IT outsourcing: Do I save cost?

The term outsourcing refers to procuring services or products from a supplier in order to cut costs.

Why and what to outsource?
Most businesses’ core functions are supported by smaller business divisions or cost centers. For example, if you are running a manufacturing business with 50 staff, your core business would be producing your own product. The supporting arms would be the IT, human resource, administration departments, etc.
A conventional way of running a business would be keeping everything in-house which includes the supporting business division. While you are comfortable with this model, the likelihood is – it will cost more in the long run.
Outsourcing your supporting business division would save you the headache of managing it whilst enabling you to focus on your core business. An outsourcing company would usually specialise in their core business to support you.
To keep your IT operations running smoothly, you would need a fair amount of assistance. Consider the following options:

Fixing your own computer
Employees are required to fix their own computer problems. Those who are unable to do so would need help from colleagues or outsiders. 
While this model saves you computer-fixing costs, the intangible cost incurred is – employees spend more time fixing their computers instead of working. If you factor in the loss of productivity due to the computer downtime, it will cost you even more.

Hiring an in-house IT specialist
While this might sound like a good idea and most organisations adopt this way, let me tell you about the disadvantages…
In a 50-strong working environment, the budget for an IT position would usually allow you to hire only one person. Additionally, you may only be able to afford somebody who is still raw in the industry as experienced IT personnel will demand higher salaries and better career paths.
In this environment, the career path for the IT specialist is limited as your core business would be manufacturing while he works in a different division. Isolated and disconnected from the crowd, the turnover for this position could be very high. As such, you may need to factor in getting a replacement and re-training.
With this model in place, you would also need to take care of training, annual leave, sick leave and other miscellaneous human resource hassles, e.g. what if this guy goes on a long medical leave?

Outsourcing
IT outsourcing companies have one focus; relieving work stress by taking care of the computer issues in your organisation. They’re experts in this department, just as you are in your core business.
While the hourly cost per man is more than that of hiring an internal IT guy, you will be surprised that it will save you more in the long run.
Human Resource
When outsourcing, it is essential to hire a good and reliable vendor, pay them well and keep tabs on their work. You do not have to worry about training, certification, staff turnover, annual leave, sick leave, etc., as the outsourcing company will cover these areas for you. Depending on the contract, the outsourcing company will provide a back-up for you if the designated engineers do not show up at work. If the staff resigns, they will find a replacement for you and train them accordingly.
Another benefit of outsourcing: You can terminate the contract with a non-performing outsourcing company easily compared to getting rid of a non-performing internal staff.

Policies
Outsourcing companies usually have a set of IT policies that can be implemented in your organisation to improve the effectiveness of your operations. For example, they have a preventive maintenance policy that can be implemented in your organisation to detect a problem even before it happens. This will reduce downtime cost due to a server or workstation failure, e.g., you need to send your car in to the workshop for servicing/preventive maintenance regularly and not just wait till a problem crops up to fix it.

Documentation
A good outsourcing company would usually provide detailed reports and documentation of your IT assets. Documentation is important if you need to appoint another vendor or IT staff to take over the job in the future.

Resources
As IT is the core business of your outsourcing company, they will have sufficient resources to get your problem fixed and provide advice on how to maximise your IT infrastructure. To help you run your “business at the speed of thought” (as Gates puts it), they can advise you on the best IT tools to employ for your organisation. Plus you can save time on testing out different tools like a lab rat!

You are working with a team
Most outsourcing companies have a team of experts to take care of your IT infrastructure instead of depending on an individual. Established outsourcing companies usually consist of junior and senior engineers, IT managers, account managers, and other experts. They work together as a team to support your business.

Savings?
With the absence of all the above-mentioned worries, you can save more on operation costs in the long run while focusing on what matters most: your core business. Any problem with your computers? Just report it to the vendor and they will take care of it for you. A good vendor is able to detect potential problems before they happen. Computer problems don’t have to be your problem, anymore!

