Category: IT How To

In today’s digital economy, cybersecurity is just as important as traditional, physical security. Many small businesses that wouldn’t dream of leaving their stores or offices unlocked and unguarded give little time or effort to a cybersecurity strategy. That’s in spite of 2018 research from Hiscox revealing that nearly half of small businesses suffered a cyber attack in the year prior to the study. Clearly, the notion that hackers won’t bother with the “little guy” is mistaken.

Other reasons that small businesses ignore cybersecurity include lack of resources and understanding. Physical security can be felt and seen. Locked doors, security cameras, and security guards are visible deterrent features.

Cybersecurity is different. It’s mostly invisible, and your average user won’t notice it. That said, cybersecurity isn’t as difficult to implement as some imagine. Here is how to cyber secure your company in 60 minutes or less.

1. Audit Your Existing Cybersecurity Measures

If your company has any cybersecurity measures in place, the first step is to review these. Look for holes or vulnerabilities in your plan. Review your internal IT policies, looking for weaknesses that a disgruntled employee or even a bad actor could exploit.

If no one in your company is in a position to perform this audit, or if you aren’t sure whether you have any cybersecurity measures in place, you need to bring in a consultant to perform this task. If you’re working with a managed service provider (MSP) already, check to see whether cybersecurity is a service they offer.

2. Train Staff on Phishing Techniques and Other Email Scams

Remember that notion that master hackers probably aren’t interested in coming after your small business because you’re the little guy? There’s actually an element of truth there. The likelihood of some shadowy group of elite European hackers employing TV-show-level hacking skills to break into your computer systems is pretty low.

That doesn’t mean you’re safe from all cybersecurity threats, though. Most of the time, hackers will get into your system by phishing.

Phishing Explained

Phishing schemes can take on a number of forms. Generally, they involve a realistic-looking email that’s made to look like it comes from a trusted organization (say, Microsoft) or from a trusted and important individual (say, your CEO or another executive).

Organization-based (or credential-based) phishing campaigns may include a link to a convincing but fake login page. Users enter their credentials, which go straight to the hackers who set up the scheme. Those hackers now have credentials necessary to log onto your company’s systems.

Personality-based phishing campaigns usually involve some social engineering. The “CEO” tries to convince a low-level user to do something that’s a breach in policy, and the user complies, hoping to impress the CEO. Instead, he or she gives away the store.

Training Is Key

Phishing schemes are not that complicated, and most users can identify them easily with even 60 minutes or less of training. Invest in this training to keep your business safer.

3. Set up Two-Factor Authentication

Two-factor authentication (2FA) is an added layer of security that can be enabled on many types of accounts. With 2FA, users enter their username and password as normal, but there’s an additional step. Users will also need to enter a randomly generated code (usually sent via text message). 2FA should be enabled wherever possible in your organization. Taking this step alone will cripple most credential-based phishing attacks.

4. Review and Strengthen Your Password Policy

Lastly, set up a password policy that forces users to create complex passwords and change them regularly. You’ll reduce your exposure to threats of stolen credentials and thus tighten up your cybersecurity strategy.

Conclusion

These 4 steps can help you improve your organization’s cybersecurity, but they aren’t a comprehensive strategy. We can work with you to form a cybersecurity strategy that’s comprehensive and customized to your business. Are you ready? Contact us today.

Microsoft recently announced major enhancements to Microsoft 365 (yes, you read that right — Office 365 is now a part of Microsoft 365), including significant upgrades to SharePoint. The innovation with perhaps the greatest potential is Home Sites. In today’s tech blog, we’ll explore what Microsoft is up to with this new feature.

SharePoint Home Sites

If you’ve used Office 365 for any length of time, you’ve probably come across SharePoint. Most users know it as the name of the cloud storage component of Office 365. SharePoint has also been the underpinnings of some companies’ intranet sites for the better part of a decade.

SharePoint home sites is a huge evolution for the intranet component in the Microsoft 365 platform. Corporate vice president for OneDrive, SharePoint, and Office Jeff Teper calls them “a dynamic, engaging, and personalized employee experience for your organization.” What are home sites exactly, though?

Intranet, Evolved

SharePoint home sites are Microsoft’s vision for the future of the workplace intranet. They are intelligent — powered by AI, and they provide a landing page for employees that customizes based on the employee’s role.

Here are a few of the new features in SharePoint home sites.

• SharePoint home sites include powerful Microsoft Search technology that reaches every corner of the company’s intranet.
• SharePoint home sites intelligently share content that’s relevant to users depending on each user’s position in the company.
• SharePoint home sites pull together collaboration tools like Yammer and Stream into one location that’s customized for each user.
• SharePoint home sites offer additional personalization options, allowing users to customize their page for maximum productivity.

What SharePoint Home Sites Can Do for You

Part of the strength of home sites is their customization options, but users and organizations will see benefits even with a straight “out of the box” deployment. Here are a handful.

