What makes an effective IT Management Team?

IT Managers and Decision Makers, this was written for you.

IT Departments come in all different shapes and sizes. There are however some key elements I would recommend for effective IT management. It’s important to certainly have strategy.

Here is my list:

Asset Management and Risk Assessment

Time and time again you will need to know what your on hand IT Assets are and associated Risks to those assets. This is important and empowering knowledge to have to make recommendations or make decisions that can help add money back into budget. Its always good to know how much time is left on your IT assets and when to retire them as well as getting the most you can in return for the sale of used equipment. Understanding Risk is important so as to ensure your assets will be best protected and your interests are best met. So there are different formulas for determining this, what’s important is that you have established due diligence toward this area to protect your business from significant liabilities.

Change Control

With technology advancing every moment, it is very important to limit risk when implementing changes to your infrastructure and technology. It’s always good to have management on the same page when you are driving change. Also communication to employees is key to increasing change awareness. There are many aspects of change control, what is most important with regards to change is planning and communication. If you fail to plan you are planning to fail. And failure to communicate is a structural breakdown which will only drive distraction, confusion, and inefficiency.

Active measures to reduce costs by going Green

Being Green is a buzz phrase we have been hearing a lot about. What does it really mean to be Green? In my view it means just being more efficient. Does that mean working your employees to the bone with multi-tasking? No, absolutely not. You have the potential with building a Green working environment to motivate your employees without the pay raises per-se, ie. a dollar saved is a dollar earned. With technology today this is very much possible from the front line all the way back up to the top. There are a lot of ways to be Green and we certainly can help you do that, with the problems in today’s economy it is essential to save money in order to stay in business while maintaining your competitive edge.

Release Readiness

Release Readiness is very important in the Change Control and Project Management aspects. With there being a lot of change in technology its important to be ready to effectively implement those changes. They can be hardware or software. Its important to be proactive and provide due diligence in technology management, as the very efficiency you seek through it will simply go backward with immature or incorrect technology implementations.

IT Security

As more and more companies go virtual, and data is their value. It is important then that assets, availability, reliability, and performance all be examines and protected. Threats can come from many different directions. It is important to understand the threats and risks and take action to protect against them. So there are many different types of measures to be taken when building a Security Baseline. I listed this step later on because obtaining a full understanding of your IT Assets is key along with doing a Risk Assessment. These two elements will help management understand what security measures need to be taken. You are only as strong as your weakest link, also keep in mind your business is as valuable to you as your desire to stay in business. There is a great deal of cyberfraud and startups that literally steal from their competitors. If you value staying in business you simply cannot ignore IT Security and pure and proper implementation practices. Saving money in a foolish manner can put you more at risk. But doing things smarter will save you money. As long as there are cyber criminals there will always be a need for cyber security.

Effective Communications

Each of these are important as they develop well rounded focus as we tackle the most complicated and diverse IT issues. It’s important to run a tight ship that collectively bears a scalable setup, and adaptable setup. In my personal view innovative managers and decision makers can utilize effectively their abilities to keep their employees motivated while adding to bottom dollar.

Let me know how you do, with giving your focus to these principles.

Efficiency through Technology and Quality by HPD Global SaaS Solutions

These days it is most important to take the business battle to strategic design. Some concerns with the Economy as it is are to find cheaper ways to increase efficiency without hurting quality. Technology is one strong avenue to do that through. Some careful attention should be given by management into various areas surrounding this. Consider the following:

What areas of your work flow can be automated?
How utilized is your present technology?
Have you considered efficiency through leverage of technology?
Could you double your output with quality by doing things different?

These questions help us better determine as management what areas we should push to resolution on a more level approach. I am going to make a bold statement about our present economic situation. I believe that the businesses the utilize creativity, strategic design, and technology toward doing things smarter (different) will be the companies that take us further into the new millenium and will be tomorrow’s successful companies. You have heard that the best way to win is thinking outside the box. Technology when implemented successfully with intelligent engineers will not only yield success but a peace of mind. You will want to ensure that you deal with solid Technology Experts when making these changes. To an extent it will involve vision and entrepreneurship, but it can be done. So this will be an area that all technology management will face if they have not faced it so far. It is the dynamics of where Global Business is going, you just have to think outside the box and be the first to the fight. HPD Global has multiple SaaS solutions you should contact us to save money.

