By the DynaSis Team

[featured_image]After 12 years, Microsoft will end support for Windows XP on April 8, 2014. Once support ends, Microsoft will issue no further security updates and will not offer any technical support for the Windows XP operating system (OS). Although Managed IT Services firms like DynaSis can continue supporting Windows XP, they will not be able to provide the same level of protection for their customers that they offered in the past. They won’t be able to apply anymore patches or fixes, because there will not be any.

Malware experts predict that Windows XP will become a prime target for cybercriminals, and having even one Windows XP system in a company’s network will put the entire firm’s IT infrastructure – and its intellectual assets - at risk.

If your company is still running Windows XP on some of its desktops, you are not alone. Estimates for the number of companies running the OS range from 30% to as high as 45%. Last year, one survey found that 20% of companies planned to continue running Windows XP after its “sunset” date of April 8, 2014. We urge all companies – our customers and others – not to take this dangerous path.

Consider Your Options

The most current version of Windows is Windows 8.1, and it offers numerous benefits for corporate users, including a common interface across desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones. Windows 8.1, while powerful, works differently from Windows XP, Vista and 7 and does require a learning curve. (We’ll talk about this in our next blog.)

For companies that want a more traditional Windows experience, Windows 7 is a stable, well-respected OS with an interface very similar to that of Windows XP. It is still available for purchase both as software and preinstalled on business machines. In fact, Microsoft recently announced that although it would stop selling Windows 7 for pre-installation on “home” computers in October 2014, it did not have any current plans to stop selling Windows 7 for business machines.

Migrating to a modern OS will give companies dramatically enhanced security, increased productivity, and a lower total cost of ownership. If that’s not enough to persuade you, consider this. Microsoft quit selling retail copies of Windows 7 (both home and professional versions) On October 31, 2013. However, a number of retail outlets are still selling it, so it is currently an option for companies that are hesitant to move to Windows 8 due to the learning curve or any other reason.

Companies that do not upgrade now, and wait to end their usage of Windows XP until their systems are compromised or obsolete, may be forced to migrate all their users to Windows 8.1 or it successor at once, with no time for their users to become accustomed to the differences in this intriguing OS.

Our virtual CIOs can evaluate your company’s needs and determine which users would be better suited to Windows 7 and which would benefit from the jump straight to Windows 8.1. We can also perform a network assessment, with a complete software inventory, to identify and let you address every instance of Windows XP running on your network. To learn more, fill out our inquiry form or give us a call.

By the DynaSis Team

[featured_image]In late 2013, Internet security firm Fireeye released some disturbing news. Their research had uncovered evidence that a string of sophisticated, seemingly unrelated malware attacks had a common origin. Fireeye referred to the effort as a “broader offensive fueled by a shared development and logistics infrastructure.” In other words, 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.

Fireeye dubbed the large operation, which provided the framework and resources for at least 11 separate malware campaigns, the Sunshop Campaign. All 11 of the attacks were built on the same infrastructure of malicious services and applications, including shared malware tools, code, timestamps and digital certificates. This “malware supply chain” supported a centralized planning and development effort, operating in much the same way as a large manufacturing facility―or a multi-player, organized crime ring.

The idea of advanced, highly organized and well-funded groups working together to make their efforts even more streamlined and effective should cause any IT security expert to shudder. It certainly got our attention here at DynaSis.

Malware attacks being masterminded by criminal organizations is nothing new, but security experts have always assumed most of them worked largely in isolation. The fact that they have decided to team up, sharing their best minds and practices to achieve an even more deadly and ruthless result, is positively horrifying.

It’s one of the reasons DynaSis has been emphasizing the importance of cyber security so much and so often, of late. It’s also one of the reasons we launched our enhanced anti-malware and spyware service earlier this year. This state-of-the-art anti-malware/spyware solution not only roots out and blocks known menaces but also works to identify “zero day” attacks― assaults that exploit unknown vulnerabilities in computer applications before researchers identify and write code to plug them.

It’s exactly the type of protection everyone is going to need in the brave new world where malware “factories” with sophisticated supply chains may well become the norm. To learn more about the current malware landscape and why we are so concerned about it, or to explore the specifics of our new malware service, fill out our inquiry form or give us a call.

By the DynaSis Team

At DynaSis, we are continually working to make improvements, providing our customers with products and services that are faster, more powerful and more secure. This year, we have taken great strides in several areas, including introducing an affordable, secure cloud file system that just may revolutionize your business model.

