Hot topics
Mobile solutions
There are now many devices and quite a few technologies available to provide complete access whilst on the move.
This can range from a POP Email Based phone to a PDA running Windows Mobile and using a Citrix Web Brower client with acceleration.
Weald is qualified and experienced in the provision of these solutions and is not tied to any one provider or technology.
Anti Spam, Anti Virus and Anti Spyware
These were at one time separate solutions often requiring separate administration from various competing providers.
Today, these have largely merged and the packages have improved, now having single point of admin via web console.
There are packages available that deal with spam and email in a much more sophisticated manner, including pre-pending and appending different information based upon the sender and the recipient, even to the extent of different messages by group or name.
Whatever your requirement, there is a reasonable chance that we will have knowledge of a suitable package.
Home working
With fast Internet connections now common place, working from home has never been easier, cheaper and more accessible.
We are familiar with the technologies available, the security implications and the different costs and benefits that each solution will have on the user.
Firewall
Security can mean a number of things, in this instance we will refer to this as the perimeter security known as the Firewall.
A firewall is usually a device that stops traffic entering from the Internet to your LAN, though it can also carry out more sophisticated tasks such as the filtering of incoming traffic for viruses and other inappropriate material.
Internet and E-mail Policies
Inappropriate use of the internet and company email systems. A recurring topic of enquiry that IT is able to assist with.
These require the backing of good employment contracts or appropriate memorandums.
Internet Usage Logging
IT is able to log all traffic by user or by computer and report who visited what site and for how long and at what time of day. This may be then compiled into a graphical statistic format allowing managers to analyse time usage.
Internet Content Filtering
In conjunction with a number of Schools, Weald has successfully used its own IWALL product to filter inappropriate pornographic material. This facility is now available for general usage and we encourage our clients to make use of it.
Outgoing Disclaimers and Email Monitoring
Mail size and content monitoring helps keep time and space utilisation to a reasonable level.
A great deal of time and storage space is used by the distribution of pictures, videos and jokes internally. A simple 1mb video file grows to 25Mb when distributed to 25 people and left in deleted items. There are a number of software packages that are able to monitor statistics sufficiently to be able to narrow down users and groups that are misusing systems and to provoke an internal investigation and also to lift out the offending attachments based on rules.
Annoying and illegally installed applications
Use of MSN, Skype and other messaging software in the office environment is of debatable value.
Depending on your view on the usage of these products, it is possible to control, limit or block the usage of these products. This can be done at various levels within the system control depending on what policy controls are already in place.
Software and Hardware Auditing Packages
Audit software is an excellent assistant for IT administrators and Weald use it often when working for clients under our STAFF I.T. agreements.
Using audit software you can:
Identify hardware that needs upgrade or replacement
Identify Software that is below standard or requires services packs
Count the number of Office, CAD or other software packages installed and compare to those actually purchased
Locate the users with other software packages installed that do not comply with company regulations.
Keep up to date and legal with audit software. It's very low cost in comparison to the time one would spend manually auditing - and it keeps up to date.
VPN Security
One of the largest holes in company security today is caused by home workers and mobile workers connecting to the office network via VPN.
The original VPN's by design allowed all authenticated traffic unrestricted access to the internal LAN. Today far more secure options are available restricting to which machines and to which services the external users may connect.
Disaster recovery
What would happen if the building burns down and destroys the servers and on site data.
We can provide you with the means to answer these questions, and we have the facilities to restore your data to a replacement server. It is even possible to rent an office and dedicated IP address from us in order to locate your mail server and get operational in those first few vital days following a disaster.
Backup
Backup is still one of the most common topics and most common failures that we encounter.
Even in today's world of fast lines and on line backup, there is still a lot to be said for a good quality tape drive with a proper rotation system.
A fairly good and common method is shown here:
Backup - Grandfather Father Son.
This is a simple system to manage if the backups do not extend to more than one tape.
Grandfather Father Son (GFS) requires 19 tapes. There are four designated daily tapes for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. These tapes are only used for their prescribed day's backup. There are four tapes to be used only on Fridays - Friday1, Friday2, Friday3 and Friday 4. The Friday tapes are used depending on the week number within the month. For example, the Friday2 tape would be used on the second Friday of the month.There are also twelve monthly tapes named January through December. These tapes are used on the last day of every month in preference to any other tapes.
Tape drives become ever more reasonable to purchase:
Currently an internal DAT72i (72GB Compressed, 36GB native) is less than £ 350.00
An internal LTO2 drive (200GB Native, 400GB Compressed) is now less than £ 1000.00.
If you are running close to your backup limits, please do ask how much your business worth - because in fact your business does reside on these tapes in the event of a real disaster.
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