Putting into Perspective the Importance of a Secure Network....By Way of the NFL.

When the New England Patriots take the field as a team during the season, the only concern of the players is to work together in order to get a win against that day’s opponent. For the New England Patriots as an organization, however, so much more happens behind the scenes leading up to each game than what fans see on the field. From the ownership to jersey sales to television coverage to vending to event security staff, the Patriots are a network that must operate efficiently on every level in order for each game day to occur without a hitch. Can you imagine how disastrous it would be for the entire Patriots’ organization if any aspect of this network just shut down completely? Just like the Patriots as an organization is at its best when their network of staff is working to the best of its ability, so is every company whose business relies on a computer based network. In our increasingly digital world, having a reliable network is more crucial than ever to businesses everywhere. At ACS, we are committed to ensuring that your business’ network is always functioning to full capacity. Our expert staff of technicians works around the clock to help your company meet its networking and data protection needs. Let ACS enable you to relax while you watch your favorite NFL team on Sundays, knowing that your network will be operating at its best when you go back to work Monday morning.

Is Your Head in the Clouds?

Wikipedia defines cloud computing as: Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software and information are provided to computers and other devices on-demand. Basically, “Cloud” is a metaphor for the internet.
It allows you to store, access and share all kinds of information from anywhere at any time. Cloud Computing is broken down into 3 categories.
1. Software as a Service(SAAS) – customers save on cost, space, power consumption and facility.
You pay a flat fee for the functionality. You are not required to purchase hardware, software or management of those applications.
2. Infrastructure as a Service – this is total outsourcing. Everything is handled by the provider.
3. Platform as a Service
Small businesses are look at the harsh truth: there are technology applications that can improve their business but the cost of the hardware, software and maintenance stands in their way. The cloud gives small companies the flexibility to grow. These businesses can get top of the line technologies as a subscription service just by shifting the IT infrastructure and management to a Cloud Provider.
These are some of the benefits:
- Flexibility
- Improved Performance
- Sold on Demand
- Use as much or a little as you need
- Service is managed by the Provider
- Reduced Hardware equipment
- Lower Maintenance
- Instant Software updates
Technology is starting to see some big changes when it comes to how companies access information, share content and communicate. Google, Amazon and Microsoft are the leaders in Cloud Providers.
Cloud Providers offer compelling options for saving money, while staying ahead of the innovation curve.
So come on, get your head in the “clouds”.

Some quick facts of Motorola Droid

A Motorola product, ‘The Motorola Droid’, is a smart phone enabled with Internet and Multimedia powered with Google’s Android Operating System. The Droid phone is the result of a three-way partnership. Motorola, the well respected brand, is responsible for the manufacture of hardware. The software is handled by Google and the network is provided by Verizon Wireless. This Smartphone is a direct competition for the Apple iPhone released in 2007. Television commercials and advertisements claim that there are several features available on Motorola that are not available on the iPhone.


The phone runs Android version 2.0.1 and has the following features:

• 5 mega-pixel low light capable digital camera.

• Wi-Fi networking

• Interchangeable battery

• 3.7-inch 854 X 480 touch screen

• Standard 35 mm headphone jack

• Google Maps navigation

• Micro SDHC support with 16 GB Card

• Sliding QWERTY keyboard

• Texas Instruments OMAP 3430 processor

• Hearing aid compatibility (HAC) rating of M3/T3

Google’s Android Operating System has several features that make the Motorola Droid Smartphone better than Apple iPhone. Following are some of the features of Android 2.0:

• Quick Contact: Android 2.0 includes a feature called “Quick Contact” which simplifies communication. You can get detailed information about a contact. The menu bar with easy icons will provide e-mail, physical address, instant messaging and all other details that you have saved for that person.

• Multiple Account Support: With this feature you can create a combined inbox and all the messages from all your accounts will be displayed in a single page. It will also let you to keep your contacts together.

