The US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) posted an excellent article on Cryptoware and how to avoid it.   You can find the advisory here:

https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA14-295A

 

We forward US-CERT alerts to our clients who subscribe to our mailing list.  If you aren’t on our mailing list, you can sign up here.

 

GEEKNOTE:  I’ve been quiet recently about our new corporate offerings, mostly because all of us have been very busy. Here is a sample of the stuff we’ve been up to:

We have three new small business server offerings:

• Micro – Measuring just a tad over 4″ x 4″, this wall mounted server can handle a small business with minimal needs.  Prices start at $2495.
• Mini – A toaster size system with 4TB of RAID 5 protected storage and Windows Server Essentials.  Prices starting under $4000.
• Conventional 2U rackmount server with up to 2 4-12 core CPUs, up to 784gb of memory, and up to 11TB of solid state RAID 5 storage.  Prices starting under $7000 (and going WAY up).

Suffice it to say, we have a hardware solution for you no matter how large your business.

We have been working overtime on multiple server and workstation virtualization projects.    If you would like the security of having a “warm spare” server in the cloud in case your server goes down, we should talk.  Likewise, if you would like to move as much of your server and desktop work to the cloud we should talk.

We now have multiple backup options available for our clients.  These include both on-site, off-site (cloud), and hybrid solutions.

We are adding some new monitoring features to our managed IT service.   They are allowing us to keep even tighter tabs on the machines we are supporting.  This is becoming increasingly important as more and more of our business clients are recognizing the value of having us take over full management of their networks and proactively solve issues before they become problems.

Last, but certainly not least, we have enhanced our website support offerings:

• Domain hosting – We handle your domain registration so you can safely ignore the letters and emails from people trying to trick you into buying services you don’t need or hijacking your site.
• Website hosting – We host a wide range of websites, from simple single page business card sites to complex WordPress sites.
• WordPress instruction and website design – Whether you need a little help setting up your self managed site or want someone to just do the whole job for you, we can help.
• WordPress update and backup service – No need to worry about whether or not your website has the latest patches.  We also do regular backups for you.

 

 

 

GEEKNOTE:  Computer / network support has historically been provided on a “break / fix” basis.  Something breaks and the IT support company is called in to fix the problem.

A more modern approach is to enter into a managed IT service agreement where the IT support company monitors all of the computers in the network on a proactive basis.  While a managed IT service contract may appear at first blush to be more expensive than simply fixing things when they break, it is generally more cost effective when you consider the lost productivity associated with computer or network downtime.

As part of Gulfcoast Networking’s managed IT agreements, we install a monitoring system that gives us real time reports on each client’s network.

I see dozens of alerts from our monitoring system each day.  Most of them are informational and easy to deal with.  The more significant ones provide early warnings of impending problems and we’ve been able to proactively solve quite a few problems, including replacing sick hard drives, without significant down time for our clients.

The choice between break / fix and managed service approaches to IT is best described by the auto mechanic in my networking group “You can schedule maintenance, but you can’t schedule repairs.”
Rob Marlowe, Senior Geek

 

GEEKNOTE:  We picked up a new fully managed client the first of the month.  It is one of several clients that are somewhere in the onboarding process.  In this particular case, we got the signed contract before doing a complete network analysis, but we should have that done within the next couple of days.

Generally speaking, the first thing we do is perform the network analysis so that both we and the client know exactly what they have.  The assessment often identifies issues that need to be resolved, such as rogue software running on their computers or other issues that need to be addressed asap.  The network analysis is presented in book form and is typically between 1/2″ and 1″ thick!  It provides all the detail your insurance agent is going to need if you ever have to file a claim for damage to your network.

The next thing we do is sit down with the client and go over our findings and make our recommendations, including both hardware & software needs and a plan for managing their network going forward.

It is generally only then we get the contract to manage the client’s network.

With router and other passwords, we can do most of our work on a remote basis, but new managed clients always require a significant amount of on-site time to sort through whatever issues have been causing the client pain before we arrived.  We are dealing with one “odd” issue involving three of the new client’s computers.  I’ve got a solution that will be easy to implement next week when I drop by with the bound copy of their network analysis.  In the mean time, I’m watching those three machines closely with our remote support tools and making sure they stay up.

The good news for both us and the client is that the emergency on-site visits become less common as time goes by.

Another client, who has been with us for a couple of years now, commented a few months back at how he couldn’t have imagined how everything could run this smooth.  That is the way it is supposed to be.  We actually dropped by his place last week to do some experimenting to try to tease out the cause of a network issue we spotted with our monitoring system.  We’ll fix it and then let him know we’ve solved a problem he didn’t even realize he had.

The questions that most business owners need to ask themselves are “How much time am I spending dealing with computer / network issues instead of making money?” and “How much is computer downtime costing me?”

If they ask these two questions, a surprising number of business owners will realize that contracting with us to deal with their computer issues will actually save them money and make their employees more productive.

Does this sound interesting?  Give us a call at (727) 847-2424 and we’ll set up an appointment to sit down with you and see if a managed IT solution from Gulfcoast Networking makes sense for your company.

 

GEEKNOTE:  I’m often asked by customers if they should do local backups or back up everything to the cloud.  My answer is usually “yes”.

Local backups are typically fast and don’t cost you much once you make the initial investment in a backup device.  If you lose a file, you can quickly restore it from the backup.  You can even use “offline” backups for stuff you don’t need to reference often, removing them from your computer’s hard drive and freeing up space.

Examples of this would be to back up all of your photos, scans, etc by burning them to DVDs.    With a fast scanner, you can even scan all of your paper records and then shred the originals, freeing up valuable file cabinet space.  We keep a year or two of original paper records and then we scan them.  The odds are very low that we will ever need the scanned documents, but they are there if we need them.

The downside is that local backup solutions frequently require you to do something to make the backups happen.  This is probably the biggest downside of local backups.

Cloud backups typically involve a program running in the background that ships a copy of your data off site to a cloud storage facility.  There is nothing magical about cloud storage.  It is simply a data center somewhere that holds a copy of your data.

Security of your data is not an issue.  Can they be hacked?  Like everything else on the Internet, the answer is “yes”, but cloud storage providers take security seriously and generally provide better physical security for your data than you do yourself.

You’ve probably seen advertisements by a company called Carbonite for their personal cloud backup solutions.  They also have server products.

In our opinion, the “best” solution is some combination of local and cloud backup solutions.  There are a number of these solutions on the market.  One we’ve had success with is the Barracuda Backup Server by Barracuda Networks.  It automatically copies your data to a dedicated backup server on your network and then ships the data off site at night when you aren’t using your Internet connection for other things.

Give us a call if you would like to talk about your options.