FirstDefense-ISR Technology Information Session

Discussion in 'FirstDefense-ISR Forum' started by Leapfrog Software, Feb 7, 2006.

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  1. Leapfrog Software

    Leapfrog Software Leapfrog Management

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    FirstDefense-ISR Technology Information Session (VoIP)

    Greetings All,

    I want to make an offer to the Wilder's Security forum members that are interested in learning more about this technology by hosting a Voice-over IP discussion session. If this is something of interest, let me know by posting your comments.

    The only barrier to entry, hopefully slight, is that it will be VoIP. For all interested parties, we will be using the Teamspeak VoIP software found here: http://www.goteamspeak.com/

    btw: You will find plenty of discussion on their website how to setup your mic/speakers or headset(preferred)

    Session: Introduction and General Discussion
    Date/Time: TBA (within the next 2 weeks)
    VoIP Server: digitalthemepark.servegame.com
     
    Last edited: Feb 7, 2006
  2. Leapfrog Software

    Leapfrog Software Leapfrog Management

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    Greetings All,

    Due to traveling and schedules conflicts, this first session will fall on a weekend.

    Session: Introduction and General Discussion
    Date/Time: Sunday, Feb 12th, 2:00p-2:30p PST
    Date/Time: Sunday, Feb 12th, 5:00p-5:30p PST (repeat)
    VoIP Server: digitalthemepark.servegame.com
     
  3. dallen

    dallen Registered Member

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    Todd,
    Is it possible for you to record the coversation and make it available. I would like to participate, but I cannot. Unfortunately, I will be traveling that weekend. The next best thing to being able to ask questions and have them answered would be to listen to others do the same.
     
  4. Leapfrog Software

    Leapfrog Software Leapfrog Management

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    Greetings dallen,

    No problem. I'll make sure to record the session and post. I don't see many (any) responses to this thread so it will be interesting to see if anyone "shows".
     
  5. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    I'd be very interested in reading a transcript or posting of the entire discussion session somewhere.

    Acadia
     
  6. Joliet Jake

    Joliet Jake Registered Member

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    Can't make those times either but as the others said, I'd be interested in hearing/reading a copy of what's discussed if possible,

    Thanks...

    JJ
     
  7. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Likewise here.
     
  8. Leapfrog Software

    Leapfrog Software Leapfrog Management

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    Greetings All,

    As you know we had a FirstDefense-ISR Technology Training Session this past weekend. I apologize for not getting this out sooner. Today has been major busy with meetings. Below is a transcript of the sessions (I combined both sessions). By the way, any reference to the product (FD-ISR, ISR, FirstDefense) was changed to FirstDefense-ISR for clarification in this transcript.

    Session Location: digitalthemepark.servegame.com (Teamspeak VoIP)
    Session Date: Feb 12th, 2006, 2-2:30p, 5-5:30p
    Host: Todd Lear representing Leapfrog Software

    [Introduction by Todd]
    Greetings All, and welcome to the very first FirstDefense-ISR Technology Information Session. I am your host, Todd Lear, representing Leapfrog Software. This session is 30 minutes so let’s open the floor to questions:

    [Attendee Question]
    Todd, thank you so much for providing this session for us. I am glad to see you taking such an interest in your customer base. Can you give all of us the “elevator speech” of the technology?

    [Todd]
    Thanks for the kind remarks. Our company does take extreme interest in our clients. Your comments are very important for us determining the direction of the roadmap in the future. We have many great things planned for you.
    The technology came from spending a good portion of my career as a process control engineer in a 24/7 environment with little or no allowance for downtime, planned or unplanned. There was nothing available to provide a low cost immediate recovery solution in respect to server clustering. FirstDefense-ISR reduces the time to recover a failed system to almost zero, by maintaining bootable “live” snapshot of a working system and being able to boot these images in an attended or unattended state. For more information, I will post on Monday a review that dives into more of the background of the product.
    {Here is the link I was referring to: http://redmondmag.com/reviews/article.asp?EditorialsID=523 }

    [Attendee Question]
    Todd, if I buy your product will I need my Acronis backup?

    [Todd]
    Hi, thanks for your question. Under the Disaster Recovery umbrella, there are three main categories; High Availability, Backup/Imaging, Data Synchronization. We fit in the High Availability bucket. Previously this bucket was only occupied by expensive hardware clustering and load balancing solutions. We have developed a low-cost solution to address software only problems. Ok, you are now asking where this is going. Your Acronis solution is very much needed. We should be used to complement whatever backup method you currently are using. You should use your Acronis solution to maintain your disk images and offsite storage of your data.

    [Attendee Question]
    Todd, lets talk about Microsoft System Restore. Should I disable it?

    [Todd]
    This is very astute of you. Although we fully support the Microsoft system restore, we recommend you disable it. By disabling it you will be able to free up disk space and system resources. This will also reduce your active and static snapshot sizes relative to the percentage of disk space that was used by Microsoft system restore.

    [Attendee Question]
    Todd, own a small IT support business and would like to use this as a maintenance tool. What have you seen other do in the field?

