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Jay Allred

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Director of Network Engineering, BizCom Web Services, Inc.

103 points

Systems Engineer with 12+ years of experience working with SMBs in designing, implementing, supporting, and maintaining all aspects of their technology environment as well designing, building, and maintaining an enterprise class hosting platform for Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, and OCS.

WEB: Hosted Solutions

Jay Allred is now following David Kellerman

March 17, 2011

Jay Allred and 5 other people answered this question

Sept. 20, 2010

How can cloud-computing help my business reduce costs?

Stacey,
Moving IT functions to the cloud has to be reviewed functionally and fiscally. One example of a way that cloud-based computing can save you money is in the realm of hosted email. In most cases it is cheaper to pay a per-user, per-month fee for ... more

Information Technology

Cloud Computing

Cloud-based Storage

Jay Allred and 4 other people answered this question

Sept. 3, 2010

How can I, as a technical guy, help drive sales for my company?

We are a combination of a web design/web hosting company and a hosted solutions provider for Microsoft products such as Exchange, SharePoint, and Office Communications Server.
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Jay Allred and 4 other people answered this question

Aug. 30, 2010

What email software do you use at your company?

Chelsea,
If you have been using Lotus Notes for a long time I will make an assumption that you take advantage of its collaboration features. With that in mind, Outlook with Exchange is definitely a strong contender for a replacement system. If you are considering hosted ... more

Jay Allred and 8 other people answered this question

Aug. 20, 2010

How often should I be backing up my servers?

Dan,
If you were to lose all the data on the hosted servers would your company survive?
Extreme question but that is why we back up data to make sure we can recover from a disaster. If the answer is yes because you have local copies ... more

Managed Hosting

Jay Allred and 1 other person answered this question

Aug. 4, 2010

How is vm ware server for server virtualization?

Dan,
VMware, Microsoft, and Citrix are the three top virtualization vendors though VMware is definitely the industry leader. When you start thinking virtualization there are two common ways to deploy:
1) A bare metal hypervisor that is installed directly on the hardware
2) Virtualization software installed as an ... more

Information Technology

Servers and Storage

Jay Allred and 5 other people answered this question

June 22, 2010

Which hosted PBX/VoIP providers do you recommend and why?

Matt,
I did review that and spoke with Conrad at M5. We are a small company with a need for only a few phones but market our services to a number of small businesses that might be a good fit for M5. Thanks for following up.
Anyone ... more

Information Technology

Jay Allred and 4 other people answered this question

June 12, 2010

How to back up your computer?

Two other options:
1) If this is a work laptop can you ask your IT guy how your company handles laptop backups?
2) If you are on your own for backup consider backing up your data to the cloud. This simply requires signing up, downloading and installing ... more

Information Technology

Back up Computer

Backup Computer

Jay Allred and 2 other people answered this question

June 3, 2010

Have people used Microsoft Exchange Online? Reviews? Thoughts?

Michael,
As a Hosted Exchange provider I cannot speak for Microsoft's offering but we have had great success with our Hosted Exchange offering. Our customers love the ability to connect to their mailbox from almost any Internet connected device and utilize all of Exchange's enterprise features ... more

Information Technology

Hosted Collaboration

Hosted Services

Jay Allred and 2 other people answered this question

June 3, 2010

Is this a good desktop virtualization strategy?

I am making a few assumptions but if the main concern is keeping files in sync between the laptops and desktops I recommend the following options...
1. Make sure all documents are stored in a central location (local file server or collaboration website such as SharePoint)
2. ... more

General Management

Information Technology

Jay Allred and 1 other person answered this question

June 3, 2010

Is VMWare virtualization software the best when trying to run Windows on a Mac?

Kami,
Check out this fairly recent article in the Wall Street Journal comparing VMware Fusion and Parallels...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704140104575057251096106096.html
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Information Technology

Servers and Storage

Jay Allred and 3 other people answered this question

April 30, 2010

Which company offers the best windows web hosting service?

I spoke with our VP and we do everything except the vouchers and potentially some of the marketing stuff. He recommended you go with HostGater. more

Jay Allred and 5 other people answered this question

April 29, 2010

What are the advantages of a dedicated hosting service?

Jay,
What application(s) are you looking to host? Email, documents, apps?

Information Technology

Dedicated Hosting

Hosting and Bandwidth

Jay Allred and 2 other people answered this question

April 21, 2010

What are SMB computer networking best practices?

Great answers from Enrique and Jason. The only thing I would add is making sure that your AV on the computers is running scans regularly and is updating regularly. more

General Management

Information Technology

Computer Network

Jay Allred and 2 other people answered this question

April 15, 2010

Do you know what a ‘crossover cable’ is?

I would check with your IT Dept to see what length cables they need and then visit CDW or some other online vendor and search for 'crossover cable'. I just did this on CDW and it returned a number of different lengths.
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Information Technology

Jay Allred and 2 other people answered this question

April 14, 2010

What’s so great about the saas model?

For many small businesses being able to utilize SaaS for email and other collaboration technologies such as SharePoint and Office Communications Server is much cheaper than paying for decent server hardware, software licenses, and IT consultant costs. SaaS enables them to focus on growing their ... more

Information Technology

Servers and Storage

Software as a Service

Jay Allred and 4 other people answered this question

April 9, 2010

Firewall of choice

Karl,
I have not worked with Watchguard in several years but one alternative to check out is SonicWall. They have comparable firewalls with wireless and are easily managed via a web interface (which it appears is also an option on Watchguards these days).
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Information Technology

Jay Allred and 2 other people answered this question

March 25, 2010

What are the names of some cost effective network switches?

If you are looking for something in the $100-200 range unmanaged switches from Netgear and Linksys will do you well. If you need some management capabilities but not all the bells and whistles of higher end switches we have been very happy with Netgear 748AT ... more

Information Technology

Jay Allred and 3 other people answered this question

March 15, 2010

Do I need to have an IT staff to support a network attached storage?

Most of the network attached storage devices I have worked with are pretty simple to setup and manage. They typically have a web interface for management and once the shares are configured need little maintenance. I do not think you need an IT person to ... more

Information Technology

Network Attached Storage

Servers and Storage

Jay Allred and 6 other people answered this question

March 5, 2010

Back up software for a 5 computer office?

I agree with Michael. Online backup is a great way to handle backups because you not only get your files backed up but you also get them backed up offsite in case of a disaster.
Jay more

Information Technology

Servers and Storage

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