Cloud Distribution outlines strategy

Distribution must add value or move aside says Dobson

Specialist distie Cloud Distribution is to add cloud based penetration testing service iViz to its portfolio as part of its plan to create a new type of VAD that avoids SaaS but embraces the channel to deliver the cloud management aspect of traditional sales.

Scott Dobson, MD and founder of Cloud Distribution highlights iViz and cloud managed wireless AP vendor Meraki as perfect additions to its portfolio. “[We partner] with vendors who deliver network infrastructure and security that is managed from the cloud in a multi-tenanted, multi tiered front end. That takes a lot of the complexity and management overhead that say a Cisco-based solution apply to their systems.”

Dobson believes that distributors that focus on just SaaS will face problems: “We don’t think there is a lot of value that distribution can add to SaaS,” he says, “If you’re a multimillion broadliner, the ability to aggregate services has value, but that’s not what we are about.”

The exclusive agreement with iViz will be formally announced over the next few months and Dobson is still looking to strengthen its portfolio based on a defined criteria. “What we looking for in the vendor community is a cloud management capability and focus on network infrastructure and security. To be honest with you, we are waiting for the market to catch up with our aspiration.”

Will Garside - Channel Pro - Read more

The sleekest rugged APs you’ve ever seen

It’s been a busy summer at Meraki, and today we’re excited to announce two new outdoor APs – the MR62 and MR66. They bring Meraki’s leading security, performance, and management to harsh outdoor and industrial indoor wireless networks. They’re rugged (IP67 rated) and sleek at the same time. See for yourself:

MR66 Cloud Managed AP

The MR66 includes dual-band, dual-concurrent radios, with speeds up to 600 Mbps for high performance in the most demanding environments. The single-radio MR62, with speeds up to 300 Mbps, is designed for value-oriented outdoor WLANs. They both have all the enterprise class features required for modern wireless networks, including:

• Layer 7 application traffic shaping
• Client fingerprinting
• Stateful firewall
• NAC
• Band steering (for the MR66)
• Auto RF
• Mesh networking

The APs are designed to be deployed in harsh outdoor conditions and are able to survive temperature and precipitation extremes. They’re also ideal for harsh indoor environments, such as industrial and manufacturing applications, where dust or high particle content may be problematic. They weatherproof, dustproof, and powered by PoE 802.3af.

MR66 rear view

The new models won’t break the bank, either — the MR62 lists at $699 and the MR66 lists at $1299 and they’re available for order immediately. Our comparison table shows the Meraki outdoor AP specs side by side. Want to get your hands on one?Sign up online for a free evaluation.

5 Apps That Hog Bandwidth on Your Network

Does your wireless connection ever feel slow and sluggish? Below are five popular applications that can consume quite a bit of bandwidth. Don’t let them bog down your network!

• Skype and VoIP / video conferencing
• Dropbox and online backup
• Facebook
• YouTube
• Pandora

Using Meraki’s built-in application visibility makes it easy to see which apps consume the most bandwidth. A look over the past month at the application categories running on Meraki’s network reveals the top three – VoIP and video conferencing, online backup, and email – and the applications that consume the most bandwidth of each of those categories. Figure 1 shows the summary.

Figure 1: Application traffic by category

Checking the 5 apps listed above reveals how much bandwidth each uses on the wireless network:

• Skype and VoIP / video conferencing – 14%
• Dropbox and online backup – 11%
• Facebook – 0.8% (all social web adds up to 1.1%)
• YouTube – 3.0% (all online video adds up to 8.9%)
• Pandora 2.5% (music apps add up to 6.7%)

A deeper dive into the online backup category shows that Dropbox is the most popular online backup application, and within that, the dashboard shows the top client devices that contribute to Dropbox usage. This was eye opening – my laptop is #2 on the list in figure 2, consuming just over 32% of all the wireless network’s Dropbox usage.

Figure 2: Application details - Dropbox

Another application consuming large amounts of bandwidth is Windows file sharing. Like many organizations, Meraki uses some file servers that store and allow sharing of files. Note here that the client consuming the most Windows file sharing bandwidth uses 38% of all the Windows file sharing activity.
What should be done if these categories are out of line with expectations or business needs? The answer is simple – use application traffic shaping to throttle undesired applications by enforcing traffic policies at the network edge (at the AP). For example, figure 4 below shows how one rule can govern peer-to-peer and online backup applications, and another rule lets VoIP and video conferencing flow freely across the wireless network.

