Month: November 2016

Cloud computing is being adopted in ever increasing numbers by businesses across the UK (and indeed globally). The digital landscape has evolved with the cloud an integral feature of business IT.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that every business has, nor indeed should they adopt cloud technology.  While more and more are making the switch, we should also remember that there’s a significant number still to make the leap away from their old networks into the ‘brave new world’ of the cloud. And for wholly legitimate reasons.

For those small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) still exploring whether or not the cloud is the right way to go with their IT then a number of factors need to be considered to determine the feasibility of any migration – either in whole or part – to a cloud-based service.

Connectivity versus Applications

For the cloud to deliver a productive and efficient service your business needs to be running an internet connection which is robust enough to cope with the size and scale of file sharing that you need.

Whilst the cloud you opt for will offer a service with maximum uptime, if your internal internet connection is running on a low bandwidth capacity, you may find your system becomes slow. Such a scenario could therefore negate the productivity benefits the cloud can offer.

Businesses that work with very large file documents – graphics and media for instance, might have a particular issue with this. Working with a specialist IT consultant would allow you to take a tailored solution offering advice on increasing bandwidth to cope with your cloud demands or even providing a hybrid solution which would combine cloud services with more traditional local storage to match the needs of your company.

Let Your IT Consultant Assess Your Business Requirements

Rather than taking your business headlong into a cloud migration, work with an IT consultant with expertise in tailoring a system that works for you. By doing so you can expect a full audit of your current IT set up whilst analysing overall needs. Your IT is a crucial component of your business and your provider can be a key partner in ensuring your system matches the specific requirements of your company, be that cloud-based, local networking or a hybrid of different tools.

4 Considerations for your Business Needs

1. How much investment have you made in your current IT infrastructure?

If you’ve invested heavily in your existing IT system on hardware and networks, you need to balance the costs against long-term potential benefits of migrating to the cloud.

2. What security do you require on your data?

Your provider should recognise that security levels will differ for different industries ranging from data that can be safely shared in the public domain to highly confidential documents which are stored in hard copy only.

Whilst utilising the different cloud options may provide advantages in one area – as well as high levels of security – if you are working with extremely sensitive data then there may be a case for protecting this locally through high-security firewalls and similar measures.

Your IT consultant can work with you to ensure that any migration which occurs take into account every level of security needed to protect the integrity of your business.

3. How much training will your staff require?

Making any significant changes to your infrastructure or way of working is likely to involve a degree of training. Whilst cloud migration can often be a relatively simple procedure a business needs to consider the short-term impact of a new system roll-out before embarking on the change. Again working with an expert IT support provider offering a range of cloud and non-cloud solutions will allow you to make the choice most suited to your circumstances.

4. Support

Your current IT set up may well come with a certain level of support and maintenance which you are comfortable with and suitably budgeted for. Understanding how any migration might alter the way in which your business is supported is a crucial factor in any feasibility study before you migrate to the cloud.

Conclusion

Migrating your IT system requires critical levels of scrutiny, analysis and diligence in order to make it cost-effective, user-friendly and, importantly – secure. And, while there are many well-established benefits for businesses to migrate to the cloud, from productivity improvements to savings in hardware and maintenance, it’s not the right option for every business. Indeed, in a large number of instances migrating wholly to the cloud may not represent the most effective solution for a given task or time.

Research within your industry; maybe companies similar to you have changed their IT, offering insight to the relative factors which may affect your business. And, of course, work closely with an IT expert who can provide a thorough, painstaking analysis of your business needs, ensuring that any migration or changes made are suitable, secure and rolled-out with minimal day to day disruption; leaving you with a robust, safe and cost-effective IT system able to meet every challenge.

You don’t have to search too far through the pages of Google to find historic articles, such as this one from 2010, aimed at highlighting how secure the Linux operating system is, in comparison to rival systems – in particular Windows. And while there’s a historic truth to the fact that Linux has been a safer platform, less susceptible to malware attacks, to believe that it’s a platform immune to breaches is to be lulled into a false sense of security.

Less susceptible, yes. Impervious, no.

