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Everyday Complications, and an All-Hands-on-Deck Upgrade

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Computers can be a real source of frustration. Even professionals outside the tech field know that IT issues can be some of the most maddening for employers and employees alike. Seemingly out of nowhere, technical systems can malfunction or seem to run differently in a way that hinders productivity and ideal workflows. Workers who use technology every day tend to adapt over time to work around these daily frustrations for fear of making the problem worse.

IT problems require brainstorming, troubleshooting, and teamwork. When confronting a work-interfering IT issue with your in-house tech support team or MSP, you may feel discouraged if a resolution is proving difficult or slow to appear. At Anderson Technologies we recognize that if a technical challenge beyond the everyday arises, multiple eyes and minds working together are needed to get to the root cause.

Strive Fails to Thrive

Strive Dental’s* story of complex IT issues began in 2020, when owner Dr. R contacted Anderson Technologies for help with an operating system that was no longer going to be supported once Windows 7 reached end of life. Dr. R had reached out to the firm years before, but ultimately chose a competing IT vendor to partner with. Now they were seeking another IT perspective, and Anderson Technologies was happy to help.

The small dental office’s hardware was severely under-performing due to Windows 7 running on all the employee’s machines. Their hardware was old and had passed through the hands of multiple IT vendors, and the in-house application they used to manage patient data was installed on a Windows 7 computer rather than a server. Each night, employees had to manually copy their patient data to a CD in case the computer or application crashed. Even worse, their machines ran an outdated version of the application, which gave the software vendor the option to refuse to support the product.

Strive Dental’s challenges proved that the techie adage “breaking one thing by fixing another” carries a sizable nugget of truth.

The older the systems became and the farther behind their software fell, Strive’s team became increasingly locked into a routine that required unnecessary steps and risks.

Anderson Technologies and Dr. R developed a game plan to replace some of Strive Dental’s old hardware and create a new server environment with more reliable security and backups. System Administrator J.R. Reynolds says, “We formulated a multi-tier approach that spanned over three weeks, starting with replacing all three of their employee workstations with brand new machines.” Anderson Technologies’ experts went on site to install the computers and migrate their data from the old machines.

“We installed the server on the same day, and worked with their vendor to install a clean version of their application on to the server,” Reynolds explains. “After upgrading the database that housed their patient data, we migrated the data to the new server and verified access from all of their workstations.” Knowing the amount of protected patient data imported to the new server, the team installed a brand-new switch, firewall, and wireless access point to round out Strive Dental’s infrastructure upgrade.

Periodontal Pitfalls

Strive Dental’s next technology hurdle was not due to the new computers themselves but rather stress on the surrounding infrastructure. Reynolds recalls, “When we attempted to verify the connectivity from the user workstations to the new network equipment, we were getting connectivity far slower than expected.”

Upon inspection, the team found three individual routers installed between the main switch and the workstations. These old, daisy-chained routers didn’t allow for the faster speeds granted by the new switch. “We had to remove all of the old routers’ wiring,” Reynolds says, “and replace them with custom-length cables that ran directly from each device to the new switch.”

Once resolved, the greatly improved network speed amplified another slow performance issue lurking inside their in-house patient management application. Anderson Technologies attempted to troubleshoot the issues with the application’s vendor. After forty hours of working with the vendor to resolve the problems, the vendor finally revealed that they had known about the issue for several months and were still working on a solution.

When Reynolds and the Anderson Technologies team brought their findings to Dr. R, both parties came to the conclusion that other software suites might be a better fit for Strive Dental. “We’re currently piloting software from another vendor that has a far superior application to track their patient data,” Reynolds says. With their shiny new machines, Strive Dental’s employees no longer have problematic software as a foregone conclusion.

Strive Dental’s challenges proved that the techie adage “breaking one thing by fixing another” carries a sizable nugget of truth. Often solving technical issues reveals other infrastructure problems that may have gone unnoticed if not for fixing the issue masking it—especially during a time when we’re all forced to adapt to new tech situations very quickly.

A problem’s root cause can almost always be detected with perseverance—and by having a team of dedicated professionals on your side. Been thinking about how you can improve your office infrastructure or circumvent everyday complications to make work smoother? Give us a call today at 314.394.3001!

 

*Business name has been changed and personnel redacted as part of Anderson Technologies’ dedication to client cyber security.

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What Does Working from Home Look Like With an MSP?

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Businesses across all verticals are struggling to adjust to the new digital workplace driven by COVID-19 and social distancing efforts. However, businesses fortunate enough to stay afloat rely now more than ever on IT vendors and IT managed service providers (MSPs) to keep their employees online and working.

What does a national emergency and sudden loss of normalcy look like for clients of an MSP?

Answering the Call

You’re probably used to seeing your MSP technician at your workplace, installing a new piece of equipment or troubleshooting a persistent issue. But since on-site IT support has halted until the COVID-19 pandemic ends, how are MSPs tackling hardware solutions?

IT Support Coordinator Elena Estrada describes COVID-19’s effect on hardware acquisition as “a perfect storm.” Businesses across the nation raced to purchase laptops for their workers transitioning to work from home—MSPs included. “Lots of our clients realized they didn’t have laptops or home systems to be able to remote into their work computers,” Estrada says. “It caused a mass panic for retail laptops.”

