Terminology
In hospitality (and by consequence in this post) these three terms are very important:
Guest= customer that use an internet service
Host=   Hospitality structure
Employee = people working in the hospitality structure

Market Segmentation.
To identify a Unified Communications solution in the hospitality we propose a segmentation based on three  business scenario’s:

Fig 1 – Marketing Segmentation for UC

Quadrant I -  The Host has practically no ICT infrastructure except a broad band line (usually not protected by a firewall).
Because of the current speed of the broadband connections, typical examples are  limited to camping’s, small cafes, waiting rooms in train stations and rural guest houses.
In this scenario the host has to offer VOIP services for hospitality with a very limited budget (and even physical space)  for ICT appliances.
In the future, when FTTH broadband connection will be the rule, we will have more complex and wider examples of VOIP services for hospitality supplied in the cloud.

Quadrant II – The Host has an ICT infrastructure but he doesn’t want that the local IPBX is integrated with the (eventual) PMS.
Typical examples are guest houses and small hotels until 10 rooms.

Quadrant III – The Host has a complex local  ICT infrastructure
In this business scenario the host needs to offer advance VOIP services for hospitality and he wants them integrating (especially for billing) with the PMS of the hotel.

Voip Services for Hospitality.
Voip services are part of Unified Communications (UC).
Unified Communications is the convergence of voice, data, and video networks on an IP system. It enables employees to focus on communicating with customers rather than the method of communication that they are using.

UC can offer important benefits  to the host  and to the guests. Here some examples:
- integration of the voice with the CRM (or more simply, with the email server) of the hotel. This improves by several degree the efficiency in managing inbound calls from guests but also the outbound calls of the employees  (for marketing, for example) and allows a full integration with the Web services of the hotel (for booking, for example). In other words, UC can transform the Reception of the hotel in a powerful Multimedia Contact Center;
- the host can unify the messaging to the stuff. For example, all communications can be sent by the IP PBX to the WiFi phone (or a IP-Dect phone, smart phone, etc) of the employee that, for any reason, is not at his desk;
- a possible economic advantage for the guests is related to the still high average cost for GSM calls (at least in Europe). VOIP would allow the host to offer competitive freight in each room;
- integration of voice, video and data (at a very low cost) can bring important communication services in the meeting room rented by the guests;
- bring traditional and innovative services in the room of the guest. Services like check in and check out, status of the room, are available since many years with analogic phone lines. With IP phones is possible to extend these services to book taxi, select the menu of the restaurant, etc. The true question is the cost of the IP phone and the competition with other possible devices in the room like the IPTV or the device owned by guest  (BYOD).  What is important, anyway, is that the IP PBX can offer these services.

Conclusion.
An IP PBX for the hospitality sector must be able to supply  traditional room services like check in/check out together with modern  Unified Communications services for guests and for the employees.  Moreover, it must allow to implement these services in the local ICT infrastructure or by the cloud.

Have you other UC scenario or VOIP Services for hospitality to share with us?

Terminology
In hospitality (and by consequence in this post) these three terms are very important:
Guest= customer that use an internet service
Host=   Hospitality structure
Employee = people working in the hospitality structure

The minimum ICT local infrastructure in hospitality.
In the post Internet Broadband for hospitality: opportunity for the channel? I mentioned that a local WiFi gateway is justified when there is the need of building a minimum ICT infrastructure; fig 1 illustrates a typical example of this infrastructure.

 Fig 1 – example of minimum ICT infrastructure

The Wii connexion is separated in two independent segments: one is reserved for the employees of the host and one is serving the general needs of the guests.
The employees use some PC  for performing their tasks, together with a networking printer and a couple of SIP phones (with or without a local IP PBX).
The host wants to use a dedicated printer for managing the voucher and wants to cover with WiFi the restaurant but also the area of the bar.  In this example the host will not use a cable to connect the AP of the Bar but it will implement a WiFi bridge.
The Local WiFi Gateway will perform the following tasks:
1) connect the WiFi network to Internet. For security reasons, we advice that  the CPE performs a NAT function.
2) Manage the WiFi Network and the hot spot functionalities.
3) Performs a Firewall functions for the whole infrastructure.
Let’s see how the 4ipnet HSG 200 gateway can perform this task and let’s see also the similarities and differences with a Engenius Cloudtrax solution.

How to configure a Public WiFi Network with a gateway.
In the Zone Setting of the gateway there are already available two SSID  (fig 2).  Engenius Cloudtrax offers the same possibility.
One ESSID is used for the employee (Private)  and the second for the guests (Public).

Fig 2 – Public and Private WiFi segmentation in 4ipnet gateway.

