Virtual IT Assistant, (VITA) is the new system management service from cmi. This new service support application assists improved preventative maintenance, enabling the cmi IT Professionals to proactively monitor IT systems.  This will alleviate potential problems, identify and eradicate before they cause damage and system downtime.
Regardless of the size of your business you can experience the rewards in productivity and increased profitability through IT automation.  With VITA, your infrastructure, network components, servers, and users' desktops can be managed remotely, comprehensively and transparently by the cmi IT Professionals ensuring you receive:-

• Proactive Management
• Remote Desktop Management
• Reduced Costs
• Improved services
• Prevents Downtime
• Increased Productivity
• Increased Security

 

Infrastructure design

Before you can begin to design a physical network you first must determine your needs:

• What services must you provide to your users?
• What are the resources you'll need?
• What will it take to satisfy the most users or to provide the more important services?

You then will have to take into account network protocols, applications, network speed, and most importantly, network security issues; each of these figures into a network's logical design. Another important factor your management will probably force you to consider is cost—you can't forget the budget. These factors make up the logical design for your network. You first should decide what you need and what it will take to provide for those needs.

When cmi plan a logical network design, we will start from one of two places. cmi can design and install a new network from scratch, or we can upgrade an existing network. Either way, we will gather information about several important factors before we begin the logical design.

If you are creating a new network and purchasing new applications, you will probably spend most of your time considering the licensing and other financial costs (training users, network personnel, and so on). If you are upgrading older applications, several other factors come into consideration.  At cmi we aim to provide our clients with a simple “no jargon” related approach to network design and implementation.

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Hardware

Our hardware partners are critical to our ability to provide innovative technology solutions to meet the customer’s needs, from advanced enterprise storage solutions to desktop PC’s for design work, back-office servers, and VOIP telephony solutions.

At cmi we have a number of select partners who provide just that, we constantly evaluate these partners to enable us to provide the best possible solution for our customers.

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Installation and cabling

cmi provides businesses complete communications solutions, tailored to meet customers’ individual requirements. Through our partners we aim to provide our customers with a complete data and telephony solution. Our services include supply, installation and maintenance of telephony solutions and Data Cabling, encompassing wireless networks.
One of the main reasons companies choose cmi is our unique style of project management, which undoubtedly holds the key to our success - a single point of contact. Whether you choose one or all of the services on offer from cmi, you can be assured of our commitment to provide a “complete” service throughout the entire installation process of the service we are supplying.

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Mobile/remote working solutions

When the term ‘teleworking’ was first coined in 1973, being able to work while on the move or out of the office was just a pipe dream. Now, almost four decades later, Alternative Networks shows you just how easy and effective remote working can be. 

We’ve been helping businesses just like yours harness the power of remote working. Using our experience and expertise we’ll demonstrate how you can

Improve productivity

• By giving employees the tools to do their job outside the office, businesses can get the most from their members of staff. 
  Mobile email allows workers to access their inbox on the move. This means they can use ‘dead’ time to catch up with email. A recent survey found that BlackBerry users saved one hour each day like this – an improvement of 38% on productivity. 
  Home working can also boost employee effectiveness. A poll by the Institute of Leadership and Management found that 75% of managers believe remote workers are more productive.
  
  

Retain and attract the very best employees

• After pay, flexible working is the second biggest incentive to move to another job.  By offering different working options, such as teleworking, it gives employers another way to retain staff. This could cut the cost of recruitment, training and short-term cover.
  

Reduce the environmental impact of your business

• Remote working is a simple and effective way of adding to your environmental commitment. But there’s more to it than just reducing workers’ commutes. 
  Network and video conferencing, amongst other applications, allows workers to meaningfully interact with each other. This means there’s no need for employees to travel cross country for short meetings.

Cut overheads and costs

• At a basic level, remote working saves on utility bills, cost of upkeep and overheads. But there are other savings to be made. 
  Connecting home-workers via IP to answer calls could mean that you enhance your call centre strategy. Moving to smaller premises and adopting a hot-desking policy could also dramatically lower your costs. 

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Software

cmi provide a number of software packages to meet the individual requirements of your companies changing IT needs. Our partnerships, with market leading IT suppliers such as Dell, Microsoft, Sophos and Cisco ensures your business can have confidence that your business is receiving the latest leading software.

