Managed Security Services Provider

Managed Security Services Provider
By C. Meyman

 

Business owners who are unwilling to take the risk of settling

for a one size fits all approach to protecting their vital

network assets will want to choose a managed security services

provider carefully. In particular, they should look for one that

is dedicated to customizing a secure and protected environment

and to maintaining the security of critical network assets by

protecting them from the relentless threats and attacks that

occur on a daily basis.

Why is a reliable managed security services provider such an

important investment for businesses of all sizes? Because

security threats from both internal and external sources, if

left unmanaged, pose a serious risk to the viability of business

performance and continuity.

In addition to unparalleled service, a top-tier managed security

services provider offers peace of mind with risk mitigation,

improved network visibility via round-the-clock monitoring,

superior network performance, greater uptime, improved

utilization, the flexibility that comes from being able to

extend precious IT resources to the strategic projects that

require them most, the ability to easier manage one's network,

lowered network maintenance expenses and resolution of system

issues proactively so they don't escalate to the point where

they interfere with crucial operations.

The website CIO Zone, the online network for IT leadership,

recently offered some predictions for 2013 regarding IT security

and it anticipates that security surrounding cloud computing

will be big in the upcoming year. That's because cloud computing

is expanding at such a rate that businesses can't keep pace with

it. As a result, achieving appropriate security for it is going

to prove challenging. That's where a relationship with a managed

security services provider becomes invaluable.

A concept known as bring your own device (BYOD for short) in

which employees bring their own computing devices (laptops,

tablet PCs, smartphones) to the workplace and hook up to the

corporate network, in particular, is driving security managed

services. IT managers must balance "security and support

concerns with the very real potential to reap significant cost

and productivity benefits from trends such as BYOD," the site

explains. And, "CIOs have concluded that mobility needs to

extend well beyond BYOD to include the integration of service

provider mobility, enterprise mobility, security, collaboration

and desktop virtualization solutions."

Small and mid-size businesses will be especially vulnerable to

unmanaged security threats from both the inside and outside as

more non-network devices are hooked up to their systems. In an

article titled "Small Business Thwarted by Mobile Security

Concerns," MSPmentor, the ultimate guide to managed services,

explains, "Concerns about web security are impeding small

business and mid-sized businesses from enjoying the full

benefits mobile computing and remote workers can offer."

That's the finding of an e-security survey of IT professionals.

What is unclear is whether those businesses that are opting not

to allow their employees to connect to their networks via laptop

"have a formal mobile device management plan in place." With the

right managed security services provider on their side, every

business, regardless of size, can take advantage of all the

cost-saving and morale-boosting perks BYOD has to offer.

Concord Technology Group is a managed security services provider

as well as a reseller of Juniper Switches.

Is The Cloud Right For Your Business?

Is The Cloud Right For Your Business?
By Marc Arbesman

 

Many large technology giants are pushing cloud services as the

next big thing. They promote these services to be some sort of

panacea for small and medium-sized business owners.

The promise is that companies can reduce costs and enjoy leading

edge software and other virtualization by sharing these services

in the cloud. The objective is to greatly reduce the

expenditures involved with desk-by-desk purchases for office,

CRM and other products. Long-term it provides a savings for on-

site server upgrades and maintenance.

For those not familiar with the cloud, the wiki dictionary

defines it as "the use of computing resources (hardware and

software) that are delivered as a service over a network

(typically the Internet".)

End users can access cloud-based applications through a web

browser or a light-weight desktop or mobile app while the

business software and user's data are stored on servers at a

remote location.

Many claim that cloud computing allows enterprises to get their

applications up and running faster, with improved manageability

and less maintenance. They say it enables IT to adjust resources

more rapidly to meet fluctuating and unpredictable business

demand.

How does it work? Cloud computing relies on sharing of resources

to achieve coherence and economies of scale similar to a utility

(like the electricity grid) over a network. The foundation of

cloud computing is the broader concept of converged

infrastructure and the sharing of services.

Four types of cloud computing are available to meet most

business needs.

One is the Public Cloud. Public cloud applications, storage, and

other resources are made available to the general public by a

service provider. These services are free or offered on a pay-

per-use model with access only available through the Internet.

Another is the Community Cloud. The Community Cloud shares

infrastructure between several organizations from a specific

community with common concerns. They are managed internally or

by a third-party. The costs are spread over fewer users than a

public cloud (but more than a private cloud), so only some of

the cost savings potential of cloud computing are realized.

The Hybrid Cloud is a composition of two or more clouds

(private, community or public) that remain unique entities but

are bound together, offering the benefits of multiple models. By

utilizing "hybrid cloud" architecture, companies and individuals

are able to obtain local usability without dependency on

Internet connectivity. Hybrid cloud architecture requires both

on-premises resources and off-site (remote) server-based cloud

infrastructure.

