September 2011
In this issue:

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Five Challenges You Need to Address About "Going Virtual"
used with permission from Symantec

Has any topic attracted more attention than virtualization in IT departments these days? It’s not likely. Research bellwether Gartner Inc. has dubbed virtualization “the highest-impact issue changing infrastructure and operations through 2012.” ¹

That being the case, it’s not surprising that virtualization introduces new challenges into IT environments as they become increasingly both physical and virtual. This Tech Brief looks at five key challenges that you need to be aware of as you deploy – or continue to deploy – virtualization.

Challenge #1: Can you manage both physical and virtual platforms efficiently?
Management software and processes that work in the physical server environment don’t always work in a virtual environment. That can lead to a number of complexities and inefficiencies, such as higher costs for training, software, and operations. According to Symantec’s most recent IT Disaster Recovery Research Report, 35% of respondents cited “too many different tools” as the biggest challenge in protecting mission-critical data and applications in physical and virtual environments. Managing both environments on one platform with a single set of tools reduces “sprawl.”

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National Preparedness Month: Have a plan to recover
by Rachel Stancliff, Heartland Technology Solutions

September is National Preparedness Month, driven this year by Agility Recovery, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Ready Campaign, and Citizen Corps. This campaign is an effort to encourage Americans to prepare for emergencies, whether it is at their homes, workplace, or communities.

The percentage of small- to medium-sized businesses that never recover after a disaster is staggeringly high, especially since the steps to putting together a disaster recovery plan are simple.

You never know when disaster might strike. Heartland Technology Solutions knows this very well – only weeks after we finalized our business continuity plan, a deadly tornado struck Joplin, MO, where one of our locations is based. While our location in Joplin was thankfully unscathed, hundreds of other businesses were destroyed. We could have been one of them, and we have seen how businesses can recover if they have a plan.

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Copy Formatting in a Single Click with Format Painter

There are many ways to customize the format of text and graphics in Microsoft Office. You can change font style and color, add borders and shading, and so on. And once you've created a format that you like, you don't have to repeat all those steps each time you want to use that format. Instead, Microsoft Office programs offer a quick way to copy formatting from one item — such as text in Word, a cell in Excel, a control in Access, or a shape in Publisher — to another. It's called Format Painter, and it might be the most helpful toolbar button you've never used.

Watch the demo to see how it works.