However, there are some simple recommendations you can adopt to bring immediate peace of mind, and here are 4 of the best…

Update Regularly

The first step in ensuring any operating system is at its most secure is to make sure that it’s up-to-date. This means keeping on top of updates to the server and all its related applications: browser, media players and such like.

It’s a simple thing to do and, in many variations of the system (Ubuntu, for example) it can be set to update automatically. This may well be set as a default or can easily be set-up for automation in the system settings.

Set Up a Firewall

Similar to Windows and a range of third-party security applications, Linux has the facility to set-up a firewall within its system. When initiated on the system, the firewall offers an effective barrier against malicious software entering via the typical access points – such as email or web browsers.

And yes, malware is a threat on Linux. It may be a much lower risk than Windows, but it remains a risk nonetheless.

Most Linux systems won’t have the firewall activated as a standard. It will however be contained within a component in its kernel, known as iptables. Learning the best ways to configure can add a significant layer of safety to your desktop.

Encrypt!

Again, much like any operating system, encryption can provide high-level security to your desktop. The files and content on your system can be as vulnerable on Linux as they are on any other OS to those unscrupulous types seeking to gain access to them. If your computer is stolen, or someone is able to gain access in any way, a password is easily by-passed. Encryption, on the other hand, locks down all data, keeping it out of sight even in the event of theft.

Most popular Linux distributions offer the facility for encryption at the point of set-up or installation. Depending on the extent you want to set up this security measure you have the facility to encrypt specific files on the system (those that contain the sensitive data you want protected, for example), or a full disc encryption – which encrypts the entire hard drive.

Naturally, full disc encryption offers the highest security levels, and ensures that the data contained in temporary files and elsewhere is also protected in the event of a desktop breach.

Secure the Browser

You may have set-up your Linux system for the highest levels of security, but what about the web browser you’re using?

So many malware and phishing threats gain access to your system via the browser. Applying simple security extensions (available on all main browsers) will add yet another layer of security and privacy to your system.

Conclusion

All systems have their vulnerabilities and Linux is no exception. And, by understanding this simple truth, you are actually giving yourself the greatest chance to ensure your desktop remains safe. So, rather than ignoring potential risks and pottering on in the misguided belief that you are operating on a secure platform, take these simple measures to ensure that this remains the case. Should you require assistance with your set-up, contact our Linux support specialists today.

Migrating to any new system can be a major task and moving your enterprise to Office 365 is no exception. One of the advantages 365 will often have for organisations is its relative familiarity, helping the rollout to staff in terms of training and potential user resistance. Nevertheless, the process still needs to be carried through with diligence. And by following these simple steps, you can ensure that your rollout runs smoothly to full completion.

User Accounts

Ensure you have all users collated within the organisation. Everyone who will be using the system should be accounted for, with a record of username and password for each user. Make sure that every user has been successfully added to the Office 365 subscription with contact details entered into the correct directory and email address set-up functional and with password appropriately set.

If you are operating multiple Office 365 subscriptions, ensure that each user is assigned to the appropriate subscription, so that they have access to (and restriction from) the requisite applications.

Mailboxes

Do you have the correct number of mailboxes set-up for the business? This might include mailboxes for:

• Individual Users
• Shared departmental
• Conferencing

Ensure mailboxes are of appropriate size to cope with capacity.

Configurations

Ensure you have correct configurations for the various devices used in the company, such as:

• Browsers
• Operating Systems
• Mobile Devices

Have you accounted for every device used in the organisation?

Understanding the different versions of Office 365 for different devices is an essential tool in the future management of a multi-user and remotely accessed system. Ensure that you have correctly set-up and configured Mobile Device Management (MDM) for Office so that you are able to record the devices accessing the system, including any facility required to block access or wipe the device.

If your enterprise has a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy, then managing system access through the App should be similarly set-up accordingly.

Network

Is your network correctly set-up? Check that firewalls are correctly configured, that internet connectivity and bandwidth is appropriate.

Ensure that DNS records are correct and pointing to the Office 365 servers.

File Storage

Ensure you have located and accounted for all files so that they are appropriately migrated to the Office system.

If migrating files to the Sharepoint system, ensure that your subscription has accounted for appropriate storage capacity.