Anderson Technologies typically works with a few trusted outlet partners to provide the best hardware for their clients, but ordering laptops the usual way quickly became impossible as outlets sold out seemingly overnight. MSPs had to get a little creative. “We needed to find other options,” Estrada says. “A local electronics store had laptops in stock that weren’t necessarily what we normally send to clients, but we bought extra sticks of memory to accommodate. We had to bring multiple employees to the store because there was a two-system limit on hardware purchases.”

​But finding enough hardware wasn’t the only difficulty. “The most challenging aspect is trying to navigate things that require physical interaction,” says Estrada. “Those types of situations are hard to work out.” Many of Anderson Technologies’ clients are local to the St. Louis area, meaning that mailing or shipping necessary hardware isn’t a customary practice, not to mention it puts unnecessary pressure on essential delivery personnel.

Channels of communication between MSP and client are more important now than ever. One of Anderson Technologies’ clients recently needed a laptop for a new employee. The configured laptop was ready to be given to the client on a Friday, but since the employee would be starting that Monday, the laptop wouldn’t arrive in time if shipped. Anderson Technologies was able to coordinate a drop-off plan with the client, but it shows how challenging it can be to safely navigate and standardize these situations from a business perspective.

Need for Speed

Many businesses have temporarily closed their doors due to statewide stay-at-home orders, and entire companies now work from home every day. When you’re used to working in your professional environment, it’s pretty easy to tell when something isn’t working correctly. This isn’t the case when working from home, especially if you’re doing it for the first time. Working from home exposes users to threats they would normally never encounter in their workplace.

“A lot of residential internet plans are not as fast as what they’re used to in the office, which causes some issues with their work,” Estrada says. “Many times, they think it’s a hardware issue or an issue with the program they’re using, but it ends up being that they need a bit more patience with their current speeds.” This makes managing expectations essential to working from home successfully, both for the MSP and the end user.

“I think the majority of people who have transitioned from their office to their home don’t realize that home internet greatly impacts their working-from-home experience,” says Senior System Administrator Eric Dischert. “Throw in some kids streaming music and The Office re-runs on the same connection, and the work-from-home experience degrades quickly.”

“Another issue is the internet line running to their actual office,” Dischert warns. “If that connection is sub-par or there are many users remoting into their work computers, that bandwidth shrinks and might need a boost.” When your work day relies on two internet connections functioning properly, you may experience more hiccups than you would at your normal workstation—meaning more work for your MSP.

Even as MSPs are problem solving new kinds of technical issues, they’re also adjusting to working within stay-at-home orders themselves. “Remoting capabilities have made things pretty seamless,” Estrada says. Anderson Technologies already incorporates remote monitoring software as part of their managed services plan, which made the transition a little easier for providing quick technical support.

Lock Your (Virtual) Doors

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the globe, and bad actors all over the world are taking advantage of the newly-digital workforce. They are tweaking their phishing methods and other online attacks to sneak their way onto your more vulnerable home networks. Remote workers, stressed about their safety and livelihoods, look like sitting ducks to malicious actors. Every cyber security crack must be sealed.

Cyber security training has always been an important part of the MSP-client relationship, but businesses are kicking it up to protect their remote workers. “There are a lot of security issues involved in working from home due to lack of experience in doing so and just being a bit more comfortable in your home,” Estrada says. “Users aren’t as guarded.”

Distractions themselves contribute to users letting their guards down and create opportunities for phishers. “Personally, there are a lot of distractions at home that take my attention,” Dischert says. “Kids, dog, spouse, etc., are all buzzing around and it’s hard to concentrate, especially for people who normally do not work from home.”

Even after the pandemic ends, MSPs expect to see an uptick of clients seeking work-from-home solutions. This is part of a trend that’s been growing for over a decade, as the number of US employees working remotely has increased 159% over the last 12 years. Some workers thrive in their home environments where work arrangements are more flexible, reducing stress and increasing morale. These workers may choose to incorporate virtual desktop software or hardware setups that are easier to carry back and forth to the office.

 

Until it’s safe to return to their normal routines, America’s workforce will continue to adapt to the daily changes in this pandemic’s trajectory. But working from home doesn’t have to leave you vulnerable or without IT support when you’re working with an MSP. Expert MSPs know that disasters and emergencies are why it’s important to make sure your networks are healthy from the start.

Need help transitioning to a WFH model? Call Anderson Technologies today at 314.394.3001 for a free consultation!

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A Cautionary Tale: Lessons Learned from a Mid-Level Manager

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The Anderson Technologies blog specializes in sharing the best ways for business owners to up their cyber security game, but sometimes accounts of tech gone wrong prove just as valuable.

Anderson Technologies spoke again with A. A., Chief of Staff of a wealth management firm located in West St. Louis County. Our last interview with A. A. discussed her firm’s network security audit experience and the projects to come with Anderson Technologies. This time, read about what can happen after the network security audit results and why it’s important to address problems as soon as they’re found.

