On March 9th, the Barrie, Midland & Area Information Technology group convened at Innovative Automation in order to network and compare notes on a wide variety of topics.

Discussion centred on:

• UB Soft servers failure
• Switching ERP software - the pitfalls and benefits
• Cobal - been around forever and will be for the foreseeable future
• Difficult to find an experienced Cobal programmer
• AS400
• Data entry into a green screen is the fastest
• Reliability of the UNIX servers vs. Windows servers
• Power interruptions and the havoc they cause
• Back end databases - Sequel servers, My SQL on Linux, Accpac on Linux using Samba
• Crystal Reports
• VNC to take control of desktops worldwide - using S Tunnel to protect data
• Supplying IT support to facilities in China - time differences, language barriers, etc.
• Too much security with the users drags down efficiency - rely on the end user to know what they are doing
• Interaction with customers software and the security issues they can be cause
• Firewalls - Sonic Wall, Symantec, Cisco for site to site
• Educating people we report to as far as disaster recovery and data protection
• Virtualization -
  •  ESX (V Sphere)is excellent  - front end is unbelievable
  •  VM net service flaking out periodically
  • VMware updates - driver update for host nik
  • Clustering
  • Backups - Monthly images and daily snapshots of data for restoring
  • Great for maintenance
• Backups -
  • disc to disc and tape
  • Backup software is not reliable
  • Issues with Backup Exec
  • Dance Retrospect is good
• Implementing CMS - using open source and tweaking it
• ERP software, setups, implementation and support to ensure end users are using it
• Active Directory 2000 through to 2008 - how they communicate with each other
• Licensing issues - audits by Microsoft