Ensure that libraries and sub-folders have been set-up to enable data to migrate to the correct location.

Hybrid Environments

Will Office 365 be integrated with existing services? For instance, you may have existing local Office products in operation (such as on-site directories, existing Skype set-up). Ensure that your Office 365 system is accurately synchronised with these local set-ups so that they mirror each other and avoid confusion or lost information in future use.

Similarly, user identity needs to be mirrored between local user ID and cloud-based ID. This ensures that appropriate access is given to users for the data and applications they require via both local services and online.

User Preparation

System users need to be fully prepared for the migration. This means effective communication, including timings for roll-out, and making clear what the migration will entail, any changes they’ll notice in use. And when their accounts, mailboxes and application access is going to go live.

Roll-Out Support

At the go-live date and across the roll-out period, ensure that suitable training and support is provided for users across the company. This should entail comprehensive support from the IT team and service desk, adequately prepared to deal with roll-out queries and assistance.

An internal IT audit is often overlooked, misunderstood or even ignored by businesses until one of two things tend to happen. Either, they experience a negative impact from poorly provisioned or deployed IT, or they already use a responsible IT provider. If your business is working within a regulatory framework, this IT audit checklist should be an essential element of your IT audit and overall strategy.

In many cases, your business will rely on auditors to determine whether your organisation operates within the boundaries of regulatory compliance. Everything from data storage to identity and access management (IAM) systems face scrutiny. Businesses often have bespoke IT environments, each with different perimeters to defend and users or data to manage, a coordinated audit plan is an absolute necessity to ensure your internal controls are effective.

To be effective, you must understand what external auditors will look for during a compliance audit. Ask yourself if you are able to demonstrate:

1. Effective controls to address regulatory compliance and that the design of your IT deployment has zero deficiencies.
2. That your business continually monitors and employs those controls so that there are no processes that compromise your compliance framework design and threaten your computer system security

Evidence is Key

Whenever you design and implement security and controls for the benefit of your customer’s and your business’ security, you should always document and produce evidence, which you can make available to auditors. Your control program, must be more than just effective, its effectiveness must also be visible. You can achieve this by monitoring and reporting on both, the design of your controls and the processes to which your organisation’s individuals adhere.

Follow these steps and you will closely replicate a compliance IT audit:

1. Plan the audit

Take into account everything mentioned above and consider your deployment’s weaknesses in relation to the Governance Risk and Compliance framework you have in place. Plan the audit around regulations, risk assessment, and cost implications of design or system failure.

2. Hold and audit meeting

Discuss with key stakeholders how you plan to conduct your audit and ask for feedback on how your audit will affect staff, operations and particularly seek out information that will contribute to the effectiveness of your audit.

3. Collect Data and Test

Begin the audit process and collect data that identifies deficiencies in your IT systems. Review IT policies and procedures as well as your business’ structure. Speak with personnel and refer to your Business Impact Analysis. Monitor the processes and procedures in action to ensure your organisation and employees adhere to the documentation or training.

4. Address Identified Problems

Correct anything, which you identify in Step 3. Consider the best approach to dealing with deficiencies. This could be better documentation, improved procedures or a redesign of your security policies and IAM systems.

5. Repeat Step 3

Test the changes you make to ensure they are effective. Ensure you test every part of your organisation as if you were doing so for the first time. Any changes you make may have an impact on the effectiveness of controls and measures that were not addressed in Step 4, which means a thorough testing plan is necessary as if testing for the first time.

6. Report the Findings of Your Analysis

Reporting must be relevant to both your organisation and the regulatory framework in which it operates. Your IT provider should have a thorough understanding of laws pertinent to your industry, including financial, health and legal industries in addition to understanding cross-border data protection and compliance issues. Compare your reports to each regulation framework with which your business needs to comply.

7. Create a Final Report

Not every issue will call for a major overhaul. Some features of your IT may need additional monitoring or minor tweaks as part of an ongoing audit process. Consider suggesting automated IT processes that identify problems, report and document them in accordance with compliance obligations.