    [Todd]
    We have several resellers that own small and large IT support businesses. I guess the most common scenario if the system was purchased through the support business, most IT business work provide a “gold” disk to the vender with all the applications they need install, so the process would be to create or update a snapshot once final configuration is made. They also make an archive of the working system as well. The archive is rarely updated, in order to bring the system back to t-zero if needed. The backup snapshot is updated, only by the IT Technician in the field when needed because of anti-virus updates, system updates, etc. If a problem arises, the technician can a) walk the client through the boot process, or b) log into the system in question. Notice I did not include the option of a tech visiting the site. As most of you may or may not know, I am an advocate of efficient IT practices and have spoken publicly on the topic many times. Profit margins turn red if your business model is based on visitation when a problem occurs that can be resolved remotely. In our IT support resellers, being able to remotely connect to a Server or workstation coupled with FirstDefense-ISR has increase profitability by substantially increasing the number of systems a technician is capable on managing. Ok, I’ll get off my soapbox now.

    [Attendee Response]
    Todd, we use your software to occasionally clean the OS and apps on systems we support, just as we occasionally defrag their hard drives. It is a quick simple process that seems to keep systems running better. Before we started doing this, we would notice that, after a while, Windows would seem to bog down a little.

    [Todd}
    Thanks. Yes, we’ve seen that as well..

    [Attendee Question]
    Hey, I have to manage my family, friends, and all their relatives, how would it help me there?

    [Todd]
    Very similar to the previous question, you make a snapshot of the system at a known good working state, and if something goes south, you boot the system to that good state. Of course, you do realize that a new problem will arise!

    [Attendee]
    What do you mean?

    [Todd]
    Our VP of Engineering and his wife were always asked over to a relatives’ homes for dinner. After dinner when everybody was sitting around, the computer questions started and before long he was fixing the latest round of accumulated problems. Since installing FirstDefense-ISR, they are not getting dinner invitations any more.

    [Everyone]
    {laughter, and general agreement about the “charity work” they do for family and friends}

    [Attendee Question]
    I work for a company that beta tests software. I see that you have a feature to create an empty snapshot. Reading up on this, would I be able to use the live snapshots to have different OS’s installed for testing?

    [Todd]
    Yes, you can have builds for not only Windows 2000, XP, and Server 2003, but any flavor of those operating systems. You can even have a build with Windows XP and one with Windows XP, SP2, etc. What are you currently using?

    [Attendee]
    We use many drives in removable bays to accomplish this. If this can eliminate our “wall of drives”, I am definitely interested in giving it a try.

    [Todd]
    We have eliminated many “wall of drives” in the past. I will post a link on the forum about how to use the “Create Empty Snapshot” feature.
    {I'll posted the procedure in a new thread}

    [Attendee]
    In the future, will we be able to boot from archived snapshot?

    [Todd]
    Archived snapshot are just that, archived. We have designed them to provide offline safe keeping of your system.

    [Attendee]
    Can you compress the snapshots so they don’t take up so much space?

    [Todd]
    All I can say on this subject is to make sure you stay tuned for our next release.

    [Attendee]
    I would really like it if you would make your product also do data backup so that I don’t need to buy two products. What is the chance you’ll be going in that direction?

    [Todd]
    We have been focusing on providing the highest level of availability for the OS and Applications, but you never know what the future holds.

    [Attendee]
    In a server environment where 24/7 uptime is critical, isn’t the best technical solution to cluster servers rather than to use FirstDefense-ISR, which provide no protection if the server hardware goes down?

    [Todd]
    It depends. Clustering is expensive. It also is more of a hardware redundancy solution. We are complimentary to clustering, so why not use both.

    [Attendee Question]
    Todd, as I mentioned earlier, I own a small IT support business, and with my current client base we manage approximately 1500 servers and workstations. I have reviewed and purchased FirstDefense-ISR and I am interested in becoming a reseller. What is the procedure?

    [Todd]
    Thank you for your question. We would love to add you as a reseller. You can contact one of our business development folks at 530.274.0900, x120, or submit a request from our website www.leapfrogsoftware.com and click on the contact us link. To be honest, the website request will work just as well and not tie up as much of your time playing telephone tag.

    *****
    Ok, so that was a recap of the first FirstDefense-ISR session. I am glad that I was able to answer all of your questions. If folks would like to do this again, I am open to it.
     
  9. TonyW

    TonyW Registered Member

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    This alone sounds very interesting, and will be a huge benefit if snapshots can be reduced in size in future builds. It's not a problem if one has a large hard drive, but for those who don't, they may currently shy away from the product for this reason alone.
     
  10. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    Thank you, Todd, very much. Yes, in my opinion, do more; always good to learn new stuff or refresh my memory! :cool:

    Acadia
     
  11. dallen

    dallen Registered Member

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    Todd, I've read the transcription of yout technology training session and just wanted to thank you for taking the time to post it. I can't say enough about your product. However, I will say that you've really peaked my interest about what you have in the pipeline.
     
  12. crofttk

    crofttk Registered Member

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    Hey, Todd, this was great. Thanks very much !

    We just now got 2-way cable internet available in our neighborhood (have been on 1-way up until now) and, once I'm hooked into that, I may give attendance of future sessions a try.

    Any chance of having the occasional "direct-to-public private label vendor" participate in future sessions ?
     
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