Category Archives: Technical Support

Shall We Replace or Upgrade the Company Server?

December 14, 2015 Stewart Parkin

Upgrades are necessary to prolong the lifetime of Linux or Windows server. RAM, modem, graphics cards and network cards are considered as easy to upgrade components. On the contrary, motherboard and OS have highly complicated upgrade process as these components need to upgrade other parts to give satisfactory results. For instance, latest RAM is also required when you are installing a new motherboard.

Usually, customers do not have an idea when they should upgrade the system and when buy latest server to carry on the tasks.

Here are a few conditions to judge the right time to change or upgrade a system:

Additional Drives

If your server is purchased just a few years ago, you can add the latest hard drives to accomplish storage needs. To add new drives, users must have SATA open port or open channel on the motherboard and RAID controller respectively.

Storage Requirement

Same model and hard drive brand need to be used when you are using a RAID system. Your system may have 500GB drive and you may need to use 2TB drive to get required outcome. On the basis of controller and RAID nature, it is possible to change one drive and then move to the next to remake the array. You can use external device to keep backup before replacing drives.

Improved Performance

To improve the performance of server, various avenues can bring into account. If your requirements are not complicated, start with upgrading primary drive. Use of an SSD to improve OS drive will impact on performance. In order to make the conversion painless, Intel and Samsung offer specific SSDs with migration software.

Range of SSDs varies from simple 256GB up to 2TB. These SSDs have enough storage capacity to run Linux or Windows. If OS is running with an SSD, performance is renounced in terms of OS receptiveness along with shutdown and boot. Moreover, OS patches take less time on SSDs.

To overcome performance issue, PCI-E latest storage drives are the best. These storage drives need 3.0 PCI-Express to work with maximum speed limit. Furthermore, these drives are used on X99 and Z97 chipsets as boot drives. These drives have capacity to work with old chipsets but work as secondary storage devices only. When applications demand first-rate performance, use PCI-E to get fastest speed.

Age and configuration of server are the two factors that determine the nature of server upgrades. Each server has certain limits. Usually servers older than a year or more are worthy to upgrade. On the other hand, servers that are used for more than three years should be replaced.

Server Replacement

IT managers are often inquired about right time to replace server. Cloud services and virtualization have made the task more complicated. Companies are using cloud services for data storage, whereas virtualization has improved the server lifespan. Still there comes a stage when server outweighs all its advantages and it becomes necessary to change the server.

Here are the three conditions when buying new server is recommended?

When server is used for three continuous years, the failure rate increases significantly. To overcome failure, replacing the aging server becomes crucial for a company.
Commercial servers have three years warranty, therefore, it is good to replace the servers before they get crashed.
An upgrade is not the only solution to cure a server. When RAID array or Windows is creating problem, reinstall the RAID or OS to keep things in order.

Backup Technology can assist you not only with your cloud backup and recovery needs, but we can also advise you when you are ready to replace or upgrade your servers.

The Importance of Support Levels in Partnership

November 30, 2015 Callum Huddlestone

Lack of support in any project can easily result in failure even with simplest project or activity. It is important for you to know that sending or moving your mission-critical data to a third party service provider online is never an easy attempt. Doing such thing without employing proper support can lead to very serious issues that can cripple the entire activity and/or the organisation.

Therefore, you need to examine your service provider, whose mission is to bring to the table a particular skill set to your organisation. More so, exploring the skill sets of the service provider should provide you with the freedom you need to develop the particular talent you have. If your service provider can say that they can bring talents to complement your business, then you are in good hands. Otherwise, it is time for you to search for the partner that will provide you with the freedom you need.

Cloud based services can abstract software and software infrastructure maintenance from your company at the same time optimising on the current hardware you already have. The service provider should be responsible for upgrading hardware and software, without any kind of downtime. Also, there should be availability of data system for your enterprise at all times. The data should be considerably scalable as well as activity that involve trouble shooting at the service provider’s end should flawlessly transfer you to the “hot site” or even to the “disaster recovery site” so as to provide your business with enough convenience option. Disaster recovery procedures must also be an integral part of the offerings. Data mirroring features should be automatic. Compliance to legal mandates must be incorporated into the backup process and archiving.

On a daily operation, there must be support services available for you to carry on your activities; and you should be allowed to refer or contact your technical support team members, assigned by your service provider, for any kind of problems. Customers that are using their services should be sure that they can get not less than 99.99% uptime. Ideally, 24/7 help desk should be provided by the service provider in order to make it easy for customers to get the help they need for their service. That can also make the customers to be sure of getting response from the service provider within 24 or at most 48 hours.

Another thing expected of the service provider is to regularly monitor the health of all customer accounts. If any suspicious activity is detected in the account, such activities must be logged in to the system and reported. In order to automatically trigger off warnings when there is any form of spur-of-the-moment activities, the software alerts must be configured right.

The cloud based support services must help to improve your return on investment (ROI). It must give evidence about the data storage model being marketed by your service provider to assist you in your exclusive business prospect.

Backup Technology is proud to be a 3D Hybrid partner of Asigra, which gives us the best support to reach our business goals.

Technical Support Levels for Small, Medium, and Enterprise Businesses

November 10, 2015 Callum Huddlestone

Companies signing up for cloud backup and data storage services are not just looking for backup solutions. They want more than that; they want a partner that can give them support at all times. Companies anticipate to get support from the subject experts to keep their valuable information safe. They expect the experts to know how to backup data, what is important for their company, where to keep the data, and when to make backups. These companies prefer to reduce the number of technical workers in their offices, and instead rely on the technical skills of the service providers to solve any software issues and backup problems. Problems can occur at any time, therefore, such enterprises need round the clock support. Technical 24 x 7 support is what they expect from service providers.

Then, the question arises whether cloud backup firms can provide 24 x 7 technical support or not? Understandably, service providers cannot give Yes or No answer to this question. However, they have various types of services, including: Web-based Support, which is given by all service providers. This service includes FAQs or Frequently Asked Questions and their relevant answers. In addition, all service providers offer Contact Form to write your queries and get answers from the support team within a day or two. Forms are delivered to a given email address of technical staff and customers need to wait for their turn to receive answers.

A small number of service providers have established their Discussion Forum for clients. Common issues are discussed here by users and support team takes relevant actions to solve their issues. Though such forums can be used any time, users cannot expect to get an immediate response from staff.

Many online backup service providers use software to send Alerts when recovery or backup process stops working. In case of data breaches or access of Unauthorised User to get sensitive information, automated alerts are generated to inform the service provider or the administrator or both. Software is programmed to give response whenever there is a threat to customer information. Such type of software informs service providers when clients cannot solve out issues or unable to show reaction against security alert. To overcome such situations, service providers generate periodic alerts or call the client directly with a request to solve the issue and provide proper guidance.

There are some sophisticated backup services that provide additional support services at a reasonable rate. Clients are given favour to keep in touch with technical staff through phone calls to get solution of hardware or software issues 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. On the other hand, onsite assistance is given at premium basis, where by a technical support staff may be stationed at the clients’ location all day through out the term of the contract to solve out issues as they arise.

Customers need to decide what kind of technical support level they need to sign up for while they are evaluating a potential solution. Before signing up with an online backup and recovery service, companies should check the nature of the services offered and their own requirements. It is required to go through Service Level Agreements (SLAs) in detail.

When customers have understood the different service levels available, they can select the right service provider. Backup Technology provides 24 x 7 technical support and built-in automated alert system, which notifies concerned parties in case of failed backups or recoveries.