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Storage Solutions

Lost data causes significant disruption to business resulting in lost time, labour, lost billings, and lost customers. In these times when many critical tasks have been moved from large systems to servers, and the number of LAN users is reaching significantly larger proportions, companies cannot afford to lose what has taken years to input.

It has been estimated that 31% of PC users have lost all their files due to events beyond their control. There are many ways you can unintentionally lose information on a computer. A power surge, lightning, floods, user error and sometimes equipment just fails.  Further research from the Strategic Research Institute has indicated Companies that aren't able to resume operations within ten days (of a disaster hit) are not likely to survive.

If you regularly make backup copies of your files and keep them in a separate place, you can get some, if not all, of your information back in the event something happens to the originals on your computer; that is if the correct information is being backed up.  This comes down to where the information is being stored by each user, everyone may be different.
Examples of important Data businesses back up include:-

• Bank records and other financial information
• Digital photographs
• Medical information
• Software you purchased and downloaded from the Internet
• Personal projects
• Your e-mail address book
• Your Microsoft Outlook calendar
• Your Internet Explorer bookmarks
• Not to mention Client Files and folders.

For a complete backup, you will need to ensure that desktops and laptops, as well as servers, are backed up to enable complete restoration. Simply relying on users to save key data files to a server or shared file system that is regularly backed up does not guarantee a complete backup. For example, if users forget or neglect to save critical files to file servers, key data may be missed and not backed up.
cmi provide backup products that are flexible and extensible to enable you to tailor the technology to meet your specific needs and requirements on an application, server or even desktop basis.

Sub headings:
RAID: the high-performance choice
We begin with RAID, which stands for redundant array of inexpensive (or independent) disks and can provide server-based networks with a level of data protection and reliability equal to that of their larger mainframe cousins. RAID also provides fast access times to gigabytes of stored information. The RAID redundancy scheme guarantees disk array operation should any one of its components (drives, platters, etc.) fail.
The RAID standards board recognizes seven levels of RAID, of which 1, 3, and 5 are the levels most often used. Though each level provides some degree of data protection, the RAID levels do not refer to performance but to the methodology used to store and protect data.

One advantage to many RAID devices is the opportunity to remove or add an individual drive without interrupting network access to the storage subsystem. Some RAID devices also can automatically activate a built-in spare drive if a working drive should fail. The RAID subsystem proceeds to rebuild the data from the failing drive to the spare, invisible to the user. RAID subsystems commonly store from four gigabytes to a few terabytes of data.

RAID can be more expensive than an optical drive option, but for transaction processing applications and critical, online database access environments, this is the only solution providing the needed fault-tolerance and quick access times.

Backing up with tape 

Tape is indeed a dinosaur in relative terms, but it's ideal for backup. Tape is slow, but can store a lot of data... one mid-range tape should be enough to backup your entire server. Plus, tape is extremely cheap - mid-range tapes cost around £15-£20 each. Typically, server backup is performed at the end of each day. Just put in the tape and let the backup process run overnight. If your server ever suffers a catastrophic disaster, you have at least saved all your files from the previous day.

cmi Promote Grandfather-Father-Son Tape Backup

The grandfather-father-son schedule is the most widely used method, and involves backing up data in the following way:

• daily - on the 'son tapes’
• weekly - on the 'father tapes'
• monthly - on the 'grandfather tapes'

This system is far more powerful than the five-tape rotation, but requires more tapes.This strategy provides you with the ability to restore data from the last week, plus any Monday over the last month, plus any month for as many monthly tapes as you have. Variations on this scheme are available, and provide a trade-off between the number of tapes required, and the number of monthly tapes available.

Remote Backup
Remote Backup is an online digital data-vault, which safely stores your data away from your office. With Remote Backup your company's most valuable asset is risk free from critical data loss of which the main culprits are; theft, fire, flood, virus infection, human error, malicious sabotage, power cuts and mechanical breakdown. cmi provides this service through a partner Securestore. 

Setting up the service takes less than an hour and there is no need for any new hardware. The software, included in the service only needs to be installed on one server on your network, with no additional software needed on other machines connected to the network. All the databases, file servers and PCs on your network can then be accessed so that a backup strategy can be defined. You then decide the timing, frequency and number of generations for each backup set, ensuring that there is no disruption to your business.

At a time when the amount of data required to be stored is on an upward trend the need for easy-to-implement, flexible and scalable backup and recovery is critical. Online technology solutions now provide updated backup and recovery services that are more scalable, secure and potentially cost effective and faster than traditional tape-based technology.

