Technology In Balance

Business Computer Support 101: Virus Protection

noreply@blogger.com (FULCRA Technology) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 04:04:00 +0000

While there is no agreement on the exact cost of computer viruses each year, all authorities agreed that the annual business impact of viruses exceeds one billion dollars. A computer virus can effectively shut down an entire computer network in a manner of seconds. Recovering from such an infestation can take hours or even days and generally includes extensive data loss. With 70 to 100 new viruses appearing each day, it is imperative that your business take steps to prevent virus infestations.

Most computer users are familiar with Symantec’s Norton Antivirus and McAfee’s Antivirus. These are the leading providers of home virus protection. Chances are your PC came with one of these suites. However, each must have its subscription maintained to ensure that the latest virus definitions are available. Monitoring a small office to ensure that each subscription is paid can quickly become a logistical nightmare. To avoid this, consider a site license with a single renewal date and complete coverage.

FULCRA Technology provides enterprise anti virus software as part of its comprehensive IT solution.

Evaluating a Business Technology Service Provider

noreply@blogger.com (FULCRA Technology) — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 04:40:00 +0000

One of the most important investments a company makes is in its business technology. Just as important is a business's selection of a technology service provider to support that technology.

One does not have to look far to find a list of self-proclaimed IT experts offering their services to business in the greater Seattle area. Craigslist.org and search engines return hundreds of thousands of results for "Seattle business computer support" (287,000 on Google alone). Open the yellow pages to computer services and one is greeted with page after page of listings. How can business manager be expected to select a qualified supplier?

1. Check for basic qualifications. Anyone can build a web page and claim to provide cheap computer support. The ability to remotely access your systems does not indicate advanced computer skills or proper training. You do not want someone working on your critical systems without experience and training. Ask your provider if they posses any common industry certifications include the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) and Cisco Certified Network Administrator (CCNA). Beware of technicians advertising A+ or MCSP certifications. These certifications require little knowledge of computers and are significantly less difficult to obtain than either the CCNA or MCSE certification. Remember, your business is not an experiment.

2. Communication skills count. Many entrepreneurs offering computer support are former network administrators, system administrators, and routing experts. These individuals are infinitely qualified to work on your technical systems. However, because they have likely worked and communicated only with fellow technicians, they can often fail to communicate technical needs in layman's terms. Example: I can tell you that A) "IP address on the NIC had an incorrect subnet and wasn't configured for DHCP" or B) "The server wasn't reachable because the network connection on the server had been tampered with." While the first answer is the most technically correct, the second tells you what the problem was, what caused the problem, and allows us to have an informed conversation about how we can prevent this in the future. Without that critical information, relationships can become strained and important opportunities can go neglected.

3. You get what you pay for. While FULCRA Technology prides itself on offering businesses unlimited support at a low monthly fee, our prices are supported by sound business principals. Our consistent monthly fee allows us to keep top notch technicians on staff and fully utilized preventing problems. This eliminates the revenue fluctuation that hourly contractors experience and allows us to provide our customers with a much lower price point. Be cautions of contractors offering extremely low hourly rates. The industry standard for hourly support in the Seattle area is between $100 and $180 an hour depending on experience. A senior network administrator in the Seattle area makes $60k-$70k a year as an employee with full benefits.

Securing your network: "Firewalls"

noreply@blogger.com (FULCRA Technology) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 04:55:00 +0000

Networks are commonplace in small businesses. Vulnerabilities in these networks are also common. While there are many expensive products on the market aimed at targeting specific vulnerabilities, most small businesses can find network security by implementing a simple firewall and locking down wireless networks.

The leading desktop operating system, Microsoft Windows, ships standard with a software firewall. Other quality software firewalls are available for free on the internet. However, all software firewalls have one weakness. They can only interpret and regulate information which has reached the computer. While this is enough to thwart common hack attempts and weak viruses, the fact that the computer must listen to all traffic directed to it means that a clever hacker or virus can bypass the security software and attack the PC.

The solution for the software firewall vulnerability is a hardware firewall. Hardware firewalls can be configured to prevent all unauthorized network traffic from reaching the network. Hardware firewalls are the gatekeeper of a network. While there are dedicated firewall hardware products, most small businesses can be well served by a simple router.

