Yes, this is the age of IT Jargon. It seems that even things we have done for an entire lifetime now have new terminology. We used to “turn off” an electrical device. Now we “power down.” LOL used to mean lots of luck. Now it stand for laughing out loud. So here are some of the more commonly used technology terms that you should know:

Malware

Malware is a term used to identify software that is intended to damage or disable computers and computer systems. This include viruses, which is software designed to keep replicating until it has infected and/or destroyed a network. But viruses are not the only type of malware; any software intended to do harm is malware.

Ransomware

A type of malware that will lock down (encrypt) all or part of a data base until a ransom fee is paid and the “key” to unlocking the system is provided.

Intrusion Protection

Currently the most effective means of protecting a system from malware, it sits inside the firewall and identifies suspicious files before they can cause infection, then shuts it down before it can cause damage. Essentially, it stops the intrusion before it happens.

Crypto Containment

Software that identifies the first instance of encrypted files and quarantines them to prevent the spread of the malware. This keeps the network up and running and makes recovery of encrypted files much quicker.

Social Engineering

Simply put, social engineering is the tricking of people to give up sensitive information using any number of schemes. For cyber thieves, if they can trick you into giving them the information they are looking for, they don’t need to create complicated software programs.

Phishing

A common form of social engineering these days is phishing…they put out the bait and try and hook you. Common occurrences, often called "spear phishing" because they target people and companies directly, include fake emails from banks, insurance companies or the IRS. Just so you know, none of these institutions will ask for sensitive information via an email. Another good piece of advice: if you don't know the sender, don't open it. And more: if you DO know the sender and they are asking for personal information, assume the sender has been hacked and this email is a phishing attack. Just delete it and advise the real owner of the account. He/she may want to alert others on his/her contact list.

Anti-Virus

This software scans your hard drives to find and stop well-known viruses. The key word here is “well-known”.  Sometimes people believe that anti-virus protection is total and complete. It is not. It is only part of the solution. If a virus hits a computer before that virus is identified and added to the anti-virus protection, the software will not stop it. This is known as a…

Zero Day Attack

The most dangerous time to be attacked by malware is before it has been unearthed by cyber security experts. As we said above, anti-virus protection will not work. This is called a Zero Day Attack. This is where Crypto Containment (see above) and Redundant Data (see below) become invaluable.

Patch

As the name implies, this is a fix for vulnerabilities or “holes” a software company discovers within its code. This is important because the bad guys are always out there looking to exploits these gaps, always finding new ones, so be sure to download the updates you receive for your software.

Redundant Data

The reality is that no matter how much protection you have, there is still a chance an attack can get through. Top managed service provider

s have seen as much as an 80% drop in successful attacks over the past year, but some really smart criminals never stop trying to find a way in. When that happens, Redundant Data, another term for backed up data, is vitally important.

The Challenge

Mary Barnes, General Manager of America’s 1st Maintenance in Norcross, GA, was faced with two challenges concerning the company’s IT Infrastructure. First, it was time to replace aging equipment and upgrade the overall system, and, second, as Mary put it, “Anytime there was something wrong with the old system, I had to dig around and try to fix it.” The company needed a managed IT service provider who would take over this responsibility.

The Selection

“DynaSis provided the most comprehensive overview of what they were going to do. They gave us the most detailed quote. You could tell that they had spent the time looking at the way we were operating and laid out a plan out for us so there wouldn’t be surprises along the way. They spent a lot of time talking to our existing software company to confirm system requirements to ensure everything would be done right, before they even knew we would give them business.”

The Solution

It was determined that a new server would be required. To help with the budget, the existing Windows 2008 SQL server would be repurposed as a secondary domain controller, which was an important component missing from the current environment. Because the Windows 2008 license could remain as-is, it again helped the budget and saved A1M from having to buy a separate copy of Windows. Working with America’s 1st Maintenance’s software vendor requirements, DynaSis’s Solutions Architect selected a Dell PowerEdge T630 with 2-CPUs and 64GB RAM. This new server would be implemented as a VMware virtual host so it could run two instances of Windows without the need for a second physical server. The Internet firewall and the network switch were also scheduled for replacement.