Figure 3: Traffic shaping rules

Have you looked at your wireless network recently to see what applications are using the most bandwidth? We’d love it if you share with us a little about the most popular applications on your network.

Cloud Hosting – Infrastructure as a Service

Via Cloud Tweaks

As the fiercely competitive modern business environment continues to evolve, companies of every size are becoming increasingly aware of the many benefits presented by cloud computing. Just as mainframes eventually evolved into the current sever environment, the image of a roomful of computers in a large building will soon begin to fade. The speed, flexibility and reduced cost of cloud hosting have begun to trigger the next evolution in the IT industry.

Defining IaaS

IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) is one of the three primary applications of cloud hosting. Along with Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS), IaaS functionality is delivered through the web in an on-demand format. Services are usually available through a fixed-price monthly subscription or billed as pay per use. In either scenario, usage and pricing can be scaled up or down to accommodate current and future needs.

From a foundational standpoint, IaaS allows virtually any application to run seamlessly across a wide variety of infrastructure elements. This includes servers, networks or storage components. IaaS provides exceptional flexibility as it conforms to the needs of the client in the private cloud, public cloud and hybrid cloud environments.

Providers of IaaS hosting are available to accommodate the requirements of every business regardless of size. Issues relating to cost and privacy usually dictate how a company chooses to access IaaS through the cloud. Cost and accessibility tend to have an inverse relationship as security is enhanced and service levels increase. For example, a private cloud has substantially fewer users than a public cloud, so service costs are typically higher.

The emerging landscape for cloud hosting and IaaS continues to rapidly evolve. While many providers offer IaaS as an extension of existing hosting services, many new providers are focused solely on IaaS. This difference often revolves around underlying hardware issues, virtualization capacities and security protocols.

Benefits of Dedicated Cloud Hosting for IaaS

The benefits of IaaS within a cloud environment are so significant they are almost self-evident. The elimination of infrastructure investment is a primary driver that can result in substantial capital expense savings. On-going upgrades and asset related outlays are virtually eliminated since these services are included in package pricing. Staffing costs can be significantly reduced, and in some cases, entire departments can be eliminated. For companies with sizable investments in existing data centres, build-outs can be delayed or avoided altogether.

The size and scale of the IaaS provider presents customers with an essentially unlimited number of ways to augment business processes. Massive platforms are segmented on a per client basis which provides extraordinary economies of scale opportunities and improvements in comprehensive efficiency.

The Future of IaaS

As emerging virtualization solutions such as VMware and Microsoft Hyper- V servers continue to evolve from enterprise level implementation, IaaS through cloud hosting offers superior speed, reliability and state-of-the-art security protection.

By Jonathon Linnell/UKfast Hosting

More Insight at Your Fingertips with Real-Time Tools

We’re continuing to integrate new tools into dashboard, and we recently added additional live information for each AP: real-time channel utilization graphs. With live channel utilization views you can get an immediate clue into the load on the AP and RF interference, without having to go into full spectrum analysis view (though that’s also right in the dashboard, too).



Live Channel Utilization

When you click on the details of an AP, you’ll see a graph of channel utilization. Dual-band APs will show two graphs, one for 2.4 GHz and one for 5 GHz. The graphs show the utilization of each Wi-Fi channel used by the AP and the amount of non-802.11 interference present on the channel. The above graph was made simply using screenshots of the access point details page in dashboard. The real update rate is once every five seconds, but for clarity the update rate shown here is once every second.

Have you seen the other real-time tools available in dashboard? Use these to troubleshoot connectivity issues, ping APs and clients, run a spectrum analysis test…all without leaving your desk, right from your browser.
Spectrum analysis


Live spectrum analysis
Yes, you can run a spectrum analysis test right from within dashboard! And if you’re using dashboard from a mobile device, such as an iPad, this works from there, too.

Ping AP




Live ping AP tool
Ping AP lets you measure the round-trip time for packets sent from the Meraki Cloud Controller to the access point, and is a very easy way to verify connectivity and latency between them.

Meraki.com throughput


Live throughput to meraki.com
This tool runs a speed test between the AP and the Meraki Cloud Controller or the gateway AP.