If you haven’t been introduced to our new offerings yet, we invite you to call us for a complimentary consultation. You may be pleasantly surprised at how much our solutions can propel the success of your business

Automated Monitoring and Alerting: In February, DynaSis launched a cloud-based, high-availability monitoring and alerting service gives that gives engineers in DynaSis’ network operations center a dashboard view of customers’ infrastructure at all times. The service conducts analysis and inspection of DynaSis customers’ on-site infrastructure and networks, 24/7/365, scanning for issues such as low disk space, servers being overwhelmed by too many user requests, and other problems that affect availability and performance. Offered at no additional charge to DynaSis’ Managed Services customers, it added a further layer of scrutiny on top of DynaSis’ already robust network and infrastructure management and maintenance solutions.

Partnership with Veeam: In March 2013, DynaSis announced a partnership with Veeam, a leading provider of disaster recovery services for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Partnering with Veeam gave DynaSis yet another best-practices disaster recovery option for its clients. With the Veeam solution, DynaSis customers’ data and servers are replicated from their virtual servers to DynaSis offsite data centers, eliminating the need for onsite backup appliances or servers. Customers enjoy instant file-level recovery, application-item recovery and virtual server recovery plus deep support for VMware and Hyper-V virtualization environments.

DynaSis BLUE: In September, DynaSis announced the launch of DynaSis BLUE, a solution that turns customers’ on-site file servers into in-house cloud servers. To deploy BLUE, DynaSis installs a tiny software agent on a client's file server and then configures the in-house cloud environment to meet the customer's specifications. DynaSis BLUE enables firms to harness the power of cloud-based file sharing and storage without relinquishing control of corporate files to a third-party provider. With 448-bit Blowfish encryption, two-factor authentication, full auditability and granular user-access and security controls, DynaSis BLUE provisions companies with a comprehensive, 100% synchronized and backed-up solution that offers significantly better governance than leading competitors.

These products and services are some of our 2013 highlights, but they are far from our only accomplishments. We’re also planning some great new additions for 2014.

We hope you had a great holiday season and wish you a prosperous New Year. From all of us at DynaSis, here’s to a great 2014. We look forward to working with you in the future!

The Challenge

When Rodney Lester, Systems Manager for Gardner Metal Systems (GMS), began looking into upgrading his company’s Internet service, his efforts led him somewhere totally unexpected.  His exploration led him to a review of cloud services, and Lester was introduced to DynaSis. What he learned from them made him realize that he could accomplish even more for his firm.

The Selection

After speaking with the DynaSis team, Lester sensed he had found what he had long wanted―a local company with the knowledge, expertise and can-do attitude to support his company’s IT platforms.  DynaSis and Lester embarked on a journey of improvement that has resulted in his firm deploying new infrastructure, migrating to cloud-based productivity applications and storage, and allowing Lester to take a less-active role in supporting the network, servers and 30 computers his firm relies upon daily.

“I was the only person that maintained our systems,” says Lester. “We have been able to make it work all these years, but if something happened to me, there would have been a lot of things nobody knew anything about.  Now I am the backup and DynaSis is the main IT provider.”

The Solution

To achieve the transformation, DynaSis upgraded GMS to Ascend, its hybrid partly on-premises/partly cloud solution. With Ascend, GMS enjoys the reassurance of having new hardware on site, paired with access to software and services through a cloud-based model. Ascend also includes DynaSis’s signature, end-to-end, proactive IT management and support package. For the package, GMS pays a flat monthly fee and DynaSis handles all hardware troubleshooting and repair, as well as necessary system upgrades.

At the time of the deployment, GMS’ servers, workstations and network were all outdated or nearing their end of life, so Lester and DynaSis worked together to upgrade all components―data servers, workstations, systems and network―on a staged basis. “We had already had a major catastrophe with our server―a hard drive failure―and I didn’t want to deal with that again,” says Lester.

Still, he notes, nothing was going wrong, specifically, at the time he connected with DynaSis. Rather, Lester says, the project expanded organically after DynaSis introduced the “one fee covers all” Ascend solution. “This decision was about getting newer technology and an upgrade scenario,” says Lester. “We were running out of room on the server, and once we started looking at improvements we could make, it really snowballed. The owners started making suggestions and DynaSis took it from there.”

The Installation

DynaSis replaced GMS’ two outdated physical servers with three virtual servers (data, app and backup) running on two new physical units. Data on the virtual backup server is also replicated to an offsite data center. The new solution also included replacing the company’s Exchange server and its outdated Microsoft office productivity software with the cloud-based solution, Microsoft Office 365. “It was going to cost us $400 per workstation to upgrade Office, and we were having incompatibility problems with vendors and others outside the company,” says Lester. “With Office 365, we have access to the latest versions of Office―including Microsoft Access―for $15 per month, per seat.”

