Posted by Annie Nash on Wed, Apr 28, 2010
According to the ISBS report commissioned by PwC, Cybercrime has done a full u-turn and has increased over the past two years costing UK businesses billions of pounds.
With 83% of small businesses having an IT security incident in the last year, this is costing on average £27,500 - £55,000 for the single worst incident. Three times as many small businesses reported they were infected by viruses over the past two years compared with the report from 2008.
Although the report shows that half of the businesses questioned had increased their spend on IT security over the past two years, they see the need to increase this further over the next year with many now putting in place IT Security Policies across the business. However, it seems that one of the largest issues is the understanding of IT Security and how it can affect your business.
Andrew Beard director, OneSecurity, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, commented
"Educating people is just as important and more companies than ever before now have a security policy, although only 19% of respondents from large organisations believed their policy is very well understood by staff. The root cause of this is that investment in security awareness training, while on the increase, is still often inadequate."
Related Article Here
Not sure what security solution is right for your business? Talk to our IT security experts and ask about our Free IT Security Vulnerability audit
Posted by Annie Nash on Tue, Apr 27, 2010
It's all anyone is talking about and is impossible to avoid, but how will the election effect informantion technology?
Here's a summary of the three main parties technology policies and what it could mean to you at work and in your home.
Labour
- Liberalise the mobile phone spectrum" to enhance 3G coverage and make it faster to browse the web on mobile phones.
- Aims to tackle the "Digital Divide" by encouraging internet use among disadvantaged groups
- Tax on telephone lines to support the roll out of broadband
- Continue encouraging the release of government data online at data.gov.uk
- Will block illegal filesharers and illegal websites but try to support a free internet
- Create a government app store for government departments to use
- Encourage departments to use cloud computing to save up to £3.2 billion annually
Conservative
- A "right to government data" under which the public can request and receive government datasets.
- To publish online - expenses, contract and government and quango employee salary information
- Create an IT development team with in government that can develop low-cost IT applications in-house and advise on the procurement of large projects.
- Limit Government IT projects to £100 million to encourage smaller companies to bid for the work
Liberal Democrats
- Support for website-blocking but not disconnecting filesharers as a response to copyright infringement without further consultation.
- Support the "creative economy", including video games and hi-tech businesses
- Enhance the way children are taught in schools by increasing interaction between teachers and the IT Industry.
- Supports the idea of net neutrality
- Supports an overhaul of copyright law
All three main parties are promising to increase broadband capabilities across the UK and to reach 90% of the UK. Currently only 60% of urban areas can receive broadband and only 1.5% of villages. Labour promises to increase the speeds to 2mbps by 2017 to 90% of the country and a full 100% broadband coverage to the whole country
Posted by Chris Hogan on Mon, Apr 05, 2010
Offload your Computing Concerns...
Running a small business? Maybe a startup?
You need to concentrate on running that business and not be distracted by IT. Startups in particular need cost-effective and reliable IT support at a moment's notice, without having to put any vital company effort into it.
Outsourced IT Services?
All the jargon about 'outsourced services' can really put people off.
All it means is having professional IT support on tap for your business. It's a lot easier than having to go through the pain of recruiting an IT manager and a team that will do what you want (you hope).
One major benefit is that IT support becomes a low regular monthly cost instead of high salaries and a big budget.
Is Outsourcing for Everyone?
Of course getting an outside supplier for IT support might not be for everyone. A startup with complex IT and telecommunications at its very heart will be more likely to hire an IT director who can understand what needs to be built and hire the right people to do it.
But even then the IT director might consider getting an external supplier to handle the irritating day-to-day hassle of making PCs do what they're meant to do.
Remote Support
Your IT support isn't on site either, broadband has changed all that, technicians can resolve most IT support problems without leaving their desks.
The final strong argument in favour of an IT service is that the technicians will be used to the importance of customers' demands. All too often internal IT departments get insular and fail to understand the business imperatives. People who don't get paid if they don't succeed tend to listen a little more.
Low Price, Great Service
Outsourcing, in a nutshell, no worries for you, cost effective and responsive, what more could you want?
Want to find out if your getting the most from your current IT support setup, find our more with a Free IT health check
Posted by Chris Hogan on Tue, Mar 16, 2010
You're sitting pretty knowing that you backup your files to that new external hard drive you bought last year. You also copy your 'My Documents' directory onto the server every week.
But then you're putting together Q4 sales figures and you spot that Q2's sales figures aren't in your master spreadsheet. That's ok, you've got a backup, right?