A low grade firewall, also known as a router, can be purchase at any electronics store for around $100. While medium size companies should seriously consider investing in a dedicated firewall, these low end routers are sufficient for most small businesses with less than ten computers. Setup of a router is not overly complicated. However, if the concepts of IP addressing and DHCP make you uncomfortable, consider paying someone else to perform the installation. It should take less than an hour and is well worth the investment.

News FULCRA is Reading: How to Tap IT's Hidden Potential

noreply@blogger.com (FULCRA Technology) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 01:05:00 +0000

There was an excellent article today in the Wall Street Journal about the need to have a larger technology vision in any company. In this article, the authors make the point that a business must, "Hire a IT leader who sees the big picture." IT is an integral part of how business is conducted and a company, large or small, must have a leader who understands technology and the position of the business. It is no longer enough to simply string together several computers, set up a file server, and call it good.

Large businesses solve this problem by hiring a CIO who has years of business and technology experience. FULCRA Technology offers the same business conscious, technology leadership for smaller companies. Where hourly service companies focus on adding new features or simply fixing existing ones, we focus on providing the solutions your company needs based on its current business position. If you have questions about your business's technology position, call or e-mail today for a free consultation. There is no obligation, and we would love to help you plan your businesses successful IT future.

Using hosted storage effectively: Replacing the file server

noreply@blogger.com (FULCRA Technology) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 04:30:00 +0000

Most networks, regardless of size, have a file server. File servers provide a central point of data access and are generally regarded as necessary by IT professionals. File server have several benefits:

Central storage. Everyone knows where to go to get an important file.
Central backup. Data can be backed up at one location, reducing the risk of lost information.
Central access control. For those networks without domains, a file server is a single location to track file access passwords at.

Unfortunately for small businesses, file servers also come with several liabilities that should not be ignored:

Central data loss. If the server dies the data is gone. Assuming you have a backup, it can take a full day to recover all your files.
Authentication issues. Unless your server is in a domain and has strict NTFS permissions in place, passwords expire regularly and any user can gain access to sensitive files with little effort. We have seen more than one instance in which the CEO's personal files were protected by nothing more than a threat of termination. We have also seen situations where files that were supposedly "locked down" were accessible to all users due to NTFS inheritance.
Cost of ownership. Servers are expensive to maintain, administer, upgrade, and repair. An average server can cost over $2000 a year in service and maintenance alone.

Until recent years there were not many options available to small business when it came robust file storage. Now, with the maturing of hosted solutions, small businesses can receive the same degree of security, access control, and availability as large companies.

Hosted storage combines all the advantages of a file server (central storage, account management) with the advantages of internet accessibility (remote access) and eliminates the need for backups. Restricting user access to important files is easy and accessing shared space is as simple as opening a drive on your computer. Best of all, you can access important files over a secure, encrypted, channel from any internet location. Have you ever left a presentation on your desktop computer at the office? With hosted storage you can connect to your file server, retrieve that important file, and begin the presentation.

FULCRA Technology's hosted storage solutions are operated from world class data centers across the US with automatic backups and cutting edge fire, earthquake, and flood protection. For more information or to schedule a demonstration, contact our sales representatives at sales@fulcra.com

Business IT Support. Hourly v Flat Rate

noreply@blogger.com (FULCRA Technology) — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 01:49:00 +0000

The concept that business computer support can be effectively marketed and supported on a flat rate model rather than an hourly fee model is something of a new idea. For many years now, large businesses have relied on in house experts while small businesses have been forced to settle for high priced hourly support. In this article we will compare the pros and cons of both of the hourly model and the flat rate model. At the end of this article you will be able to determine which business IT support solution fits your company.

Hourly support has been around since the beginning of the PC. While rates have skyrocketed in recent years, especially in the Seattle area, the concept has remained the same. A small business establishes a relationship with an IT professional and then contacts that individual when an IT system requires support.

Pros:

A business pay only for the support it requires. If the businesses computers run great one month they will not pay anything.
A business establishes a relationship with one technician who knows their systems.

Cons:

A business pays 3-6 times the rate for an hour of support as if the business were employing the person for that hour as an employee. ($36 an hour for an employee compared with $100-$200 an hour for a consultant)
Most hourly IT support businesses are one man shows. If the owner goes on vacation, is busy, or falls ill clients are forced to look for a new technician.
When a businesses IT systems really have a bad day (Think network outage, virus, server failure), the business can pay thousands of dollars in IT support costs. Risk rests with the business.
Hourly providers only make money fixing computers or installing new technology. They do not share a common vision of problem free systems and a controlled IT budget.

