Virtualization

Virtualization is a hot topic at the moment and for good reason. It is a tried and tested way to get more from your environment and reduce costs at the same time. Virtualization has been around for many years and is available from multiple vendors.

What does Virtualization for your business?

By virtualizing your infrastructure you are taking advantage of the raw power that servers have today, aligned with advanced software that can enable you to maximise this power. Virtualization allows for multiple servers running numerous different Operating Systems all co-existing on the same hardware. McDonalds IT have tried and tested approaches that allow you to convert and consolidate your physical environment to Virtual.

Simplified Management

By reducing the amount of servers in your environment you are reducing the overhead of having to maintain all of the different physical machines. As a result hardware support contracts are simplified, as is the work required by your Systems Administration.

McDonalds IT Limited can provide the following services with Virtualization

• Design
• Consultancy
• Implementation
• Reviews
• Audits

Messaging / Communications

Email and instant messaging enables your business to keep in touch and without it most companies wouldn't survive. Electronic communications have become an integral part of everyday life whether at work or at home. McDonalds IT assists by enabling collaborative messaging solutions that allows you to send and receive electronic interactive communications, throughout your computer network and to other customers via the internet.

Using Microsoft's latest email offering, Exchange 2010, McDonalds IT provide the necessary flexibility for secure access from any user, allowing teams to collaborate and communicate more effectively, regardless of location.

McDonalds IT also specialises in email migrations from other email platforms, including Lotus Notes, Exchange 5.5, Exchange 2000, 2003 and Exchange 2007. We have designed and implemented one of New Zealand's few Unified Messaging solutions.

Remote Access Solutions

• Microsoft ISA and TMG
  McDonalds IT has implemented both ISA 2006 and TMG to our clients. We can tailor these products to your requirements, be they web proxy, VPN or email protection. TMG can be scaled up to a Network Load Balanced configuration for an Enterprise client. We specialise in ISA 2004 upgrades to keep your Firewall at the very latest offering from Microsoft.
• Microsoft Direct Access
  With the implementation of Windows 2008 R2, Windows 7 and IP v6, McDonalds IT can leverage Microsoft's User Access Gateway (UAG). This approach removes the complexity that normal VPN's have. It allows seamless access to the corporate LAN regardless of location.

Citrix Thin Client

More users are now requesting the flexibility to work remotely; on the road, from home or from an internet cafe. By utilising the Citrix thin-client suite of applications and devices this can now easily be achieved. Applications, or even full desktops can be accessed remotely using Citrix Presentation Server and carried out securely by communicating through the Citrix Access Gateway. The solution is simple, elegant and the user experience will not disappoint. All that is required is a PC and an internet connection; even dial-up can produce good results.

By having all applications centrally, the management and backup of systems become much simpler. No need to worry about data being stolen from a laptop as it all resides in the data centre. For greater piece of mind Citrix can be integrated with other services such as RSA tokens to provide a two factor authentication for an even more secure environment.

Monitoring with SCOM

If you are not sure how your systems are performing or are not alerted to problems on the horizon, there's a good chance that you are not actively monitoring your server environment properly, if at all. Monitoring is not a one type fits all scenario, today's environments run multiple OS's, multiple vendors switches, routers and VPN solutions. Just as much as you want to employ IT Administrators with cross-platform skills, you need a monitoring system to monitor cross platform environments. SCOM R2 from Microsoft has now reached a maturity level where it keeps up with Linux/Unix environments and MS's own latest offerings.

Too many organisations put in a monitoring system with so many alerts that System Administrator's get overloaded. They then switch off the alerting system not wanting to deal with the overload. This is not how a monitoring system should run. At McDonalds IT we configure the environment step-by-step, tuning SCOM to your specific needs. We're here to help you get the best alerts and reporting for your systems; don't let your systems run you!

Need to keep up to date with ITIL constraints? The Microsoft Operational Framework (MOF) now enables you to do this with SCOM; keep up to date with SLA's and make sure you can report on them easily.

Dropbox

Dropbox enables people to sync files and media across platforms and devices, in order to have them available from any location. The service also allows people to easily and quickly share files with others. Dropbox provides users with 2 GB of space for free, with add-on plans offering more storage and functionality for a fee. The Pro versions offer 50 and 100GB for only $9.99 and $19.99 per month. They also offer referral incentives for free memory upgrades.

Our experience with Cloud Computing has enabled us to discover new technologies that can enhance your online user environment. If you feel you need added versatility, security and backup, an alternative to Google Docs is Dropbox. Dropbox was founded in 2007 and in May 2010 announced that it had passed 4,000,000 users.

A review from Toptenreviews.com described Dropbox: Dropbox is simply great. It offers some of the best backup features and sharing features available, including an iPhone tool. This service has packages suitable for home users or business users. With the online data backup service you can easily share folders for collaboration, share links to photo galleries and sync across multiple computers.

• Syncs Windows, Mac and Linux computers
• File sharing supports public and shared folders with permissions
• Unlimited undo available
• Free Dropbox iPhone/ iPod Touch app available
• Can sync across multiple computers