Tag

cloud services columbus Archives - thinkCSC

Security Concerns Will Drive IT Security Spending Over $100 Billion by 2020

By | BDR, Business, Data Security, Email Security, Managed IT Services

IT security spending is on the rise. For many years, organizations have argued that security budgets are already stretched to the max and that there is no more room for increased security. With costly security breaches impacting governments, social media platforms, the IRS, and more small and mid-size businesses than we can count, the investment in security suddenly seems like the least expensive option.

IT Security vs. Security Breach

Whether you increase your spending on IT security or simply find a better way to spend your budget, one thing is certain: what you spend on IT security is a predictable, planned cost that doesn’t send your shareholders into a panic, doesn’t make your customers question their loyalty, and doesn’t put you out of business. A security breach, on the other hand, can result in fines, lawsuits, costly recovery, and a loss of customers.

If your organization has decided to increase IT security, how do you make sure you’re getting the most out of your investment? We recommend focusing on these areas:

Email Security

Email is still one of the most popular ways for hackers to penetrate your security, because all it takes is one email on one employee’s system compelling them to open an attachment or click on a link to create a breach that will affect your entire IT infrastructure. People will always be the weakest link in security. Sender policy framework protocols, hosted email exchange services, and ongoing employee training are all essential. Download our email security guide to help your employees think before they click.

Endpoint Security

Every device that touches your network needs to be secure, whether it’s an employee-owned cell phone, vendor equipment, or a field tech’s laptop. It is crucial to identify every remote device that might potentially connect to your network; have a way to both detect that connection, protect that connection, and eliminate the connection if needed. Endpoint security is the solution.

Threat Detection

Enterprise threat detection uses predictive analytics on a powerful and global scale to recognize and block threats before they happen. Rather than relying on end users to determine the safety of a file or a site, it uses intelligence to stop threats by preventing malware-infected devices from connecting and by blocking phishing sites.

Backup and Data Recovery

Unless you want to be permanently locked out of your data or forced to pay a ransom to restore access, having an offsite backup and recovery service is essential. The email security, endpoint security, and threat detection efforts you implement will prevent many of the ransomware attempts from getting through, but all it takes is one employee clicking on one link in one email that sneaks through to create havoc.

IT Security Investing Keeps Your Organization Safe

Effective network security that keeps your IT environment efficient and stable is about applying layers. The initial layer is a solid backup and recovery solution, protected by an antivirus solution, and then guarded by a firewall. Enterprise threat detection, email security, and endpoint security are the shields that head off attacks on your business before they happen. It’s more than peace of mind: It’s good business sense.

At thinkCSC, we believe that in order to achieve maximum success, regardless of the size or type of organization, you must make IT an integral part of your overall business strategy and partner with IT professionals who not only understand how to leverage technology to your advantage but who are also committed to understanding your business goals and aligning your IT strategy to them. We pride ourselves on having the best business-savvy technical experts in the industry. If you would like to learn how to create an IT security strategy aligned with your organizational goalscontact thinkCSC for more information.

Take a Page from the Boy Scouts Be Prepared

By | Cloud Services

file0001376930592

There are a lot of factors that go into making a successful business, but the number-one factor is having the ability to remain open and operational despite any disruptions. Keeping your business operational so that you can serve your customers – providing that business continuity – would be simple if not for the what-ifs. And it’s because of the what-ifs that the Boy Scout’s motto, Be Prepared, will serve you well.

  • What if there is an earthquake, tornado, hurricane, or other natural disaster that either destroys your building or makes it impossible for you to work from that location?
  • What if a fire consumes your building, or a flood or water leak makes it unusable for a time?
  • What if a vandal breaks into your building and destroys your equipment?
  • What if, despite your best efforts to prevent such a scenario, an employee opens an unknown email attachment and delivers a virus to your entire network?

Can You Navigate Potential Disruptions?