Flat rate business computer support is a much newer concept. The idea behind flat rate support is that by standardizing and hosting high risk components (backups, e-mail, virus and spyware scans) reliability can be improved and support costs can be reduced. This provides small businesses with comprehensive outsourced IT at a very reasonable rate.

Pros:

IT costs are low and predictable. Cost for an hour of support is similar to what a large company would pay for an hour of its IT techs time.
Flat rate support providers generally have multiple employees. This ensures that clients always have support and expertise in the area they require.
When a business's IT systems fail catastrophically there are no surprise support costs for the additional work required.
Flate rate service providers want business systems to be stable and predictable. They do not get paid to fix failed experiments on critical systems.
Risk lies with the support provider.

Cons:

Flat rate support providers charge a flat rate each month. If a business experiences computer difficulties less than once a year, flat rate support is basically a break-even proposition when compared with hourly support.

FULCRA Technology is built on the flat rate support model. We provide businesses with unlimited support for a flat fee. This model saves our clients money each year and provides peace of mind and predictability. When a business knows exactly how much to budget for IT support each month, it is then free to focus on investing in its core competency. IT needs support to operate; flat rate support gives business that support without the high price tag. For a free consultation and to see how much we can save your business give us a call today.

Oil and Water Part 2. Microsoft Small Busines Server

noreply@blogger.com (FULCRA Technology) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 04:49:00 +0000

A couple years ago Microsoft began to realize that servers were not affordable for small business. (For more on why servers don't work for small business see posting: Oil and Water? The Small Business Server Myth) The result of this realization was Microsoft Small Business Server (Also Windows Small Business Server)

As early as 1997 Microsoft began catering single-server software combinations to small business with the release of BackOffice Small Business Server 4.0 in which it combined SQL server (database), Exchange Server (e-mail), and a proxy server (firewall). Now, ten years later, we have Small Business Server 2003 (SBS 2003). Is this server a good idea for small business?

The 2003 release of SBS combines SharePoint, Exchange, a firewall, a domain controller, file server, DHCP server, remote access, and DNS server all in one box. For only a couple thousand dollars a small business can secure functionality that would otherwise require several servers. The problem comes in the configuration, support, and creation of a single point of failure.

Configuring a SBS is complicated. Because there are so many different technologies interacting on the same machine small mistakes in setting one technology can adversely affect another technology on the same machine. Imagine working on configuring a domain for security and inadvertently tripping your e-mail off line. Think of it as trying to solve a Rubik Cube with your eyes closed. Hit and miss at best. As a result, all small business servers that we have encountered, without exception, have either been incorrectly configured by their owner or set up by a professional. That professional generally costs nearly as much as the software.

So what if a SBS costs a decent amount to configure and get running? After all, you are saving thousands right? Unfortunately that isn't the case. More important than cost is the fact that installation of a SBS creates a single point of failure and exploitation. A business that fully utilizes a small business server will have its e-mail, important files, and security management all stored on the machine that serves as the gateway to the internet. That means that any traffic sent to your network must pass through that server. If a hacker manages to crack the security surrounding that SBS she will have immediate access to critical information that typically would be stored on another secure server at a different location on the network. How much is your business's identity worth? Customer list? Finance records? Priceless.

Disregarding the risk of data loss and security compromise as a result of a hack, a SBS, at best, creates a single point of failure. If the SBS fails, files become unreachable, company e-mail is offline, internet connections fail to function, and server driven applications (CRM systems, patient scheduling, equipment availability monitors, etc.) become unusable. A failure of a SBS is truly an event that brings a company to a standstill. Worse, it can take the better part of a day to fully restore a SBS. There are ways to mitigate this, but that requires the purchase of...you guessed it: More servers! It just does not work the way it should.