News, For All

By default, home sites serve as an organization-wide news source. Anything published as news to the home site is shown to every user as organizational news. With SharePoint home sites, you can take your news out of the email vortex and put it front and center on your home site.

A Powerful, Connected Page

Home sites are also linked up with the newly enhanced SharePoint start page, which allows you to jump right into work. The search box provided is also powerful and connected. It’s powered by Microsoft Search, and it reaches across your enterprise—anywhere the user has access to.

Low Barrier to Entry

Another feature is the low barrier to entry. With home sites, you can build out an intranet portal in just minutes, not months. You don’t need to know how to code, and you can brand your site to fit your company image.

Conclusion

Are you ready to take the leap to Microsoft 365 and explore SharePoint home sites? We’re here to guide you. Contact us today!

Multi-factor authentication is a polarizing topic in business and technical channels. While business users are often quite fussy when asked to establish a secondary method of accessing their secure accounts and data, technology professionals realize that this bare-minimum authentication may be all that stands between business systems and some very bad actors. Reconciling the technical challenges of implementing 2FA (two-factor authentication) or MFA (multi-factor authentication) may seem like a struggle IT teams aren’t winning — but the fight is still a crucial one. Here’s what you need to know about how MFA can potentially remove bad actors from the equation in your business.

What is Multi-Factor Authentication?

Business users (and ordinary humans in general) are notorious for creating passwords that are extremely easy to unravel. As machine learning systems become increasingly sophisticated, it’s not surprising that passwords no longer pose enough of a deterrent for a dedicated cybercriminal. A simple password is like the virtual handshake that allows an individual user to access their shared resources and business systems. Passwords are generally easy for business users: they can be quickly reset as long as you have access to a primary email account and you can theoretically use the same password in a variety of different places, which certainly makes it easier on your memory! Unfortunately, everything that makes passwords convenient for business users also makes it easier for hackers to infiltrate your systems. Multi-factor authentication includes a range of strategies that technology professionals can leverage to create an additional layer of security between bad actors and crucial business data.

Additional authentification options include:

• SMS text-based messages to a stored mobile number
• Biometrics, such as facial recognition or fingerprints
• Hard and soft tokens

These systems can be configured to ask for an additional method of authentication only when the access attempt appears to be high-risk — such as requests that come from an unrecognized device or originated in a region that is known for presenting cybersecurity threats.

How Multi-Factor Authentication Helps Reduce Access for Cybercriminals

Cloud-based applications are considered by some to be key targets for an attack since the storage of information is not onsite behind a firewall, but “out there” where theoretically accounts could be more easily compromised. Implementing multi-factor authentication in this situation allows legitimate users to quickly access their accounts and information while adding that crucial layer of security. This is especially important when you have privileged access accounts — those users who have admin privileges or whose login allows them to tunnel deeper into your infrastructure. Creating a strong identity governance solution and implementing it across all corners of your business can help ensure that the individual accessing the information is vetted and verified before allowing them egress. While bad actors can hack a password, it would be much more difficult for them to copy a fingerprint or gain access to a randomly-generated number that was delivered to your personal mobile phone. While SIM hijacking does occur (when hackers access a specific phone remotely), a more robust form of two-factor authentication is helping businesses such as social media platforms reduce the potential of hacked accounts.

81% of Hacks Involved Stolen Passwords

Let that fact sink in for just a moment: according to Verizon’s recent Data Breach Investigations Report in 2017, 81% of breaches leveraged stolen or weak passwords to allow cybercriminals unauthorized access to business information. Creating the rules that will convince users to update them on a regular basis is a solid first step in reducing this threat, but it will not be nearly enough to stem the tide of destruction and loss caused by poor password hygiene. The Verizon report also showed that nearly 3/4 of breaches are financially motivated, while only a small percentage (21%) were related to cyberespionage.

With this type of additional data in hand, it is hoped that organizations will be able to pitch the value of multi-factor authentication to overcome any concerns by business users as well as the cost differential involved in implementing these advanced security measures. Without multi-factor authentication in place, your business is simply one weak or default password away from providing bad actors with easy access to your sensitive business information.

If you’ve heard the terms “NextGen Malware and Antivirus Protection”, you might think they were made up by a marketer who had a few too many lattes — but this type of security truly takes it up a notch from more familiar offerings. Today’s cybercriminals are becoming increasingly savvy and are finding ways to short-circuit or completely bypass traditional protective measures. These well-organized criminals understand white hat security procedures. They are tracking the activity of your key business leaders online or on social media. They are developing malware and viruses that can mutate to avoid detection. And make no mistake: these hackers can bring your business to a halt in a matter of hours by limiting access to your important business data or trashing crucial systems. Here’s what you need to know about the next generation of tools that cybersecurity professionals are developing to combat this escalating threat to America’s businesses.