The implementation ran over a several-month period, Lester says, because his company wanted to minimize disruption for employees and complete each phase of the project before proceeding to the next level. “We started with an Internet upgrade, then we started on Ascend,” says Lester. We also went to a hosted VoIP telephony solution so we had to change over our whole phone system, and DynaSis assisted us in doing that.”

All through the complex, discontinuous process, Lester says, DynaSis ensured a steady flow of assistance and communication. “It was a little different for them, because they are not used to dragging it out as long as we did,” Lester says. “Even so, they stayed on top of the schedule, and they never had to say, ‘We cannot do that now.’”

The Result

Even before the project was complete, Lester began seeing tangible benefits. “Right away, they had access to the network and the computers, and they were pushing patches to the servers after hours,” says Lester. “We had several tickets where they took taking care of email issues – and they helped fix all of those. The whole support channel they have set up works really well.”

Lester is very pleased with the project and says he “wouldn’t hesitate to recommend DynaSis to anybody.” He cites many peripheral benefits, as well, such as better network performance, worker mobility (thanks to a new wireless network) and enhanced network security through a parallel network for guest-level, Internet-only access.

“Once we decided we were ready to migrate everything over, it went really well,” Lester concludes. “DynaSis has a great game plan for implementing a platform like this. Having someone to back me up; know our network and provide support is something we should have had a long time ago.” Lester’s already looking ahead to future projects, such as a database redesign and implementation of SharePoint, with enthusiasm.

For years there has been a running discussion about turning off PCs at night. One camp said turning them off saved power; the other said leaving them on reduced wear and tear on hardware. Today, energy efficient workstations with robust hardware have made both of these points largely moot.

However, there is a very good reason for not turning off your workstations―at least Monday through Thursday. On each weekday night, DynaSis performs system operations, from critical system patches and virus definition updates to backups. On weekends, we usually perform operations on servers, when they are not in use. We create schedules for every company that details what we do, and when. (If you are curious what we do in the wee hours of the morning, see image below for an example.)

In fact, even setting your PC to Sleep or Hibernate mode can prevent us from performing system operations on them. Just one unavailable PC can cause the network to be out of sync and potentially increase risk for the entire office. If you and your employees feel better powering down your workstations (but not servers) over the weekend, go ahead. Most importantly, during the week, please keep workstations on and available (not in sleep or hibernate mode).

The Challenge

When solar cell and module manufacturer Suniva made the shift from the Atlanta Technology Development Center (ATDC – a technology incubator) to a full manufacturing plant with 24/7 operations, having robust IT support in place was critical to not losing momentum because leaving the ATDC behind meant losing the built-in IT support the technology incubator provided its protégés.

Suniva company principals understood that the transition from ATDC to stand-alone operations would be a real test for the future of the new firm and decided on a course of action for IT infrastructure and networking support that would be based on on-demand, outside specialists. This decision let them side-step the sometimes lengthy process—and higher fixed-cost expense—of hiring in-house support.

Suniva began its operations with one production line and approximately 40 employees, Suvina CFO Jim Modak reports. Even with its small footprint, the firm had a broad reach with a global market for its solar cells and modules, resulting in 80% of its product exported to companies abroad in 2010. Because of this expansive customer base and the 24/7 operations model, achieving the best possible uptime for the network was a cornerstone of operating success.

The Selection

Modak interviewed candidate firms for on-demand IT services looking at the breadth and satisfaction of their customers, and the skills of the individuals who were going to be servicing their account, and he selected DynaSis and its managed services program. “We test drove DynaSis for awhile and had a very good experience. They met the criteria, had the right team, and we had access to their executive management,” he says.

Suniva soon discovered that DynaSis was a perfect fit. That was several years ago, and both Suniva’s business and the relationship continue to expand.

The Solution

DynaSis initially provided help desk support and ongoing monitoring, maintenance and patching, and continual analysis of the network to ensure proactive prevention of system failures. As Suniva’s business exploded from 40 employees to 180—and its IT requirements expanded dramatically—DynaSis kept pace with them.

“We established a broader set of criteria that we refined over time as we expanded to make sure DynaSis could still fulfill our needs,” says Modak. “We broadened the “laundry list” based on every-day performance criteria we could measure.”

The Result

Today, DynaSis supports all of Suniva’s network and infrastructure. When Suniva was ready for server virtualization, it turned to DynaSis, and Suniva has also ramped up from an on-demand to an in-house contract., DynaSis has consultants onsite at Suniva five days a week providing both network and desktop support for the firm. During evenings, night-time and weekends, DynaSis provides on-demand support for the company and its employees, no matter where in the world they might be. “DynaSis has grown along with us,” says Modak.

