Introducing Microsoft Big Easy Offer 10 and Cloud Easy!

From now until May 31, 2013, every purchase you make of qualifying Microsoft solutions earns you a subsidy payment on your behalf made out to the Microsoft partner of your choice (DELTEC, naturally).  This subsidy can be used to implement your overall solution or pay for additional products or services in the future, and is placed as a credit on your account.  The partner subsidy helps make it easier to get the solutions your business needs to grow!  Ask DELTEC today about how you can take advantage of this excellent offer!

Click here for more info.

Qualifying products:

• Microsoft® Office
• Microsoft® Dynamics CRM
• Microsoft® Exchange Server
• Microsoft® Lync™ Server
• Microsoft® SharePoint™ Server
• Microsoft® SQL™ Server
• Microsoft® Windows Client
• Microsoft® Windows Datacenter
• Microsoft® Windows Server®
• Microsoft® Visio®
• Microsoft® SQL Server®
• Microsoft® Project
• Microsoft® System Center

This is the time of year that our thoughts are filled with anticipation, gratitude, and hope as we celebrate the coming of a Savior to lift mankind from the mire of a fallen world.  While world events can often leave us feeling anxious and hopeless, God’s gracious gift shows us that He is worthy of our trust and faith.

We at DELTEC look forward to celebrating this season with our families and friends.  We are grateful to include you among our friends.  It is our sincere hope that this holiday season finds you well, prosperous, and looking forward to the prospects of another new year.  We are honored to be able to work with you.

Blessings,

Your friends at DELTEC Information Solutions

With the advanced firewalls and security tools that are in place in many corporate environments, it is easy for the users to become complacent and assume that they are safe from malware and intrusions.  While the security systems that we put in place in our clients’ networks today are better than ever, it is critical that computer users remain vigilant when using email, messaging, texting, and Internet applications.  Attached at the end of this post are some examples of recent phishing schemes that are quite good. But first, let’s review some tips for handling email that may be suspicious.

1. If you don’t know who it is from, it is automatically suspect.
2. If the email includes an attachment, do not open it.
3. Never send personal or financial information over email.  Banks, payment card companies, etc. will not send a link for you to update your account information.  If you are concerned about a particular account because of an email you received, call the institution and discuss with them.
4. Do not call a phone number supplied in one of these email messages.  It is very easy for criminals to set up dummy phone numbers that sound like they are being answered by a real company for the express purpose of collecting your personal information.
5. Scammers frequently go to great pains to make the email, and included links, look legitimate.  One quick way to test the validity of a link is to hover your mouse pointer over the link and see if the actual hyperlink matches the one that shows.  You may quickly find that link that looks like it goes to iTunes really goes to some strange site in Romania.
6. You can also check the message headers in your Email client to verify if the email message is from who it says it is from.  There are different ways to do this depending on which email client you use.
7. Consider the history you have had with the company.  Have you had previous correspondence?  Is this message coming to a different email address than one you originally provided the company?
8. When in doubt, DELETE.

Phishing Examples

by Scott Jordan, Founder / CTO

DELTEC Information Solutions

The definition of cloud computing is pretty foggy, but the technology is here to stay and the business benefits are very real.  This paper will help you build a better understanding of Cloud Computing and how it may fit into your business technology strategy.

You may have heard a lot about “Cloud Computing” lately.  But can you define it?  It probably sounds like a newer version of the term “vapor-ware”, doesn’t it?  So is Cloud Computing the silver lining of business computing or just another storm on the horizon?  More importantly, is it right for your business?  In this article, we will describe the various iterations of the cloud and add some insight to the terms so that you can have a better understanding to apply to your business context.