“I should have listened,” A. A. says. “That’s the beginning and the end to this story.”

Server Standstill

Before Anderson Technologies’ network security audit of A. A.’s firm in 2018, the firm already knew server reliability would be one of the first issues addressed. “You told us from the beginning that our server was a liability,” A. A. recalls. Her firm’s previous IT vendor had told her the server was old but still usable, while Mark Anderson flagged it for immediate resolution due to the amount of data and day-to-day tasks the server was responsible for.

“One of the reasons was security issues,” A. A. says. The server was the gathering point for all the firm’s and its clients’ data. “Our entire business is located there, so it was a huge risk for us.” Without guarantees that the server was reliably backing up the firm’s data, Anderson Technologies recommended that A. A. upgrade the server as soon as possible.

Like many other small businesses, the firm was hesitant to drop such a large amount of money on a piece of hardware right after signing on with a new managed services provider. The firm was planning a major update to their business model for mid-2019 and didn’t have a lot of wiggle room in their annual budget. “Anderson Technologies was really good with helping us prioritize what our first steps would be,” A. A. says.

You told us from the beginning that our server was a liability.”

After some planning with Senior System Administrator Eric Dischert, A. A. elected to migrate to the cloud in lieu of investing in a new server before the business model transition. “We already knew that we wanted to move to the cloud,” A. A. says, “so we said we can remove some of this risk by moving over our current files to Office 365.”

Headed for the Cloud

It may not have immediately solved the server problem, but moving to the cloud was a good choice for this particular firm. “We moved as much of our data over to Office 365 as possible,” A. A. recalls. The server remained in production as a bridge to log into the firm’s Active Directory and to scan and store documents locally.

Security was a huge factor contributing to the switch. “In the line of work we’re in as wealth managers, if something happened to our clients’ information, it could be the end of our business,” A. A. says. “It was exceedingly important for us to be proactive in being able to manage our clients’ data efficiently, effectively, and securely.” Migrating to the cloud also allowed for easier and more secure telecommuting, which was exciting for the firm as a whole. “It was simply fantastic to have everything set up and all you have to do is log in through Office 365.”

No Server, No Problem

While Anderson Technologies was preparing A. A.’s firm for the cloud migration, the worst happened. “Server meltdowns are like horror movies for business professionals,” she says, “worst case scenario.” Thankfully, Dischert and some preemptive measures taken by Anderson Technologies kept downtime to a minimum.

“One of the amazing things about the work you do, and especially Eric [Dischert], was he noticed right away before any of us were in the office that something was wrong with the server,” A. A. says. “He reached out to me, did some remote troubleshooting, and came into the office. . . then announced the time of death [of the server] later that afternoon.”

Since the firm had already been preparing for the cloud migration, the server was no longer business-critical at that point but could have created vulnerabilities if not taken off the network quickly. The only loss the firm experienced was scanned images stored on the local server since employees at the firm had already begun reorganizing their workstations’ data to make the transition to Office 365 smoother. “I knew everything would be okay,” A. A. says.

Everything Anderson Technologies did made an unfortunate situation much easier for us to handle.”

Downtime is a major concern when any business’s tech fails, and this firm was no different. “That was one thing that Anderson Technologies did aside from pinpointing the problem early on, ensuring that we did not have lost time,” A. A. recalls. The team was responsive, telling A. A. that “‘we can triage based on your schedules and make sure everyone’s ready the day before’ . . . I think we got a quote of two hours per computer, and they were able to complete everything in our relatively small office in less than half a day. We expected to be out at least a full day.”

In less than one workday, Anderson Technologies successfully migrated all user profiles and got the wealth management firm working from their new cloud platform. If Dischert and the Anderson Technologies team hadn’t flagged the problem during the network security audit and began the cloud migration process in time, the firm might have lost essential data and experienced significant downtime. Early intervention went a long way when it came to handling this meltdown, and A. A. and her team are especially grateful for the comprehensive approach.

Luckily, this is a story of lessons learned rather than a disaster. A. A. says, “Everything Anderson Technologies did made an unfortunate situation much easier for us to handle.”

 

Have you or your business been trapped under lifeless hardware and are considering a switch to the cloud? Cloud migration could be the best solution for you! Contact Anderson Technologies today to learn if you’re eligible for a free network security audit.

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Celebrating 25 Years of Anderson Technologies

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This February marks Anderson Technologies’ 25th anniversary providing exceptional IT services for clients in the St. Louis area and beyond. The milestone provides an opportunity to reflect on the company’s journey since its inception and provides a thoughtful lens on how the organization plans to forge a path for the future.

Founding Principals Mark and Amy Anderson met in college as Computer Science majors and started their professional careers in the late ‘80s as software engineers for McDonnell Douglas’ Avionics Laboratories. After several years, their entrepreneurial spirit kicked in and the company was incorporated in February 1995 as an IT consulting firm. “I’ve always enjoyed helping people and being entrepreneurial,” Mark recalls. Like many successful business owners, he has fostered that entrepreneurial spirit from an early age. Growing up in a military family as a seventh grader pushing a lawnmower around the yards of trusting homeowners, he’ll never forget the advice his father brought home from his commanding officer while stationed in Germany: “If in life you always strive to do your very best, work will seek you out.” This became a foundational idea in Mark’s outlook. By demanding honesty, integrity, and excellence in himself, everything else took care of itself. Amy’s strength has always been to implement Mark’s big ideas in a practical and risk-averse way, which fueled the birth of Anderson Technologies.

