If you store your files in the cloud and it rains..will everything get wet?

We’ve talked about cloud computing in a previous blog entry (February, 2010) . A year later,  ‘cloud’ computing seems to have matured and fewer disasters similar to what happened with Microsoft’s ‘cloud’ system crashing last year have been reported. The best known Cloud services are from Google. GMail, Google Earth and of course Google Doc’s. In early June last year, Apple announced their iCloud service.

‘Cloud’ computing has it’s place, even in S. Africa where reliable Internet connectivity is not guaranteed. Simply, if you were using an online ‘cloud’ based application similar to Pastel’s ‘My Business Online‘ product where your accounts system resides on a remote server accessible via the Internet, you would obviously not be able to complete any book keeping / accounting processes if your Internet connection where to fail. However, benefits abound for applications whereby your data resides in both the cloud and on the devices you may be using. Be it a desktop, laptop, tablet or your smartphone.

Applications that synchronize files between your various devices (laptop, tablet smartphone etc) and the ‘cloud’ have become popular. In particular, DropBox  which automatically synchronizes and backs up your documents automatically when you go online is a fantastic tool!

How DropBox Works

Because your documents are also on your computer, if the DropBox ‘cloud’ storage where to crash, your documents would still be safe. Costs for DropBox are reasonable. 2GB of data storage is given to you free charge. For +- R85.00 / month, you get 50GB of data storage. You can take a tour of DropBox by clicking here. DropBox security is also good. They use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and AES-256 bit encryption, similar to what the banks use for online banking. Forbes magazine had an interesting article in their October 2010 issue describing how the late Steve Job’s tried unsuccessfully to purchase DropBox from the founders before going on to develop Apple’s DropBox equivalent service, iCloud.

Arguably one of the great ‘Cloud’ applications is Hosted Exchange. Small / medium sized business can now enjoy all the email collaborative benefits such as email synchronization with your smartphone / Ipad, automatic email backups, archiving, sharing of your calender and tasks list with  

other users within your Company, just as a Corporate user would enjoy without your having to spend money buying and managing an expensive Microsoft Exchange Server. Costs are around R85.00 / per month, per user which includes an initial  2GB mailbox. Being partners to Rackspace, one of the largest ‘cloud’ email providers with over  2 Million email accounts running on their infrastructure, Janus IT can  provide a hybrid of both Exchange Email accounts and normal POP accounts for users that may not need all the collaborative tools Exchange server has to offer. Normal email accounts cost around R17.00 per month and include 10Gb of online storage.

Microsoft recently announced there ‘cloud’ based Microsoft Office 365 service. This is  an almost complete Microsoft Office Suite of desktop products that run within your web browser, no local installation and licensing required. After testing, users will need to pay a monthly license fee to Microsoft for using the service. Applications include MS Word, MS Excel and Outlook. However, with reliable Internet connectivity not yet a reality in South Africa, it would be unwise to go this route just yet.

Cloud computing will certainly be a game changer as the technology matures. But concerns regarding security should not be ignored. Having all your Companies information in a shared environment should be a concern for most Companies. For this reason,  Private Cloud deployments are estimated to grow in 2012 (Fortune, December 2011). Essentially larger Companies plan to host applications / services on their own internal IT infrastructure and allow remote employees secure access thereby managing the security risks themselves opposed to outsourcing the security. This trend will probably dominate only very large businesses.

Post-It’s on your PC

Ever wanted Post-It notes on your computer? With Windows7 you get a free application called StickyNotes. StickyNotes are very similar to ‘paper’ based Post-it’s. It appears as a yellow post-it on your screen and you simply type your reminder / message in the yellow block. The StickyNote’s stay on top of whatever application you have open so are always in view.

While StickyNote’s are nice, they are limited. If you want to group your notes, send your notes to others via email or even have different coloured notes, this is not possible with StickyNote’s. Another option is to use PNotes. An opensource StickyNote’s equivalent but with a lot more features compatible with most versions of Windows operating systems.

If you want to have your Post-It’s synchronised between two computers (your desktop and laptop for example) there is a nice PortableApp available that allows you to install Pnotes without any links to your computer’s operating system. Now simply install PortableApp into a DropBox folder on your computer and your notes are always backed up and view-able on all computers that you have your DropBox installed on.

How to check it’s real

We’ve all seen it before, those emails that come through describing impending doom, the impossible jump or some-or-other virus that we need to tell everyone in our contact list about. How do you know what’s true and what’s nonsense? The easiest way is to navigate your way to Snopes which is a dedicated site in exposing these types of scams. Simple cut and paste the first few lines of the email into the Snope’s search tool and if it is a scam, Snopes will give you all the details of where it originated and how it spread.

