Remote Office Tech Tips
From Wikibon
Remote Office Tech Tip Educational Videos
StorMagic commissioned this educational video series, focused on the challenges and decision making process for remote office IT. Videos can also be seen on
StorMagic's Remote Office Tech Tips Channel.
Optimizing Branch Office and Remote Office IT
Wikibon contributor, John McArthur, talks about the importance of branch offices and the challenges of branch office IT support.
Watch the full video here.
Conducting an Application Inventory
The first step in branch-office IT consolidation and efficiency is conducting an application inventory.
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Branch Office Infrastructure Consolidation
Once the remote office application inventory is complete, CIO's can begin to look at ways to reduce cost and consolidate infrastructure.
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Requirements for High Availability
Not every application requires high availability. And for the ones that do, it still has to be affordable.
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How To Deliver High-Availability Applications
Virtualization and shared storage are key components for high availability. They also enable non-disruptive software and maintenance.
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Options for Shared Storage
There are many options for shared storage, but in a remote office, where storage requirements are small, but availability requirements are high, a virtual storage appliance is likely to be a much better fit than traditional SAN or NAS storage.
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Split-Brain Conditions
Split-brain conditions can lead to downtime and data corruption. Spilt brain risks can be avoided through the use of a quorum service.
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Quorum Server Deployment Options
By consolidating quorum servers in a single location, organizations can reduce remote-site hardware requirements by 1/3rd. But not all VSA solutions can tolerate the longer latencies that come with centralized quorum servers.
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The Cost of Downtime
The cost of application downtime is dependent upon the value of the application for a specific organization. Don't rely on industry averages.
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Speed of Deployment
When it comes to refreshing remote-office IT infrastructure, speed of deployment matters. The fewer special-purpose devices, the better. Look for software-based solutions and services that can leverage existing, virtualized application servers.
Watch the full video here.
Minimizing Hardware Footprint
It's tempting to consider removing all servers from branches, but performance, availability, cost, risk, and compliance concerns may prevent such a move. The key, then, is to reduce hardware footprint as much as possible.
Watch the full video here.
Which Applications Can Be Migrated to the Cloud
Some applications can be safely migrated to a cloud infrastructure. Others can not. Application performance, data security and privacy, application availability, and regulatory compliance are all factors to be weighed.
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Serviceability of Remote Office IT
Capital costs are only one consideration in remote office IT. Hardware and software serviceability can have a major impact on total operating costs.
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Reducing Response-Time Requirements
Gold and Platinum-level support with short response-time guarantees come at a substantial premium to standard support contracts. Fully-redundant, high-availability infrastructure reduces the requirement for premium support, by making hardware repairs a non-emergency event.
Watch the full video here.
WAN Considerations in Application Architecture
Developers designing applications for branch offices and remote sites should pay special attention to WAN requirements. Applications designed to run centrally but be accessed remotely significantly increase the dependency on a highly-availability, high-quality, high-bandwidth and redundant WAN, driving up the operational cost of applications in remote locations.
Watch the full video here.
Hot and Dirty Branch Office IT
Branch offices and remote sites often lack clean power, clean air, and proper cooling. Choosing the right IT architecture in these environments can have a major impact on application availability.
Watch the full video here.
Action Item: Remote Office IT presents a unique set of challenges for CIOs. Like data center IT, availability, serviceability and efficiency are key requirements. Unlike data centers, however, on-premises IT staff are limited. Solutions designed for small businesses often lack the remote-deployment and remote management capabilities of solutions designed for large-enterprise branch offices. CIOs considering a branch office refresh should pay special attention to recently introduced technologies that enable centralized deployment, centralized management, and lean remote-office IT.
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