If in life you always strive to do your very best, work will seek you out.”

Initially the Andersons provided technology consulting to Fortune 500 corporations until the market shifted offshore in the early 2000s. This fueled the company’s move from software engineering to system administration and IT consulting. After the start of the new millennium, Anderson Technologies experienced what Mark and Amy describe as a “quiet decade” while their two children were still young. They gravitated towards custom projects that would serve as the foundation for a new division of the company, Anderson Archival. “We were approached by a client who asked us to do technical project management and archival work for them,” Amy says. “While that was going on, we were also performing system and network administration for a handful of companies and helping with their technology.”

Not only has Anderson Technologies evolved over the course of twenty-five years, but so has the IT industry. “At first there was no such thing as managed services on an ongoing basis, where clients would pay a monthly fee for proactive IT support,” Mark says. Once the IT industry’s standard break/fix model was transformed by the need for vigilant, comprehensive managed services, Anderson Technologies fully embraced and invested in this new way of providing outstanding services to its clients.

“Let’s pivot,” Mark remembers thinking, “to focusing on small and mid-sized businesses who will appreciate a relationship with an IT vendor they can look in the eye and wholeheartedly trust.” Developing this strong client-vendor relationship was the foundation upon which Anderson Technologies built itself.

In order to share this new, proactive managed services approach, the company started by asking small business owners what technical challenges they were trying to overcome—and if it didn’t have a solution for them, the team would find another vendor who could help. “We are known for being an organization who cares and who treats people fairly,” Amy says.

In 2020, Anderson Technologies is focused on growing into a new office space, which is about three times the size of the previous location. “It’s a huge milestone for us,” Amy says. “You can feel the momentum.”

Indeed, the firm blossomed over the last few years alone, nearly doubling in size and welcoming Farica Chang as a partner. For over a decade Farica has been integral to Anderson Technologies. “Farica is extremely talented,” Amy says. “When we make a promise to a client, she along with our wonderful employees, consistently find a way to deliver an exceptional result. Farica is key to the company’s current and future success, and we are so grateful she is now a partner.” Mark agrees. “Farica exemplifies the company’s values so well,” he says. “She’s fearless—there’s nothing she can’t do. Her character, work ethic, and talents have blessed all of us. We wouldn’t be the same company without her.”

Working for Mark and Amy after graduation from UCLA and her professional experience at Fortune 500 companies, Farica notes that the opportunities available as part of a smaller team are immeasurable. “Mark and Amy shared responsibilities with me that I could never have imagined had I been a small cog in the gears of a giant corporation,” she says. “Together we conquered thorny technical challenges and complex project management. They fostered an environment of mutual trust and support—nurtured my development as a leader—and showed me how to care for a client’s needs as we care for our own.”

Together we conquered thorny technical challenges and complex project management.”

Anderson Technologies wouldn’t be where it is today without its people. Each member of the team is a valued piece of the puzzle—offering key unique strengths and devotion to a job well done. “Honestly, I love my work because I love our team,” says Farica. “Even on the busiest days, I know I can turn to anyone for help. Many of my colleagues have been with us for five years or more. I’m so proud of their growth and can-do spirit.”

Mark, Amy, and Farica appreciate this moment to pause and reflect on how vibrant their IT company has become. The last twenty-five years have been busy ones, and they don’t foresee slowing down any time soon. “Our hearts are filled with gratitude,” Mark says. “Gratitude for our wonderful employees, clients, and business partners who have enabled us to realize a dream and together build something truly special.”

Here’s to 25 more years of Anderson Technologies!

For more information about the Anderson firms or to find out how Anderson Technologies or Anderson Archival can provide solutions for your organization, contact us today!

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Should You Break Up with Your MSP?

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How one St. Louis practice shed an underperforming MSP and questions to ask so you don’t end up in the same situation


Relationship challenges occasionally happen, even between businesses.

It’s frustrating when a potential vendor promises epic solutions to all your problems, but over the course of months or years prove themselves not up to the task. This was the case for M. C., owner of a St. Louis healthcare practice. She recently sought the help of Anderson Technologies to replace her managed services provider of over a decade. “I was pretty loyal to them,” M. C. says, “but it was nightmare after nightmare for ten years.”

A self-described workaholic, M. C. didn’t have time to spend worrying about the technology that carried her practice. “IT is the skeleton of [most] businesses in America today. If you don’t have it, then your practice has no skeleton. It’s just a floppy amoeba.” Much like the revenue lost during business downtime, time wasted waiting for computers to meet performance expectations or techs to return your phone call is a drain on your business’s resources.

Your managed services provider (MSP) should be working with you, not against you. According to M. C., an MSP and the work they do for your business should feel like “a blessing from God.” Here are four questions you should be asking to determine whether or not your MSP relationship is benefiting your business.