Finally there is the Private Cloud. It is cloud infrastructure

operated solely for a single organization, whether managed

internally or by a third-party. It is hosted internally or

externally. Undertaking a private cloud project requires a

significant level and degree of engagement to virtualize the

business environment. When it is done right, it can have a

positive impact on a business, but every one of the steps in the

project raises security issues that must be addressed in order

to avoid serious vulnerabilities.

While the cloud has some benefits for email, marketing campaign

tools (such as e-newsletters), Customer Relationship Management

Systems (CRM) and office applications, maintaining an entire

network in the cloud is still cost-prohibitive.

Based on today's pricing structures a more efficient option is

for a small to medium-sized business to purchase their own

hardware and have it co-located at a data center or on the

premises of the company.

The concept of virtualization (one physical computer with many

virtual servers running on it), would provide a cost savings if

a company were to build out the infrastructure themselves.

Purchasing virtual servers from a large corporation like Amazon

is still a more expensive offering.

Regardless of which direction a business chooses they must be

managed by skilled engineers.

For smaller companies establishing or maintaining a relationship

with an IT or Managed Network Services firm is appropriate to

analyze and recommend which facets of the cloud are appropriate

for their needs.

In addition the IT firm can oversee cloud functions and provide

day-to-day technology assistance such as 24 x 7 remote support,

unlimited on-site support, a help desk, and even a Virtual CIO.

Larger organizations can take advantage of the tech firm's team

of engineers and utilize their knowledge and skill set to assist

with any transition whether it includes complete virtualization

or the development of a Hybrid Cloud model.

While the cloud is well publicized and certainly appealing, it

may not be appropriate nor economical for every organization.

Business owners should consult with a technology professional to

determine if the cloud is a good fit for their business

operations.

Marc Arbesman is a founder and CIO of ThrottleNet, Inc.

ThrottleNet offers an array of technology services and products

to help business owners achieve their corporate goals, while

reducing overhead. This is accomplished through outsourced

Managed Network Services which helps companies improve their

technology uptime and IT capabilities while, at the same time,

reducing costs. The firm offers custom software development and

mobile applications to help companies accelerate their business

growth. For additional information contact ThrottleNet online at

http://www.throttlenet.com or call 866-826-5966

What Is Intranet 2.0?

What Is Intranet 2.0?
By Christa Joe

 

Conventional information sharing within an enterprise was conducted by making use of networks whose scope and access was limited within a specific area only, referred as the Intranet. However, with changing business operations and requirements, organizations are continuously working on adding a "social" layer inside their intranets. This concept of adding social elements inside the existing enterprise network is called as Intranet 2.0.

The term social networks is often confused with this concept, however this is actually not the case. Intranet 2.0 is only a new dimension in the existing concept of intranet with an add-on of a social layer instead of defining it as a whole new concept. Few elements of a corporate network like information, people, business apps are socialized within a limit of acceptance, defined by the organization itself.

Some components of Intranet 2.0 are:

?Socializing Information: With intranet 2.0, users of the network are allowed to conduct an exchange information in the local network to/from the external/internal source. This allows users to choose the section of intranet to display it on a dedicated page and share the external content through the intranet.

?E2E approach: Hierarchical structure for information processing in intranet followed B2E i.e. business to employee approach. This presents all the official documents, directories and citations in one-to-many fashion. With the 2.0 phenomena, the approach has now been elaborated to E2E i.e. employee to employee based connections. This sets up a many-to-many relationship and supports the structured work due to effective information sharing and communication process.

?Social layer in Business tools: It helps to improve the productivity of an employee by identifying a person of help through the business tool, if the employee is stuck with some problem. This allows people to collaboratively refine the processes and workflow in order to achieve higher efficiency.

However, this model on internal network should not be confused with the concept of social networking. Social network allows people from different geographical regions to connect using a common platform while Intranet 2.0 connects the organization and some external elements, with the interaction of users supported in order to fine tune the processes.

An intranet 2.0 concept is actually:

?User-driven
?collaborative
?social
?Activity-centered

...which imparts with the benefits of easier management, improved adaptability in processes and connects people for further enhancement. It provides a better usability of the information among the users by the access to both internal and external data.

Christa Joe is the author of this article. She has been writing articles for various Mobile app development companies like Q3 technologies. Moreover, she has been providing useful content writing material related to iOS Applications.

How to Stay Safe With Cloud Storage

How to Stay Safe With Cloud Storage
By Sarah S Richardson
 

Online file storage is a booming industry with companies such as Dropbox and Carbonite boasting millions of new customers over the past several years. The popularity of cloud storage is no surprise. It is also not surprising that security concerns plague the industry.