Your customers can’t afford to care about those catastrophes that may affect your business; if they can’t still be served, they are likely to find somewhere else to go. And being prepared doesn’t just mean readying your business for the big disasters; you may experience the minor inconvenience of a single-day power outage that occurs when a road worker accidentally cuts through a buried utility line. For your organization to succeed despite the “what-ifs,” you need to have a business continuity plan.

  • If your building is destroyed or inaccessible, do you have a location from which you can work and handle customer needs?
  • If your equipment is damaged or infected with a virus, do you have your information backed up offsite that you can access from anywhere?
  • If your network goes down, can your employees continue working by accessing your offsite backup?
  • If the phone lines go down, do you have a plan in place to still receive calls from customers?

Disaster Recovery: Rebuilding After a Crisis

Your business continuity plan is designed to keep you operational in the moments during and after an unplanned disruption has occurred. It may include protocols, such as everyone works from home, or key personnel meet at an alternate worksite to keep the business operational during a disruption. But that can only work if a part of your business continuity plan includes disaster recovery.

Disaster recovery is the rebuilding of your network, system, data, and infrastructure after the disruption is over – and it ensures that you have the data you need to remain operational in the short term. Disaster recovery planning should include:

  • Automated backups of critical files to an offsite location
  • Access to offsite information from any location
  • The ability to work from virtual machines on an alternate server
  • File- and image-based backups
  • System monitoring
  • A team of expert engineers at your disposal to help you recover when the worst happens

Be Prepared

Don’t wait for a catastrophic event to remind you of the importance of being able to continue serving your customers. Having a plan for remaining operational, that includes backing up your data and protecting your files, is critical to plan for before disruptions occur. By the time disaster strikes, it will be too late. Ask thinkCSC to help you develop a disaster recovery plan that keeps your business running in the most difficult situations. Contact us to learn how.

Secure Mobility Is the Key to Productivity

By | Cloud Services | No Comments

file0001376718168There is nothing like a sunny summer day to remind you of why you enjoy the flexibility of being able to manage your business away from the office.

Today’s technologies make it easier to work anywhere, but if you operate a corporate or government entity, it’s not enough to just consider convenience; you have to consider security too.

Having secure, adaptable tools that allow you and your team to work from anywhere can improve productivity, help you attract new talent and ensure that the work of your business is complete, even when the pleasant weather is luring you away from your desk. thinkCSC offers a variety of tools designed to increase your freedom without sacrificing security.

Cloud Services: Anywhere Can Be Your Office

Put mobility in the hands of your team without risking your data. From hosted email that you can access from anywhere and any device to mobile device management that ensures a successful BYOD program, thinkCSC cloud services provide your organization with the necessary protection to let you offer flexible work programs with peace of mind.

VoIP FollowMe: Receive Phone Calls Wherever You Are, Provide Better Service

VoIP is more than just a phone system. thinkCSC’s hosted VoIP is a complete customer service system as well:

  • Assign dial-in codes that put clients in touch with your on-call team.
  • Set up calls so that voicemail is delivered anywhere that is convenient, from your cell phone to your laptop.
  • Maintain consistency across multiple locations, by having a single number with assigned extensions that reach your team members wherever they choose to have the calls delivered.
  • Manage calls and voicemails without sacrificing security.

SyncedTool: Collaborate Securely and Access Documents from Any Device

Most organizations recognize the benefits of using collaboration tools, and Enterprise File Synchronization and Sharing (EFSS) is becoming the norm. Even with the newest updates to Dropbox that allow you to share read-only versions of documents, the risk of relying on such a solution is extremely high. thinkCSC’s  EFSS, SyncedTool, offers enterprise-grade security as a foundation to the document-sharing-and-collaboration solution, and it’s all housed on a private cloud that we manage for you.

Lync:

To take mobility to new heights, thinkCSC has introduced Microsoft Lync to its collaboration offerings. Lync incorporates all of your communication tools and enables you to communicate with your staff over a secure connection from wherever you are.

