One solution—the logical progression from virtualizing servers—is Desktop Virtualization. It's another form of consolidation that continues what was already begun. With Virtualized Desktops, more devices can be phased out, leaving less hardware that the IT department has to actively manage and, in many cases, less that might require costly outsourced repairs.

Taking your business to the next level of virtualization can bring you a competitive edge in the market. With the freedom to shed excess hardware and reposition valuable resources, you can ensure your company will continue to grow and prosper. The next step is there—it's waiting for you!

If you're looking to get on board with the Green movement, you should know that some solutions are easier than others, and some can even save you money, instead of draining your funds. A prime example of this is the Virtualization process we've discussed before. It's not a direct Green Technology, like installing solar panels, but you can't deny the ecological benefits.

First and foremost is the elimination of unnecessary physical devices. All that hardware is contributing to your CO2 emissions in a big way—especially when you consider the additional heating and cooling that becomes necessary to keep them running optimally. Once the extraneous devices are gone, you'll find your company spending less on the power bill. And, in a long term sense, a virtualization trend sees fewer obsolete machines piling up in landfills that are already too full.

I guess sometimes Green is easy!

The trouble is, organizations regularly purchase software at different times, from different suppliers, and through different employees. It's difficult to centralize all these variables and keep track of the various renewal time-frames, which might be one, two, three, or five years. The vendors themselves might try to follow up with you, but after several years they're lucky if they even reach the correct person.

One easy and effective solution to this is Infrastructure as a Service. It's a way to utilize cloud computing and outsource some of your computing and storage, which reduces the amount you spend on hardware and IT. With your software licensing centralized, instead of distributed between all of the machines that use the software, you'll find your software woes are becoming software “Whoa!”s.

All of that changed with Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. The ball and chain is cast aside and the desktop PC becomes a mere point of access among many. An employee can view and alter the same Virtual Desktop at work, at home, on a tablet or smartphone, or anywhere that they can access the internet from. Files, applications, and communications can be constantly at their fingertips.

For you, that means more productive employees. It means faster response times to your valued customers. It means an overall uptick in efficiency and satisfaction. And that's good business.

There are a variety of approaches to business continuance and the one you choose will depend on the size of your company, the type of business you run, and what functions you deem to be essential. The safest solution, if you absolutely can’t afford downtime, might be a fully redundant data center that you can switch to during an interruption. This offers high availability and can practically negate the effects of most hiccups. Smaller businesses, however, often require a more cost-effective answer. To ensure basic access for your employees, there is the option of replicating to an offsite server.

With the right business continuity plan, employees can be back online within minutes. Instead of a software crash or a computer virus derailing productivity, you may be able to restore function without team members knowing there was a problem. Virtual desktops can be a very useful tool in any continuance scenario, since they depend less on specific hardware, so consider incorporating them in your plan as well. The more prepared you are, the more reliable your company will be. The peace of mind alone is worth it!

Summit Technology is the one to turn to for advice in continuity planning. You can read more about their Disaster Recovery Planning and Virtual Desktop services for more information!

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) refers to the process of employing virtual machines (VMs) to run desktop operating systems and applications. The VMs are centralized on servers in the data center, which allows them to be upgraded, patched, secured, and maintained efficiently and conveniently. Employees are then able to directly access the VMs from existing PCs or from thin clients, even when they’re away from the office. That translates to increased productivity and quicker customer responses.

The VDI solution also minimizes the risk of hardware failure. The annual fail rate (AFR) of a PC in its fourth year is 12 percent; the fourth year AFR for notebooks is 22 percent. Server-based virtual desktops are better protected by redundant and hot swappable hardware, plus the ability to isolate an individual user if their session is compromised. And, thanks to VDI, disaster recovery becomes possible for desktop computers: centralized storage means they can be included in shared backups.

Now is the time to tell Summit Technology, “I wish my company had VDI!” Read more about it right here.

Savvy business leaders and IT professionals know that a disaster can endanger an entire company. Researchers at the University of Texas indicate that, following a calamitous loss of data, 43% of businesses don’t even reopen, 51% shut down within two years, and only 6% survive beyond that. Those are convincing numbers. Is your enterprise willing to gamble on that? If not, then it’s crucial to have a disaster recovery plan in place.

Some small businesses think that “disaster recovery” is just a matter of making data back-ups and storing them off-site. That protects the data, certainly, but how long will it take to restore it? How soon will employees have the software they need to access the restored data? And how quickly can you replace the necessary hardware? Each of these can contribute to the time it takes your business to recover and, as we know, time is money.