The final area of technology that DynaSis addressed for America’s 1st Maintenance was the backup and disaster recovery solution. Prior to the upgrade, the backup was just protecting A1M’s database. DynaSis implemented a Synology Disk Station DS415+ NAS with 8TB storage so that both servers are now fully backed up and, if ever required, can either restore individual files or recover a fully downed server. DynaSis was also selected to provide ongoing IT support and maintenance for America’s 1st Maintenance equipment.

The Result

“I remember thinking through the whole process that this was way easier than I thought,” said, Mary. “We had been putting it off for a long time, because we thought it would be a huge hassle. Had I known upgrading computer systems would be this easy, I would have done it two or three years ago.” When asked how she felt about the results, she replied, “Anytime there was something wrong with the old system, I had to dig around and try to fix it. Now we just put a ticket in and somebody fixes it remotely and I don’t have to worry about it. I would absolutely refer DynaSis.”

While there is no longer any question about the need for I.T. in business today, in many companies there is still the perception that information technology is more of a cost center than a valuable business asset. CFO magazine, in a recent survey, reported that almost 50% of CFOs felt that there was a misalignment between what the business needed from I.T. and what I.T. was providing.

This highlights the importance of CIOs, or whichever company executive is responsible for the company’s I.T. performance, CFOs and other top executives working together, often with the company’s managed IT service provider, to ensure that I.T. is providing the services the company needs. I.T. done right can be a powerful business tool that can help virtually any business thrive and prosper, but if not handled correctly, can just waste time, money, effort and become a true drag on business growth.

In fact, we believe that a business’s I.T. needs to be run like a business itself.

Here are some things you can do to make sure your I.T. is functioning at a high level, not just in terms of stability, but in terms of fulfilling your company’s needs:

1: The employees of your company are I.T. “users”, but they are also the “customers” of the I.T. department. Whether your I.T. is handled in-house, out-sourced through an IT service provider, or co-sourced (a third party augmenting the in-house team), the users should be treated as valued customers and their needs met.

2: On the other hand, there needs to be ongoing employee IT training for several reasons, including: not wasting the time of the I.T. department, not putting company data and infrastructure at risk, as well as enabling each employee to get the most out of all that I.T. offers. At too many companies, employees continue to use outdated methodology with which they are comfortable, when a few minutes, or hours, of getting comfortable with new technologies will make them more productive and more valuable to the entity paying their salaries.

3: Where feasible, actually create a system of charging each department for the IT services it uses in order to give each department head an understanding of the cost vs value relationship.

4: Take a good look at strategic co-sourcing or out-sourcing certain I.T. functions. As smaller businesses grow, this can provide your company with the ability to expand I.T. functions without the need for additional full-time employees. A good I.T. partner will have team members trained in many vital technology areas, a knowledge base that would be hard for your company to achieve on its own.

5: Finally, never stop analyzing and measuring performance with your goal being continual improvement.

Well-conceived, developed and managed IT can cut costs, increase productivity, decrease risk and drive growth, all leading to improved profitability. But to do this, IT and the rest of management must work together to determine the services each of the other departments needs…again, treating these company employees like customers. A company with a positive I.T. culture will constantly be looking for new projects that can help drive the business forward. It is this attitude that takes I.T. from “expense” to powerful business building “asset”.

DynaSis is an Atlanta IT services and cloud computing provider for small and midsized businesses. All of our solutions focus on helping companies achieve the three fundamental IT necessities of the modern business—availability, security and mobility. We specialize in on-demand and on-premises managed IT services, managed cloud infrastructure, desktops and backups, and professional hardware and equipment installation. For more information about DynaSis’ IT support and services, visit www.dynasis.com.

