Explore Your Options

Recently, I have seen so many small businesses purchases the first product or service that solves their immediate problem without exploring multiple options or considering long term plans.  The natural response is they don't know the options.  Know that there are always options.  Ask the person trying to sell you their product what other options are available.  If they are honest and want to build trust, they will discuss them with their along with pros and cons.  Take that information and contact their competitor or another vendor that makes similar products to discuss their options. 

Compare, Compare, Compare

Take the data that includes price, support, features, growth and other important factors to you and compare them side by side.  This will give you a clearer picture of what fits your business today and 3 years from now.

Hosted Services (Software as a Services / Saas) or Local Installation

SaaS is becoming ever popular with Google, ZoHo and Hosted Voice Over IP (VoIP) services. The main attractions are 1)Upfront cost is less, 2) No hardware or software to implement and 3) Upgrades or feature enhancements are rolled out to all customers.   SaaS does have it's place but there is an on-site local product or service alternative.  They have advantages to. 1)You own the product, no one can take it away or shut it down 2)Quicker to implement changes and enhancements and 3) Many 3rd party software integration capabilities that can't be done with a hosted provider.

Conclusion

We all just want our immediate problems to go away.  Stop and thing about  your companies long term needs, Total Cost of Ownership and compare multiple solutions for your overall needs.

Aaron Magruder

NonStop Networks, LLC

Cisco Unified Communications Solutions

http://www.nonstopnetworks.net

(816) 846-0676

Visit our Resource Center and Blog,  Join the Kansas City Small Business Technology Community, Meet Us on Facebook, Find Us on LinkedIn and Follow on Twitter.

There is no warranty in the information listed. It is always recommended that your seek the advice of a trusted professional.

March Madness: The Network Killer

ATTN Business Owners: Don't make this IT's problem.


ATTN IT Departments: Business Owners will make this your problem.


It never fails. Calls start flooding in about slow response times of critical applications. What just happened? Every year employees stream March Madness over the internet killing the companies internet bandwidth. The company policy doesn't state they can't stream media over the internet so it becomes your problem to solve. Been there, done that.


What do you do now?

1. Tell people that complain about performance the entire sales department is watching March Madness and to go complain to them. (Not Politically Correct)
2. Shut down all streaming media in and out of the network at your internet gateway. (Not a good idea, many angry executives)
3. Ask people politely to stop streaming the game over the internet as it is affecting production. (This may work for some people, but not effective.)
4. Set up TV's around the office to allow people to watch the games rather than watching over the internet. (This is a very effective solution if your office has cable TV)
5. Throttle streaming media in and out of the network to 25-50% of your available internet bandwidth. This will allow people to get actual production work done, keep the streamers happy, human resources doesn't have to deal with the problem and executives don't have to hear about the problem.

How do I do limit the bandwidth March Madness consumes?

1. If you have a proxy server in your network, they have the ability to classify traffic by type. i.e. Streaming Media. You can limit a type to a specific bandwidth usage.
2. No proxy, Cisco Routers have the ability to rate limit, shape or QoS traffic types.
3. No Cisco Routers. The solution won't be as affective, but most small business internet gateways have the ability to deny traffic by ip address and possiblly URL.
4. OpenDNS can filter by category. Unfortunately this an allow Podcast / Sports or deny which would leave several other sites blocked as well.

Conclusion


There are several ways to prepare for the effect March Madness will have on you network. First, if you have a proxy server use it. If not, contact your CIO and human resources to see if a policy can be put in place around March Madness streaming. Make sure corporate communications broadcast it 3 times before it starts. If not, document, document, document that fact that you informed everyone of the situation and side effects that will occur.

Aaron Magruder

NonStop Networks, LLC

Cisco Unified Communications Solutions

http://www.nonstopnetworks.net

(816) 846-0676

Visit our Resource Center and Blog,  Join the Kansas City Small Business Technology Community, Meet Us on Facebook, Find Us on LinkedIn and Follow on Twitter.

Focused on solving problems for small and medium sized businesses who are frustrated that their communication systems are letting them down, worried about security and concerned with rising technology cost.  Helping businesses communicate in real-time with customers and staff - anytime, anywhere.

There is no warranty in the information listed. It is always recommended that your seek the advice of a trusted professional.

What does Net Neutrality mean to Small Business?

Have you heard of Net Neutrality yet?  In short, it is the principal or idea of keeping all traffic on the internet for any person or source equal.  i.e. Big business web traffic gets no more priority on the internet as your small business instant message traffic. 

The FCC defined net neutrality more broadly in 2005, coming up with four principles—dubbed the “Four Freedoms”—to be applied on an individual basis:

1. Consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice.

2. Consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement.

3. Consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network.

4. Consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers. 

The FCC is in favor of Net Neutrality while others believe that you should be able to pay or charge for priority on the internet.  Where would this leave small, startup or rural businesses?  Would they be able to compete with their larger competitors using the internet?

Comcast was one of the first to be brought to court by the FCC for limiting the flow of a filing sharing application called BitTorrent.  (http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-technology/20100108/US.TEC.Comcast.FCC.Internet.Rules/ ).  They argued that it was their multibillion dollar infrastructure and should have the right to protect it and other subscribers from being affected by peer to peer file sharing. 

Obama has stated he is in favor of Net Neutrality (http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9806707-7.html) but no laws have been made to date.  The Comcast dispute may be the first to be take in front of Congress to resolve with legislation.

Please share your thoughts on Net Neutrality?

NonStop Networks, LLC

Cisco Unified Communications Solutions

http://www.nonstopnetworks.net

Visit our Resource Center and Blog,  Join the Kansas City Small Business Technology Community, Meet Us on Facebook, Find Us on LinkedIn and Follow on Twitter.

Focused on solving problems for small and medium sized businesses who are frustrated that their communication systems are letting them down, worried about security and concerned with rising technology cost.  Helping businesses communicate in real-time with customers and staff - anytime, anywhere.

There is no warranty in the information listed. It is always recommended that your seek the advice of a trusted professional.