The Inside IT Scoop has previously discussed technology topics and trends with posts and Q & As from industry experts here at JDL. However, it's time to get to the heart of the issue.

How can we help you reduce your burden, allow more focus on your business, and most importantly make you look good?

Like many others in the IT profession, we can guess that you face budget cuts, staff reduction and very limited resources. In fact, many IT Directors admit that supporting their IT departments and business necessary applications does not allow for time away from work with the now common 24/7 work week, an uninterrupted date night, or an unplugged vacation.

We hear time and time again that there isn't enough time to:

• Fight the daily IT fires needing to be on-site
• Keep patches up to date
• Maintain inventory of IT hardware, software & systems
• Monitor anti-virus and other security alerts

Do you face these challenges? Are there others that we failed to include?

Please comment and join in the IT discussion.

This conversation may be the first step in creating a customized IT solution for you, your IT team, and business.

Check out JDL's Managed Services explained.

Stay in touch by following JDL Technologies on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

Enabling Education through Technology

Whether an individual school or an entire school district's IT department requires assistance in keeping up with the newest innovations in educational technologies, increasing the reliability and security of its network and applications, or managing the mobility explosion, JDL Technologies' team has a successful track record of enabling education through technology.

JDL Technologies' Track Record in Education:

• Designed and integrated wired networks for one of the largest school districts in the country

• Implemented a wireless deployment with over 9,000 access points across 250 locations

• Manages a NOC with nearly 300 remote locations measuring and monitoring wired, wireless and application usage

• Over 15 years of success with managed services, virtualization, and network infrastructure in education. (See educational case studies below.)

With over 200 campuses and more than a 100,000 computers, laptops and network devices in JDL's integrated community, it is clear that technology is not only a crucial element in enabling businesses, but also in the teching and learning process. Through the management, monitoring and maintenance of some of the largest school districts across the country, JDL Technologies leads the pack in creating and managing customized IT solutions for school districts.

  Read JDL Technologies' Educational Case Study

  Read JDL's success story about The King's Academy

Eating, breathing, and living technology may be a large component of the JDL Technologies team. However, as you can see from our team page, each member does get away from technology now and again to enjoy cooking, playing guitar, boating, diving, jewelry making and spending time with loved ones.

Additionally, as part of JDL's commitment to the community, the team participates in various organizations throughout the South Florida region. As a finale of 2011, JDL Technologies would like to highlight two impressive non-IT stories:

JDL Technologies Participated in LifeNet4Families' Corporate Day of Caring throughout 2011

JDL Technologies Joined Forces with the Broward Education Foundation to provide the Gold Opportunity Scholarship

JDL Technologies wishes its community: clients, partners, and team members a wonderful New Year's celebration and a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2012!

Follow JDL's news, services, events, and team through 2012 on:

Facebook

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Linkedin

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Get Inside the IT Scoop with an interview with one of JDL Technologies' engineers. Here's a Q&A with Shane Kleinert, Solutions Architect specializing in Virtualization....

1)  Many people are mystified by the word Virtualization, how do you describe what you do?

I’m a Solutions Architect, specializing in Virtualization solutions.  In short, I increase IT efficiency, enabling the business to be more agile.  This is all made possible with the magical power of Virtualization.  Now, this doesn’t mean we have a Harry Potter wand, which we wave and magically your solution appears. Although, it would be cool! The truth be told, a lot goes into designing a virtualization solution. For those of you reading this and haven’t had a chance to discover this magical power, I’ll give you a fairly quick definition –

Virtualization =  abstracting the software from the physical hardware.

In a longer version, think about it like this:

Physical servers and/or desktops, which don’t have any sort of virtualization, are tightly intertwined with the software operating system. We call this being installed on bare metal hardware.  You will notice this if you’ve ever tried to clone one physical machine to a completely different set of hardware. You will end up with one of those famous BLUE screens! That’s due to the hardware platforms being different. A thin layer called a hypervisor sits between these two layers enabling abstraction by providing a common hardware platform across multiple sets of hardware. This allows for portability, which moves your workload across different virtualization platforms. Essentially, we are taking the entire workload and putting it in a bubble. This concept applies for both Server and Desktops.

Virtualization has its different forms: Application, Desktop, Server, and Storage. At JDL, we focus on all of those forms, and work with a few different partners enabling us to have an agnostic approach when determining a solution set. As a Solutions Architect, my goal is to understand all of the business requirements and design best solution for the business.  

2)  What common mistakes do you find with business owners’ concepts of Virtualization?

A lot of business owners think that virtualization is a silver bullet. Stick the workload in a VM and you’re good to go! It’s a lot more than that.