There is a saying, “everything old is new again.”  In some ways, that saying describes Cloud Computing, at least in general.  Cloud Computing depends on an amalgam of existing technologies and is an extension of some historical trends in technology.  Since the days of mainframes, there have been service bureaus where businesses would lease or “time-share” computing power.  There is also a continually increasing demand for better methods to deliver applications to remote and mobile workers.  In addition, improvements in reliability, security, efficiency, and scalability have led to the broad adoption of virtualization technology, which allows multiple “virtual” computers to reside on one physical computer and use the computing resources more fully and efficiently.  The ubiquitous and inexpensive bandwidth available to the Internet has opened the door to much more powerful and feature-rich applications as well.  These trends and technologies together provide some of the building blocks that make Cloud Computing possible.

Cloud Computing is not merely a re-packaging of any one technology however, but a combination of technologies that present a new method of delivering computing tools to the knowledge worker of today.  Where traditional network technology is all about physical servers, hard-wired to a desktop, fixed in position, and dedicated to a single purpose, Cloud Computing is about an elastic, scalable, dynamically-allocated environment that efficiently and automatically adapts to changes in demand.  So, you might be saying, “Great, can you repeat that in English?”  Let’s look at the definitions of the various manifestations of Cloud Computing to gain some further insight into the concept.

For most people, their exposure to “Cloud Computing” is software delivered over the Internet, through a web browser.  Most of these applications are provided on a pay-as-you-go, or subscription basis to any Internet-connected computing device.  Advertising slogans such as Microsoft’s “to the cloud.” tout the flexibility and care-free world of having your applications hosted somewhere and readily available from anywhere.  This model is known as SaaS or Software-as-a-Service.  SaaS is typically presented in a “Public Cloud” environment, where the service provider owns and manages all the resources which are shared among all the users of the product.  Some good examples of SaaS offerings are Salesforce.com, Quickbooks Online, and Google Apps.  As you can imagine, software publishers are pretty enthusiastic about this model, because the publisher retains complete control of the application and the configuration of the systems that support it.  This dramatically reduces the support costs are dramatically reduced.  Furthermore, with the application provided on a subscription basis, the company now has a recurring stream of revenue.  Finally, because control over the intellectual property never leaves the publisher’s systems, concerns over piracy and illegal copying of their product are practically nonexistent.  To the end-client of the application service, the ability to access the application from any Internet connection is attractive, as is the promise of lower maintenance, high-system availability, and in some cases, automatic backup of the data.  However, there are some caveats to this delivery model that require careful consideration.  Because it is a subscription model, the cost will be recurring, and as the user-base for a particular application grows, so will the cost.  There isn’t an endpoint to the cost stream either, as the application is never “paid off.”   Hosted applications also tend to have limits in functionality and features as well as some challenges in interfacing with other applications.  For example, Salesforce.com has created a separate program to help users synchronize their appointments and contacts with Outlook, but it is not completely seamless in operation.  While the feature gap is narrowing some, it is certainly advisable to consider the level of integration required when considering a SaaS option.  Finally, there still tends to be some concern over security of data, although this is sometimes based more in perception more than in reality.    It is important then to carefully understand how your data is stored, secured, and retained by a particular service provider before entering into agreement.  Finally, it is also essential to explore how you may recover your intellectual property (data) in the event that you cease doing business with the provider.