• Improved Camera: Android 2.0’s camera controls digital zoom and support flash. It has many options for scene mode, macro focus, color effects, white balance, etc.

• Better Bluetooth: The Bluetooth 2.1 is fully supported and developers will be able to integrate Bluetooth functionality in a more improved way.

• Better Browser: The browser supports HTML5 standards, including the usage of the geo location API and video tag. A new address bar supports for instant tap-driven searching and navigation, and double-tap zoom is supported throughout the browsing experience.

• Other: Android 2.0 provides graphics architecture with better performance and improved hardware acceleration. It also brings SMS/MMS search and a handful of calendar improvements into the Operating System.

To summarize all the features of Motorola Droid and Android 2.0, let us point out some of the pros and cons of this Smartphone.

Pros:

• Attractive touch-screen display

• Improved web browsing

• Google maps navigation

• Multiple account support

Cons:

• All camera images are not clear

• Flat keyboard makes it uncomfortable to type on

Both Apple iPhone and Motorola Droid has gained remarkable market popularity. They have managed to make an impact on the industry. However, with the increase in the number of complaints by AT&T users regarding poor network and coverage, Verizon has gained market share and can be a major selling point. Customers find Verizon more reliable and hence are switching from AT&T. Now this is a positive sign for the developers of the Smartphone Motorola Droid.

Let us discuss some major features and how they differ in both mobile phones:

Apple iPhone Vs Motorola Droid

• Hardware: Motorola Droid runs on the TI OMAP 3430 processor, one of the top processors in the market, which is also used in the Palm Pre. In addition to its application-switching capabilities, the TI OMAP 3430 is also a very fast processor. In fact, Droid is regarded as “the fastest Android device till date”.

iPhone 3GS uses Samsung S5PC100 processor which also runs at 600MHz and includes a CPU, a graphics processing and a memory controller all on one chip. Even the iPhone’s processor is capable of application switching functionality, but Apple hasn’t utilized the feature as yet.

• Operating Systems (OS): iPhone’s OS is highly reliable and easy to use. Whereas Android OS is being tested and used by different devices and manufactures but its utility is still unknown. We will have to wait and watch whether Android OS matches up with iPhone’s OS.

• Keyboard and Display Screen: iPhone’s biggest drawback is that it lacks a QWERTY keyboard and Motorola Droid has taken full advantage of this. It also provides an attractive touch-screen which can display videos at 854 X 480 pixels, higher than the 640 X 450 pixel display of Apple iPhone.

• Camera: iPhone has a 3 mega-pixel camera with video recording and editing features. On the other hand, Motorola Droid has a 5 mega-pixel camera and has video recording capabilities but with no editing features as yet.

• Talk time and Battery Life: iPhone 3GS is powered by lithium-ion battery. On a 2G network, it can provide a talk time of upto 8 hours, while on a 3G network, it provides 5 hours of talk time.

On the other hand, Motorola Droid is also powered by a built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery, but Verizon claims that on its 2G network, it can provide talk time of upto 12 hours and on 3G a network, talk time of upto 6.4 hours.

Sources of information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Droid

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/product/324707/review/droid.html

http://www.billshrink.com/blog/total-cost-of-ownership-motorola-droid-versus-iphone-3gs-versus-palm-pre/

http://www.androidcentral.com/total-cost-ownership-motorola-droid-verizon


- Brian Kingsley, Director of Technical Services, ACS Services, Boston

Microsoft’s Windows Azure

Windows Azure is a product of Microsoft and it provides various internet services that can be useful for both on-premises and off-premises environment. It is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Windows Azure platform. Its production will start from January 1, 2010.