Summit Technology can help you form a disaster recovery plan that mitigates these risks and ensures your business can continue to thrive. Two key technologies are replication and virtualization, the combination of which allows for higher availability. When replication and virtualization are implemented, an off-site location can efficiently restore operations with minimal downtime.

Investing in a disaster recovery plan is a way to insure your company. Like other types of insurance, you hope you’ll never need it. But, if someday you do…you’ll find it to be invaluable.

Invest in your company’s future with Summit Technology! Learn more about replication and virtualization services today!

If you’re still reading, you probably selected the first option. Summit Technology offers a variety of services and solutions to keep your computers running smoothly, but today we’ll focus on PlateSpin Protect. PlateSpin defends your workloads, both physical and virtual, through live incremental replication, a process that reduces network usage by recognizing and replicating updates, instead of entire databases. There are multiple options, from file-based replication to high-speed block-level transfers, so you can decide what works best for your company or even the individual workloads within it.

PlateSpin also gives you the opportunity to use virtualization as a recovery platform. This can save you the expense of keeping hardware and software duplicates at the ready, while protecting more of your systems. Virtual Machines can be booted in place and recovery archives can be restored in a matter of minutes, which means less idle time “on the side of the road.”

Don’t wait for your system to blow a gasket—call the IT professionals at Summit Technology for a “tune up” today! Read more on their website.

Virtualization can cut your hardware and operating costs by an impressive 50%, but it doesn’t stop there. It can reduce your associated energy expenses by 80%. That’s a huge step in the movement towards greener business practices. Utility companies agree, as evidenced by incentive programs that reward you for reducing the number of servers you use. Another green benefit is the decrease of CO2 emissions. Each running server requires a certain amount of cooling, and that process is responsible for releasing the same amount of carbon dioxide as 1.5 cars. An estimated 4 tons of CO2 is prevented for each server you consolidate through virtualization.

Did you ever hear the statistic that we humans only use 10% of our brains? Traditional computer network setup results in the same inefficiency in processing power, causing a large portion of a computer’s capabilities to go to waste. With virtualization, these resources can be meted out appropriately among the many virtual systems connected to the server, so you can shrink your waste-line. Idle time can be a major energy drain—most computers are only used 5-15% of the time that they’re on, but the remaining idle time still draws on 60-90% of the normal power. The efficiency of a shared server minimizes the time spent idle, and the server can usually be safely powered down for evenings and weekends without affecting users or programs.

IT System administrators may well rejoice that they no longer have to perform repetitive hardware maintenance on multiple physical devices, often staying evenings and weekends to handle the volume of work. Software installation and configuration on servers and individual computers can be centralized. This frees up time for proactive IT work. Properly executed, the change will allow IT employees to spend less time reacting and maintaining, and more time preventing and improving. IT work will become a higher-level process and will be more likely to draw innovators. Innovators can further revolutionize the IT landscape through the possibilities created by widespread virtualization. All in all, this allows companies to not just have technology, but to utilize it to enable their business. Exciting things are on the way!

It’s green, it’s cost-effective, and it’s efficient: get excited about virtualization with Summit Technology! Their knowledgeable staff will gladly help you to understand virtualization and what it can do for you!

A major reason that businesses are switching to VoIP is the savings, and Summit Technology wants to help you save, too! Because VoIP technology bypasses the traditional phone network, you can bypass the traditional costs associated with voice plans, thus relocating and consolidating your expenses. VoIP also makes telecommuting and remote access easier, allowing some small businesses to do away with costly office space in favor of video conferencing. Meetings become more convenient and attitudes become more positive. And it’s not just small businesses: Allstate Insurance used VoIP to quickly recover their operations in Baton Rouge, Louisiana during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and had restored functionality in less than two weeks!

VoIP’s added range of features is impressive, from voicemail you can check from any internet connection to follow-me call-routing that makes sure you get your calls, whether you’re at your desk or on-the-go with your cell-phone. Summit Technology’s Unified Communications solution is a solid state appliance: that means it boots faster, loads faster, and is more reliable than standard hard drives, plus it uses less power. With Summit, you won’t have to pay extra to add users or features, either. You get the complete package. VoIP is proving to be a success for businesses around the world, and yours can be one of them!

Like the sound of VoIP? Ready to get started? Zoom on over to Summit Technology’s Unified Communications now! They can help you break through the scary techno-jargon so that you know exactly what you’re getting.