For the Public WiFi we will use the gateway as a DHCP server (Fig 3).
As a practical step, you just need to supply the IP address of the gateway.
We will isolate at layer 2 all the different WiFi Clients (this increase the security of the solution); in this way, one guest cannot see what another guest  is doing with his own client.  This is also the standard technical solution of Engenius CloudTrax.  All the other parameters of the gateway can be left standard.

 Fig 3 -  Basic Set up of the Public WiFi.

For the Public ESSID we will select the authentication on demand (fig 4). This is the general scenario in hospitality (we used the same solution in Engenius Cloudtrax).

Fig 4 – On Demand Account Activation for Public WiFi.

In the 4ipnet gateway it is necessary (fig 5)  then to confirm for the authentication on demand that the request will be on demand and to assign a policy number: in this example we will use policy 4. The Policy is used by the gateway to manage the SLA of the Public Wii (in  Engenius Cloudtrax solutions you can directly set up the SLA without using policy).

Fig 5 – How to assign a policy to the Public WiFi

For the Policy 4 it is necessary to configure the Quality of the service  and then the firewall rules (Fig 6)

 Fig 6 – The Basic SLA for the Public WiFi and activation of the Firewall.

Fig 7  shows the typical parameters of the policy for an average Dutch Line (KPN). For Belgium these values should be considerably inferior as results of the lower average speed of Belgacom lines.

Fig 7 -  Example of SLA for a Public WiFi.

The 4ipnet gateway is also a powerful firewall. This makes him a power appliance for a local ICT infrastructure.  This possibility it is not present in the Engenius Cloudtrax solution (quite logical choice for a cloud solution).
As an example, in the policy 4, we create a rule to separate the IP traffic of the employees from the IP Traffic of the guests.

 Fig 8 – Example of Firewall Rule for the Public Wii.

For the guests, we will select a “free internet’”. For doing so, we need to create a billing plan (fig 9). This is also possible for the Engenius Cloudtrax (without using billing plans).

Fig 9 – How to create a billing plan for the Public WiFi.

In the 4ipnet gateway it is possible to create until 10 billing plans. In this case, we will create only one billing plan, just to manage the free internet (fig 11). How to manage the “free internet” is one of the hottest topic in hospitality. Somebody suggests to include the WiFi infrastructure cost in the price of the total bill, others suggests to give a free internet with limited bandwidth and time and propose VIP services under payment. Other solutions are possibles.
For this reasons, a WiFi hotspot must allow a great flexibility in configuring a free internet policy. From Fig 11 it is possible to see that, unfortunately, the 4ipnet doesn’t offer this great flexibility (in comparison for example with the Cloud Solution of Engenius). For example, it is not possible to limit the free internet for time and for bandwidth.

Fig 11 – Example of free internet managed through time duration.

This gateway (like Engenius Cloudtrax)  allows to control in details what the guest can do after logging in. In fig 12 we decide, for example, to forward him to a specific web page.

Fig 12 – Example of Splash Page for Public WiFi.

Other important features of a WiFi Gateway.
The 4ipnet Gateway allows the possibility to use  a dedicated local printer to manage the voucher (in the Engenius CLoudTrax you were obliged instead to use a standard network printer). This solution offers the advantage of:
-  positioning the printer in the Reception Area (fig 13)
- minimizing the configuration process of the printer.
- reduction  the cost of maintenance of the printer.
Of course, it is always possible to use a networking printer (in case of backup, for example)

Fig 13 -  Dedicated Printer to manage the Voucher.

I already mentioned in a previous post  that in the EEC Area there is an obligation to track the behavior of the end user (Data Retention Directive).  Even if the application of this directive is still far away to be accepted by every European State Member, it is for sure advisable to have the possibility to export data to a Syslog server or, at least, to a FTP server. The 4ipnet gateway, on the difference of Engenius Cloudtrax, offers a complete solution (fig 14).

 Fig 14- How to export behavior data of the Public WiFi

In the infrastructure example of fig. 1 and fig 13 there is a second AP connected in a wireless bridge  to the gateway.  4ipnet uses a proprietary technology to connect in a wireless way the AP: 4ipWes Press-n-Connect (fig 15)

With this technology is possible to build also mesh topology when 3 or more AP are involved. However, compared to the solution of Engenius Cloudtrex, a manual configuration, even if easy, it is necessary.

 fig 15 – 4ipWes Press-n-Connect technology

 The 4ipnet allows to monitor any  Access Points even if they are not produced by them (this is not possible for Engenius Cloudtrex). What is needed it’s only the IP Adress of the AP (fig 16).