Saving on Mobile Charges when Travelling Abroad

Mobile Internet refers to Internet access via a mobile device, such as the smartphone or laptop. Heard of people being charged for expensive roaming calls and mobile internet when they are abroad? Real case scenario: one of my clients received a 5-figure mobile phone bill after a 2-week overseas business trip.
How can you avoid sky-high bills while still making calls and staying connected throughout the trip?

Just recently, I travelled to several places to take a break from work. Being passionate about work, I still wanted to attend to emails, messages and a very important project.

To stay online in another country, I do not have the luxury of using my local number as the primary line to make calls and surf the internet as the charges would have been exorbitant!

That is why I bring a second phone with me when I am abroad – a small basic phone with extraordinarily long battery life to save the hassle of carrying the heavy charger everywhere. It might cost between RM70-100 for a decent set and you could borrow if you do not want to buy one. Remember to turn off mobile data on your phone if you are overseas to avoid extra charges.

Many airport terminals, or at least the ones that I have been to, have a mobile phone kiosk at the arrival hall giving out free SIM cards. Don’t think twice, take it as you will need it later. I swapped my SIM card from my smartphone to the secondary phone and used the new SIM card on the smartphone.

Why?
Because I will only be receiving calls and texts on my primary number but I need the mobile data from my new SIM card. These cards do not usually come with usable credit and you need to top-up at the nearest convenience store or at the kiosk itself. The only settings you need to configure is the mobile internet to get online. For this, read the instructions on the package, call the hotline or get the person from the kiosk to help.

For inbound travelers to Kuala Lumpur, AirAsia has taken a step further to market their Tune Talk mobile package. They will hand it to you on the flight itself and you can top-up upon arrival at LCCT.

How much would it cost?
In Sydney, I subscribed to Virgin Mobile and it cost me AUD19 for approximately AUD10 worth of call/text credit and 1GB of Internet!

While in Phuket, I paid 350 Baht for a postpaid package from AIS for 150MB data and 150 Baht calling credit… if I remember correctly.

How does Mobile Internet help when travelling?
One of the most important apps that I need when travelling to foreign soil is the default GPS app (Maps) on the phone. In Sydney, I walked a lot in the city centre and the GPS guided me without missing a single junction. In Phuket, it saved me from being lost in the middle of nowhere late at night when I travelled alone to another beach on a motorcycle. Trust me, you do not want to lose your way on a remote island in the middle of the night when you can see nobody for the next few kilometers.
As for lodging, the Agoda app helped a lot in searching for hotels nearby. I like to experience different atmospheres at different places in the city, so I quite enjoy changing hotels, as if a nomad. With Agoda, I can view hotel information, reviews, prices and even book a room from my mobile phone. As a result, I moved to 3 different hotels in 4 nights.
Trying good food is a must when I am traveling. The recurring question in my mind is, what is good here? Would they charge me more because I am a foreigner? Besides reading the menu and getting recommendations from the stall owner, I usually use my assistant, FourSquare. With it, I am able to read tips from others and this can almost certainly guarantee a satiating meal within my budget.
Enough about Mobile Internet. How about phone calls? No doubt, calling home to speak to your loved ones on the new line can cost a lot. I use the Skype VOIP service and it costs as low as USD0.023/minute which is less than RM0.10/min after conversion. Inexpensive enough? There is a catch to use Skype calls, though; you need a very good mobile Internet connection. Besides that, I also stay in touch with my friends on WhatsApp, email, etc.

Well, I hope my article can improve your next traveling experience and save you a little. If you have any other tips, do let me know in the comments section. I would love to hear from you!

Unifi : How do I save by paying more?

I have been using TM Streamyx RM66 package for about 5 years before switching to Unifi when I moved in to my new house early this year. At first, it is a no brainer decision to jump from RM66 to RM149 per month on internet fees.

