Category: data center

Ohio Datacenter with AWS Direct Connect Now Open

by Jim Conwell, posted in Cloud and IT Consultants, colocation, data center, Edge Computing

cologix

Datacenter Trends

It’s beginning to feel more like the Silicon Valley in Central Ohio. There is now an Ohio Datacenter with AWS Direct Connect If you haven’t seen or heard about the new Cologix datacenter, take a minute to read on.

Cololgix datacenter has been in the Columbus area for many years and operates 27 network neutral datacenters in North America. Its newest facility, COL3, is the largest multi-tenant datacenter in Columbus and resides on the same 8-acre campus as their existing datacenters COL1 and COL2. It offers over 50 network service providers including the Ohio-IX Internet Exchange peering connection.

Most exciting of all is its 20+ cloud service providers, which includes a direct connection to the market leading Amazon Web Services (AWS). This is the first AWS direct connection in the region providing customers with low latency access to AWS US East Region 2. With direct connect AWS customers create a dedicated connection to the AWS infrastructure in their region. When AWS is in the same datacenter where your IT infrastructure resides, such as Cologix, all that is needed for connectivity is a small cross connect fee.

Here are some pertinent specifications of Cologix COL3:

Facility

    • Owned & operated in a 200,000+ SQF purpose-built facilities on 8 acre campus
    • Rated to Miami-Dade hurricane standards
    • 4 Data Halls – Up to 20 Milliwatt (MW)
    • 24” raised floor with anti-static tiles
    • 150 lbs/SQF floor loading capacity with dedicated, sunken loading deck

Power:

  • 2N Electrical, N+1 Mechanical Configurations
  • 2N diverse feeds from discrete substations
  • Redundant parallel IEM power bus systems serve functionality and eliminate all single points of failure
  • 2N generator configuration- Two (2) MW Caterpillar side A and Two (2) MW Caterpillar side B
  • On-site fuel capacity for 72 hours run time at full load
  • Redundant 48,000-gallon tanks onsite, priority refueling from diverse supplies & facility exemption from emergency power

Cooling:

  • Raised floor cold air plenum supply; return air plenum
  • 770 tons per Data Hall cooling capacity
  • Liebert, pump refrigerant DSE
  • Concurrently maintainable, A &B systems

Network:

  • 50+ unique networks in the Cologix-controlled Meet-Me-Room
  • Network neutral facility with 16+ fiber entrances
  • Managed BGP IP (IPv4 & IPv6); multi-carrier blend with quad-redundant routers & Cologix provided customer AS numbers & IP space
  • Most densely connected interconnect site in the region including dark fiber network access
  • Connected to the Columbus FiberNet system plus fiber feeds reaching all 88 Ohio counties
  • Metro area dark fiber available

 

If you would like to learn more or visit COL3 please contact us at:

Jim Conwell (513) 227-4131      jim.conwell@twoearsonemouth.net  

www.twoearsonemouth.net

 

What is a Software Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN)

by Jim Conwell, posted in Cloud Computing, data center, Edge Computing, IOT, IT Security

sdwan2

image courtesy of catchsp.com

The trend for software or applications to manage technology and its processes has become commonplace in the world of enterprise IT.  So common, in fact, that it has created its own prefix for IT solutions, Software Defined or SD. Virtualization software from companies like VMware revolutionized the way the enterprise built datacenters and coined the phrase “software defined network”. Today this concept has expanded out from the corporate datacenter to the Wide Area Network (WAN), and ultimately to the enterprise branch offices and even to customers. The Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) can simplify management of the WAN and significantly reduce the cost of the telecommunication circuits that create the WAN.

What’s a WAN?

A Wide Area Network, or WAN, allow companies to extend their computer networks to connect remote branch offices to data centers and deliver the applications and services required to perform business functions. Historically, when companies extend networks over greater distances and sometimes across multiple telecommunication carriers’ networks, they face operational challenges. Additionally, with the increase of bandwidth intensive applications like Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and video conferencing, costs and complications grew. WAN technology has evolved to accommodate bandwidth requirements. In the early 2000’s Frame Relay gave way to Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS). However, MPLS technology has recently fallen out of favor, primarily because it has remained a proprietary technology.

Why SD-Wan?

MPLS, a very mature and stable WAN platform, has grown costly and less effective with age. The business enterprise needs to select one MPLS vendor and use them at all sites. That MPLS provider needs to look to a local telecom provider to provide the last mile to remote branches and possibly even the head end. This has historically brought unwelcomed blame and finger pointing as the circuit develops troubles or is out of service. It also creates a very slow implementation timeline for a new site. MPLS solutions are typically designed with one Internet source at the head end that supports the entire WAN for Web browsing. This will create a poor internet experience for the branch and many trouble tickets and frustrations for the IT team at the head end. SD-WAN can eliminate these problems unless it isn’t designed correctly, in which case it has the potential to create problems of its own.

SD-WAN uses broadband internet connections at each site for connectivity. The software component of the solution (SD) allows for the management and monitoring of these circuits provided by multiple vendors. The broadband connections are ubiquitous and inexpensive, provided by local cable TV providers. Broadband internet connections offer more bandwidth and are much less expensive than an MPLS node. Additionally, broadband circuits can be installed in weeks instead of the months required for a typical new MPLS site. In an SD-WAN deployment, each site has its own internet connectivity, the same broadband circuit that is delivering connectivity. This greatly increases the satisfaction of the branch users for internet speed and reduces total traffic over the WAN. However, it creates a challenge for the cyber security of the enterprise. When each remote site has its own internet, each site needs its own cyber security solution. Producing a valid cyber security solution can reduce the cost savings that result from the broadband internet.

Gartner recently has labeled SD-WAN as a disruptive technology due to both its superior management of a WAN and its reduced costs. Implementation of an SD-Wan implementation requires a partner with expertise. Some providers today pride themselves on having the best database to find the cheapest broadband circuits for each site. However, it is vital to pick a partner that also can provide an ongoing management of the circuits at each site and a deep understanding of the cyber security risks of an SD-WAN solution.

If you need assistance designing your SD-WAN Solution please contact us at:

Jim Conwell (513) 227-4131      jim.conwell@outlook.com      www.twoearsonemouth.net

#sdwan #sd-wan

 

Online Business Communication Tools

by Jim Conwell, posted in Business Practices, Cloud and IT Consultants, data center, open-source software, Software Development

software-business-tools

image courtesy of softwareconnect.org

In part one of this two-part article, we focused entirely on Microsoft Office 365 because of its dominance in the cloud based business tools market. In the final part of this series, we will focus on the competition for Office 365 as well as other applications that complement Office 365 and alternate communications strategy’s. It’s difficult to compete with a product that has such a dominating market share. To do this, the competitor must have vast resources in development and marketing. The primary competitor for Office 365 comes from Google and their product G Suite, which is built on Google’s Gmail platform. Gmail’s tremendous success in the personal email market has allowed it to be able to build a business product that is a formidable competitor with Office 365. Business Gmail, in the G suite business product, gives its customers the ability to choose an email address that includes the company domain. Additionally, it offers a shared calendar for setting appointments within and outside the group. Google voice adds additional features such as video and voice conferencing. Google has developed products that compete directly with Microsoft Office products Word, Excel and PowerPoint. These applications not only look and act like their Microsoft competitors but also interact well with them. Using Google Drive with these applications can allow collaboration on documents between users on the same account.  Despite the disadvantages of competing with the clear market leader, Google has developed a competitive product both and functionality and price.       (See figure 2 below)

g-suite

To follow are some of the most popular business communication applications that provide additional functionality that Microsoft and Google’s communication platforms don’t provide.  

Slack

Slack is a cloud-based collaboration tool similar to the instant messaging platforms many of us have used in the past. This type of communication’s best place in business is when faster attention or response time is needed than email typically provides. Users can be divided into chat rooms, or channels, for specific applications such as customer service. The content of all conversations, from the start, is searchable and documents can be attached from the desktop or via integrations with Dropbox or Google Drive.

MailChimp

Many small and medium sized business organizations that don’t have large marketing budgets will utilize a marketing automation platform like MailChimp. Marketing automation can take over repetitive tasks such as welcoming new subscribers and reconnecting with an abandoned cart from their ecommerce website. MailChimp will also automate e-mail marketing campaigns and provide detailed analytics of their success. MailChimp‘s popularity has grown as they have developed tight integrations with e-commerce platforms like Shopify and Magneto.

