Google Unleashed! Materials Updated

Course materials for the upcoming Google Unleashed! course held at Clark Community College are available on our website.

R

Ubuntu 9.10 Install Script

This is just an install script that I’m working on to create a “good” Ubuntu install for my purposes. It may be useful to others. So I’m just copying this into position for others. I’ll be modifying this a bit from time to time.

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfx26bt7_1289dp7qqvht

R

New Policy: Data Backup Policy

Policy IT-003 Data Backup Policy has been added to our Sample Policies and Procedures library.

This policy describes the data backup procedure used by a small to mid-range business. It should be acknowledged and executed by the IT Authority (IT-0001). This is a reasonable policy that can be modified to suit your needs; it is intended for use with a small to mid-range business.

IT-003 Data Backup Policy | Jan 2010

New Presentation Added – Leveraging Social Media Week 2

Just added a new presentation to our online content for the Clark College Course Leveraging Social Media.

Leveraging Social Media Week Two | Jan 2010

More information about the course and registration information can be found on our website.

Visit Your Google Dashboard Today

New Presentation Added – Leveraging Social Media

A new presentation has been added to our library: Leveraging Social Media Week One.

Leveraging Social Media Week One | Jan 2010

More information about the Leveraging Social Media class can be found here, on our website.

Course Update: Leveraging Social Media

The course materials for Leveraging Social Media offered by Clark Community College of Vancouver, Washington has been updated.

Course Description and Lesson Plan

Course Forum

Student Survey

More information about the course can be found here.

Cloud Computing: A Small Business Case Study

One of our clients asked for a white paper that explained what we’re doing for them so that they could share those strategies with other business leaders. What follows is a brief case study of how we’re deploying cloud-based technology solutions to enhance a small business’ competitive position.

Company Background

Our client is an established disaster restoration firm with 30+ employees in Portland, Oregon. Much of their workforce is mobile – constantly moving between client facilities, the corporate office, and investigating disasters sites. All corporate data was kept on a microcomputer asset owned by the company at their home office, and access to their production database system was limited to local users only; remote options were limited and constrained by the telecommunications capability of their office. Further, as they owned the microcomputer asset and were responsible for its maintenance, they were spending a relatively high cost for ongoing maintenance. Mobility is key; security is key; decentralization of information is a natural part of their business model.

Problem: Email

Like many companies, our client viewed email as a mission-critical application. It spent a great deal of time and resources in managing, filtering, storing, and archiving email on its company server. They also had a lot of need to be able to access their email remotely – anywhere at any time – using a non-conventional browser (Firefox instead of IE), and needed to have their remote devices interact with email and calendars.

Our Solution: Google Apps

One solution that we recommended and implemented for this company was Google Apps. We transferred the email, spam-prevention, and anti-virus prevention for email away from their corporate Exchange server to Google. Google, as a part of their premium service, screens for malware. Without having to manage storage, backups, filtering, or system maintenance associated with email, the company is projected to save 30-40% off TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of that capability in year one.

Free of the liability and risk for managing email, that also made their attack profile on their own server much smaller, meaning less operational risk to the server asset. The company no longer has to renew licensing to maintain email spam and virus filters. Also, it became easier to sync all manner of mobile devices to the Google service rather than the company’s Exchange Server, again, offering more capability at a constrained cost. And today, the Exchange capabilities on the server have been disabled and the company is able to access its mail and calendaring from anywhere, on any device, at a fraction of the cost than they would have otherwise, and, at a lower security risk than managing it themselves.

Problem: Application Access

Having concluded that their legacy business system needed to be replaced, an obstacle remained: the mobility of their users. Out in the field, their sales teams and work crews would have to record information by hand and either call it in to be transcribed, or, wait until the data could be entered once they returned to the office.

Our Solution: Hosted Terminal Services

To address this need, we set up a Microsoft Server 2008 (R) Remote Desktop Services (RDS) solution hosted in our data center in Portland, Oregon. We configured the Terminal Service to run their new production application under what’s called a TSRemoteApp configuration. Essentially, the users can double-click on an icon and connect to the program using terminal services. The program looks and feels like it’s running native on the local desktop but is really hosted across the Internet; data in transit is protected by the same encryption process used by an Internet browser. This means that any authorized party, anywhere, with connectivity to the Internet, can securely access production information, at materially lower support and licensing costs than a locally-installed application on the user’s machine.

Problem: File Storage

One of the next challenges we’ll be confronted with will be to relocate the files away from the production server to some other location “in the Cloud” – on the Internet – to allow all authorized parties, anywhere, to access needed files.

Our Solution: sFTP/Google Docs/Google Picasa

We’re looking at potentially three solutions to this problem. One could be securing a file transfer area on their hosted server and transferring information using Secure File Transfer Protocol (sFTP) across the Internet. To the end-user, they would see a regular mapped drive on their computer’s desktop. That mapped drive, though, could be used on any computer connected to the Internet. Another solution will be the use of Google Docs and it’s recently-announced capabilities to simply serve as a file repository. While another approach will be to take many of the images that the company produces from its business and uploading them to Google’s Picasa service for management, scaling, storage, and manipulation.

Problem: Data Backups

Like most companies, this firm had a tape rotation process to save hard drive data. This required labor to rotate the tapes and manage the tape rotation. And the restoration process was in jeopardy as the tapes were rarely rotated off-site.