 Fig 16 – How to monitor AP in 4ipnet gateway.

Comparison between WiFi Gateway and WiFi Cloud: summary.
Table 1 summarizes the main difference between the 4ipnet gateway and the Engenius Cloudtrex. This table is a good base to understand, more in general, what the channel can offer to the hospitality sector with a WiFi Cloud and with a WiFi gateway.

Table 1 -  WiFi gateway vs. Cloud WiFi

And you, what do you prefer?  A WiFi gateway or a Cloud wi-fi solution?

For the channel it’s important to know what are the features of a NAS for a consumer market and what are instead the ones relevant for a professional/SMB market.  Not less important is to know the market strategy of a vendor that is targeting the consumer market as well the strategy of vendors that are instead focusing their action on the SMB market. 

Tab 1 summarise the main differences of a strategy for consumer NAS and for NAS for SMB. Let me comment each rule:

Tab 1 – Rules of the games for Consumer NAS and NAS for SMB.

end user lead generation.  The vendor targeting the Consumer NAS performs  a strong activity at end user level. Traditionally this activity was mainly done at Point of Sales level (merchandising), end user exhibitions and specialised magazines. In the last years most of the resources went to web 2.0 activities with very good results. Usually the vendor doesn’t pilot the leads generated in this way toward a specific distributor.
The activity of a vendor targeting SMB Market was mainly focused on specialised magazines (not only IT).   They still have some problems in exploiting the new web 2.0 possibilities to reach the end user and the channel. However, the eventual leads are forwarded to the distributors in a selective way.
Margins for the channel (distributors+resellers). Of course the margins for the channel are higher for NAS targeting SMB market. Anyway, quite interesting, the price for end user of a Consumer NAS tends to be equal or even higher than the price of equivalent NAS for SMB.  In tab 2 I report, as an example, a comparison between some equivalent models of QNAP (Consumer Market) and Thecus (SMB Market)

 Tab 2 – Comparison of  end user prices list of Consumer NAS and NAS for SMB

Standard Warranty.  The vendors of Consumer NAS apply a standard two years warranty. The vendors of NAS for SMB tend to apply in general 3 years warranty (but exceptions of 2 years are numerous). In both case, the warranty procedure requires that the defective unit is sent back to the distributor and the end user must wait for the reparation/replacement.
SLA (Service Level Agreement). For Consumer NAS it is not possible to have extra services or commitments in case of technical problems. For NAS for SMB it is usually possible to purchase Advance Replacement Conditions (at least for models of 4 bays up).
Special bid and protection on opens projects. For Consumer NAS it is not possible to have a special price in the case of a purchase involving several units. Moreover, as the vendor doesn’t recognize to the channel a protection on the project, it is better that the reseller doesn’t inform the vendor of eventual projects; eventually, the reseller and the distributor can play a little bit on their margins to try to win the deal.
Technical Support. The vendors of Consumer NAS don’t give a direct support to the end user and to the channel. Usually, the end user and the channel have the same kind of support: forum and answers by e-mail (indirect support). For NAS for SMB the end user still  has not a direct support from the vendor (except in the case of purchasing SLA) but the channel has.
Demo programs.  The Vendor of Consumer NAS has not a specific program to supply demo products for specific projects.  Vendors of NAS for SMB have usually standard (or ad hoc) demo units programs for the channel.
Stock rotation and price protection. Vendors of Consumer NAS don’t protect the channel in case of price decrease or End of Life products as they rely on the competition between numerous distributors to assure the right level of stock. Vendors of NAS for SMB prefers to work with a smaller number of distributors and they work together on the right level of stock. Protection is assured to the channel in the case of decrease of prices and overstock.

Conclusion.
The Consumer NAS and NAS For SMB can have today a similar proposition in features and prices. However, the rules of the game for the channel are very different and the channel must know them by heart in order to avoid to create false expectations on the market.
And you, what is you preferred rule to play in the NAS game?

Product Portfolio Strategy for the Hospitality sector.
In October 2011 my company decided to create a dedicated business unit for the hospitality market and nominated me as responsible of the unit.
It was not the first time that I found myself in a role in which I have to build a new business. So, I had from the beginning a clear idea of the necessary steps:
- define the strategy and share it with high management.
- define the product portfolio solution and share it with high management, technical support, marketing and sales.
- define the channel implementation and share it with high management, technical support, marketing and sales.
- implementation and then reporting of the go to market strategy.
As to product portfolio selection, this time I wanted to use also LinkedIn as a tool to indentify the best IP PBX for hospitality.  So, I opened a discussion on the LinkedIn Unified Communication Group and other two LinkedIn groups dedicated to Hospitality.
It was not the first time I opened a discussion on LinkedIn and I knew that their success it is hard to forecast. En effect, I had very few followers on the dedicated groups for hospitality but the discussion on the Unified Communication group went quite well. As it is an open group you can read it in details if you are interested in the subject.