Cyberthreats Were Created to Evade Your Current Security Systems

What are these dangerous and slippery lines of code? They’re developed specifically to circumvent or defeat your security processes and procedures and are becoming extremely effective at doing their job. Traditional antiviruses are often blocked before they are able to cause a great deal of mischief, but this new generation of threats requires some next-level tools for protection. Ilan Sredni of Palindrome Consulting shares: “Advanced threat protection has changed its nature. Using artificial intelligence tools that can understand any type of malware will be the standard and the only way to stay ahead, if not current, with the threats”. Early on, threat actors figured out ways to leverage the most basic of business software, such as Microsoft Excel and Word, in order to deliver their nefarious payloads. Software engineers and security professionals grew savvy to these tactics — causing a new wave of threats to come to the forefront. As the threats continue to evolve, cybersecurity professionals will need to remain diligent if they want to protect their organizations. As endpoints become more amorphous, cyber attacks increasingly take advantage of the slipperiness of maintaining security on mobile phones, WiFi locations and other potentially risky endpoints.

What Makes Antivirus Protection “NextGen”?

While it’s difficult to tie down a single definition for “NextGen” in terms of antivirus protection, this term is often used to describe strategies and products that provide a more comprehensive and scalable approach to preventing this type of attack. This system-centric approach often leverages machine learning to improve protection capabilities, uses cloud-based computing to scan for threats and unusual actions, immediately begins resolution without requiring direct input and provides a more comprehensive set of data that can be analyzed to determine the duration and extent of a breach or hack. These forensics are particularly important as organizations seek to shore up any holes in their security grid to prevent other attacks in the future. Traditional antivirus protection is proactive to some extent, in that it is continually scanning for known signatures and performing heuristic analysis. The next generation of malware is quite crafty in the way it interacts with your systems.

What’s the Difference Between Metamorphic and Polymorphic Malware?

According to Don Baham, President and CEO of Kraft Technology Group, “Polymorphic and metamorphic attributes of malware are harder to detect and prevent, and more dark web marketplaces are providing access to malware code. Together, this has resulted in a greater number of hard-to-detect malware variants attacking our enterprises”. Defining the difference between metamorphic and polymorphic malware starts with understanding the root of the terms: “Metamorphic viruses are considered to be more advanced threats then polymorphic malware because the internal code and signature patterns are changing with each with iteration, making metamorphic malware impossible to be detected with signature-based endpoint tools,” Sredni shares. Protecting against this type of malware requires reaching beyond a simple monitoring program and defining endpoint security solutions that will monitor for abnormal activity, analyze what rogue programs are attempting to do and either halt the activity or actively alert an admin. “Since this type of attack can happen rapidly, it’s crucial that your solution is able to report this newly learned behavior to other endpoints in the enterprise to help mitigate the spread of the malware,” notes Baham.

Protecting Against Next-Generation Threats

For information on protecting against this type of advanced threat, we turn to Keith Marchiano, Director of Operations for Kyocera Intelligence. “Your first step is to implement a password policy to have your end user passwords changed every 90 days. Having your server and network passwords changed as frequently is challenging. Second, implementing 2-factor authentication for anybody trying to log into your server or network is recommended. Third, implement a multi-layer plan for security- antivirus, malware/spyware/ransomware protection, and cloud DNS security to protect the network. Fourth, implement mandatory security training for all employees. Finally, have a disaster recovery/business continuity solution that will detect ransomware attacks and allow your network administrator to restore the network to the time prior to the attack. Taking this approach will improve your security and ensure if you are attacked, that you can restore without loss to your data or major damage to your company’s reputation. All of these steps can be implemented rather quickly without interruption to your business”.

Creating a holistic approach to security starts with a firm understanding of the threat landscape, something that you simply cannot gain overnight without assistance. Your business is depending on you to reduce the risk around malware and viruses — are your solutions and technology team ready to rise to the occasion?

Choosing a managed IT services firm to handle your business’s IT is the right choice for many businesses.

Here are our top 5 reasons why.

1. Focus on Your Business’s Core Competencies

Here’s the bottom line: unless you are a managed IT services firm, your core competency isn’t IT services. It’s something else. Every resource you devote in-house to IT services is a resource you’re not devoting to what makes you unique and competitive.

Even if you have a highly skilled in-house IT department, keeping all your IT services in-house can destroy your focus. Are your managers or even C-level officers regularly devoting time to IT-related concerns? Offloading your IT services to a managed IT services provider doesn’t completely eliminate the need for oversight, of course, but it does reduce the day-to-day involvement that comes with managing IT in-house.

2. Do More IT Faster and Better

If you work at or lead an SMB, offloading your IT services to a managed services firm connects you to a larger team with a wider depth of experience than you could ever hire in-house. You can only have so many in-house IT personnel, and as an SMB your company won’t reach the breadth or depth of a firm that focuses solely on providing managed IT services.

Using managed IT services is the way to expand your capability and do more with IT, faster and better than you could on your own. You’ll have access to providers who hold the latest certifications and who are skilled enough to work for a firm with this kind of sole focus.