FULCRA Technology recommends that users avoid using SBS where possible. Utilize hosted solutions for e-mail, file backup, and remote access. Use appliances as printer servers. Use a single server, if necessary, to store files on and ensure that server is backed up. You will have access to the same resources, you will pay roughly the same, and you will avoid creating a single point of catastrophic failure. If your business already depends on Small Business Server then consider the following low cost actions to reduce your risk:

Purchase a hardware firewall and configure it between your SBS and the internet. This will put a real firewall between your data and would be hackers.
Host e-mail off site. Exchange server is inherently difficult to manage. All it takes is one spammer sending mail through your server to bet your mail server blocked. Once that happens it can take months to restore full e-mail functionality. For fewer than 50 accounts it absolutely makes sense to host e-mail off site. If your SBS fails you can always access your e-mail from the web.
Have a backup plan in place to redirect internet communication to the router from step 1. This will ensure your employees can still communicate on the internet if the SBS fails.
Backup important data. Regardless of the server your company runs, backups are mandatory. We at FULCRA Technology believe that online backups are the best solution as data is always accessible and there is no question of failure of the backup media. If you back up to tapes, CDs, or flash drives make sure you routinely test your backups to ensure they work. (Tech Republic has an excellent article on this that points out the pitfalls that many small businesses fall into when backing up data.)

Small Business Server offers small business an enticing offer. Five years ago it might have been worth looking into. With the maturing of hosted solutions and software as a service it simply is not the best choice for small business.

Oil and Water? The Small Business Server Myth

noreply@blogger.com (FULCRA Technology) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 04:58:00 +0000

Microsoft has been at it for a while now. They have attempted to convince us that the server belongs in not only the big business IT server farm but also in the small business IT closet. At first glance it seems like a logical position. After all, server technologies generally improve communication, protect important data, and provide security that desktop PCs can not. The only problem is that small business can not afford the servers, licensing, and maintenance costs. A basic network requires one server. Want to add an e-mail server? How about a printer server? Need remote access? Those all require another server. A single server can cost over $2000 a year in upkeep and licensing alone. Add in rapid depreciation and servers are unfordable to small business.

We were once called in to consult for a company that found itself being "served to death" by the cost if its servers. This company had about 30 employees, two small offices, and six servers. These servers had cost the company over $15,000 in support alone that year. This was over seven years ago and at that time there were no alternatives. We were forced to throttle back their IT systems, implement fundamental networking technologies, and in the process somewhat limited their capabilities. However, the new system was infinitely more stable and affordable. This was a textbook case of IT outgrowing the company.

Most small businesses have coped with the cost of servers by implementing only a basic file server, generally without a domain, in the process passing up the benefits of other server technologies. Until recently this was the only viable solution. Now there is a new option: Hosted IT solutions. While a single small business can not afford an Exchange Server or automated, off-site storage, every small business can afford hosted solutions that scale to match the client business's needs. FULCRA Technology is the industry leader in the Seattle area for hosted IT solutions.

How it works: FULCRA Technology, installs and configures state of the art servers in or secure hosting environment with climate controls, water-free fire suppressants, and advanced security systems. These servers are then loaded with enterprise software such as Microsoft Exchange and file backup solutions. We configure multiple accounts on these servers with encrypted file storage and access rights such that each user has a separate working environment. This keeps one user from accessing another user's files or e-mail system. We then sell access to these accounts at a low monthly fee. Our technicians monitor these servers 24x7 to ensure that they are always available, secure, and fully functional.

What is the difference in cost between hosted and traditional server solutions? FULCRA Technology can provide your business with full Exchange Server functionality, online backups, anti-virus software, unlimited desktop support, and more for an average savings of between 50% and 70% when compared with a traditional solution.

Why IT Support Costs So Much

noreply@blogger.com (FULCRA Technology) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 02:07:00 +0000

Here in the south Seattle area, a single hour of professional IT support costs between $100 and $200. Since the average business computer requires six hours of support per year, a business with 35 PCs can expect to pay between $21,000 and $41,000 in support costs alone. The reason for this is quite simple: Computer's do not fail predictably.

Independent IT consultants depend on your computer and network failures to stay in business. Because computer failures aren't predictable, these consultants are forced to charge exorbitant rates to cover their down time. When your business pays for an hour of IT support, it is paying for 2-3 hours of downtime for that consultant. But, what other options do small businesses have? Hiring a full time expert costs between $90,000 and $110,000 a year. This leaves small business without any alternative but to turn to high price IT consultants.

FULCRA Technology was founded to provide smaller businesses (less than 200 employees) with reasonably priced, expert, IT support. The same company with 35 computers that paid $41,000 a year in premium IT support can receive unlimited support, premium Exchange Server accounts, automated online backup, full virus protection, routine maintenance, and full spyware protection with proactive security audits from FULCRA for only $25,200 a year. Want to find out more? Call or e-mail us today. Let us show you how small business is experiencing big business technology without the cost.