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Infradapt Blog

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John Reilly is Managing Partner at Infradapt, LLC. Prior to joining Infradapt, he was the President of Vital IT Solutions, Inc., where among other roles, he developed a methodology and approach for performing risk and compliance assessments.



Prior to Infradapt, Mr. Reilly founded Vital IT Solutions, Inc., Mr. Reilly worked with Expanets, Inc., as a Senior Converged Account Executive, specializing in VoIP and Security, and a Subject Matter Expert (SME) on HIPAA. His Expanets’ achievements included national Sales awards including Millionaire’s Club and pioneering VoIP deployments for regional clients.

Mr. Reilly also has direct work experience in the banking industry, where he worked in Sales and Management, and in manufacturing, where he worked as an Accountant. John earned his BS in Accounting at Gwynedd-Mercy College, while also studying Negotiation, Decision Making, and Creative Problem Solving. He holds a SANS GIAC security certification and is a member of the Philadelphia Chapter of InfraGard.


 

How to Properly Assess Your Technology Needs

How to Properly Assess Your Technology Needs
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Nothing lasts forever, especially not the technology that a business relies on to function. Between typical wear and tear and the always-improving trajectory that the technology industry follows, you will likely need to actively evaluate your needs and what you resultantly need to obtain. Today, we’ll walk you through how this technology assessment should be shaped.


What Should your Assessment Focus On?
As you go about evaluating your technology, you need to consider how it has (and is projected to) affect your business. Looking to the past, anticipating the future, and being aware of the present where your technology is concerned will allow you to make better choices as you move forward.

The Past
For example, take the lesson that philosopher George Santayana coined: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This is more or less a fancier way of saying that, if someone never learns from the mistakes they’ve made before, they’re going to keep making the same mistakes. This is why your technology assessment needs to consider the decisions you have made, and if the results were as you expected.

Were your investments into certain solutions ultimately worth it? Did that new process you implemented see any success, or was it even actually adopted by your workforce? Looking at your past decisions and their outcomes will help you make more informed decisions with a better chance of benefiting your company.

The Present
Of course, there will be other signs of issues around you at any time, so it is equally important to evaluate your technology’s efficacy in the given moment. Are your employees able to use the tools at their disposal to properly and successfully do their jobs? If not, what is the root cause of their difficulties? Where do they see the solutions just being insufficient or problematic?

This insight will allow you to reevaluate if your investments are getting as much mileage as they need to be, and therefore will give you a better idea of how your business’ needs should be prioritized moving forward.

The Future
Speaking of moving forward, you need to do something with all the insights you’ve collected from your analysis of the past and present. Making informed decisions based on what you anticipate the future to hold in technological innovations will allow you to center your solutions around your anticipated needs. While this isn’t an exact science, it is better to at least try to predict an outcome than it is to be blindsided by something you could have seen coming.

Benefits of a Technology Assessment
Running a comprehensive assessment of the technology that you leverage in your business’ operations can provide you with various advantages that you might not have access to otherwise. First of all, an assessment is an excellent way to identify any problems your technology may be suffering, as well as to zero in on your business’ needs, as was discussed above. As a result, a technology assessment also serves as an excellent means of narrowing down possible solutions to these deficits. This enables you to select the solutions that are right for you, reducing the costs incurred by deploying solutions that aren’t a good fit.

How Technology Should Be Assessed
Just as trying to sweep a mess out of a carpet is much less effective than using a vacuum cleaner, just giving your needs a quick once-over before making a change or electing not to will not provide your business with any benefits.

Instead, try a more in-depth method to maximize your returns.

  • Study Workflows - Are your employees encountering problems in their workflow? Ask them what improvements would be welcome and compare their suggestions with the growth plan you have projected for your future. Will their suggestions be compatible with the growth plan you’ve established?
  • Analyze Technology in Place - Working again with your employees, establish what strengths and (more importantly) weaknesses your current solutions exhibit that could influence your workflow. A comprehensive understanding of your business technology will help with the next step.
  • Explore Alternative Approaches - Before you charge ahead and take a chunk out of your finances, take the time to brainstorm other resolutions to your IT concerns and deficits. If a slight tweak to the process can resolve the problem, or more effectively using the solutions you have on hand is all it will take to fix it, wouldn’t you say that’s a better option than making huge, expensive changes?
  • Take Stock of Your Resources - If it happens that you do need a new system or solution, it helps to know what you have going in and have your priorities lined up. If a new solution is too expensive, or your team is resistant to change, blindly implementing it all at once could open you up to problems.

Once these steps are completed, you should be much more prepared to make a decision concerning your technology. Need some more help? Infradapt is here with the expertise to assist you in assessing your IT. Give us a call at 800.394.2301 for more information.

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Tip of the Week: Keeping Track of Your Inventory

Tip of the Week: Keeping Track of Your Inventory

Regardless of your organization’s size, there is more than likely a large amount of information technology to keep track of and maintain. As is usually the case when so many moving parts and variables are involved, the task of keeping them organized can quickly become difficult and stressful. This week, we’ll give you a few tips on how a proper inventory can help your business stay apprised of its IT resources.


What Can an Inventory Do?
At its core, an inventory serves the purpose of keeping track of the assets and resources a business has in its possession. This spans from how many cases of burger patties a fast food franchise has to how much water a hydroponic plant has in reserve. Not only does this assist the business with ensuring that it always has the resources necessary to operate, it also assists with insurance claims. By keeping you up-to-date on what you have, an inventory serves as a documented resource that can support your claims if the need arises - such as after a disaster event or theft.

Furthermore, a detailed and up-to-date inventory record can help you to identify how old your resources are, allowing you to prioritize when it needs to be refreshed and/or replaced.

As one would imagine, these are all important factors to consider when technology is involved. In light of this, it becomes especially important to develop and enforce a unified and direct system as a standard during the inventorying process.

What Your Inventory Needs to Account For
As you create this system, you need to make sure it addresses the five key details included in a comprehensive inventory record.

1. What is it that you have?
Of course, the whole point of an inventory is to identify the resources you have on hand. Given the long, detailed names that many technology components have (in addition to the many details a piece of hardware or software will have that need to be addressed), it may make the most sense to develop a shorthand that easily and efficiently communicates what exactly it is that your business has in its possession.

For example, if you utilize differently-sized hard drives for different tasks and purposes, you will likely have a stash of these hard drives squirrelled away for later use. Rather than writing out a comprehensive list, creating an internal shorthand will make the task of inventorying these components much easier.

So, if a company were to have 7 spare hard drives, 1 blue hard disk drive with a 5 terabyte capacity, 3 red solid state drives with 10 terabytes each, 2 black hard disk drives with 10 terabytes each, and one purple hard disk drive with a capacity of 5 terabytes, using shorthand might simplify that list into:

  • 1 HDD - BLUE - 1TB
  • 3 SSD - RED - 10TB
  • 2 HDD - BLACK - 10TB
  • 1 HDD - PURPLE - 10TB

2. Where is it stored?
This consideration is especially important if a company has more than one location or stores their supplies in more than one spot in the building. Your inventory record needs to keep track of where a given component is kept so it may be found quickly if need be. Make sure you mark the building it is in, as well as the room and where specifically in that room it is kept. This adds a little more information to your shorthand list:

  • 1 HDD - BLUE - 1TB (MAIN LOCATION/BASEMENT/SHELF A)
  • 3 SSD - RED - 10TB (MAIN LOCATION/BASEMENT/SHELF E)
  • 2 HDD - BLACK - 10TB (SAT-OFFICE1/ROOM4/SHELF B)
  • 1 HDD - PURPLE - 10TB (SAT-OFFICE2/ROOM2/SHELF D)

3. Additional Details to Include
Finally, there are other pieces of information you should use your inventory process to track. To assist with potential insurance needs and monitoring your solutions for a refresh, it helps to add the date that the technology was acquired, as well as how much it cost to acquire it. As a result, your list becomes:

  • 1 HDD - BLUE - 1TB (MAIN LOCATION/BASEMENT/SHELF A) - $95 (May 9, 2017)
  • 3 SSD - RED - 1TB (MAIN LOCATION/BASEMENT/SHELF E) - $250 (June 30, 2017)
  • 2 HDD - BLACK - 1.5TB (SAT-OFFICE1/ROOM4/SHELF B) - $160 (August 18, 2017)
  • 1 HDD - PURPLE - 10TB (SAT-OFFICE2/ROOM2/SHELF D) - $355 (February 2, 2018)

Other Considerations for Your Inventory
Maintaining an up-to-date set of totals for your inventory is an essential process. After all, what’s the point of keeping track of your inventory if it isn’t going to be accurate anyway? This means that, in addition to ensuring that you start off with the right numbers, you need some sort of system to help you keep a running total. Whether this system is manually keeping totals on a clipboard, updating a spreadsheet, or leveraging asset management, is up to you.

Reach out to us here at Infradapt by calling 800.394.2301 to see how we can help. In the meantime, keep checking back for more helpful tips and tricks.

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Which Authentication Option is Best?

Which Authentication Option is Best?

Smartphones have steadily increased in their capabilities, and as they have done so, they have resultantly gathered more and more data that needs to be secured against potential security threats. Fortunately, there are also more ways to protect your smartphone than ever before. For today’s blog, we’ll take a look of the options you have to secure your devices.


The Password
Passwords are the reigning king of authentication. A well-regarded password is your average user’s go-to; and, if not created with security in mind, can be very problematic. Since users have problem remembering new passwords, even if it’s one that they are able to choose, many users will create obvious passwords that can easily be guessed or hacked.

Conversely, a password (or the passphrase) can be one of the strongest security measures available for your mobile device, as it is important for every mobile user, especially one that has access to business networks, to secure their devices.

The Pattern Lock
The second option we will go over is called a pattern lock. It is the three-by-three swipe-based gesture that unlocks the device. This natural and intuitive lock is very fast, and if all nine dots are used in a pattern, it provides close to 400,000 possible configurations. Pattern lock comes up short in a couple ways. People tend to use shapes that are more easily guessable. It’s also relatively easy to ascertain the password if you watch a user’s hand.

The PIN
The PIN authentication option is a relatively strong one, as the typical four numeral option has over 10,000 different combinations. Android features the ability to support up to 16 digits. That’s 10 quadrillion different combinations. Of course, not many people are going to be able to remember a 16-digit PIN (and how annoying would it be to have to enter that every time you unlock your phone?). Simple pins are the norm, and therefore not very secure.

The Fingerprint Scanner
This authentication method is now becoming standard on most smartphones and has by-in-large been very popular. It’s secure enough to be trustworthy, and very fast. Moreover, many financial applications utilize the fingerprint as a form of authentication, making the option that much more attractive. The only drawbacks are that sometimes manufacturers will put it in an inconvenient spot on the device and that it doesn’t work with gloves.

Using the Face
All newer smartphones have been taking advantage of facial recognition software. This allows a user to gain access by just glancing at the phone. Since this is an operating system-dependent option, most phones will be getting this option. It may not currently be the most secure option, but as the technology advances, this will be the go-to method for all authentication.

Other Security Measures
Many phones now also offer security features that rely on alternative forms of authentication. On-body detection keeps the device unlocked whenever it is being carried - regardless of who is carrying it. Other options such as having your device unlock when a user says “Okay, Google” is more for convenience than privacy or device security.

What’s the Best Option?
Currently, if you are looking for the most secure and accessible option, your best bet is to use the fingerprint scanner on your phone. Back that up with a five-or-six-digit PIN and you’ll be good to go. In the future, expect the facial recognition software to improve precipitously; and, therefore, be the most secure (and popular) option to get into a mobile device.

What form do you use? Leave your favorite security methods in the comments section below.

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Big Data is Making Its Way to Small Business

Big Data is Making Its Way to Small Business

You may have noticed that there has been a lot of discussion about data recently; specifically, how it has become a driving force in organizational decision making. This month we will take a look at the data revolution, how the data (created by the analysis of other data) has become a commodity, and what is the real value of an individual’s data.

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Four Questions to Have About Cloud Services

Four Questions to Have About Cloud Services

Can you think of a more revolutionary technology in today’s modern age than cloud computing? Companies are now able to implement solutions that are both flexible and scalable enough to suit the needs of both small and large organizations. To this end, the same cloud won’t work for every type of organization. Here are four questions that you’ll need to ask in order to get the best service from your specific cloud provider.

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