Accend Networks San Francisco Bay Area Full Service IT Consulting Company

Category: Blogs

Categories
Blogs

Why You Need an MSP

Services Why You Need an MSP
Why You Need an MSP

Let’s start with the basics. Most people (especially those on the far spectrum of the digital divide) are probably scratching their heads and wondering, “What exactly is an MSP?” Well, it is an acronym for the Managed Service Provider. Now that we have that down, it raises another question, “Why do I need one?” We’re here to answer this question and more.

Managed services involve the practice of outsourcing on a proactive basis certain processes and functions intended to improve operations and cut expenses. Managed Service Providers are a type of IT service company that acts as an outsourced third-party providing a server, network and specialized applications to end users and organizations. It is a strategic method adopted by corporations at various levels as a method of improving operations. Some of the big names in the industry include giants such as IBM, Atos, Infosys, Capgemini, and many others.

What services do MSPs provide?

MSP‘s provide a wide range of services, cutting across fields and disciplines. The services they provide include, but are not restricted to :

  • Firewall Availability Monitoring
  • Security Information Event Monitoring and Log Analytics
  • 24x7x365 Real-Time Security Monitoring
  • Virus Removal
  • Industry-leading Anti-Virus and Anti-Ransomware for Windows, Mac, and Linux
  • NOC Services
  • Advanced Endpoint Detection
  • Critical Application Patching
  • IT security
  • Network infrastructure
Contact us for more information on how we can help.
Why should you partner with an MSP?

Now that we have basic knowledge of an MSP and the many services it provides, it’s time to talk about why it’s so important to partner with one. There are numerous advantages to partnering with an MSP and employing its services. Some are obvious, while others are not. We will walk you through some of the important advantages:

Access to top talent :MSPs provide users with access to skilled individuals with years of experience and expertise under their belts. This is especially important to new startups that may lack the know-how necessary to operate and benefit from the experience that MSPs bring to the table.

24/7 Network Monitoring of Network Devices, Servers, and Desktops : Data is like a river, constantly flowing and ever-changing. MSPs are experts at monitoring and managing this constant stream of data in a way no one else can and transforming it into vital information. By keeping you up-to-date on the constantly changing business sphere, you can keep up with current trends and happenings both within your organization and the industry.

Asset Inventory and Management : This service is vital for proper bookkeeping and auditing within an organization. MSPs provide a digital framework that accurately follows the flow of products in and out of the system, with important details such as amount, time, cost and much more. This is especially important in combating forgery and other fraudulent activities, particularly when dealing with an enormous amount of products.

Patches and Updates : MSPs provide the latest in software and IT infrastructure; they keep you updated on the latest data management systems to boost your productivity to the maximum and keep your company running as smoothly as possible.

This is just a brief run through of the services provided by MSP’s. I encourage you to partner with one today to boost your productivity and profitability.
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter Share on Linkedin
Categories
Blogs

Cloud Hosting Services Vs On-Premises IT Solutions

Cloud Hosting Services Vs On-Premises IT Solutions

A lot of companies and people have been talking about cloud hosting services vs on-premises IT solutions–the pros and cons of both. To be very honest, no option is “perfect”, but cloud hosting services do offer a wide range of advantages over on-premises solutions. Before we delve into all that, it is important to provide some basic background information on the subject.

What are cloud hosting services?

The term cloud services is a broad category that encompasses a vast collection of IT resources provided over the internet. The expression may also be used to describe professional services that support the selection, deployment and ongoing management of various cloud-based resources provided by private vendors, as opposed to on-premises services.

What is an on-premises environment?

An on-premises environment involves software and technology located within the physical confines of an enterprise – often in the company’s data center – as opposed to running remotely on hosted servers or on cloud services such as AWS. The key advantage to such a system of data storage and management is that by installing and running software on hardware located on company premises, staff have physical access to the data and can directly control the configuration, management, and security of the computing infrastructure and data.

What is Amazon Web Services?

Amazon Web Services, or AWS for short, is a subsidiary of Amazon that functions as a secure cloud services platform, offering computing power, database storage services, content delivery, and other functionality to help businesses scale and grow. It offers over 165 fully-featured services from data services globally.

So, what are the various advantages of choosing a cloud hosting service over on-premises solutions, and why you should choose cloud hosting services? There is a myriad of reasons that include :

Running costs

Cost depends on several different factors. First, upfront on-premises solutions are the more expensive option, but with the continual monthly payments made for cloud hosting services, the total costs may eventually tally up. In the long run, AWS is more cost-effective.