With high profile hacking attempts on companies as large as Sony, it is perfectly understandable to wonder if online file storage really is all that safe. The cloud will never be as safe from hackers as locking things in a fireproof safe at the bank, but there are certain precautions that you can take to protect your digital assets.

1. Choose the right provider

The best thing you can do to keep your files safe in the cloud is to choose the right storage provider. Some storage companies simply have better records for safety than others.

For example, Dropbox has suffered from several major security breaches over the years. SpiderOak, on the other hand, has maintained a perfect record for safety over that time.

There are two things to look for in a storage provider. First, look for a zero-knowledge backup provider. Zero-knowledge backup means that the company keeps such strict security standards that not even employees of the company can get into your data.

The second thing to look for is encryption. Make sure that your file storage provider encrypts files before transmission and during transmission. Modern encryption methods are unbreakable by even the most powerful computers.

Both Backblaze and SpiderOak meet these security standards. Backblaze is designed as an unlimited backup provider, while SpiderOak is designed as a file syncing tool. You can took a look at either website to determine which storage provider best fits your needs.

2. Encrypt before you upload

No matter who you choose for cloud storage, you'll have to place a little trust in them. Even if they promise the best security standards in the world, you still have to trust that what they say is true. If you have particularly sensitive information and you don't want to take even the smallest risk, you can encrypt your files yourself before you upload them.

It's actually not all that hard to encrypt files on your own. All you have to do is head over to TrueCrypt.org and download the free software. The website also has simple tutorials that show you, step by step, how to encrypt folders and files using TrueCrypt.

By encrypting files yourself at home, you know for a fact that those files have been fully encrypted. Additionally, you are the only person with the encryption key. Even if the government orders your storage provider to hand over all your information, the only thing they would get is a bunch of encrypted gibberish.

3. Back Up Your Backups

No matter how many security precautions you take, there is always a little risk in storing things online. Hurricanes can wipe out data centers and hackers can shut down large swaths of the internet. For that reason, I recommend keeping more than one backup on hand.

You can store one set of backups in the cloud and one set on an external hard drive at home. The odds of anything happening to both backups are very low. This provides maximum security without costing an arm and a leg.

Sara Richardson is a regular contributor to an online file storage website. She writes about online backup, computer security and privacy in the digital age.

An Agile Leap of Faith

An Agile Leap of Faith
By Jeff M Nall

 

For me the hardest part of moving from a waterfall to an Agile environment has been the "What are they doing in there, anyway?" factor.

In a waterfall environment I received requirements documents that I translated into technical documentation that were in turn translated into time estimates. There were meetings. Lots of meetings. Everyone signed off on everything after reviewing the documentation. Only after that process, which sometimes spanned months, did we start coding anything. After the code was written, it was reviewed and then shipped off to a QA division for testing. I recall this process taking well over 6 months on more than one occasion before a single line of code was written.

In Agile, most of that takes place in a span of about ten working days. That span is called a Sprint.

The design work is largely done during an all-day Sprint Planning session on the first day of the Sprint. The customer drives the product through Sprint Reviews ten days later where they have the opportunity to actually use working software and tell you if you got it right. Nothing is presented to the customer until it meets the teams Sprint Definition of Done; no smoke and mirrors allowed. Documentation is still important but the emphasis is very much on working software.

All of the requirements documentation, technical specifications, code reviews, testing and high performance means absolutely nothing if your code isn't what the customer wants. Consequently the Agile team works directly with the customer in two week increments to help ensure they're programming something with a high ROI.

So. I said all of that to write about the "leap of faith" in the title post.

There's pride-of-ownership that develops on an Agile team that I've never seen form between people in a waterfall environment. I've worked with many, many talented developers who very much take pride in what they're working on (and come up with some of the greatest ideas I've seen) but they might be working next to someone who doesn't care-and in the end they both suffer the consequences vis-a-vis the product performance in the market place.

In Agile, everyone on a team is responsible for the code the team produces and it shows. The trick is taking that leap of faith and letting the team work through issues themselves and help foster pride-of-ownership. How? Don't direct the team to solve an issue a particular way because you become the person who's blamed when your way causes the project to fail. Conversely, if the project succeeds the team can't take credit for actually solving a problem because you told them how to do it. You lose either way. You have to learn not to care so much about how they're doing something, only that the team is producing working software in a volume you, and more importantly the customer, is happy with.

All Agile teams will get to things done a different way. Sure, they're all going to be following the basic rules-standups, storyboards, sprint reviews, etc. but each team will develop it's own culture; what works for one team won't work for all of them.

