The Time is NOW for Virtualization

By Blake Britton – VP, Axxys Technologies

As we continue to look forward at the IT landscape, virtualization is a rapidly growing trend in our business. Here are a few reasons we are encouraging some of our clients to move to a virtual server environment for their infrastructures:

Maximize Resources

Can you imagine hiring someone with the intent of using 10% - 20% of their potential? This is what seems to happen when a client purchases a new server for their business. Server hardware is incredibly powerful with Quad Core processors and the low cost of memory these days; however, it is challenging to utilize the resources to their full potential because of operating system and software limitations. By implementing virtual software such as VMware ESXi (FREE) you are able to create multiple servers each with their allotted piece of the processor and memory "pie". This will allow you to create multiple environments where hardware resources are fully utilized per server for each role. I know you think this may be creating too many servers but this is simply needed in a lot of environments so applications and processes can be run at their full potential.

Faster Server Provisioning

When you build a virtual server environment you have the ability to build your servers to be flexible. Flexibility allows you to access and run a virtual server at any time to take over operations of a downed server should the need arise. For example, if your file/print server goes down and you have it backed up, under the right circumstances, you can migrate from the backup or rebuild your file/print server to a virtual server using the tools provided from VMware. This eliminates the need to wait on new hardware and provides you the ability to immediately work on the solution for the downed server.

Reduce Your Server and Carbon Footprints

By using virtualization technology you can still have the right amount of servers needed to operate your business efficiently.  If you are moving to a datacenter environment, having less servers means you need less "real estate" to house those servers. It also provides you with the ability to lower your power and cooling requirements since you are running less physical equipment. This allows all businesses to think and act "green' without compromising your business productivity while saving money on location housing and electricity.  There are many other reasons to begin building your virtualization strategy, but the keyword here is STRATEGY. You are moving to a new model when thinking of technology so it is important to plan this migration out so your business can achieve the greatest value possible. Consult with us on your strategy.

As your business becomes more server intensive, virtualization is the best way to defray the costs because it allows you to maximize your hardware utilization and improve your efficiencey of deployment.  Call TeamLogic IT at 650-204-3150 and ask us how to get started.  We are industry leaders in virtualization and high availability.

5 Steps to Create and Execute a Technology Plan

by Courtney Kaufman
Marketing Manager of Accent Computer Solutions, Inc.

As an owner or business executive have you ever contemplated your business objectives and come to realize that your technology is in the way of your plans?

Have you had a great idea about improving business operations or productivity and found out that you just don’t have the right computer systems, or that it will cost a ton of money to upgrade? Would you like to know what the new trends are and how they could benefit you?

Technology planning helps answer the above questions and many more that you may not think to ask. The primary goal of a technology plan is to support your business plan objectives and to keep productivity and compliance issues front and center. Here are the five steps in creating and executing a Technology Plan.

HAVE A VISION

This is where your mindset needs to be on the vision for your company as a whole.

First, picture the business as you want it to be, paying no mind to technology – just the business. Out of this exercise will come ideas of how your business should perform as a whole.

Do you see what you want your staff to be able to do, what roadblocks or bottlenecks you want to be eliminated, what job function you would like to see automated, etc.?

Thinking about it this way takes the actual technology (hardware, software, etc.) out of the picture and gives you an infinite number of possibilities to get where you want to go. This will give you a better idea of what you need to do.

EVALUATE WHAT YOU HAVE


Now get together with your IT provider or your CTO (Chief Technology Officer) and draw out exactly what systems you have. This should be a visual representation of your systems and processes. The document should provide comprehensive details regarding the systems, versions, Internet Service Providers, security, and risk related to hardware and software age, as well as compliance with regulations.

MAP YOUR ROUTE

There may be many ways to get to your planned destination. Technology changes rapidly, but that gives you options you may not have had even just last year. Considerations for which path you should take need to include your budget, your risk tolerance, legal compliance, anticipated company growth or contraction, and necessity for change.