In a similar way to SaaS, Infrastructure-as-a-Service, or IaaS, provides a pay-as-you-go model, but delivers on-demand computing resources such as processing and storage.  Also part of the “Public Cloud,” this model allows the creator of an application to provision computer resources as needed in a flexible pool of computers.  The service provider retains ownership of the capital equipment and provides power and connectivity, while the customer is responsible for the installation of the operating systems and software, as well as ongoing maintenance and support of the environment.  Much like the time-share mainframe days, pricing is set in increments of processing, memory, storage, and bandwidth units.  In some cases, the service provider commits physical servers to the client, to deploy as their needs dictate.  In other iterations, the computing environment is a shared environment where virtual servers are provisioned for the client purposes. Examples of this kind of service are Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, Bluelock, or IBM Cloud.  One of the key attractions of this model is the ability to ramp up a deployment without the initial up-front capital investment required to purchase equipment.  Another positive factor is the ability to have systems in a secure, off-site data-center, without the direct commitment of real-estate and utilities such as power and cooling.  For a mission-critical application where maximum uptime is essential, this model can offer a considerable advantage in availability, flexibility, and recovery.  However, as in the software-as-a-service model, the value proposition must be carefully evaluated for IaaS as well.  Because of the rental model for these services, the operating expense is ongoing.  Think of it like renting an apartment versus buying a house.  At no future point are you going to have an apartment paid off, and you will never be in a situation of positive equity.   When considering IaaS therefore, it is essential to evaluate all the costs over time, and compare them to the lifespan and cost of investing in your own on-premise systems.  With the continual improvements in server technology, particularly those provided by manufacturers such as IBM, we can count on the lifespan of a new server extending to five to seven years.  Careful consideration must be given to the requirements as well as the return on investment for each scenario to make the best strategic decision for your business.

One last Public-Cloud service model that we will consider briefly is the Platform-as-a-Service model, or PaaS.  This is a little more ambiguous in definition.  Essentially, PaaS provides a middle-ware function that can allow developers and IT professionals a sandbox to provision application servers and databases on demand.  Examples of this type of service are Salesforce.com’s Force.com and Microsoft’s Windows Azure.  Force.com is a database development environment that allows a programmer to write custom web-delivered applications.  Windows Azure provides a range of services from flexible computing such as IaaS to an application development fabric.  One thing that is clear is that as time progresses, the lines between IaaS and PaaS will continue to blur.

It is important to understand that not all Cloud-Computing is public in nature.  Many companies are deploying cloud architecture in their own data centers.  Developed on a philosophy that maximizes efficiency, manageability, and flexibility, these “Private Cloud” environments leverage virtualization as a core component.  With modern virtualization platforms, resources can be allocated and re-allocated in minutes where formerly the process took hours or days.  If the marketing department needs a new application, a virtual server can be brought online in minutes to deliver the functionality.  If that application is critical, it can be implemented in a high-availability cluster that can automatically sense changes in load or potential failures and more the virtual environment on-the-fly with no impact to the user.  When the application is no longer needed, the resources can be reclaimed for other purposes.  Disaster Recovery benefits are realized by the ability to duplicate the virtual environment to another company location or a collocated facility in the “Cloud.”  Private Cloud architecture also benefits the business customer through significant savings in energy, cooling, and space costs by consolidating the sprawl of systems into fewer, more efficient physical pieces of equipment.  Private Cloud Computing further reduces maintenance and overhead costs by allowing the IT staff to centrally manage and support the computing environment for the end users.  Solutions such as Virtual Desktops and application virtualization further centralize the resources and streamline delivery.  Products such as VMware View and Citrix XenApp are revolutionizing the user experience by providing the ability to work in the same desktop environment from practically any device and “check out” applications as needed.  Even smaller businesses can benefit greatly from the Private Cloud model.  As upgrades to existing infrastructure are considered, these technologies should be integrated into the business computing strategy.

A Hybrid Cloud environment is a combination of Private Cloud and Public Cloud environments.  Ultimately most organizations will probably settle on some mix of the two, with certain functions best served by the Public model, and others retained in a Private Cloud.  One particular example may be a situation where a seasonal business needs to have short-term capacity for a particular application, without making a long-term investment in additional computing power that will be idle for much of the year.  In this scenario, a company may engage an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) vendor to provide temporary capacity that supplements their own.  In another example, a company may want to isolate a customer-facing application that has critical security and availability demands and host it in a Public Cloud environment.  Until customer demand reaches a certain level, they cannot justify building out their own hosted datacenter so they leverage the on-demand nature of a Platform as a Service (PaaS) provider to help them build out and host the solution.  Their internal business systems may remain in a private environment however, and still be able to interface with the public systems.