IP PBX selection through Linkedin: the results.
Trough the contribution of the community expressed in the discussion and in private e-mails, I was able to build a quite complete list of good IP PBX candidates for my portfolio (tab 1)

tab 1 – potential list of IP PBX for hospitality

Based on the list of tab 1, I made a first selection based on these (very personal) criteria’s:
1) The vendor must have a strong experience in the hospitality sector with a dedicated solution for hospitality.
En effect, hospitality is a quite new sector for my Company so we need a partner that can help up in going to market in a quick and efficient way. Moreover, my Company is a value add distributor so with limited resources to develop or customize an IP PBX with specific features for hospitality.
2) The vendor must have a channel strategy for a value add distributor and, if possible, interest for the Benelux area.
3) The solution of the vendor must be open to work with a middleware software for the billing integration with the hotel PMS (I will cover this important topic in a future post).
Based on  this selection and following activity my Company closed a partnership with Selta.

Collateral effects of joining a LinkedIn Group.
I wanted to understand if this action had also positive effect on other aspect of mine (and my Company) web presence.
First of all, I wanted to see if opening a discussion on LinkedIn helped me to be more visible on this important web 2.0 platform. From  fig 1 it is clear that a (successful) discussion in LinkedIn increase the visibility of my profile in the platform itself.

Fig 1 – Profile Visibility Effect in opening a group discussion in Linkedin.

I wanted also to see if this initiative could have also effect on my personal blog. So I used Google Analytics to see the LinkedIn Traffics as a Referrals source.  From fig 2. it is still quite clear that there was a positive effect (at least in terms of visits).
 

Fig 2 – Google Analytics for Referrals traffic for my blog

Finally, I wanted do check if my initiative on LinkedIn had also a positive effect on the Web Site traffic of my company. Also in this case I used Google Analytics to see the referral traffic for that period of time. From Fig 3 it is quite clear that also in this case there was a positive effect in traffic coming from LinkedIn.

 Fig 3 – Google Analytics for Referral Traffic coming From Linkedin for my Company Web Site.

Conclusion.
LinkedIn helped me to find the right vendor for my Portfolio solution and increased my visibility and the visibility of my Company on the web.
And you, are you using LinkedIn as a tool to support your business developer activity?

Terminology
In hospitality (and by consequence in this post) these three terms are very important:
Guest= customer that use an internet service
Host=   Hospitality structure
Employee = people working in the hospitality structure

Engenius CloudTrax: the components.
The CloudTrax Solution is simple in its concept, easy to implement and  to monitor.  In case of a failure of an Access Point anybody can phisically replace the fault appliance as there is no need of local configuration.
The solution consists of an indoor EnGenius EAP3660-cc and one outdoor EnGenius EOC 2611p-cc. These APs support MESH technology and must be controlled and monitor through a cloud service.  We propose two pratical examples to explain this solution.

Example 1: how to set up an outdoor Wifi Mesh Networking.
We will place three outdoor AP’s  to cover the external perimeter of a temporary exposition organized in the “Tour and Taxis” area in Bruxelles.
After creating a master account (in this example we created Valadis belux office) we can create the networking schema for “Tour and Taxi”.  For this project we will have three AP’s  (so three nodes). The AP ‘ValadisNode’ is the node cabled to the Modem/router (so it is the Gateway). The other AP’s  will be linked to “ValadisNode’ in a mesh technology.

Insert the road adress of the area (like you would do in Google Map), click ‘Add/Edit Nodes’, insert a name of your Access Point and his Mac Adress. Drag it on the map and the game is done (Fig 1).

Fig 1 -  How to insert Access Points in the Cloud Trax Solution.

Notice that when the Mac Adress of an AP is linked in CloudTrax to a specific networking then it cannot be used any more for other Networking unless  it is  first delete from the networking itself.
Personally, I prefer to identify the outdoor AP spots in Google Earth and then report them in the CloudTrax Networking (Fig 2).  Google Earth allows infact to be much more precise and flexible (you can rotate the map, see the building in 3D, etc) and this can often avoid a phisical visit of the place.
To translate the Latidute and Longitude from Google Earth in Decimal notation for Google Map you can use
Convert Latitude / Longitude Between DMS And Decimal Formats.

Fig 2 – Using Google Earth to position the AP  in the CloudTrax Solution.