Using Ubuntu Server as a Desktop and Cost Savings

Cost Savings and Technology advantages of Ubuntu Server

Most of you are familiar with GPL/GNU Open Source Software. I wanted to recommend a highly stable and cheap to free open source server. Ubuntu meaning ethic or humanist philosophy focusing on people’s allegiances and relations with each other. The meaning behind the them is something quite intrinsic to the creation of the technology. In a humanity sense open source software allows individuals, groups, or entire communities to contribute in some way to the development of the software. The overall output of the product is of higher quality, testing, and also more in line with what the user wants.

Since Ubuntu open source you have the option to change it. So yes this is Linux. I wanted to state however that Ubuntu is the most supported version of Linux out there, and that you can do anything with it as you would a Windows Server. You have have the option to turn it into a desktop with a simple command line entry such as this:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

The wonderful thing about open source is you feel or get empowered through the transparency of what you observe. Also how you can customize and change things to better suit the needs of your IT department or Organization. So now on to the advantages. Ubuntu is a light weight server out of the box, or you can make it more robust. It can easily be converted into any type of back end server ie: File, Web, Email, Media, Authentication, Proxy, Code Repository, Load Balancing. Just about anything you want it can be turned into that. So let me point you to the documentation for reference so you will be able to observe and learn or consider the cost savings you can benefit from.

Ubuntu Home Page

At HPD Global – VIT Cloud Services we run Ubuntu and several other open source solutions on top of traditional Microsoft Windows Server. We feel this brings greater value to our customers as they have the option to tailor the technologies we offer to better suit their needs. Contact us today for more IT Profitability.

Multiple Desktops in Windows

( Linux / *nix ) feel in Windows

Making Windows feel like an open source environment

There’s a cool app that helps you multi-task in an organized and efficient way in windows.  If you have used Freebsd, Suse, Slackware, DSL, Fedora, RHEL, etc.  They all have a few things different that Windows does not have, that is that they allow you to have multiple desktops.  Now that is a good idea that allows efficient work to be done in each desktop.  It helps to be able to track what you are triaging or working on.  Here is a program that gives windows that functionality as well:
https://www.hpdit.com/sysinternals/Desktops.exe
Pretty cool…

Generate your own 4096 Bit Encryption Keypair for Security

Let say you want to raise the level of encryption when you SSH to your linux box, you may feel that 1024 bit encryption isn’t working out very well for you. 

Here’s a fast and simple tool to use: 

It’s called puttygen.exe can be found at:

www.putty.nl

You won’t have to worry about doing this via the command line.  High security generation made easy.

Great Tool for Windows Server Active Directory Exploration

SaaS: Software as a Service

Thanks to the internet, high speed connectivity, and rapid development of applications over the internet, we have the birth of Virtual IT – Cloud Services.  Imagine if you will the ability to have your IT Department totally running from the cloud for a flat rate?  Its happening.  A lot of services can be provided through SaaS (Software as a Service) via the Internet, these being:

1. Backups
2. Security Baseline
3. PC Optimization
4. Malware removal
5. Remote Desktop Troubleshooting
6. Analysis
7. Web Development
8. Internet Marketing SEO/SEM
9. Programming
10. Patching

Most of your Help Desk, IT Administration, and whole IT Department functions can be outsourced with high ROI.

Would you like to outsource your IT to a well reputable 100% usa firm?  We are making that happen for many.

Windows Server 2003-2008 How to tell if a Server is a VM

Are you PCI Compliant?

More and more businesses are going virtual each day and put their business to work for them 24 hours a day.  With, e commerce in expansion in mind it becomes totally imperative to establish standards of security.  The Payment Card Industry or PCI has established pretty clear standards for companies that wish to utilize this fast growing and highly lucrative line of business.  Funded by Visa and Mastercard primarily; PCI was developed to ensure consumer confidence in purchasing goods and services over the internet.  Whether you are a small or large corporation and you have an established online business, you are expected to be PCI Compliant.  Failure to do so can cost your business profound costs in litigation, fees from Visa and Mastercard, and loss in potential business.  It simply is not worth the risk to your business to lack in due diligent security.  As a solution, HPD Global IT Consulting offers Enterprise-wide PCI Compliance SaaS solution to businesses that are small as well as large.  We implement all DSS standards and provide you with a security baseline to start you off with security due diligence.