It has been said that email is a cyber-criminal’s best friend. Email has become a very popular tool for hackers to go after their victims. If you think the day of the Nigerian Prince who is desperately seeking your help and willing to pay you $5,600,000 just for allowing you to use your bank account to transfer his family’s immense fortune into the USA, as long as you send him $5,000 to initiate the transaction, are over, you are sadly mistaken. It just morphs into a slightly different scheme. Earlier this week I received an email from James Comey, Director of the FBI, advising me that the $10.3 million dollars due me and that had been held up by international exchange problems was now being released. All he needed was my banking information, including my ID and password. It came from the email address FBIDirectorCmey@usa.com. And, yes, Comey was spelled Cmey.

While this was an attempt to attack me personally, it is an example (ok, a poor one from the hacker’s point of view) of one of so many attempts that are made every day.

A less defendable technique is the email coming from your very own bank…or your company’s bank…asking for verification of information for your own “protection.” Except that it’s a perfect copy of your bank’s email form but it’s not from them. Unfortunately, very smart people are still falling for this every day, including employees holding sensitive information at companies of all sizes.

Another target has become the business traveler. Spoofers set up travel sites dedicated to the business traveler, whose defenses may be somewhat diminished simply because travel tires you out and when you’re tired, you make mistakes. Say you are in Cincinnati and need to book a car in Omaha. You mean to visit Expedia.com but instead, type “expedia” into your browser, hit return, and Google rewards you with a whole list of choices. You click on rentalcars.expdia.com and reserve your car, giving your company’s credit card number, expiration date, and security code and, voila!, just like that, the cyber-criminal has all your credit card information. He spends the next five minutes racking up thousands of dollars on your card, which no one will discover until the bill reaches your accounting office and someone reviews it and discovers what has happened. This may be weeks after the event. They do the same thing with banking information, personal information, health care information, etc.

This can become particularly problematic when using cell phones. Many people are diligent about email security when setting up controls on their laptops and tablets, but smartphones are harder to protect, partially because the size of the content you are trying to read can be so small.

But one of the biggest problems is simply the fact that as soon as you protect yourself against one threat, another pops up in its place. One email security expert likened it to a game of Whack-a-Mole.

In a short article like this, we can only touch the surface of the problem, but if you would like to learn more, including what you can do to protect your company, check out our white paper on Email Security.

By The DynaSis Team

In late 2013, Internet security firm Fireeye discovered that a string of sophisticated, seemingly unrelated malware attacks had all been built on a common infrastructure of malicious services and applications. After further research, Fireeye concluded that multiple criminal entities and operations were working together, pooling and sharing resources and logistics to make it easier and more efficient to develop and launch highly sophisticated but distinctly separate attacks. A few months later, security firm McAfee announced that 20 to 30 cybercrime groups—all in the former Soviet Union — had reached "nation-state level" capability.

At the time, DynaSis reported on this trend, urging business owners to increase their security efforts. Knowing that strong cyber security is beyond the technical capability of virtually all small and midsized businesses (SMBs) we recommended that SMBs work with security-focused IT consultants or IT services firms to achieve better protection.

Fast forward to 2016, and the situation has only gotten worse. In fact, the continued evolution of the Deep Web, (also called the Dark Web)—a “hidden” Internet where illegal activities flourish—is accelerating the threat.  According to an Infosec Institute report, security firm TrendMicro’s analysis of the Deep Web identified major cybercriminal ecosystems operating in Germany, Russia, Japan, China, the United States, Canada and Brazil.

News headlines about Russian and Chinese cybercrime organizations are fairly common. However, the media report less frequently about the U.S. cybercrime ecosystem, which Tom Kellermann, chief cybersecurity officer at Trend Micro, characterized as, “A gun show for everyone as long as they can participate and are willing to pay.” These cybercrime groups, Kellerman noted, “primarily cater to customers within the region…most of the offerings (stolen accounts, products and services, and fake documents) are U.S. based.”

We hope that anyone reading recognizes that the threat of becoming a victim has reached epic proportions. In fact, no prudent managed IT services or IT support provider—even those that emphasize security—guarantees to completely prevent all threats from reaching corporate systems. Rather, the focus is on monitoring, detection and swift elimination.