How much does the Internet packages cost:

Streamyx Package (512kbps):
Internet Fees: RM66/month
Phone line rental charge: RM26
Taxes: (few dollars)
Total: ~RM100

Unifi (5Mbps):
Internet Fees: RM149/month
Phone line rental charge: RM0
Taxes: 0
Installation: RM200 one time (some lucky chap got it for Free during the promotion)
Total: RM149/month

From the price comparison, it appear that I am paying 50% every month on Internet.
Let's look at how I can save by spending more:-



What do I get from Unifi?

1. IPTV
2. 10 times the download speed and 20 times the upload speed
3. Unlimited Free Calls to landline and RM0.10/min to any Mobile operator.
4. DECT phone (worth RM100)

I used to pay about RM30-40/month on phone charge previously and it has gone down to about RM10/month now with the Unifi package. If you can live without Astro, then terminate your Astro subscription which is costing you RM100-150/month and use IPTV. If you find the channels in IPTV is limited, utilize the high Internet speed to download any show that you want from the net. My girlfriend used to pay RM30/month to Astro to watch the latest Hong Kong movie series with Astro on Demand and she is streaming it for free now with QVOD player on the Internet which is surprisingly very smooth. As for myself, I download HD shows and watch it on my 40" FULL HD LED screen which is way much better than the quality of Standard Astro subscription.

Having said all these, my Astro subscription still has to stay on as my media center (desktop) is too high tech for the old man to operate.

So, how much do I save?

1. RM30 for Astro on Demand
2. RM30 for phone calls
3. RM20 for Astro Beyond (for HD content)
4. RM150 on Astro (assuming I can terminate this)
5. TIME factor (faster Internet speed = more things can be done on the net at a shorter duration)
6. Less stress with faster Internet speed
   

Savings: RM230
Extra charge on Internet fees: RM50
Total Savings (230-50): RM180

Now, you save RM180 by spending extra RM50

How to install web management for HP P212 RAID controller

If you have bought a HP server with P212 RAID controller and installing CentOS, you will need to install HP System Management Homepage (SMH) to monitor your health status of your array from the OS. Else, you will only be able to know the RAID status by rebooting the server and look the boot up message.

Here are the steps to install HP SMH on CentOS 5.6:-

1. Login as root and perform all below actions as a superuser (either su/sudo or root login). To start, we create a directory called HP to store all our downloads:

mkdir hp
cd hp

2. Download the PSP now. We will also download the latest binary version of HP-ACU-cli and SMH. The PSP includes only the source RPM for an out dated version:

wget ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softlib2/software1/pubsw-linux/p414707558/v63381/hpacucli-8.70-8.0.noarch.rpm
wget ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softlib2/software1/supportpack-linux/p323971208/v66272/psp-8.63.rhel5.x86_64.en.tar.gz
wget ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softlib2/software1/pubsw-linux/p1507410135/v64330/hpsmh-6.3.0-22.x86_64.rpm

3. We now extract the PSP archive. Delete the outdated HP-ACU-cli and SMH RPMs.

tar zxvf psp-8.63.rhel5.x86_64.en.tar.gz
rm -rf hpacucli-8.60-8.0.noarch.rpm
rm -rf hpsmh-6.2.2-2.x86_64.rpm

4. Now we install the RPMs. Please note to keep the same order of installation, otherwise it might fail due to dependencies.

yum install net-snmp
yum localinstall --nogpgcheck hp-health-* hpacucli-* hponcfg-*
yum localinstall --nogpgcheck hpsmh-*
yum localinstall --nogpgcheck hp-snmp-agents-* hp-smh-templates-* cpqacuxe-* hpdiags-*

5. Configure SNMP to be accessible by HP System Management Homepage. It is necessary that you enter the passphrase for the Read/Write and Read-Only
access via localhost, otherwise SMH will not function properly. Also
set the snmptrap passphrase.