Attending a convention in San Francisco in February 2001, I heard several speakers heralding the death of the private network and declaring that within 18-24 months there wouldn’t have a need for local servers any more.  Ten years later it is obvious that the transformation hasn’t happened as quickly as predicted.  However evolutionary the change that is occurring, it represents a fundamental shift in the strategy of delivering applications and services to the knowledge worker.  CIOs and IT managers are ultimately going to be managing a hybrid application delivery fabric that is a combination of on-premise, web-delivered, mobile, and cloud-based applications.

One of the best things about Cloud Computing is that it has the potential to further change the view of IT in the minds of business decision makers.  Cloud Computing takes the focus off the “stuff” and emphasizes the “why” behind the technology.  It makes technology more user-centric, focusing on results and business value more than complicated delivery mechanisms.  This further enhances the strategic significance of technology within the organization.  Most organizations will not have a pure version of any of the cloud models discussed, but there will more likely be a mix of traditional and cloud, in-house and out-sourced systems and services in your future.  The change isn’t going to happen overnight, but you can bet that the future is upon us.

DELTEC’s mission is helping businesses achieve success by solving business problems and managing risk through strategic application and management of technology.  DELTEC reduces the complexity of designing, deploying, managing, and administering hybrid service environments.  Our team has the experience and expertise, in cooperation with our partners IBM, Microsoft, Citrix, VMware, and others, to help business leaders evaluate their current technology resources and make key business decisions to enhance their success and readiness for the future. Contact DELTEC today to discuss how you can leverage virtualization and Cloud Computing technologies for your organization.

DELTEC Information Solutions

(800) 386-5639

www.deltecsolutions.com

Microsoft’s current solution, claimed to be a temporary solution, is to disable gadgets in the Windows desktop altogether.  Whether a permanent solution is released or not remains in question, however, as Microsoft does not intend to continue the use of gadgets in the upcoming Windows 8 release.  Gadgets have not turned out to be that popular since their debut in Windows Vista.  As an indication of this, Microsoft only shipped 9 gadgets with its Windows 7 release.  Look for some of the same ideas to translate to Windows 8 in terms of tiles allowing users to see upcoming appointments, unread email, current weather conditions, stock tickers, and the like.  Not sure about the value of this either, however, as most users I know never see their desktop behind thirty open applications and emails.  So for now, turn of those gadgets and if you really need to know what the weather is, you will have to rely on a real window instead of Windows.

Interestingly, backup is still one of the most frequent conversations we have with prospective clients. It seems like every other day we are talking with someone new who is really nervous about their data in the event of a disaster. And rightly so, considering some of the scenarios we hear about. They run the gamut from old tape systems, to portable hard disk drives, to pocket memory keys (!). Occasionally, someone will even admit that they aren’t really sure when their data was last successfully backed up.

Data is one of the most valuable assets in any business today. As businesses accumulate more and more data, and depend upon that data for everything from daily operations to competitive advantage, it is critical that the business places appropriate value on the protection of this asset. How long could your business effectively function without your computer systems and the information they contain? Loss of data impacts the business in many ways. Downtime and lost opportunity during a recovery are significant, but if data cannot be recovered, there can be crippling losses in terms of uncollected receivables, lost opportunities, missed orders, legal liability, and regulatory reporting requirements, not to mention loss of goodwill and potential negative publicity.

If the data that a business accumulates is of such great value, shouldn’t the protection and accessibility of this data one of the top priorities of every IT strategy? The answer is surprisingly simple, and follows the old adage; “out of sight, out of mind.” The truth is, most business executives are unaware of how exposed they are until the inevitable disaster strikes. Then, unfortunately, there is no time for strategy, or a managed process, just reaction and damage control. The truth is, backup is a lot like insurance. You invest in it, hoping you never have to use it. When you do have to use it, however, you are always glad it is there. Most IT Managers I have met hate to deal with backup too. It is usually one of their top maintenance headaches, and eats up a good share of their capital budget to upgrade and replace equipment and software every few years. So, while no one likes to think about it, they shudder to imagine the aftermath of a serious data loss.