3. Rein In Chaotic IT Spending

There’s a reason the relationship between the CFO and the CIO is often strained. IT budgets can be unwieldy, even chaotic. The costs of planned equipment replacement can be budgeted for, but surprise failures of costly IT equipment can lead to budget headaches. The costs for any service that’s beyond your in-house IT team’s ability can be extravagant, too.

With managed IT services, you can get control of these costs. Most managed service providers offer a set monthly rate, allowing you to better plan and budget. This monthly rate covers the typical repair and maintenance needs businesses encounter. By and large, you’ll no longer have to call in those expensive specialists, because you now have access to them through your managed service provider.

A good managed IT services firm can help you normalize your IT spend in a few other ways, too. They can help you create an equipment replacement plan (if you don’t have one). They can also recommend cloud- or subscription-based software solutions that will eliminate those pesky software upgrade spikes every time a new version rolls along.

4. Protect Yourself by Staying Compliant

Whatever your business, you have some forms of IT or privacy compliance that likely keep you up at night. Some industries, such as health care, have specific, government-mandated privacy and security procedures, such as HIPAA. All companies with a web presence and users in Europe are now subject to GPDR. Financial firms have their own sets of regulations.

Here’s a blunt question: if you still have an entirely in-house IT team, how deeply do you trust them to keep you compliant? Are they keeping up on the latest developments in security and compliance? If you’re an SMB, your IT folks are probably too busy troubleshooting workstations to keep up like they need to. Unless you have the resources to devote an entire department to security and compliance, you’re better off relying on outside experts to serve this critical function.

5. Protect Yourself by Staying Secure

Along the lines of the previous point: how well do you trust your in-house IT team’s security capabilities? Do you have the resources to devote an entire team to network and data security, or are the same few people that cover everything else trying to cover this, too? It’s not uncommon for hackers to go after SMBs as the low-hanging fruit: sure, the payoff of breaching Microsoft is higher, but doing so is astronomically more difficult. Hacking a business with 50 to 100 employees that’s trying to handle its own security is likely pretty easy.

A good managed IT services firm employs professionals who stay on the cutting edge of network and data security. They can implement strategies to keep you safer.

Conclusion

For all these reasons, choosing managed IT services is the right choice for your business. If you’re ready to begin the conversation about switching, contact us today.

Ensuring that you have a high-speed, highly reliable digital connection to the world is crucial for today’s technology leaders. Business professionals are now accustomed to near-instant access to the information and platforms that they need and are increasingly unwilling to accept less than perfection when it comes to infrastructure. Unfortunately, infrastructure can be extremely expensive to rework and often needs to be modified over time or as funds allow. When you make an upfront investment in technology such as SD-WAN (Software-Driven WAN) you can make significant gains in terms of deployment time as well as the appreciation of your business peers. These benefits will help describe why SD-WAN is increasingly the choice of organizations of all sizes who need to quickly, securely and reliably connect to the internet — and each other.

SD-WAN is Scalable and Flexible

Traditional networking infrastructure is considered extremely stable, but that stability could also be considered a downside when it is time to move or scale your organization. The high upfront cost of implementing MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) networking is primarily due to the hardware that is involved in creating an efficient flow of information between two or more locations. Data forwarding decisions with MPLS are made according to more rigid rules that drive packet-forwarding technology. Sure, MPLS is quite reliable with exceptionally low packet loss, but that efficiency is balanced with a relatively high bandwidth cost — a big problem considering today’s multimedia content, massive downloads and telecommunications needs.

By contrast, SD-WAN offers the potential of dramatically decreasing your ongoing operating costs in terms of bandwidth while also blurring the hard edges of your networking to allow for more flexible applications. Software-driven networking allows you to quickly and easily add new links without expensive changes to your hardware. Lower-priority traffic can be assigned to broadband internet to reduce the load on any legacy (and more expensive!) MPLS connections.

SD-WAN Offers Cloud-Level Security

Connecting remote offices securely with a fast connection has been difficult in the past, but SD-WAN is challenging that paradigm. Since the connections are cloud-based, this protocol easily supports SaaS applications — which are in increasing use in business today. Temporary work locations are more easily configured with added security that would have been quite challenging with aging, hardwired technology. Providing this type of unified communications platform provides for increased efficiency across the organization while providing employees with the geographic flexibility that they need to be successful. Users demand access to applications that network administrators would prefer to keep within their walled gardens, especially with the recent rise in cybercrime. Security spending is expected to top $113 billion by 2020, showing the ongoing commitment of technology teams to creating a secure and accessible infrastructure for the modern organization. SD-WAN has security baked right in, providing end-to-end encryption that requires all endpoints and devices to be fully authenticated before they are able to access the secure network.