This is where your CTO or IT provider will present you with all of the technology options for how your business can get from your current position to your vision.

BUILD THE PLAN

Building your plan is a simple matter of understanding the goal and putting budgets and dates together to execute the plan. A solid technical architect is required to design and compile the appropriate solutions that meet your expectations. The design process should include a hybrid of all technical options available.

START THE JOURNEY

The actual execution of a technology plan can be challenging to say the least, but it should not be so frustrating that you wish you had not started the process. A good technical team will be able to make the transition relatively painless.

How is your business running?.... be honest.  Are there things you wish you could be doing that you can't today because of limitations in your compurter and networking systems?  At TeamLogic IT, we work with you to understand your goals, suggest options for achieving these goals and help you implement your business objectives in a phased approach.  Call us today at 650-204-3150 for a free consultation and an evaluation of your current system.

Takeing the worry out of your technology

10 Ways to Improve Your Business' Facebook Security

Brought to you by the Cisco Innovators Program - used with permission


Small businesses are a growing fan base for Facebook.

Seventy percent of U.S. local small businesses interested in online marketing now use Facebook for marketing, up from 50 percent one year ago, according to a February report by MerchantCircle. Many businesses consider Facebook their best friend for low-cost brand marketing. Some also enable shopping on their pages, using Storefront, Payvment, or another ecommerce application.

A Cybercriminal Fan Club
Facebook is also a favorite of Internet criminals, says the Cisco 2010 Annual Security Report. It's a big target, with more than 500 million active users. Even CEO Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook account was recently hacked. Facebook does offer its account administrators some privacy tools; it also provides general security tips. The risks to Facebook visitors are widely publicized—the dangers lie in what links people click, what invitations they accept, and what private information they enter.

The risks to Facebook business accounts are not as obvious.

Security Risks to a Business
Security breaches of a company's Facebook account can expose the business's confidential information, violate its privacy contracts with users, erode customer confidence, and damage its brand. The security risks most likely for a business Facebook account include:

►Malware that infects the administrator's account. Intrusion may be accomplished by password cracking, phishing, or an insecure Internet connection, and can enable a hacker to take over the administrator's account.
►Malware that infects the advertisements or other links on a Facebook page.
►Misuse of information in visitors' postings by the business's account administrator or other employees.
►Employee posts that leak confidential business information.

There's no magic bullet that will protect your account. Just as you protect your business network by integrating a variety of security technologies, you need several strategies to protect your business's Facebook account.

Following are general best practices and 10 specific tips.

Post and Enforce Your Usage and Privacy Policies
Help protect users from themselves.

1. State on your Facebook pages your policies on visitors' use and the privacy they can expect for their posts and clicks.
2. Monitor visitors' activity. Enforce your policies. Include links on your pages to report spam, scams, and other inappropriate activity.

Strengthen Account Administration
This is the linchpin for protecting social media pages.

3. Assign at least two administrators (admins) for your account. The admins should continually monitor and promptly respond to new Facebook policy changes and features, always considering the impact on the business.
4. Use an Internet firewall with web threat protection, such as Cisco ProtectLink Web, to authenticate admin access by IP address, and to disallow ads with malware.
5. Enable the Facebook security feature that will alert you whenever an admin accesses your account.
6. Select strong admin passwords and update them at least every three to six months.
7. Require that remote access to your Facebook account by admins be done in a VPN session. Alternatively, Facebook offers a security setting that allows connections via HTTPS. Admins may also use Facebook's one-time password feature to receive a temporary password on their mobile phone, which can be useful for remotely accessing the account from a nonsecured device.
8. Regularly review the admins' activity, and remove inactive or unnecessary admins.

Educate and Enlist Employees
Unfortunately, employees do—intentionally or inadvertently—share confidential business information.