It’s time to phisical install the 3 AP”s  on the ground.  It is of course necessary to respect the Wifi Point to Point infrastucture best pratice.  Then:
- mount the 3 ap on their poles.
- connect the AP ‘ValadisNode’ (the Gateway) to the modem/router.
Notice that the AP ‘west entrance’ and ‘east entrance’ will connect by themselves by mesh to the Gateway. Afer some minutes, the Wifi Networking is up and running.
As the AP ‘West Entrance’ and the AP ‘East Entrance” are one hop distance from the Gateway, they have about half of the total connection speed of the Gateway (Fig 3). Users on mesh networks will lose half of their maximum speed for every hop they are away from a gateway. Therefore,  it is a best practice to place the gateway(s) in a central position and avoid more than 3 hops for each gateway.
It is also a best practice,  in a mesh configuration,  to avoid more than 5 AP or repeaters for a single gateway.

Fig 3 – How it looks a Mesh Networking in  the CloudTrax Solution.

On the Node Map, click on a node and  then select Neighbors:  all nodes must  have at least one (preferably two) connections with an RSSI of 17 or more (Fig 4). If not, you need to reposition your node closer to the others or in a better line through fewer walls (in case of indoor AP’s).  You may need to add new nodes.

Fig 4 – How to monitor a Mesh Networking in  the CloudTrax Solution.

CloudTrax allows to set up 2 SSID.  Let’s configure the public SSID.
We select CloudTrax as a captive portal. This allows us to use a Splash Page already supplied by this portal. We flag the “Block Pre-Authenticated Users” field as we we want to activate a paid service for the hot spot (Fig 5).

Fig 5 -  How to configure a Public  SSID in  the CloudTrax Solution.

Press the ‘Edit Splash Page’ to see the proposed pages by the portal.  As we are planning a paid service, you need a splash page that allows  to insert the login key. You can customise each page just using HTLM code (Fig 6)

Fig 6 – How it looks a splash page in the CloudTrax Solution.

When an user logs to the AP through the activation code, he will be redirect to the web page of the specific event of that day (in the example http://www.etudes-professions.be/). We flag the ‘required voucher’ in order to activate a paid service through a voucher containing an activation key (we will not use Pay Pall in this example – Fig 7)

Fig 7 – How to configure a splash page for using vouchers.

Select the tag ‘General’ to create the Voucher.  In this example we will print an initial batch of 100 vouchers for the reception. We will limit the band connection for each user to just allow a usage of Wifi phones or email (Fig 8). In this way we will have  a Wifi networking that can connect about 250 users at the same time to Internet.

Fig 8 – How to create Vouchers in the CloudTrax Solution.

Let’s configure the SSID2 to create a private Wifi Networking for managing 3 IP Camera’s. The IP Camera will be phisically  placed on the same pool of the AP  to allow users to communicate with the reception in case of need (we will exploit the motion detection feature of the IP Camera to start the communication).

Fig 9 – How to configure a Private  SSID in  the CloudTrax Solution.

Example 2: how to set up an indoor Wifi Mesh Networking.
We are going now to plan and install 3 indoor AP’s  for this exposition.
Let’s create a new networking and then load a map of the place (Jpeg, Gif or BMP). Notice that the map must not be bigger than  75KB  (Fig 10)

Fig 10 – How to import a map in the CloudTrax Solution

Like we did for the outdoor AP, we can press the button ‘Add/Edit Nodes” and create a new AP directly in the map (Fig 11)

Fig 11 – How to add AP in a private map in  the CloudTrax Solution.

The steps to configure a public networking are pratically the sames of Fig. 5.
Finally, we can use the SSID2 to connect the wired lan of the employees to the Wifi infrastructure (Fig 12) in order to allow them Wifi Mobility in the exposition field.

Fig 12 – How to connect a Wifi Networking to a private Lan in the CloudTrax Solution.

In the case of failure of an AP, just delete from the Cloud Trex map the relative node, create a new node (remember to note the Mac adresse before sending the product) and phisically replace the broken AP with the new one.

Are you using other cloud solutions for this hospitalty segment?
___________________________________________________________

To know more:
WiFi gateway in hospitality: the ABC for the ICT channel.

Terminology
In hospitality (and by consequence in this post) these three terms are very important:
Guest= customer that use an internet service
Host=   Hospitality structure
Employee = people working in the hospitality structure

Technological scenario.
There are many variables to analyze in a hospitality project in order to select the best technological solution.  To simplify, we can concentrate on 4 technological quadrants (fig 1) composed by the combination of these 4 basic hospitality needs:
- 3Play.
In this case the host wants to offer Video (IPTV and/or OTT), VOIP and Broadband connexion in each room as a single service.
- Wifi.
In this case the host wants to offer a wifi broadband solution completely isolated by the television and phone service.
- PMS.
The host wants to bill all the services (including the internet broadband) through the Property Management Software (PMS).
- Ticket.
The host wants to bill the broadband service in a manual way, usually through a simple ticket.

