Quick Tips from the IT Trenches
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18-Oct-2014 -
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Transcript of Quick Tips from the IT Trenches
Quick Tips from the IT TrenchesA lightning round of tech topics from your fellow IT pros.
Nicole Tanzillo, Director of IT Product Marketing
The details.
• 13 minutes per speaker.
• Questions if we have time.
• And our speakers are…
Anthony Sutcliffe
Bottman
Tino TodinoTino Todino
Ben Snape
Hubba Bubba
Peter Craine
peter
Virtualisation VoIP Wireless Display BYOD
Anthony Sutcliffe
Bottman Virtualisation to provide a multi-language support environmentA P Sutcliffe P G Dip CCI, MBCS
• A privately owned SME in the manufacturing & service sector
• 3 sites in the UK, 1 in France, 3 in Germany, 1 in Hungary
• Dealer partners in other countries
• Increased reliance upon IT in all areas of the business
Background - The nature of the business
European Coverage
• Manufacturing – process driven, scheduled
• Service – customer driven, flexibility is key
Two main streams of business
Workshop supplies
Vehicle fitting
• 5 people, 3 on systems, 2 on web development• Web development support for sites in all countries
within the group• Provided full support to users for all ICT systems
within UK & France• Growing support for ERP systems for Germany &
Hungary
UK IT Team
• Sites located a considerable distance apart with UK IT staff based at the UK H.Q.
• An increase in operational staff in the UK, increasing support needs; for both IT use and business process changes driven by ERP
• The UK IT team had limited foreign language skills
• End users were not fully IT literate
Support Issues
• Server virtualisation started in 2009
• Cut server estate in half in first 6 months
• UK IT staff continued to work on other projects at the same time
• In most cases, used P2V process to migrate servers – end users did not realise the work had taken place
• A large proportion of work done remotely out of hours
Virtualisation
Virtual landscape
Equallogic PS6010
Dell R710 serverPowerConnect 6224
The project to virtualise servers proved that it works well• It saved money – reducing physical servers in first
phase of project cutting utility bill by 15%• It saved time – admin time cut by about 40%• Increased server up time to 99.97% per annum• It saved effort – easier & faster to deploy and scale
servers to meet user needs• It was easy to operate and manage!
Virtualisation Works!
To create a virtual platform to provide improved multi language support
facilities
The Proposal
• HP Proliant DL380 G4 (re-used)• 2 x Dual core processors• 16 GB DRAM• 400 GB HDD (in RAID 5)
The Hardware
• Windows Server 2003 (Standard)• VMware Workstation• Windows XP – En, Fr, De, Hu• Windows 7 – En, Fr, De, Hu• Office 2003 – En, Fr, De, Hu• Office 2007 – En, Fr, De, Hu• Office 2010 – En, Fr, De
The software
• Windows XP & Office 2003• Windows XP & Office 2007• Windows XP & Office 2010• Windows 7 & Office 2003• Windows 7 & Office 2007• Windows 7 & Office 2010
Configuration of VMs
• 1 image, cloned then the relevant Office package added
• Virtual machines left offline until needed – average 30 seconds to start up and boot OS
• Select the appropriate VM for OS & Office combination
• Could run several VMs at a time for multiple support needs
Virtual Machines
En Français
Die Deutch
Screenshots of processes - in the specific language to provide training material for the end user
Improved support – IT staff became familiar with the different terms in each language
Increased end user confidence in support staff – making the support process easier
VDI for Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery – this was a practical demonstration of how VDI might work
Benefits
Tino TodinoTino Todino
VoIP
BabblevoiceA fully-fledged phone system in <15 mins.
• Babblevoice is a HOSTED VoIP TELEPHONE SYSTEM based upon the FreeSwitch Open Source product hosted in 3 fully redundant UK based datacentres.
That
• …uses the SIP protocol and supports a variety of VoIP handsets, soft phones and Smartphone's as SIP clients.
• …is designed to be managed by resellers or end-users.
• …is ‘contract free’ and can be used as an internal telephone system free of charge.
What is Babblevoice?
• Comprehensive Voicemail facility• Unified messaging (voicemail to email)• Conference calling (unlimited parties)• Call grouping/hunting (ringing several
handsets at once)• Call routing (what happens if the original
destination is busy)• Call recording • Interactive voice response (IVR)• External and internal call rules• Assign geographical and 0845 numbers
to your account
• Natural language GUI to enable complex rules to be set up easily.
• Calendar integration – Works with Google calendars and anything that can create/publish iCAL files (Mac OSX, Outlook, etc)
• Babblevoice API: The API is intended for developers who wish to develop client applications to extend the core functionality of Babblevoice.
• Open Source projects including a power dialler app which can be used with CRM systems.
• iGoogle/Netvibes gadgets integration that give various information about your Babblevoice domain.
Babblevoice - Features
• Each line you have (a line is defined as an external geographical number) is charged on a monthly basis.
• 1 to 4 lines = £3.00 per month per line
• 5 to 9 lines = £2.00 per month per line
• 10 to 29 lines = £1.50 per month per line
• Over 30 lines = £Negotiable rental per month per line.
• Each line can support a theoretically unlimited number of devices (tested to around 1000 devices)
• Link to Box.com (for IVR) £2.50 per month
• Phone call recording £1 per GB per month
• Number porting to Babblevoice (£20 + VAT - discount for quantity)
Babblevoice - Costs
Babblevoice - Typical Call Costs
Demo
Ben Snape
Hubba Bubba
Wireless Display
NFC Tags and Wireless Display
Near Field Communication
NFC
• Choose your chip
• NTAG203 137 bytes of data
• Max size 4k
NFC Tags
Android Application
Program the tag
• Technical Specs
• Case Studies
• Trade show “Follow us”
Delivering Content
Fun with NFC
@benpsnape
Apple TV
Wireless Display
Miracast WiDi
Netgear PTV3000
Agile Working
Peter Craine
peter
BYOD
Bring Your Own Device(you’re not using mine)
Reasonable GPS locator (better if you install the app) Can stop end users from uninstalling it Remotely install apps from store and enterprise Can lock and wipe phones Set up range of email notifications to be triggered Free version – good enough for a lot of small company needs to start with Recommended and found through Spiceworks
If you do install the app you get push messaging as well
Main Pluses why I chose Meraki
Good GPS Locating
That’s all, folks!
Let’s head to the Great Halls for the wrap-up… and raffles.