Transitioning to the cloud is a major IT decision but also a choice that your managed IT services provider should be able to help you make. Due to the cloud’s versatile functionality, a migration can be done slowly, in small parts, or, conversely, all at once. The driving force behind cloud migration is defined primarily by a company’s organizational and strategic goals.
If your company is not ready to fully plunge into the cloud (don’t worry, you’re not alone), consider transitioning email software or simple applications first. This will allow you to explore many of the cloud’s valuable features without jumping in head first.
However, there are several factors that that will help to indicate cloud migration readiness:
Financial objectives: The cloud has flexible pricing models and offers price scaling. You will find yourself saving significantly on hardware and maintenance as the cloud requires less third-party support.
Increased agility and collaboration: The cloud offers increased agility for more complex systems with a variety of user control features. For example, resources can be easily expanded or reduced without moving sites to other servers. Increased functionality of the cloud also allows many users to share networks while promoting efficiency with secure company-wide interactivity.
System overhaul: A migration to the cloud would be sensible when other contracts and services begin to expire. In addition, when physical hardware or software begins to malfunction or needs replacement, it would be cost-effective to provide a long-term solution by investing in the cloud at that time.
As stated above, a migration to the cloud might be time-sensitive and incorporated as an essential strategy to your business but, in most cases, this decision should take some thought and be discussed with a trusted IT advisor.
In 2011 and, for the first time, global sales of smartphones surpassed the sales of personal computers.
Any smartphone user needs to be aware of all the powerful information that their device holds: financial account information, personal and work-related email, sensitive data and even online shopping account information, to name a few.
A good managed IT services provider will ask this question: If your smartphone were to fall into the wrong hands, have you taken the necessary steps to protect it?
Confident Technologies, Inc. has released a survey revealing that more than half of smartphone users do not use passwords to lock their devices or to secure any of its applications. Today, more than ever, smartphone users need to be aware of security concerns in order to better protect themselves.
Some of the data collected by the same survey exposed specific areas in which unprotected users might be affected by most:
- 50 percent of respondents use banking, financial or stock trading apps
- 35 percent have applications connected to online shopping or auction accounts
- 77 percent said they use social networking applications such as Facebook or LinkedIn
- 97 percent reported that they have email applications running on their mobile device
Remember, always safeguard your smartphone with a password, install security software and make yourself aware of what information is being captured by third-party applications or mobile websites. Most smartphone software allows you to wipe the contents of a stolen phone – make sure these settings are installed.
Check out this white paper to learn more about selecting the best password for your smartphone and other mobile devices.
While the security breaches involving Yahoo and Sony have reflected important flaws in technology today, they have also overshadowed a recent hacking phenomenon using videoconferencing - a communication tool extremely susceptible to prying ears and spying eyes.
Companies have always been worried about data security and its transmission through computers, phones and email but recent probing by Rapid 7, a Boston-based data network and security firm, urges these same companies to make videoconferencing software and security a top concern.
Videoconferencing has become increasingly popular due to its efficiency and cost effectiveness. Equipped with hi-def video and an audio system that can relay sounds from some 30 feet away, most systems are focused primarily on the user experience - not security. According to one CDW report, it is expected that 75% of companies will use some form of videoconferencing by 2013.
Highlighted in a January column from the New York Times, HD Moore, chief security officer at Rapid7, has successfully hacked into dozens of boardrooms and conference centers through serious (and preventable) loopholes in videoconferencing software. He also claims to have landed himself smack dab in the middle of the Goldman Sachs boardroom – with the ability to hear and see everything. Imagine that.
One popular short cut is placing the videoconferencing system outside firewalls which allows calls to come and go without any sort of complex network configuration. It is recommended that some form of “gatekeeper” is installed to securely connect calls from outside the firewall, a step that is too often skipped. Another flaw allows a hacker to access the address book from an open system and dial into the conference rooms of other companies.
Are you and your company protected? Don’t wait until it’s too late to address this growing issue. Find out more about data security NY.
Recently, an information and data breach affected 24 million Zappos.com customers. The online retail giant let its customers know through an email alert explaining that a ‘network intrusion’ led to the theft of names, addresses, email addresses, the last 4 digits on credit cards and, most importantly, passwords. Fortunately, passwords were encrypted; however, Zappos still expired all customer passwords and recommended that duplicate passwords on other websites be changed immediately.
An event like this further demonstrates the importance of choosing a complex password and never reusing the same password. There are ample programs and software that have the ability to break seemingly difficult and encrypted passwords. Additionally, a wealth of other information including name and address make for a much more sophisticated attack in which passwords can be figured out with ease. In 2011, hackers stole 29 billion, globally.
Remember these important guidelines when selecting a password:
- Use at least seven characters; the more characters, the better (as long as you can remember them).
- Intersperse punctuation marks or certain symbols such as #, $, %, etc.
- Always use a mixture of upper and lowercase characters.
- Select a unique password. Do not use a password that you are using for some other purpose, such as your bank PIN or your password to another system.
The Federal Trade Commission estimates that as many as 9 million people have their identities stolen every year. Don’t let that happen to your customer.
You might find this article in the Stamford Advocate interesting. .xxx is a big topic for the new year, as well as a major part of web management, one we think is worth paying attention to. As managed service providers we are proactive in helping our customers avoid problems.
If you think your name is at risk, or you have concerns about how this might affect your business, take a look at this article. http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/default/article/IT-firm-says-new-xxx-puts-company-websites-at-2433579.php
While there has been a lot of buzz in the media about the “cloud” and “cloud computing”, I often find that ordinary business people (as opposed to the “geeks” and more technical folks) are a bit confused about what it is, why they should care about it, and how it can help them in business. In a brief presentation to the White Plains BCA Business Development Group this week, I tried to end some of the confusion. Here are my notes from that talk.
