« Back to Archives

MAY 2011

EI at THE PLAYERS:
An experience second to none!

4 Days of world-class golf
1 Perfect location at the 17th hole
800 Tickets distributed to EI clients and friends
4.5 Hours of delay after the torrential down pour
25 EI employees providing a second to none experience
37 Raving Fan Clients represented at our Chalet
3 Rounds of full buffet spreads per day
1 exhausted bartender.
2011 EI at THE PLAYERS was truly an experience Second to None, thank you for joining us!

Our signature customer appreciation event has been an EI tradition for more than 10 years, we hope we gave you a glimpse into an organization that first and foremost believes in superior customer service. We pride ourselves on being a customer-service driven IT company, not the other way around - that's just how important it is to us. The combination of what we call Raving Fan Service and the best people, process and technology enables us to deliver the promise of IT. This has always been and will continue to be our focus at Enterprise Integration.

Thanks again to those who shared THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP experience with us!

Top 5 trends for 2011 Predictions from the CTO:
Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has generated a lot of buzz in the business environment. CIOs are questioning the importance of maintaining messaging and collaboration in their own data centers. As you start to consider cloud computing as an alternative, first become knowledgeable on the different meanings of cloud computing. Cloud means a lot of different things to different people and this article is not going to provide the ultimate definition of the Cloud.  Instead I will focus this article on cloud storage, which is the ability to store data at an Internet Service Provider’s data center.  Cloud providers such as Google, Amazon, Go Grid and many, many more offer inexpensive storage services that allow virtually anyone with an internet connection to store data at remote data centers commonly called “The Cloud.”

Amazon, as an example, advertises S3 (Simple Storage Services) at a cost that is often below 15 cents a gigabyte, but please note that this is just to store the data, there is a cost to transfer the data to the cloud and then another cost to access the data that resides in the cloud.   So if you want to access the data frequently the costs could rise dramatically.  Also, there is the cost of Internet connectivity that has to be considered. Even though the products are sold as “Simple” there are several technical aspects to consider:

1. Internet Connectivity. If your business is considering internet-based services including storage services, you will need to calculate the bandwidth that will be consumed by this process and ensure it does not impact other services such as Email.
2. Data Encryption. Access to your data will be protected by a user name and password, however in the public domain of the Internet, this is minimal protection.
3. Dedicated server to transfer and access the cloud stored data in a structured manner.
4. Data Protection and Availability. Just because data is stored in the cloud does not mean it is protected through redundancy or stored in more than one data center.

Recent events have proven that even the largest cloud providers have significant availability and security issues. Let’s review just a sampling:

1. Amazon:  The incident began at 12:47 a.m. Pacific time on April 21, when Amazon began a network upgrade in a single availability zone in the US East region.  The subsequent outage lasted for several days and impacted clients that did not opt and pay for the additional redundancy services.
2. GoGrid recently sent out this to their clients: “In the normal process of reviewing our system activity, our Security Team discovered that an unauthorized third party may have viewed your account information, including payment card data.” 
3. Sony PSN: The Sony PSN hacking and outage saga which recently led to 77 million users’ accounts being compromised.
4. Google: China based hackers breaching Gmail services.

These issues do not invalidate the service, but it should make you consider what data is appropriate for Cloud-based storage services.

1. Archive-able data is a good first choice. This is data that has been shown to be accessed only once or twice a year and the people that access the data do not mind a short wait when they need access.
2. Data that is not considered confidential.  This can be difficult to determine and you may need to consider developing a corporate policy to define data types within your environment.  Employee Data would not be appropriate for most cloud storage services unless it is encrypted and secured within a private Cloud service environment.

Private clouds offer a unique alternative to public clouds, in a private cloud the service is tailored to the needs of your business and is not open to the public.  Generally a private circuit or dedicated Virtual Private Network is established between your company network and the Private Cloud provider. The advantages of a Private Cloud Storage Service include:

1. Strong Security
2. Tailored Services
3. Customer Service from Real People, not Message Boards

Below is a list of Public Cloud Storage providers:

Box.net

Box.net has been around for quite a while, but is still a favorite place to store documents online. Thanks to its integration with numerous online services, including Gmail, Zoho, picnick, and Scribd.

The storage limit for the free accounts is 1GB, which is plenty if you mostly exchange text documents or spreadsheets. Paid accounts start at $7.95 a month and include more advanced features, including 5GB of storage, a versioning system, mobile access, and 24/7 phone support.