Here at DynaSis, we have always followed security news, and we continue to enhance our own security offerings to incorporate the most modern, successful approaches. It’s a scary world out there, and it only takes one breach to bring an organization to its knees. To learn more, we invite you to download our white paper, Cyber-Security 2016, or browse our blogs and white papers at “The Latest.”

DynaSis has been Atlanta’s premier IT support services provider for more than 23 years. As an IT company working with small to midsized businesses (10 to 150+ users), DynaSis has developed a unique 12-layer approach to network threat protection, ransomware prevention and crypto virus threat elimination. The DynaSis Business Cloud functions through a highly secure environment with full real-time data backup. Please contact us at 678.218.1769 or visit our website at www.DynaSis.com.

By the DynaSis Team

Every day, small and midsized business (SMB) owners are bombarded with seemingly conflicting messages regarding how IT solutions can help them best run their businesses. With so many options to consider regarding corporate security, productivity and cost efficiency, it is not surprising that some of them stick their heads in the sand and do nothing.

Unfortunately, with SMBs becoming favorite targets for cyber attackers, and with corporate competition increasingly fierce, that is the worst possible way to operate. Here’s one example:

A business owner has been operating with a “break-fix” mentality, which means he or she only makes technology purchases when something breaks. This is a reactive operating strategy, but many business owners take this path because they believe they cannot find the time or budget to manage their technology proactively.

This approach has always been financially inefficient and detrimental to productivity, and DynaSis has long recommended that business leaders team with a knowledgeable, trustworthy IT consulting partner, such as a managed services provider or an IT services firm, to help them create and implement a technology roadmap that includes staged upgrades and improvements.

Today, however, the break-fix approach has become more than inefficient. Outdated, network-connected equipment, such as networked printers, likely has no built-in security protections. Such machines are more likely to be operating with open Internet connections, and hackers know that. Furthermore, competitiveness in today’s market relies on providing workers with modern technology. Organizations that persist with the break-fix model invariably fall behind.

In other words, making smart, planned technology improvements helps organizations foster productivity, security, cost efficiency and competitiveness—not to mention employee satisfaction. The question then becomes: how does the business owner know which improvements are smart?

To help our readers, we have prepared a chart of technology Do’s and Don’ts, in terms of best practices. The list only scratches the surface, but it’s a good place to start.

These are just a few of many examples where smart technology choices are beneficial to your company, its personnel and its bottom line. If your technology environment is inadequate or outdated, your employees cannot achieve their missions, and customers may perceive your physical space—and your firm—as dated. Similarly, if your approach is too lenient, you could be throwing away money, productivity and security. A knowledgeable, expert IT support company can help you evaluate your options, minimize your risk and keep your equipment operating in peak condition.

Selection of an IT outsourcing company is a very important business decision. For almost a quarter century, Atlanta’s small to mid-sized businesses have relied on DynaSis’ for managed IT services, internet security, and 24 x 7 x 365 helpdesk support. Today, with cybercrime becoming an ever-increasing threat, DynaSis has become an industry leader in network protection and ransomware prevention. Please take a tour through our website at www.DynaSis.com or speak with a technical expert at 678.218.1769.

By the DynaSis Team

Although the majority of business owners (87% per one survey) have adopted cloud computing in some form, that doesn’t mean they understand it fully. Every day, we hear from business owners who want to explore the cloud further but are not familiar with the various aspects of cloud computing. What’s Software as a Service, and how does it differ from Infrastructure as a Service? What is the difference between a public cloud and a private one? What are the criteria for selecting a provider?

To help business owners familiarize themselves with these important issues—and to help them choose the right cloud provider—we developed a white paper, Big Cloud Little Cloud, that is available on our website. To pique your interest in learning more, this article will explain the various cloud services—one of the most confusing aspects of cloud computing for many business owners.

The Cloud as a Service

Unless an organization runs its own data center, all cloud “products” are actually services. The company licenses one or more cloud-based elements hosted in data centers run by IT solutions firms and made accessible (served) to the company. The three main categories of cloud service are Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). There are other “services” that are often add-ons for companies deploying IaaS, PaaS or SaaS.  These are Desktop as a Service (DaaS), Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) and Backup as a Service (BaaS).