Fig 1 – Hospitality technological Scenario

Technological solutions.
- Quadrant I.
A cloud solution allows managing a WiFi broadband coverage  together with the printing of a simple ticket for the guest.
As all cloud services, the channel can buy the service from a vendor (for example EnGenius-Cloudtrax - ) or to build the service itself  (see Quadrant IV).
-  Quadrant II.
In this case a hot spot appliance must be locally integrated with the other IP appliances for VOIP and IPTV/OTT.  (for example 4ipnet Wireless Hotspot - ).
- Quadrant III.
All services are linked to a specific room. They can be supplied on a copper DSL line and separeted by Virtual Lans.  The billing is linked to the room number.
All this simplifies the architecture scenario.  A Hospitality Service Gateway is usually the best solution (for example ZyXEL VSG-1200 - ).
- Quadrant IV.
In this scenario it is necessary to manage a complex Wifi connection with hot spot functionalities and billing through a PMS. The billing of the Wifi services is not linked to a specific room number. At the state of the art, the best solution is to connect the WIFI Hot Spot Controller to the PMS through a dedicated Middleware (for example 4ipnet Secure WLAN Controller - and the midleware of Eurofluxo).
The Hardware appliance used in this Quadrant has the same characteristics of the one used in quadrant I to supply the cloud service.  It is likely to conclude that  the actor that succeeds in Quadrant IV has also good chance to offer a cloud service in Quadrant I.

Channel Actors.
Still simplifying, , we can identify three main actors in the channel of hospitality (see fig 2):
- ISP.
They supply the broadband connection and usually have also experience in the IPTV, OTT  and VOIP. They usually have also a sound knowledge of Wifi technology.
- It resellers.
They have a good knowledge of WIFI technology and Networking infrastructure (including cable TV). They can also have good knowledge of analogical and IP phone.
- Billing providers.
They are the expert of  the implementation of the PMS of the hotel.

Fig 2 – Channel actors in Hospitality

What we are observing now, is an effort of the ISP and IT reseller to enter in the  Quadrant IV.  On the contrary, the  Billing providers are not so much interested to enter in the  infrastructure complexity of this Quadrant.  So, ISP and IT Resellers must establish a strategic alliance with Billing providers if they want to succeed in this scenario.

Whatever is the actor of the channel, it is his responsibility to inform the host that the police might came to him and asks specific information regarding the activity of his guests as required by the  Data Retention Directive.

Data Retention Directive.
(DIRECTIVE 2006/24/EC - on the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks) was introduced in 2006 after the bomb attack in London as a measure against international terrorism.
In the case of commercial data retention, the data retained will usually be on transactions and web sites visited.
The adoption of this directive for each European Country is not at all homogeneous. Also for this reason, the Directive has been recently (May 2011) strongly criticized even by the European Data Protection Supervisor - .
However, this Directive must be closely monitored by any channel operator in the hospitality business and… he must be sure to offer a solution that can save a detailed log on a NAS.

Do you see other opportunities for the channel in the hospitality business?
___________________________________________________________

To know more:
- How to set up a Cloud Mesh Wifi Networking for Hospitality.
- Wifi Gateway in hospitality: the ABC for the ICT channel.
- VOIP services in hospitality: what is the best Unified Communications solutions that channel can offer?

Home Network vs.  SBM Network.
The main difference between the two type of NAS is not only in the price (a Consumer NAS should be under 500 dollars) or just in technical features (a Consumer NAS must have a multimedia server function).
NAS means “Storage Attached to the Network” and it’s indeed in the different kind of Network where the channel must start to build his best practice.
The main target of a  SMB Network is to allow members of a team to share jobs and collaborate.  In this kind of network  the NAS must play a role of backup solution of Business Data and/or Storage Consolidation Solution (in physical or virtual environment).
The main target of a Consumer Network is to allow members of a family to share multimedia entertainment. In this kind of networking the NAS must play a role in the home media center, in the home music center, in the home photo center and as a download station.

