New Managed Office for McGrath O'Toole

As you might already know, McGrath O'Toole have been the creative agency rebranding Network Integration. Well, like all growing companies they needed to move offices. They've taken some space in Leeds and have naturally asked us to help them with this process. We'll be making sure that they are warm and comfortable in their new home, with the latest wireless and wired networking, cloud services, managed services and managed voice. They are taking technologies that will specifically help them grow their business and enable them to be more efficient.

Solarwinds Orion Network Management

As our WAN and LAN managed services portfolio have been increasing in recent times we took the decision to invest in the best network management suite in the market at the moment. We'd been trialling Solarwinds Orion for the best part of a year, and we have taken the decision to roll it out across the whole of our estate, starting with our own equipment and then rolling out to the rest of the world during the Summer of 2011. We're very impressed with Solarwinds as a company and their products are very detailed (also read expensive!) We can monitor pretty much anything, and also manage our Cisco estate very well from one location. I can't see Orion replacing some of the other monitoring we already do for example Nagios, but augmenting it and giving us reporting and detailed analysis. I have to add that we have no plans to give our customers access to it yet, we have a lot more trialling to do, and because of the costs involved it is something we are reviewing financially as part of our managed services offerings in the future.

What I think of Microsoft 365 (Simon is Away)

Simon's away at the moment, so my name is Jonathan Riley and I'm a Professional Services Engineer here at Network Integration. I have signed us up to the Beta of Microsoft 365 beta today as we sell Google Apps and should definitely be aware of what similar products are offering within the market place in the way of features.

Now, I know a number of people will roll their eyes at this point at the word Microsoft, however MS 365 is an amazing product it is as if you have stepped from your laptop or PC into an exact copy of all your Microsoft applications and they all work flawlessly for a cloud application.

As I have now worked with Google Apps for a year now and experience the other side of the coin. Sure they have a few bugs here and there but it’s a beta at this moment in time.

MS 365 could be a serious contender for Google Apps so watch out Google there's a new kid in town...

I am a great believer in creating jobs by steady solid growth. I've run companies in the past that have seen immense growth and then had to suffer the horror of making people redundant. This BBC article is great as it re-inforces why our country is a 'nation of shop keepers' who are very good at building and running their shops. These 'shops' employ a lot of quality people. Let me illustrate my point with an example I am very familiar with. We started Network Integration in late 2005, early 2006. In the early days it was me and Jonathan and Anita. Within our first year we employed a contractor and sales person, followed by a second sales person. Four years later we employ twelve, and have current positions for another two members of the team. Jonathan and I can see us being twenty five staff within the next eighteen months to two years.

So what extra conditions would I like to get to the stage of twenty five staff ?

Clearly, if we see more positive economic recovery we will see confidence return. This increase in customer confidence would permeate down to business's like ours.

A tax incentive for employers - to directly affect some sort of credit or tax credit for employing younger people who are looking to work in the knowledge economy.

As the government itself is now the UK's biggest employer, it would be useful if government made it easy for small companies to supply them with goods and services. It shouldn't be the preserve of 'large corporates' who 'assume' they are best placed to deliver.

If I don't get these three conditions, then I won't worry. Network Integration has thrived during the worst recession on record. So although it would be nice to get some assistance, we will thrive without it. Of that I am certain.

Rob is Incredible !

Rob passed his CCDA on Wednesday, and we're really proud of him ! We're currently ticking off the exams we need to become a Cisco Premier Partner (only got a couple more to do now) - we're currently a Select Partner, but Cisco (and us) are keen to get Premier, and then work our way upto Silver or Gold collecting specialisms on the journey for voice and datacenter. Jonathan Hirst (on his way to meet the Orient Express) had a very kind thought, and sent Rob some 'Incredibles' characters in a gift set. It made Rob's morning !

Barrcuda Hacked - Another security vendor admits a mistake

So, recently it was RSA, and now Barracuda. Who next ?

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2011/04/11/barracuda_networks_attack/

I think that I agree with one of the postings on the register. If Barracuda, (a vendor who makes/promotes WAF's) admit even their own site wasn't protected by their own technologies - because their WAF was in monitor-mode - then that is unforgiveable. How can you promote and sell this stuff if you are then compromised ? How many more vendors will be watching this from afar and thinking - will we be next ?

It's time to fix the firewall webinar

I'm delivering a webinar in association with Brighttalk and Hayes (our recruitment and resourcing partner) called 'It's time to fix the firewall' on the 14th April.

You can sign up to see it above. A recorded playback will be available.

Interestingly I went to see a local university this afternoon (not Leeds) and they have the perfect requirements for an NG firewall replacement for their Cisco solution. It was almost as if the customer had already read my presentation ! spooky ! :-)