Ten IT Tips to Protect Your Business

February 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Strong IT practices are essential to the success of any business.  Lacking IT oversight can directly contribute to computer outages, lost data, data thefts, reduced employee productivity and ultimately business losses.  Many organizations struggle with the costs of IT or ignore proper practices until a catastrophic event occurs that threatens the viability of the business.

Break fix service providers, or in-house staff that are not trained IT professionals do not provide the critical oversight necessary to protect the business.  This is a recurring theme we find in many clients that we rescue after there has been a business crippling event.

Many small to mid sized business owners do not become aware of lacking IT practices until there is a crisis.  While risk review and mitigation is frequently thought about for core areas of the business,  information technology it is many times overlooked.  This critical mistake can cost the organization dearly.  Assuming that proper practices are being followed without some sort of due diligence is unwise.  Here are a few tips to help management conduct some oversight of information technology.

1. Identify key company data, segment access on a need to know basis

2. Ensure that proper backups are run on a daily basis and that the data is securely stored

3. Ensure that OS updates are reviewed and applied on a regular basis

4. Apply and update Antivirus software daily

5. Implement software based firewalls that control application behavior on desktops and servers

6. Implement outbound filtering on network layer firewalls

7. Implement a web based email filtering service and  content filtering service for web browsing

8. Restrict the use of personal devices for remote access and remote desktop programs like LogMeIn

9. Monitor the availability, performance and security of your environment ongoing

10. Empower management to perform regular reviews of IT practices  and technical controls

Most important is to have the proper professionals assisting you to manage IT and risk within your business.  Network Management Solutions provides robust solutions, expertise and oversight to protect your business at rates that are below the traditional cost of in-house IT models.  Please contact us for further information.

 

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Management of Hosted Networks and Applications

January 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

You have moved all your critical processing and applications to a hosted facility.  You have designed in all the fault tolerance and backup capabilities that would address any reasonable failure scenario.  Security is tight, the network is fast, latency is at an all time low and the cost of delivery is down. Mission accomplished, time to celebrate, right? Not exactly.

While you have been able to squeeze the design to get maximum performance and keep costs in line with projections you may have missed out on how to maintain that balance ongoing. The cost per square foot of data center space and or computer cycles and storage is at a premium. Your environment is a dynamic one and growth is inevitable.

In being a good steward, it is of critical importance that you can identify how resources are being consumed to keep pace with a growing demand. Unlike when you hosted your own equipment the cost to add a server or expand an application is more readily apparent as it will most likely appear on next months bill. Without performance management and monitoring  you may be lost for answers when management asks for justification.

Availability and performance management ensure that your finger is on the pulse of your infrastructure. Anomalies in usage may point to more than increased traffic to your sight or usage of core applications. There may be ongoing security issues you are unaware of, the latest generation of your new in-house application may be consuming inordinate resources and needs tuning, slow downs may indicate network segmentation is required.

Utilizing a third party Managed Services Provider can deliver significant benefit in managing your resources as well as reducing the cost in technical support staff.  Improved performance, expanded technical expertise, and cost benefits are obtainable with the right provider.  Network Management Solutions can assist in making your transition to hosted facilities an immediate and long-term success.  Please contact us to find out more about how we can help.

 

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Information Technology as a Creative Tool

December 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

You run a graphic arts, music studio, or movie production company.  It is easy to see the correlation between your deliverable and technology.  Without information technology, the applications, computing and networking, your business would not exist in its present form.

At the heart of every thriving company is creativity.  It is creativity that develops, nurtures, and guides the vision for the company.

Steve Jobs the creative visionary of Apple had a passion for being at the intersection of art and technology.  Hewlett, Packard, Gates, and many others successful entrepreneurs realized their vision through the application of technology.

How does technology support the creative vision of your company?

While access to information technology systems and applications has become increasingly abundant to all organizations, many struggle with managing technology for success.  In such cases information technology becomes a necessary evil rather than a business enabler.  This is an immense missed opportunity for the company.

Managed Service Providers can provide a great way for the small to midsize business gain information technology expertise, and the platforms, while optimizing cost performance models.

Network Management Solutions has helped many organizations based in the New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and surrounding regions on a national and international level to design, implement, monitor and manage robust technology infrastructures.

Please contact us to discuss how Network Management Solutions can help support the creativity in your business.