“We’re 24/7 operations, so keeping the network up 24/7 is number one. Number two is keeping our desktops properly operating. That is why the on-site support helps quite a bit,” says Modak. “It is full touch as opposed to remote touch support for employee and customer issues.”

“Having support for remote network access outside of regular hours is critical,” says Modak. With DynaSis on the job, Suniva can focus on growing its global, industry-leading business, knowing problems will be resolved wherever and whenever they occur.”

The Challenge

J-Drain’s VP of Operations, Ryan Hatrak, found DynaSis through an online search after the company decided that monetary losses from international emails not going through had become unacceptable.

“In today’s fast-paced business environment, email communication is becoming mission critical, especially for firms with a large international customer base,” said Chas Arnold, Novatec's VP of Managed IT Services. “It was essential that we provide JDR not only with proactive, best-practices IT support and management, but also with a reliable, trusted email solution that would support their business activities now and in the future.

The Solution

DynaSis, Atlanta’s premier provider of IT services and support for small and medium businesses (SMBs), transitioned JDR Enterprises to a new email platform (Microsoft Exchange) which has resolved the company’s email challenges. “If there is an issue—and there are always going to be some issues—they can tell us why something isn’t working and quickly get it fixed.” Hatrak said.

DynaSis also transitioned JDR Enterprises to its industry-leading Ascend solution for automated problem resolution and proactive IT support and website hosting services.

The Result

“With our previous IT provider, we were having a lot of issues—especially email issues—that the company could not resolve or didn’t know how to fix,” said Hatrak. “DynaSis takes a different approach. They are proactive about finding and addressing issues before problems arise.”

With Ascend, JDR Enterprises will enjoy the benefits of 24/7/365 IT systems and desktop management, automated data backup and disaster recovery, managed security services and automated Help Desk and onsite support, in addition to hosted Exchange and website hosting.

Many service providers talk about “best practices” and “excellence” in IT Service Management. However, few introduce to their customers (or adhere to, themselves) a documented framework for best-practices planning, delivery and support of IT services. Officially called the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL®), this widely accepted framework is a cohesive yet constantly evolving set of best practices for Service Management. To ensure it is both complete and current, the ITIL draws on the experience and expertise of private and public sector companies that have successfully achieved the goals for excellence outlined in the framework.

How It Works

Rooted in the move from mainframe computers to distributed computing and dispersed resources, ITIL helps companies break down the IT silos that tend to arise in organizations and ensure consistent application of processes for technology delivery and support. For every new and existing business service, ITIL promotes the importance of a Service Lifecycle to drive organizational effectiveness and efficiency through predictable service levels. (For the purposes of this model, a business service is defined as any operation that provides value to users and is supported by technology services and infrastructure.)

1. Service Strategy—Understanding who the IT customers are, the offerings needed to meet their needs, and the capabilities and resources required to develop and execute these offerings successfully.
2. Service Design—Ensuring that the design of new and modified services and their related processes cost effectively meet customer expectations.
3. Service Transition—Successfully building, testing and implementing the processes necessary to ensure the customer enjoys the desired value from the service. This phase of the lifecycle also addresses change management, validation and testing, and other important variables.
4. Service Operation—Delivering the service and ensuring its health on an ongoing basis, including minimizing disruptions, detecting problematic trends, and otherwise managing service access.
5. Continual Service Improvement (CSI)—An overarching concept rather than a separate step, CSI provides the mechanism for an IT team to measure and improve upon the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery and process execution.

ITIL offers enormous benefit to companies that adopt it, because it fosters consistent, repeatable processes that can be measured and continually fine-tuned, not only to maintain excellence, but also to adapt to changing customer needs, emerging business opportunities and challenges and other important factors.

Mega-corporations, manufacturers and technology giants such as IBM, HP, Wal-Mart, Sony, Pfizer, Boeing and Citi have embraced ITIL and wouldn’t operate for a single day without it. More importantly for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), any business working with a qualified IT partner can implement the ITIL model without excessive expense or difficulty.

DynaSis fully supports and adheres to ITIL, not only as a tool for fostering excellence in other SMBs, but also in the daily practice of our own operations. We have helped many of our clients develop and execute best-practices IT solutions using these guidelines.

Ready to get started? I’d love to tell you more about what ITIL can do for you, or schedule your company for a DynaSis Technology Assessment, which is the first step toward achieving the business service excellence of your dreams.

