These companies set up a shared system/platform) that they then slice up and sell to customers. The concept of “shared systems” has been around since the early days of IT. In fact, early computers were mainly shared system because the workstation/PC didn’t exist yet!  What has changed is effectively who owns what.

While there are exceptions, such a system refers to “software as a service” or “hardware as a service” that satisfies some key criteria I define as:

• You don’t own anything; you rent space/capacity – effectively a privilege of using said service.
• Other customers use the same system (it is a homogenous service).
• The system is off site (often in another country) and accessible only via the internet, often the web – some very good points to this, but there are risks and concerns for businesses to address.
• You have limited (if any) control over how the system operates – your business processes match the system, not the other way around.
• You pay for (rent) the service on an on-going basis and if you stop, you usually lose your access.

So a customer is paying for the use of software or a system.  That system could be processing power to run a website, it could be a web based accounting package, it could be file storage or it could be an email marketing tool – there are tons of examples.  Whatever service/system it is your purchasing, this way of buying makes it somewhat simpler for people to see, focus on what is important to them, and make a decision on, and ultimately use.  How any why?  Does it make sense to go Cloud?

In my next post I’ll dive deeper into that. Stay tuned.

This overused – and in my opinion poorly understood – term “cloud” has lead me to prepare a series of posts that outline an opinion on “are cloud based systems right for my business”. I see a need for good advice on the subject, after recently discussing options with a current client of Rhythm IT looking to upgrade their systems. The discussion included what systems they might need, the costs involved in setup, operational risk, migration and on-going OPEX, and ultimately should they retain systems in house or move to cloud services or to virtualise using remote systems.

I loosely define a “cloud based system” business model as the concept of “an on demand homogenous system/service that is supplied by a provider on a large scale to many customers”. This differs from the Wikipedia definition, but I’ll dive into this further in the follow up posts. A point I will address now though is type of arrangement is not new – the terms used to refer to and describe this model have just evolved and changed to continue to drive customer demand. IT marketing and sales people in large companies enjoy making up new buzzwords and concepts, in order to continue selling products/services through the value chain to the end user/customer. A customer could be new; they have a new need for a system, or they are migrating from one system to another. A customer could also be upgrading – out with the old in with the hottest new system since last year.

Eventually most business reach a critical mass where they want to achieve more but can’t because their IT setup is simply not up to the task. Decision makers realise this, but are not sure how to proceed next because there are so many options. We have seen that with a lot of clients and always provide advice on a case by case basis. Everyone’s needs (or wants) are different. As a decision maker you must be careful when choosing a new system because while marketing and sales people on the other end of a phone may have a good/vague/no idea of what the system they are selling can do for you (they wouldn’t be good sales people otherwise!) they most likely have no idea what it will do and won’t do for your business.

It is that last point that is critical to your business’ operations and on-going success. I do not intend these posts to be lengthy or detailed, as every business’ needs are different and you should seek advice on your own systems. You should seek specialised, personalised advice to help choose what is right for you, and then by the way you’ll need someone to help get you up and running.

Current costs incurred –

• A $45 (ish) per month charge for the “privilege” of Telecom/TelstraClear etc per line.
• 4c per minute local call
• 35c per minute mobile calls.
• Say 20c per minute national toll calls.

Obviously you can shop around and get better calling rates – I just use these rates to help illustrate this example.

I’m now going to list the similar charges you would incur if you were on a VOIP system –

• A $20 (ish) per month charge for a “SIP trunk” – equivalent to either one incoming or one outgoing simultaneous call i.e. a line.
• Free local calls.
• 25c per minute mobile calls.
• 4c per minute national toll calls.

To keep things interesting, I’ll outline a few of the possible cost savings using an office set up that our friends the dynamic duo Batman and Robin (B & R) occupy.

Scenario 1: A phone in the Bat Cave

The Bat Cave has a phone that Alfred can use to get a hold of Batman & Robin on their mobiles when necessary, and let’s say they also call the PD and the local Pizza store quite often. Their calling bill is $400 per month, 25% local calls, 75% mobile calls.

Robin > Holy smoke Batman! If we change to VOIP we’ll save ourselves $210 per month! Imagine the extra pizza we can order with those savings!

Batman > You’re right Robin! With those savings, we could afford a new coffee machine too!

Scenario 2:

The dynamic duo have been busy fighting crime, and the Gotham PD have been so pleased with B & R’s help they’ve asked them to expand their operations. Coast City PD has heard of their success and are asking them to set up a Bat Cave in their City. With 2 offices (one in Gotham, one in Coast City) a fair amount of inter-office communication will be necessary to keep the crime fighting coordinated. So say each office has 5 lines and they will incur toll charges when someone in Gotham calls Coast City (and vice versa). Their calling bill is $2000 per month per office, 25% inter-office calls, 25% local calls, 25% toll calls, 25% mobile calls.

