Compuquip

I recently attended IT Nation 2011 in Orlando, the annual conference put together by the good folks at ConnectWise, the software vendor who develops the ‘Professional Services Automation’ system used by Compuquip and many IT Service Providers throughout the world. Some of the highlights of this three day event were:

Read more »

During my visit to Connectwise for the Advisory Council Meeting they asked me to put together a presentation of the top priorities for our organization over the next 1, 3, and 5 years.  When I was given this assignment I thought it was “Mission Impossible” but I was pretty certain on my priorities for the next 12 months. Read more »

The summer is here and even though that means the kids are out of school and vacations are frequent it also means it’s hurricane season. I wanted to share with our readers what Compuquip is doing to prepare for any storms. Our goal has always been to focus on disaster prevention versus disaster recovery however during hurricane season it’s always great to go through these steps:

Update all Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Information
Our team has completed a full review of all documentation related to BCP and DR planning. Like most of you we have made investments in our technology over the past year and some team members have changed so it was a good exercise.

Update Employees on Storm Preparation Best Practices
We recently sent out a note to all employees sharing with them some best practices to help them be prepared for the storm. We have often found our team rushing at the last minute to prepare their homes for a hurricane when if they would have taken the time before the panic and media hype things would be a lot less hectic. This is a great resource for a quick disaster check list. Read more »

Last week I attended the Connectwise Advisory Council Meeting, with a group of 10 other technology solution providers including my buddy Tim Brewer from Anittel that participated via Skype from Australia.  (That really impressed me since it’s 12 hours ahead over there so he had to stay up all night).  I walked away with several key “take aways” that I wanted to share: Read more »

What’s more, they’ll have “one throat to choke” – a single point of contact for all their support needs. This trend is supported by a recent survey conducted by the Enterprise Strategies Group (ESG). In that survey, more than half of the respondents – both small and mid-size businesses – indicated that they “would prefer to rely on a single vendor for their data protection solutions whenever possible.”1

All-in-one DP solutions include all of the hardware and software necessary to get up and running quickly:

• Hardware: The hardware configuration can vary depending on the type of target customer. Solutions for SMBs are often a network attached storage (NAS) server with two or three terabytes of internal storage. Solutions for mid-size companies are typically server node(s) with SATA or Fibre Channel storage.
• Software: All-in-one DP solutions usually come with backup and recovery software. The software may include agents to protect each client, plug-ins for granular protection of applications, management and reporting tools, and a server component that handles the backend processing. Some solutions also include data duplication, compression, encryption, bare-metal recovery, and continuous data protection (CDP) functionality. Depending on the particular solution and vendor, these may cost extra.
• Support & Warranty: All-in-one DP solutions will typically include support for the backup application and warranty coverage for the hardware. Additional service offerings are almost always available. These can include 4-hour onsite response for hardware repair, training and certification programs, disaster recovery planning and testing, and software implementation. Read more »