Windows Azure Platform provides a simple and flexible environment for developers who want to create a cloud application. It can be easily implemented in your current environment and also supports multiple languages. Windows Azure supports the following: Microsoft Visual Studio, SOAP, REST, XML, and PHP. The following are the five services that are provided by the platform:

• Live Services

• SQL Services

• NET Services

• Share Point Services

• Dynamics CRM Services

Functions/ Usage of Windows Azure are:

• Large-volume storage

• Batch Processing

• Complicated/ large-volume computations

• Build, modify and distribute applications with minimum on-premises resources

• Run commodity processes in the cloud

• Create, test, debug and distribute Web services swiftly and economically

The benefits of Windows Azure Platform are:

• Reduces cost of building and extending on-premises resources

• Cuts down the cost, time and effort of IT management

• Your ideas/ applications will be brought to market faster than expected

• Flexible platform adapts to the changes in business environment and customer needs

• Choice of selecting the best suitable on/ off premises deployment model

• Save energy and time by focusing less on managing operational resources and constraints

• Eliminate the need of hardware management

• Existing tools can be used to build cloud applications

• Consistent on-premises development

• Use computing resources only when required

The launch of Windows Azure is significant as it is the first step of Microsoft in ‘Cloud Computing’ followed by ‘Microsoft Online Services’.

- Brian Kingsley, Director of Technical Services, ACS Services, Boston

Facebook-Google Deal Results in Privacy Concerns

Facebook is one of the largest and most popular social networking websites having more than 350 million active users worldwide. Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook in his Harvard dorm room.


Recently Facebook and ‘king of search’ - Google signed a deal where Google can display real-time results of public content from Facebook fan pages. It means that over 1.6 million active Facebook fan pages can now appear in Google as a search result. For example – If a person is searching for ‘Best real estate deals in California’ and you have recently updated your Facebook page writing ’10 best real estate deals’, then there are chances that you might get a customer instantly. This deal opened the gateway to a more efficient SEO. Hence, it is a great time to create a Facebook fan page and help your business grow.

‘Google-Facebook’ deal has led some privacy setting changes which have created innumerous controversies and criticism among Facebook users. After the revamped privacy settings users have less control over their personal data and their information including private photos is also publicly available. This has annoyed many Facebook users and they have poured their negative comments on various blog sites. They demanded the old privacy settings back and posted comments that they want to deactivate their Facebook accounts.

To summarize all let us discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the changed privacy settings by Facebook.

Advantages:

• Updates in Facebook page can appear as a Google search result which will help a business gain customers.

• Increased online presence.

• Finding people and connecting with them will be much easier.

Disadvantages:

• Personal information such as gender, date of birth, photos, etc is publicly available.

• Less control over private information.

• Enemies can find you easily.

• Increased opportunities for Cybercrime.

This is not the first time that Facebook has been criticized for changes. They have been questioned many times for their confusing privacy settings. However, the best part of Facebook is no matter whatever changes they make or how many users get annoyed, it is among the top-visited social networking websites with ever increasing number of users. Social Networking Forecast for 2010 predicts that Facebook will still top the list and will have over 500 million users worldwide till the end of 2010.

For more information on Privacy Policy and Settings you can visit the following websites:

http://www.facebook.com/policy.php

http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/02/facebook-privacy/


- Brian Kingsley, Director of Technical Services, ACS Services, Boston

Monitoring and its importance

According to Wikipedia, “Monitoring generally means to be aware of the state of a system”. It is an essential part of any organization, state, government and even family. Monitoring helps us to avoid circumstances that may cause loss to time, money, resource, relation, etc. For instance, let us take a very simple example of a business organization lacking efficient internal monitoring system. This may lead to many circumstances such as server break down, power failure, etc. It causes delay in work, wastage of time, loss of money, loss of resources, etc plus an additional expense that the organization will have to bare to solve the issue.


Being more specific, we can say that monitoring should be done appropriately according to priority. As I work in an IT industry, I know the importance of servers, network, computers, etc in an organization. Hence, these must be the first things to be monitored effectively and efficiently to avoid break downs and hindrances in smooth work flow.