Home Networking
The standard configuration of a Home Networking is built on a Wifi connection managed by a single AP.
The final target of this networking is to connect different multimedia devices to the Television of the living room and, of course, to Internet.
To reach this target, the channel must help the end user to break the limit of his standard configuration. This can be done in three ways:
- Add other AP in the house (WLAN).
- Exploiting the existing electrical cables (HomePlug)
- Exploiting the existing TV Coax Cables (HomePNA)

The role of the Nas in the home networking.
A Home NAS must play different roles in a Home Networking.
The most complex is that of Home Video Center (Fig 1).
The channel must be able to explain how to use the NAS to stream HD Movies to
the TV. A clear understanding of the DLNA protocol is necessary.

Fig 1 – NAS as Home Video Center

A second role that a Home NAS might play is that of Home Music Center (Fig 2).
The understanding of the DLNA protocol is important but it must be integrated with the knowledge of the UPnP protocol (the two protocols are connected but are not the same).

Fig 2 – Home Music Center

 The easiest role that a Home NAS might play (and for this probably also the first sales subject to use for the channel) is that of the Home Photo Center (Fig 3).

Fig 3 – Home Photo Center

It is worthwhile to mention that, as an auxiliary activity to all other roles, a Home NAS must be able to play a  Download Station function (Fig 4). Internet, at the end, it will be the most important source of Multimedia content (you don’t need to work with Cisco to figure it out, do you?).

 Fig 4 – Download Station Role

Conclusion.
In this post I wished to explain what the channel has to do in order to propose the Consumer NAS. This opens of course other questions: who is the competition, what are the margin, etc. I will try to answer in a dedicated, future post. Meantime, do you want to tell us what is your best practice to be a winner in the Consumer Nas Market?
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To know more:
Consumer NAS and Nas for SMB: what are the rules of the game for the channel?

Already three years ago experts in virtualization techniques saw the possibility to bring Storage High Availability at SMB level. 
Most of the ‘ingredients’ are already there:
- Virtualized environment for the servers
- iSCSI network
In order to avoid the cost of a SAN, it was anyway necessary to use a  complex  (and quite expensive) software. This limitation is now removed.
With less than 4000 euro (end user price list) is now possible to buy a NAS Solution that can manage, at hardware level, a replication process with an identical NAS.

Fig 1 – High Availability with Thecus NAS.

These are the reasons that would the Standby NAS to kick in:
1)  Active NAS off/dead
2) Active NAS heartbeat (LAN3) not available
3) Active NAS LAN1/2 not available
4) RAID on active NAS not available

From fig 1. it’s also quite clear that this High availability solution can work in just a physical server environment but it is commercially clear the importance of this solution in a virtualized environment, especially to reach Disaster Recovery policy with a “SMB’ budget.

As a channel operator, does this solutions interest you?

The basic questions for the end user.

This tool helps the inside sales to ask the correct basic questions to identify the right IP Camera and NVR.
Let’s select the Expert Mode and we will work on the tab Camera Installation Drawing (fig 1).
The first question is regarding the Field of View (FOV). The FOV is  the area size that the camera must cover. You have to specify the Height of the object, the Width of the object and (eventually) the eight of the object from the ground.
For example, let’s suppose that the end user wants to tape only the face (not the body)  of a person of min. 1,5 and max 2 meters height and  that is entering a  door of 1 meter width.
We will introduce these measures for the FOV.
Height: 2 meters
With:   1 meter
Height of Lower: 1,6

Now we have to ask  the max distance of the target (in the example the face of the person) from the camera. Let’s suppose that the end user can place the camera quite close to the door (ex. 2 meter).

fig 1 – jvsg Camera Installation Drawing tab

It’ s time to ask how high the camera can be placed.  In this example the end user wants to recognize the face of a person of max 2 meters that is entering in the door. So, the camera should not be higher than 2 meter (if you place the camera too high and the person wears a cap, you will not get the visage). Let’s suppose that we can place the camera at 1,8 M.

The selection of the IP Camera.
We have now all the necessary elements to select the correct IP Camera to propose.  Of course, it would be very useful to know the budget of the end user in order to narrow the selection of possible candidates.
A resolution of 640×480 (VGA) is sufficient for facial recognition. Of course higher is the definition, more details of the face of the person you have (in our example we will work with a High Definition format) .  
You need now to introduce the Sensor Format. The usual value of a megapixel camera -  is ¼.
We use the tool to determine the focal length of the camera we need for our purpose.  Try different value and see in the camera 3D view the different image you obtain.  The color you see in the camera installation draw is also very useful; red color means that the target can be identified. We can see (fig 2)  that we need a camera with a focal length of 3 mm.

fig 2 – select the right Ip Camera

The inside sales has now all the necessary elements to make an offer for the correct IP CAMERA.
There are some elements that the tool cannot suggest but still an inside sales should advise the end user to consider. One of this is the lighting (for example: the camera should be working during the night or not? When the door opens, it would be too much light on the back of the target? If yes, we should compensate with inside light and with a camera with a good WDR: Wide Dynamic Range ).  Other options of the camera (like Backlight Compensation ) are less effective.
Fortunately, no tool can replace a good training from the Product Manager (for me the most important function in the organization of a Distributor).