Software as a Service: With SaaS, software vendors host their applications on cloud servers and provide access to organizations and their personnel on a subscription basis (usually billed per user or per “seat”). The hosting company handles all licensing, upgrades, IT support and other aspects of the solution. Office 365, Salesforce, and Gmail are all examples of SaaS.

Infrastructure as a Service: IaaS is a hosted solution where a IT services vendor licenses server space in its data center. Organizations use IaaS to store and access corporate files in the cloud as well as to run applications, host websites and more. Some IaaS offerings include email, office productivity and other software, eliminating the need for firms to deploy and manage these solutions.

Platform as a Service (PaaS): PaaS is similar to IaaS, but it is more commonly used by organizations that develop, deploy and manage their own applications. PaaS solutions include hosted servers, operating systems, and other elements of a computing platform. In some scenarios, companies can also run third-party applications and store files and other assets on their PaaS resources, as well.

Desktop as a Service (DaaS): DaaS is often a front-end solution for an IaaS deployment. Personnel access cloud resources through a desktop portal that can be opened on any desktop, laptop or mobile device, eliminating the need for organizations to own and maintain desktop computers.

Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) and Backup as a Service (BaaS): Both DRaaS and BaaS provide hosted backup of an organization’s files, sometimes with selective (file by file) access. However, DRaaS generally creates complete system images that organizations can restore to recover their operations after a major outage. DRaaS solutions also may create backup images more frequently than do BaaS services, but this capability varies widely from one solution to the next.

As you can see, these solutions vary widely in their scope, and the specifics can be dramatically different from one provider to the next. As a result, we recommend organizations work with a qualified managed IT services firm, such as a managed services provider, to devise a plan. We go into detail about selection criteria in our cloud white paper. We hope you will find it helpful.

DynaSis is an Atlanta IT services and cloud computing provider for small and midsized businesses. All of our solutions focus on helping companies achieve the three fundamental IT necessities of the modern business—availability, security and mobility. We specialize in on-demand and on-premises managed IT services, managed cloud infrastructure, desktops and backups, and professional hardware and equipment installation. For more information about DynaSis’ IT support and services, visit www.dynasis.com.

By the DynaSis Team

With bad news about cybercrime appearing daily, many small and midsized business (SMB) owners may be wondering, “How vulnerable am I?” After all, most of the news accounts of data breaches and other attacks relate to major companies, governmental entities, and other very large targets.

Unfortunately, the reason SMBs aren’t making headlines is because they don’t make great news, not because they aren’t favored targets. A quick Internet search will turn up dozens of stories about the vulnerability of SMBs, as a group. In 2011, Symantec’s annual Internet Security Threat Report found that companies with fewer than 250 employees constituted 18 percent of targeted attacks. In the 2016 report, that figured had risen to 43 percent, with SMBs being the most heavily targeted group.

Why are SMBs so attractive? Major corporations have big security budgets, and they can afford to implement the latest techniques to protect their networks. Many have teams of security specialists whose primary tasks are to keep cybercriminals at bay. SMBs don’t have these types of resources, and hackers know that.

Nevertheless, the vulnerability of SMBs wouldn’t be enough, by itself, to make them targets. If hackers had to expend days, or even hours, finding and attacking a vulnerable SMB in exchange for a handful of proprietary information, they wouldn’t do it. Fortunately for the hackers, they don’t need to.

An entire ecosystem of cybercrime tools now exists, and many of them are freely available. Hackers have also learned they can turn groups of vulnerable systems into “botnets.” Here, multiple computing devices are interconnected and used to scan the Internet, looking for compromised websites to hijack, open corporate network connections to infiltrate, and other inadequately protected resources. Making matters worse, cybercriminals continue developing new attack tools and approaches, and even large organizations have a hard time keeping up.

For SMBs, becoming a victim at some point is a near certainty. In fact, most experts no longer counsel organizations that they can completely prevent a breach. Rather, the goal is to mitigate the damage when one happens.