/sbin/hpsnmpconfig

6. Enable the ACU to connect and be accessible via the SMH. This is the RAID controller’s information.

cpqacuxe --enable-remote

7. Start all services:

service hp-asrd restart
service hp-health restart
service snmpd restart
service hp-snmp-agents restart

8. Secure your System Management Homepage installation to be accessible only by your IP address (replace 127.0.0.1 with yours):
/opt/hp/hpsmh/sbin/smhconfig --autostart=true --iconview=true --ip-restricted-logins=true --ip-restricted-include=127.0.0.1

9. Start the HP System Management Homepage service.
service hpsmhd restart
Visit http://Your-Server-IP:2301/. This should automatically start the HP SMH server and redirect you https://Your-Server-IP:2381/. Use your root user and password to gain access to SMH.

SSD vs SATA

This is my review after swapping the Hitachi 500GB SATA on my notebook with the Intel 160GB SSD X-25M. A picture paint a thousand words, so let's look at the images below:-

From the comparison, we can see that the SSD has an average read speed of 172.1MB/sec while the SATA can only write at 59MB/sec which is about a third of the speed of the SSD.

Battery life on my notebook has increased by about 20% to make it to 6 hours usage time from 5. On the weight, the SSD is lighter by a few grams.

Boot up time to the login screen on Windows 7 64bit was 44 seconds on SATA and it has been slashed to more than half at 20 sec on SSD.

I paid about RM700 for this X25M as it is an OEM unit which come with one month warranty only. You can get it from our most popular tech website at http://lowyat.net .The retail pack would set you back to around RM1400 which is double the price.

I don't see any reason not to upgrade to SSD if you can afford it. Cut down on the budget for your new notebook and use the balance to get the SSD. As SSD does not have any mechanical parts, I do not have to worry about dropping my notebook or knocking it on a hard surface when it is still operational.

Shopping for my new notebook

My current notebook, BenQ S32B has been serving faithfully to me for 36 months and it is time to change as I need to pass it to another colleague in my department.

It's time for new notebook shopping!!! My requirements are as below:-

• Light

• Long battery life (>4 hrs usage time)

• Fast

• With Dedicated GPU

• Priced at around RM3000 (USD1000)

With these new requirements, my first choice would be Mac Book Air 11”. It look good, light and the aluminium chassis is nice to hold. It was weekend and I decided to head down to the nearest Mac store to have a look a the real thing. The first impression was good as the Mac Air is really a looker. After toying it for few minutes, I realize that the screen is too small for daily usage, limited USB slot (2x), no HDMI out and no Ethernet RJ45 out! I know that we can purchase the Ethernet adapter and USB extender separately but I don't like the idea of having RJ45 Ethernet adapter externally. My job require me to perform a lot of network troubleshooting and RJ45 Ethernet adapter is important to me. On top of this, I can't play my favorite HD file on my big screen due to the absent of HDMI. The screen is just too small to my liking for daily usage. I need to have an external monitor in my office and at home if I decide to go with this Mac Air 11”. Out of budget for these extra gadgets and it's time for alternatives.

My colleague, Ben suggested that I have a look at Acer TimeLineX and my first impression was, “An ACER again? A student's notebook again?”. After looking for more information on the unit, my perception for Acer has changed once again. The TimelineX offer up to 8 hours of battery life, dedicated RADEON HD6550M 1GB GPU, an i3-380 processor and 2GB of memory and a 13.3” HD LED LCD. The weight is about 1.7kg with battery....Impressive and it's priced at RM2200 (USD750) which is very reasonable for the specs. The downside of this notebook comparing with the Mac Air is the absence of the fast hard drive, SSD. So, I've decided to replace the HDD with an Intel X25M 160GB at the cost of RM700 and upgrade the RAM to 4GB. After all these upgrade, it still cost me

I am a happy man now with a decently fast notebook at a reasonable spending :)

SSD review in on the way..............