Holes in Backups
You check the version on your external hard drive. Hmm... missing from that spreadsheet as well. The queasy feeling is beginning to set in. You have a nasty feeling that you're going to find the same thing when you look on the Server.
So what's happened?
The mistake that accidentally deleted those figures happened a few months ago. The corrupted version has now been copied to all your safe places, overwriting the good one.
What's the Solution?
Backing up is not enough, businesses must archive as well. An archive is a copy that is kept, not overwritten. They preserve historical copies of documents, spreadsheets, presentations, databases and other important files.
Archives need to be on a less volatile medium than hard disks; traditionally this would have been tapes. You can buy professional software that schedules your copies, prompting you to load the right tape.
These days, although tapes still have their place, the easy way out is to backup to a safe off-site location using your broadband connection. The overnight service is secure and encrypted and you don't need to do anything, it's all automated.
If you have a server in the office you can also set up replication. This takes regular snapshots and stores changes on the server as you go.
Speak to your IT Support Company to find out if your backup plan includes archives of your critical data
Posted by Phill Manson on Sun, Jan 10, 2010
If you've recently started up your own business or are thinking about taking the plunge, these are some of the things you need to consider.
1) Get Free IT advice!
When it comes to setting up your IT systems it can seem daunting and there are a multitude of different options available to you. What works for one company may not work for you. For example you could choose to follow a SaaS (Software as a Service) model for which you pay a monthly fee to use a vendors product, this reduces your capital expenditure but increases your monthly costs and over the long term can work out more expensive.
The initial set up of your systems can seem very overwhelming, you need to consider; internet connectivity, network protection, number of PCs/laptops you need, how the users can collaborate locally (server), email addresses and web presence to name just a few!
Another essential piece of the jigsaw puzzle is your phone system, how many lines do you require, do you need geographical numbers, how many handsets do you need, do you want a traditional phone system or a Voice over IP (VoIP) system?
Many IT support companies offer a Free IT consultation. Look for an IT Support Company that will listen to your business requirements and advise on the best technologies for your goals and budget!
Ask the IT company for case studies and references where these technologies have been successful for other businesses similar to yours.
2) Company Domain Name
With the costs involved with setting up a domain name for your company minimal, we recommend you register your preferred (if it is available) as quickly as possible. Your chosen domain name will need to be renewed either yearly or bi-annually depending on where you purchase the domain. Once this is complete you can set up your chosen email address eg. sales@yourcompanyname.co either on your Exchange server or with a hosted provider.
3) Purchase a Server or not?
A server is a combination of hardware and software designed to provide services to end users. Typically it will be a dedicated piece of hardware and will be used to host a line of business applications, Accounts packages or CRM application for example. IT can also be used to provide file and print sharing.
Your server can also allow users to connect remotely and gain access to their email and other services while on the move. By centralising your data on the server you can ensure that it is being backed up, reducing the risk to your business if a local PC fails.
4) Licensing and software
There are a wide variety of software products available to you to help you run your business and many of these products will have both Home and Professional versions. Although Home products may be cheaper to purchase they place unnecessary restrictions on business users (such as limited networking functionality) this can limit collaboration and information sharing in the workplace.
Some companies such as Microsoft offer different products and pricing models for SMEs compared to Enterprise environments, they allow you to purchase yearly subscriptions to use their software instead of having a large upfront capital expense.
Individuals and businesses can face large fines for using pirated or copied software as such we always recommend you purchase genuine software for your use. This also allows you to make use of any technical support provided by the vendor.
You will also need to consider Anti-Virus software for your desktops and servers. Anti-Virus is essential software that provides your network with protection against viruses that can affect your machine and stop you working, and in some cases even steal your confidential data.
5) Backup your data!
Backing up your data can be a bit like car insurance; you really don't see the point and resent the expenditure until you have your first crash! After that it makes perfect sense.
There are many options available to you; manual backup to CD/DVD/NAS (Network Attached Storage), automated backup to tape or offsite storage where your data is backed up to a secure server over the internet.
Each of these options has their own benefits and associated costs so it worth sitting down with your IT partner to discuss your requirements.
Contact us
Posted by Sean Houghton on Tue, Dec 22, 2009
With many small and medium businesses looking to reduce costs due to the 
economic climate, many companies are turning to remote IT Support to achieve these cost savings.
IT Companiesuse remote IT support tools to support businesses from their own offices by securely connecting to PC's, Servers and even phones across the internet.
