When your network slows down, taking advantage of network intelligence can be a more effective and affordable solution.

Nowadays, more small businesses have a converged network running three types of traffic simultaneously—voice, video, and data. Delay-sensitive and real-time applications such as voice and voice applications have different characteristics and requirements from those of traditional data applications. Because they are real-time-based, voice and video applications will only tolerate a small amount of delay affecting delivery. Voice and video traffic will also only accept a small amount of network error and jitter, both of which degrade the quality of the transmission delivered to the end user. To effectively transport voice and video traffic over a network, mechanisms are required that ensure reliable delivery of packets with low latency. In addition, more and more companies are running automated backups during regular work hours, so converged network can easily get bogged down, resulting in slow and spotty performance. A simple and easy solution may be to add more bandwidth, but that isn’t always the best fix. Instead, network intelligence features in your switch can improve network performance more effectively and affordably.

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Tags: Network Bandwidth, network optimization, small business, smart switches, switching

Guest Post by Contributing Author Ken Presti

During a short break between meetings at a recent trade show, I found myself chatting with a guy who is an IT buyer for a small company.  At one point, he told me that we analyst types have fallen short in our coverage of the things that matter to small businesses.  “Oh sure.  You’re all fine when it comes to technology speeds-and-feeds, but at the end of the day, a technology purchase is a financial decision, and you’re all woefully unprepared to engage at that level.”

As an analyst who specializes in go to market strategies, I figured I had the upper hand in this discussion, but he was unimpressed.

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Tags: financing, partner, small business

It’s World IPV6 Day, please take a moment to view my video blog about the migration to IPV6.

http://youtu.be/qnmRuutbQSsv

Tags: IPv6, small business, World IPv6 Day

Virtual servers and storage environments need regular backups to protect them from downtime, data loss.

Smaller companies are adopting virtualization technologies more than ever, according to AMI-Partner’s “2010 SMB Virtualization Market Analysis and Assessment”. Small businesses are applying virtualization to their servers and storage infrastructure, which can drastically change how and where employees store data and access applications, quickly making virtual environments as important to a company’s day-to-day operations as its physical equipment.

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Tags: data protection, disaster recovery, small business, small business disaster recovery, virtual environments, virtual servers, virtual storage, virtualization

New apps and remote access tools let you monitor your IP-based video cameras any where, any time.

Until recently, you had two options for 24-hour video surveillance of your business. You could install an on-site video surveillance solution and monitor the video in shifts, or you could hire a security company to provide surveillance around the clock from its facility. Neither of those options are particularly viable solutions for most small companies. Thanks to IP network cameras, the Internet and mobile devices, though, you now have a third option for continuous surveillance. With video cameras installed on site and connected to the Internet via your IP network, you can use remote access tools and mobile applications to easily monitor your business at any hour and from any location.

Because an IP-based video surveillance system puts your video cameras and monitoring software online on your network, the solution can deliver a variety of access capabilities, including real-time streaming video, email alerts, and remote control capabilities. For example, you can keep an eye on the cash register from your desktop while working in the back office. Or, you can receive email alerts to your smartphone if a camera captures someone walking into your server closet.

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Tags: mobile video surveillance, security, small business, video surveillance