MSPNetworks Blog

Data is one of a business’ most important assets, and as such, it needs to be kept in such a way that it remains organized and utilizable. This has led to widespread use of databases in businesses, which has necessitated the use of database management systems. Let’s take a closer look at these systems, and why they are so crucial.

For a frame of reference, let’s imagine that our database is actually a library, and all of the books inside are actually our data. Following this analogy, the database management system (or DBMS) is like the Dewey Decimal System… it keeps the contents of your database/library organized and usable.

The Function of a DBMS

As you may have already figured out, the database management system helps you secure and organize the data stored in your database. By allowing you to better keep track of your database’s activity, you maintain more control over your database.

This control, paired with the added convenience of the DBMS, offers you a variety of benefits. These benefits include.

• A DBMS allows you to restrict access to data that an end user has.
• Users have a simpler time finding the data they need.
• It eliminates the need to restructure data to use different programs.
• Administration procedures can be unified.
• A DBMS makes data processing more economical.
• Data inconsistencies between file systems are eliminated.
• A DBMS allows for simultaneous data access between multiple users.

So, when all is said and done, a DBMS can simplify your users’ tasks, without sacrificing your control or data security.

If you want to optimize your business’ productivity and efficacy, MSPNetworks is here to help. Call (516) 403-9001 today to discuss your particular needs with us.

Most businesses that really lean on their IT go to great lengths and expense to keep those systems secure. Sometimes, however, all those firewalls and antivirus software don’t stop threats that come in from your staff. Today, we are going to go through the three different types of human error that your staff can undertake, and how to deal with each.

Accidental

The most benign of the insider threats, the accidental mistake typically happens when data is in transit. Circumstances often lead to situations that are less than ideal. Typically, these types of mistakes are made when an employee isn’t properly trained. If you have security policies in place, but an employee hasn’t been made privy to them, or at the very least they aren’t given the knowledge on how to stay compliant of them, there is a disconnect that can often lead to problems. 

Negligent

Unfortunately, most insider threats are of this nature. These are threats that are brought on directly from user error because of a lack of diligence. When data is lost in a database, when malware is downloaded on the network, or when mobile hardware is lost, your company is dealing with user negligence. Most negligence is not premeditated, but due to its avoidable nature, it is looked on much less favorably as compared to accidental mistakes. 

Malicious

When an insider acts in a way that is intentionally malicious towards an organization. This can come in several forms. A user that has access to company computing resources can deliberately steal data, inject malware, and bypass security policies enacted by the IT administrator. Then there is the mole, who is a person that is actually an outsider, but is provided access to company computing resources, and uses his/her position to pass information onto competitors, steals it with the intention of selling it off, or using it nefariously later. 

How to Spot Insider Threats

The nature of the beast here makes spotting insider threats difficult, but there are some indicators that can help you identify if you have a bad actor in your midst. 

• Type of activity for users - If a user has access to certain resources, but their job doesn’t typically require them to use those resources, especially ones that are filled with sensitive information, you wouldn’t be misguided to further monitor that employee’s behavior on your computing network. 
• The volume of traffic - If you can’t account for a sudden uptick in network traffic, you may want to investigate. 
• Times of activity - If you see spikes in traffic at strange times, you’ll need to ascertain why.

How to Protect Against Insider Threats

You can take some pretty straightforward steps to combat any insider threats. They include:

• Increase visibility - You will want to put systems in place to keep track of employee actions. You can do this best by correlating information from multiple sources. 
• Enforce policies - Having your policies documented and easily accessible will avoid any misunderstanding of your business’ expectations on how employees interact with its technology resources. 
• Comprehensive training - IT isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. To avoid accidental mistakes and to help reduce negligence, consider putting together strong training initiatives. They will go a long way toward helping staff understand what is expected and what is possible.
• Access control - Of course, if you set up permissions for every part of your business, you can effectively set who can see what, making sabotage and negligence less likely to hurt your business. 

If you would like help identifying how to protect your business’ network and data from threats, even the ones that come from inside your business, call the IT professionals at MSPNetworks today at (516) 403-9001.

Augmented reality has been one of the most cited emerging technologies for the past few years. It was the technology that was supposed to fuel Google Glass, the failed attempt at creating a pair of revolutionary smart glasses. Since then, there hasn’t been much press about AR in the mainstream media and not much is known about major tech companies’ attempts to improve AR technology. 

What is Augmented Reality?