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Telecoms/voip

cmi are SMB partners with market leading brand CISCO

What is VoIP and What Can it Do for Your Business?

VoIP and IP telephony are becoming increasingly popular in the market today.  For many people, Internet Protocol (IP) is more than just a way to transport data, it's also a tool that simplifies and streamlines a wide range of business applications. Telephony is the most obvious example. VoIP is also the foundation for more advanced unified communications applications - including Web and video conferencing - that can transform the way you do business.

VoIP: Terms

Understanding the terminology is an important step toward learning the potential of this technology: 

• VoIP refers to a way to carry phone calls over an IP data network, whether on the Internet or your own internal network. A primary attraction of VoIP is its ability to help reduce expenses because telephone calls travel over the data network rather than the phone company's network.
• IP telephony encompasses the full suite of VoIP enabled services including the interconnection of phones for communications; related services such as billing and dialling plans; and basic features such as conferencing, transfer, forward, and hold. These services might previously have been provided by a PBX.
• IP communications includes business applications that enhance communications to enable features such as unified messaging, integrated contact centres, and rich-media conferencing with voice, data, and video.
• Unified communications takes IP communications a step further by using such technologies as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and presence along with mobility solutions to unify and simply all forms of communications, independent of location, time, or device.
  

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Thin Client Technology

Thin Client, is known as server-based computing is a software program that relies heavily on another computer to do most of its work. It works as part of a network, and the client software or computer acts as an interface, while the network server computer does all the real work.

Thin Client technology is essentially a desktop or laptop without local and removable storage. Typically the Thin Client terminal sends messages to the server and the server sends screen updates to the device. Thin Client affords many advantages to businesses including lower acquisition cost, lower maintenance time and costs as well as overall better security.
cmi will provide a full assessment of your company IT needs and provide and install a Thin Client package to fit your individual business requirements.

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Virtualisation

An ever demanding fast paced business environment has tasked IT departments with reducing costs and increasing service levels whilst providing an IT infrastructure that can quickly respond to evolving business needs. Virtualisation is a new Solution to satisfy the increased demands in technological resources.

Virtualisation allows you to run multiple applications and operating systems independently on a single server. It enables you to move workloads from one virtual workspace to another enabling the prioritising of business needs, while maximizing server resources. It enables people, processes and technology to work together more efficiently to meet increased service levels. Since capacity can be allocated dynamically, over-provisioning is eliminated and your entire IT infrastructure is simplified.
cmi has partnered with both Citrix and Citrix XenServer to sell the full range of its virtualisation products.

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Cloud Computing

What is Cloud Computing?

In the past small businesses used programs installed on PCs and servers installed in an office. Now, IT companies have found a much better way of providing IT to small businesses using the Internet aka "The Cloud".
Cloud Computing providers like cmi host IT in professionally managed IT facilities. You connect to your IT using the Internet instead of buying, installing and running your own hardware and software. All you need to run your business is a PC or MAC and an Internet connection. It’s as easy as that.

The first term to identify is “cloud.” What is the cloud? Basically, the cloud is a fancy term for the Internet, outside of your local network. The cloud is a concept for the complex infrastructure it conceals. For example, you could have an internal network of 35 computers set up at your office, but once information travels outside of that network to, say, Yahoo, it is travelling to the cloud.

Why is Cloud Computing so popular?
Why is it important? The cloud is important because more and more, software, data access, and integral system process are being hosted in the cloud rather than on internal, expensive, difficult-to-maintain hardware. For example, rather than purchasing a set of Web servers, hiring an IT professional to maintain the hardware and software, and installing all software at an on-site location, Web hosting that is located in the cloud can be used much more efficiently and in a more cost-effective manner.

Here’s just a few of the reasons why people are moving to Cloud Computing.:

• Save Money  - You won’t waste money buying and upgrading hardware and software and paying for breakdowns.

• Freedom  - You are free to access your IT from anywhere and there’s no restriction on which programs you can run.

• Save Time  - There’s no more frustration or time lost waiting for IT problems and glitches to be fixed.

• Peace of Mind  - Enjoy the comfort of complete protection from unwanted surprises that could slow you up or even shut down your business, sometimes for good.

Cloud Computing Today
Cloud Computing has become extremely popular with small to mid-sized businesses. The advent of low-cost, high-speed broadband coupled with leaps in Internet technology, means that secure and reliable IT is now a reality to even the smallest of businesses.

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