One thing to consider is that electricity costs accrue when using on-premises solutions since they consume a lot more electricity for both running and cooling. Over time, this may become a significant expense.

Another consideration is the replacement cost. On average, most organizations have to replace their hardware and upgrade their software every 4-6 years to avoid the danger of failure and costly upgrade fees due to obsolescence.

Bandwidth

It would be extremely misleading to say that cloud services don’t have their own bandwidth problems, but on a general note, the high-ranking cloud hosting services, like Amazon Web Services, provide a much higher level of quality. On-premises solutions require an efficient and well-designed network of switches and cabling to serve bandwidth-hungry applications inside office walls.

Uptime and Dependability

In this cloud regard, hosting services such as AWS far outstrip on-premises solutions. Major cloud hosting services can guarantee an uptime of up to 99.95% in an entire year, with the average downtime for cloud servers being 30 hours per year. By contrast, on-premises solutions at the macro level average up to 14 days of downtime a year, causing revenue losses running to billions of dollars.

Uptime and Dependability

A key feature of AWS is its top-tier security protocol for businesses at all levels. AWS offers levels of data and cyberspace security to small and mid-level businesses that were once only available to large scale corporations. In an era where information is power, you can understand just how important this feature is. If this isn’t a major deal-breaker, then I don’t know what is.

Categories
Blogs

Advanced Network Services | Dynamic Network Services

Advanced Network Services | Dynamic Network Services

Accend has been providing advanced network services for clients for more than ten years in different verticals ranging from technology, healthcare, start-ups, K-12, local, state, and federal agencies.

The network services we provide range from network design, implementation and support of data, voice, and wireless networks. We are an IT Outsourcing company, systems integrator, and a value added reseller to those who need our services. We are adding video to our portfolio, although we have supported it minimally in the past.

The technology we support for clients is from different technology partners such as Cisco, Dell, HP, Meraki, Aruba, Ubiquiti, Juniper and Fortinet along with network appliances for small to midsize businesses such as Watchguard, Ubiquiti, Eero and Netgear.

The type of IT network services for which we often get requests are network design and upgrades, network moves, new Installations, equipment procurement, network redundancy (internet failover with and without BGP), switch stacking, network outages, best practice recommendations, ransomware attacks, virus-related issues, and advanced IT projects that require experienced and senior level engineers and architects. We are asked to handle network security, penetration testing and vulnerability assessment, Cloud assessment of products from Palo Alto Networks, Cloud migration from on-premise to the cloud, building site-to-site vpn tunnels and vpc from on-premise to the cloud, and staff augmentation placement for roles such as Helpdesk, Network Engineers and Network Architects.

Last but not least, we have also been requested to provide managed network services to monitor clients’ edge devices, routers, switches, and wireless controllers including access points and windows network services that entail patching services, anti-virus and anti-malware protection, and endpoint security for servers, desktop and laptops.

Apart from our typical network implementation and support projects, we often get requests to help clients install their commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) projects such as SolarWinds and Cisco Unified Communications Manager. Part of our process is to assess the current environment and understand the software purchased so that our consultants can take over seamlessly. The consultants who get assigned to assist clients typically have over 5+ years, sometimes up to 20+ years, in supporting products so that best practice recommendations can be made to guide the clients as needed. We either work with the customer or do the installation ourselves, depending on the client’s preference. Another COTS product is implementing VMware Horizon and Workspace ONE. This is just an example of our approach to getting things done.

In terms of area coverage, we provide advanced network services in California (both northern and southern), and nationwide with several clients on the east coast. The work can be on-site or remote; but luckily, with the availability of remote tools, we can easily support customers with just a phone call.

These are highlights of what we provide, but it is not limited to these examples. We offer dynamic network services since we’re flexible and understand client needs.

Categories
Blogs

Global Security Solutions | Advanced Security Solutions

Global Security Solutions | Advanced Security Solutions

Accend has been a Global Security Solutions provider for several clients when their networks were attacked by ransomware. Their locations are in different parts of the world. They look to us to provide rapid security solutions.

When both of our east coast clients were attacked by different variations of ransomware, we were called upon to implement tailored security solutions to remediate and restore their services as soon as possible so they could quickly be back in business operating normally. Luckily, with our talented team and a variety of resources, we were able to provide the skillsets our clients needed in a short period of time. We understood the urgency and thus quickly started working on resolving the issue.