More and more these days it is becoming totally necessary to be compliant with Industry and Government standards or face paying huge fines that many businesses do not survive financially.  The security threats are real and more and more we are hearing about this in the media.  Security crackers have caused billions in damages, we can only estimate how much is kept away from the public eye and government by private organization who pay hush money to keep customer satisfaction up.  PCI compliance really covers a lot of areas in which its possible for Card holder information to be stolen.

The core of the PCI DSS is a group of principles and accompanying requirements, around which the specific elements of the DSS are organized:

Build and Maintain a Secure Network

Requirement 1: Install and maintain a firewall configuration to protect cardholder data
Requirement 2: Do not use vendor-supplied defaults for system passwords and other security parameters

Protect Cardholder Data

Requirement 3: Protect stored cardholder data
Requirement 4: Encrypt transmission of cardholder data across open, public networks

Maintain a Vulnerability Management Program

Requirement 5: Use and regularly update anti-virus software
Requirement 6: Develop and maintain secure systems and applications

Implement Strong Access Control Measures

Requirement 7: Restrict access to cardholder data by business need-to-know
Requirement 8: Assign a unique ID to each person with computer access
Requirement 9: Restrict physical access to cardholder data

Regularly Monitor and Test Networks

Requirement 10: Track and monitor all access to network resources and cardholder data
Requirement 11: Regularly test security systems and processes

Maintain an Information Security Policy

Requirement 12: Maintain a policy that addresses information security

Of course each and every requirement is probed further during an audit to ensure necessary security due diligence is in place.  It truly does take a lot of hard work to build a security baseline and managerial understanding, let us help lessen the headache with our secure Cloud Services.  Contact us today.

What to do and not to do when IT Consulting, especially for good customers

Consulting can certainly be a rewarding endeavor.  In my career I have come across consultants from all different backgrounds, specialties, and areas of expertise.

However, on occasion you will find either the new consultant, the ineffective reseller, dot.bomb washout, or crook who somehow has convinced their customer that they can consult in a field or technology that is far out of their specialty.

How to Spot a Fake / Flake in IT Consulting

These types of consultants are pretty easy for other consultants to spot but not always easy by the customer.

Typically, these types of consultants do the following:

1. They make exaggerated claims or have very high prices as their business model is set to make money and run.
2. They will not give you a specific answer on anything, but will likely stretch jobs out and show no progress.
3. They will try to recommend solutions that are not truly solutions to the issues you have, as it shows their area of skill lacks project match.
4. They can try to change your mind in a 180 degree manner to do something that either takes longer or is simply not related.
5. They will make a lot of claims but have no follow through to confirm them.

If you are doing this now, STOP!  Consider the following:

1. Do you want to risk a lawsuit?
2. Do you want to continue to embarrass yourself and the customer?
3. Do you think that you are truly doing the customer any good by wasting their time and money?

If you are considering telling a half-truth, consider the following:

1. Do you want to risk your reputation and knowledge as an IT Consultant?
2. Do you wish to lose this customer and others this customer could have referred along with customers who they know and you work with?

Let me propose the following to the Consultant in this fiasco:

1. Find a way to communicate to the customer that you made a mistake, you want to come completely clean of this and do the right thing which is get them the help they needed to begin with.
2. If you have not put yourself into a bad situation, consider being upfront and honest with the customer by stating something to this effect:
   I don’t feel comfortable consulting in this area, but let me check with my friends and see if we can help you with your IT needs.

or

1. I do not know this technology sufficiently to help here, but I would love to help you find someone that can as I know it can be difficult sometimes to find experts in this area.

   This will not only build trust with your customers, you will likely not lose their respect and you have the possibility of coming back to help in an area they need help in, making a referral fee on the consulting firm you referred, or even getting additional business because of your honesty and your willingness to help the best you could without impeding progress.

   If you are without friends in the IT Industry who can help you succeed, send me an email I’d be happy to help, as we have 30+ years of experience in the IT Industry and certainly can help.

Good luck with your future endeavors