Storage and Networking needs.
The inside sales  might  be asked to give support regarding the necessary storage space in the NVR and the networking band that should be assured.  This tool allows to make the necessary questions and give the appropriate answers.
Let’s select the Network Band with & Disk Space.
We introduce the wished resolution (in our example High Definition), The compression (check the datasheet of the camera to see if it can assure that) – in our example H.264 – and the time that the camera will be in used (in the example we suppose that it will be in used during the working time).

fig 3 – Networking and Storage Calculation

We can use a standard FPS (frames per seconds) of 10
You can see that already with one camera we need more than 3GB of space.   To reduce this (expensive) storage space (and also networking band with), we could use a camera that support Intelligent Video Analysis (for example the camera transmits images only when the door is open).  An alternative would be to use the Intelligent Video Analysis in the NVR (so the NVR would register the image of the camera only when the door is open). This alternative would not save of course band with Network.
Anyway, the inside sales has now the necessary information to make an offer for the correct NVR (and eventually for the networking switch).

Do you think that the IP Video System Design Tool can help an inside sales of the B2B ICT channel?

The concept of tiered storage.
The concept of tiered storage is an economic concept, very well known at enterprise level but it can be applied nowadays to SMB realities.
It is based on the observation that different storage supports – Solid Disk, Sas and Sata Disk - have different cost. So, it makes sense to use the most expensive support for the data that have the highest business value.
An intuitive application of this concept is to have the book keeping data of the current and previous year on line in the SAS storage of your server and the previous 5 years on a NAS with Sata disks.
A tired storage brings not only economic advantages but it helps to minimize the technical problem of window backup and increase the performances of the server (as it has to manage a lower traffic of data).

Storage Protocols Tier.
This is a technical concept. The applications can use a block protocol or file system protocol.
Block Base protocol applications manage directly a physical sector of the hard disk.  Most database applications (ex. Outlook) are based on this protocol.
File System protocol applications manage instead a logical file and not a physical part of the Hard Disk. Typical applications are File/Printing servers, Video Image.
Traditionally, the NAS were File System protocol storage and they couldn’t be used for Block base applications.  The recent introduction of iSCSI technology in affordable NAS allows now more flexibility for SMB to implement a tiered storage based on the business value of the data, without any more technical limitation.
So, it is fundamental that an inside sales in the B2B  must be able to suggest the correct NAS for an SMB application based on the concept of Tired Storage and Protocol Tier (see fig. 1).

Fig 1. Nas for SMB Tiered Storage.

Tiered storage in virtualized environment.
With the introduction of entry server multi cores, virtualization it is now a necessary and common practice also for SMB.
THe Virtualization layer - makes less evident to understand if the NAS should use a Block or a Network protocol but the basic economic advantage of a Tired Storage doesn’t change.  As a consequence, the NAS solutions of Fig. 1 are available also in a virtualized environment.

Other scenarios  of NAS in SMB.
The tired storage is a general economic advantage that NAS brings to SMB.
There are other advantages that NAS can offer to SMB that are instead more related to specific task. It is possible to identify at least other 5 important scenarios:

1) NAS can be used to implement a disk to disk backup.

2) NAS allows also to bring Disaster Recovery solutions to SMB levels. You can easily replicate data from NAS to NAS.   You don’t need necessary to use even an expensive WAN; you can use an  USB stick or, why not,  you could make an agreement with another SMB close to you that can be reached by cable (fiber or copper) to place a NAS to them and vice versa. I am sure that your reseller will be more than happy to propose this service to your neighbour.

3) NAS is an economic solution to share data in a branch office. The local team can quickly access local data (and the Company can save expensive Wan band to be connected with the Main Office location).  The users can even use different client platforms (for example Microsoft and Linux).

4) The NAS for an SMB can minimize the investment for a web server or take that workload from an existing server.

5) Most of the NAS for SMB offer the possibility to easy download and install Linux Open Source Applications. In this way  the NAS can become a good solution to offer services that usually are supplied by more expensive general servers.

Have you other scenarios to suggest to a B2B inside sales?
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To know more:
NAS High Availability solutions for SMB
Consumer NAS Market: what is the best practice for the channel?
NAS shoot-out: 5 storage servers battle for business
Consumer NAS and Nas for SMB: what are the rules of the game for the channel?