Have you used these tools when monitoring and managing your network? Let us know if you have any feedback on it.

Softcat bursts through £200m barrier - 15 Jul 2011 - CRN UK News

Softcat bursts through £200m barrier - 15 Jul 2011 - CRN UK News

Reseller Softcat has soared past the £200m annual turnover mark with two weeks of its fiscal year to spare.

The Marlow-based VAR's financial year closes at the end of this month and staff will today be plied with food and drink to celebrate passing the sales landmark. In its 2010 fiscal year, the firm's top line stood at £146m and the directors' report for the year indicated it was budgeting for sales of £187m this year.

Softcat managing director Martin Hellawell (pictured below) said: "I never dreamed of getting to the £200m mark this financial year, which shows how rubbish we are at forecasting. This is a fantastic achievement, and it is quite right that we celebrate it properly."

Softcat has doubled in size since passing £100m in turnover just three years ago, with all the growth coming organically. The firm puts its success down to keeping the business simple and maintaining a stellar employee retention record.

"I would like to thank all our staff for their hard work and commitment, striving to delight our customers with service levels, and our customers for the privileged relationships we enjoy with them and their continued loyalty," added Hellawell. "A couple of our partners have been all right as well."

Read more: http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/news/2094293/softcat-bursts-gbp200m-barrier#ixzz1SBQLcskR

For Wi-Fi, PCs and Macs are Now a Minority

It's a big week for interesting stats relating to Internet usage breakdowns by device. Comscore has released numbers that say that the iPad accounts for 97 percent of tablet usage on the Web-no shocker there. And cloud networking company Meraki has published some data based on device usage numbers from its customers networks:

Whenever I look at numbers like these, I try to remind myself that we don't know how precisely they map to the world at large. But they're still fun to ponder.

Takeaways:

• In 2010, at least 64 percent of Wi-Fi users were using traditional computers-Windows PCs and Macs. In 2011, that's down to 36 percent. 58 percent of Wi-Fi users are on mobile devices-iPhones, iPod Touches, iPads, and Android devices.
• In 2010, a slight majority (53 percent) of Wi-Fi users were on Apple devices. In 2011, that's up to 60 percent. Only 23 percent are on Windows.
• Android accounted for a measly one percent last years; in 2011, it's a meaty 11 percent.
• iPad users consume 400 percent as much Wi-Fi data on average as owners of Android handsets, iPhones, and iPod Touches. That's presumably at least in part because a sizable percentage of iPad owners have Wi-Fi-only models, whereas all iPhone owners and most Android handset users can also get data over cellular networks. (I also imagine that iPads get far more use at home than phones do.)

I was startled to see Windows account for only 23 percent of Wi-Fi usage given that the vast majority of PCs on the planet run it. But many of those Windows machines are desktops, and desktops are far less likely to be on Wi-Fi than notebooks are.

In case you're curious, here are current stats for device usage here at Technologizer. (These are visits to a blog, so it's an entirely different sort of data than Meraki's figures for Wi-Fi usage by device-which is why my breakdown bears little resemblance to Meraki's breakdown.)

• Windows: 52 percent of visits (54 percent of these visits were via Windows 7)
• Mac OS X: 25 percent
• iPhone: 8 percent
• iPad: 8 percent
• Android: 4 percent
• Other: 3 percent
• iPod: 1 percent

When 24×7 Isn’t a Good Thing: New SSID Schedules!

Easy Internet access for guests makes WiFi a very attractive amenity for many retailers and restaurants, where it can be a differentiator in a crowded market of competitors.  Libraries and schools are now expected to offer ubiquitous wireless access across their campuses and often want to offer free WiFi to the local community.  The ease of deployment and trouble-free management of Meraki WiFi networks make it simple to deploy guest access across all of these types of organizations and more.

However, sometimes administrators don’t want to offer free wireless access around the clock.  An open WiFi network can mean that folks hang around in the parking lot long after business hours, causing complaints from residential or business neighbors.  With Meraki’s new Scheduled SSID feature for Enterprise networks, administrators can automatically turn an SSID off outside of a set schedule without the need to even log into Dashboard.  Standard templates are available for typical business hours, or a custom schedule can be created for each individual day.

