Re: [OT] - Office IT support

["Raymond Kelly" <raymondtkelly@xxxxxxxxx>]

You could try http://www.pcg.org.uk . These are all
professional guys that
live and breathe on the recommendations of existing clients - which
typically would deal with the smaller enterprise like yours, and give
hones=
t
opinions

2008/8/9 Ho Yin Ng <architect.hoyin@xxxxxxx>

>   My office is expanding, currently at around 30 and need to be around
> 45 by the end of the year.
>
> We've out grown our current space and will move and hence this gives
> us an opportunity to revamp and redo our IT system.
>
> Currently our IT support / supplier is crap, we've been wanting to get
> rid of them for years we've had countless problems with our system and
> had problems we just cannot resolve. We are already their second
> largest client! Their largest client does not seem to care about data
> backup though!
>
> Currently we run a linux system with outlook (but no exchange) with a
> 1TB NAS server with 12 x 300GB SAS drives which we are now at 94%
> capacity.
>
> We need a stop gap solution for the next 3 months, but then when we
> move I want to reuse the new stuff, but put it into a new more
> efficient system.
>
> In addition we have a problem with software and licensing. Not
> everyone has the same version of software and this is causing problems
> as people without adobe CS3 cannot open the files.
>
> We have a tape backup system, but it takes so long to back up we
> effectively could lose 2 days worth of information should there be a
> fire.
>
> The IT solution company at the moment proposing we get another 1TB NAS
> with a gigabit switch (though we are currently on 100mbit) - which
> will cost us another =A314k roughly. I don't understand the real
> advantage of the SAS drives.
>
> So my questions are as follows:
>
> 1. Can anyone recommend an IT company in central London? Preferably
> with experience with dealing with Architects? Or knowledge of Autocad?
> 2. How do you guys deal with backing up? The tape solution for us is
> too slow, I don't want to go the incremental tape route for backing up
> as this is prone to human error and will result in an explosion of
> tapes. I am looking at doing an online backup system, but for only 1TB
> of information I am being quoted =A31,700 per month, plus I will need
an
> additional ADSL line.
> 3. I will want to upgrade to Exchange server, and run windows server
> (which would also allow for immediate file recovery). At the moment we
> have no shared calendars due to linux - we must have this. I would
> prefer to run a separate email server and storage server.
> 4. I don't see the advantage of SAS drives, I'd rather go to SATA
> drives in a RAID 5 which will give us much more storage. I don't see
> the performance gains of SAS being relevant to us we are not editing
> video etc all we do is read and write cad files. If we run a render
> farm as well I don't think it will affect us either. But we cannot
> afford downtime.
> 5. Software licensing - is there a way of improving how licenses are
> distributed. At the moment they are tied to computers rather than
> users. When a computer is upgraded the machine with the software gets
> passed down, or if a new person joins they just get when is on the
> computer. I want specific people to get specific software depending
> what they are working on. Can we get the software tied to a user?
> Perhaps using Virtual Machines? What are the requirements of doing
> this? Is it feasible? OR too expensive?
> 6. I will want full access to the network - email and files remotely.
> At the moment we only have access to webmail
> 7. Everytime a computer is attached to our network it needs to be
> automatically distributed with the relevant templates and settings
> from the server.
>
> Is there anything else I need to consider?
>
> Really appreciate anyones help.
>
> Thanks
>
> Ho Yin
>=20
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]


------------------------------------