  1. Are they professional? Can I unequivocally trust them in my office and home?

M.C.’s relationship with her former MSP started with a trusted colleague’s recommendation. System administrators were in and out of her office and home, providing service on her internal systems and home workstations for remote connectivity. Her practice used specific programs and hardware daily. It was essential that these functions were reliable and safe for patients.

“Anyone with an EMR [electronic medical records] system really needs to have the best IT possible,” M. C. says.

If you don’t have good IT, you’re out of luck.”

It was when M. C. needed to move her practice to a new location that she realized how many problems the vendor had overlooked or, in some cases, caused.

“I had just spent $10k getting all new computers and they still weren’t working,” M. C. recalls. “They recommended that I change phone systems to save money, but what they actually did is cut out my fax and the phone situation just got worse.” These issues surfaced when one of M. C.’s employees pointed out that on the day of the install, the MSP only spent ten minutes on-site. Along with a few other questionable interactions with the MSP’s team at her home, M. C. began to lose complete trust.

  1. Are they communicating effectively?

After M. C. realized the extent of her technical problems, she reached out to the owner of the company, a person she felt she could trust. However, the owner wouldn’t acknowledge that his employees had been careless and made mistakes.

Aside from her annoyance with the work the company did do, it was often difficult to reach help during her early and long work hours. “I was at the point where I had to demand they come and fix things,” M. C. says. Communication breakdown reached a head when M. C. contacted the owner once more, only to be berated. “I had spent thousands of dollars at this point, and all he had to say was, ‘Why are you bothering me? You’re a demanding client.’”

  1. Are they taking ownership of their work and keeping detailed records of all solutions?

One reason problems weren’t getting resolved was because the MSP seemed very unorganized. Every time M. C. or one of her employees contacted the company about a problem, they acted like they had never stepped foot in the office, let alone replaced all the hardware.

“Troubleshooting was nearly impossible,” M. C. says. “After ten years they knew nothing. No organization, no blueprints of what I had, what went where.” The company also constantly insisted on upgrades to the practice’s hardware, but would replace them with old computers that were clearly used and not up to enterprise standards. Hardware replacement policies are a common MSP requirement, but the level of disorganization around the “new” computers they were recommending seemed suspicious. “It’s like there were no records of any improvements or work done.”

Mark Anderson stresses with importance of industry software and documentation with Business News Daily.

  1. Are they keeping their promises?

It took ten long years for M. C. to face the facts: her business relationship with her MSP was no longer serving her well. The promises the MSP made at the beginning of their partnership had never been realized. “My practice’s management system was still getting popups and crashing, computers were still slow and congested, we still had outdated hardware, no fax, scanners, or remote connectivity,” M. C. describes. “Systems were still so slow, and even slower when working remotely.”

She felt the managed services company took advantage of her, taking her money and then slapping Band-Aids on problems to conceal the bigger issues. “I was nervous spending the money to start over,” M. C. says. “It’s like getting divorced and finding someone new. For ten years I had the patience of Job, but I think it wasn’t really patience—I was just scared.”

Thankfully, she reached out to Anderson Technologies, which was able to quickly extinguish the immediate fires. “Once Anderson took over, 99% of the problems went away immediately.” Instead of making huge promises at the beginning of the partnership, Mark Anderson and the team developed a strategic action plan to implement long-term improvements.

Anderson Tech is reachable, affable, quick, professional,” M. C. says. “It’s been nothing but professionalism and action, ‘true to their word’ situations. I have never gone this long in my ten years where I didn’t have a problem.”

Now that M. C.’s IT infrastructure is efficient, reliable, and secure, she can focus on her clients and allowing her business to really grow over the next ten years. Thousands of dollars and a decade of frustration later, M. C.’s practice is building a new relationship with Anderson Technologies: “I wish I had met you ten years ago!”

 

To find out more about reevaluating your IT partnership, give Anderson Technologies a call today. We can be reached at 314.394.3001, and look forward to hearing from you.

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Tired of Waiting to Work?

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The true cost of ransomware.

Ransomware is a major threat right now. According to Datto, experts in data backup and recovery, 80% of managed services providers (MSP) report ransomware attacks in 2018, and 35% report that some of their clients experienced multiple attacks per day. Clearly, ransomware is nothing to sneeze about.

Surprisingly, though, it’s not the ransomware attack, but the downtime afterward that accumulates the greatest cost to your company. Time, manpower, customer and vendor trust are all affected. This increases the importance of defending your company against this threat.

Here’s a quick recap of what happens in a ransomware attack. First, your network or computer is compromised. Next, an intruder plants an infection that encrypts your data files, until, theoretically, you pay the “ransom.” Until then, you are stuck. You can’t use your hardware, applications, or access any of your data. Any employees who connect to your network for their job can’t work. Even if the ransom is paid, the likelihood of getting your data back as it was is fairly small. During this attack, your network is fair game to the cyber criminals, and you’ll have no idea which files they will exploit. In all reality, you might be starting from scratch to get your company up and running again. And that takes time. If you aren’t protected and prepared, you could suffer weeks of lost revenue with a high cost to recover.

