Mark Moreno - Christ's IT Guy

First off,  let me start and say I don’t have much bad to say about Windows Vista. It has it’s issues just as other Windows releases have. It is in no way comparable to the disaster of Windows ME. It has been a big win everywhere I have installed it for my clients.

With that off my chest let’s get to what I intended to talk about. I have a lot of ESXi installs out there and  I have learned that like every other OS, its needs to be patched on a regular basis. The Infrastructure update tool is pretty easy to use and and does a nice job. Here is the caveat I ran into with Vista and my hope is this will make someone else’s life a lot easier if they run into this problem.

When trying to run the Infrastructure tool at a site I kept getting the error “VMware update site is unavailable. Try again later.” Well one time is a fluke, a second time is strange, and a third indicates you have a problem. I did all the firewall stuff searching for blocked traffic and the like. No dice. I am really scratching my head on this and then after and looking at a more detailed error I saw that the Infrastructure Client was spitting out an error of Access Denied in one of the logs. BINGO! I know why it is  not working.

Here is the solution and it is a good one to keep in mind for any odd errors when the system you are using is running Vista. I closed to the VMWare Infrastructure Update tool and re-opened it by right-clicking on the icon an selecting “Run as Administrator.” Sure enough…problem solved. It went right to VMWare and downloaded almost 200 Megs of patches for my host.

I hope this little tidbit  is useful when you are stuck and can’t figure out why your application is spitting out a weird errors . It really sucks to be stuck with no idea why something is broken. This solution is one for everyone’s mental toolbox.

Thanks for reading and please check back soon, follow me on twitter, or subscribe to the RSS for my blog.

Well, again I have been noticeably absent from the blogosphere. I am thankful to say that I have a lot to do and the work just keeps on flowing. With that said, this blog entry is all about offsite back-up!

No IT guy worth his or her salt can deny that data needs to be backed up and a copy must go off-premises. Most will admit that getting a consistent routine together and keeping it running can be a challenge. While in New Orleans last year at Jeff Middleton’s (author and designer of SBS Migration) conference, I met the team from e-Folder and saw that they had a pretty slick offering for branded off-site back-up that I could provide for my clients. I never jump into anything quickly. I finally had an opportunity to vet this service and am happy to say it is ready to go.

Here is the way it works. It is ridiculously simple. The account creation page and location to download the software is http://backup.cmsupportservices.com . There is a free trial link where you can sign-up and test it yourself for thirty days with no cost or obligation. The trial includes 512 MB of server space and no bandwidth limitations. If you decide that this is the way to go, you can upgrade your account to a full version at any time.

The software installs on any systems you want to backup. Mark what you want to backup and how often. There are many different options on how to backup your data. You have versioning control and can backup as often as every hour or even more. The system is compatible with SQL and MS Exchange.  It is also multi-platform compatible and works with Windows XP 32 and 64 bit, Vista 32 and 64 bit, Server 2003 & 2008 32 and 64 bit, Linux, & MAC. Exchange backup is mailbox level and a very robust Exchange backup methodology.

The cost is very affordable when you look at what you have to lay out for disk to disk solutions, large tape arrays, and the software to drive it all. The base cost is 14.95 per month and then 5.00 per Gigabyte for the the first 14 Gigs of data. Data beyond the 14 Gig ceiling is billed at 2.50 per month. Exchange email is 2.00 per mailbox and then 1.40 per Gigs of email data.

As many of you who read my blog know, I love the SonicWALL CDP disk to disk solution. The reason I have brought this offering to my portfolio of services is that not everyone has the capital to make that type of investment all upfront. In the long term view, the costs are similar to a solution like the SonicWALL CDP. With C&M Support Offsite Backup Data Service you are strictly pay as you go. Your data is backed up automatically and offsite. If you need to restore the data you can do it yourself or we will help you. In a catastrophe we can provide your data on a hard disk in one business day. If you have mobile users, all they need is the software and an Internet connection. The backup of their data is now one less thing on your plate.

