Glo Networks Technical Blog (Glo Blog) » FAQ

Why do I need an IT Support Contract

Chris — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 12:42:30 +0000

At some point you may have wondered if you need IT support or why you would need an IT support contract. Some companies offer it like insurance you get help when there’s a problem. At Glo Networks we treat our support contract customers with a lot more care and attention.

IT support is important whatever the size of your business. Small companies often cannot justify employing an IT expert and this often causes huge problems when they experience IT problems, need updates or just require advice on the best way forward to improve the efficiency of their operation.

This is where the benefits of a IT Support contract start to make a real difference. An IT support contract provides a company with time and resource to solve problems before they start, provides essential support to update and maintain equipment, and provides valuable money saving solutions.

An IT Support contract allows a business to pays a monthly or yearly fee in exchange for a set time per month or indeed often unlimited support depending on the contract taken. With an IT contract in place the company has the confidence that it’s IT requirements are continually being met and that they do not have to panic when an unexpected problem occurs, hunting around for an IT expert to solve the problem, who may not respond for several days! .

Glo Networks has a range of IT support contracts to meet the needs of companies of different sizes. All our contracts come with full unlimited Glo Help access.

Our business support contracts start from only £80 per month.

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Why do I need IT Outsourcing ?

Chris — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:58:50 +0000

Most companies start with a computer or two and at some point add a server. Maybe your company has already grown and now you have a several servers and a few desktops.

Usually we find that an ad-hoc network is initially built by someone within the company who ‘knows about computers’ and they then end up being responsibile for them. Alternatively IT support will be provided by a “man with his van” IT company.

Time and time again we see the following problems that a small business can encounter with this sort of support. This includes -

Users and networks suffering when an IT person is busy, ill or on holiday!
Back ups are unreliable and many companies think their back up works because they see the tape ejects every night !
Many IT issues faced by companies cannot be resolved by their in house resource or their current engineer because the complexity of the network over time, has out grown their understanding of the issues involved. New technology brings more efficient solutions saving time and money, unfortunately often the knowledge and expertise is not avaliable and the company IT resilience suffers.

Glo Networks IT Ousourcing does of course solve all these problems and provides these extra benefits -

As a Microsoft Certified Partner we have Microsoft behind us to provide support for all their software. That means always getting a solution to your problem.
Don’t think about who you need to report the problem to, just give us all your IT problems. We will manage, solve and advise you on the issue keeping strong lines of communication with you – all of the time.
Our online resolution system – Glo Help – enables us to rectify most problems remotely, ensuring costs for our service are kept to a minimum – no more expensive call outs by engineers, jsut an immediate response. All problems raised on Glo Help are responded to within ten minutes, indeed the average time taken is 3 minutes.

If any of the above sound familiar, we would love to show you how we can provide cost effective support for your IT requirements. Give us a call today.

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Glo Online Backup FAQs

James — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:48:20 +0000

Not so long ago we at Glo Networks launched our online backup service, Glo Online Backup. We’ve implemented this backup solution successfully in various scenarios and we feel that it is versatile enough to suit a the majority of small to medium enterprises.

We’ve tried to answer some potential questions about the product below, should you have any other questions or for futher information please do not hesitate to contact us!

1. I already have backup to tape or hard disk, why should I care about this?
2. Can I save money using Online backup?
3. How much will this cost me?
4. What will I need to do to keep my data backed up online?
5. Will I need to buy new equipment?
6. So online backups are great?
7. How long can a restore take?
8. So, how long do they really take?
9. How much history can I have?
10. How do I know my data is secure?
11. What about my Exchange (mail, calendaring, etc.) or SQL (Database) server?
12. Ok, so what about my desktops or laptops?
13. What about Macs?
14. Is it managed?
15. Will this kill my internet connection?

FAQ

1. I already have backup to tape and hard disk, why should I care about this?

Tape backups are great for huge data sets like your entire system or VHDs (Virtual Hard Disks). Backing up a 600GB complete network over tape would cost a small fortune every month as well as taking the best part of many days to upload any substantial changes. Online backup is great for your Office Documents, MP3 collection and general work files. To retrieve data off a tape from a few weeks ago takes the best part of at least 30 minutes (if the data was written correctly in the first place!) and from a backed up VHD even longer. Using online backup it’s about 3 clicks and your done …. that’s seconds !

2. Can I save money using Online backup?

With online backup you don’t own any hardware, which means maintenance of the backup systems is out of your hands. There is also no media to purchase, regularly swap and put somewhere safe.

3. How much will this cost me?

Our Online Backup solution is priced by the amount of data you need to backup, in order to keep cost to a minimum, during the setup, we will find out from you which of your data is critical and needs to be backed up each day.

4. What will I need to do to keep my data backed up online?

Nothing! Once the initial setup is complete and the first backup has run its course, the entire process is automated, requiring no input from the user! It all happens over the internet while you’re normally using your system. And if you chose the managed solutions, we’ll be monitoring the backups for you, meaning should anything go wrong we’ll probably be working on it before you even realise!

5. Will I need to buy new equipment?

Nope! This is an online solution which uses your internet connection to store the data you’ve chosen to backup in a secure datacentre.

6. So online backups are great?

We certainly think so. After all you don’t have to worry about:

Swapping tapes or other backup media
Securely storing your backups, away from environmental threats (fire, theft, etc.)
Maintaining backup hardware
Remembering to put your cleaning tape in
The life span of your media

7. How long can a restore take?

Unlike tapes, the time taken for an average restore is noticeably lower. You don’t have to worry about finding that tape, hoping that it hasn’t met a mishap, potentially cataloguing (indexing) the tape and then doing the restore. Just simply select the data to restore and the date you wish to restore from.

8. So, how long do they really take?

Honestly, it will really depend on the size of your dataset and the speed of your internet connection. 10GB to upload the first time could take 2 days if you leave the machine on 24/7. However once the bulk data has been sent only changes get sent as and when needed. Generaly you wont even notice it happening!

9. How much history can I have?

You can restore file versions from up to 30 days in the past.

10. How do I know my data is secure?

Our chosen solution encrypts your data with a key stronger than your normal online SSL shopping, and all data transferred is also encrypted in a standard 128-bit SSL connection (same as online shopping).

If you want to get technical you can use a ‘standard’ 448-bit Blowfish encryption key, or your own 256-bit AES key, for the data encryption. We’d suggest creating your own for piece of mind. Just don’t loose that key! Again it’s all something we’ll manage for you if you want.

11. What about my Exchange (mail, calendaring, etc.) or SQL (Database) server?

Our chosen solution supports SQL, Exchange and network drives. It also supports a technology called volume shadow copy services, which allows it to backup files currently in use.

12. Ok, so what about my desktops or laptops?

If you’ve got roaming or remote users, who often forget to sync their data to your server(s) with online backup you never need to worry, once their machine sees an internet connection off goes the backup.

13. What about Apple machines?

Yes, even those. Our chosen solution supports both Windows (2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7 in both 32 and 64 bit) and Mac OSX (10.4+), and will install on both server and client versions of those operating systems.

14. Is it managed?

If Glo Networks already looks after your systems for you, we’ll do the whole thing for you. Even if we don’t, just give us a ring and we’ll talk you through the options.

15. Will this kill my internet connection?

Not if it’s setup correctly. Our solution supports bandwidth throttling (which limits how fast it sends data to the offsite storage), and it also understands when you only change a small part of a file, and will only resends those changes.

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