The best solution for defending your company against ransomware is a multi-layer approach. To keep your network safe, you must have the following:

  • A properly configured hardware firewall
  • An internet content filter
  • Email scanning prior to delivery
  • Antimalware/antivirus software on each workstation
  • Current operating system and third-party application updates
  • Consistent, reliable, and tested backups

Whether it’s a cyber attack, human error, or hardware failure, a multi-layer approach is a safeguard for when one layer is compromised.

Read more about ransomware!

Backups are one of the most important aspects. They are your insurance policy to eliminate a huge amount of downtime. If ransomware infects your network despite all of the safeguards in place, your current backups will ensure your data is retrievable. Consulting with your IT department or MSP to ensure your backups are properly configured will keep the ransomware from infecting the backups as well.

Unfortunately, many companies don’t have all of these measures in place, and when ransomware hits, things get chaotic. Downtime can turn a disaster into a catastrophe.

Studies show that downtime has twelve times the cost of the actual ransomware attack. To calculate downtime, you must take into consideration direct employee costs, productivity losses, halted company production, and even more importantly, how your clients are affected. Are they getting the products and services they paid for? How does that affect their trust in you?

To counteract these detrimental costs to your company, it is important to focus on prevention and prepare for the worst, so when something does happen, your downtime is minimal. Backup services provide disaster recovery as a service to ensure your peace of mind no matter what.

Downtime Contributors

Ransomware isn’t the only cause of downtime, though. There are other things potentially sapping your company’s productivity every day. Poor performance due to outdated hardware, slow internet speeds, and hardware failure. How much are these often-overlooked daily experiences costing your business?

Old Hardware – New Software

Continually spending money on hardware can be frustrating. Unfortunately, that is the reality in the tech world. One year, the latest technology comes out with a wow and a bang, and by the next year, that amazing equipment is already out of date. Within a few years, it’s obsolete and can no longer handle even the most basic software updates.

Older hardware simply wasn’t designed to handle the latest resource-intensive apps.

Because technology changes so quickly, Anderson Technologies recommends replacing computers every three to five years, depending on your specific requirements. Replacing 20% of your machines per year keeps all equipment on a five-year rotation and your budget reasonable.

How can this plan save your company from downtime?

By upgrading your hardware regularly, your systems stay efficient and fast. You won’t have to wait those 30 seconds for an app to load when it should load in a fraction of that time.

Thirty seconds of downtime doesn’t seem like much until you calculate the cost of those accumulated seconds lost every week.

Hardware Failure

Hardware failure, be it a laptop or server, will happen, and inevitably it will occur at the worst possible moment, like during your busiest time of year. Because of this, it’s best to be proactive. If you’re continually refreshing hardware, not just computers, at the rate of 20% per year, everything will be less likely to experience failure due to age.

Just like with ransomware, the best insurance policy against hardware failure is having up-to-date backups. Failed hardware can easily be replaced, but the information stored on it may be lost unless it’s backed up regularly. Your MSP can help you determine the frequency of backups and provide backup options to ensure that your company can get up and running as quickly as possible.

Slow Internet

This is probably the most common downtime-inducing culprit. There are several factors that may contribute to slow internet. The first step is to double check what speed you pay for with your internet provider and make sure it matches the speed you observe on your network. If the two speeds match, then you may need to invest in more speed.

If you’re paying for a higher grade of internet, but still experiencing slow speeds, there may be something misconfigured in your firewall or switch. If the firewall or switch are over five years old, they might need to be replaced. Older firewalls or switches are just like the old hardware we mentioned earlier – they can’t keep up with the traffic going through them and act like a bottle neck. For instance, your LAN switch may be running at 100 Mbps, but you’re paying the ISP for a 400 Mbps internet connection! Upgrading to a gigabit switch in this example is a simple, cost-effective solution. A properly configured and updated firewall and network switch will give each user the full speed the internet allows instead of bogging it down.

 

Would you like more information about saving your company from the threat of ransomware and downtime? Contact Anderson Technologies at 314.394.3001 or email us at info@andersontech.com.

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Office Depot Pays for False Malware Reports

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Do you trust your computer’s security to anonymous department store employees?

For many, the low price, high convenience, and ease of taking a home computer or laptop to a store like Office Depot or OfficeMax for maintenance or repair far outweighs any risk that would normally be associated with a stranger sifting through your files. A solid reputation for service makes a free scan from stores like Office Depot seem like the perfect solution to minor computer issues.

Unfortunately, between 2009 and 2016, one corporation violated the trust that comes with that reputation.

PC Health Check

During this time, Office Depot/OfficeMax utilized an application called PC Health Check and ran the program as part of its in-store computer services. The program’s free scan was marketed to check the “health” of PCs by scanning for malware. However, instead of actually checking the computer, if any one of four signs of probable malware were selected by the user, PC Health Check automatically reported the presence of malware and suggested the user pay for PC cleaning and repair.

PC Health Check was licensed to Office Depot and OfficeMax by Support.com, who received a percentage of each purchase. In late March, the FTC reported on their ruling that the companies will now be prohibited from making deceptive claims, and will pay $35 million in fines to the FTC, which the government will then distribute as refunds for fraudulently-triggered purchases.