SD-WAN Improves Branch Uptime

Network infrastructure has traditionally been more structured and mechanical, often requiring expert technicians to schedule downtime for the organization in order to make necessary updates. That means that unscheduled downtime is much more prevalent than with a software-based solution for packet routing. Human error is easily the top cause due to manual configuration errors according to a study from Avaya, often resulting in revenue loss and even the loss of jobs. SD-WAN implementations are considered less brittle due to the availability of zero-touch provisioning that reduces the costly manual touchpoints. The reduction in moving parts and touchpoints not only saves expensive technician time for reconfiguration but reduces the possibility of outages and the need for break-fix solutions.

SD-WAN Improves Network Automation

Technology leaders are always on the search for better-faster-cheaper: the trifecta that always seems to be out of reach. However, SD-WAN provides a much more attractive layer for network automation than the more rigid structures of the past. Creating an overlay allows IT network administrators to enhance productivity by automating tasks such as monitoring for the optimal connection for each portion of network traffic. Any changes to the network configuration can be centralized and easily distributed — adding to the overall performance of the system. This allows the network to be adaptable in the utilization of expensive resources. Through overlay networking, you’re able to create a discrete, virtualized trust overlay network by creating a virtual tunnel between two points that runs through the network. Each point in the network is tagged, allowing two trusted points to recognize each other and create that virtual connection that speeds data along the path without the need to physically create a connection.

With technology spending on security on the rise and the added need for high-speed connectivity, SD-WAN seems to step into the void left by high-end physical networks by providing a more flexible, scalable — and affordable — connection option for businesses today.

If you’re running a small to medium business (SMB), you’ve probably come across the term “managed IT” or “managed IT service.” What is managed IT, and what can it do for your small to medium business? Today we’ll answer these questions and more. Read on to learn about managed IT and how it helps your business win.

What Is Managed IT?

Managed IT is a specific type of managed service. To explain managed IT, we first need to talk about managed services in general. Managed services are those services that a business outsources completely to another more specialized organization. These exist all over the business world for a wide variety of reasons. Usually, a company invests in managed services in areas that aren’t core competencies. Managed services are a way for companies to focus on their core business, outsourcing peripheral functions to other more specialized businesses.

Some businesses enlist the help of managed services firms to handle their HR needs, while others may outsource elements of their customer service. One of the most common examples of managed services, though, is managed IT.

Managed IT, then, is the intentional outsourcing of a company’s IT needs to another firm that specializes in IT support. The company using managed IT services pays the managed service provider (MSP) to meet their technology needs, reducing or even eliminating the need for in-house IT support.

What’s the Alternative to Managed IT?

The main alternative to managed IT services is to develop a robust in-house IT department. When they reach the end of their abilities, you’ll call in pricey contractors who usually can’t guarantee that quick of turnaround time. (Brutal honesty: they can’t, because they’re prioritizing their managed IT clients over you!) This is sometimes described as the “break-fix” model. Do what you can in-house, and then when something breaks that your team can’t fix, you call in the big guns.

The break-fix model worked when businesses weren’t so dependent on their IT infrastructure, but it doesn’t work well today. Think of a piece of crucial tech in your office. Maybe that’s your online sales platform, or it’s a server or database of some kind. If that one thing suddenly stopped working, how long could you survive waiting for a specialist to show up and start fixing it? You don’t want to wait until a specialist has an opening to come fix it. You need dedicated support.

Why Use Managed IT?

We’ve already alluded to a few benefits to using managed IT, like dedicated support. Here are a few more reasons you should use managed IT to win.

Massively Expand IT Capability

If you’re running an SMB, you have real, concrete limits to the number of IT professionals you can afford to hire in-house. A 50-employee company can’t have a 25-person IT department and stay in business for long. Take a long, hard look at your current IT capability. Can your staff really do everything? Chances are you have a few folks that are specialized in a few areas. Additionally, they’re all adequate in basic IT functions.

When you bring in a managed IT service, you’re hiring a company that specializes in just one thing: managed IT. If they’re a 50-employee company, well over 25 of those people are IT specialists. They bring a wide variety of specializations to the table, too.

You massively expand your company’s IT capability by bringing on a dedicated support team. A managed IT service can typically do far more than you can currently do yourself.

Allow Existing IT Staff to Specialize

Bringing on a managed IT service may allow you to reduce your own IT staff, but another option is to let them specialize. Right now, they’re probably overworked, running from problem to problem. They solve problems outside their expertise, but they do so inefficiently. Bringing on a managed IT firm to handle most functions allows your IT staff to focus and specialize on proprietary or value-added IT processes specific to your company.

Focus on Your Core Business

If you currently run all your IT in house, how much of your time as a leader is spent dealing with your IT team? Every hour you spend on IT is an hour you aren’t spending growing and improving your core business. Offloading 80, 90, or even 100% of your IT needs to a managed service provider frees you up to focus on what you do best.

How Can We Help?

If you’re ready to see what managed IT can do for you, we’re here to answer your questions. Contact us today to start winning with managed IT.