Don’t stare out your office window and let summer pass you by. Escape and enjoy – and let your staff do the same – without losing productivity or sacrificing security. thinkCSC mobility tools give you the solutions you need to be flexible.

Schools, EdTech, and Budgeting

By | EdTech | No Comments

Making the Most of the EdTech Mandates

school technologyThere are many state-mandated requirements in order to introduce technology into schools for the 2013-2014 school year. While building their budgets, virtually every district is responding to these mandates differently. BYOD (bring your own device), BYOT (bring your own technology) and 1:1 are the most common methods used. Some of the most important considerations regarding the use of devices in schools, however, are largely geared towards the 1:1 wireless scenario.

Is Your Infrastructure Capable of Handling the Devices You Choose?

As these devices – iPads, tablets or laptops – are given to students, schools must determine infrastructure readiness. The physical structure inside the schools, in regards to Internet connectivity bandwidth, must be capable of sustaining all of the devices. There are many elements that go into that.

For example, an increasing number of mobile tablet devices use a larger amount of Internet bandwidth, versus a traditional laptop that uses a local service typically hosted at the school. The more cloud services that are being used, the greater the demand on Internet infrastructure and on the bandwidth that the school district has. When a school chooses to deploy a large number of devices, the process of ensuring that the network is physically capable of providing a reliable and seamless end-user experience is complicated.

Do You Have Enough Bandwidth to Keep Everyone Connected?

Consider the amount of bandwidth necessary for your network; you want to ensure that you have sufficient internal bandwidth to sustain the number of devices you are deploying, as well as enough bandwidth to support your connectivity to the outside world. Essentially, the amount of bandwidth necessary comes down to the applications that you are using on your devices. If students are using iPads or Chromebooks, these cloud-based devices demand a substantially higher external bandwidth, as opposed to those devices that are using a local resource hosted by the school.

Addressing Security and MDM

Some schools provide the devices and let students take them home. By doing so, they then have to determine how they will continue to manage content that comes through the device. Is there still content filtering taking place outside of the school? Mobile device management – or MDM – is another infrastructure readiness issue. Once you have all of the devices, you want to have the capability to easily maintain them.

If you have to deploy application software, you want to be able to do so for a group of devices at a time or all of the devices simultaneously. If you need to filter content, change security preferences or block certain applications because of content, you want to be able to do that quickly, as opposed to one device at a time. If you have MDM in place, that significantly reduces the amount of time it takes for you to deploy, maintain and monitor your devices, at the same time ensuring that the devices are secure.

Saving Money on Device Investment, Warranty and Repair Services

In addition to infrastructure concerns related to bandwidth and connectivity of technology in schools, the cost of purchasing devices and warranties must be considered. School districts often purchase the manufacturer’s warranty and offer additional accidental damage insurance to the students – passing the cost onto the parents – on top of the manufacturer’s warranty. thinkCSC purchases from the same supplier as CDWG, so we can offer highly competitive rates for devices. As well, our warranty is less expensive, and we provide convenient device pick-up, repair and drop-off, thereby saving you time as well as money. In many cases, we can complete repairs on site.

Many district IT departments are capable of deploying technology devices themselves, but CSC can help, either with a particular portion or with the entire process. Our experience with both small and large school districts helps us steer you away from what doesn’t work and focus on what does. thinkCSC looks at the big picture, ensuring device deployments go as smoothly as possible. If you would like more information about our school technology and warranty services, please contact us.

Is Your School Ready for the EdTech It Needs?

By | EdTech | No Comments

schooltechAs a Columbus IT service provider, our goal is to do more than simply provide a one-time solution and then walk away. We want to engage in a partnership to make sure our clients receive the technology, technological support, and security they need in the most economical way. Recently, there has been a huge push to move towards one-to-one technology deployments using iPads and other iOS devices as well as to increase the physical security at schools. EdTech is the future of education. But is your infrastructure ready to handle these changes?