This benefits businesses in the following ways
- No waiting. IT companies can connect remotely and respond quickly to IT problems
- No travel time. If the issues do not require an on-site support engineer the IT Support can be delivered more cost effectively as there is no associated travel costs.
- Remote monitoring can prevent problems. Rather than waiting to respond to an issue which is already causing problems on your network, good IT companies will have remote monitoring tools which will alert them to potential issues so they can catch them early.
- Less interruption. Because the IT support can be done remotely, many troubleshooting steps can be taken while you continue to work at your PC in the background. It also makes it easy to remotely fix problems out of business hours.
Posted by Sean Houghton on Wed, Dec 16, 2009
While all businesses, (especially SME's) continue to look for ways to reduce their 
costs, for many virtualization has become a key strategy for reducing expenditure.
Virtualization is a broad term but essentially it is the creation of virtual IT resources such as storage, server(s), a network, or even a workstation. For example you can take one physical server and run multiple instances of different operating systems on the one piece of hardware.
It is expected the use of virtualisation technology is set to increase by as much as up to 70% among SME's (25- 100 users) over the next 2 years
Here are 3 ways you can take advantage of Virtualization
Test applications on new operating systems
If you are worried how well your application will work on Windows 7 you can use virtualization to run a test environment. This will allow you to see how your application performs before deploying to the live environment.
Are you running a mixture of Mac's and computers? With Virtualization you can seamlessly run you Windows applications on your Mac.
Reduce your costs
Perhaps many people's favourite.
If you're running multiple servers in your environment over time you will save money on the costs of upgrades, maintaining the servers, rack space and power.
Cost effective disaster recovery
With the ability to transfer virtual machines in real time from one physical machine to another. Virtualization gives you a quick and cost effective way to recover you critical data and servers in the event of a disaster, potentially saving you thousands of pounds on a traditional High Availability solutions or a disaster recovery plan.
Posted by Sean Houghton on Sun, Nov 29, 2009
You may hear the phrase "IT Managed Services" discussed on a regular basis, but what does it mean for you and your business?
Managed Services are typically delivered to your company by a third party IT Company. A Managed Service Provider (MSP) will provide outsourced IT support and management and become your trusted IT Partner not just a supplier.
A differentiator between a standard IT Support company and an MSP is that they are proactive in responding to issues and problems (often fixing them before you even know there is an issue) instead of a standard reactive service where they sit around waiting for you to ring them with an issue.
Typically services include:
- 24/7 Proactive Server & Network Monitoring
- Remote & On-site Server and Computer support
- Network Security
- Managed Anti-Virus & Spam protection.
- Help Desk Ticketing
- Guaranteed response times through SLA's
- Data Backup & Disaster Recovery
Server and Computer Support
An IT managed Service Provider should provide proactive and regular maintenance to Servers and PC's to ensure that they are running at optimal levels whilst also protected against the latest threats. They should be monitoring and applying security patches and updates as required.
An MSPs highly skilled IT consultants will support your business when there are IT issues, and will look to resolve IT problems as quickly as possible. They will often do this remotely without having to come to the customer's office in order to minimise the disruption and downtime to users.
IT managed service providers will also be monitoring your systems 24/7 to detect issues early and check trends to minimise the risk of any downtime and data loss and then advising you of the potential risks and solutions available to you.
Network Security
Small and Medium businesses are often targeted by hackers as they often believe it easier to hack small business networks than that of a larger businesses infrastructure. IT Security should be taken seriously by all businesses. Your chosen MSP should recommend and implement best practices and utilise tools to manage your firewall and protect against threats such as viruses, spam and hacking. The threats against IT don't stand still so your MSP should be continually monitoring your security procedures and solutions and updating them where necessary.
Remote Network Monitoring
Proactive monitoring is critical to detecting and preventing IT issues as well as data loss. A proactive MSP will have tools implemented to alert their technicians (via Email, SMS, automated ticketing systems) to issues often before you are even aware of them.
Data Backup & Disaster Recovery
Business critical data is integral to a company's success, your chosen IT Company should take full responsibility for backing up your data and ensuring it is available for restore should the worse happen.
Many MSPs will offer Off-Site backup solutions (including Online Backups and tape collection services), an online backup solution will replicate your data overnight to a secure Data Centre. This gives your business the ability to recover data from the replicated server should a file or your server become unavailable for whatever reason.
