August 12th, 2010 spanebianco
I think it is safe to say if you are reading this blog post you are familiar with RAID systems. We have all seen the orange drive lights flash and replaced bad drives. It is great – I normally do not think about RAID 5 servers setup in our datacenter. Well well – what are the chances of two drives failing? Really not very good but I can now tell you it is possible from first hand experience. At the end of the day – the first failed and the other drives were working like crazy. They were tired and another let go very soon after the first. Now we have a container in critical state and a non-booting condition.
What happens if you really really need the data and snapshots / backups are not good enough?
Answer - you need a dedicated data recovery expert. Not someone haphazardly running simple tools. Not a resource that does a little bit of this and that. ADIM Technology LLC uses Alandata to rebuild critical systems for all of our customers. They work quickly and professionally to rebuild and recover even the most complex RAID and file systems without compromising any data (READ ONLY). We handed him a set of drives pulled from the server and our application staff had a working copy of data within 4 hours. They did an amazing job, were very accurate, and extremely reasonably priced. Alandata can handle both complex and basic projects efficiently.
If you find your company in a data loss, drive issue, forensic, or recovery project please give Wayne a call and tell him ADIM Technology sent you!
Sam Panebianco
Posted in Data Recovery | 2 Comments »
August 5th, 2010 spanebianco
We have all been here before. Freeware vs Commercial software and justifying expenditures or convincing SMB customers why commercial anti-virus is worth every penny. As a solution provider, VAR, and hosting platform we have the opportunity to use in-house, deploy to customers, and re-mediate computer viruses gone awry. No one wants to see a virus outbreak (even if it generates service revenue), it is my least favorite thing about IT. Systems have degraded performance, moving targets and lack of visibility, the unknown in a scientific field of predictability, are a few of many reasons. There are no winners – customer loses productivity and at the end of the day no one is happy.
Alright – on to the point I am trying to make. I was approached by a customer that had a legacy commercial AV installation and users have been installing AVG, MS essentials, etc etc freeware. The IT Director did not feel comfortable with the path so he asked me for justification on COTS AV systems for his CFO.
1. Risk / Coverage – some may download software, others may disable, or maybe multiple packages exist. For something that can widely effect the whole network you need to know what is going on.
2. Authenticity – Is the free package actually a virus posing as an AV utility. This is so common – at least one ticket a week starts this way.
3. Managing / Reporting – deploy quickly and efficiently. See in an instant who is covered and to what degree (see #1)
4. VENDOR SUPPORT – in the instance of an outbreak you need elastic resources to deal with something un-forecasted.
5. QUALITY – with software margins pretty much non-existent this is not a self serving statement to increase our bottom line. Commercial Anti-virus works better and will render better performance for your users.
Until next time – SJP
Posted in IT / IS Managed Service, SMB Software Packages | No Comments »