HubSpot

Those of us who have worked in a large enterprise are familiar with customer relationship management software or CRM. These software platforms are designed to build stronger relationships with existing customers, improve communication, and increase and track sales. The companies that create and support this enterprise software are technology giants like Oracle and Salesforce.com. The barrier to entry for these platforms for the small and medium business has been the cost of the software. Not only are subscription licenses expensive but implementation and support costs are very high. More recently a group of Cloud based CRM‘s such as HubSpot has allowed the SMB market to utilize CRM. With these providers, entry costs are low and sometimes even free. Just as important, their integrations with Outlook and G Suite make it easy to implement and support. Like Office 365 described in part one of this article, this software tool has leveled the field between enterprise and SMB.

These business communications applications rely on the ubiquitous nature of the internet and the cloud for delivery. Therefore, this discussion can’t be complete without mentioning the two leaders in the cloud market: Amazon’s AWS and Microsoft Azure. While these technologies have been discussed in previous articles (Azure, AWS), an important detail must be added here. Both technologies have been made so simple to login to their console and create cloud instances it has created a business problem, cloud billing scope creep. The console administrator can select resources needed, and the services can even sense when expansion is required. However, much of the billing algorithms for both platforms are transactional or based on cloud usage. This can allow the affordability factor of the cloud to reverse itself quickly and become a costlier way to build your infrastructure. To help our clients solve that problem, Two Ears One Mouth IT Consulting has created a Cloud Billing Analysis & Savings Service (CBASS). More will be revealed later regarding this service, needless to say we can analyze your cloud billing, make adjustments and re-validate the solution.

If you need assistance with your current IT cloud project, please contact us at:

Jim Conwell (513) 227-4131      jim.conwell@outlook.com      www.twoearsonemouth.net

#cloudbillinganalysis #cloudbillingsupport #cloudstrategy #cbass

Preparing for the Cost of a Data Breach

by Jim Conwell, posted in Business Practices, Cloud and IT Consultants, Cloud Computing, data center, IT Security, protecting cloud resources

Cost-of-Breach

One of the biggest challenges, particularly for small and medium businesses (SMB), is trying to anticipate and budget for the cost of a data breach. While larger, often publicly owned, corporations can sustain huge financial losses to litigation or regulatory penalties, organizations with less than $100 million in revenue cannot. Even with the leadership of the SMB becoming aware of the inevitability of an attack, they don’t understand what the potential costs could be and how to prepare for them. This may cause them to task their Chief Information Officer (CIO) or Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) to estimate the cost of a breach for budgetary purposes. The CISO, understanding that addressing the breach issue starts with IT governance, may attempt to educate their company’s leadership on the tools necessary to help to prevent a breach. Both leaders face a difficult decision: what monies are put aside for data security and do we focus on prevention or recovery? Most would agree the answer is a combination of the two: for this exercise I will focus on the components of cost once the data breach has occurred. The four primary silos of cost are response and notification, litigation, regulatory fines and the negative impact to reputation. When the affected enterprise forecasts costs for a potential breach, it not only gives the company an idea of the financial burden it will incur but it also helps those affected to consider documenting the steps to take in the event a breach is discovered.

Notification, the first cost incurred, is the easiest to forecast. Most businesses have a good idea of who their customers are and how best to notify them. A good social media presence can simplify this as well as reduce total costs. After the breach is discovered, the first task is to try to discover which customers were affected. Once that is determined, the business needs to decide the best way to notify them. US Mail, email or social media are the most common methods. The most efficient process for each must be determined. Many states have laws around breach notification and timing, which need to be considered and understood as a part of the process. The larger the organization, and the associated breach, the more complicated this process becomes. In a recent breach of a large healthcare organization, deciding how to contact the affected customers took longer than it should have because the company wasn’t prepared for a breach of the magnitude they faced. The breach affected tens of millions of customers. It was decided that a conventional mail notification was required at a cost of several million dollars!

Litigation and regulatory penalties are similar and can be prepared for in the same way. While regulatory penalties can be better estimated up front, both costs can get out of control quickly. The best way to prepare for these types of costs are with Data Breach Insurance, also known as Cyber Liability Insurance. Cyber Liability Insurance provides coverage for the loss of both first-party and third-party data. This means that whether the data breach happens directly to your company or to a company whose data you are working with, the coverage will be in effect. While most of the time Cyber Liability Insurance is considered for the larger expenses, like lawsuits and regulatory penalties, the right plan can be used for all four types of aforementioned costs: notification, litigation, regulatory fines and damage to reputation.