1. The “cloud computing” concept is not new.
Before it was “cloud” we called it “on demand”, before that “utility computing”, before that “network centric computing”, and way back we called it “time-sharing”. The term "cloud" was first used in the 1970’s (some sources will say 1960’s).
2. “Cloud” is a marketing term, used for almost anything accessible over the Internet
And every vendor defines their “cloud” solution in a way that they think helps them the most.
3. Three reasons why “cloud computing” is important.
- Over the past 5-7 years, there has been an explosion of new services available that can produce reliability and productivity gains for organizations of all sizes.
- While this has been happening, the cost of these services is being driven lower and lower (both by technology innovations and market competition).
- And many more services are being developed every day. Forrester estimates the cloud market to be $40B market in 2011 and grow to $240B by 2020, representing a 20% YOY growth rate.
4. (I think I skipped this one)
5. Five key elements of a cloud solution
This is my definition of “cloud”, one that speaks to the business—not technical—aspects of the solution:
- Use it over the internet (or wi-fi, or 3G)
- No (or low) upfront capital costs
- Use the provider’s infrastructure
- Maintained by the provider
- Easily add or remove users (or increase or decrease storage, etc.)
6. Six reasons to care—the benefits
Basically, less work, lower cost, higher reliability and security, for example:
Use on internet = access from office, home, hotel
No upfront capital cost = preserve capital budget
Use provider’s infrastructure = nothing for us to buy, build, or maintain
Easily add/remove users = pay only for what we use
Better reliability than an in-house solution at a similar price point (usually!)
Better fail-over/recovery (again, usually, see next item)
7. Seven dirty secrets about the cloud—things to watch out for and investigate
I believe businesses need to “check out” their cloud service providers. Larger organizations conduct formal risk assessments of their providers. Smaller organizations need to take some basic steps, like:
- Privacy Policy (read it, and make sure you’re comfortable with it)
- Terms of Service (ditto)
- Acceptable Use Policy (ditto)
- Security (understand what the provider is committing to offer, and what your responsibilities might be)
- Availability/Reliability (ditto)
- Failover/Disaster Recovery (ditto)
- Termination—what happens when you want to leave
8. Eight great cloud services to investigate, for almost any organization
- E-mail & Calendars
- E-mail continuity
- File sharing & collaboration
- Offsite Backup and Disaster Recovery
- Desktop & server management & monitoring
- CRM
- Accounting
- Virtual Desktops
Take a look at our infographic
http://www.pragmatix.com/2011-technology-trends.html it is amazing how much change took place in one year...we can only imagine what 2012 will have in store for us. Pragmatix offers the best trends to be seen in the new year.
Remember when debit and credit cards were a thing of the future? Google is currently working on making them a thing of the past with Google Wallet, a free application for their Android operating system. This app allows your phone to function as your wallet. Google has put a lot of thought into this effort, which is projected to be a routine method of payment within the next three years.
Google has taken several important steps in securing and safe-guarding the information stored on Google Wallet.
- Google Wallet requires that a pin number is entered before each transaction - think of it as a debit card and a good first step in limiting access to an unwanted user. For more information on selecting the best password, check out our helpful infographic.
- Google Wallet stores payment info in a special chip called Secure Element which is isolated from the phone’s main operating system and only accessible by Google Wallet.
- Google Wallet cannot read or write data, an important system feature to ensure that information is safe within the application.
- Google Wallet allows users to add/remove credit cards in the settings menu. If you decide to embark on that annual vacation and only plan on using one credit card (or none!), why not just remove the others and play it safe?
With more advanced mobile devices, the traditional wallet is set for departure and Google Wallet is determined to make that happen. This should be interesting to watch as it unfolds.
The adult entertainment industry now has a new home. The .xxx domain name was recently made available for identifying websites with pornographic content on the internet.
This poses a serious risk to companies hoping to maintain and preserve the integrity and credibility of their brand. What if a Google search yielded both your company and a pornographic website with the same name? What kind of association would your potential visitors make?
Not a good one, that’s for sure.
If you’re worried about this, there is one thing to do: register your company’s .xxx domain name before someone else does. This is the only way to keep it clean and safe from abuse.
Despite criticism, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has noted several favorable features regarding their recent legislation. The .xxx extension will help to create a clearer distinction among the purposes behind domain extensions. In addition, this will make it easier to keep underage browsers away from adult materials.
In the end, however, we are advising our clients that the cost of registering an .xxx domain extension is negligible when compared to the long-term effects that a compromised brand may feel.
Check out Pragmatix public service announcement for more information on this topic: http://www.prweb.com/releases/pragmatix-it-outsourcing/domain-protection/prweb8964426.htm
We know…we know…”patches” and “software updates” can be annoying and seem time consuming. That’s why over 1/3 of people don’t bother installing them, according to PCWorld. But, they are a necessary evil to proactively manage your IT and keep your computer as protected as possible.
Microsoft users have coined the second Tuesday of each month as “Patch Tuesday” because it is the day that Microsoft releases all of its patches or security updates accumulated from the previous month.
Why do Patches matter?
Patches are important for a number of reasons. They keep your computer and software as up-to-date as possible and fix any current or potential bugs in your system. Patches also help to limit and prevent malicious attacks, maintain stability, and increase overall uptime.
However, sometimes the patches themselves can present unintended inconveniences like inability to access-or causing problems with--certain older programs. At Pragmatix, we test patches in-house before installing them on our client’s computers to mitigate any potential problems. This is a big investment of time, energy and money for us, but that goes to show just how important we believe it is!