Our Solution: Online Data Backups

Our online data backup solution will remove that labor component and automatically, securely store their production data on distant Internet servers. In the event of an emergency or even total asset destruction, all we need is access to the Internet to be able to recover mission-critical data and to get the company running again. We will be able to eliminate the labor component and simply automate the backup and restoration process. Meanwhile, image backups and email backups would be managed by Google as a part of their data services.

Conclusion

The end-goal of each of these solutions will be to transition the company’s information system into the Clouds, allowing them to effectively work anywhere and at any time. Leveraging these technologies, the mobile workforce would be able to securely access its information system anywhere, while transferring their risk to vendors. Our solutions offer centralized management, self-services to reduce maintenance expenses, and lower expenses associated with software maintenance and licensing. This reduces the IT footprint of the firm, reduce the TCO associated with maintaining its assets, make the company’s data more secure, more agile in the event of a facility catastrophe, and transitions its costs to a more subscription-based model allowing them to dynamically scale expenses based off of changing demand. These solutions also enable a significant degree of interconnectivity between Internet-connected devices and will allow them to empower a mobile workforce: potentially addressing larger competitive concerns like telecommuting and containing energy costs.

And that’s how technology is used by the small to mid-range business for competitive advantage. Go ahead: ask us how we can help you do the same for your company.

R

Beware Online Scams Concerning Haiti

The FBI released a press announcement today warning consumers against online fraud concerning Haiti. The press release also has some good practice ideas on avoiding being turned into a victim of the crisis yourself.

Skepticism should be turned towards any solicit email. Further, some critical eye should be turned towards social media – thousands of Facebook and Twitter accounts have been created in the last 24 hours that directly concern the Haiti disaster.

Owners of small to mid-range businesses should encourage employees to read the FBI press release and be conscious of how scammers will use events like this to pry PPI (Personal Private Information) out of good-natured consumers. Employees should give critical thought to what they see on the Internet and contact aid organizations directly (either online or by telephone) instead of responding to email-based (or social media-based) requests for contributions.

R

Filter Out the Bad Websites with OpenDNS

I’m frequently asked for advice on controlling malware: spyware, adware, and potentially harmful viruses that can infect your computer. I’ve written a couple of blog entries on this:

1. How to Troubleshoot Suspected Malware

2. PPI Risks on the Rise

3. Prelude to a Hack

4. Locking Down the Browser

Fundamentally, though, one of the strategies that I like to employ is absolute avoidance through filtering. If I can arrange the network of a small business (or a residential personal computer) to totally avoid going to places they shouldn’t be on the Internet, then I shouldn’t have to worry about what people might download to their machines. You might think this capability of restricting access to websites of ill-repute kind of a common-sense idea, especially if you’re dealing with employees or even with children. It’s easier than you might think, and, it’s free.

The service that I often configure and recommend is called OpenDNS.  This is an entirely free service. There’s also a number of SMB and enterprise plans, too, for more powerful features.

Here’s how it works. You create an account. Then, you replace your Domain Name Servers (DNS) on your router or your PC to reflect their servers at OpenDNS. This is a little technical, but basically, every time that your computer wants to look up a URL (like www.sportsillustrated.com, for example), it has to consult a name server. Under this situation, your PC or all of the devices on your network may attempt to access an Internet URL by consulting OpenDNS to resolve the URL to an IP address.

Now, here’s the fun part. On the OpenDNS dashboard, you can then manage certain public IP’s – the IP address of your company’s router, or, the router in your home – and apply some pre-fab content filters to that IP address.  You can be lightly restrictive, moderately restrictive, highly, severely, or even customize the severity of restriction. Essentially, you’re selecting the kinds of content you don’t want available on your computers/network; there are over 40 categories of content that you can choose to filter, including: adult, tasteless, bikini’s, movies, news, drugs, sexuality, porn, photo sharing, instant messaging, phishing and known spyware sites, and so on. The configuration is simple, web-driven, and takes just minutes to put into effect.

When you implement this and somebody on your network tries to go to a restricted site, they’re presented with a message from OpenDNS that says the site is restricted, and to contact you for technical assistance. In my line of work, I’ll get the call from a user – if the user has a legitimate need to get somewhere they’re restricted to see – and then I can ask the head-honcho whether or not releasing that domain is a good idea for their employees. Further, from the technical tools available on their website, I can monitor what kinds of traffic we’re seeing, run reports off trends, and even what machines may be likely infected with viruses and malware because of their network access behaviors.

You can read more about OpenDNS’s features here.

Using a Managed DNS Solution is a great low-cost filtering approach that totally avoids taking the user to the problematic website to begin with. I help my clients implement the version of OpenDNS’s solutions that would work well for them. The product works great for kids and home-use, too! Sure it helps with productivity and keeping everybody on the straight and narrow, but from a technical perspective, it’s a brainless precaution that serves as a front-line defense from attacks and intrusion. That’s an awesome proactive strategy that reduces the threat profile of your network resource, and something you should encourage your technology professionals to help you with if you don’t already have this capability.

If you’ve got questions and want to know more, feel free to comment to this post, and I’d be happy to give you some suggestions for implementation.

R