Exposed!

Ars Technica reported that in November of 2016, this scam was exposed by Jesse Jones of news station KIRO 7 in Seattle. The investigations team ran six brand new computers through PC Health Check, and four of the six were flagged with symptoms of malware, even though the computers had never been connected to the internet. These same computers were found to be malware-free by an independent IT services provider!

After this report, Office Depot/OfficeMax pledged to take appropriate action and pay the agreed-upon fine. According to the FTC, that had not yet happened, though the PC Health Check program’s use was discontinued.

Read about Anderson Technologies’ approach to managed IT services here!

The Takeaway

This FTC ruling should serve as a warning to anyone soliciting unneeded maintenance and repair, but it’s also a warning for consumers. The security of your business machines and network shouldn’t be trusted to just anyone.

Ask questions. What evidence does the IT services expert have for the action they propose? Does the software they utilize for diagnostic purposes have a solid reputation? Have other individuals and businesses experienced positive results after working with the expert or team?

At Anderson Technologies, we recommend cultivating a relationship with your IT services provider over time. The best results come from managed services providers who interact with all levels of your network and computer systems. Of course, emergencies happen, often when we least expect it. In those cases, resist the temptation of a quick fix even from a brand name.

Could you be eligible for a refund from the FTC in this case? Click the Get Email Updates button on their announcement. Seeking an alternative to cookie-cutter IT support? Contact Anderson Technologies and see how we’ve earned our reputation over twenty-plus years.

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Small Business for Small Business: An IT Partnership

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If you’re a regular reader of our blog, you might recall that we’ve written about Anderson Technologies’ avoidance of canned, one-size-fits-all solutions for IT. As a small business that specializes in serving other small businesses, we know that different clients have different needs. What works best for a small local nonprofit organization might cause more problems than it fixes for a bustling assisted-living facility.

A St. Louis law firm experienced this firsthand when they were looking for a new IT services provider.

A Personalized Approach

Founded in 1986, this law firm began as a family-owned and -operated law firm. Attorney L. C., stuck to the firm’s guiding values and became the third partner in 2010.

The firm specializes in tax law, as well as business and commercial law and estate planning. “We do the type of planning that you find at a bigger firm,” L. C. says, “but we do it in a way that’s more approachable to the business owner.”

We can put ourselves in their shoes and say, ‘This is what I would do for my business if I were you.’ I think that’s a value that you don’t get everywhere.

Much like Anderson Technologies, this law firm focuses on serving local small businesses. “The types of planning we do for our clients you would traditionally find at larger firms, where most of the people you’re meeting with are partners but they don’t know what it takes to run the business,” L. C. says. “They can’t tell you those things that small business owners really do feel.”

L. C. continues: “Most of [our clients] are business owners, so we treat them the way we’d want to be treated—or better. We can put ourselves in their shoes and say, ‘This is what I would do for my business if I were you.’ I think that’s a value that you don’t get everywhere.”

Appealing For Change

L. C. recalls that when she first started at the law firm, the firm only had a server without backups to the cloud. If something went awry, their one-man, paid-by-the-hour IT provider would come and perform a quick patch job. Though this was a solution for any immediate emergencies, L. C. knew that they could benefit from investment in a new server backup system or better IT services altogether.

“Like any business owners, we don’t have time to deal with anything unnecessary in our day and we certainly don’t want to deal with technology that we don’t understand causing us issues,” L. C. says. “It’s crucial to have somebody who will always be available to answer those questions for you, because they do come up, even if you try to be proactive about it.” For L. C., moving to managed services seemed like the right option.

After transitioning to a different IT company who advertised remote service capabilities and made empty promises of new hardware,the law firm decided to reevaluate their needs and priorities concerning tech.  “Maybe we should look at that relationship,” L. C. remembers thinking of their previous IT partner.

The final straw happened when they moved the law firm to Office 365 and OneDrive. This enterprise-grade business software has numerous benefits, but to this law firm, without guidance from a managed services provider, it was more of a hindrance than an upgrade. “No one was telling us proactively ‘don’t put your computer to sleep’ or ‘don’t turn them off when you leave the office,’” L. C. says. This led to broken processes and incomplete data syncing that, even though the law firm had all new computers, were working less effectively than before.

I’m just going to get out a typewriter and write letters that way because it would be faster than having to deal with my computer.

Instead of getting to the root of the OneDrive syncing problem, the law firm’s previous IT company created a workaround that was inconsistent for the firm’s daily functions. Even less helpful was the company’s unapologetic attitude about the entire situation. “I didn’t get that they really gathered how annoying that glitch had been for us,” L. C. says. She remembers telling them “I’m just going to get out a typewriter and write letters that way because it would be faster than having to deal with my computer.”

Finally, L. C. met Anderson Technologies’ Principal Amy Anderson at a local networking event, and she decided to get a second opinion about their conundrum. “I’d heard her talk about their complimentary technology assessment,” L. C. says. After hearing about what the law firm had experienced, “[Amy] said, ‘That doesn’t make any sense. Office 365 and OneDrive are widely used. It must not be configured properly because there’s nothing unique about your situation that would cause it to work so poorly.’”