The hardest to define, and many times the costliest, is the damage to the breached company’s reputation. In a recent study, the three occurrences that have the greatest impact on brand reputation are data breaches, inadequate customer service, and environmental disasters. Of these, the survey found that data breaches have the most negative impact on reputation. If the affected company is in the IT industry, and specifically IT security, the effects are likely to be devastating to the organization. The only trend that seems to be softening that damage is that breaches have become so common that people are more likely to disregard the notification. Greater frequency certainly is occurring, but it isn’t anything the affected company can include in their plan. What you must include in your plan is the message you will communicate with the public to lessen the negative consequences. This should include how you fixed the problem and how you plan to prevent additional breaches in the future. In a recent healthcare breach, the organization partnered with a well-known security platform to better protect patient records going forward.

Considering these four primary areas affected is critical to helping leadership determine the costs associated with a data breach. If you have any questions about determining the cost for your business, contact us today.

Contact us so we can learn more about the IT challenges with your organization.

.Jim Conwell (513) 227-4131      jim.conwell@outlook.com      www.twoearsonemouth.net

What’s a Managed Service Provider (MSP)?

by Jim Conwell, posted in Business Practices, Cloud and IT Consultants, data center, disaster recovery, IT Regulation, IT Security

 

AAEAAQAAAAAAAAwgAAAAJDAxNmMxNDJhLTM0MWEtNDIwZi1iNDBiLTAwYjVhZTYzMzM4Mw[1]

Most organizations, big and small, have gone through this exercise with Information Technology, as well as other services. “Should I hire a dedicated person, assign it to someone in the organization as an additional responsibility or outsource”? What’s a Managed Service Provider (MSP)?  When posing this question for IT services; size matters! In this exercise, we will assume there are from between 20 to 100 IT users in the organization considering an MSP.

Size Matters

When a company I consult with is near the lower end of this user count many times they will tell me that an employee’s relative; brother, sister or husband does their IT work. I call this type of IT provider a trunker, as their office and tools are in the trunk of their car. A trunker can be a smart way to go, receiving a prompt and personalized service response. However; it is important the trunker has a way to stay current with technology. Also, at least one employee of the organization be aware of all he or she does and documents all passwords and major tasks.

 I’ve seen the same level of service can be achieved with an IT MSP as the organization outgrows the trunker. The MSP will typically have an upfront cost to inspect and become familiar with the IT infrastructure. Then there will be a recurring charge, monthly or quarterly, for help-desk support that is either handled remotely or on the customers site. With few exceptions, organizations of 100 employees or less, are serviced satisfactorily with a remote agreement. When an issue calls for onsite service they will pay the predetermined labor rate. Another factor that is determined up front are Service Level Agreements (SLA’s). SLA’s will define how quickly the MSP will respond. As it was with the trunker mentioned before it’s up to the organization to keep track of the IT provider and their tasks. This can be made easier by the fact that an MSP, because it will engage multiple technicians for one customer, needs to document everything for their own benefit.

Why Use an MSP for My Business?

The MSP is the system I see work most often. So let me answer my original question. Why outsource my I.T?!

1)   Consistency and predictability of service. Based on the MSP’s reputation and the SLA’s provided most organizations experience responsive and high continuity of service. When the agreement ends, they can expect a smooth transition to the new vendor or person. I have witnessed many times when the trunker provider relationship ends poorly. The organization can be put in a position of having no documentation and not even knowing the passwords to access their systems.

2)   Transparency. Most MSP’s, as a part of their service, offer dashboards showing real-time status of devises on the network. Many even offer your business remote access to monitor your network. This is a major cost reduction based the cost to host or maintain monitoring yourself.

3)   Expertise. There is knowledge in numbers. Although you may only see or speak with one person as the face of your IT partner, you’re working with a team with vast experience and knowledge. The technical staff of an MSP will always have greater level of experience and a better knowledge of the trends in technology. This is particularly true in regulated organizations such as in healthcare and financial businesses.

Contact us for a free analysis of your business and what will serve it best.

Jim Conwell     (513) 227-4131     jim.conwell@twoearsonemouth.net http://www.twoearsonemouth.net