A computer network must be constantly monitored to avoid slow or failing network. Continuous monitoring is done be a system that notifies the network administrator in case of outages. An intrusion detection system monitors networks from outside threats, whereas an internal network monitoring system monitors network to avoid problems such as overload, network crash, etc. Network monitoring is a critical IT function that can aid in saving a lot of cost of the company in network performance, infrastructure, employee productivity and many other things. Following are some of the strategic tasks a network monitoring system can do for the organization:

• Confirm regulatory and policy compliance

• Search redundant resources and emphasizes on possible cost savings

• Solve efficiency-sapping mysteries like dropped mail sessions

• Help determine employee productivity

• Spot overloaded equipment before it can bring down a network

• Identify weak wide-area-network links and other bottlenecks

• Measure latency, or the delayed transfer of data

• Find anomalous internal traffic that might be indicate a security threat

Server monitoring is done to have a check on the speed of the server, failures and other such problems. By this the owner will be able to know when one or all of his computer devices are down due to server issues. Monitoring if done regularly, can avoid outages and help company from losses due to major crashes and break downs.

Monitoring equipments help to take immediate actions and respond to the problems before it becomes an unavoidable issue and start harming the devices, processes, time and cost. Network monitoring systems can be software or firmware, simple or complex. There are open-source tools available which are innovation and very inexpensive. They can work with most of the tools, platforms and environments. If you feel that your network is too complex and it requires professional skills to monitor, you can always outsource monitoring. Outsourcing companies offer wide level of services and packages that can suit your budget. Their professional touch will make it all the more advantageous for the organization.

ACS Services is one such company that provides IT services for easy management. Its list of services includes:

• Managed IT Services

• Network Support

• Server Support

• PC Support

• Help Desk Services

• Help Desk On Demand

• Setup and Configuration

• Relocation Support

• Data Protection

• Total Server Protection

• Disaster Recovery

It is a one-stop destination for all your IT needs. Now professional monitoring is not too far away. For more information, visit:

http://www.acs.com/

Other sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_monitoring

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_server_monitoring

http://www.cio.com/article/133700/Network_Monitoring_Definition_and_Solutions


- Brian Kingsley, Director of Technical Services, Boston

ACS Services deployed VMware View for AGAR Supply

AGAR Supply Co. is one of the largest independent food distributors in New England and thirteenth largest in United States. Last year AGAR Supply faced a massive desktop refresh due to its majority hardware nearing end of life. As much of their work depends upon high availability of desktops, they were searching for some software which could increase user productivity with minimal capital expenditure. Hence they selected VMware View and gave the responsibility of designing, testing and deploying the software to ACS Services. To know more about the scope of services of ACS, you can visit http://www.acs.com/

Let us discuss about some of the main features of VMware and how was it helpful for AGAR Supply:

• Simplified desktop management: As all work of AGAR is dependent on desktop availability, this feature helped their users to access their desktops from anywhere at any point of time regardless of hardware.

• Superior End User Experience: It has a wide range of deployment options which ACS Services worked with, and due to this it provided the end users a high-performance desktop experience even with high latency and low bandwidth connections.

• Built-in Security: End users of AGAR were able to access their personalized desktop, complete with applications and data, from any location, at any time without jeopardizing the corporate security policies. VMware View helps to secure the datacenter.

• Availability: VMware View delivers high availability, with no single point of failure. It helped them to protect their desktop environment cost-effectively.

• Offline Desktop: Offline Desktop, an experimental feature in VMware View 4, increases productivity by allowing you to run managed virtual desktops locally or in the datacenter through the same administration framework. Simply download a virtual desktop onto your local client device. All existing security policies for that virtual desktop continue to be applied and enforced. Later, you can check the desktop back into the datacenter for resynchronization.

VMware View helps AGAR save their time, money (Up to $135,000 annually), energy and resources. It also helped them with smoother business continuity. “The implementation went smoothly and over 250 users are now leveraging VMware View desktops.” says Steve Weber, Network Administrator at AGAR Supply. Weber and his team worked closely with ACS Services, Inc. to design, test, and deploy VMware View. “We are extremely happy with the results”, he signs off.

