Yearly Archives: 2011

17 posts

Will your backup restore your business after a disaster?

Backup

Most likely not. Many businesses fail every year because they cannot recover from a disaster, even though they were convinced that they had “good backups”. If you are not loosing sleep over whether or not your backup will work to accurately recover your business after a catastrophe, you probably should be.

Only one proven methodology, “Disaster Recovery Confirmation” can validate your backup so you don’t loose sleep! Once a month, restore a sample of your critical business files to a computer and open them in the application that you do business with. Every month, you will be secure in the knowledge that your files are recoverable.

Home users can try out the backup-restore process with a Free 2GB Online Backup account from Mozy. Please use referral code F2YX90 when you sign up. I get a bit more space on my account that way.

Business users need to look at backup a bit differently than home users. The number of times the tragedy of backup tapes remaining on top of a local server and are both consumed in a fire is unbelievable. Backup is a lot more than insuring the tape gets swapped out and removed from the building every night or that you cheat a bit and sign up for Mozy Home unlimited.

Your business needs the two biggest pieces of a backup strategy in place to survive data loss.

Register online for any of the MozyPro subscription plans to achieve Off Site Out Of Region Backup. You can opt for yearly subscriptions that carry a substantial discount compared to monthly plans.

QuickBooks in the Cloud 101

QuickBooks

Check out “QuickBooks in the Cloud 101 hosted by Michelle Long and Joanie Mann” sponsored by Sleeter Group. It’s a great look at hosted QuickBooks. Both presenters did an excellent job.

Skip to 37 minutes in to experience real time click and start QuickBooks and other hosted applications from the desktop. They work almost as quick as applications installed locally.

Internet Connectivity

Communications

With software like GeoQuote, getting Commercial Telecommunications, Cable, Wireless and Fiber Carrier Solutions pricing has never been easier. Finally you’ll be able to use your time for real analysis rather than hunting down information. With the information in front of you, you’ll have the information you need to study out the right plan for you.

Now you won’t have to feel like you have to have a 45 minute telephone call with the local phone company just to find out how much your service will cost. As GeoQuote is an information service that’s exactly what you get….Information without the sales pitch.

GeoQuote is currently used by Managed Computer Services, Unified Network Services and several other licensees. Typically a communications professional will contact you after you have received your instant quote.

Don’t panic! These communications professionals are not there to pressure you. Use them and their expertise to further investigate the services and carriers you see on your quote. We recommend the use of communications professionals in any search for communications services and I also recommend using an agent broker to sign up for your service.

Many people believe they can “beat the system” by contacting a agent broker to get pricing and other information as quickly as possible and will then go straight to the carrier believing they can get better service. This “end-run” process is actually a good way to cut yourself out of some of the biggest advantages of having an agent broker.

Agent brokers don’t mark up the price of services. They offer the same price you would get if you did go direct to the company.

The advantage of ordering through a agent broker is that you will get a second channel of customer service. If the company is not performing to your expectations, you will always be able to go back to your agent broker who puts a significant volume through the carrier.

An agent broker is much more likely to get the companies’ attention and have your problem solved. In our opinion, GeoQuote real time pricing and an agent broker is the only way to go!

Try GeoQuote, our real time carrier services pricing information tool below. All fields are required.

QuickBooks Multi User QuickBooks Server QuickBooks Remote Access

6 comments

QuickBooks

Not all small businesses can afford QuickBooks Hosting. But, many businesses can’t afford not to. A small business must make a solid business case to spend $50 per user on Hosted QuickBooks. Make the business case and you too can spend many years using QuickBooks Pro, Premier, Accountant or Enterprise Solutions trouble free.

If your business can’t make the case for Hosted QuickBooks, consider this unorthodox route to your own QuickBooks Multi User, Remote Access QuickBooks Server.

The process to build what you need is very straight forward. It will work for 3 user Pro or Premier. If you use a re purposed XP Pro computer, you can save quite a bit of money. The steps are below.

Build a new XP Pro or Win7 Pro computer.

Assign to a domain if it needs to be part of your domain.

Download and Install per their instructions the appropriate version of Thinstuff XP/VS Terminal Server (http://www.thinstuff.com)

Install your version of QuickBooks Pro or Premier.

Setup domain security or local user security.

Turn off any firewall software on the server or write rules to allow rdp and vpn.

Test multiuser desktop access on the local network.

Setup QuickBooks users.

Test multiuser QuickBooks access on the local network.

You now have a multiuser RDP accessible QuickBooks server.

You can use XP/VS Terminal Server to serve a desktop or TSX RemoteApp to serve only QuickBooks.

To add remote access to the server, install OpenVPN or LogMeIn Hamachi VPN on the server and on client computers. You can then access QuickBooks from anywhere you have fast broadband Internet.

