Three Bears IT Consultancy

Archive for the ‘Business Continuity’ Category

The potential problems of cloud computing are coming to the fore with news that some users have been unable to access Google’s Gmail service according to a number of support forums.  Users have had issues with both the web mail offering of the service as well as IMAP connections and some users reporting issues with POP. 

To date, Google is not acknowledging the problem with a number of sites reporting that they have yet to receive a reply from the all-encompassing search engine giant – even customer paying the $50 per user per year support fees are complaining that telephones are not being answered.

Whilst outsourcing key services such as email access is often seen as delivering quick efficiency savings, small and medium enterprises should consider how much influence they can exert upon a company such as Google should a problem arise.  Whilst providing excellent economies of scale, this is usually without any level of support with users unable to effect any change themselves.

Companies should think long and hard about the business case for moving to such a hosted service.  In house provision is often expensive with a happy medium being a collaboration with a company specialising in support for your particular expertise or area.  Long term contracts with strategic partners are the optimal way to improve your business efficiency without  losing control of key business communication channels.

As promised, details of the updates due to hit Windows Update / Microsoft Update / WSUS implementations any time around now.

Beginning with Windows 2000 – there are critical and important updates for the operating system, plus critical updates for Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 Service Pack 4 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1.

Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Service Pack 3 users also have a string of critical and important updates, including critical updates for Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 6, 7 and 8.

Windows XP Professional 64-bit edition have critical and important updates as with it’s 32-bit cousin, with updates also for Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 6, 7 and 8.  It’s a similar story for Microsoft Vista Service Pack 1 and 2.  There are even updates for the as yet unreleased Windows 7.

Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 and Server 2008 sees a mixture of moderate, important and critical updates plus updates for the relevant versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Versions of Microsoft Office affected include 2007, 2003 and XP with updates for standalone applications such as Visio, Visio Viewer, Project, Word Viewer, Excel Viewer and PowerPoint Viewer.  Microsoft Office Groove 2007 is affected, along with Microsoft Works Version 8.5, Expression Web 1 & 2 and the compatibility pack for Microsoft Office 2007.

The only server tool to be affected is Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and 2005, including Reporting Services – all critical.

Microsoft Forefront Client Security 1.0 is the only security software to be updated via this release, but developer tools including Silverlight 2, Visual Studio 2003 (.NET), 2005 & 2008 are affected and even old Visual Foxpro for anyone still using this database technology.

On the whole, a wide range of updates across all supported operating systems, but thankfully not too much affecting server applications other than databases.  We’d be interested to hear any issues which you’ve found with any of the updates and will keep you posted on anything which we hear about …

Three Bears IT are always looking for new techologies which we can bring to the attention of our current and potential customers.  One such phenomenum doing the rounds at present is the notion of cloud computing with business and schools alike storing documents and images on third party services to provide peace of mind in terms of backing up critical files whilst also facilitating greater file sharing amongst remote workers.

We have a variety of packages available depending upon your specific requirements from business based collaborative workspace for users starting at just under £100 per year.

Please direct any enquiries through to storage@threebears.biz and we’ll contact you to identify your specific requirements and to set up your account.