ACS Services is an IT outsourcing firm based in Boston. ACS is a leading provider of Small Business IT Support in Boston and the surrounding areas. Since 1985, ACS has prided itself on being a leader in Small Business IT Support, IT Managed Services and Data Protection, and has gained a reputation of providing outstanding services to our clients. ACS partners with top hardware and software vendors to provide our clients with effective and time-tested solutions for all of their Managed Services needs. With over 100 years of combined technology experience including Small Business IT Support, IT Managed Services, Network Support, Server Support, Disaster Recovery, and IT Consultation, you can rest assured that your every technology need will be met with ACS.

Sources of information:

http://www.vmware.com/a/customers/customer/567/AGAR+Supply

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMware_View

http://www.agarsupply.com/

http://www.acs.com/



- Brian Kingsley, Director of Technical Services, ACS Services, Boston

Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) Vs Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES)

Blackberry is a wide range of mobile devices owned by a Canadian company, ‘Research In Motion’ (RIM). Blackberry’s main targets are people whose internet usage is high. These are generally businessmen, corporate executives, professionals, lawyers, etc.


BIS stand for Blackberry Internet Service and it is offered free when you purchase a data plan of any blackberry phone. BIS facilitates a blackberry customer with internet browsing, e-mail checking, online chatting, etc. A BIS account is created for you where you can integrate up to 10 e-mail accounts. You can visit the following websites to create an account for yourself if you have purchased a new blackberry phone:

AT&T: https://bis.na.blackberry.com/html?brand=mycingular

Nextel: https://bis.na.blackberry.com/html?brand=nextel

Sprint: https://bis.na.blackberry.com/html?brand=sprint

T-Mobile: https://my.t-mobile.com/Login/Default.aspx

Verizon: https://bis.na.blackberry.com/html?brand=vzw

Optus (Australia): https://bis.na.blackberry.com/html?brand=vzw

Telstra (Australia): https://bis.ap.blackberry.com/html/?brand=telstra

Three (Australia): https://bis.ap.blackberry.com/html/?brand=three

All you need to do is create an account and attach it to your webmail site and mailbox. This process does not take more than 15 minutes. It is basically a free version of blackberry software and has no centralized management. Each device needs to be managed individually.

People generally get confused between BIS and BIS. Let me explain what BES is, to make things clear.

BES or Blackberry Enterprise Server is a software package that operates as a centralized link between wireless mobile devices, enterprise applications and wireless networks. This is mainly designed to meet the needs of enterprise. With this software you can have access to all your e-mails, contacts, calendar, memo, schedules, tasks, etc. It is costlier than BIS but management will be much easier. Companies are advised to purchase this software if there are at least 10 blackberries in the office. This device helps to include wipe and lock command in case your phone gets stolen. Let me brief you up with some of the key feature of BES:

• Forwards e-mail from your corporate ID

• Compatible with Microsoft® exchange, IBM® Lotus® Domino®, Novell® GroupWise®

• You can view your MS office attachment

• Browse your websites as per corporate policy.

• Provides access to personal information management tools such as calendar and address book.

• It contains Integrated Security Triple Data Encryption Standard (DES) or Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) to protect confidentiality of data.

• You can instantly synchronize data and organize and update your calendar.

• Wireless automatic backup to BlackBerry 8830 device setting and preferences over the wireless network.

Even though you have hosted BIS on your own BES server, RIM receive all communications as it is a centralized delivery. This has led to security issues as RIM is a Canadian company and US government feels that important and sensitive messages are going out of the country. However, RIM issues security patches for Blackberry phones for higher security. It asked corporate customers to install an interim patch for the BlackBerry Enterprise Server and an interim patch for the BlackBerry Professional Software. RIM also advised BlackBerry users to open PDF attachments only from "trusted sources”.

