Within the walls of VISI there are many business processes to follow and technical configuration tasks performed each day as we service our customers. A close-knit team of application developers work behind the scenes to build and maintain internal applications used to support the fulfillment of customer orders and assist our 24×7 customer support staff as they support our customers. At the core of this team’s mission is something called the VISI Admin Center.

The Admin Center is an internal business system with an applications framework designed around several core functions. The functions include:
• Customer order processing
• Automated services provisioning
• Service and equipment documentation and tracking
• Work activity and support ticket tracking
• Customer support

The Admin Center is an evolving tool. The VISI application development team works with other departments to review requests for improvements that increase efficiency and customer services.

Here is an illustration of what the Admin Center can do. A customer may subscribe to a service such as web site hosting, database storage, email, virtual servers or others. The customer information and order are entered into the Admin Center. The Admin Center structures the service data and connects to the server on which the respective service is to be provisioned. Through inter-system communication, the customer’s requested service is provisioned on the target computer in VISI’s SAS 70 Type II compliant data center. Concurrently, the corresponding technical documentation is stored in the configuration database. At that point the appropriate customized technical information about the service can be sent via email to the customer. This customer data is available for our 24×7 support staff should a customer need to call for assistance.

MyVISI Customer Portal is the direct customer extension of the Admin Center and can be accessed at support.visi.com. MyVISI Customer Portal allows VISI customers to access information relevant to their services, request customer support, check account status and pay for services online.

So what’s next? In 2009, the VISI applications team will make more improvements to the Admin Center focusing on efficiency in operations and the management of service configurations. Also, watch for more functionality for customers on the MyVISI Portal.

If I were to create a list of the most popular buzzwords in the business community today, specifically those that revolve around technology, I would bet that disaster recovery, or “DR,” would be high on that list. Take away the technology focus and I’m guessing it’s still high up the list. Why? Today’s business information largely resides in the form of bits and bytes rather than in a paper file. Information is the lifeblood of most organizations and if it were lost, most organizations would be severely impacted while others might go under.

We’ve reached the point that backups alone are not enough. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a strong believer in backups and encourage all companies to have a backup plan that is tested regularly. I am, however, also a strong believer of knowing both the strengths and weaknesses of your backup plan.

Scenario: You own a small business and run a server in your office that powers an accounting application that stores all your financial information. This system also acts as a general-purpose file server providing a central repository for everyone to store and share business documents. Even though you’ve had no issues during the past 18 months of operation, something happens one morning and you’re suddenly running without access to this system.

How long can you operate without access to your data? Was your backup plan designed to help you recover within an acceptable timeframe for your organization? Has it been tested to prove that the design works?

Restoring a system from backups made to tape or disk may involve waiting for hours or days. Many times new hardware needs to be purchased and shipped, the operating system and applications need to be installed and configured, and lastly, you need to import your data.

For those who have a more stringent Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) than a basic backup-to-tape or backup-to-disk service offers, VISI provides Server Replication product. Server Replication provides continuous, real-time replication of your server’s operating system, applications and data to VISI’s secure St. Paul Data Center. In the event of a failure or disaster, VISI will assist in getting your server up and running in a VMware-hosted environment in 5 hours or less.

If you have any questions or are interested in our server replication product, feel free to give me a call at 612-395-8924.

Arriving home after work one day a few months ago, my 4-year old son greeted me at the door as he usually does and exclaimed with great excitement, “Papa, there’s a package for you! Can I open it?” Although I was just as eager to tear into the box, I calmly replied, “Sure buddy. Have at it.” Inside was a shiny new tech toy . . . (ahem) I mean a business tool to help enable increased productivity and organization – a Windows Mobile 6 Smartphone. Ok, I know I’m a little late to the game, but thought I would share a few thoughts about my experience for those who have yet to experience the bliss of always being connected and in the know.

Like any good company, we’re consumers of our own products. For me, this means Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint. Microsoft CRM is another invaluable tool and integrates nicely with both Exchange and SharePoint.

As someone who is on the road regularly, here are some scenarios regarding how these tools make my life easier and give me comfort when I’m away from the office.

- Incoming email hits my Outlook desktop client and my phone at the same time. Messages I reply to sync back to my desktop (i.e. sent items folder).

- Meetings and calendar items sync nicely. Example: I’m in a meeting and need to schedule a follow up meeting. A quick glance at my phone shows me my calendar. I create a new meeting on my phone which syncs with Exchange and therefore my Outlook client. When I get back to the office and view my calendar in Outlook, the meeting I scheduled is already there.

- Contacts: If I’m out of the office and my sales partner wants me to call a new prospective customer he can enter the contact info into Microsoft CRM and send me an email asking me to call ”Joe.” A quick search for Joe on my phone pulls up address, email, phone number, and any other info my partner entered into CRM as it syncs back to Exchange and gets pushed to my phone in real time.

- SharePoint: Documents I share with others internally can all be centrally and securely stored online. SharePoint integrates into my Outlook client and is accessible via a browser when I’m away from my laptop.

Life is busy enough as it is. Having the right tools have allowed me to do more with the time I have and be more responsive to my clients and co-workers. For me, the seamless integration between Microsoft’s Exchange, SharePoint, and CRM products have paid huge dividends in helping me manage and exchange (pun intended) information with business partners. My new smartphone is one more way to tap into all this valuable data without ever getting out of sync.

One last closing note… while in my case I personally opted to purchase a Windows Mobile 6 device, I have many friends and co-workers who use Blackberry devices with the same results. And with the recent announcement that the iPhone will now be supporting ActiveSync, Apple fans can share in the love too.

VISI launched two products on May 20th 2008, our NEW Backup-To-Disk and our expanded Secure Socket Layer (SSL) offering!

Our remarkable, innovative and enterprise-class Backup-To-Disk is a significant step forward offering our customers the following feature set:

(1) Off site backup solution which allows extremely fast file recovery and restores;

(2) 31 days of data retention are now offered versus the previous 21 days;

(3) Restores of a customer’s data are significantly faster since no tape is involved;

(4) Colocated customer’s have a variety of visibility options via an HTML enabled interface (which is VISI branded); and,

(5) Backup-To-Disk offers our customers a truely Enterprise-level backup solution.

Our Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Certificates offering is significantly enhanced! VISI now offers the choice of certificates from three vendors; GeoTrust, RapidSSL and VeriSign.  VISI also introduced a monthly SSL Certificate for businesses who require additional flexibility.

Please call our Sales staff at 612/395-9090 to enquire about either of these new VISI innovations!

Enjoy!

Bill

Thanks to all who attended the final installment of our March webinars, “Microsoft SharePoint: Spreading Corporate Knowledge.”  Once again, we had a great Q&A session at the end of Bill’s presentation.

For those of you who missed the beginning of the webinar, or simply want to enjoy the information again, you can download the PowerPoint presentation from this blog.