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Failed Security of Smartphones in the Workplace

December 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Smartphones have become prevalent in the workplace both as personal use and business devices. These two functions are distinctly different uses, or should be, and we need to remember that. While I am not advocating that companies establish policies against workers bringing personal use devices into the workplace, many businesses have embraced this, I am strongly suggesting that personal use devices remain just that, personal use devices.

Many companies have stepped across the line and permit personal use devices to become part of the company network. In doing so company information is transmitted and stored on personal devices.  The risks in allowing personal use devices for company business are numerous and potential negative consequences abound  with respect to company communications, intellectual property, regulatory or legal matters, and otherwise.

It is critical that sound information assurance principles are applied to mobile devices and mobile workforce solutions.  It is critical that the organization be able to protect and retrieve its information assets in the case of a lost cell phone, rogue employee, employee termination or otherwise.

While the App Stores for IPhones, Androids, and Blackberrys may seem harmless they pose significant risk to information that is stored and transmitted including sensitive business communications and assets. With personal use devices the owner controls the security, installed application and the permissions to locally stored data including address books, files, email, text messages, and other data.  Additional concerns exist in what application might be vulnerable to hack attacks.

Keep your company data safe, establish the polices understanding what is at risk, and own the device.  For more information contact Network Management Solutions.  Remote managed services, information assurance, systems integration.

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Cloud Computing – Where does it fit within your organization?

November 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

We frequently speak with clients about cloud computing. There is much confusion and varying opinions on what cloud computing is. From our vantage point cloud computing is a marketing term that encompasses a broad array of services.

According to Wikipedia “Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility (like the electricity grid) over a network (typically the Internet).” So how does this affect your organization?

For many cloud computing can range from customer owned hardware and software hosted in a remote service provider data center, service provider virtual machines housing customer applications, turnkey applications hosted in a “private” company intranet, or Internet based turnkey applications that are shared globally among a variety of companies.  In the purest sense of terms Cloud Computing is “Infrastructure as a Service” replacing the need for dedicated hardware, software, and local data centers as the infrastructure moves to the cloud and is hosted by the service provider.

Identifying where cloud computing fits in your organization can provide significant benefit or risks depending the approach and the information your company houses. In addressing the cloud, organizations must consider the potential financial benefits, performance impacts. regulatory requirements, and security risks before moving any initiative forward.

A clear strategy will pay dividends and reward the right approach. Network Management Solutions can assist in the decision process. Please contact us for further information.

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Utilizing Managed Service Providers to Improve IT Cost Models

June 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

All too often the cost of IT is calculated by simple metrics which includes headcount, leases, telco facilities, maintenance and other expenses along with the whatever capital expenditures that may take place during a year. Many organizations never consider the cost of IT from workers being unable to perform their duties or loss of revenue stemming from customer disruptions.

The economy has forced many organizations to cut back on IT resources impacting essential services that enable the company to deliver its goods and services as well as customers to interface with the business. These cutbacks have a serious impact on corporate efficiency, revenue, and company profits and typically go on unmeasured. Left unmeasured this negative impact remains outside the purview of senior management.

Managed service providers are a great way for most organizations to improve service delivery, expand technical resources while improving the cost to deliver critical IT services. MSPs can add depth to any organization by expanding hours of coverage, providing expanded expertise and skills, or freeing internal resources that can be utilized for other critical business functions.

MSPs services are generally the most cost effective way to expand resources while keeping IT costs to a minimum. Many times the benefits obtained from a robust MSP managing IT resources result in overall cost savings to an organization through increased uptime and the careful management and tuning of existing IT resources. MSPs are generally able to deliver such cost savings through the systems, processes, procedures and expert resources that they deploy.

For more information regarding Network Management Solutions services you can reach us at www.nmscorp.com

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What’s Slowing Your Network Down?

May 2, 2011 By 1 Comment

Its a simple question, but do you really know?  Do your IT staff have the time, energy, tools, and expertise to manage response times?  In many small to mid-sized organizations the answer is no and even in many of the the largest of organizations this is true.  Internal staff often have too many high priority demands that get in the way of network monitoring and management functions.  While perhaps in the early stages of a network buildout many small performance dips go unnoticed.  However over time network performance issues unchecked can become show stoppers.

