Who's Looking Out for Your Network?

Today I want to talk about the importance of using a consistent IT services provider.  Every business out there relies on some type of technology to make their business run, whether it is your phone system or your computer network.

At CMS, we work with a variety of customers both large and small.  Some customers employ their own IT personnel and simply rely on us as a provider of equipment and backup support, while others depend on us fully for managed services, using us as their "offsite IT department".  Regardless of your size and budget, having a local IT company that you consistently work with is important, and here is why.

Knowledge of your Network! 

Working each time with the same company, they will learn your network.  They will be better educated on the layout and design of your network, the applications that your employees use and the security policies in place.  If you're not using the same business to resolve your issues, each problem will cost you in additional time to pay for a learning curve.

 Elimination of Problems Before They Occur

 

Because there is a familiarity with your business and your network, your IT provider can help you eliminate problems before they occur.  They are more capable of seeing a device with declining performance if they are always the ones to work with it.  And as we know, fixing a problem is much quicker at the beginning than it is in the end, which can reduce your down time.

The Trust Relationship

 

Finally, it all comes down to trust.  Your IT provider should understand the nature of your business and only have your best interest at heart.  Your goal is to run your business as efficiently and effectively as possible, and your IT company should be up to the challenge to make that happen.

Sometimes, it may seem like it is salespeople just trying to make a sell, and we understand that getting your network up to standard can be expensive at first. However, we can say that customers who trust us and make the investment are more productive and suffer less downtime.

We encourage you to find a local IT provider in your area that you trust, check out their reputation with other customers, and build a relationship that will strengthen your business.  If you are in the Southeast Texas area and are looking for someone, visit with us and ask us questions.  We are always happy to meet new faces.

The Value of Managed IT Services

So, What is "Managed IT Services"?

We like to call it...your virtual IT department.  Imagine staffing an entire company just to be your IT support, but not having to worry about training, employees calling in sick, or any other issues with an in-house staff.  Managed IT services means that you have access to an entire technology company when you need it, staff who is watching and proactively protecting your business data and network.

Here's How Your Business Can Benefit from Managed Services.

Remote Support - Most managed services providers will offer some type of remote support. Here's your scenario....

It's the end of the month and Sally comes to work to get payroll done. She turns on her computer first thing in the morning, opens an email attachment from a "customer", and sees an alarming pop-up on her screen, warning her that her PC has been infected and to immediately click below to fix her computer.

Instead of clicking, Sally places a quick call to her IT support help desk so that her managed services support can gain remote access to her PC and verify that the popup is indeed part of the virus.  Being trained and familiar with this type of malware, they then properly remove any traces of the malware without the PC getting completely infected and Sally is able to go back to work.

If caught quickly before anything else was loaded into the PC, this call may have only taken 15-30 minutes of her time. Now, there are instances where things are worse and it does take longer, but Sally's issue was resolved without having to schedule an engineer to come out on-site, saving both money and time. After all, productivity in a business is what really matters.

Scheduling Priority - So what if Sally's PC was already infected beforehand. This may prevent IT staff from gaining remote access to her PC, because unfortunately, that is what malware does. Your IT company may offer their managed services customers a scheduling priority. Basically, your emergencies take priority over other minor IT calls from customers who may not subscribe to managed services.

Proactive Network Management - aka..."Stopping threats before they happen."

Monitoring software can help manage your network, notifying staff when your server is no longer connected to the internet or your business network.  They can also receive status updates on possible hardware failures, keeping your network running and preventing problems before they happen.

Let's not forget to include email services that not only block SPAM, but blocks malicious programs that may try to enter your network through a email link or fake attachment.  What if Sally's virus-infected fake email was blocked before entering her email client?  She would have never seen the threat.

Management of your network security through your firewalls, routers, and even your antivirus software can prevent threats from ever entering the playing field as well.

Other benefits of managed services can include:

• Disaster recovery planning & data backup management
• 3rd Party vendor management & assistance
• Software updates and Microsoft patch management 
• and more depending upon your IT company's profile

How many people would you have to staff to take care of everything mentioned above?  

Don't forget, along with salaries, there's employee benefits to include. And the larger your company network is, the larger your IT staff would need to be to properly secure it.  So just maybe using a Managed IT services provider is what your business needs. And if you're not sure, find a local IT company like CMS IP Technologies that is willing to do a free evaluation of your network.