Nuance is one of our east coast clients. They were hit by the Petya virus, which cost them $90M to restore their entire infrastructure (and restoration of services may still be on going). They had over 70 worldwide locations, including locations in Canada and Melbourne, Australia. They had no security at all in any of their systems. One click executed and voila, the virus cascaded and impacted almost all of their systems. It was so severe that our Global Security Solutions USA team and other IT partners were called in to work long hours round the clock, including weekends and nights, to tighten up security using Cisco FirePower at all 70+ locations around the world.

Here is what our partner had to say about this incident. According to Stewart Grey, Solutions Engineer of Conres, “We executed the ‘cut off and kill plan.’ It took dozens of networking R&S and security professionals to deploy over 100 firewalls to all parts of the globe. We took a project that should have taken 6 – 8 months and executed and successfully remediated the problem in 6 weeks.”

Another case is a healthcare client, Chesapeake Health Care in Salisbury, Maryland that was hit by ransomware that crippled some of their Windows infrastructure, including their Exchange 2007 server. They had about 400 users who primarily used Outlook Web Access (OWA) to access their emails, and OWA became useless to them. Once we received the email about needing our help, we jumped on it right away. They wanted to migrate to Office 365, and our Microsoft Exchange Solutions Architect helped them with the migration so they were up and running in a matter of two weeks.

Recently, as part of our global security solutions in California, we received another crisis call from a client in the Tri-Valley location in Northern California. The client was hit with ransomware for the second time, and they actually paid the ransom to get their service back for an undisclosed amount. They had about 200 users and needed several things done such as data recovery, migration to the cloud, and security. They ended up hiring a different IT vendor to support them but, unfortunately, that was not enough and we were called upon.

One last example is a request we received from a company residing in China when they needed a VPN service for their business. That was an interesting case because the business needed to register with the Chinese government and agree to have their site’s traffic monitored by it.

The above cases are part of our Global Security Solutions in California, the East Coast, and worldwide. Being in California does not restrict the location of our clients, and we have proved that we can support clients with our international security solutions, providing them with Cyber Security solutions while abiding by local and international laws.

Categories
Blogs

Solarwinds Network Monitoring | Network Monitoring System

Solarwinds Network Monitoring | Network Monitoring System
Solarwinds Network Monitoring | Network Monitoring System

Several of our mid-size, municipal and federal clients have required assistance with their Solarwinds Network Monitoring software. They needed help to ensure that the modules they purchased were installed correctly and optimized for best performance. They also needed devices added tuned to critical alerts and pruning any false alarms.

Solarwinds is one of the best network monitoring tools available for business but not for home use. Among the many different modules, some of the popular are Network Performance Manager, Network Traffic Analyzer, Network Configuration Manager, and User Device Tracker. The first three modules allow you to add devices so you can monitor the health of systems, the services running on them, and get notified of issues, backup and restore configuration and even schedule image updates. It is great for a business running in a 24/7 environment. Network Traffic Analyzer (see image below, it works by enabling netflow on devices so you can monitor bandwidth usage, analyze traffic behavior traversing through the devices and application traffic alerts. Reports can be run using the defaults available, or you can create your own customized format. Alerts can also be customized.

Solarwinds is a great product for troubleshooting and pinpointing the causes of network outages and issues as the dashboard has widgets readily available to show you the Top N sources by utilization and application. You can filter traffic by source, destination, type of application such as port number (either source or destination), IP address, and much more. It supports IPv4 and IPv6. The dashboard can be customized to suit your needs so you only see what is critical and applicable to you.

To get the best use of Solarwinds to monitor your network, it requires some time to get everything installed. The SQL databases and installation locations are important, especially in a high-redundancy situation. Some common issues we see are related to server performance so you should make sure that the system running has a robust CPU, memory, and adequate storage.

Solarwinds is not just for monitoring networks but is also used for systems such as servers, laptops, desktops, and other endpoint devices. It can be configured to monitor and alert you on any window services running on a system. It has remote monitoring of devices located apart from the corporate office as long as there is network connectivity. Network topology can be created to show the location of each device in a map view. This is found on the dashboard of Solarwinds when you log in.

Our clients utilize our expertise to help them scope out products such as what module(s) is needed, along with installation, configuration and tuning. They count on us to analyze the installation for best practices and continue to manage their Solarwinds installation. It should be noted that on-going maintenance is required to avoid any issues.

Solarwinds networking monitoring software is purchased on a subscription basis and renewed yearly.