The good news is that DELTEC has developed a turnkey solution to manage and protect your data from disaster. Our SysCare® Assure™ Services provide a secure, managed process that automatically backs up and protects your information in local and cloud-based storage systems. Based on your unique requirements for downtime tolerance, retention policy, and specific program support such as Microsoft SQL or Exchange, DELTEC consultants can custom tailor a process that meets your needs and fits your budget. On-premise high-speed, high capacity managed disk systems provide fast recovery for lost data and failed hard drives, while secure off-site cloud-based storage provides disaster recovery in case of the loss of a facility or multiple systems. Then, DELTEC can completely manage the process for you, taking the headaches off your plate and giving you confidence that the lifeblood of your business is secure. You don’t have to own or maintain any equipment or software, and the whole process can be treated as an operating expense, preserving already thin capital budgets.

In terms of return on investment, SysCare® Assure™ can more than pay for itself in one downtime incident. Being a completely managed solution, you also save time and productivity that you staff spends managing your current backup process and solving inevitable backup failures. Given the value, the low monthly fee will amaze you. And best of all, SysCare® Assure™ is available from DELTEC Information Solutions, a name you can trust.

Call DELTEC today for a free data protection consultation!  Phone: 800-386-5639 or 765-286-5639.

More and more business users are fully mobile, meaning they can work from practically anywhere.  What this means is that their laptop computers often contain valuable corporate and personal data on them.
How do you protect this valuable information if the computer is stolen?

LoJack for laptops by Absolute Software provides one solution.  Offered in two plans, this software protects the computer it is installed on with the following features:

• Lock – the software can prevent use of your laptop if stolen.  You can even activate the locking remotely.
• Delete – you can remotely and selectively delete files from your laptop to prevent a thief from accessing them.
• Locate – LoJack can track your computer’s whereabouts using GPS or WiFi geolocation
• Recover – The LoJack tracking team can inform local law enforcements of the whereabouts of a stolen laptop so that they can recover it.

Best of all, the product is guaranteed!  If you are interested in finding out more about adding this to your security strategy, call your DELTEC adviser today!

Here are some questions that need to be considered:

Do you allow individual-owned devices on the corporate network at all?

Do you “quarantine” personal devices to only access the Internet while at the office?

If you do allow individually-owned devices, how do you protect the corporate computing environment and manage some of the following aspects?

• Delivering secure access to business applications and resources on the organization’s network without compromising security.
• Compatibility of devices with various applications.
• Streamlining communications through the business’ phone system.
• Management and protection of company-owned software licenses.
• Protection of sensitive company information.
• Ensuring protection from malware, standardization of malware protection software.
• Manage and contain rising support costs.

DELTEC can help you answer these questions and implement systems and/or policies that manage the potential onslaught of new technology.  We have delivered the security, communications, and network solutions that allow our clients mobility and peace-of-mind.

DELTEC is proud to announce that we have earned Silver Medallion Partner status with SonicWall®. This partnership provides our clients with access to the most innovative and aggressive Internet security, wireless, VPN, and connectivity solutions on the market today. As a result of this new level of partnership, DELTEC will be able to offer our clients enhanced support, additional expertise, and special pricing on SonicWall® solutions.

SonicWall® is also DELTEC’s exclusive partner for our SysCare® WebGuard Managed Internet Security services. The SysCare® WebGuard services deliver a completely turn-key solution to Internet threats by coupling dedicated SonicWall® appliances with cloud-based management and monitoring services keep protection up to date, and report on all threat and usage activity on regular intervals. This proactive security model eliminates most threats before they have the chance to get to your network. The SonicWall® systems and DELTEC services also provide the fundamental elements necessary to maintain compliance with security standards such as PIC, Sarbanes-Oxley, SSAE-16 (SAS/70), HITECH (HIPAA), and others. Call Scott or Matt at DELTEC today for more information.