Because we work quite often with people in the education sector, budget constraints are always at the forefront. The struggle for administrators is that while budgets are shrinking, the tech requirements school administrators are being asked to implement keep increasing. And sometimes these devices are being deployed before the infrastructure is ready to handle them. In helping one school prepare for the purchase and deployment of 1700 iPads, we asked the following questions:

  • Do you have enough bandwidth and enough wireless access points?
  • What is the management policy you are implementing?
  • How will you use these devices to deliver curriculum?
  • How will you filter content?

Sometimes the people tasked with deciding whether to adopt these devices may not fully understand the underlying technological requirements for a successful implementation. And since most schools have limited IT staff (if they have any IT staff at all), a Columbus IT service provider can help facilitate the introduction of the technology in a way that is the most cost effective without sacrificing security. From networking to ensuring you have enough bandwidth to handle the connection of that many devices, thinkCSC partners with education providers to overcome challenges like content filtering. Have you considered the complications of filtering content on an iPad? It’s almost impossible to manage if it’s being taken off school grounds. We help schools create workable solutions to these and other infrastructure issues.

Physical Security Goes Digital

By | Cloud Services | No Comments

thinkcsc phys securityWhen you’re talking about physical security, the first thing that might come to mind is the “rent-a-cop” who drives around in his jeep, flashing a light on your building to make sure there are no hooligans hanging around. Of course, we’re not living in an 80s movie, and hooligans have been replaced by high-tech digital criminals. In this technological age, even physical security has become a digital endeavor – and one most businesses should consider, especially if they store valuable or sensitive data. What is digital physical security? Digital physical security covers everything from video surveillance to security systems, key card access systems to IP cameras – and it is the IP camera that is really revolutionizing the physical security industry. There are several advantages to choosing IP cameras over analog.

No Cables Required

Analog video provides composite outputs and requires you to run video cable through the walls between the camera locations and back to either a closed-captioned TV system or a digital video recorder. IP cameras, however, function more like IP phones, where the device uses network traffic instead of an analog signal in order to deliver feed to a network video recorder (NVR). In other words, with an IP camera, you can send the video to a monitor without running a bunch of cable to do it.

Offsite Monitoring Capability

IP camera security offers companies a much more robust system with the power to capture and save data. An IP camera security system allows you to capture the data in order to keep a history of your surveillance. It offers you the the capability of playing back the recorded data, and you can search for specific data if you need to. It can be delivered to an offsite monitor because you can deliver the video over your network and not have it hardwired to a closed-caption system.

High-Quality Video

One of the biggest advantages of the IP camera is the quality of video. You can think of the difference between analog and IP cameras as you would think of the difference between standard definition TV and HDTV. The resolution of an analog camera is D-1. The IP camera has a new H.264 video codec (the video encoder scheme). Commonly seen codecs are mpeg and QuickTime, but the codec for an IP security camera allows the video feed to be compressed in such a way that it does not affect the quality of the video but substantially affects the size. This ability to compress the video without losing quality makes it possible to send that video stream over the internet and over your network without having to use too much of your bandwidth to do it. It is a major evolution in physical security.

Superior Flexibility

The main reason to choose IP camera security instead of analog is flexibility. An analog camera uses a DVR, and DVRs are fixed appliances. It’s no different than the cable service you have at home for your television, which, until recently, required you to have a DVR for each TV – what you stored on the DVR in your living room could not be watched in your bedroom, and vice versa. When it comes to network security, an analog DVR is just like your old cable-box DVR, where you were locked to that one device for recording. There is no way to access one camera system from another device. There might be remote viewing software, but it still is locked to a DVR.