9. Create, update, communicate, and enforce a company use policy that specifies Facebook do's and don'ts, including how employees may interact with visitors and use visitors' information.
10. Encourage employees to report information that has been incorrectly shared, or when they think that there may be a security issue.

Whether you are securing your Facebook presence or dealing with compliance issues, TeamLogic IT can help you protect your business from the bad guys.  From virus and malware protection to our Managed Security Service, we offer a suite of security services that will let you rest assured that your business is safe.  For a free consultation, please contact us at 650-204-3150.

Computer and Networking Services from Experts you can Trust. 



How Much Does Computer Downtime Cost Your Company?

Businesses collectively lose more than 127 million person-hours annually -- an average of 545 person-hours per company -- in employee productivity due to IT downtime, according to a survey sponsored by CA Technologies. This loss is equivalent to 63,500 people being unable to work for an entire year. The survey of 2,000 organizations in North America and Europe also found that IT outages are frequent and lengthy -- substantially damaging companies' reputations, staff morale and customer loyalty. Despite this, 56% of organizations in North America and 30% in Europe don't have a formal and comprehensive disaster recovery policy.


Here's how the math works. The survey found that each business suffers an average of 14 hours of downtime per year, during which employees are only able to work at 63% of their usual productivity. After systems are back up and running, organizations lose an average of nine additional hours per year to the time it takes to recover data. During these times, employee productivity only climbs to 70%.

There's another set of metrics here too, which the survey examined. 50% of organizations said IT outages damage their reputation. 18% described the impact on their reputation as "very damaging." 44% of respondents also believe IT downtime damages staff morale, and 35% said it can adversely impact customer loyalty. 87% of businesses indicated that failure to recover data would be damaging to the business. 23% said this would be "disastrous."

"Avoiding IT downtime--and the resulting quantifiable costs in terms of lost hours and dollars--is absolutely critical to the performance of our business," said Zachary Slavin, IT director at Sobel Affiliates, a brokerage firm within Brown & Brown, the seventh largest independent insurance intermediary organization in the world. "Since calculating that a single hour of IT downtime results in 80 lost person-hours of work and more than $3,000 in costs, Sobel is carefully and proactively managing our business continuity strategy."

CA Technologies believes that organizations can avoid productivity losses by improving their data protection strategies and accelerating data recovery.

"There are a variety of practical and affordable steps organizations can take to protect themselves against the adverse business impact of IT outages," said Steve Fairbanks, vice president of product management, Data Management, CA Technologies. "Given that these outages are a fact of life--and that some of the consequences of outages can be irreversible--investments in improved business continuity are extremely worthwhile."

The survey was conducted by an independent research firm, Coleman Parkes. All interviews were undertaken during November 2010. The survey was based on a total of 200 online interviews amongst CIOs/IT Directors/IT Managers and a small proportion of COOs/Operations Directors across an even split of small (50-499 employees), medium (500-999 employees) and large (1000+ employees) companies.

If you would like to get a handle on computer downtime to protect your business and make it more productive, give us a call at 650-204-3150.  Our Business Continuity and Managed Services will give you the piece of mind that your data is safe, your systems are running well and your company is operating at peak performance.  Isn't your business worth that?

Taking the worry out of your technology...

To Our Friends and Neighbors

Can you believe that it’s June? We’re already into the sixth month of 2011; the first half of this year is nearly over. Throughout the first half of 2011 we have seen far too many storms and disasters strike areas of our country, often in cities where storms of this magnitude do not usually occur. Is your data safe from disaster? Too often we don’t think about keeping our data safe from a disaster until it’s too late.

Sure, there are services that may be able to recover your files from a hard drive or server that has been through a storm or other disaster, but there is also the chance that they may not be able to recover anything. You should consider if your business might be losing money when your network is down, your employees that don’t have access to necessary information and customers who are not able to do business with you for a period of time. If your network is down, is it important that you be back up and running in minutes or hours rather than days?