Compare this to my Enterprise Solutions server by the book setup:

Remote Desktop Services with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 standard with the latest Intel 64 bit processors, 32 GB RAM and 1000GB drive (not raid) for serving thirty users’ desktops, the maximum size for a single Enterprise installation on a physical server. Add a backup/recovery scheme and redundancy to power and memory to allow for maximum uptime. For a datacenter, dedicate one physical server and network segment to one unique business.

One can save a ton of money.

QuickBooks Pro 2011 Best Internet Price

QuickBooks

Great prices on QuickBooks Pro 2011 from Amazon right now! QuickBooks Pro helps you manage your business better, organize your finances, and create instant reports.

Easy to set up, easy to learn, easy to use–pick up new skills at your own pace with the built-in Learning Center. Organize your finances all in one place–key business tasks are grouped logically so you know what to do next.

Manage customer, vendor, and employee data in one place–manage data easily, with quick access to related transactions. New tools and features that give you faster access to the information you need and make your everyday tasks more efficient

One User Download	One User CD
Three User Download	Three User CD

Hosted QuickBooks Secures Your QuickBooks Company Files

QuickBooks

Hosted QuickBooks provides several opportunities to reduce hardware and associated costs. Hosted QuickBooks reduces the cost of purchasing a QuickBooks server, a server that needs space, additional security, high end network lines and skilled IT resources to keep operational. All of these costs are included in your monthly Hosted QuickBooks charge.

Hosted QuickBooks facilitates the ability of workers to access QuickBooks company files regardless of their location, reducing real-estate demands and increasing worker productivity. Access to Hosted QuickBooks uses the same security that banks provide their online banking customers. Hosted QuickBooks secures your QuickBooks company files behind an inpenetrable firewall and multiple layers of security.

Hosted QuickBooks helps companies save on the dollars they spend on providing high end workstations for their employees. These workstations can cost between $750 and $2,000 each, depending on the configuration. Hosted QuickBooks allows each user to have a retail consumer computer that costs $250 to $500 for a nice device. These laptops or PCs and broadband Internet connections provide access to the internet and to hosted applications like Hosted QuickBooks.

By using Hosted QuickBooks, no data is stored on any local computers or server, so if a computer is ever lost or stolen, only a replacement of that lost computer is required – without the fear or worry of lost information. Hosted QuickBooks is but a click away, from a QuickBooks shortcut on your desktop.

QuickBooks Network Security

QuickBooks

Secure Internet access is mandatory in a network where QuickBooks operated. Let me give you a quick example of an instance that requires one to seriously consider a Unified Threat Management Scenario to secure your Internet gateway.

Application intelligence and controls are important because HTTP (port 80) has been a common method to bypass security, yet there are other protocols and ports that need to be reviewed in a basic security audit. For example, part of the background process a browser performs when going to http://www.google.com is making a request for the destination IP address of the domain www.google.com. This is similar to making a phone call. Unless you know the persons phone number, you can’t make the call. Domain Name Services (DNS) is the ‘phone book’ protocol of the Internet and is fixed on port 53.

In our example, DNS provides the IP address for www.google.com. A hacker knows this and can get around the security which is focused on the port 80 http traffic by redirecting DNS requests to a rogue DNS server running at a location they control. While a firewall or other device can give a user an IP address and network information via DHCP, the recommended DNS server IP addresses are only that: recommended. The hacker bypasses all security that NGFW offers by tunneling their traffic through special software via DNS (port 53) unfettered. The firewall ‘sees’ the traffic as simply DNS on port 53, with no restrictions.

This technique is especially popular with hackers who want to bypass guest Wi-Fi. The business offering the service will redirect any browser to a web page requesting the user pay for Wi-Fi or acknowledge an acceptable use policy. Most of the time, DNS is needed and is not limited to certain servers.

QuickBooks In Converged Data/Voice Networks

QuickBooks

During last week’s run up to a local data center conference, I found myself telling an IT Director that one should consider their network in terms of being voice centric.

I almost choked. After my many years of preaching data centricity, I found that I had moved beyond converged networking to looking at a network from the perspective of real time traffic prioritization.

My IT protégé choked because he could hardly believe his ears and he totally agreed with me. His mantra; design to voice and specific applications needs.

The new converged network embraces coexistence of real time traffic such as video and voice with all other traffic. Seeking new and better ways of prioritizing traffic, that is, forcing video and voice traffic to move across the network ahead of all other traffic, drives development of the new converged network.

QuickBooks for five users or less fits neatly into converged data/voice networks because all QuickBooks clients in the default client-server QuickBooks setup need to operate on an isolated gigabit switch, up linked to the legacy data/voice network. QuickBooks above five users should reside on a remote desktop services server. The low bandwidth requirements of remote desktop services plays very nice with converged data/voice networks.

Painless QuickBooks can help you with any QuickBooks multi user setup from a three user local server to a thirty user local and remote access server. We also provide Hosted QuickBooks from one to thirty users. Please contact us today!