Sometimes the history of these emails is actually quite interesting.

Project and Time Tracking

Isn’t strange that when you take your car in for a service the mechanic tells you all about the maintenance you need to do on an ongoing basis for your vehicle to run optimally but his car is usually ‘just’ able to drive? In the IT business it’s not much different I don’t think. At Janus IT, there are days we miss running a backup of our own data. However we try and tell our clients the benefits of products / services we use within the Company. For example, our email is hosted with Rackspace. We have tested their services extensively and recently partnered with them so we can offer our clients hosted Exchange and standard standard email services using their infrastructure.

We also manage our time with clients using a web based tool from 1Timetracking.com The time we spend with clients is logged weekly using the tool so clients can run reports 24/7 to see the work that has been done at their offices. Why we really like the 1Time system is because of it’s simplicity. For us, we don’t need all the bells-and-whistles that some systems offer large Corporate’s but we do need the same reliability. Reports from the system are also easy to generate. We send a unique link to a client and he / she simply clicks on it to view the report. No usernames, passwords or registration required. For companies that need to manage projects and employee time, this is certainly a tool worth looking at.

What happens to your business when your ADSL line goes down?

Something we are seeing more often is ADSL line failures. Either the circuit is completely dead or the line speed is significantly reduced. In some cases the ADSL speeds are slower than what you would achieve with an old modem connection. This becomes a challenge to any business as we are so reliant on having Internet access. From sending and receiving emails to online banking, the Internet has become a critical part of our business.

To mitigate the risk, businesses need a failover solution. While many exist, our experience is to use a wireless solution. Since the failover will only be utilized in emergencies, you need to look for a solution with the lowest monthly rates. Neotel have a WiMAX option but costs can be expensive for smaller businesses. Satellite VSAT solutions are also a great option as they mitigate the risk of an undersea cable failure as we experienced last year with the Seacom cable fault which lasted some six days. Unfortunately satellite solutions are expensive (+-R1000.00 / month excluding hardware costs) By far the simplest and cheapest solution we have found is to install a 3G  router. These routers look the same as your ADSL router but have an added USB port at the back to accommodate a 3G USB dongle.

The router constantly checks the status of your ADSL line and if it goes down, it automatically switches you over to the 3G circuit. Depending on the area you’re in will depend on the service provider you can use (Vodacom, MTN, CellC or 8ta) in order to get the best connectivity and speeds. The router is reasonably priced and can use most 3G dongles available in S. Africa.

TED Talks

A sign of good information is that it makes you think. If  reading a book, listening to a lecture or watching a video doesn’t change how you think, it probably wasn’t that important. But if you experience something special, something that forces you to change your views, even if you don’t completely agree with the content, you’ve probably found something valuable. While the Internet is a mine full of valuable information, most of the videos on YouTube fall into the entertainment or “info-mercial”category. Truly free and inspirational content while available is difficult to find in a single repository. Enter T.E.D, described as:

“A small non-profit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds:  Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, California, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Program, the new TEDx community program”

What TED (www.ted.com) offers is free access to some of the greatest minds in the World. Covering topics as diverse as human poverty, genomics and economics but in an entertaining and non-technical format.

Cloud Computing – The Facts

Cloud computing, you hear the term all the time. It’s in the news, it’s going to save your company money etc, etc. But what is it exactly and what are the risks? Wiki has the term described as :

“A computing capability that provides an abstraction between the computing resource and its underlying technical architecture (e.g., servers, storage, networks), enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.”

So, applications can for example be put into the cloud and many users from many Companies can share the same resource. Less power usage, no need for your own physical infrastructure etc. In theory, it’s a great idea. And for many non-critical business applications it’s probably a good concept. But for mission critical or core business applications, it’s not the way forward. Already we see some spectacular disasters of lost user data that was in the cloud. On 11th Oct 09, part of Microsoft’s cloud crashed.

“Microsoft has demonstrated that the dark side of cloud computing has no silver linings. After a major server outage occurred on its watch last weekend, users dependent on the company have just been informed that their personal data and photos “has almost certainly been lost.”

T-Mobile’s ‘sidekick’ which was affected by the crash had the following posted on its website:

“Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger’s latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device – such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos – that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger.”