Robin > Holy calculus Batman! – A quick overall calculation gives us a monthly saving of $3250!

Batman > Well Robin, this is modern technology for you! Let’s order a Pizza, I’m starved!

You can quickly appreciate that the cost savings are larger the more lines and calling you do – it’s a simple economies of scale.

Mobile apps are applications designed for portable devices like cell phones or PDAs. They are specially tailored to the smaller screens commonly found on such devices and allow you to take your key business information with you wherever you go. If your device has WiFi or cellular data you have even more flexibility by being able to view real-time data on the go.

With more and more businesses offering smartphones to their staff to access email on the go, you may already have the hardware in place to support mobile apps. To some extent phones from manufacturers such as blackberry and palm are capable of running mobile apps, however with the advent of the iPhone operating system (and subsequent arrival of the Google Android platform) the capabilities of mobile apps have advanced greatly and are becoming more common place in trendsetting businesses.

These days mobile apps are a huge market, with the big players Apple and Android having dedicated online stores where applications can be purchased – check out the huge variety available on iTunes. Many of these applications are games or gimmicks, but there are a good number which can really help productivity in the office. In fact if you run a large CRM like SAP or Oracle you will find that these companies already have mobile apps established which give you certain functionality to your phone.

The team at Rhythm IT love designing mobile apps from the ground up to replace or complement your existing information systems. If you already have a CRM or inventory system for example, we can create a mobile app which allows you to access this information on the go. The opportunities are almost unlimited!

One might think that the opportunity to continue ones job while sipping a Moccha and eating a slice is cross purpose – we get out of the office leaving our work behind to go grab a coffee and have a natter with a friend – but for some of us there are real efficiencies to gain. If you’re at home on the weekend and think “oh that’s where that transaction should have been allocated to” then you don’t really want to spend 15mins or more driving into work just for a 5min job, do you? With the right set up, you can log in to your PC screen at work, open your accounting package, fix the transaction, then close out all in 5 mins. So you’ve saved yourself 30 mins of your Saturday and are glad that you’ve crossed that niggly item off your to do list.

What if you were considering finishing maternity leave early and returning to work for half a day, but live 45 mins out of the office and can’t bear the morning traffic 5 days a week? Well, why not consider “teleworking” a couple (or more) days each week? If you have a home PC (with Windows or Mac it doesn’t really matter anymore) then you can do almost anything. Being able to do spread sheeting, CRM, print documents to the work or the home printer, access shared files and a multitude of other functions are now available to you via your work PC or server will get you by. You might get a little bit more work done too you never know.

Or how about sitting in an airport lounge, wanting to catch up on forecasts and current month’s earnings? Same situation, whether you’re operating from a temporary base or from somewhere like home. Remote access is becoming more and more prevalent. Technology to enable it is built into most inexpensive small business IT solutions now, so chances are you just need a knowledgeable IT team to set it up. From email access through to your CRM program, if it’s not on the web just access your desktop. And hey you don’t need to leave your computer on anymore either. If you’re conscious of the environment (or your power bill) remote “wake up” is available.

If you think your business could work smarter using remote access, Rhythm IT can help. Save yourself the 30mins on Saturday morning by giving us a call and discussing what you’d like to access. We can come up with a solution for you.

You have an up to date accounting package or point of sale system (cash till). Whether that’s MYOB, Quicken, Cash Manager or a spreadsheet, you need to make sure you can add a new GST code at 15% and have that apply from 1 October.

If you have a non-standard balance date (i.e. your yearly accounts don’t end on 31 March) and you don’t file monthly, you may need to file a GST return for the end of September (at 12.5%), then another for October (at 15%) before continuing your regular 2 monthly or 6 monthly returns. You’ll need to get this information out of your accounting package.

You’ll need to make sure that any invoices/EFTPOS dockets/reports you produce on or after 1 October have a GST rate of 15% applied. Anyone who sends you an invoice for your purchase has 15% added rather than 12.5%. While you may be diligent there are sure to be some who have missed this or have things set up incorrectly.

MYOB and others have already sent an update CD to their clients who are subscribed to the yearly support. If you are not subscribed then you will need to purchase an updated version. MYOB have recently renamed most of their MYOB Accounting suite to MYOB AccountRight, and the program now has a purple or yellow/orange icon instead of the traditional green.

Those of you with Xero or any other online/web-based accounting system should be up to date and have received advice from your provider regarding the GST rate change. Those clients who operate a custom system (such as a CRM or another accounting package) should also have received advice from your provider regarding the GST change. If you have not, then you should contact them immediately so you are not left out.

