How a Secure Network Impacts Your Bottom Line

In today’s global economy, one major measuring stick of a business’ success is how efficiently it can expand, or in other words, how effectively a company can reach out to new clients all over the world. Seeing that businesses are relying more and more heavily on digital media and computer technology, perhaps the major driving force behind expansion today is having a strong and secure network. Your company’s network is vital to your business’ bottom line in a number of ways. Not only does having a secure network allow you to reach out to new business partners through innovative communication tools such as video conferencing, but it enables you to protect the digital data you have already worked so hard to accumulate. Additionally, a secure network entails consolidating your company’s overall resources. Innovation, protection, and consolidation: each a precursor to increased revenue, all enabled by a secure computer network.
Is your company looking to increase its revenue by expanding to other clients? If so, ACS is the company you need to call to help you establish a secure network. ACS’s skilled technicians work around the clock to meet any and all of your network needs. The tremendous praise we have received from our partners is an ongoing testament to our proficiency and professionalism in assisting the growth of businesses by setting up and maintaining their networks. Michael Canina, the vice president of our five year partner Brockton Rox Professional Baseball Team, went so far as to say that partnering with ACS is “…one of the smartest business decisions I’ve made, and I can’t imagine another way of moving forward with our business. They help us make money.” We are eager to make our partnership with your company the smartest business decision you have ever made. Let ACS help your business make money by helping you set up and maintain a network that enables you to expand your company today.

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