Backup
What
would it cost you to lose your customer list? Your financial
data? Your files? Even all of yesterday's work? Disk drives
fail after three to five years average. But, just like
light bulbs, their failure is not predictable. You wouldn't
live in your home without fire insurance, and you wouldn't
drive down the freeway without a seat belt. Are your backup
policies as reliable as you want? When was the last time
you tested a backup? Network Designs will review your
backup procedures, software and hardware. If you need
to upgrade, we can quote and install all the components,
then make sure it works perfectly. We can remotely manage
your daily backups, if you need that service.
|
Business
Continuity
You may think Business Continuity is only affordable to
big businesses. It’s no longer true. With the recent
technological advances such as remote backup via the internet
and virtualization, we now can offer you aggressive monthly
fee for Business Continuity Services. We can have your
entire network environment and your data restored at one
of our data centers within hours upon declaration of some
sort of disaster. The designated users can login securely
from anywhere with internet access to your network and
resume working. If your business is at risk when you cannot
get your network up running within a few days, you may
consider putting Business Continuity Services higher up
on your priority list.
|
Email Setup and Optimization
An
email system includes a server and users. Most companies
and many employees have multiple mail domains. Often,
people have multiple client devices, such as a home computer,
an office computer, and an PDA. Issues include multiple
protocols (POP. IMAP, web-based) synchronization, storage,
and security. There are often practical issues of domain
management, consistent user names, best practices, politeness,
and business efficiency. Do you know when you use only
plain text? When you should include graphics? Email systems
today usually incorporate spam filters. Importantly, there
are now legal issues involving storage, management and
deletion of email. Network Designs Integration Services
can advise, install, migrate, upgrade, and train your
employees on email system.
|
Employee Desktop Management
What do you do when a user has a problem? From lost laptops
to broken applications, Network Designs Integration Services
will get your employees up and working quickly. User support
typically is the biggest headache for most IT staff due
to the wide range of problems. Outsourcing User Help Desk
to Network Designs Integration Services allow you to release
your IT staff to focus on more strategic projects such as
implementing a Security Policy for the company. If you don’t
have internal IT staff, outsourcing User Help Desk definitely
frees you up from getting complaints from your employees
on a regular basis. Network Designs Integration Services
is experienced to resolve user issues from simple application
questions to retrieving lost data.
|
Firewalls Perhaps
the single most important component of network security
is a company's firewall. A firewall may be either hardware
or software, but medium sized and enterprise operations
nearly always use some type of dedicated firewall. Your
firewall sits between your network and the public Internet.
Its purpose is to allow valid data to flow in and out,
but block unauthorized access. Many firewalls will notify
someone if they detect anomalous behavior or if key network
parameters move outside of normal bounds. Firewalls must
be configured by someone with an in-depth understanding
of your business, your needs, and your vulnerabilities.
|
Managed
Services
Having all of your employees focused on your business and
your customers is the goal of Managed Services. The day-to-day
management of desktops, servers, email, applications, backups,
remove access, network security, computer efficiency, secure
storage, hardware acquisition, upgrades, repair, and Internet
access is moved away from one of your employees, often a
part-time job, to professionals who get the tasks done quickly,
calmly, and correctly the first time. More and more Bay
Area small and mid-size technology companies are moving
to managed services for their computers and networking because
they realize that is not the business they are in. Do you
repair your own cars? Do you cut your own hair? Do you write
your own contracts? Unless you are unusually good at it,
or really love the job, you should find that your efficiency
goes up and your problems go down when you let a professional
IT services company manage everything from lost passwords
to upgrading virus protection to daily business backups.
For most clients we charge a fixed monthly or annual rate
to cover 100% of your needs. Phone us at Network Designs
Integration Services to discuss how Managed Services can
improve your business efficiency.
|
| Network
Attached Storage (NAS)
With
Network Attached Storage (NAS) architecture, the disk
cluster now manages one or more file systems internally.
This allows all of the servers and hosts on the local
network to access data in the NAS. A NAS may be slower
than SAN for simple transactions, because there are more
layers for the data to pass through.
|
Network Configuration
Network Designs Integration Services has been Cisco Partner
for over 10 years with extensive experience on Network Infrastructure
best practices. Regardless to whether you have a simple
single location Local Area Network (LAN) or a complex Wide
Area Network (WAN) with multiple locations, we can help
to design a secure and efficient network.
|
Network Monitoring
Software
that constantly monitors devices and traffic on your network
is used to assure the integrity of your network, quickly
identify threats, breach attempts, or penetration, and
to identify the location and nature of problems.
|
Network Performance Improvement
There
are a wide range of problems that might be causing a "slow"
network. Such as hardware errors, configuration errors,
partial failures, lack of storage, user behavior (downloads
or net-radio), outgrown capabilities, ISP problems, or
user-machine problems. Both tools and experience are used
to locate the problem and suggest cures.
|
Network
Security
Network security consists of assuring that your network
and the resources attached to the network are accessed only
by authorized individuals and that the resources are not
damaged, removed, compromised, or made inaccessible. Networks
may be attacked from outside your organization or from inside.
