IT Managed Services

As the technology needs of your company grow, business owners may struggle to decide whether to add internal IT staff or to outsource some of the IT responsibilities. There are several factors that will impact this decision.

If you are considering using a managed service provider (MSP), you may have run across service level agreements (SLA) and wondered what is the purpose of these documents and if you really need one. When evaluating different IT providers, some may offer SLAs and some may not, and you could be wondering if an SLA is beneficial to you or is something on which you should insist. In a word... YES!

Are you aware of the mandatory cybersecurity DFARS compliance deadline of December 31, 2017? (See Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) 252.204-7012, “Safeguarding Covered Defense Information and Cyber Incident Reporting.”)

Cybersecurity guidelines required by the Department of Defense (DoD) are likely to have an enormous impact on the nation's approved manufacturers that received DoD contracts in 2016. By December 31, 2017, all DoD contractors (including small businesses) must meet minimum cybersecurity requirements or risk losing DoD business. Unfortunately, many manufacturing companies are not even aware of this approaching deadline and what they must do to become compliant.

As we move into the last quarter of 2017, and especially if you have budget remaining for technology, now is a good time to evaluate your current backup and disaster recovery plans and processes. If you don't have a formal backup and disaster recovery plan, make this part of your New Year's resolutions.

Cybersecurity is near the top of everyone’s list of key business concerns and challenges. Threats can come from both inside and outside a company’s network. Companies across all industries are increasingly aware of their exposure to hacking attempts with ransomware events making headlines. The task of executing effective security at an affordable price can be daunting.

Network support can mean different things to different people. The technology in use at a proprietorship (and the corresponding network that supports it) will be much different than at a company of hundreds of employees. In addition to the number of employees within a company, the amount of data and the number of workstations the company uses are also factors that dictate the IT needs of the company.

In simple terms, there are two ways that hospitality technology can be implemented at a property: the traditional IT environment where all the hardware, software, and networking is managed on-site versus cloud based solutions.

Corserva recently announced burgeoning growth in its configuration and integration services. The response from the company’s clients has been extremely positive as the availability of this service removes an obstacle for businesses trying to leverage technology to realize corporate goals.

Virtualization is the modern way to maximize IT resources. Virtualization can apply to applications, servers, storage, and networks and is the single most effective way to reduce IT expenses while providing users better access to systems from wherever they are working. (Learn more about the benefits of virtualization.) With virtualization, applications are contained in virtual machines (VMs) which are isolated from each other, but share a pool of resources managed by a hypervisor.

If you are a defense or government supplier – or if you are a subcontractor selling to a government supplier – you need to know about the NIST 800-171 mandate, and take steps to perform a NIST assessment to become NIST compliant by the deadline December 31, 2017.