Fortunately, it is neither expensive nor complicated to secure your firm and its resources and substantially reduce your odds of attack. It is also possible to implement automated mechanisms that will detect penetration and stop it, quickly. However, these tools are sophisticated and it is usually neither practical nor cost effective for in-house IT support teams to manage them.

For most SMBs, contracting with a managed services provider or an IT solutions firm is the most effective way of implementing and managing stringent IT security. However, not all IT consulting or IT support companies are created equal. Some are more security focused than others, with certified professionals and the latest technologies at their disposal.

To help organizations better understand cyber security and the considerations for hiring outside IT security assistance, DynaSis has developed two white papers: Cyber-Security 2016 and Managed IT Security. Both are complimentary downloads on our site. In future blogs, we will drill down into greater detail about cyber security, so stay tuned!

Selection of an IT outsourcing company is a very important business decision. For almost a quarter century, Atlanta’s small to mid-sized businesses have relied on DynaSis’ for managed IT services, internet security, and 24 x 7 x 365 helpdesk support. Today, with cybercrime becoming an ever-increasing threat, DynaSis has become an industry leader in network protection and ransomware prevention. Please take a tour through our website at www.DynaSis.com or speak with a technical expert at 678.218.1769.

The ROI of Outsourcing

By the DynaSis Team

If you are a small or midsized (SMB) business owner, how many times have you wondered, “Would it be less expensive to outsource a job rather than to retain staff in house?” For some functions, such as legal advice or trash collection, outsourcing is an obvious choice. For other roles, ranging from accounts receivable to marketing and beyond, the evaluation is more difficult.

A variety of “resource costing” tools, which SMB owners can use to calculate the hard costs of many functions, are available online (see one example, here). To arrive at a figure, most determine the time it takes an employee to perform relevant tasks and then multiply that number by the blended (pay plus benefits) rate for the job. Some include other factors that might be minimized or eliminated by using a professional (or an automated solution) to perform the work. These include the cost of space, supplies, and training, and even the cost of errors or other failures. Once the total cost is determined, SMB owners can compare it against the quote from a third-party provider to determine if there is any savings.

The problem with this approach is that it cannot account for benefits that are not quantifiable, nor can it project the gain or loss from things that do not happen. In our experience, nowhere are these intangibles more prevalent than with outsourced IT.

As a professional cloud and managed services provider, we sometimes hear from SMB decision makers that having in-house IT staff is less expensive than outsourcing IT services and IT support.

Invariably, the business leader is making his or her calculation based on hard costs, alone. They haven’t considered financial impacts that cannot be quantified or predicted. Consider these two examples:

• If a firm’s ecommerce website goes down at 2:00am and an employee doesn’t discover the problem and fix it until 9am the next morning, how much existing customer good will—or how many potential new customers—will the organization lose? Lost revenue can be calculated based on historical figures, but these other two factors are impossible to determine.
• If a sales pro wants to fine tune a proposal at 5am but the network is down and he cannot gain access to the corporate system before his 8am meeting, will the lack of last-minute polish impact the prospect’s opinion of the firm? Whether or not he lands the business, no one will ever know for sure.

With IT solutions, there are many such variables that firms should consider when determining the ROI of outsourcing. Following are just a few:

• Lost negotiating power from not proactively managing vendors.
• Added costs of hardware equipment failure for not planning staged upgrades.
• Reduced employee satisfaction and productivity caused by desktop computer problems.
• Lowered gross revenue (and productivity) from network outages.

Although highly competent, in-house IT professionals can minimize some of these issues, those workers  come at a high price. Furthermore, rarely can SMBs afford to keep their IT staffs fully updated on all certifications and training. As a result, most lack the know-how to deploy the automated monitoring and maintenance solutions proven to substantially reduce downtime compared to traditional IT approaches.

For some business functions, keeping the work in-house may be the most cost-effective approach. For many others, and especially for IT, outsourcing provides strategic business advantages that are beyond the reach of SMBs with in-house staffs. Increasingly, progressive SMB owners are recognizing the value of assigning critical functions to the experts.

