Medical Server Closet revamp from start to finish - Part I

Over the memorial day weekend, my associate Alan Randle and I undertook a project that very much needed a makeover. The current setup was garbage (not any of it was the clinics part, the previous ITMS group set it up), the cabling was a mess, looked like a spaghetti factory run amuck. There were cables everywhere, servers added to network placed anywhere and it was total chaos. This is caused by additional peripherals put into the system without a real goal set as to how the cabling will be run. see below:

 

This is not how a network server closet should look, note that there is a platform at the bottom holding up the servers and UPS units (prior to this picture, the clinic suffered a flood from a burst pipe, luckily the water didn't rise up to destroy the units on the floor, so we put this in there temporarily). After meeting with the Director, we suggested that they put all of the servers and peripherals inside of an a/c cooled cabinet. The cabinet was provided by Liebert systems, model Liebert MCR 22U Model. But before we get to the good part, lets take you through the process from start to finish how we made this happen.

First the closet was too small for the smallest Liebert model to fit into. So we needed to expand the closet 13 inches in width and about 12 inches in depth. We first removed all components from the closet and then we hired a demolition team to get this going, see below:

 
 

 

 

 

 

Now that the closet was totally tore out, the demo crew got busy on the framework, the drywall and the movement of all electrical items (such as the alarm system, card reader components and cctv dvr unit). Once those were repositioned or moved out temporarily, the new closet build begins: 

 

 

While the crew was busy tearing down and building up, Alan and I started to put the Liebert unit together. Since this was going to be a clean air enclosed unit, putting the components into the unit in the as is condition that they were in, was not going to fly. So we painstakingly took each component apart and, using compressed canned air, blew out all the dust and particles that were built up in each one. Remember that this network has been in this closet for over 8 years.

You can imagine the buildup of dust and debris that was in each component. Putting them inside the Liebert rack was going to cause the filters to be ruined immediately as they need to be changed every 3-6 months depending on the load of dust accumulation. 

To be continued in next blog.............

Redmine - Issue Tracking System

At my last place of employment, Fusion Systems, we had a very nice ticketing system in place that was totally built from scratch....well....not really, lol.

Redmine is a free and open source, web-based project management and bug-tracking tool. It includes a calendar and Gantt charts to aid visual representation of projects and their deadlines. It handles multiple projects. Redmine provides integrated project management features, issue tracking, and support for various version control systems. The design of Redmine is significantly influenced by Trac, a software package with some similar features.

Redmine is written using the Ruby on Rails framework. It is cross-platform and cross-database. It is part of the Bitnami app library that provides an installer and virtual machine for ease of deployment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redmine

With this tracking software you can custom configure it to do just about anything pertaining to your companies support and asset tracking needs. It comes installed and ready fresh out the box (or virtual machine if you please, lol) is pretty much ready to roll with a few tweaks and you are doing bidness.

Currently I am working on my own flavor of Redmine through a business colleague from Moskow, Kirill Bezrukov. He is the genius behind RedmineCRM (www.redminecrm.com) the company that makes excellent themes and plugins for the current Redmine configuration. He has custom built the current system that we are going to start using at my newest client, a non-profit community clinic.

This non-profit has 3 offices that are connected via vpn and soon to have a fourth opening. I wanted to put something in place that would keep track of the support issues with an escalation & alert feature that would keep me on top of my game when it comes to their support. I want it to be top notch so we embarked on this project and it has been more than successful.

Only 3 users will be created at this time, one from each facility as we want to keep the tickets to a controlled few so that there would not be a barrage of unnecessary support tickets opened. I'll be launching it this week so I'll keep you all posted on its productivity.

 

FTP in the Cloud

How many times have you been in a situation where you are working in a conference on the cloud and you need to collaborate on large files, databases, with revisions that need to be made on the fly?

Probably not many but for the most of the world, this is an ongoing situation daily. I found myself in this situation working my colleague Kirill who is based in Moskow. Kirill is one of those programming geniuses who makes things happen and he's barely past his 30th birthday. He is currently the genius behind my present project dealing with Redmine Issue Tracking systems. His website is www.redminecrm.com and he is doing big things over there. Check him out if you are looking for an inexpensive helpdesk and support ticketing system that users open source software and see what he can do for you. Tell I referred you for a decent discount, dont forget.

The reason why we used to have a hard time collaborating was due to the fact that there didn't exist a repository out there that was capable of handling large files and staying low cost. Enter Egnyte (www.egnyte.com). This ftp site has exactly what you need to get the job done when it comes to cloud collaboration. Here are some of the features:

• Leverage local storage: Egnyte works with your existing local storage, folder structures, and access permissions
• Control where data is stored: Store files on your local storage, in Egnyte or in other hosting solutions (S3, Azure, etc)
• Upload/Download 25x faster: Collaborate at LAN speeds, without bandwidth limitations of the cloud



Flow of how the site handles your collaboration team

Chose your plan

As you can see from the screenshots above that this company can play a vital part in your cloud collaborations, especially if you are an up and starting company or already established. This tool can come in handy for those global meetings that need to have a storage presence on the web.

It also has a feature that will allow you to connect a specified folder directly to the cloud repository, thus making it easier for you to access data, docs, software, databases, virtual apps, you name it.

The reason Im using it is so that I may be able to receive revisions of specific projects that I collaborate on with fellow colleagues around the globe, bringing us closer together for testing, analysis and deployment just to name a few.

Try this product, they will give you a free 15 day trial version to start with, after that the lowest plan starts at $29.99/monthly with 150G storage and maximum download size of 1G. My plan that I use costs $79.99, comes with 1TB of storage, 2.5GB upload size and 10 user capacity. I use this all the time. You will too.

Go To Free Trial NOW!!

***UPDATE***

As of 2014 Egnytes pricing list has changed, the newly updated list is below: