An Important Check on Managed Service Providers – Are They Worth?

Although this sounds strange, we have facts in support of the statement – ‘Most of the Managed Service Providers do not provide managed services’. Here, the focus is on the managed part, which is majorly missing out of the services provided by the MSPs, even though they claim to offer it.

According to a general concept, and search engine results, Managed IT services are information technology tasks provided by third party contractors. Ideally, they are technical support services delivered under a service agreement that provides specified rates and guarantees the consultant a specific minimum income. Managed services require the IT providers to take the responsibility for the client’s network and to provide regular preventive maintenance to the client’s systems.

 Simply stating, if there is no maintenance part, it can only be called as an Outsourced IT provider, not Managed Service Provider. Some tools differentiate the modern tech support services with the Managed Services.

Here are the core tools of Managed Services:

• Remote Access
• Monitoring
• Patch Management
• Some level of Automated Response
• A PSA (professional services automation)
• Maintenance must be REGULAR

Does your Managed Service Provider (MSP) visit your premises physically regularly? In addition, the most important question is – ‘Does he actually do the maintenance job?’ 90% answered negatively when these questions were asked in a survey. Once parties (businesses and the MSPs) enter into a contract, the clauses are actively followed for a few months, following which, it becomes a routine task that lies fresh only on the paper. No monthly back-ups are taken, neither are they tested on a monthly basis.

Understanding the picture more closely, if a system crashes down, an outsourced IT company shows no responsibility for the client’s losses, whereas a Managed IT service provider acts responsible for the state of backup and health of the server. No tools can make you a Managed Service Provider, a regular proper maintenance can. Tools can only make you far more efficient at providing monitoring, patching, remote support, and service delivery.

As you have realized the importance of managed services and their responsibilities towards your organization’s computer systems, you need to choose an MSP that truly satisfies the requirements and adheres to client expectations till the end date of the contract. Net Activity, Inc., through with the IT managed services, has excelled in its offerings to all its clients. Please contact Harry Bhatia at 2165035150 X 206 to know further details visit Netactivity.US to understand us better.

Source:http://www.netactivity.us/blog/an-important-check-on-managed-service-providers-are-they-worth/

Benefits of Moving to the Cloud with Microsoft’s Office 365

With the cloud emerging as a powerful platform to move or hold business data, Microsoft has stepped in as a strong participant. The Microsoft’s Office 365 is a Software as a Service (SaaS) that delivers the cloud technology and productivity to businesses empowering them to be cost, time and resource efficient. Office 365 provides an online version of MS-Office suite along with SharePoint server, Lync server, and Exchange server.

While designing the Office 365, Microsoft had a focused approach towards developing a cloud platform for organizations’ users that is seamless regardless whether they are on-premises or on the cloud. One of the core offerings of the Office 365 is Exchange Online that allows organizations to co-exist with the Exchange Server.

Microsoft, an excellent service provider reflects off a guaranteed reliability backed by robust security. It’s important to note that Microsoft defines simple yet rich feature sets.

With the Office 365, you experience a completely new experience of communicating over the cloud. It allows you to:

• Access emails, documents, calendars, contacts anywhere, on any device
• Enjoy business-class features including geo-redundancy, disaster recovery, guaranteed 99.9% uptime, and IT-level phone support
• Work seamlessly with Microsoft Office and/or any other program your users count on every day
• Give you flexibility by allowing to pay-as-you-go
  Work with the latest version of Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS)
  Some great services offered by O365 as a SaaS are:
• Office mobile apps – Access, view & edit Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote files via a web browser.
• Simple file sharing – Each user gets a 7GB personal storage with the SkyDrive Pro that is easily accessible on various devices.
• Web conferencing – Arrange meetings over-the-web with screen sharing, HD video conferencing, and instant messaging.
• Intranet Team sites – Get customizable security settings for individual teams within the organization with the help of SharePoint.
  Active directory integration – Allows you to manage user permissions & credentials with a single sign-on.
• Hosted email – Provides 25 GB of storage space per user, business-class email, shared calendars and the ability to use your own domain name.
  Office web apps – Create and edit Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and OnNote files via a web browser.

We, the Net Activity team are uniquely positioned as a leading provider of cloud infrastructure services. To get a glimpse of our cloud services.
discuss the details over the phone. Harry Bhatia, President, Net Activity, Inc. is reachable at 2165035150 X 206.

Source:http://www.netactivity.us/blog/benefits-of-moving-to-the-cloud-with-microsofts-office-365/

When the VoIP and IoT Come Together…

The Internet of Things is a mature term now. While we are used to using the internet, human intelligence often tries to bring material things like phones, desks, cars, etc. into the internet world. It allows us to connect better to the everyday appliances with the internet to give us a cleaner, smarter and a better world. With sensors attached to them, objects can communicate with the data from the internet to provide an improved functionality

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The introduction of IoT, is on the verge of changing how enterprises and individuals use voice over IP (VoIP). Although VoIP technology has gained popularity as an alternative to the traditional phone systems, the IoT provides a new platform of opportunities.

Designing a Smart Office: IoT and VoIP together can help businesses improve their efficiency and performance significantly. For example, you can make equipment communicate or alert business people by a simple text or email when it needs maintenance. Or individuals can create a complete digital office from home by creating a smart home.

• Better Mobile and Wi-Fi Access: The IoT will provide better Wi-Fi technology options, including improved softphones and unified communications options.
• Enhanced VoIP Security: With IoT, the potential of VoIP phone devices as a threat vector for malicious hacker and distributed denial-of-service attack will raise automatically.
  Here are a few examples of IoT and VoIP Collaboration

• Set calendars to notify you via your VoIP phone about an upcoming event
• Program smart phone messages to automatically drop into your email via VoIP phone service
• Notify you for a service on your way past a specific mechanic you use. On accepting the alert, your VoIP phone system alerts your car the mechanic’s address to your GPS, and confirms a calendar event of your visit to the mechanic.