Augmented reality is an interactive experience where the resources of the smartphone coupled with AR software produce objects over the display of a device. Examples include the first down line they superimpose on a football broadcast, the filters that many messaging apps have integrated, and the immensely popular mobile game Pokemon Go.

Of course, these mostly are novelty uses, but businesses have made big efforts to incorporate AR technology into their marketing efforts over the past few years. IKEA famously uses AR technology in their IKEA Place app. It allows people to forecast what a room in their house would look like if they purchased a piece of furniture.

Google, understanding the extraordinarily useful applications of AR, launched their ARCore platform in March 2018. ARCore features three innovative technologies that provide mobile application developers the tools they need to build AR apps. They are:

• Six degrees of freedom - makes device movement in any three-dimensional space possible.
• Environmental understanding - allows the AR app on the device to detect the size and location of horizontal structures. 
• Light estimation - provides current environment’s lighting condition. 

This platform is allowing more developers than ever to integrate real time information into their applications for the user’s benefit. This has resulted in record growth for the technology in 2019, and that is only scratching the surface. 

Google is not the only company that is all in on AR. Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook are also making serious commitments to the technology. This is leading to a major boost in application development.

In the future, AR-fueled applications will be used in dozens of industries for hundreds of purposes. In fact, more than 100 million users have already used AR-enabled shopping applications. You will have to expect that as 5G wireless technology gets rolled out that number will be dwarfed by the number that will over the next few years. 

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We hear a lot about the benefits of moving your business to the cloud. It can reduce that big expense on new infrastructure and the ongoing management costs. The cloud can increase the effectiveness of your IT budget. It can add functionality and increase user satisfaction. 

Businesses are rapidly moving all or portions of their IT to the cloud, and for a lot of good reasons, but before you do, it is important to remember the following:

The Cloud Is Someone Else’s Computer

Depending on how you look at it, this is either a pro or a con. If you are hosting your data in the cloud, you are essentially entrusting someone else to manage your data. That might mean that the data is in better hands - a professional data center with top-notch security, climate control, near-perfect uptime, and certified staff to manage the hardware, software, and network equipment is usually a big step up from most small business management.

That said, anyone can sell cloud storage. Anyone can lease out a portion of a data center, or keep a shared server on their premise and sell you cloud computing resources from it. 

Before you pull the trigger, you’ll want to understand what kinds of SLAs (service level agreement) you have, how emergencies are handled, and make sure you are getting the computing resources you need.

Cloud Migrations Can Be Disruptive

Migrating your infrastructure to the cloud could be a fairly straightforward process, or it could require a lot of time and labor. Don’t get fooled by the low monthly price - there will often be some legwork to move the data, configure the environment, train your users, and make tweaks.

That migration time doesn’t mean you don’t have access to your data, but the transition could take time, and anytime users need to change their regular everyday processes, it can slow things down.

When Done Right, It’s Worth It

Today, most businesses can benefit from at least some degree of cloud computing, whether it be some basics like hosted email and document management (like G Suite or Office 365), data backups, or a line-of-business app, to moving most of your infrastructure to a hosted environment.

The problem most businesses run into is when a cloud implementation isn’t planned out properly, or is handled poorly. 

We’d love to talk to you about the cloud. Give us a call at (516) 403-9001 and set up an appointment!

Businesses are using more data than ever. Unfortunately, the data is usually spread out over different systems. Typically, this would make managing this data extraordinarily difficult, but with virtualization, the modern business that wants to use its data, can, efficiently. 

What is Data Virtualization?

With so much data spread around in different data warehouses, data lakes, and the like, organizations may run into a significant amount of errors--and, inefficiency--due to the constant shuffling around of the data. Virtualization makes it possible for an application to get and change data without having all the technical details about it.

Virtualization takes place in real time and makes it easier for any data to be put to use, allowing the various solutions that are used throughout the course of business to interact with this data.

The Primary Benefits of Data Virtualization

The benefits of data virtualization for your business extend to the fact that every piece of data that your organization has--regardless of where it is stored--is retrievable and usable. This ability to access all virtualized material gives your business the ability to decipher context in data across platforms. This provides an organization ways to deliver information faster, cut data-associated costs, and provides insulation from users altering records.

These benefits make data virtualization an outstanding strategy for businesses that want to leverage their data through a Big Data platform either using business intelligence or business analytics strategies.