Every analog camera physically has to have a cable run to the back to the DVR system. You might have 30 – 40 cables running to the DVR from all of the analog cameras, and each building would have to have a separate system. Because IP cameras are network devices, instead of running hundreds of feet of cable, we can use switches to plug in the IP camera cables. The camera grabs an IP address just like your computer or VoIP phone would, and you are able to access the network and use NVR software on a server or a virtual server and – and here’s the critical point – access that feed from wherever you are. It makes adding additional IP cameras incredibly easy, and you can add cameras (just like VoIP phones) in a variety of different locations but have them feed back to the same NVR system. Corporate offices can monitor the physical security of their regional branches. The ability to funnel your physical security monitoring from your IP camera over the internet and utilize that network to access your video streams from a remote location is a real game-changer in physical security.

thinkCSC offers a cloud-managed hosted IP camera security service to safely archive and access your video from anywhere. For more information on IP camera security and how thinkCSC can help you, please contact us.

Run Windows on Mac with Virtualization

By | MAC for Business | No Comments

csc_virtualizationVirtualization got its start on the PC side, but did you know the same functionality works with Macs? Running a Windows application on your Mac allows you to access features on a number of products not available to Macs. Parallels Desktop is just one of several solutions available for running Windows on Macintosh hardware. Depending on your business needs, virtualization can open up the best of both Mac and PC worlds in a simple, efficient way.

Setting up virtualization isn’t complicated, but you’ll still need to install Windows with a disk. With this method, you install it in an application – a kind of shell inside of your computer. People with virtualization sometimes have the false impression that they are protected from viruses or that viruses are less prevalent. Virtualized Windows can still get attacked. From the moment you put Windows on your computer, your Windows environment can become infected just as easily as if you were using a PC. When you run Windows on Mac, you also have to do maintenance and software updates on both sides separately.

At thinkCSC, we use Parallels or Fusion to run Windows-only business applications, so we have to keep them open all day. The same goes for Act! contact databases and any number of products that don’t have a Mac client. Another reason to use virtualization on a Mac is that sometimes the Windows version is better. For instance, QuickBooks for Mac has yet to receive feature parity with QuickBooks for PC. Many people prefer to go ahead and run QuickBooks inside their virtual machine (VM), so they get all the features and functionality that the Windows version has.

Boot Camp is another viable, but imperfect, option for running Windows on Mac hardware. Essentially, it entails holding the alt key down to boot off of a Windows CD, installing it directly onto the hard drive. Macs even allow you to partition your drive, so half can be allocated for Mac and the other half can be for PC. To do this, you hold down the alt key and hit ‘Okay’ to boot into either Windows or Mac. The problem with doing this is that Apple doesn’t optimize their Windows driver. The battery in a MacBook would last two hours using Boot Camp, whereas it lasts up to five hours when running virtualization with Windows inside of it.

Companies today don’t operate in cookie-cutter environments; every business needs customization. So,the more versatility available, the better. While the technology for PCs and Macs often runs parallel, performance is not always equal. Virtualization makes it fast and easy to run a Windows application on your Mac whenever you want to.

If you’re wondering whether or not Mac is right for your business, contact thinkCSC today for a free consultation.

Disaster Recovery That Works in the Real World

By | BDR | No Comments

Sometimes the best way to address solutions for business continuity of computer network systems is by example. Picture this recent real-life situation: a local school district learns a back-to-school lesson involving safe storage of vital network data under the secured services of thinkCSC’s disaster recovery software. Fortunately, the lesson had a good outcome.

In this teachable moment, the virtualization software environment operating the school system’s multiple servers ran out of data storage space, essentially crashing all the servers. The data wasn’t actually lost; the servers were just basically offline and inaccessible, creating a major roadblock for teachers, administrators and students to accomplish much of anything. Normally the downtime for restoring multiple-server functionality would be several days. However, the school district had thinkCSC defending its network, and the solution for backup and disaster recovery — commonly known as BDR — was fairly simple.

thinkCSC’s BDR solution, bundled into a rack-mount box that can be conveniently placed in any room, only requires power and a network connection for initial startup. In an emergency situation, one that requires image-based backup and a timely solution to restore business continuity, this BDR system can actually activate incapacitated servers in a virtual environment until the original server platform can be repaired or replaced.