Computer Viruses In The Workplace

Those Pesky Bugs....

Just about every office or workplace environment has experienced virus issues at some point. Sometimes it's a mild one and then sometimes it causes complete desktop or network devastation resulting in hours, days or weeks of downtime and limited productivity.

So What's the Answer?

I've been in the technology business for almost 20 years and some things never change.  There are several things that the industry has been battling for what seems like forever and it doesn't seem to get any better.  Viruses is one of them.  Others are printer repair and network backup solutions - but that's another blog post.  The truth is that there is no definitive answer for completely eliminating viruses.

As a technology company, CMS IP Technologies deals with viruses every day and we spend far too much time on removing them off infected PC's and network servers.  We sometimes have to change or create policies to protect and educate our customers as well as limit our exposure to time consuming tasks that we don't always get to bill for.  For instance, it may literally take 10 man hours (yes!  and sometimes more) to clean an infected PC.  Well, at a conservative average of $100 per hour, that's $1000 to clean a virus from a PC.  There aren't many customers that are just going to pay that without complaining and asking for relief of some sort.  Then, there are the viruses that we clean, or we think we clean, and they pop back up the next day or so and we get to start over again and then the customer feels like they shouldn't have to pay because we should have "fixed it right the first time".  It's really a no win situation.  So at CMS IP Technologies, the approach we take is to educate our customers.  It's a multi-level approach using technology best practices along with policy and usage control of company owned technology.  CMS has a proactive service offering that we call NetWatch, and compliancy is a big part of what we teach and insist upon.

Firewalls:

There has to be a sufficient level of network protection from the outside world such as a firewall from reputable manufacturers such as Cisco and SonicWall.  This is your border and it should not be taken lightly.  Your firewall should be properly configured by a trusted reputable experienced engineer that understands firewall and security best practices.  Buying a Netgear router from Best Buy and just plugging it into your network is not a solid solution and you're simply asking for trouble.

There are many things that need to be considered here.  If your a bank or credit union, you may be required to have an Intrusion Detection and Prevention solution in place.  If your a medical facility there are HIPAA laws that are in place that will need to be taken into consideration.  These are things that an experience network engineer should be familiar with.

Antivirus:

Once you have your firewall in place and your border secured, a stable antivirus solution should be implemented.  CMS in Beaumont Texas uses and recommends Viper.  We have found this to be an effective light weight solution that has minimal impact on the workstations OS environment yet offers quality protection.  Your antivirus solution should be configured to download and direct automatic updates on a daily basis and run a virus scan on all network devices at least once a week.  This should be done after work hours and a policy should be in place that all PC's should stay on during the scheduled time.

Some proactive service providers such as CMS offers this as part of the network monitoring.  In our case the cost to the customer is the same or less than it would be if they just purchased Viper or any other solution such as Symantec out right.  The biggest differences are that we can actively monitor virus activity and are better prepared if we see that a network device may become or has the potential to become compromised.  The other good thing about this is that our customers don't have to worry about their annual subscription running out.  All of that is taken care of by the service provider.

Policies & Procedures:

Last on the list is policy and procedure control.  This is probably the most important part that a company can take to minimize it's exposure to lost productivity to viruses.  Every user in the company should have a copy of the company's policy for use of company technology.  And in that document it should be very clear about usage polices.  Things such as accepted internet usage, personal software usage,  and personal email usage should be addressed.  This is critical!  Some users simply don't realize the impact that going to certain non business websites can have on the network that everyone uses.  Some users assume that they can't get a virus because the company has protection.  That's obviously not true, so you have to educate them and also put policies in place to protect them and the company.

CMS NetWatch clients get a printed Accepted Usage Policy to add to their company employee handbook that educates and outlines the accepted usage policies for the company's technology.  We require that all employee's for that company sign it and we keep a copy on file, otherwise we will not cover viruses as part of the proactive services agreement.

So, protection from viruses takes serious consideration and in summary there are three basics that should be covered.  Firewall border control, Antivirus, and company policies outlining proper use of company owned technology.  There are several other things that can tighten the screws even more, but that's another blog post.  If you questions on the information that I discussed in this blog, visit the CMS website at www.cmsiptech.com.