Additionally, data virtualization helps build higher outputs by integrating different data units and structures and simplifying data management, as organizations won’t have to spend time altering data to work with dissimilar file types. 

Interested in Learning More about Data Virtualization?

If you would like to learn more about data virtualization, reach out to the IT experts at MSPNetworks today at (516) 403-9001. 

If your business is looking to use technology beneficially, the ability to store data is going to be a major consideration you are going to have to confront. After all, not having enough storage space, or having too much, can be major problems for most businesses. Today, we’ll ask some of the most pressing questions you’ll need to answer to get the right (and the right amount of) storage space for your needs.

Storage is a major consideration, no matter your business. If you don’t have storage enough to house your cleaning supplies and instead have to leave them out in the hallway for everyone to avoid, it is a problem, right? What if unsightly clutter isn’t your biggest cause for concern? What if you run a furniture retailer, for example? Being in a position where you don’t have enough warehouse space available to keep your furniture in; or, you have too much warehouse space left over, will both likely end up being expensive.

Business Data

Every piece of your business data tells a story. Data is emails. It’s invoices. It’s every move your business makes. With that much data being kept, data storage has to be structured in a way where it will help the business. Since technology continues to evolve, this means data storage will as well.

The traditional model for data storage has been one made up of three tiers. You have storage facilities, servers that allow users to search those storage facilities and the networking angle that allows more users access to the data. Under this model, a business would have to understand exactly what data storage they need, and will need, for up to five years.

In many cases, five years is too long.

Today there are seemingly superior options that provide all the resources you need. Hyperconvergence is an IT framework that was created to deliberately reduce data center complexity and improve the scalability of physical hardware, while there are many cloud options available that deliver all the computing resources you need for an often-reasonably-priced  monthly payment.

In any case, there are options out there. But you need to know what to look for. Here are four questions you should ask.

1. What capacity do I need? - Understanding the amount of data storage your company needs is a major determination. Today’s cloud solutions are more scalable, but by considering what type of storage your company is ultimately going to purchase.
2. What about my performance needs? - Not all options are created equal. Some are faster and some offer huge storage capabilities. Knowing how you plan on using your applications and databases will go a long way toward helping you know which solutions will be right for you.
3. What does my current IT look like? - One consideration that has to be at the forefront of this process is what infrastructure do you already have in place. Knowing your current needs will help you ascertain how you are going to handle the future.
4. How will you handle your backups? - Every business has to have a backup plan. If you depend on data, you likely can’t afford to lose any of it without some blowback. Having a comprehensive backup and recovery plan will ultimately dictate what any new data storage will look like.

Finding good solutions for your company is important in any regard, but when you are talking about the storage of what is quickly becoming your most prized asset, you should take your time and find the solutions that will work and not hinder your ability to create revenue. Call MSPNetworks to get started finding the right storage for you today at (516) 403-9001.

A database is an incredibly useful tool for organizing a lot of information in a relatively concise and accessible way. Did you know that you can use a relatively common program, Microsoft Excel, to generate a database for your business to use? For this week’s tip, we’ll walk you through this process to help you keep your data organized.

Step One: Enter Your Data
Opening Excel, your first step should be to enter the data that is to be included in your database - however, it is important that you do this correctly. If you are using a title, the only space between any of your inputs should be a row between the title and the data you are organizing. This includes empty cells, so you’ll want to make sure you determine a standardized placeholder to avoid any of your cells being unpopulated. This “no space” rule applies to the labels on your records and fields in relation to your data as well.

Records and Fields
In your new database, each row should represent an individual record, with each column serving as its own field.

• Each record should pertain to a single item in the database. Depending on what your database is organizing, this could be a specific piece of equipment in the office, or a particular employee… essentially, any single unit out of the contents of the database.
• Each field, on the other hand, dictates what information about the item is to be placed in the cell. This might be the price a certain item had, the date it was brought into the company, an employee’s middle initial… again, whatever piece of data should be the one in that particular column.
• Make sure you are consistent in how you input your data. For instance, don’t start by entering numbers as digits and suddenly transition to writing them out.

This will require you to set particular standards for data collection, as you will want to be sure that your records are as complete as possible. You will also need to stick to this organizational pattern, so you will want to make sure that you figure out what works for you early on.

Step Two: Convert Your Data into a Table
Now, you will want to create a table out of your data. To begin, highlight your data, with exception to your optional title and the placeholder space that separated it from the data. In the Home tab, open the Format as Table menu to select your choice of table.