When LPS Labs, a U.S. manufacturer of chemicals for industrial, aerospace, military and telecommunications facilities worldwide, looked to replace its managed services provider in 2011, the company had specific requirements in mind. According to LPS Labs Network Administrator Sam Torke, the firm wanted a responsive, proactive firm with a local footprint and a team that had the IT expertise to evaluate their requirements and help plan future improvements. They found what they wanted, and more, with DynaSis and their Managed IT Services.

Going Local
“Having a local presence was very important to us,” says Torke. “We found three or four companies that said they had both a local and national footprint. Some presented themselves as being local, but when we met with them, there was no team. There was one person in a conference room and we never saw anyone else.”

“With DynaSis, when we did a site visit, we actually met the people who would be helping us. Everyone was really customer oriented and they had the broadest offering that matched our needs.” Nearly two years later, Torke says, he couldn’t be happier about the decision.

“Right after we started our contract with them, we installed a new firewall,” says Torke. “We have also virtualized servers and workstations, and they have been right up to task on everything we want to do.”

A Higher Level
Torke says that working with DynaSis affords him a higher level of expertise than he had previously enjoyed, as well as access to a wider pool of talent. “There is only one of me and there are a dozen of them,” says Torke. “It’s been a big improvement for us, their ability to handle complicated issues. They have resolved some very complex problems for us.”

Shortly after DynaSis began working with LPS Labs, Torke relates, the firm ran out of IP addresses, which limited employees’ ability to access the Internet. “Everybody was screaming, but the solution to the problem wasn’t immediately obvious,” Torke says.

“I needed more eyes to look at the situation from a broader perspective and find a solution. DynaSis pointed out right away that we didn’t have enough IP addresses. We went from one subnet to five subnets and everything has worked out great since.”

Self-Service Problem Resolution
As part of its Managed IT Services agreement with LPS Labs, Novatefch provides Help Desk support, maintains and updates the company’s server infrastructure, and maintains and manages its backups and disaster recovery appliances. LPS Labs has a dispersed workforce that accesses the company network via a VPN connection, and the DynaSis Help Desk provides problem resolution for all the firm’s remote workers, as well.

“In the past we wanted our users to go through a web portal to our helpdesk, or to send an email to our helpdesk,” says Torke. “With DynaSis, we now have a self-service model that lets personnel go directly to the DynaSis Help Desk when they have a problem.”

LPS has an assigned DynaSis Technical Account Manager to help them assess the current IT environment and develop a roadmap for the company’s needs in the future. “We’re now looking at document and workflow management solutions, and our DynaSis Technical Account Manager is working with me on this and helping me set realistic expectations.”

When asked how likely he would be to refer DynaSis to another company, Torke rates DynaSis a 10 on a scale of one to 10. If someone else asked him for a reference, he says, “I would tell them that you won’t find anybody better.”

Technology is a benefit that’s wonderful and infuriating at the same time. The more dependent we become on it, the more we are negatively affected when it fails us. Unfortunately, that problem isn’t going anyway any time soon. The only way to resolve it is to minimize the potential for system disruption.

So, how can you best go about that? According to a 2009 study performed by research firm IDC, “Well-targeted upgrades, couple with a rigorous program to standardize and improve IT practices, can deliver substantial risk reduction and could reduce total annual outage risk by as much as 85%, in some cases, with downtime reduced from an average of over 2 hours per month to less than 45 minutes.”

If you’re an IT executive or IT-engaged business owner, you likely already know this. You also know how hard it is to manage your system upgrades and patches while trying to implement sound, standardized IT practices among company personnel.

In fact, if you’re an IT professional working for an SMB, you’re probably already spending more than 50% of your time on tedious, painstaking maintenance tasks, and still not getting to them all. (A 2010 study, “The State of IT Systems Management,” indicates that 67% of IT pros spend 50-74% of their time on maintenance.) You probably don’t have time to teach anyone, anything.

You may also be aware that there are great managed service providers that can give you end-to-end system management 24/7/365. These providers use automation tools to deeply scan your systems continuously, providing a level of detailed inspection that would cost a fortune if a person tried to do it (assuming it was even possible).

The best of these providers have a “command center” that lets them act on any signs of trouble immediately, no matter when it occurs. They also handle all your patches and updates, and in general keep everything running smoothly. (Hint: we’re one of them.) If you’ve never heard of these types of solutions, I’d be happy to tell you more—just give me a call.

If you’re aware of them, but budgetary restrictions or management resistance prevent you from exploring them, here’s a bit of ammunition: The IDC study mentioned earlier found that SMBs lose as much as $70,000 in business value (sales, productivity, customer service and other tangibles), per hour of downtime. In nearly every scenario, turning system monitoring and maintenance over to a third-party vendor will save you more than it costs.