Open source software has come a long way since the 1980s. Back when the concept was first developed, it was a philosophical revolution in the software world. Releasing software for free wasn’t new, but releasing the source code behind the software and even encouraging others to improve upon it was game-changing.

In its infancy, open source software wasn’t the sort of thing most enterprises would consider. Times have changed, though. If your organization has never seriously considered whether open source software has a role in enterprise IT, you may be missing out on some serious advantages.

Open Source Software’s Changing Role

Open source software used to be viewed as the software equivalent of homebrew beer: an interesting hobby with sometimes attractive results, but not at all useful at scale. Over the twenty-five-plus years since its origins, things have changed. There’s no perfect analogy, but you might say the open source crowd has evolved into the equivalent of a network of craft brewers. Each brewer crafts something unique, and they all share their recipes and brewing techniques freely, both with other brewers and with consumers. Because of this collaboration and free sharing of information, the results just keep getting better.

Enterprise Adoption Grows

This evolution has had an effect on enterprise adoption. Today, most companies utilize some open source software. Red Hat, a Linux distributor and a major player in the open source space, commissioned a study of enterprise IT in 2019. The study determined that 83% of enterprises surveyed were using open source software, and 69% of those respondents described open source software as being either extremely or very important to their organization.

Uses of Open Source Software

Uses of open source software in enterprise settings vary widely, of course. Small businesses may not venture far outside OpenOffice, an open source alternative to Microsoft Office. Enterprise level businesses, however, tend to do more. That same Red Hat study names five areas where open source applications are being used in surveyed enterprise businesses at a rate of 41% or higher. These five are website development, cloud management, security, big data & analytics, and databases.

Pros and Cons of Open Source Enterprise Software

We don’t want to give you the wrong impression. The world of open source software isn’t a miracle utopia that will solve your every business IT problem. There are pros and cons to using open source software for enterprise IT. Here are a few.

Pro: Open Source Software Is Almost Always Free

If the source code is freely available, the software itself is almost by definition offered for free as well. There are limited exceptions, but most of the time, open source software is free to use. This makes sense practically, as it’s challenging to charge for the shell when you’re giving away the innards for free. It’s also a philosophical decision, as the open source movement is closely connected to the ideas of the free software movement.

Con: Supporting Open Source Software Isn’t Free

Open source software at the enterprise level isn’t being designed by hobbyists with day jobs. This is complex software that takes real development work. You may be wondering, then, how the developers put food on the table. In many cases, the answer is support.

When you purchase enterprise software from a traditional source, you usually enter into a license agreement where the seller or the developer will support your use of the software, for a yearly fee. Similar arrangements are available to help you support many open source enterprise applications. The software is free, and you’re free to customize it. If you need support, though, you’ll need a service level agreement (SLA) or something similar. These aren’t free.

Pro: Open Source Software Is Customizable

Off-the-shelf software solutions don’t allow you to customize the software beyond whatever settings the developer offers. You’ve likely experienced this on a small scale. Many people who use Microsoft Outlook for email, for example, aren’t thrilled with the program’s search function. Too bad: neither users nor company IT departments have the ability to enhance this feature beyond what Microsoft provides.

Open source software is different. Companies can tailor the software to their needs and can tweak the source code so that the new software interfaces properly with their existing systems.

Con: You Have to Do It Yourself

The previous pro is a bit of a double-edged sword. The ability to customize software is great, but your company needs people with the skills to do that customization well. Even the best IT pros may get stuck in this process, and finding dedicated support can be a challenge.

Contrast this with complex high-end proprietary enterprise software suites, which often come with support from the vendor. Vendor agreements may include some custom interfacing work. The software and service agreements are costly, but you aren’t left on your own to do the customizing.

Conclusion

For many businesses, open source enterprise software can save money and improve functionality, but navigating the open source waters can be a challenge. If you need help, contact us today!

If you’re trying to figure whether Microsoft Office 365 is right for you, then migration should be one of your primary concerns.

When it comes to a cloud-based suite like this, migrating to Office 365 from your current IT environment is no small task.

That’s why you have to be sure you know what you’re doing.

Before we get to the 6 steps you should follow for a perfect Office 365 migration, let’s make sure we’re on the same page about what it actually is…

What is Microsoft Office 365?

Microsoft Office 365 is a subscription-based service that enhances Microsoft applications like Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Excel with the flexibility and accessibility of the cloud.

There are two primary ways that this platform breaks down – the web-based and premium desktop versions:

Web-Based Microsoft Office 365

The web-based Microsoft Office 365 Business provides users with online (browser-based) access to all their range of favorite Microsoft Office apps:

• Word (word processing)
• Excel (spreadsheets)
• PowerPoint (presentations)
• Outlook (email)
• OneNote (note-taking)
• OneDrive (file hosting and synchronization with 1 TB of storage)
• Access (database management, for PCs only)

Premium Office 365

The Premium desktop-based alternative gives users a range of enhanced and advanced features:

• Exchange (mail server and calendaring management)
• SharePoint (website building tool to share, organize, store and access information)
• Teams (a tool for collaboration, meetings, chat, and communication)
• Planner (task and teamwork management)
• Invoicing, booking and business intelligence tools
• Customer relationship management functions
• Yammer, Microsoft’s social media platform that enables users to collaborate and connect with each other

However, that’s really just the beginning as to how the many tiers of Microsoft Office 365 plans break down…

What Microsoft Office 365 plans are there, and what do they cost?