Careful planning is required when architecting a virtualization solution. Whether desktops or servers, capacity planning and environment assessments need to be done to determine the workload performance metrics over time, which will enable realistic planning. This way, engineers can make data driven decisions when architecting a solution.

3)  How does Virtualization make an impact from day one in a business?

If designed correctly, all forms of Virtualization will increase productivity by enabling a fluid working environment. Both IT and the business benefit from the increased productivity and flexibility. IT sees increased productivity by leveraging its dynamic infrastructure and end users; while, the business has increased productivity by enabling a work from anywhere workforce. With the right technology implemented your workforce can access their business critical applications from any location ensuring they have the same user experience both at work and remotely from any device! JDL has a core focus on enabling the virtual workforce.

4) Living IT on a daily basis as a profession and interest, what are the top 3 trending topics in Virtualization?

I would have to say the top three trending topics in the area of Virtualization are:

Desktop Virtualization more than just VDI

Cloud

Discussions around Post PC

Additionally, here are a few websites to get the latest industry news:

www.brianmadden.com   

www.dabcc.com

www.virtualization.info

Twitter is a great resource as well.

5) If you could have a super hero power what would it be..?

I would want the power to teleport!  Beam me up Scotty!  

Get the Inside IT Scoop with JDL Technologies' Network Services Engineer, Jose Gonzalez:

1) Many people are mystified by networking, how do you describe what you do?
Wireless in itself is mystifying, you expect to work, but can't see it.  When it doesn't work right, you can't see why.  JDL can see why with our in depth training and equipment all of our engineers have to view the radio frequency (RF) spectrum.  We design, and plan the optimum wireless deployment for the business to integrate with other wired technologies.  In addition we evaluate vendor products, security testing, and so on.  
  
2) What common mistakes do you find with business owners’ concepts of networking?

IT administrators incorrectly assume that they can string together Enterprise Wireless solutions by purchasing off the store shelf equipment.

3) How does Network Services make an impact from day one in a business?

Reliable, dependent mobility throughout your organization.
 
4) Living IT on a daily basis as a profession and interest, what sites do you follow to keep up to date or up to the last tweet?

https://twitter.com/#!/Cisco_Mobility
https://www.facebook.com/CiscoWireless
https://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/wireless/index.html

5)  What was your first piece of technology?

First piece of technology. - Color Computer 3, no storage - I wrote my programs in TRS Color Basic, sometimes keeping the system on for days so I didn't lose my work.  I eventually got a tape storage device, which was exactly that, a typical 80's cassette tape to store programs on!  It was very exciting!

The Inside IT Scoop: Featuring a Q & A with Jonathan Parsons, one of JDL's Managed Services experts...

1)   Many people are mystified by Managed Services, how do you describe what you do?

Managed Services essentially allows staff in an organization to focus on what they were hired to do and stop worrying about tech support issues. Far too often personnel are assigned tasks that involve maintaining systems that are large, complex, critical to business operations, and should be run by industry certified staff. By leveraging the expertise and experience of a managed services firm, businesses allow themselves to refocus on what they do to make money, rather than how will they get it done.

 2)  What common mistakes do you find with business owners’ concepts of Managed Services?

The most common problem involved with Managed Services is that the company often tries to replace their technical staff. While there are instances where this might be applicable, business owners and stakeholders still need to recognize that they still need on-site, day-to-day support for common IT tasks. They still need an IT presence to handle backup tape rotations, moving equipment to new offices, and helping to identify and troubleshoot problems at their sites. What is gained by the use of managed services is a team of experts focused on keeping the inner workings of a business running, much like the pit crew for a race car and its driver.

3) How does Managed Services make an impact from day one in a business?

From day one, greater visibility and stability is brought to an organization that uses managed services. They have immediate access to asset information for audits, patching schedules to keep their operating system software up-to-date, resources to efficiently deploy software packages and policies across the entire organization. They have tools with which to regain control of their technology sprawl and put it back to work for them.

4) Living IT on a daily basis as a profession and interest, what are the top 3 trending topics in your area of expertise? 

The proliferation of mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets, are becoming more critical to the business and more prevalent. For businesses that issue these devices to their employees, they need to be tracked for inventory purposes and standardized to meet business policies. Our manage services can cover those gaps in coverage that most services are just now beginning to realize exist.

Businesses, even governments, are starting to take a closer look at how their technology departments work. Budgets are being restricted, designs reexamined, and positions scrutinized. With managed services, business have to ability to tighten security, audit and automate tasks, bring their operations into compliance, and do it all with resources they already have.

5) On another note, do you have a favorite quote or quotes?

 Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow. – William Pollard

The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action. - Frank Herbert