Five Chromebook concerns for businesses

Google’s Chromebooks will be great for businesses, but first there are some problems to be cleaned up.

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Five Chromebook concerns for businesses

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Integrated threat management (ITM) ? Overview & Metrics

Overview

ITM is focused on threats that may affect an organization. A threat is defined as some entity that may be capable of attacking or affecting the organization’s infrastructure. Perhaps it is a malicious payload carried via HTTP or via E-mail, or perhaps it is a virus not yet seen by an antivirus software manufacturer. It may be a phishing site and the accompanying e-mails inviting users to visit the site to verify their account information or it may be a polymorphic worm whose purpose is to evade firewalls while continuously morphing its signature as it attacks the next target. An ITM platform should, by definition, protect an enterprise against all of these threats and provide a platform to monitor and manage the ITM. To address these threats, the platform may include the following functions:

An Intrusion Detection System (IDS) or an Intrusion Prevention System (IPS)
Antivirus solution
Antispyware solution
Unsolicited commercial e-mail filtering
Content filtering that includes e-mail and instant messenger content management
Uniform resource locator (URL) fi ltering, which may include serving as a Web cache proxy
Firewalls
Virtual private network (VPN) connectivity

It is important to note that in the absence of a defined standard for ITM, almost any product with an integrated (unified) combination of functions listed here can and likely has been called an ITM solution.

Metrics

One of the most important functions of an ITM platform from a senior management perspective will be the development of metrics and reports that highlight the overall effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of the ITM platform. Typical metrics include the following:

New threats identified
Total threats encountered
Effectiveness of managing new threats
Trouble tickets generated
Trouble tickets closed

Metrics and reports should be generated to identify areas of the ITM program that need improvement or require some additional action to support, to measure progress, and very important, to measure compliance to existing corporate policies and regulations.

The development of an effective program including the ITM solution is imperative to ensure that it is properly used, monitored, and reacted to. Too many companies focus on the IT aspects of a deployment and fail to include any of the requisite training, awareness, documentation, and integration into the existing infrastructure. Without a program that addresses those areas, an organization will, at best, not fully utilize the solution. At worst, the security posture of the organization will be significantly reduced below an acceptable level if alerts are missed, personnel are not trained, parameters are not properly configured, etc.

Vrajitoru

Editor @SoftwareTopics

http://softwaretopics.net

What If Microsoft Expanded BizTalk Server Into A Online Collaboration Service? (Part 3)

Furthermore I will detail the major technical requirements for delivery of the proposed service.

The target SMB company profile includes revenue between $5 million to $500 million annually. The company typically has between 50 and 250 employees. Many of these companies are still doing business using manual processes, which is costing these thousands annually. This does not include the opportunity cost due to lost business due to not being able to maintain enough staff to support more customers or not being able to meet customer’s demands for automation. Meanwhile their competitors are implementing newer systems that support B2B automation and back office integrations that fuel long-term growth. The BizTalk Collaboration service positions the target SMB market to be better prepared to support their customer’s needs.

Businesses just like consumers must be able to feel that their information is being protected. As a service company we must ensure that we address how to limit our liability while still being able to provide the level of security to keep our customers data secure. Since we plan to provide data transformation services that connect vital business information between two parties we must ensure that both parties sign-off to the establishment of the trading relationship. This can be a very complex issue as existing companies on our network attempt to establish new connections through our B2B network.

If the company decides to target health care providers HIPPA regulations regarding the handling of personal data must closely followed. Due to Sarbanes-Oxley regulations there are requirements that call for specific audits, control and management of financial data, although these would only affect companies that are publicly held. Since the SMB market can be hard to reach, we must ensure that marketing efforts don’t violate any anti-spam laws. This includes giving customer the choice of opt-in for receipt of unsolicited e-mails. We prefer the use of opt-in strategy as this allows the customer to manage their e-mail preferences without us making assumptions regarding their wishes.

The critical technical requirements are divided into 3 major categories; the technical infrastructure including hardware, software and networking, data communications infrastructure and the user interface. The primary focus of the technical infrastructure is to ensure that the overall computing environment is sufficiently robust to ensure that a highly available solution is delivered while maintaining the lowest possible operating cost. This will include having multiple sites that will provide for disaster recovery capabilities. The network in each of the data centers will be divided into functional virtual LANs (V-LANs) that will provide backup capabilities, end-user access, database connectivity and operation interfaces with multiple logical paths for each of the V-LANs. This ensures that there is no single point of failure in the architecture. The data centers will be connected through a wide area network utilizing MPLS VPN through multiple service providers. The Internet connections will be provided by a tier-1 ISP within the local data center’s market. All the software components will be configured to ensure high-availability is maintained through the use of database replication systems and load-balancing functionality available in the BizTalk server product.

The data communications infrastructure will include an extranet component that logically keeps all Internet traffic from directly connecting to the data centers. All inbound and outbound traffic will be routed through the extranet by way of proxy servers that will act as traffic cops keeping unauthorized visitors from accessing any customer data. All information will be encrypted when it is being transported throughout the Internet through either the use of PKI encryption or SSL authentication depending on the type of traffic being routed. Open connectivity protocols will be utilized to connect to customers and their trading partners, which include AS2, AS3, Secure FTP and ebXML.

The use interface requirements are what differentiate the BizTalk Collaboration services offering from the regional players and other value added networks. Many of the current offerings are a heterogeneous set of tools that don’t integrate well together to give the customer easy navigation from feature to feature while maintaining a professional look and feel. The BizTalk will utilize a set of tools built upon the same platform to ensure that all features work together in harmony. A single sign-on will allow the customer to access all information available to their account. Customization across all features for the site will allow the customer to control the overall look and feel to their specific taste. This feature will also be applied to the branded offering that is made available to larger customers looking to build communities to reach the SMB market. The content of the site will include specific data that allows BizTalk to provide up-to-date information to the community. This information will be searchable from the site as well as published to specific customers based on their profile. Partners will be allowed to communicate with each other regarding specific issues with data integrity via the site, while being able to reference the specific data at issue within the communication without having to create an external copy. This will help to build a true collaboration network where the typical workflow features would be available between external partners, all be it at a very high-level. Additional features include searching for existing trading partners by name and location, finding data that has already been processed and reprocess as required. The system will be able to the generate preconfigured and custom reports including exporting information to MS Excel and Word and well as creating complex tables, graphs and charts. Finally customer service interface will be available to check account status and current balance, which also includes IM, e-mail and VOIP connection to customer service.

For more information about the online collaboration technology or to find out more about what’s happening in the information technology or telecommunications industry just follow this link to http://www.YourReportsCenter.com.

 

Learn the Best About XO Communications

For this master solution provider of XO Communications, there are lots of cheap phone business service offers it can provide. That’s simply because it is a jack of all trades when it comes to being the number one Internet telephony provider in the United States. For instance, it has MPLS, OC3, DS3, PRI, T1, T3, colocation, enterprise hosting, frame relay WAN, Gigaman, MPLS IP VPN, Opteman, point to point T1, point to point wan and XO Colo.

Speaking of XO Colo, XO Communications has got the widest array of enterprise hosting services such as XO Managed Backup, Hosted Exchange, Perimeter Email Protection, Corporate Domain Manager, Instant Messaging for business, Standard Web Site Hosting, Windows Web Site Hosting, Email and Starter Hosting, Domain Hosting, Ecommerce, Web Basics, Web Applicatinos, Hosted Gateway Login, Hosted IT Applications Resources and obviously Web Site Bundled Services and Tools and Applications.

For instance, why do you need a perimeter email protection? It’s for the protection of your business that it won’t be intruded by industrial spies. And once you can better manage your email system, you will be comforted with the fact that we are the master solution provider. And our cheap business phone service which is of VoIP is powered by Cisco.

Of course, a business phone service provider such as XO Communications can have the most basic service such as the Web Basics where we create your company’s website. We will also be the ones who will create your blogs. Our email system is POP3.

And of course, a business phone service provider which uses T1 or T3 line such as our and which has dedicated point to point T1 can easily manage the domain and DMS of your website. Your website will be up and running 24 hours a day, including holidays whether you have branches anywhere in the world. It’s because we can administer your website if you want us to.

And the technical support representatives of XO Communications and XO Colo are one of the best in the world. We’ve got phone support, email support and chat support. We also have physical support in selected areas here in mainland States.

Here’s the thing – when you hook up with any of our enterprise hosting services, you’ll get 100MB of free space, traffic of up to 1GB and a backup email server as well. The price of this cheap business phone service provider is indeed inexpensive.

Author works with XO communications and has been writing about digital management solutions and enterprise hosting for years.

Knowing From the very best Features of XO Communications

1 of the attributes of XO Communications which are quick to market for corporations in recent times is Managed Security. True enough, fifty percent of our clients here at XO Colo are Fortune 500 companies that deal closely on third parties or outsourced firms for specified duties. To shift info from the mother corporation to the affiliate, you would need a consistent and risk-free network. And this is what Managed Security of XO Communications features.

Basically, the other 50 % of our clients are small-scale and medium-scale businesses not merely in the USA yet in twenty two other countries as well. These people deal in varied businesses – from online schools to merchants of sports equipment. Indeed, that is how vast our valued customers are. So you could be somewhat sure that XO Communications is basically the top in the field.
In actual fact, what does Managed Security offer? It will have layers of passwords so only authorized individuals could sign in on the system. The MIS in your corporation will probably be educated just how to handle the network that runs on T1 and T3 lines. The T1 costs additionally differ according to the speed as well as the quantity of the content of the package you decide on.

One of the features of our T1 lines is that it is compatible to communicate having a usual DSL or broadband bandwidth. Yet with Managed Security, devices that are hooked onto your network are authenticated employing IPSec as well as various integrity checking and data encryption programs. Your data will then travel to a dedicated and private IP connection which often can never be divulged to anyone contrary to a lot of DSL lines which use dynamic connections. To make your connection much more safe, each device and computer hooked on the collocation cloud will likely be assigned a registered VPN and stateful inspection firewall numbers.

For you to connect with any of our T1 and T3 selections here in XO Colo, we will provide you with a network site survey for free so you are able to analyze the status of your own personal network before you are going to check out any of our T1 choices. Our technical support folks will help your MIS team on the security settings of your network as well as status of your firewall i.e. when it is going to expire, their configuration and naturally the network specifications. Numerous Net connection types beget totally different needs. And one factor sure, we only use Cisco items for our connection so you’ll be able to be extremely guaranteed we are incredibly consistent.

Author is an AT&T Master Solution Provider from Digital Management Solutions who specializes in helping customers make the most out of their communication and network needs. He works tirelessly to provide powerful, efficient and cost effective solutions, such as Xo Communications to address clients’ communications needs.

Don’t SaaS Me!

<P>Let’s not muck up things by talking about “cloud computing.” If you ask 5 different people what it is, you’ll get 7 different answer. What we will discuss is SaaS – Software as a Service (pronounced sass). BTW – SaaS and cloud computing – no difference, but people can seem to understand SaaS but for some reason they think cloud computing is something magical and mythical like wizards, unicorns or George Clooney. What we are seeing more and more companies dumping the software as a product to providing it as a service. Now let’s look in a little more detail about what it actually is.</P>
<P>The main features of SaaS are:</P>
<P>
<UL>
<LI>Network access
<LI>Application is not installed on the local machine
<LI>App can be accessed from any PC with internet access
<LI>One-to-many mode (single instance, multi-tenant)</LI></UL>
<P></P>
<P>Other features:</P>
<P>
<UL>
<LI>Most are modular, you buy the features you need, but can add more later
<LI>It’s not all or none; you can add some advanced features for only some users if desired
<LI>Usually delivered via secure website, which is easier and more reliable than a VPN
<LI>SaaS applications are usually more dynamic than boxed products. They can be changed, updated or have new features added much easier</LI></UL>
<P></P>
<P>Now, let’s look at a typical scenario a company would go through when they are looking for a new software/solution.</P>
<P>
<UL>
<LI>Read reviews of several applications that claim to solve the problem you have
<LI>Call in a rep from each and meet with them
<LI>See a demo of each one with a “task force”
<LI>Decide on one to evaluate or purchase
<LI>Buy Hardware, operating system, application. Set everything up, deploy it to the end users and take countless calls about how much better the old system was.</LI></UL>
<P></P>
<P>On top of that (assuming you are not using virtualization) you have a new server to maintain, new operating system to patch and a new application to keep up and running.</P>
<P>There are basically two main objections, the first is that there is no real customization. You are stuck ordering off the menu – no alterations, substitutions or special requests. The other main objection is security. Where is my data residing, is it safe, who has access to it, how can I limit access? I don’t mean to downplay these concerns, but for the majority of clients, neither is a valid obstacle that should prevent a company&nbsp;from using a SaaS application. To a SaaS provider, your security is more important to them than it probably is to you. Think about it, if your data is compromised, you will sue, and you will win, and the company at fault will probably have other companies sue. If they don’t protect your security with their life, they will be out of business – period! And for the other objection, most companies just don’t need any real customization.</P>
<P>Now on to the advantages of using software as a service:</P>
<P>
<UL>
<LI>No upfront capital expense! No hardware, operating system or application to buy
<LI>Predictable monthly (or annual) spend
<LI>Easily scalable – usually you can add or take away users or modules (check with provider)
<LI>You don’t have to manage, maintain, patch or update anything; the SaaS provider does it all
<LI>Subject matter experts: if the application goes down, who do you want to fix it, your IT guy with general knowledge or an expert?
<LI>Quicker to set up – days instead of weeks…or more.
<LI>Lower risk. You can usually test these types of apps with minimal cost, no downtime and minimal disruption before you “pull the trigger”
<LI>Easier to switch later if you become unhappy</LI></UL>
<P></P>
<P>Most studies show that using software as a service is as much as 50% cheaper than deploying the solution internally when you factor in the upfront cost, plus the management costs. OK, so to me that looks like pretty compelling evidence to support the use of Software as a Service – where it makes sense (that’s a whole other discussion, and one that is unique to each company). What do you mean your still not convinced??? You’re probably already doing it! Do you have a Yahoo or Google email address, guess what that’s no different. They host the email application and deliver it to you via the web. Salesforce is one of the largest SaaS providers bringing you CRM on demand. Even more traditional companies are getting into the game like Microsoft, IBM and Cisco with WebEx. And finally since we are name-dropping do you have a Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter account. Some of the larg<br><p><strong>Now Pay Close Attention  –</strong><br /><p>Bringing targeted followers to your twitter account and  turning them in the cash paying customers is a problem of the past.<p><strong>[Reason #1]</strong> You can easily have over 5,000 targeted followers on your  twitter account.<br />  <br />        <strong>[Reason #2] When Using Twitter Follower Supply </strong>obtaining thousands of followers has never been easier.<p>Using  a proven system for acquiring targeted twitter followers Twitter Follower  Supply is able to send thousands of targeted twitter followers to your twitter  account within days! <br /><br />  Just look at this:<br />  – The average twitter follower is worth $1 – $5.<br />  – Twitter traffic now accounts for up to 30% of business traffic.<br />  – Twitter followers are twice as profitable and reliable as  email addresses.<p><br />  <strong>First:</strong> <a rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/outgoing/article_exit_link']);” href=”<a rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/outgoing/article_exit_link']);” href=”http://twitterfollowersupply.com/”>Visit” _mce_rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/outgoing/article_exit_link']);” href=”http://twitterfollowersupply.com”><strong>Visit”>http://twitterfollowersupply.com”><strong>Visit Twitter Follower Supply Now</strong></a><br />  Thousands  of Targeted Twitter Followers Guaranteed<br />  <br />              <strong>Second: Buy Twitter Followers</strong><br />  Guaranteed  Targeted Followers That Visit Your Website and Spend Money!

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If you are looking for a stable and highly reliable space limited computer, then 2U rackmount computers are the perfect servers for you! Constructed of heavy duty steel for ruggedness and corrosion resistance, it can withstand even the harshest environment conditions. Rackmounts are specially designed to protect the equipment from damage during vibration and handling. Even under the most extreme circumstances, this type of system is made to operate without failure.

Though the ideal color of these units is black, we are seeing a wider range of companies seeking to buy a beige-colored chassis. Unique industrial computers that are shorter in depth can fit easier into portable racks, which have the advantage of added protection for hard drives. With that being said, “short depth” is definitely a key feature and a specification to be looked out.

Most of these computers are specifically designed for industrial control and server applications in industrial environments, but the versatility and use of this computer can also be applied for Web Server, File Server, Firewall, Proxy Server and VPN Gateway Applications. While most pre configured systems are focused in networking environments, these exceptional systems are specifically engineered for ease deployment to field for embedded solution requirements. Rackmounts support standard ATX form factor system boards that have PCI slots for numerous capabilities. Almost all 2U rackmount computer cases will offer at least two or three open PCI or PCI-e slots, three 3.5″ hard drives, and a slim or regular CD-ROM or DVD reader-writer. The motherboard includes a chipset, which provides virtually all of the resources needed to make these computers a reliable and consistent computation platform for virtually any application.

The front bezel is placed with important functions, such as the On/Off switch and USB ports for easier access. Depending on how much ventilation is required, every unit is equipped with at least one heavy duty ball bearing fan to draw cooler air into the case from the outside, and expel warm air from inside. The I/O features such as serial, parallel, and USB ports provide the basis for a broad range of graphic interface uses, while additional features, like dual slide rails, improve long term reliability and provide ease of maintenance. Built with massive durability and resistance to industrial contaminants such as water, dirt, oil and grease, these rackmount systems are not only limited to these hard core applications, because even contaminants around the house such as soft drinks, cookie crumbs, and children’s sticky fingers could not attack this computer.

If you are looking for a computer that is specifically engineered for massive durability and resistance to industrial contaminants, then the 2U rackmount computers are a perfect for you!

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