- Brian Kingsley, Director of Technical Services, ACS Services, Boston

http://www.acs.com/

How to cut costs in 2010

In today’s Business Environment there are two key ways to increase profits. One way is to sell more of your product. This is always the primary goal and should be for good reason. The second way to increase profits is to trim expenses. This is a common practice for most Business Owner/C-Level employees, but there is an area that is overlooked by many.

Where, you ask, is an area that you can cut expenses without harming the output of the department? This is a tough question. What you’re asking is to dedicate less resource and grow output. In most areas of the business this is impossible, that is except for one key area. The IT Department.

The most common area money is wasted in business today is the practice of hiring full time, internal IT people. The perception is that you need to have an in-house IT person or even a team of technical people. Aside from giving yourself a sense of security by having that person sitting across the hall, you have actually achieved nothing, in fact you're most likely overspending and receiving a lower level of service than you should.

Here is the common scenario. Management will recruit and hire what they consider a technical expert. More than not this person is not an expert, but merely a technical professional that knows more than management in regards to technology. They come into an environment and make changes based on their vision of how things “should be”. This vision was created from how they were trained at their last position. The training was built around the previous employer’s budget for purchasing solutions, i.e. the person only knows what they needed to know about their former employer’s infrastructure.

As time goes on, not only is this person stuck on what their own vision of IT, but he also doesn't have hands on access to the latest tools and technologies that the industry has to offer, they are stuck in the fishbowl that is your infrastructure which again is based on what he was trained in prior to coming aboard or on what you could afford to purchase for him.

ACS Services Inc, a provider of IT Services, touches hundreds of unique clients per year. This gives our team hands on working knowledge of best in class solutions, both large and small. Our staff is trained, by the top Vendors, to be experts in the latest solutions, so that they will sell the solutions for the vendor. ACS is given bonuses in the way of back end rebates and commissions to become knowledgeable, to achieve expert status, and continue their training so they know the products and solutions inside and out. When u measure the knowledge of the average "full time" IT employee vs. that of an Engineer employed by a Service Provider, it’s an unfair comparison.

The nature of an “IT Person” is to have access to the latest and greatest technology. When you (the client) recruits and hires your “Expert” you will find one of two people.

• One person who will crave the latest toys the industry has to offer and once your budget cannot deliver, will grow stale and will move on to greener pastures.

• The other person who is ok working on yesterday’s technology, because your budget doesn’t allow for major upgrades every six months, which by definition is not a quality Technology professional.Your “Expert” is now in charge of stretching your Technology budget as far as they can vs. thinking out of the box and giving your organization a competitive advantage, which is the underlying reason all employees are ultimately hired.

Assuming you are the exception to the rule and do find that Key Person to man your staff, how do you manage him or her?

Most C-level/Business Owners know very little about technology, which gives two options:

• Hire a business minded IT professional, either at the C level or upper management level, to hold the IT staff accountable.

• Assume the job is getting done.

Would you hire a sales team without a VP of sales? Would you hire an accounting team without a CFO/Controller? How can you hire an IT person/Team without a CTO/Dir of IT? Your investment in an expert just became greater.

Lets again assume that you hired this Key Person and have also, without breaking the bank, have a way to manage this person, you need to provide them with the tools required to complete the task at hand, which is manage your Technology Infrastructure.

Do you own a ticketing system/Crm to handle support issues? Were you able to dedicate 6 months to train your team on the package? Did you purchase a monitoring system? Did your team spend the months required to become experts with the system so they can effectively run it? This is an average of $150k+ in tools alone, that are an absolute necessity in order to support an SMB's network.

I could go on but I think the information above gives a clear enough picture that Technology is an area where you can spend less (in some cases 50% less) and receive a greater level of support, in turn gaining a competitive leg up on the competition.

If you’re looking for a competitive advantage in 2010, please feel free to contact me, I would be glad to discuss with you how your business could benefit.

Thank you, I hope you found this information helpful.

William Adams Jr.
wjajr@acs.com
508-238-6334