SBS Consulting & other SME IT stuff.

New home!

2006-09-18T07:24:00.000Z

The BMS Blog has a new home! Please redirect your browser to:

http://www.bmsnet.co.uk/blog

Cheers

Steve Wright

Product knowledge

2006-03-07T14:31:00.000Z

It seems common sense to me that if you are going to employ someone to offer pre-sales technical advice that they should really know what they are talking about. I mean, it’s probable that the first point of contact I might have with regard to an application and its suitability for a task is going to be with pre-sales at an authorised distributor or even the manufacturer themselves. Recently a client had a need for a well known CAD program and as we know next to nothing about the different versions/options etc. we called an authorised distributor. Their pre-sales person had no idea about the product they were selling, but knew all about the licensing model! Well there’s a surprise! I then called the manufacturer to be told “our distributors handle all such queries, you will need to call one of them”. I explained I’d tried that route but to no avail. When I asked if they could suggest a different disti I was told “the list is on the website, get the information from there”. Well thank you very much! Finally I called a different distributor and asked if they could explain how the stand-alone and network options worked with regard to client access. I was told “well the stand-alone is not networked, and the network can be used on the network I think”

It is about time manufacturers started paying more attention to this important area of sales, particularly when dealing with IT Consultants who are asking pertinent questions and expect their queries answered in a concise and professional manner.

SBSC Day at Microsoft Reading

2006-03-03T14:00:00.000Z

SBSC Day at Microsoft Reading

On the 1st March I attended the SBSC day at the Microsoft Campus in Reading. What a great day! It was a good chance to meet a few people I’d heard of and read about as well as meeting Harry Brelsford of course. I was hoping the day would be a little more focused towards the mechanics of SME consulting which some of it was, but there was also some techie stuff going on such as latest product glimpses etc.

I guess the main point was to showcase the new Small Business Specialist Community status and encourage those that haven’t joined yet to get on the bandwagon. It looks like the community is growing rapidly and gathering pace. If Microsoft remains behind it (and there is no reason to believe they won’t) then there could well be some good business to be had from all the marketing activity. We are certainly going to be going for it here and I’m busily prepping myself for the 70-282 exam as we speak!

SBS swing migrations

2005-10-21T15:14:00.000Z

Swing Migrations – We luv ‘em! I guess we’ve done 6 or 7 so far and they really work. I’m not saying they are without problems, but the point is it takes the pressure off as well as making the whole migration experience much easier on the client. If you don’t know what a swing migration is then take a look here:

http://www.sbsmigration.com/

One issue we have seen on several of the swings we’ve done is that ISA 2004 will install but then the ICW will fail the next time it is run. This has happened to us when swinging from SBS 2000 with ISA 2000 over to SBS 2003 with SP1 media. If we uninstall ISA 2004 all is well again. We passed the issue to Microsoft PSS who were as always incredibly helpful and came up with the following fix:

Under Domain Controller Security Policy > User Rights Assignment, add the Network Service & Local Service to the following:

Adjust memory quotas for process
Generate Security Audits
Log on as service
Replace a process Level token
Log on as batch job

Once done, reboot and re-install ISA 2004 – voila - issue fixed!

HellDesk

2005-10-21T14:15:00.000Z

Today I get to spend all day on the hell(p)desk – lucky old me. I guess it doesn’t hurt to do it once in a while to keep the gears turning etc. I gotta say though I HATE IT. Long periods of boredom interspersed by users requesting password changes etc. UGH.

Still at least I get to sit here in relative silence listening to some Rush on All Rush Radio courtesy of WinAmp.

APC's not so smart UPS

2005-08-10T07:17:00.000Z

For the last few days we've been struggling with several SBS2K boxes that have been exhibiting the same odd symptoms. Slow startup, auto services not starting, email issues and various others. Initially we didn't put 2 and 2 together, in fact we thought the common link was probably Sophos AV as we had heard of an update they had previously released that caused problems. Eventually we realised that the common thread through all this appeared to be the APC UPS services. On further investigation we came across this article on the APC website:

http://nam-en.apc.com/cgi-bin/nam_en.cfg/php/enduser/olh_adp.php?ISOCountryCode=us&p_faqid=7202&p_olh=1

Basically, after July 27th 2005 version 6.x stops working properly and you have to upgrade to 7.x! Well thanks a pant-load APC, you just caused us untold amounts of extra work which we can't charge for!

The waiting game

2005-07-26T09:43:00.000Z

I'm early for an appointment so I'm sitting outside a clients office typing this on my laptop which is connected via Bluetooth to my phone which in turn is connected to the 'net via gprs while I RDP into another client site to check their backup... Technology rocks sometimes!

Looking for a decent software inventory tool

2005-07-25T17:39:00.000Z

I'm presently trying to find a decent software inventory tool. I presently use MSIA which works pretty well but is lacking in some areas. If anyone has any better suggestions I'd be grateful.

Vacancy

2005-07-25T17:21:00.000Z

We currently have a vacancy for an experienced IT salesperson. Now you might think that it would be relatively easy to fill such a position. I wish! Trying to find someone with the skills to hit the ground running is near impossible it seems. I get sent loads of CV's of people who can sell to faceless corporates every day - but what I'm looking for is someone who knows how to sell Microsoft's SME solutions to SME's, a completely different kettle of fish!

So if you are reading this and you think you fit the bill, send me your CV and I promise I'll look at it.

To charge or not to charge...

2005-07-24T00:36:00.000Z

So Microsoft have released Service Pack 1 for SBS2K3. There are 2 versions, one for the standard product, and one for the premium product. The one I, and my clients are interested in is the premium version because we have only ever sold the premium version of SBS2K3. In fact we don' t even tell our clients that a standard version is available. Why not? Well I'll tell you why not. Anyone who installs SBS2K3 without 2 NIC's and ISA server should be shot through the head. Severe? Maybe, but ulimately we are responsible for the security and integrity of our clients LAN, and I'm not trusting it to anything less than ISA and 2 NIC's.

Now to the point of this rant, erm post. To charge or not to charge. We probably made a rod for our own backs some time ago as our client contracts state that we will install, free of charge, any Microsoft security updates and related hotfixes etc. - this is all part of us providing our clients with a complete, managed IT service. But here's the thing. SP1 for SBS2K3 premium doesn't just include security updates and patches, it includes an "upgrade" to ISA Server 2004. So where does one draw the line? Do I give our clients the choice of upgrading to ISA Server 2004 at a cost, or do we install it free of charge as part of the Service Pack? At the moment the jury is out...