The red flags that came up in their 2018 assessment were things that small businesses usually don’t realize they should be looking for, such as the lack of an enterprise-grade firewall and wireless internet routers—which their previous managed services provider should have immediately remedied. Since the law firm deals with sensitive client data, ensuring they had a secure infrastructure was a top priority. And the issue with 365 had to be resolved in order to ensure their data was being replicated and shared internally properly.

After working with Anderson Technologies, L. C. says: “I trust that they’re not going to do something wrong and that they wouldn’t be telling me to buy something I didn’t need or that they wouldn’t do for themselves.”

Looking Ahead

Although L. C. is very enthusiastic about Anderson Technologies’ technical work, her real trust lies in Anderson Technologies’ accountability and responsibility to clients. Like the law firm, Anderson Technologies is a small business for small businesses, and this value assures that the client’s best interests always come first. “That’s kind of their approach,” L. C. says, “that if they were me, they’d do XYZ. . . . They’re going to actually do what they say they’re going to do.”

They’re going to actually do what they say they’re going to do.

Anderson Technologies continues to assist this law firm with onboarding new employees and installing hardware, including a high-speed scanner. Tax season is a very busy time for the firm, so it’s especially important that their computer infrastructure is now stable, ideally configured, reliable, and secure.

If your business IT needs some TLC (or even just a second opinion) contact Anderson Technologies today for a free consultation or call 314.394.3001.

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3 Key Ingredients of Our Managed Services “Secret Sauce”

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Over the past 20-plus years, Anderson Technologies has seen what works really well in the IT industry and what should be avoided. Simply completing a project is the bare minimum needed from your IT partner and shouldn’t be where managed services ends. Along with technical knowledge and skill, three key traits improve the relationship between client and IT team more than any other – excellent communication, logical systemization, and earned trust.

Technical Knowledge and Skill

One of the primary reasons you hire a managed services team is for their technical expertise and they should be capable of handling most any technical challenge you face. This really isn’t a secret! Additionally, dedication to maintaining a high level of technological skill should be key for any IT firm.

It can be difficult to determine if a managed services provider prioritizes technical skills, especially for a small business owner who isn’t familiar with the technology industry, but there are a few clues for the layperson. In addition to checking their history and references, information like certifications, education, and satisfied customers can reveal much about a managed services provider, even before they’re hired.

Fixing what’s broken is the fundamental requirement for any managed services team but when building the Anderson Technologies team, technical knowledge and skill is only the first ingredient we look for, and just the beginning of the “secret sauce” of IT services.

  1. Communication

A huge part of managed services is acting as an interpreter.

Every industry has its own language, whether it’s attorneys, dentists, nonprofits, finance, manufacturing, engineering, etc. It’s probably easy to remember an incident when communication was a barrier rather than a bridge. The best managed services providers can explain a problem and its solution in laymen’s terms as well as industry-specific vernacular, and easily translate between the two for clients. Poor communication between system administrator and client makes gathering accurate information and completing a project successfully unnecessarily difficult.

Clear communication is vital to not only providing clients the best service but helping them understand what needs to be done and why it is important.

Hand-in-hand with excellent communication are the systems and processes a managed services provider follows to deliver truly excellent service.

  1. Logical Systemization

A huge part of systemization is establishing ideal methodologies and creating processes and specialized documentation designed to produce consistent, repeatable results. Taking the time to develop these best practices and build a structure around them can be easily overlooked by busy entrepreneurs. Members of an effective managed services team should be enthusiastic about combining technical and communication skills into this vital process documentation. Keeping accurate and detailed records not only helps you, the client, but maintains a consistent level of service throughout the team and ensures requests are resolved quickly and correctly.

Systemization and record keeping aren’t incidental to the best managed IT services teams – it should be built into their approach from the beginning. Included in Anderson Technologies’ managed services plans are an extensive client onboarding process, regularly scheduled proactive maintenance designed to prevent breakdown, periodic audits of client infrastructure, systems for tracking project progress and responding to user support calls.

Process documentation and customized methodologies enhance the performance of managed services providers, and, even more important, the performance of the client.

  1. Earned Trust

For some IT firms, an individual’s technical ability trumps everything else. But the system and network administrators hired to interact with your most confidential data and technological vulnerabilities should be a team you can implicitly trust.

When building our managed services team, Anderson Technologies seeks those who align with our core values: Integrity, Respect, Dedication, Team-Oriented, Dependability, Initiative, and Client Focused.

These qualities are the most important ingredients in our “secret sauce.”  They define our organization’s character, which has been developing over two decades.  It is who we are as a team and what we represent and strive for every day as a company.

The best managed services firm goes beyond that skill to provide service on another level. Excellent communication, logical systemization, and earned trust combine to make the secret sauce that comprises an IT managed service that truly shines.

Anderson Technologies looks forward to sharing our “secret sauce” of managed IT services with you. If you need assistance, call 314.394.3001 or email info@andersontech.com.

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