I got a meeting with the Bobs in a couple of minutes.

What a day! I'm sitting in the Albany airport waiting for my delayed flight finishing an over-priced sandwich and a not-strong-enough vodka tonic reflecting on the 8 hours I just spent with Bob Godgart and the team from Autotask. What would I do with our my air card?

So Autotask invites me up to spend a day learning and sharing with their staff. I'm not sure what to expect and wasn't sure what to share during my 1 hour presentation to their entire 85 person staff. Oh well, I've winged it before and would like to see if they live up to my expectation from occasional meetings at SMB events so I agree to endure the travel hell of US Air.. Let me tell you this. They blew me away! The faculties, the staff, the executive vision, the desire to learn from end users and their road map for 2007 all were simply amazing. The "Bobs" have created not only an astounding product but an office culture that make me what to quit my gig and go work for them ( I wonder if they would pay me to play foosball or race RC cars all day?).

Now I would really like to share with you all the kewl technical details that I learned for the future of Autotask the product and the company but I'm not. would say it's all NDA but the honest truth is I'm too tired to remember what I can and can't share. What I will share is that after 4 years for running my business on their product and seeing their desire to work with their customers I don't consider them a vendor, I consider them a partner. And I'm really proud of their association. I've seen their competitors and I'm not even a little tempted. You see, what I saw and learned today was why. Why the people that work there are so proud of their product. Why they are able to have a regular version update every month and nothing breaks (try that one Microsoft). Why they seem to read my mind with each new version release. They truly get it when it come to being both a developer, ASP and partner. Their QA process, their commitment to excellence, their desire to make their UI simpler and efficient and their focus on adapting to the MSP's workflow processes all make me proud to work with them. If you having made up your mind about a PSA and your considering going with one that is run by somebody you're not sure you want to do business with (you know who I'm talking about) then you should give the good folks at Autotask a holler or go to www.mobilizesmb.com and let them help you get started. Thanks again Bob, I'll share the tie story with the race track pics in another post.

Now if you will excuse me I saw a couple of massage chairs down by terminal A. I'm going to go put a dollar in one and unplug the other to recharge my laptop.

Recovering a customer’s WSS with StorageCraft’s SPS

This may read like a shameless plug but it's not. It's an expression of my gratitude to a great product and a determined technician. When I got the email yesterday from my field tech I was on my way home sick, my senior tech was in training in Atlanta and my server and DR tech was on vacation. Not a good start. It seems we were going to need to recover a critical file that the customer hadn't bothered to tell us they were now storing on their CompanyWeb. I was less than happy. I was ready to tell the customer that the file was gone. You see, we don't run the native SBS Backup anymore nor do we use VSS on WSS as we now use StorageCraft Server Edition to protect critical servers and workstations for all our managed customers. I was really wishing I had paid more attention to Chad's lesson on SharePoint Recovery at NOLO so now we were facing a task I wasn't familiar with – recovering a SharePoint site. Good news! It's really not that hard and with StorageCraft's SPS it took only a few minutes. Here are the David Thorpe's notes from his ticket. I hope this helps somebody else.

Summary Notes for the ticket:

Created a Copy of C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL$SHAREPOINT.

Mounted ShadowProtect image backed up on 6/10/2007 at 4:01PM as drive letter Z:

Stopped the MSSQL$SHAREPOINT, MSSQLSERVER, and SQLSERVERAGENT services.

Stopped the sharepoint site in IIS and copied over the MSSQL$SHAREPOINT from Z:

Restarted sharepoint site, SQL services, and dismounted SP backup image.

Verified that the USF SALES TOTAL.XLS file was restored.

Will follow-up to inquire if it's the most recent version.

 

I was going to ask him to write it up a little prettier but I think this shows the basic steps. This recovered the full WSS 2 site.

Planning a funeral for tapes?

Have you been listening to the buzz on the death of tapes? I mean really listening? So what are you going to put on the next server you install?

I'm not sure about you but we are planning ahead. We switched all our customers to High-Rely USB and eSATA attached drive storage about a year ago and are currently evaluating some of the now affordable NAS from companies like Buffalo Technologies. In fact last Friday I had a few minutes so I hooked up the new TeraStation Pro II we purchased via D & H at a crazy low NFR price by signing up as a Buffalo VAR. I started with their setup CD (what was I thinking?) that an insert told me I needed an update driver for that could not be found on their site at the provide link. I then did it the right way and went to the NAS via http and was able to join it to my SBS Domain, add AD file permission integration, setup my health alerts and redirect my StorageCraft Server Edition backup images in about 3 minutes. The only thing really missing with this device from an MSP stand point is it doesn't have SNMP abilities (that I have found).

I love it when this stuff works and works fast! So, how is that tape solution looking now?

PhotoSynth at Tec Conference

I've got fairly excited when I discovered Photosynth was going to be an available add-in for Windows Home Server but I had no idea how powerful this technology really is as shown at TED (don't quit the video early, the BMW commercial after the demo I really kewl too).

I can't want to share pics of my children with Grammy this way!

And they said it wasn’t possible…

What am I missing here? Google gets out the gate first in the race to deliver virtualized office-like applications (Web Applications) called Google Docs and Spreadsheets so you can edit that document or spreadsheet without having to install MS Office. OK, I'm on board with this idea. I sounds pretty cool and we know MS still has their version in beta for the next few hundred years (sorry, I get impatient with I'm on the user end) but the irony is they (Google) now have had to come out with software you install on your computer to run your Google Docs and Spreadsheets when you are not actually connected to the internet (God forbid!). They call this genius solution Google Gears. So let me get this straight, we virtualized an app so we don't have to install software but now we are writing software we have to install so we can run the app. We sure are working hard to make things easy… Don't lose faith yet, I'm confident MS can make this even more complicated with their virtual app release by adding licensing into the mix… ODG!

Am I asking too much?

So one of my techs sends me this handy link that allows you to transfer ownership and remaining service on a Dell and I think that's nice. My real need is the ability to get paid when I help Dell renew a nice profitable service contract/warranty. Say I acquire a new customer (it could happen) and they have a mixed bag of Dell OEM boxes and servers. I notice that the service contracts are either about to expire or already have expired. Do you think Dell is going to give me credit ($) for renewing those agreements? Fat chance! Even if I join their reseller program I still can't get any margin on service contract renewals of systems I didn't originally sell. I guess I need to suggest to the customer they replace those old systems instead with a new managed computer from HP where they only pay monthly to us and never own the box or the risk. What choice do I have? When will Dell get it?

HAS – Hardware as a Service

It's like a bad dream. If you are like me (not literally), you send all your customers to Dell, HP or a local system builder down the street because you don't want to play the quote for dismal dollars game of selling hardware. Sure there is good money in software and especially service contracts but to sell a mouse and keyboard to make $3 then have to send out a $150/hour MCSE to replace it when it breaks – somebody else can have that business you say. Not so fast. I don't like it when Michael Vizard says hardware as a service is inevitable but I'm afraid he is right. At a recent Gartner event I attended I watched hundreds of top hardware VARS and system VARS listen to industry experts and manufactures explain how they need to move into the MSP space. Hey wait a minute! That's MY SPACE! So before somebody moves your cheese, you better decide between self directed destiny or listening to the sound of inevitability.

"Throughout human history, we have been dependent on machines to survive. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony." – Morpheus

3, 2, 1, Wait! Oops! Oh Crap!

OK Susan, you asked for it! Actually you didn't but since you didn't try to stop me when I asked we can officially blame you when all heck breaks loose. Also, thanks for the very flattering post. (Nubie Question: Do you call a blog a post?)

Now to test pictures on this blog site: