Welcome to the Great Lakes Computer Blog: Insider Advice About the Computer Systems Your Business Relies On

Top 10 Best Practices of Backup, Replication & Recovery for VMware and Hyper-V

Virtualization changes everything for IT infrastructure administration and management. One of the many traditional, and most critical, infrastructure management processes that server virtualization breaks is backup and recovery. Once server virtualization is in place, backup and recovery systems, as well as admins, have to adapt. For example,
unlike with physical servers, virtual servers can move from one host to another so you lose the host to guest OS mapping. Many virtual infrastructures were set up quickly, by admins who were new to virtualization, at a time when few best practices existed for virtualization backup and recovery.  Written by David Davis, VMware vExpert.

New Whitepaper:  "Performance Analysis for Backup and Disaster Recovery Software." 

An independent assessment of backup and disaster recovery software solutions performed by David Bourgeois, President of My IT, LLC. In this first hand account, the author evaluates performance limitations of Acronis imaging software, ARCserve tape software, MS SQL Backup for SQL, and MIMS offsite. The author outlines his careful and thorough evaluation of Dell AppAssure Backup, Replication & Recovery software solution, detailing Dell AppAssure Backup, Replication & Recovery ability to address each of the shortcomings of the company’s backup and disaster recovery configuration.

MAY 22nd, 3:00 PM EST:  This free, 60 minute webinar shows you how to maximize the ROI you can realize through power and cooling cost reductions when you virtualize your server.

Server virtualization in the data center is a proven way to reduce the number of physical servers and reduce energy consumption.

Your business can be completely disrupted if your laser printer is down, particularly if you find you're in need of printer repair.  These 8 tips can help you avoid a major cause of printer repair calls - paper jams.  Paper jams occur in laser printers for a number of reasons, depending partly on the printer and the type of paper you are using. By taking some simple steps, you can significantly reduce the number of laser printer paper jams you experience on a regular basis. Depending on the printer, you might even go years at a time without having to fight another paper jam while processing print jobs.

By Lysis

A Linksys wireless router is a popular brand used in the home for networking several machines. The routers provide Internet access for several home machines, including wireless computers such as laptops. Whether it’s your first time setting up the machine or you suddenly lose connection, there are some basic steps used to troubleshoot and identify the issue.

Understanding Backup and Disaster Recovery in Virtual Environments Means Knowing Fact from Fiction.

In this whitepaper, Eric Siebert, VMware vExpert, dispells the most common myths about Backup and Disaster Recovery in virtual environments.

How certain are you that you know the real facts?

Compliance and the Cloud

Posted by M. Ursula Herrmann
Crain's Cleveland Business Guest Blog Post of 4-20-12

Cloud Computing presents some great cost saving and efficiency benefits to most businesses, but we continually advise clients to exercise care when moving their data and applications to the Cloud.  A good example - compliance and adherance to industry regulations can be even more problematic if you're using providers in the Cloud.  This blog post from Crain's Cleveland Business covers:

Head into the Cloud

Posted by M. Ursula Herrmann
Crain's Cleveland Business Guest Blog Post of 4-13-12

Cloud Computing can make sense for many businesses, even those formerly communicating with remote workers via VPN.  But as mobile workforces become more prevanlent, mobile security and cloud security need to be carefully addressed.  This blog post is the first in a series from Crain's Cleveland Business, and reviews some basics about moving your data to the cloud.  It covers:

Are you the one everyone looks to when your MicroSoft Exchange server goes down?

This whitepaper with forward by MicroSoft Exchange MVP Mark Arnold will give you three best practices to help you bring Exchange server downtime to a minimum.

Does your backup plan take the entire Exchange environment into account?  And is backup enough?

Are you paying double or triple for data backup due to duplicate data?

This whitepaper explains the hidden "multiplier effect" of not taking data deduplication seriously.  Find out how duplicate data can be pushing your data backup costs sky high.

What is the real cost of duplicate data backup?