Time To Chose A QuickBooks Hosting Provider

QuickBooks

If you are tackling a new QuickBooks server installation, consider this story line.

Let me be honest with myself here. I would like to have a five user QuickBooks installation that allows me the same functionality as a commercially hosted QuickBooks setup, one that would run me $250 per month.

Actually, I really want to recoup my cost by hosting a few of my clients for $50 a user. I know of twenty clients that I can host right now. It can’t be that hard, as I find myself opening up my new $1000 Dell server I succumbed to purchasing online.

Much to my surprise, the server sets up almost automatically right out of the box. My new copy of QuickBooks Pro sets up quickly. Within a few hours, I’m up on the network and sharing files and QuickBooks with my other two employees. So, I’ve decided to add a couple more employees and set this server up for a few customers. Although sharing QuickBooks with a few employees and customers sounds simple and straight forward, this story usually ends with many unhappy customers and a project that turns into a money pit.

Consider the real gotchas.

The $1000 on sale server might be enough to share QuickBooks among three employees, but it won’t live in a situation that demands any more stress. Options like virtualization, redundant power supplies, redundant disk arrays, multiple processors and up to 32GB memory for multiple application loads do not come standard on a $1000 server.

Terminal Services, a necessity for running QuickBooks in a multi user remote access environment requires additional Microsoft licensing to be purchased. Microsoft states, “In addition to a server license, a Windows Server Client Access License (CAL) is required to access the Windows Server software. If you wish to utilize the RDS functionality of the Windows Server software, an incremental Terminal Services Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services Client Access License (TS CAL), or the new Remote Desktop Services Client Access License (RDS CAL) is required as well”

Intuit will not support QuickBooks Pro in a Terminal Services environment for end user customers. One will lose access to any support help from Intuit unless the Enterprise version and Enterprise support are purchased and run exclusively.

The typical software architecture to add multiple secured users to Windows Server is not possible, when clients require any third party add on software or integrated FEDEX or UPS shipping functionality. Virtualization of QuickBooks and the underlying server software established itself as a mature technology long ago. Third party software is expensive but an absolute must.

Recently, Rick Fallahee, CEO of NovelASPect, offered some great advice about choosing an application Hosting provider. One of Rick’s suggestions is spot on. “When searching for an application hosting provider, make sure they offer Citrix.” Microsoft Terminal Services presents a “remote desktop” to the end user. But software designed to virtualize applications such as QuickBooks and Peachtree often finds its way to the cutting room floor in order for hosting providers to cut cost. Citrix removes boundaries imposed by default Terminal Services and allows effortless printing and scanning from USB devices such as POS devices, webcams, microphones, scanners, digital cameras, and more. Citrix facilitates access from many types of devices like Apple MACs and smart phones. Invest your $250 a month (a typical five user hosted application) in a solution with Citrix.

QuickBooks Enterprise retails for $3000 for a five user version. A fully virtualized and redundant server setup from Dell with appropriate licensing runs well over $20000. I don’t think I’ll be offering up my $1000 server to host QuickBooks Pro and Premier to my customers anytime soon.

If you need QuickBooks hosting or Peachtree hosting, contact me. I can help out.

Some Serious Backup

Backup Business Systems Support

We live and work in hurricane country, which incidentally, its season is right around the corner. The past several years have proven to be a profound test of our ability to execute business continuity. Some of us have not fared so well.

I’ve experienced business continuity failure because a business continuity plan was not in place and executed. Although I stood ready to bring up a DR Data Facility within hours, disaster recovery was completely compromised because of the lack of a business continuity plan.

If you would like a Business Continuity Plan template at no cost, head over to bakupz.com and download the template. It provides a great start for a small to medium sized business. Most importantly, go through the steps to make it real.

The most important part of successfully implementing a Business Continuity Plan is to understand that it is a team effort and not the responsibility of your IT guy. And, there’s more to disaster recovery than your tape backup. In my case, I had duplicated the primary line of business servers, segmented the network to facilitate turning up another data center and synchronized database servers. I understood the need for DR infrastructure.

In the past, my biggest enemy to pull off disaster recovery was time. Besides needing production ready servers, in time, one might download files from one’s online backup service or recover data from an archived tape, but you cannot use files and data if your infrastructure is damaged. What I would have given to have a production-ready virtual network for active disaster recovery and failover, with “active” production-ready infrastructure images, backed up at regular pre-determined intervals and in real time, and stored for use any time.

If you’re in IT or just very interested in IT, you need to watch this video. It shows how quickly server recovery can occur if the right disaster recovery technology is deployed. In the event of major system failures or hardware destructive disasters, simply fail over by switching your infrastructure to redundant production-ready images in the virtual network. Your systems are back online in minutes, enabling your business to recover and maintain its pace.

Watch Failover In Under Five Minutes From Doyenz