You can meet many regulations by simply identifying where better monitoring is necessary to allow your organisation to respond to problems. Suggest IT controls, updating procedures and auditing schedules that will ensure your organisation sits well with external auditors.

Where to Start

Wherever possible, work with external auditors and regulatory bodies as early as possible in the process. Assess your IT provider to ensure they have the skill-set, knowledge and experience necessary for your business to comply with regulations.

Most of all, address auditing before it becomes a problem. The earlier your IT systems employ sufficient control frameworks, the easier it is to scale as your business grows.

Connected learning is a model for education based very much around the demands of a digital world. A way of delivering learning so that it remains relevant to the world around us, adaptable to evolving technologies and engaging to the individual. A model rooted, in the words of Educause:

“In the active participation of students, instructors, advisors, and collaborators, offering the ability to connect courses, people, and resources to develop unique personalized learning pathways.”

Source: https://library.educause.edu/blog/2013/5/7-things-you-should-know-about-connected-learning

Personalised learning is based around personal interests, utilising the resources and information readily available to us through the internet and social media outlets. In essence, this is a method of education that’s reflective of modern society and twenty-first century interaction.

Nevertheless, in implementing a connected learning model into an educational environment, there remain a number of key challenges that need to be addressed and overcome.

Keeping Pace with Technology

At the heart of connected learning is the concept of education through the sharing of experience and knowledge. And it is through the proliferation of digital technology – drawing on the seemingly unlimited resources available online as well as the ability to share and collaborate through social media – that such a learning model becomes so accessible. Digital technology allows students to learn using methods that are relevant to their daily lives. For instance, this may be in the form of online searches or joining in discussions on forums or social media groups.

Which presents a challenge to educational establishments.

Technology advances quickly, and while students will likely keep pace with this progression in their personal lives, in an era of tightened budgets, for schools to do the same can place a burden on resources. The challenge being to find a solution robust enough to deliver the level of service required for this kind of digital learning, while remaining both secure and within budget.

Finding the relevant resources

If you’re opening the learning process up to new channels and means of research, then there is a challenge in finding the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.

Traditional learning methods are somewhat standardised, with students all studying from the same resources. Moving away from this standard approach opens the student learning experience up information and resources previously out of reach from the classroom.

And, while this clearly represents an opportunity, there’s a danger that the student may become swamped in such an abundance of information. The challenge for the teacher being able to guide the student towards the resources most trustworthy and relevant to the study.

Studying Traditional Subjects

With the nature of connected learning geared towards providing students with the tools through their education to operate competently in the wider world – calling upon internet search skills, digital communication and new media – is there a danger of dropping standards in those ‘traditional’ subject areas that are still deemed crucial to a rounded education?

Namely subjects such as English, Maths, Science and History.

Well, there seems no reason why connected learning should detract from these subjects per se. Literacy and numeracy still have a huge relevance to the day-to-day skillset of a digital age student and online resources only open up accessibility to research in both the sciences and humanities.

Where the challenge may lie in this regard, however, is in terms of assessment. Connected learning and the use of online resources and communication is taking students ever more along a path of personal learning, tailored to their own specific interests and requirements. Where this becomes the norm for an establishment, the ability to apply standardised testing could become ever more difficult.

In theory, moving from on-premise Exchange to the cloud-based Office 365 should be a straightforward process. But this assumes that you are going about in the right way. The fact is that all migration processes – whether they involve Office 365 or not – require planning, familiarity, a methodical approach (not to mention a cool head).

So what can possibly go wrong – and what wider headaches can this cause for a business? Here are some of the problems we have come across…

Incomplete migration of email

Let’s say that for whatever reason, you’ve retained large quantities of emails. Quite understandably, these have been archived methodically in various folders. Yet here’s the thing: you move the mailbox to the cloud and the stubs are broken. At some point after the migration, your staff realise that they are unable to access archived emails. From customer service right through to HR, if your business is heavily dependent on email communication, the blowback from this can be a real headache.

This happens where your legacy archiving method isn’t compatible with Office 365. There are ways around it, however – although the way around it depends on the export capabilities of your archive solution. A word of warning however: it’s a far more straightforward process to pre-empt the problem, by understanding what the situation is in terms of native export tools and data extraction within your current infrastructure – rather than trying to fix it later.