Please feel free to go to the site and try the service. I am open to your feedback and will be happy to assist you with the set-up. If you have large back-up needs, get in touch with me and I may be able to provide more aggressive pricing. Thanks again for visiting my blog. Come back soon.

I received an alert from Microsoft last night that a new security patch has been made available. It is not often that patches are delivered out of band of the normal process. The patch revolves around a vulnerability in many Microsoft Operating Systems. The full list and deeper details can be found here. What happens is that with a carefully crafted RPC instruction, executables can be run on the affected server or workstation.

I have already applied the patch in house and all looked good. I just finished customer wide deployment and feel much better now that the word is out on the vulnerability. If you support a network you should get this patch out right away. It is already available for all needed system on Windows and Microsoft Update.

In one of my last posts I talked about how since service pack one, users could now add SIP trunks, or in simple English, external phone numbers for the VoIP unit that are provided over your existing WAN connection. This is a major development for Response Point and an evolution of the system into a real market player.

Microsoft has had a team on the road for what seems like all year. After each show we seem to learn a little more about new relationships Microsoft had been making with VoIP SIP providers. I have been looking at these providers in great detail and to date have seen that there are two real players with networks that are ready and up to speed. The first is NGT and the second is Bandwidth.com.

The first provider I have worked with is NGT. They have a great business model for SMB Managed Service Providers such as myself. They have a setup that allows me to resell the service and handle the entire transaction from contracts to provisioning all over the reseller portal. We are paid on an ongoing basis as long as the customer maintains service. This is very powerful. When vendors help make us profitable we can add to the services we provide. They take the front line trouble calls and if a problem involves the local network will escalate the issue and get us involved right away. They also provide an Internet based desktop fax service. If you do a lot of faxing, this is an incredible tool. Their partner program has some real polish and a lot of support and training to make sure what we sell we can deliver. NGT has a pretty well established network through a partnership with Level 3 Networks. The only issue we have had to date is my first client was in a very remote location. Due to that, NGT could not provide E911. That prevented the order from  processing because NGT follows FCC guidelines very closely. If they can't provide E911, they will not activate the order. I still plan to continue to offer NGT as a choice for my customers and plan to make them a long term partner.

The second provider I have worked with is Bandwidth.com. Bandwidth.com provides SIP service just as NGT does and they also have a business model that allows me to resell the Bandwidth.com brand. Something a little different about though, is Bandwidth.com also allows us to resell data circuits of every possible shape and type and includes virtually all available speeds. I can see a strong advantage in being able to bring these services together for both billing and support. While at SMB nation I had the chance to meet with the Channel Manager, Jeff Uphughs. Jeff was excited to sit down and chat due to the problems we had being Bandwidth.com's first Response Point deployment. He and his team wanted to be certain all was well. He was totally aware of the problems we had and wanted to be absolutely sure the issues were fixed and that both me and my customer were happy. We are and must say I was impressed. Later during the SMB Nation event we spoke again and the topic of the Church IT Round Table came up. I was planning to speak about Response Point for one the topic bazaar. Without asking, Jeff not only lined up a Bandwidth.com rep to come out to the event, he sent out a Syspine Response Point demo unit as my previously planned equipment loaner fell through. Way to step up to the plate and help a new partner!

So what does this mean to you? Do you have an aging analog phone system? Are you paying more than 15 to 20 dollars per phone line per month? If you answer yes, you have an opportunity to upgrade a 10 phone PBX system for less than 3,500 bucks. It will add rich desktop features and integration with local address books. It will provide you with a phone system that has rich voice activation for nearly all its features. Finally, some of you may be paying as much as 60 dollars for a single phone line per month. Bottom line...there may be a state of the art solution out there for you and with SIP phone line service there is the potential to save as much as 45 dollars per month per phone line. That is some serious money over time.

I hope this post is informative for those who took the time to read it. If you want more information, please feel free to contact me via my blog. Thanks for visiting.

Hey there my loyal readers. It has been a long time since I last posted. Last spring I wrote about the Microsoft Response Point VoIP PBX. Generally, I have been pretty pleased with the unit. Like any other VoIP, the unit does require a well managed network. I have seen some issues where the network is lacking a professional polish. If the network is very jittery or has a poor design, then voice quality does suffer. Besides these obvious pre-requisites to smooth operations, it has been simple to deploy and has a great feature set.