An MSP should also be able to offer you the following services:
- Managed Anti Virus & Anti-Spam
- Guaranteed response times through Service Level Agreements (SLA's)
- IT Strategy Planning
Why should you consider Managed Services?
Businesses should consider Managed IT services as it provides an affordable solution to complex problems allowing small and medium business to focus on their core objectives instead of being distracted from IT problems
Contact Aztech IT
Posted by Sean Houghton on Thu, Nov 19, 2009
It's difficult to miss Microsoft's marketing campaign for its latest Operating System Windows 7. Television adverts are streaming into people's homes portraying that Windows 7 has been designed as a result of end user feedback. Whether this is the case or not, the demise of Vista has been swift and painful for Microsoft.
Many businesses have been delaying purchasing new hardware until 7's arrival and a large majority of those that have been purchasing new PCs have been exercising their downgrade rights to install and continue to run on Windows XP.
So is now a good time to take the plunge and ditch XP? According to Microsoft, Windows 7 will "simplify the things you do every day, work the way you want, and make some exciting new things possible". They then go on to state the following 10 reasons that you should make you think about a move to Windows 7.
- Get quicker access to all your stuff
- Do more and wait less
- Better compatibility
- Share files and printers among multiple PCs
- Stay entertained effortlessly
- Easily create and share movies
- Keep your PC better protected with fewer interruptions
- Touch and tap rather than point and click
- Support more TV, movies, videos and music in more ways
- Manage devices more easily
Most of these compelling reasons seem to be aimed at the home user market and the multimedia generation but it also answers some of the key criticisms that were aimed at Vista - compatibility issues and a complicated interface that led to user frustrations, it also adds native support for the latest touch screen devices.
Initial response from users has been very positive so should you upgrade now, wait for the usual Service Pack updates or stay with the tried and tested XP?
If you're using an older computer running Windows XP, we suggest you first head over to Microsoft's Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. After downloading the free tool, run it to scan your PC for potential issues with your hardware, devices, and installed programs. The tool will recommend actions you should take before you upgrade.
Once you're ready to make the move, get ready to do some homework first. Just like Vista, Windows 7 comes in different editions. Weigh your options and find out which edition is right for you. If you find the process too complicated, don't have the time, or if you're thinking of upgrading many computers, why not contact us?
Aztech IT Solutions are an IT support company based in Milton Keynes and are a Microsoft Gold Partner. We have Microsoft licensing specialist ready to discuss your requirements
Posted by Phill Manson on Thu, Nov 12, 2009
As a Sales Consultant at Aztech IT Solutions, I like to be out of the office as much as possible, meeting existing clients and potential new ones. At the same time in this fast paced world I need to be in contact with the office and my clients, so that means lots of mobile working!
I was thinking last Friday as I drove down the M1 on way down to visit a potential client in London, that the modern way of working means we are never out of contact. Just take a wander around your local town at any time of day and you see Businessmen and women talking into all multitudes of devices from normal phones to PDAs, to BlackBerry and finally the Directors favourite the iPhone.
Sat working from home this evening, I have my laptop, personal mobile, work blackberry and an IP phone all looking at me. It's astounding how many different ways to communicate we can have, voice, email, text and even Video Conferencing via the built in camera on the laptop.
The IP phone works using VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) meaning that I appear to be in the office when I'm not, my colleagues can transfer calls to me via the internal short codes as if I was sat at the desk next to them and my laptop is currently using VPN to connect to work's servers so I can access my email and documents on the servers there. To all intends and purposes I appear to the outside world to be at the office!
This is a sight that that would probably shock my Grandfather, who while working for Section v11 [MI6] during and after the war used to install radio devices all around the world! I mean who would have thought a Blackberry could cause so much mixed emotions from people - some never want to be "out of touch" ever again and feel naked when they forget to pick it up and those that moan that they're now never away from the office and feel they have to check emails at home.
Once upon a time it was device reserved for high flying executives and now it's an essential tool for businesses whether you are a large multinational or a sole trader. In today's world we rely on instant communication and are concerned that an individual hasn't replied to an email/text/tweet after an hour.
Mobile working is here to stay, the standard 9-5 day is fast diminishing and to keep going in this fast paced world you need to have the connectivity and communications channels that best meet the requirements of your business and your clients!
Talk to us:
Aztech IT Solutions provide cost effective IT Support & IT Solutions in Milton Keynes, London and the surrounding areas.
If you want to talk to us about your mobile working requirements feel free to call us on 0845 370 78 76 or email me phill@aztechit.co.uk