovery Plans to be completed by the Web and I, Inc.
  13. Disaster Management and Recovery Plans to be approved by Your Company
  14. Projected Ongoing Expenses to be completed by the Web and I, Inc.
  15. Projected Ongoing Expenses to be approved by Your Company
  16. Project Plan completed by the Web and I, Inc.
  17. Project Plan Approval by Your Company
  18. Business Process Re-Engineering Plan completed by the Web and I, Inc.
  19. Business Process Re-Engineering Plan approved by Your Company
  20. Software Testing, Quality Assessment and Quality Improvement Plan completed by the Web and I, Inc.
  21. Software Testing, Quality Assessment and Quality Improvement Plan approve by Your Company
  22. Regulatory Compliance Plan to be completed by the Web and I, Inc.
  23. Regulatory Compliance Plan to be approved by the Web and I, Inc.
  24. Staff Training Plan to be completed by the Web and I, Inc.
  25. Staff Training Plan approved by Your Company
  26. Payment of 40% of Consultation Budget and 100% of Hardware and Software. Alternatively hardware and software can be ordered by Martin Low directly at Katonah using Your Company payment methods for shipment to Your Company
  27. Purchase of Servers to be shipped directly to Katonah Office.
  28. Installation and Integration on Project Kick-Off Date to take place on two days.
    1. Project Kick-Off Meeting.
    2. Install Windows Server 2012 on all 8 Servers (6 product servers and two load-balanced web app servers).
    3. Windows 8 Upgrades on all Desktops.
    4. Configuration and Testing of Backup Appliances.

Mar 15

1 Comment

A New, Powerful Computer: Possibly the Best Employee Incentive

Every day I read reports about how the Desktop is dead and that people are moving to laptops and tablets. However, in the Workplace, people get the most done with their Desktop PC’s because it is the most efficient way to work. A desktop has more power to run large applications. Even today’s Office programs can slow down a tablet, and productivity suffers when you are paying your employees to wait for their computers because they are slow. Desktops also have larger screen area than other more mobile forms of computing, and they allow workers to see a full-page of a document while editing. The most important feature of the desktop is that it has the best human-computer interface of all computing devices. A full-sized keyboard makes the fastest typing speeds possible. Having a separate hand-held mouse rather than a mousepad as is available on laptops also increases productivity, making opening and closing and moving of programs and windows much faster.

While we are all familiar with desktop features, it is not yet common knowledge that the computer you buy for yourself or your employee is only a fast computer for the first three years. After that, the technology becomes obsolete. You may have been using the same operating system for ten years: Windows XP. But during that time, every week or two new updates were installed by Windows Update. When Windows Updates are added, operating systems become larger and more complex. After three years, your computer will not be as quick, and a tipping point is reached where employees with computers older than three years are losing productivity waiting for their computers. It is also a subtle source of frustration, and can send the wrong message to Employees. A new computer solves more than one problem.

Employers looking for ways to boost morale and productivity need look no further than timely computer upgrades. Not only does productivity increase because of decreased waiting for slow computers, but employees are much happier working with a fast computer. It can cause people to lose their concentration when they have to wait for a system response. New computers also tell employees that productivity is important to the employer and that the employer is savvy enough to know the value of providing the best tools.

Overall, the most important facts are that it is cheaper to get new computers than to pay idle employees: new computers will pay for themselves when you replace them every three years. Multiple reasons for productivity increases is the other important factor that should affect your decision.

Your local computer consultant can provide you the best advice about purchasing and installing multiple computers, and they have resources that can help. Call us today at 646-853-0573 for a free consultation.

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