OneDrive sync issues

Once it is up and running in the right way, OneDrive provides the ideal tool for accessing business files remotely and for multi-user collaboration on shared documents. Yet for many clients who approach us for advice after they have already undergone an Office 365 migration, problems with OneDrive feature prominently.

Files can fail to sync properly due to a various reasons. It might, for instance be down to a specific problem with the version of Office you are migrating from, or it could be that you’ve failed to deploy the Next Generation Sync Client correctly. It’s fixable, but the best way of resolving it is via a full diagnostic check: where, exactly, does the problem lie and what needs to be done to remove it?

Sharepoint permissions incorrectly configured

This is a good example of a simple oversight that can have unfortunate repercussions for a business. It happens when entire document libraries are moved over to Office 365. The transferral occurs successfully; it’s just that the job of setting access permissions has been overlooked. At some point, the omission is realised and access permissions are reinstated – but not before members of staff have been able to access sensitive files that ought to have been kept out of bounds (to do with HR, for instance).

Some more potential stumbling blocks…

Let’s say that your pre-migration infrastructure was never really all that reliable; it tended to be unstable and occasionally prone to corruption issues. It’s good practice to identify those problems and take them into account before the migration process takes place – to avoid any unwelcome surprises.

Likewise, there’s the issue of downtime while migration is happening. The smoothest migrations happen after a realistic assessment of what’s going to be required. It’s only then that a business can work from a reliable time estimate on how long critical systems are going to be down. The decision can then be made on when to migrate to minimise disruption.

Microsoft bills the migration process as being relatively easy; but when you realise the potential problems that can arise, you see that expert input can save a lot of hassle.

A school’s connectivity requirements are based on very particular usage patterns. Schools need to take into account not just what’s required to deliver the curriculum, but also the operational and administrative needs of the school. So you want to ensure stable connections and reliable performance – but while staying on budget.

With this in mind, here are five ways to ensure you stay online – without ending up with a needlessly expensive connectivity package.

Assess your needs

Insufficient bandwidth for your needs is likely to result in increased instances of outages – together with sluggish performance. But at the same time, you shouldn’t have to find yourself paying for a level of bandwidth that significantly exceeds your requirements.

To get this balance right, it’s worth looking in detail at your requirements before you start shopping around for suppliers. Assessing these needs can be complex as you need to take into account the effects of a range of different types of activities, from pupil research and use of portable or mobile devices – through to the demands of running a school portal or virtual learning environment (VLE). In terms of logistics, a school consisting of just a few hundred pupils is likely to have very different requirements to a much larger organisation housed across a main block and multiple peripheral buildings. If necessary, get expert input when carrying out this assessment.

Installation of wifi boosters

Boosting your signal is one of the easiest ways of addressing less than optimum wifi speeds and signal dropout. Installing a signal repeater is often the obvious way forward – i.e. adding an extra wireless router to your network.

Consider powerline networking

Powerline networking adapters are fitted with Ethernet ports and they use the existing wiring in your building to transmit WiFi at speeds you would normally expect from a wired network. These can be useful for setting up wireless hotspots with a suitably strong signal in classrooms but for very little outlay.

Look at MIMO access points

Compared to the installation of routers and powerline networking, MIMO (multiple in, multiple out) technology represents the next level of boosting a wifi signal and ensuring connectivity. For this, antenna technology is used to transmit the signal from your router to where it’s needed without delay or disruption. MIMO hardware involves a more substantial outlay than other ways of getting the most out of your connections. However, depending on your needs and setup, it could represent the most cost-effective way forward.

Finally: ensure you are connected for the future

Loss of connectivity has the potential to disrupt both learning and administration throughout a school. Rather than patching up a local connectivity issue with, say, extra routers, it’s often worth taking a step back and working out whether the type of connection package you have in place is still fit for purpose.

Remember that it can be a false economy to spend money on boosting a network if you are due a complete upgrade. With this in mind, it’s worth consulting with a network connectivity IT consultant to consider whether your connectivity setup is the best it can be to meet your future requirements.