For small to midsized business owners and executives who are concerned about managed IT support services and network threat protection, DynaSis is one company that has been at the forefront since 1992. In this ever evolving world of cybercrime, crypto virus and network access protection have become critical to every company’s security. DynaSis also provides 24 x 7 x 365 outsourced IT services, with its own trained staff for helpdesk, real-time monitoring and the DynaSis Business Cloud, for highly secure data storage and backup. You can find out more by calling us at 678.218.1769, or checking out our website at www.DynaSis.com.

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By the DynaSis Team

With all the news about the wonders of cloud computing, many small and midsized business (SMB) owners may wonder if they are making a mistake by not adopting cloud technology. Yet, they also have concerns, ranging from security issues to availability of offsite resources if Internet connections go down.

Depending on the SMB’s business model, location, and level of technological sophistication, these may be valid concerns. Yet, there is no doubt that cloud computing provides big benefits, and SMB adoption is accelerating. In a round-up of cloud computing “facts and figures,” Forbes noted that the cloud market for SMBs will double between 2015 and 2020, from 37 percent of U.S. SMBs to 78 percent.

The good news is that decision makers don’t need to choose between an off-site cloud and their current on-site systems. With a hybrid setup, they can have both—and they can selectively choose which resources to run in the off-site cloud. With this approach, often called a hybrid cloud, some data and other business assets remain hosted on company servers while others are run and accessed remotely.

The two sets of resources are tied together so that they run as a single, cloud-supported solution, with their on-site resources essentially serving as a “corporate” cloud. Yet each of the components can be configured differently to meet designated security, backup, and other requirements.

To determine if a hybrid cloud is the right approach, SMB owners must evaluate their current needs and future plans, as well as their ability to support on-premise systems. Such an evaluation is often difficult and time-consuming for business owners, who may benefit from the help of an objective, qualified outsider such as an IT solutions or IT consulting company.

If you are currently evaluating your resources for a new or expanded cloud deployment, consider these factors:

All Cloud Solution

• Most cloud-hosted services include updates, backups, monitoring and upgrades at no additional charge, reducing the need for IT staff.
• Cloud solutions generally have lower upfront costs, reduced hardware requirements and less overall maintenance than on-site equipment.
• Cloud-hosted products provide on-demand remote access to all authorized individuals with an Internet connection.
• Clouds are highly scalable (storage can be increased quickly and easily).

All On-Site Solution

• If the firm has a custom setup, such as a database resource that supports a customized application, on-site storage is likely the best solution.
• If the company operates under strict compliance requirements that require sensitive data to be hosted behind a local firewall, on-site may be the only option for those resources.
• If the organization runs software or services that interact with systems not connected to the Internet, the cloud may not work.
• If the company already has a large IT services department with professionals trained in varied roles, the cloud is less attractive.

Hybrid Solutions

If you like the benefits listed under All Cloud but some of the All On-Site criteria apply to your organization, a hybrid storage and delivery model could be the perfect option. With hybrid delivery, for example:

• You can store the majority of your assets securely in the cloud but meet compliance requirements with a secure on-site server.
• If you have a mix of out-of-the-box and customized applications, you can optimize delivery of the “standard” applications through the cloud but maintain your custom ones on-site.

A hybrid solution also allows you the flexibility to test a variety of cloud delivery and storage approaches to find the perfect mix for your firm.

Reputable managed services providers can help you evaluate and make these decisions and can also help you move resources to the cloud safely and securely. Some managed services companies offer ready-made hybrid solutions that include ongoing IT support.

Specializing in managed IT services and network security, Atlanta based DynaSis has been supporting small to midsized business for almost a quarter century. Among the services we provide are cloud computing through the DynaSis Business Cloud, 24 x 7 x 365 helpdesk support, and real-time monitoring enabling us to deal with “issues” before they become problems. For more information, please call DynaSis at 678.218.1769 or visit www.DynaSis.com.