This will add drop-down boxes to the field titles, allowing you to sort your data by the criteria you wish, without the concern that your data will be lost.

Step Three: Expanding Your Database and Putting It to Use
Of course, chances are that you will need to change the contents of the table, adding more records as your business continues. Excel makes it relatively simple to do so, with a simple click-and-drag interface.

To expand your table, simply hover over the bottom-right corner of your table, as indicated by a small dot. Your cursor should convert into the double-headed arrow icon. Click and drag downward to add the number of rows - or records - you have to incorporate into your table. Then all you have to do is add the new data in the proper fields, and your table has expanded.

Of course, as your database grows, it’ll become harder and harder to interpret due to information overload. At least, it would if Microsoft hadn’t incorporated a means to rectify this shortcoming as well. You can filter the data that your table displays, hiding the records that don’t apply to the criteria you set your filters to. Mind you, this doesn’t delete the data - you can easily display it again by clearing your filters.

To use your filters, click the drop-down arrow on the field category that you wish to filter through. You will see a few options, with a search bar and some checkbox options below it that specify each entry in that column. You want to uncheck the (Select All) option, and instead check the checkbox option that correlates with the data you want to view specifically. Once you’re ready to see your complete data, you can go back in and select the Clear Filter from option.

This is a very basic version of a database, but it can help serve you well in many ways. Are there any other uses you’d like to know about, let us know! Leave your questions in the comments, and for help with any of your bigger IT concerns, give us a call at (516) 403-9001!

For the small business, being more efficient with resources can make a massive difference. In fact, it can be the difference between organizational sustainability and organizational failure. The bottom line is that, no matter how big or small they are, today’s businesses need to be smarter to compete. As a result, some businesses have begun to utilize data management platforms (DMP) in order to put themselves in a better position to understand their business, their market, and their customers. Let’s take a look at the DMP, and how it works to help businesses like yours be more effective.

Data Management
The first thing you have to understand about data management is that your business creates and receives a lot of data that it can use. The first problem that you’ll see when attempting to set up comprehensive data management is that your data is likely strewn about around your network. There is data on your old servers, on your new servers, in the cloud, and on disks that all could be used to provide you the best look at your business.

To manage this properly, you’ll first want to identify your storage needs. If you can centralize your storage simply, without incurring too much additional cost, you’ll want to try to do that. If you are worried that you will struggle to find the right data storage solutions, or you need help ascertaining where all your data is, you may want to contact an IT professional like MSPNetworks to help you ascertain your options. Either way, once your data is in one place, this more inclusive data management system will allow you to do a lot more.

Data Warehouse
In order to take advantage of a dynamic new business intelligence (BI) platform, or if you are looking to do some high-end business analysis (BA), you will want to consider setting up a data warehouse. The data warehouse is a centralized database that is used by business intelligence software and data analytics software to gain access to all types of departmental data. By warehousing your data, you can then utilize all types of innovative software to crawl the standing data. This is where BI and BA come in.

What is BI and BA?
It is important that you understand that these two terms are not synonymous. In fact, there is a pretty big difference between the two. Business analysis, or BA, is the act and practices a company goes through to to define why the strategies and processes that have been utilized by the company are performing the way they are. If adjustments are required, the business analyst will identify inefficiencies or ineffectiveness and use the data to help predict an outcome and suggest solutions to help an organization optimize that outcome.

Business Intelligence, while also using your organization’s data, looks into what your company is doing and how it is doing it, rather than why the results are the way they are. BI is the act of choosing certain metrics to mine for, and then using all the available data to ascertain how they go about getting the results they do. In this way BI, is a practice that provides answers using data from past and current business performance, rather than potential performance found with a BA approach.

Backup
No matter how you want to forge your organization’s data management plan, we recommend that you have a comprehensive backup and recovery strategy in place. We offer the BDR service, which incrementally backs up files with periodic changes in two places (locally and in the cloud) so that, in the case of a major data loss disaster, you have fast, reliable access to your data.

If you haven’t started utilizing your company’s data to learn more about your business, consider reaching out to one of MSPNetworks’s professional IT consultants. We can provide you with a more detailed description of data management tools, backup, and recovery; and, how they can work to help you build a better business. Call us today at (516) 403-9001.

What are your chances of being hacked, or targeted by some kind of cyberattack? I hate to tell you this, but they’re probably a lot higher than you might think.