For the school system, it was just a matter of activating and turning on two or three of its 10 servers in what’s called a “virtual boot,” which expedited the backup process in just a few hours without having to engage in full data recovery or restoring, something that usually takes days to complete. Consequently, everyone was up and running in less than a day, without any further interruption to their daily routines; all the while, the more extensive server reconfiguration was being addressed. After all, education must go on!

It is important to note that we offer several levels of backup from which to choose. You can back up only files, and you can also select image-based backup or full BDR. There are certain levels of restoring, too. You can simply restore files and images, or you can choose to restore the entire network. You can also temporarily turn on the system, which mirrors a premiere level of disaster recovery, because you don’t have to wait around for the full restore time to be functional.

From a business continuity angle, here’s another teachable application of BDR. A small business of nearly 20 employees had recently contracted managed services for IT support. A week after installing a BDR system, the company’s one server completely crashed. Prior to that protective installation, though, replacement of the server was recommended, but due to budgetary constraints, the decision was delayed. Nevertheless, the deployment of thinkCSC’s BDR a week earlier safeguarded the company’s data storage in a virtual environment for more than week following the server crash, while new equipment was on order.

Both of these disaster recovery examples point to the importance of having both basic file and image-based backup systems in place 24/7. Equally important, the value of having multiple levels of BDR protection cannot be overstated, either, including off-site data storage solutions. Off-site data replication provides ultimate data protection for clients and serves as valued assurance that data losses will not occur.

VoIP Makes a Virtual Office Work

By | Cloud Services | No Comments

csc_voipAre you still not convinced that you should convert your traditional PBX (multi-line) phone system to a Voice over Internet Protocol system (VoIP)? If your company employs a virtual structure, there are many reasons to make the switch. VoIP easily solves those pesky challenges that often plague virtual businesses.

Connecting Employees Anywhere

Do you have employees who work exclusively from home or in offices scattered across the country? With nationwide distribution, no matter where your offices are or where your employees work, VoIP can connect you. If you currently use PBX, you know that you have to use 800-number dialing hubs for each company location or employee work center. VoIP eliminates the need for that dialing hub.

Phones on the VoIP system are pre-programmed with a server address, and they use the Internet to place calls. No more dialing hubs or phone lines; VoIP just needs a working Internet connection. You can also get creative with VoIP and customize your system. A follow-me service can be extremely useful for those employees that work in multiple offices or travel frequently. VoIP can be programmed so that calls literally follow you where you go. For example, calls to your office phone can ring for one second, and the call is not answered, VoIP will redirect the call and ring your mobile phone.

One-Stop Voicemail

Along with managing multiple offices, employees of virtual businesses are often tasked with managing multiple mail boxes. VoIP allows you to contain all voicemails in a central location. No more checking multiple assigned voicemails on multiple phones or numbers. Again, because VoIP can be programmed specifically for you, your voicemail will go wherever you need it: your email, your home or work office, or your mobile phone.

Who’s Calling Me?

With PBX, you know the frustration of receiving an internal work call and not knowing who it is, because one central number is displayed. The nature of the PBX native-line format can often disrupt Caller-ID functionality, omitting extension or internal caller information on the display. VoIP preserves that caller information, and it can be as detailed as you need it to be. Because you can program VoIP to your own specifications, you can decide the call display and extension information that makes sense to you.

There is one wrinkle in both the PBX and VoIP system Caller-ID set-up: the lack of ability to relay appropriate information to 911. For example, if you have an employee working at home and his Caller-ID information is set-up to display the head office number, calls into 911 from that home office will direct emergency responders to the head office instead of the employee’s home. However, because of the ability to customize VoIP, it is possible to assign a unique number to each virtual office. Another option would be programming your Caller-ID information to display corporate information for outgoing business calls, but local information for calls to 911.

With VoIP, you can let your imagination run wild and customize the office communication system you’ve always dreamed of. If you’ve been thinking about converting to VoIP, the question isn’t “what can it do for my virtual office?” The question is “what can’t VoIP do?”

Call thinkCSC’s sales team to schedule your Technical Needs Assessment today!