Solutions

The Problem

Small businesses with fewer than 50 PCs generally have little if any IT strategy. They purchase PCs for their users, setup ad-hoc networks, and install applications on an as-needed basis. IT personnel are generally local contractors who provide assistance as needed. If something goes wrong, such as a virus or hardware failure, often the easiest solution is simply to replace the PC in question.

While this approach appears to be cost effective, in today's environment, there is another answer; a solution that provides a more cost effect approach while improving the business's ability to respond to unexpected events. It's called virtualization.

The Ossian solution

Virtualization has been around for years. The idea is that you can allocate portions of a single computer to be used as if they were complete PCs in their own right. These "virtual machines" would appear to the user to include dedicated hardware such as memory and disk drives. In its early years this meant using text-based "dumb" terminals, but has evolved to included graphical UIs such as Windows and Linux (and yes, even Macs). For many years the downside of virtualization was simply that the graphics power demanded by individual users to run their applications prevented enough virtual machines per server to be cost effective.

A funny thing has happened over the past 5 years...

Intel scientist Gordon Moore is credited with the "law" (called "Moore's Law") that suggests that hardware doubles in capability every 18 months. This prediction has been remarkably accurate over the past 40 years; to the point where today the average PC uses only a fraction of its power during normal use. Many users, both business and consumer alike, have found that the old expectation of replacing PCs every 2 years to be unnecessary, as typical usage patterns that include document editing, email and other Internet related activity can be done quite successfully on 3 year old hardware.

But the pace predicted by Moore's Law has not subsided. Hardware has continued to get faster. We now have CPUs with multiple cores, and operating systems that can manage tens of gigabytes of memory and terabytes of disk space. If individual users only need a fraction of that to do their job, what's the point of all this power?

Image how much simpler your office computing would be if you could simply add a virtual machine instead of a new computer; using a "thin-client" to access this new virtual PC. You could extert more control over the use of your company's resoruces, while at the same time the centralization of these resources allows you to more efficiently manage your company's data - the life blood of every enterprise.

This is the promise of virtualization. There is one catch... implementation can be daunting.

Enter Ossian Dynamics.

At Ossian Dynamics we have taken the concept of virtualization and created a product line of pre-packaged server solutions that enable small busiensses to participate in the benefits of virtualization without having to hire dedicated IT staff. We team up with your existing IT consultant(s) to configure your server with the software you need to run your business, and well as backup procudures that ensure that your company's data is available when you need it. Furthermore, we provide continuous monitoring of your system via our network operations center (NOC) in order to correct problems remotely. That's right. If your virtual PC becomes infected with a virus, we can fix it remotely -- generally within a few minutes. Try that with your current configuration.