Network slowdowns can originate from a variety of issues and may be indicative of overbooked resources, improper patch management, unwanted user activity, viruses, failing circuits, among many other issues. Without diligent management and monitoring of resources issues that could have been addressed without disruption now manifest themselves as major infrastructure outages. While many organizations may consider outages as part of the day to day, the overall cost to your business and its efficiency may be many times greater then considered and can be avoided.

Managed Service Providers are a great compliment to busy IT staffs providing robust monitoring and management capabilities that help improve service levels, reduce the cost of operations, protect investments the company has made in technology, as well as assist the business in meeting its goals. Network Management Solutions has been helping organization design, implement, monitor and manage their IT assets since 1996.  Please feel free to contact us at http://www.nmscorp.com/contact-nms/ to find out how we can assist your organization in meeting its goals.

 

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Proactive Security Management of Information Technology Assets

February 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The management of security updates, critical server patches, anti-virus software and backup management are critical tasks in the proactive security management of information technology assets.

Unless your organization is proactively managing these critical elements the security of your information is at risk. Server and desktop management must be supported by structured operational plans.  Weekly server updates to patch OS deficiencies, security vulnerabilities or otherwise performance or availability related, need to be applied.  Additionally application updates also need to be applied on a regular basis to ensure the best application performance, availability, and security.    These same actions need to also be administered at the desktop as many security exploits are launched against desktops so proper patch management is critical.

While anti-virus and regular updates are a must some custom viruses operate outside of addressable memory and many go undetected.  It is therefore critical that comprehensive security suites be utilized that identify anomalous network or application activity which may have been a result of defeated anti-virus software.

Another critical activity to mange the security of information is a comprehensive backup management program.  This not only includes a  full and incremental backups but ongoing tape rotation to secure facilities and regular testing to restore data from backup media.  Testing restore capabilities to ensure viable backups will pay many dividends when lost data needs to be recovered.

While information security programs go far beyond these simple practices outlined pragmatic management of security updates, patches, data backup and restore capabilities are a critical component to ensure the security of your data.

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Managed Services for Improved Availability, Performance and Reliability

January 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Managed Services Providers (MSP) enable organizations to focus internal resources on strategic company information technology initiatives while improving the availability, performance and reliability of their IT networks, applications and services.

MSPs can be cost effective sources to help companies improve service levels, reduce costs, improve employee productivity, while improving the management and planning of information technology resources.

In many organizations the proactive monitoring and management of IT networks, servers and applications is limited.  Many organizations take a purely reactive approach to managing technology responding to outages and problems as they occur. Unfortunately this approach has significant impact on a businesses core operations.  With proactive management many potential high impact outages can be eliminated through the use of trending analysis. Trending analysis and monitoring can identify degraded telco facilities, network bottlenecks, application or server consumption issues among other indicators which can be addressed prior to hard outages.

Well managed IT infrastructures ensure that IT investments are protected, applications are delivered on solid platforms, and employee and customer needs provided for. What is the true cost of service disruptions, degraded performance, repetitive problems on your business and its bottom line?  MSPs can provide critical services at a cost below that of many in-house operations and many times at significantly improved service levels.

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Are You Managing Information Technology For Success?

December 28, 2010 By 1 Comment

Is Your Business Managing Information Technology for Success?

Perhaps your first thought is of course we are, or no way!  Well chances are if you are like many organizations the answer is no. While many companies spend significant resources justifying the need for a particular new technology or application, the operational impacts are many times never evaluated.

The new application or technology investment may have been vetted to insure it delivers improved functionality, new customer services, or ROI but unless you are working in a large well organized environment the cost of proactively supporting the ongoing management is rarely adequately considered.  It is assumed that IT will support whatever is implemented.   But what is the true cost to the organization of not implementing proactive managed services?  What is the impact to the organization if services are unavailable?

Many times service levels deteriorate until a crisis develops and it becomes obvious that the company is suffering losses.  Network availability and performance Management are critical to ensure ROI. Performance management of servers, networks, and applications ensure that technology investments are protected and performance requirements monitored.  Network availability monitoring ensure that outages are rapidly diagnosed and problem resolution timelines are kept to a minimum.

Want to protect technology investments, ensure ROI, improve productivity and company profitability? Implement a Managed Service Provider program that proactively monitors Information Technology assets.

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