As a flagship offering from Microsoft, Office 365 comes in many shapes and sizes. So many, in fact, that you might not know where to begin.

The following list breaks down the many primary plan types offered for Microsoft Office 365, what they include, and how much they cost.

For each plan, these prices refer to a per-user basis, per month. To figure out what it would cost you, simply count the number of users you need to add from your business, and you’ve got your monthly cost – that’s easy to compare against your IT budget.

Exchange Plan 1 – $4.95 USD per user per month
Essentially just the email client aspect of the much larger Microsoft Office 365 platform, this plan includes:

• Secure corporate email
• 50 GB of inbox storage per user
• Sent messages up to 150MB
• All inbox management features available – sharing calendar dates and contacts, out of office messages, web-based email support.

SharePoint Online Plan 2 – $8.95 USD per user per month
Primarily designed as a file sharing and storage plan, this plan features SharePoint and OneDrive, as well as:

• Unlimited personal cloud storage
• Real-time co-authoring of files in the Microsoft suite of apps
• Centralizing and indexing of the user’s content in libraries and lists with metadata records management, and retention policies
• SharePoint mobile capability
• In-Place Holds that allow users to preserve content from edits or deletion

ProPlus – $12.95 USD per user per month
In addition to Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access (PC only), Publisher (PC only) and OneDrive (1TB storage), this plan includes:

• Web-based and desktop versions of the above Microsoft applications
• Skype for Business client (service not included)
• Licenses for an unlimited number of users

Enterprise E3 – $21.95 USD per user per month

Including all the applications, services and features of ProPlus, this plan also provides:

• File storage and collaboration with OneDrive and SharePoint
• Additional apps and services listed under the Premium suite above, such as Microsoft Teams, Yammer, and Stream (providing users with the ability to stream video to team members and other contacts)
• Email hosting with 100GB of inbox storage and custom email domains
• Unlimited personal cloud storage
• Online video conferencing for up to 250 attendees
• Online meetings for up to 10,000 attendees through Skype Meeting Broadcast or Microsoft Teams live

Business Essentials – $7.95 USD per user per month
An even more business-focused plan, this offering includes:

• Mobile installation of Office apps (up to 5 devices per user)
• Outlook email (50 GB of inbox storage per user and sent messages up to 150MB)
• OneDrive for Business (1 TB of cloud storage per user)
• Microsoft Teams
• HD video conferencing
• Yammer collaboration software
• Office online (browser-based suite of Office apps)
• Planner (project management platform that allows staff to plan projects, assign tasks, share files and communicate)
• Microsoft Flow (workflow automation app that allows users to automatically configure notifications, sync files, collect data without having to code the process)
• PowerApps (app development platform that allows users to build business-specific web and mobile apps)

Business Premium – $14.95 USD per user per month
In addition to the complete desktop and online Office 365 suite of applications (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, OneNote, Access [PC only], Publisher [PC only], Sharepoint, and OneDrive), this plan offer includes:

• Business management and CRM tools – Outlook Customer Manager, Bookings, Invoicing and MileIQ
• The range of online services offered in lower-tier plans like ProPlus and Business Essentials

Business – $20.00 USD per user per month

As the most commonly recommended plan for businesses, Microsoft Office 365 Business includes everything Business Premium has to offer, plus:

• Enhanced security features such as attachment scanning and link checking for email, Information Protection Policies that add controls over how info is accessed, and data backup features that keep your information accessible
• Device management features, fully integrated with iOS, Android and Windows, that allow for simple deployment and management of Windows on your mobile platforms

So that’s what these plans include – but obviously, that’s not all you need to know to make your decision.

There’s another key question…

What about Microsoft Office 365 migration?

Now that you know more about Microsoft Office 365, you may be interested in seeing what it can do for your business firsthand.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

If you’re not already using Microsoft Office 365, then you have to figure out how to migrate to it. Migrating from one business technology to another isn’t necessarily a simple process.

Before starting on the step by step process, make sure you have these three key aspects of prepared:

List of Users

Keeping careful track of how many users you have and what they need to do will make migration much smoother than it would be otherwise. The last thing you want to do is overlook a user here or there and find they can’t access the system after launch because there weren’t enough licenses or log-ins arranged.

Temporary Passwords

While you sort out the details of your new Microsoft Office 365 environment, it’s smart to work with temporary passwords. That way, it’s easy to test the environment without issuing official credentials and log-in info.