Live Mesh

The online storage component of Live Mesh is only one part of Micorsoft's latest venture into cloud computing, but it is also one of its most compelling features at this point. Live Mesh gives you 5GB of online storage and an online desktop that looks a lot like Windows Vista. You can upload any type of file to Live Mesh, but you cannot edit any of your files through the online desktop. In the future, though, we expect Microsoft to start adding more of these features.

One of the main reasons we like Mesh is because it constantly watches for changes in the folders you are synchronizing to it and updates them automatically.

Live Mesh works on both Windows PCs and Macs.

DropBox

DropBox, only recently opened up to the public after an extensive beta test. You do have to install a small program on your machine to run DropBox. Besides setting up a folder on your machine, which automatically syncs with DropBox, you can also set DropBox up to then sync that folder with other machines, similar to Live Mesh. DropBox lets you upload any type of file, as long as it is smaller than 350MB. DropBox uses Amazon's S3 service as its storage solution and provides its users with 2GB of free storage. For $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year, you can buy 50GB of storage.

DropBox supports Windows XP and Vista, Mac OSX, and Linux.

JungleDisk
JungleDisk is the only service in this list that is not available for free - and technically, it is not even an online storage service. Instead, it provides a frontend to Amazon's S3 storage service. JungleDisk costs $20 and after that, you pay Amazon for the storage and transfer of your files. JungleDisk also lets you map your Amazon S3 storage space as a network drive on your computer, so that you can just drag and drop files back and forth between your online storage and your local desktop.

JungleDisk is available for Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux.

There are a lot of great options for cloud based storage services, just keep in mind the security risks, performance and service issues you face when using a public internet service and choose the right service for your company.

Meet the Team:
Joe Pound
Client Engagement Director

Joe has recently joined EI to manage two major accounts as Client Engagement Director. He is a decisive, action-oriented leader with over 13 years of IT experience with a focus on IT strategy and vision. Joe brings thought leadership and a results-focused approach to his accounts. He continuously looks for process improvements and innovative solutions while focused on client goals. He was previously the Director of Application Development at Tree of Life. A graduate of the University of North Florida, Joe and his wife, Tracy, have 9 year old twins, Brooke and Blake. Weekends and spare time consist of coaching Blake's baseball and football teams and attending Brooke's dance recitals.

How EI Supports Jacksonville's Not for Profits

EI provides a focus on IT for many non-profit clients in the Jacksonville community enabling them to focus on making the world a better place. The largest locally founded and owned IT services organization, EI delivers customized and cost-effective IT solutions, access to the market's top IT talent and cutting-edge tools and technologies. We offer a full range of services from managed outsourcing to project work and assessments.

We currently support local non-profit organizations Daniel, American Red Cross, The Community Foundation, DuPont Trust Foundation, and Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce.

Contact Meg Hynes at mhynes@entint.com for business inquiries.

Disaster Recovery
Are you ready for hurricane season?

Hurricane season in the Atlantic begins June 1 and ends November 30. Can your company persevere through the strong winds, power outages and additional consequences that can set you back during a natural disaster? Have you and your company prepared for this season? Failing to plan is planning to fail. Don't become a victim of hurricane season!

EI can provide the resources to build, create and implement a Disaster Recovery Business Recovery Plan to keep you on track during the stormy season. Achieving a successful DR Plan includes assessing the environment by assembling existing documents and data, analyzing the environment by taking surveys and conducting interviews of key business and IT contacts, creating a design suitable for your individual company by identifying organizational, procedural and infrastructure changes, implementation of the plan through training, and testing to ensure the accuracy of the DR plan.

Contact Mike Israel at misrael@entint.comfor additional information on DR plans and how to keep your business dry through the rainy season.

EI continues to grow!

We are happy to announce another addition to our EI client family, The LBA Group (www.thelbagroup.com).

LBA Certified Public Accountants, PA Is the largest locally owned accounting firm in Northeast Florida. Located in Jacksonville LBA provides a full range of audit, tax, strategic planning and accounting services to a wide range of organizations including many not for profits.

EI is pleased to provide Tier One Support as well as Architecture & Planning services to The LBA Group.

This exciting partnership kicks-off in June 2011.

Welcome to EI!

Follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook today!