Collaborating VoIP with IoT requires a well-thought strategic planning by businesses due to security and privacy issues. VoIP service providers are finding more useful ways to expand digital services into traditional industries. To know more details on how your business can benefit from this collaboration, contact Harry Bhatia at 2165035150 X 206.

Source: http://www.netactivity.us/blog/when-the-voip-and-iot-come-together/

How to Aggregate Multiple Links for Better Internet Connectivity?

While most of us struggle every day to connect to the highest internet speed, it is really important to look out for ways that will help extract the best usage of internet speed. Increasing the internet connection bandwidth depends on what you actually mean by it. Consider a single LAN user making only one TCP connection; In this case, he will a get a traffic flow from a single gateway and won’t be able to benefit from balanced connections. On the other hand, if the LAN is crowded with multiple users who execute multiple requests at the same time, their individual connections will have access to a higher bandwidth.  

Cyberoam Firewall Addresses the Problem – Let’s see how

It simply focuses on ‘more management’ than ‘more bandwidth’ that is a logical solution. With Cyberoam, you are able to evaluate the traffic and regulate the flow, strictly adhering to the pre-established network policies. In the corporate scenario, users expect to have access to myriad applications. However, not all of those applications are related to business activities. Here, it is necessary to control user access to irrelevant applications, which would definitely invite resistance from the users. But what we are concerned more about is, distributing an optimum bandwidth to all the users so that they don’t get frustrated due to slower loading times.

Cyberoam is a bandwidth usage monitor and allocates it dynamically ensuring that every individual user and application receives a guaranteed bandwidth along with a share of excessive bandwidth based on priority. When the priority is configured, Cyberoam uses the Hierarchical Token Bucket to queuing discipline coupled with triple control like:

Guaranteed bandwidth: A minimum bandwidth that is reserved for a user or application
Burstable bandwidth: Borrowable bandwidth from the excess bandwidth
Priority: This refers to the excess bandwidth access priority. There are eight priority levels ranging from 0(highest) to 7(lowest).
Although Cyberoam provides result-oriented solutions to management of bandwidth, there are certain challenges that will have to be faced while its implementation.

• Allocating required bandwidth to business-critical users every time.
• Restricting internet access and controlling bandwidth of users other than the
• business-critical users during the peak hours.
  Blocking the non-business related traffic during business hours.
  Implementing these policies to control internet usage for increasing internet speed is not an easy task. It requires strategic planning and implementation but once practiced, can result in reducing non-business network traffic and resultantly providing the expected efficiency to business-critical users.

To help you experience a speedy internet connection, Net Activity, Inc. can help you manage and gain a control using its proven Unified Threat Management (UTM) done by the award winning Cyberoam products. We offer Intrusion Prevention System, Bandwidth Management, Multiple Link Load Balancing & Gateway Failover, Content & Application Filtering and many more just from one device.

We have been in business since 2002 and use our knowledge and expertise to strengthen your internet network security and bandwidth. To know further details contact Harry Bhatia at 2165035150 X 206 & fill in the contact form so that we can assist you.
Source: http://www.netactivity.us/blog/how-to-aggregate-multiple-links-for-better-internet-connectivity/

How to Transform Your IT Infrastructure with Hybrid IT Solutions – Explained by Net Activity, Inc.

Hybrid IT Infrastructure is the reality of today. With a lot of options available for anything and everything, it has become a necessity to introduce a better alternative for the cloud environment and here it is – The Hybrid IT Infrastructure. Also, multiple legacy operating software, hardware and customized applications calls for a solution that could include the benefits of both – the public & private clouds.

Net Activity, Inc. states that Hybrid IT is transforming the IT infrastructure & the role of IT itself. Analysts suggest that Hybrid IT relies on sophisticated approaches to data classification and identity, new technologies to connect clouds, and service-oriented architecture. Thus, heralds a significant change for IT practitioners. Many organizations are testing the cloud architectures for churning out new possibilities that would bring in a system which would be more cost-effective and performance-driven.

What is Hybrid IT?

Hybrid IT is a combination of the internal (private clouds) and public clouds, in support of a business outcome. The hybrid system increases the exponential rate of the radical evolution of the IT infrastructure.

How does it affect IT infrastructure?

It aims at arranging a structure wherein the positives of both – internal & external (i.e. private and public clouds) can be merged to get a structure featuring the merits of both. This partial contribution of public & private cloud infrastructures brings an culmination of both and allows IT organizations to offer internal customers the speed, capacity, price of the external cloud while maintaining security and reducing IT service costs.

Hybrid IT is the new IT and it has the ability to build internal clouds to house critical IT services. It also utilizes the external cloud to house non-critical IT services & data in order to increase agility.

How can Net Activity, Inc. help?

Net Activity, Inc. is a leading player in the cloud infrastructure services. In times when economic pressures are dominating the business capabilities, the Hybrid IT can be an optimum solution. The Net Activity team introduces the cloud service (public, private & hybrid) and provides you viable options to secure your data while experiencing a dynamic technological shift. You are free to select a cloud service that fits to your specific requirements. Please visit http://www.netactivity.us/cloud-computing-services.html to know more about our services or call Harry Bhatia at 2165035150 X 206.

Source: http://www.netactivity.us/blog/how-to-transform-your-it-infrastructure-with-hybrid-it-solutions-explained-by-net-activity-inc/