My real concern with cloud computing is not the physical layer going down (servers, hard drives etc) as much as data theft. If a hack where available, many cloud based users accounts, applications and data across many Companies could be compromised. Yes, the cloud Companies keep telling us how good the security is but wasn’t that the same old story from the music houses a few years back? How secure music downloads and anti piracy measures where? Only to be hacked a few weeks after implementation.

Cloud computing has its place, but not for everything.

SonicWall – Content Management

SonicWall’s content management system must be the simplest I have seen. Not without its issues, it’s certainly far from perfect.

Setting it up is pretty straight forward. log into your Sonic, select the Security Services tab and then select Content Filter. Select Configure. Add a new policy. Now select the URL List and tick the categories of content you don’t want your users to view.

Remember to enable CFS Exclusion List

The categories are continually updated on your Sonic appliance remotely by the Sonic team. New websites that come on stream and categorised as porn for example quickly blocked. Not sure how long this process takes but seems to be fairly quick for websites that quickly become ‘popular’.

Obviously this is the very basic’s of setting up a CFS policy, an overview of whats possible and how easy it is to get up and running quickly with a Sonic.

SonicWall – More Than Just a Firewall

In earlier newsletters we have talked about these devices before. Known not simply as ‘firewall’s but rather ‘Unified Threat Management’ (UTM) appliances, they actually do a lot more, particularly in the South African enviroment where bandwidth is both expensive (and therefore usage needs to be controlled) and not always available. Read any ADSL or Wireless broadband contract and you will see wording similar to ‘services provided are best effort’. That means if your ADSL line goes down, there is no guaranteed time frame to have the line repaired. If you want that level of service, you need to pay a hefty premium for Telkom’s Diginet service. While there are many devices and indeed Linux applications that do exactly the same thing as the SonicWall’s, when it comes to overall cost of ownership, Sonic’s in our book offer great value for money.

One of the Sonic’s nice features is their automatic Internet failover feature. For example, your primary Internet line could be ADSL. As a backup, you could have a 3G card or WiMAX bandwidth from Screamer. The Sonic can be setup to automatically change over to the secondary Internet provider, Screamer WiMAX such as if the ADSL line does go down. The device continues to test the primary link and when it does become available, it automatically switches back to it. Using 3G as the backup device has its pro’s and con’s. The biggest for us is the cost. If the device fails over to a 3G device on a Friday afternoon for example, you might be in for a big bill on Monday morning if no one is checking the Sonic logs. Note that the SonicWall TZ 200 unit comes with a USB slot suitable for most 3G USB sticks.

An example of what the Sonic’s log file generates when the unit fails-over to the secondary WAN device:

02/10/2010 14:56:59.752 - Info - Firewall Event - 	Interface IP Assignment : Binding and initializing PPPoE Client			 - 	 - 	
02/10/2010 14:56:59.752 - Info - Firewall Event - 	Interface IP Assignment : Binding and initializing NAT Static IP			 - 	 - 	
02/10/2010 14:56:59.768 - Alert - WAN Availability - 	WLB Resource is now available - 	196.209.88.134, 0, X1 - 	0.0.0.0 - 	 
02/10/2010 14:56:59.768 - Alert - WAN Availability - 	WLB Failover in progress - 	192.168.2.2, 0, X2 - 	196.209.88.134, 0, X1 - 	 
02/10/2010 14:56:59.768 - Warning - WAN Availability - 	The network connection in use is PPPoE Client - 	196.209.88.134, 0, X1 - 	0.0.0.0 - 	 
02/10/2010 14:56:59.768 - Alert - WAN Availability - 	WLB Resource is now available - 	192.168.2.2, 0, X2 - 	0.0.0.0 - 	 
02/10/2010 14:56:59.768 - Alert - WAN Availability - 	WLB Failback initiated by preemption due to a more preferred interface being operational - 	196.209.88.134, 0, X1 - 	192.168.2.2, 0, X2 - 	 
02/10/2010 14:56:59.768 - Warning - WAN Availability - 	The network connection in use is NAT Static IP - 	192.168.2.2, 0, X2 - 	0.0.0.0 - 	 
02/10/2010 14:57:04.064 - Notice - Network Access - 	ICMP packet dropped due to policy - 	196.209.82.103, 768, X1 - 	196.209.88.134, 8, X1 - 	ICMP Echo, Code:   0 
02/10/2010 14:57:05.416 - Info - PPP - 	PPP message: LCP Echo Request Received  - 	0.0.0.0 - 	0.0.0.0 - 	 
02/10/2010 14:57:11.512 - Info - DDNS - 	DDNS Update success for domain 'test.dyndns.org'. Online IP updated. - 	192.168.2.2, 0, X0 - 	0.0.0.0, 0, X0 - 	 
02/10/2010 14:57:19.512 - Notice - Network Access - 	Web management request allowed - 	192.168.1.6, 52323, X0 (admin) - 	192.168.1.1, 80, X0 - 	TCP HTTP
02/10/2010 14:57:27.400 - Debug - Network Access - 	HTTP method detected; examining stream for host header - 	192.168.1.7, 1123, X0 - 	74.201.74.193, 80, X1 - 	TCP HTTP 
02/10/2010 14:57:32.464 - Info - Firewall Event - 	Interface IP Assignment : Binding and initializing NAT Static IP			 - 	 - 	
02/10/2010 14:57:32.464 - Info - Firewall Event - 	Interface IP Assignment : Binding and initializing PPPoE Client			 - 	 - 	
02/10/2010 14:57:32.480 - Alert - WAN Availability - 	WLB Resource is now available - 	196.209.88.134, 0, X1 - 	0.0.0.0 - 	 
02/10/2010 14:57:32.480 - Warning - WAN Availability - 	The network connection in use is PPPoE Client - 	196.209.88.134, 0, X1 - 	0.0.0.0 - 	 
02/10/2010 14:57:32.480 - Alert - WAN Availability - 	WLB Resource is now available - 	192.168.2.2, 0, X2 - 	0.0.0.0 - 	 
02/10/2010 14:58:06.832 - Info - PPP - 	PPP message: LCP Echo Request Received  - 	0.0.0.0 - 	0.0.0.0 - 	 
02/10/2010 14:58:09.416 - Notice - Network Access - 	TCP connection dropped - 	41.203.21.136, 80, X1 - 	192.168.1.6, 37460, X0 - 	TCP Port: 37460 
02/10/2010 14:58:21.128 - Notice - Network Access - 	Web management request allowed - 	192.168.1.6, 52422, X0 (admin) - 	192.168.1.1, 80, X0 - 	TCP HTTP
02/10/2010 14:58:32.704 - Notice - Network Access - 	UDP packet dropped - 	192.168.2.1, 3082, X2 - 	239.255.255.250, 1900 - 	UDP Port:  1900 
02/10/2010 14:59:08.336 - Info - PPP - 	PPP message: LCP Echo Request Received  - 	0.0.0.0 - 	0.0.0.0 - 	 
02/10/2010 14:59:14.272 - Info - PPPoE - 	PPPoE Network Disconnected			 - 	 - 	
02/10/2010 14:59:14.288 - Info - PPPoE - 	PPPoE LCP Link Down			 - 	 -

Note that DynDns.Org is updated with the new IP.

NeoTel – The Device

Not quite 48 hours to deliver, arrived 72 hours after I placed the order. Had to chase up with Neotel but the operators I spoke to where really efficient and always gave accurate information. A far cry from Telkom’s service, when of course you do eventually get to speak to human..

Back to the device. Neatly packed and consisting of three parts that needed some assembly. The hand piece, the battery (which I will talk about later) and the antenna. All fitted together fairly easily.

Neotel Phone

Back of Phone

From there, simply plugged in the transformer and pressed the phones ‘on’ button. Less than 20 sec later it was up and running.

Checked the signal strength (far left of the phones screen) and I had four bars. Dunno what the maximum is but probably five bars would indicate full signal strength. Making a call was straight forward. Voice quality is excellent! Probably better than our Telkom phone.

The phones menu is the usual garden variety, phone book, phone settings and or course screen display settings. Had that ‘banner’ feature where I have added our Companies name. Overall the phone build quality is not bad. The keys are a little clunky, the screen is clear but not fantastic. My only moan is I can’t seem to see where I can change the ring tone nor how I can turn down the volume of the ringing. There is a ‘silent’, ‘Outdoor’ and ‘general’ mode but I would have preferred a volume dial. Turning down the headset volume also seems to be an issue. I personally find it a little loud. The conference / loudspeaker feature works well but again very loud.

What’s really great is the battery that comes with the phone. The sales gumff advises it can run the phone for three days. Haven’t tested that theory yet but possibly over optimistic. Or, it was based on ‘standby’ mode only. I will be using the phone at another office every few days using battery power only. Will report back then.

Battery Compartment

The Neotel coverage maps seem out of date. Used the phone about 3Kms down the road where the maps said there was no coverage but managed 3 bars. Calls made and received where all very clear.

Overall, very impressed with Neotels service, voice quality and of course the cost of calls. The battery an added bonus.