For instance, despite almost 90 percent of small business owners believing they’re safe, about half of all small businesses will suffer from a catastrophic cyber-attack.

Are you at risk of being part of the unfortunate half?

Fortunately, there is a lot that you can do to help reduce the chances that a cyberattack will successfully target you. This is a really good thing - not only will a hack damage your relationships with everyone involved with your business, half of the businesses that are attacked close up shop within six months.

I’ve seen it happen far too often to businesses that just weren’t prepared.

Here, I’ve compiled a few tips to help you improve the basics of your cybersecurity, reducing your risk of a successful attack:

• Updates - We know how annoying those update notifications can be, but it is important to remember that the vast majority of them are meant to improve security in one way, shape, or form. Therefore, you should prioritize these updates whenever possible. It may prevent an attack from victimizing you.
• Involve Your Employees - The unfortunate reality is that your employees can be the biggest vulnerability your business has. Properly educating them in cybersecurity best practices and holding them to these standards will help reduce the chances that one of them will inadvertently let in a threat. Training them in various security best practices and explaining why certain requirements are in place will help to motivate them to participate for the company’s benefit.
• Limit Access - On the other side of the coin, the less an employee has access to, the fewer chances there are that one of them leaves you vulnerable in some way. The same can be said of your clients - regardless of how much someone is trusted, you shouldn’t allow them privileges beyond their role. Whether its role-specific resources, data, or other information, employees should be given individual login credentials to make assigning privileges easier. Your business Wi-Fi should also remain separate from the Wi-Fi made available to clients.
• Backup, Backup, and Backup Again - If, despite all your preparations, you are still infiltrated, you want to have an extra copy of all of your important data somewhere else, safe and sound. This backup copy would ideally be stored offsite and securely encrypted.

As it happens, MSPNetworks is able to help you out with all of these measures, and many more.

If you want some added help with these cybersecurity basics, or want to do more to protect your operations, you can always lean on us. MSPNetworks is committed to ensuring that your technology allows your business to operate better, improved security being a major part of that goal. Reach out by calling us at (516) 403-9001.

Data recovery can make your break your business’ continuity plan, and you absolutely cannot underestimate how important this is for the future of your organization. There are countless ways your business could lose data, and if you encounter even a single one of them, your organization could be put at serious risk. We’ll take a look at operational data loss and how your organization needs to strategize data recovery.

Data Value in Business
First, you need to realize just how important your data is to your business. There is a field of study called infonomics that can place a dollar value on your business’ data, but there is a surprising number of businesses that don’t place tangible value on their digital assets. As time passes, however, it’s becoming more apparent that organizations need to find the value in their data if they want to be prepared for the future. In particular, they are paying attention to this for the purposes of insurance and accounting, assigning monetary value to their data so they can judge their losses more effectively.

Since analyzing your data can make for more efficient and profitable business practices, being able to evaluate the value of your data in the event of a disaster is incredibly valuable. Basically, it’s all about guaranteeing your organization’s future and improving redundancy in the face of impossible odds. Here are some questions to ask yourself when thinking about the value of your data:

• How much capital would it cost to replace lost data?
• How much revenue is dependent on that data?
• How much money could you make by selling or renting the data you have?
• How much capital will you have to spend to protect this data?

Data is the life’s blood of your business. Without it, whether it’s destroyed in a natural disaster or stolen during a hacking attack, you face certain demise. Therefore, you need a way to restore it.

Data Backup
The best way to make sure data restoration happens is with a data backup solution. MSPNetworks can equip your business with a strategy that promotes redundancy. We do this by helping you implement a strategy that involves data backups being stored both locally and off-site, giving you more options and more copies of your data in the event anything goes wrong. BDR initially backs up the entire network, and it takes incremental backups following this throughout the workday, minimizing downtime in the long run and keeping data loss at an all-time low.

Disaster Recovery
The best data recovery strategy is one that never has to be used, but it still presents value as a contingency plan in the event that something does go wrong. The best way to pull this off is by having a dedicated recovery platform in place that takes advantage of these two factors:

• Recovery Point Objective (RPO) - The interval of time that might pass during a disruption before the amount of data lost exceeds the maximum threshold that your business can weather.
• Recovery Time Objective (RTO) - The duration of time within which data or business process must be restored after a disruption before it can be considered a complete break in continuity.

With a thorough disaster recovery strategy, you’ll minimize the chances of your business suffering needlessly from future disasters. To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.