If you have concerns that your accounting system is not compatible with the 15% rate or not, feel free to contact us. Rhythm IT can source an updated accounting package for you and are happy to assist with the upgrade to ensure a smooth transition. This may involve a transition from one package to another, so it is best to get on to this as soon as possible.

First off, suggesting that SELinux should be turned off is poor advice.  Sometimes it’s not an option – a pubic facing hardened server might have be running SELinux as a security requirement as part of your environment’s security policy.  In other instances, it’s just plain silly to turn something as handy as SELinux off.  While SELinux can be a curse making troubleshooting more difficult, it really is fairly straight forward to modify settings in order to allow a program to run unhindered. So how do we go about modifying our configuration to enable Nagios-related bits to play nicely in the SELinux sandbox?

-          Adjust CHCON types on CGI scripts and other Nagios files so they can be executed in SELinux boxed Apache processes (using chcon)

-          Set appropriate permissions on files used by both the Nagios daemon and the web-based console (a few chmod’s/chown’s here and there)

-          Modify SELinux local policy to allow access to particular files and operations (using audit2allow)

Requirements

-          A working Nagios installation.

-          Root access to a console.

-          SELinux targeted policy source files.

So let’s get cracking…

Install Nagios by following a guide.  I recommend using the DAG YUM repository (ref http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/).  Ensure your configuration files are set up correctly and ensure you can run nagios –v /etc/nagios/nagios.cfg and you don’t have any errors.

Total Warnings: 0

Total Errors:   0

If you were to then start Nagios and browse to the Nagios console website on your server, the homepage would show up but very little else will work.  There are a few things we need to now do:

# chcon -R -t httpd_sys_script_exec_t /usr/lib64/nagios/cgi

(If you are working on a 32-bit machine, substitute lib64 for lib.)

This will allow Apache to execute the Nagios console CGI scripts.

# touch /var/nagios/status.datls -l

# chcon -R -t httpd_sys_content_t /var/nagios

This modifies some Nagios temporary files that are used by the CGI scripts.

# chcon  -R –t httpd_sys_content /etc/nagios

This modifies the Nagios configuration files so they can be read by the CGI scripts.

# touch /var/log/nagios/nagios.log

# chcon –R –t httpd_sys_content_t /var/log/nagios

This modifies the Nagios log files so they can be read by the CGI scripts.

Ok well that should do… but it doesn’t!  If you were to now fire up the Nagios service and hit the console, the various pages should work fine – however none of the service history or statistics will work.  This information is collated from the Nagios log file.  At this stage you’d think it would work as we have allowed Apache to access the log files by setting the httpd_sys_content_t attribute on the log file.

If you were to do a # tail /var/log/messages  at the console a warning message would be recorded in the audit security log, referring to  { getattr } of /var/log/nagios/nagios.log.  Oddly enough, SELinux policy prevents Apache from checking the attributes of a file. So how do we resolve this?  We need to modify our SELinux policy.

# yum install selinux-policy-targeted-sources

# cd /etc/selinux/targeted/src/policy/domains/misc

See if a file called local.te exists.  If it does, make a backup of this file before proceeding

# mkdir unused

# cp local.te unused

Now we run an obscure utility to generate us a file to include in our SELinux policy –

# audit2allow –d –l –o local.te

If we then cat this file, its contents may be varied but the important line will be

allow httpd_sys_script_t httpd_sys_script_exec_t:fifo_file getattr;

There should not be too much else in the file, unless you have a highly customised system and other programs you have installed are having difficulty with the SELinux policy.

Now we rebuild our SELinux policy including our new local.te file:

# cd /etc/selinux/targeted/src/policy

# make load

A large amount of unimportant text will be displayed on screen, the important text to watch for is at the end:

/usr/bin/checkpolicy:  policy configuration loaded

/usr/bin/checkpolicy:  writing binary representation (version 18) to /etc/selinux/targeted/policy/policy.18

/usr/sbin/load_policy /etc/selinux/targeted/policy/policy.18

touch tmp/load

If you have errors, then there was something wrong with your local.te file we created above.

Now start Nagios again, and hit your Nagios console website. Everything should be working well, you’re good to go.  Questions or comments are welcome.  If you are having difficulty with Nagios after this, then I suggest you could turn SELinux off temporarily:

#setenfoce 0

Try the Nagios console again. If it continues to fail, there is something wrong with your Nagios/Apache configuration. If the Nagios console works, troubleshoot by # tail /var/log/messages and see what other audit messages are included.  If, for example, you did not install Nagios from the DAG repository then your configuration files among other things may be in alternative locations and you will need to make appropriate modifications to my console commands above.

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