The most important elements of network security include
authorization, network architecture, network monitoring,
firewalls, and virus protection. Compromised networks may
need analysis or upgrades. More sophisticated elements include
intrusion detection, honey-pots, dynamic reconfiguration,
or self-healing.
|
New
Employee Setup Something
you may find yourself having a new hire starting in a
few days and you have to get a new computer set up for
the new hire. Network Designs Integration Services can
handle it all for you from procuring the computer, printer,
LCD, cell phone, VoIP phone, surge protector, software
application etc. Our IT engineer will have all the software
pre-installed on the new computer and have it set up onto
your network in 2-3 days with user ID and password ready
before the new hire starts.
|
RAID
Storage RAID
stands for Redundant Array of Independent Drives. It is
a method of improving the reliability of disk data by
replicating data across multiple physical drives. Should
one drive fail, all data will still be accessible. There
are now a number of RAID "levels" or internal
architectures. The simplest is RAID 1, which simply creates
a mirror image of one drive onto a second drive. RAID
5 uses three or more drives, and tolerates the failure
of any one drive. It is more efficient than RAID 1. RAID
6 tolerates the failure of any two drives. There are software
RAID drivers and hardware RAID controllers. Some RAID
racks support hot swap, meaning that bad drives can be
unplugged and replacement drives plugged while the system
is running. The cost of hardware RAID controllers is so
low that there is no excuse to not place important company
data into a RAID system.
|
Security
and Authorization The
baseline for the security of any network is User Authentication.
The users see this as "login and password."
However, the system administrator must implement and maintain
a password policy, and deal with employee changes. Often
a system uses an authentication server, such as Kerberos
or Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), or Windows
Active Directory.
|
Server
Consolidation
As businesses grow, they may experience server sprawl.
Often, these machines are running at well under peak capacity.
Server consolidation consists of load analysis, upgrades,
virtualization, and other techniques to reduce the number
of physical machines. This saves space, improves management,
reduces power, and typically improves performance of key
applications. |
Server
Upgrades
Did you know it may possible to upgrade the storage on your
current server from a single disk to a far more reliable
RAID storage without disrupting a running machine? Migrating
applications smoothly from an existing machine to a newer,
faster server is a challenge, even for an experienced IT
team. Network Designs Integration Services are experts at
quickly and smoothly expanding your company's IT center
as you grow.
|
| Storage
Array Network (SAN) A
Storage Array Network (SAN) is a linked collection of
high-speed disk drives, connected to servers via Fiber
Channel or Ethernet. The servers see the disks as logical
drives, as if they were simple, local drives. However,
unlike many local drives, a SAN is often faster, more
reliable, more scalable, and far easier to manage and
optimize. The logical disk drives may either be smaller
or larger than the physical drives. Each operating system
maintains its own file on the SAN. Generally, only one
server can access each SAN. Customers that have a large
amount of transaction data, or large database frequently
benefit from SAN architecture.
|
Technology
Refresh
Network Designs Integration Services offer competitive leasing
programs for our customers with typical 3-Year Technology
Refresh program. Keeping up with technology to optimize
the productivity of your employees may gain some competitive
advantage for your business. We realize the refresh can
be overwhelming from both resource and financial perspectives.
However, Network Designs Integration Services experienced
Sales and Technical Teams will assist with hardware and
software procurement, data migration, servers and desktops
set up, network configuration from start to finish. Most
importantly, we can wrap the costs for our IT services into
a new lease with 36, 48, or 60 month terms to let you manage
your cash flow. |
Uninterruptible Power Supplies
An
Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) is a piece of electronic
equipment that sits between the power outlet and critical
electronics, such as a server, network switch, or building
access controller. The UPS contains batteries, so that
when the building power fails, or is otherwise outside
proper operating range, the UPS provides power instead
of the outlet. The equipment being supported by the UPS
sees no interruption of power. The larger the batteries
in the UPS, the longer it is able to provide backup power.
Thus, most UPS are rated by the amount of time they provide,
based on a specified current draw. When the building power
is restored, the UPS automatically switches back and starts
to recharge its batteries. Most UPS's provide detailed
current and historical status, typically via a USB port.
|
Virtualization
Server virtualization consists of partitioning a single
physical server into multiple virtual servers. This relatively
new technology can improve hardware utilization to reduce
costs. It is also used to isolate applications to provide
more reliable or easier-to-manage operations. A third key
benefit is rapid reconfiguration of a new virtual machine
for low or zero downtime.
|
Virus
Protection
Virus protection is typically specialized software that
works at either the company's network level or on individual
user machines. Virus protection scans incoming email messages
and other types of network traffic looking for any of thousands
of known viruses. Individual user virus protection also
inspects the current machine, looking at tasks, services,
the registry, the file system and other places where viruses,
worms, spyware and other unwanted nasty pieces of code (malware)
can hide. Virus protection is normally provided as a service,
providing regular updates as new viruses are discovered.
Some software looks at behavior of applications or network
services to detect anomalous behavior. More sophisticated
networks can then automatically isolate the infected network
segment.
|
| Virtual
Private Networks A
Virtual Private Network (VPN) is just what it sounds like—a
"private network" of encrypted data that runs
over the regular public Internet. A VPN allows your employees
to work from home, accessing everything on your local
office network just as if they were working in the office.
It’s safe, it’s fast, it’s secure, and
it’s transparent to applications and users.
|
VoIP
Voice Over IP
Voice over IP uses the Internet (or for a campus environment,
a local or campus-wide network) for voice phone calls instead
of the public switched telephone network (PSTN). VoIP may
reduce costs by reducing long-distance charges and by implementing
features that a local phone company charges extra for, such
as 3-way calling. VoIP is particularly valuable for integrating
phone services with computerized data for routing, billing,
recording, or bringing up a customer's information on a
screen automatically when a call comes in. VoIP used to
be thought of only affordable by enterprise customers, the
good news is, market leaders such as Cisco has recently
started offering robust VoIP systems for small and medium
customers at very competitive and affordable prices.
|
|