Give the team the tools they need to get the job done and get out of the way.

How Businesses Can Drive Value From The Cloud?

How Businesses Can Drive Value From The Cloud?
By Jasmine E Brown

 

There has been lot of discussion and debates related to Cloud Computing and what it possibly has to offer to users. It provides the ability to re-structure your IT systems and make your processes more stream-lined. By implementing cloud solutions for your business needs you could get great value in return.

You can utilize cloud to derive numerous benefits and increase your business performance. The benefits you get from the cloud include but are not limited to these:

Helps Save Cost

A major advantage attached to cloud platform is that it eliminates the need to own your personal hardware thereby reducing your initial investment in equipments and infrastructure. All your storage is done on the cloud provider's hardware. You make use of the cloud services for your software and hardware needs and simply pay for the service. This results in huge cost savings for your business. As there is no on-premise hardware the need to carry out regular maintenance also doesn't arise. Since you save lot of cost you can pass on the savings to your customers in the form of reduced prices or you can as well increase your bottom-line and please your investors.

Improves Productivity

Yes, you heard that right. It does help make your workforce more efficient. With the rising influence of trends like BYOD employees are relying more on their personal devices to perform certain tasks. Since the cloud makes your data available to you anywhere over the internet your employees can access data from anywhere on their devices and carrying out work without wasting any time and they do not have to reach to their workstations any more for accessing any files. So they do more work more quickly and in a much efficient manner.

Better Management

With the help of various ERP systems available over the SaaS cloud platform you can make use of these to better manage you business functions. There are various HR and Financial software's which allow organizations to carry out important tasks in a cost-effective manner. Making use of these for your business operations would allow you to better manage organization and achieve your objectives.

Time Savings

As there is no hardware to maintain there is lot of time saving. In addition to this, the communication of various heads can be done over video conferences or emails saving everyone the trouble to attend meetings every now and then. This gives them more time which can be utilized for focusing on more important business functions.

Cloud Computing has tremendous potential. It can deliver enormous value to businesses in terms of cost savings and increased revenue. It makes businesses more agile allowing them to provide better services to its customers. This in turn makes your business more competitive and efficient.

Digital Maps And Overlayed Geographical Data

Digital Maps And Overlayed Geographical Data
By Graham J Baylis

 

We all know that computers have changed our lives for ever and today due to their influence we experience the world of maps in a totally different way to the way we did before. Long gone (for most) is the paper OS Map, you know the one that you can never ever fold up once you have unfurled it. No today we use our GPS, smartphones, PC's or tablets to view maps.

These maps are not however anything like the ones we have been used too. They had a bit of information, like where the pubs were (PH) or the phone boxes, but beyond that the 'useful' information was more likely to include a spot height than anything else. If you wanted to find a place to eat you would have to cross reference to the Yellow Pages or a local phone directory. But not any more, these days maps can be overlayed with just about any set of data you want, from restaurants to flood plain data, all at a touch of a button.

Of course the items shown from device to device does vary, for instance the Points Of Interest on a Tom Tom are going to be travel and leisure related, but in some cases, like the way that Google Maps work, different types of data can be overlayed as wanted.

But what if you want an unusual data set, say land use or conservation areas, or maybe the catchment area for a school, all of which is vital stuff for people? Here you need the services of a digital mapping company, one that has access to the maps that the Ordnance Survey produce and lots of data that they have collected (or have access too) so that they can overlay the information for you.

The name for the tool set that produces such services is a Geographical Information System, which as you can perhaps tell uses Maps (the geographical part) with Information (the data part) using computers (the system part). This sort of technology is not cheap or simple, so only a few major players are out there, but rest assured, if you need to have maps, maps overlayed with data, you will be able to get them.

However, perhaps the greatest change in the use of maps is how they are being used along with aerial photography, Google's 'Google Earth' perhaps being one of the most splendid examples today. Google Earth allows you to go just about anywhere these days, and with the advent of their Liquid Galaxy system, they have 'upped the ante' once more.

The Liquid Galaxy system consists of up to eight large LCD/LED screens all surrounding the user who is armed with a joy stick. This allows the user to perform a sort of 3 dimensional flight, enabling them to zoom down close the Earth, as well as to climb high and get a real birds eye view. I am told that it is so realistic that you could get travel sick!

I have no idea as to what will be coming next in the combined world of maps and computers, but you can be sure that it is going to be interesting!

Interested in the fascinating world of mapping? If so you must check out www.promap.co.uk this demonstrating the way that modern digital mapping is changing how we see the world today. Using computer technology, information can now be overlayed onto maps making planning and other decisions far easier. See just how this could help you and your business.