Back in April at the SMB Summit, the Response Point team from Microsoft indicated that with Service Pack 1 there would be SIP trunking available rather than just a PTSN (copper) gateway for external true VoIP access.

One of my installations with copper lines had decided to relocate. Their phone provider could no longer service their voice needs. I looked at the choices and since they had the Response System already installed and working, it seemed like going SIP was worth looking into. The services offered from the approved list vary quite a bit. NGT seemed to be the most plugged of the Microsoft SIP partners. I went ahead and set up myself as a dealer and had everything signed, sealed, and ready to go. To my dismay, NGT had to back out of the order because they could not provide E911 service to the area my customer was moving to. This happened with only a week left before the move.

Needless to say, I really had to scramble if I was going to make this happen and save face with my customer.  Just as if God's was listening, I received an email from the Response Point Team. It mentioned that Bandwidth.com was now certified to work with the Response Point PBX. I gave them a call and they confirmed that they were ready for Response Point and had FCC compliant E911 coverage at the location my client was moving to.

There is a caveat to the hooking up the Response Point or any other VoIP PBX to established SIP providers. They want to see a gateway on your Internet circuit that they know and recommend. There are two reasons they have this requirement. The first is that the SIP providers want to have a demarcation point ahead of your network so they are able to troubleshoot voice quality issues. The second is it is an absolute requirement that a gateway device is doing bandwidth-shaping to give enough dedicated space on the WAN circuit to voice calls. NGT and Bandwidth.com both use and recommend the Edgewater Edgemarc. The device is going to add about $395.00 to the total cost of the project but it allows the SIP providers to look at the device and see MOS scores which are a sure measure on the voice quality of the connection.

The problem most will see right away is that you already have a firewall and do not want another one in line forcing dual NAT. The good news is that there is a simple configuration that works and will keep all your data moving out an existing firewall that does a better job at robust security. The trick is Proxy ARP. It allows you to take a single IP and assign it to your SIP trunk. You can then take the rest of your IP's and proxy them in their public format directly to whatever your primary firewall solution is. The Edgemarc is still the first device in line and it has the ability to shape your data as needed to provide crystal clear voice over the Internet.

Now, let's get back to my recent conversion scenario. The project went pretty smooth and Bandwidth.com did a great job getting the provisioning complete in time. However, I was to be the first live activation of a Response Point PBX for Bandwidth.com and some problems did follow. Many IP PBX's, such as Response Point, use registration as the methodology to notify the SIP provider that the unit is there and ready to receive calls. Bandwidth.com does not depend on registration and the only way to get Bandwidth.com set up as the SIP provider for a Response Point system is to set-up registration. Watch for a future posting that goes into more details on exactly how this works and how it must be setup on both the Response Point and at Bandwidth.com. After activating the SIP trunk, I was not getting consistent voice service. My client called me as I was walking down the jet ramp on my Chicago flight to Seattle for SMB Nation. I was able get the calls forwarded right away before takeoff. Once in Seattle I call my dedicated reseller team and they hooked me up with Shawn Starler. He stayed on the phone with me way past his normal end of shift. He figured out that they had a problem on their end and once the new process for a Response Point was put in place the circuit came right up and worked great. It is so fast you do not even get a ring when you call in the system. It is picked up by the auto-attendant instantly.

I am really happy to see the Response Point system growing as rapidly as it is. It looks like it will soon grow beyond the initial limits of 50 to 75 users. I will be posting more about Response Point soon. We have decided to become Response Point Specialist and go all in on the product for our customers. Stay tuned for more. If you are looking for SIP trunks or more bandwidth, I am highly recommending Bandwidth.com. I encourage any of my readers to contact me for more information on getting setup with Bandwidth.com. I will be glad to help. Again stay tuned for more interesting stuff now that I am back on the wagon and committed to at least a couple of articles a week.

Thanks for visiting!