Portable media has been the default storage medium for many businesses for some time. Because it is quickly becoming outdated and an expensive method for safeguarding important data, it is essential to secure critical business assets with an easy-to-use, automated online backup service.

At TeamLogic IT, our backup, archiving and recovery service is a powerful, yet simple to use solution that comes with encryption backup tools previously available only to Fortune 500 companies. Your files are available the moment you need them, even down to a particular email that you might need to recover. You can rest assured that our online backup is a compliance-ready digital archiving solution. Each backup can be set to run at a schedule and any frequency that works best for you. Call us today to discuss a solution that will fit the specific needs of your business.

Jon Simms
President and CEO
TeamLogic IT of  Mountain View, CA
650-204-3150

A Different Look At Cyber Crime...

OK folks, I would have never thought of this one!  When I think of cyber crime I think of all of the bad things that happen every day where peoples bank accounts are hacked by phishing, credit card information is stollen using trojans or websites are brought down by denial of service attacks.  Here is a news video about a different type of cyber crime.... go ahead, click on those cupcakes to watch it :-)

If you are concerned that your website might be a target for cupcake receipes, give us a call at 650-204-3150.  Our managed security service keeps the bad guys out and your website and company data safe.  Let TeamLogic IT take the worry out of who is lurking in your network.

Building A Small Business Network: The Basics

used with permission from Cisco

A small business network isn't just about making contacts and exchanging business cards at trade shows. In today's global economy, a small business network is about reducing your operating costs. It's about reacting quickly to changing markets and customer needs. It's about being prepared for the future.

A small business network begins with a secure and reliable data network foundation that's fast and accessible. Here are seven ways that a small business network can transform your company:

1. Work Anywhere

A small business network uses a host of technologies such as virtual private networks (VPNs) that enable mobile employees and teleworkers to work securely at home, on the road, or at customers' offices. They have full, secure, remote access to your phone system, data network, customer database, and any other tools they need to be productive. It's almost like they're in the office.

2. Access Customer Data Wherever, Whenever
With a secure small business network, you can input, update, and view information about customers in a database. You can access that database using a computer, phone, or handheld device. Having constant, secure access to customer information helps workers better serve customers. And satisfied customers often result in increased revenues.

3. Be Prepared for the Future
Designing a secure, flexible small business network allows you to easily, cost-effectively add new applications, such as voice and video, when needed. Your business will be better positioned to keep ahead of competitors and offer new services to customers, both of which help your business grow.

Adding voice and wireless to your secure small business network provides additional benefits:

4. Streamline Network Management

Combining voice, data, and other applications on one network simplifies network installation and management. And a single network requires less physical square footage, which helps maximize expensive office space.

5. Communicate More Effectively
A secure voice and data network foundation lets you check email, voicemail, and faxes from one inbox. A single phone number will ring simultaneously on multiple devices, preventing callers from landing in voicemail. Employees can hold impromptu meetings online with colleagues, partners, suppliers, and customers. With enhanced communications, your company can more easily expand globally.

6. Reduce Costs
Consolidating all your communications onto a single network saves companies an average of 46% in network costs, according to market research firm IDC.

7. Use Your Phone as a Computer—and Your Computer as a Phone

Having one secure network for voice, data, and wireless can give your business benefits not possible before. Your employees can roam the sales floor, warehouse, office, or campus with their phones, so they're never out of touch. They can use their wireless phones to look up customer data, access the company directory, get stock quotes, and perform other tasks. When traveling, employees can use laptops to make and receive calls using your company's full phone system—just as they would if they were in the office.

At TeamLogic IT, we understand the tremendous value that a well designed network can add to any company.  Whether you are looking to secure your network from outside intrusion, access customer data remotely, add wireless roaming to your current office, upgrade to a VoIP phone system or need more throughput for video applications, we can help you.  Call us today at 650-204-3150 for a free consultation.

Taking the worry out of your technology