Domain Registrar Information

This is especially important for Microsoft Office 365 migrations – why? Because email is a central facet of Office 365. In order to ensure seamless changeover between your previous email client and Microsoft Outlook, you’ll need complete information on your domain registrar.

The 6 Step Process To Microsoft Office 365 Migration

Planning makes all the difference between a successful migration and a disastrous one.

Follow these steps and take your time to execute an effective migration:

Plan ahead.
When preparing for your migration to Microsoft Office 365, it’s important to plan efficiently and thoroughly.

The best way to achieve this is with an actual meeting with those who are involved in the process. You should talk through a number of key factors both in the migration, such as:

• Why are we choosing to migrate?
• What benefits do we expect to gain from migrating?
• How will our infrastructure change during migration?
• How will the user experience change after migration?
• How will we train staff members on using Microsoft Office 365?

This is an especially vital step because, if you don’t have answers to these questions, then you probably aren’t ready to migrate.

Knowing how to answer these questions means that you can avoid common pitfalls and hit the ground running with your new IT environment.

Furthermore, you’ll want to make sure your entire staff understands what migration means for their work. What kind of downtime will they encounter, what are the benefits they will have access to once it’s complete, etc.

Plan for your infrastructure.

The new Microsoft Office 365 environment will be built on the foundation that is your infrastructure, so you better make sure it is up to the task before you start.

Infrastructure-based considerations should include:

• Bandwidth: You should assess your bandwidth to zero in on exactly how many concurrent client machines are connected to the network at any one point in time.  In theory, your bandwidth should be able to support at least that many concurrent machines running Microsoft Office 365, which dictates that necessary network segments and connections you’ll need.
• Hardware: Migration is a great opportunity to take stock of your hardware. For example, in your new environment, will you need a server dedicated for Skype for Business? That depends on how heavily you plan to make use of it. This is the type of question you need to answer (and do something about) before you migrate, and not after.
• Software: As Microsoft Office 365 provides virtually all the software you could possibly use, there isn’t too much to take stock of in your old environment.
• However, if you and your staff currently use mail-enabled applications that you’re fond of, or that are so specific to your business and industry that you’ll need them post-migration anyway, then you need to make sure they are compatible with Exchange Web Services.

Equip yourself with a deployment tool.

The good news is that you won’t have to handle much of the migration process all on your own. Microsoft offers a Deployment Readiness Tool to help users plan out the many aspects of a successful migration – primarily, environment discovery.

This tool can analyze and gather info on your IT system’s Active Directory and domain settings, helping to take stock of your Exchange, SharePoint, End User environment and Skye for Business settings. In addition to the app-based features, the Deployment Readiness Tool will also log your network configurations and settings so that they are carried over in migration as well.

Furthermore, Microsoft also has an Assessment and Planning Toolkit. While it is not designed specifically for Office 365, it is useful for discovery and inventory of cloud services and applications. If you’re migrating from a cloud-based or hybrid environment, the Assessment and Planning Toolkit will likely be a useful aid in determining what you need to keep track of.

App-specific planning.

While much of Office 365 will migrate seamlessly from one version of Microsoft Word or Excel to the next, there are a couple of Microsoft apps and service that will require further attention when you migrate:

• Sharepoint: Prior to connecting to Sharepoint, there are a few steps you’ll need to take through the Administration Center. Primarily, you’ll want to double check global site collection settings, Internet, Intranet, and Extranet settings, user profiles, and MySite.  In each of these cases, you’ll want to be sure that their settings match those of your current environment. The default settings in Sharepoint may not match your current ones, so take the time to verify before you start sharing business data.
• Skype For Business: If you and your staff intend to use Skype For Business, particularly public Instant Messaging, then you’ll need to make sure your staff knows how.  Specifically, Windows Live is supported for public IM in Skype for Business, but Yahoo is not. Furthermore, this is separate from on-premises IM. In both cases, your staff will need to know how it works in order to get the most out of it. If you intend to use public IM, you may need to migrate from Yahoo entirely.

Lay out the end-user experience.

Once you’re done migrating, you’ll want your staff to be able to hit the ground running, right?

Then make sure they can actually do so before you start the migration. This means making sure the browsers they use are supported for web-based office 365, and the operating systems they use are supported for the suite:

• Supported browsers: Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome
• Operating systems: Microsoft Office 2010, 2007 SP2, 2008 for Mac, Office Web Apps

It’s time to migrate.

Now that all the groundwork has been done, you’re ready to migrate.

Remember, there’s no rushing this process. If you want it to be effective, and if you want your new Microsoft Office 365 environment to work as planned, then be patient and follow the steps carefully.

Is Microsoft Office 365 right for you?

Depending on what you do for business, how large your organization is, what your budget will allow, Microsoft Office 365 may or may not be the right choice. Only you can decide for sure.

If you do believe that Microsoft Office 365 will have a positive effect for you, then make sure to carefully plan your migration. Regardless of whatever benefits it may bring you, a poorly planned migration is not worth the trouble it causes.