This feature can be found on the new SSID Availability page.  We’ve also moved the controls for hiding an SSID to this page as well from the Access Control page to make it easy to find all SSID broadcast-related controls.

Gartner Positions OpSource as a 'Challenger'

Gartner Positions OpSource as a 'Challenger'Jan 13, 2011 (Close-Up Media via COMTEX) -- OpSource, Inc., a provider of enterprise cloud and managed hosting solutions, announced it has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the Challengers quadrant of the "Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service and Web Hosting" 2010 report.

According to Gartner analysts and report authors Lydia Leong and Ted Chamberlin, "For the past five years, the Web hosting market has been evolving toward on-demand infrastructure provisioned on a flexible, pay-as-you-go basis; the majority of hosting customers now obtain at least some of their infrastructure on demand, and most new hosting contracts include on-demand services. The market for traditional Web hosting services, especially for Internet and intranet Web content and applications, continues to grow." "We believe our placement in the Challengers quadrant is a confirmation of our rapid growth over the past year as IT organizations have consistently selected OpSource's enterprise-ready hosting and cloud IaaS solutions for cost-effectively scaling mission-critical applications in the cloud," said Treb Ryan, CEO for OpSource. "By leveraging our deep expertise in managing complex hosted environments, we are able to customize our offerings to meet the needs of businesses of any size. With the recent launch of OpSource's Managed Services for the Cloud offering, we continue to break down the barriers to adoption for enterprise companies and smaller businesses migrating applications to the cloud." According to a release, OpSource is a public cloud provider offering both application and system management services in the cloud. With the company's continued product innovation and positioning in Garter's Magic Quadrant, OpSource demonstrates its growth in the cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service market.

Are you more productive at home?

Jason Fried gave an interesting talk at Tedx Midwest, discussing how real work gets done at home. How so? It’s all about distractions. At home, people only have distractions that they choose to give into: TV, checking email, cooking elaborate lunches etc. At work, employees get distracted by M&Ms – managers and meetings. For example, managers can come by and completely disrupt a thought process. To really get something done, workers need a few hours of uninterrupted thought (about three). If not, employees are limited to a bunch of working moments until their next scheduled and unscheduled interruption.

But is home the perfect solution? According to The New York Times, in the article “Laptopistan”:

“At home, the slightest change in light is enough of an excuse to get up, walk around, clip my nails or head into the kitchen. Though home offices seem like the perfect work environment, their unrestricted silence, uninterrupted solitude and creature comforts breed distraction.”

What do you think? Where’s the best place to get work done?

At FreshBooks, employees need to be present in office so we can collaborate and create the best work we can as a team. We’re expected to be in the office almost all days as it’s key to FreshBooks’ culture and success. However, if we need to get something done, people may work at home to avoid the distractions of the office.

Bonus: If you’re looking for strategies on how to be more productive at home, watch Workday Nirvana by FreshBooks CEO Mike McDerment, who used to be a freelancer working from home. For Mike, it comes down to routine, discipline, and self-respect. The video was originally shown at International Freelancers Day.

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Teleworkers are happier than traditional office workers! http://bit.ly/hDm9jv

Employees who spend most of their time telecommuting are more satisfied with their jobs—mainly because they avoid workplace distractions and stressors like office politics, interruptions, constant meetings and information overload.

That’s according to new research by Kathryn Fonner, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor of communication, and Michael Roloff, a professor of communication studies at Northwestern University.

The study compared the advantages and disadvantages of telecommuting over traditional office work. Participants who telework at least three days a week reported decreased work life conflict.

“Our findings emphasize the advantages of restricted face-to-face interaction, and also highlight the need for organizations to identify and address the problematic and unsatisfying issues inherent in collocated work environments,” Fonner said. “With lower stress and fewer distractions, employees can prevent work from seeping into their personal lives.”

In addition to implementing telework arrangements for employees, organizations may consider several other strategies to boost job satisfaction for both office-based and distance workers, Fonner adds, including:

• limiting the number of meetings and mass emails
• streamlining office communication by creating a repository of information that can be accessed at any time
• designating certain time and space where office-based employees can work uninterrupted
• encouraging employees to disconnect from workplace communication after hours.

The findings are published in the Journal of Applied Communication Research.

http://twitter.com/paretonetworks/statuses/12928700118999040

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