|
July 2, 2009
Virtualization brings the potential to deliver dramatic savings in terms of server count, footprint, power consumption and cooling requirements for data centers. For all its advantages though, virtualization also brings some unique challenges. The power and cooling infrastructure – which may have been quite sufficient for pre-virtualization needs – could easily become inadequate when data center performance patterns are radically altered. The good news is that TIG can provide you with practical and affordable ways to address these challenges, plan for change and improve data center efficiency in the process.
July 1, 2009
Secure content management is a growing concern for most of our customers. Even after limiting the avenues which information can enter your network via proper perimeter security, there still exists the need to filter further as attackers continue to find ways to “piggyback” across valid communication channels. TIG has partnered with industry leaders that can enable you to take back control of the content that is going in and out of your network. More importantly, TIG’s experience in the area of security allows us to help you determine the best solution given your unique business needs.
June 29, 2009
Did you know that TIG also carries all the supplies you need to support your IT purchases? Printer toner, laptop cases, display mounts, earphones, headsets, racks, cables, data cartridges, memory cards, hard drives, USB drives, CDs, power supplies, keyboards, mice, digital cameras, scanners, projectors, printer paper, even fire safes and computer furniture! If it’s related to technology, TIG is your one-stop supplier.
June 26, 2009
If your company has locations in China, contact TIG to find out about easy, centralized purchasing of computer equipment and IT services for your overseas office. TIG provides a bilingual staff so that you can place orders for IT equipment in the US and have the equipment quickly and easily delivered and installed in your location in China. Trust TIG to help make managing IT overseas an easy, seamless process.
June 24, 2009
If you have a large software development project, consider TIG’s Dedicated Developer service. This option gives you one or more persons who work exclusively for you on your projects. This is ideal for large projects that require a software developer to fully understand your business methods and systems. You get to interview and choose the right person for the job. Select from our Microsoft-Certified Professionals with years of industry experience and equipped with appropriate infrastructure to support and improve your business processes. Choose from or group together your resources from our development centers in the US, Philippines and India.
June 22, 2009
High Performace computing is the “rocket science” of the computer industry, and TIG is an expert provider. TIG strives to provide High Performance Computing Clusters of the highest quality and performance, conforming to best industry practices, providing the customer feature rich HPCC solutions meeting our customers budgetary demands and constraints. TIG’s 14,000 square foot facility in Albuquerque, NM is home to our “Cluster Center of Excellence,” a 600 Square foot Cluster Integration Center with raised floor design and 15 ton Data Center AC cooling. This center can accommodate a 6 Rack, 384 node, 2,560 Core Cluster in the current room with area to expand as needed. 1U and Blade Test Clusters are maintained for development and customer “hands on” demonstrations, and the center is also equipped with Infiniband, Myrinet 10G and 10Gbe Ethernet High Performance Backbone. If you’re looking for true high performance computing, look to TIG to meet your needs no matter the size.
June 19, 2009
Did you know that with virtualization technology you can run multiple virtual machines on one computer? You can convert an existing PC or Mac into a virtual machine, or create a new virtual machine from scratch. Each virtual machine represents a complete PC, including the processor, memory, network connections and peripheral ports. Use your virtual machines to run Windows, Linux and a host of other operating systems side-by-side on the same computer. You can switch between operating systems instantly, share files between virtual machines with drag-and-drop functionality and access all the peripheral devices you rely on every day.
June 18, 2009
Penetration Testing, also known as ethical hacking, is conducted to confirm the true risk of vulnerabilities identified. Through exploitation of vulnerabilities, engineers will gain root or administrator-level access to the target systems and/or other trusted user account access. During this process, advanced tools and custom utilities will be used to maintain availability of the servers while gaining access to potential vulnerable services. After manual verification of the information tested, we provide a mitigation plan to secure the network and prevent the information from being accessed.
June 17, 2009
Keeping up with compliance requirements is a challenge for most companies. Many of the requirements are vague, with no clear definition on how to achieve compliance. Our services team is well versed with best practices across all vertical standards; and we hold most industry standard certifications. TIG’s security practice brings real world cost effective solutions that achieve compliance, but more importantly protect your business.
June 16, 2009
Laptop depot services can help your mobile employees stay mobile. As laptop computers are more integrated into employees’ work flow, the cost and aggravation of downtime becomes greater than ever before. Typically, laptop users are executives or field-based personnel essential to an organization’s mission who may not be able to perform their jobs without a functional system. Most organizations find that the disruption of their most important associates’ time is unacceptable. A laptop depot program utilizes unique, highly customized service offerings to support mobile users, minimize downtime and inconvenience. TIG has extensive experience running highly successful laptop depot programs. For more information about laptop depot services call 804-344-4481 x2944 or email info@tig.com.
June 12, 2009
Did you know that TIG's Contract Manufacturing division offers state-of-the-art manufacturing solutions? Located in Colorado, TIG’s contract manufacturing group has a long and successful history in providing turnkey manufacturing solutions to regional and national companies. Cost effective contract manufacturing solutions such as custom kitting and assembly of electronic, mechanical & computer products increase our clients’ flexibility and contribute to their overall profitability.
June 10, 2009
If you're looking for flexible financing to help balance your IT budget, call TIG to discuss leasing options. Leasing provides several benefits including a low, fixed monthly payment to preserve cash flow and make IT easier to budget, protection against obsolescence and tax advantages. And, as your computing needs change, leasing gives your company the ability to add-on or upgrade your technology when the need arise – you can refresh your assets without the time constraints associated with capital acquisitions.
June 8, 2009
Managed Services free up IT resources and help you to reduce costs without sacrificing quality. Your IT staff can focus on aligning with business goals without worrying about day-to-day operations and reactive support. Another benefit is that managed services are typically offered at a flat monthly fee. So when issues or incidences arise, they can be resolved easily and your fee will remain basically the same.
June 4, 2009
Besides keeping your business running on all cylinders, an architectured network gives your IT the justification it needs to validate IT expenditures within the business budget. You have a road map that shows how IT will align with the business. This is a huge benefit for your chief information officer. A solid network architecture gives you a foundation to capture your IT budget and expenditure needs. It gives you a vision of where IT is going and why, instead of just throwing money at IT blindly and ending up with things you don’t need. Your IT is streamlined, productive, efficient and, most importantly, cost-effective.
June 3, 2009
Did you know that TIG is an Apple Authorized Reseller? TIG can help you seamlessly integrate Macs and PCs into your company’s network and computing environment. Since TIG is vendor-agnostic, we can help you find the right technology for your organization while providing the expertise to make it all work together to bring you the best solution. So, if your looking for any Apple products and solutions for your company, give TIG a call.
June 1, 2009
Go green with solid ink. Over the 4 year life of a typical cartridge-based toner printer, the waste generated amounts to 450 lbs. A solid ink printer produces only 23 lbs. of waste! Solid ink printers use compact solid ink sticks with no cartridges. So when you run out of ink, there’s nothing left to throw away. And because the ink sticks are so small, there’s also less packaging to recycle. The only other replaceable unit is a maintenance roller. This lasts for tens of thousands of pages, so it only needs to be replaced a few times in the life of the printer.
May 29, 2009
Increase energy efficiency and go green with virtualization. Reduce the energy demands of your datacenter by right-sizing your IT infrastructure through server consolidation and dynamic management of computer capacity across a pool of servers. Green IT virtualization solutions deliver the resources your infrastructure needs and enable you to: - Reduce energy costs by 80%, - Power down servers without affecting applications or users, - Green your datacenter while decreasing costs and improving service levels.
May 27, 2009
TIG can help your company to streamline your purchasing processes by using e-commerce integration. Companies can work with IT to select preconfigured bundles to ensure users get everything they need when making a purchase. For example, along with a printer, company personnel will need certain company-approved warranties, toner, color cartridges, printer stand, etc. Or with a laptop, a bundle may include USB storage, a docking station, additional memory, etc. These bundles ensure employees get all they need in a single order. E-commerce integration addresses several pain points, allowing for better companywide systems and processes. It becomes easier for companies to: provide timely quality support to users, monitor and control spending, reduce purchasing time, streamline processes, and make online comparisons for features and price
May 26, 2009
One of the ways TIG is helping customers become more productive is through comprehensive document management solutions, reducing costs and improving material and energy efficiency. For example, the annual energy required to provide users with copy, print, fax and scan capabilities can be cut in half by combining the functions of multiple products into one machine.
May 20, 2009
Data Loss Prevention
If you read the Gartner reports or the Forrester waves you'll find that Data Loss Prevention (DLP) is a very hot topic, even in the economic downturn. There are a pile of vendors clamoring to get a piece of the DLP pie. McAfee, Trend, Websense, Symantec, and several others are actively placing product.
Two Major Types
The two major plays are either end-point or network based DLP. In an end-point play file shares and systems can be scoured to identify potential leak points. This can be done via a centralized scanning engine that reaches out to the end-point, or can also be an agent-based solution. With a network-based tool the device generally hangs off a span or tap port and listens for violations traversing the wire. This is great technology to mitigate DLP issues which traverse border firewalls/devices.
McAfee has both a network & an endpoint solution with their two acquisitions. One thing that stands out about the McAfee solution is having both the end-point agent and a network-based component. The benefit to the agent solution is that the DLP solution moves wherever the device goes. If sensitive data is brought on a laptop to a hotel and an attempt is made to export the data security restrictions remain in tact. With non-agent technology this nefarious activity would go unnoticed.
Due Diligence & Due Care
Data Loss Prevention provides visibility into traffic like no other technology has in the past. Scouring network streams and hard disks for sensitive information being improperly stored or transmitted has previously been very difficult. Data can also be tagged and security controls can be applied to limit the ways in which the data can be used. Now organization's have gained the ability to understand what is flowing through their network pipes.
With transparency bring a steward's/custodian's due diligence & due care. Due diligence is the act of doing what any prudent steward or custodian would do. Due care is once issues have been identified that response is appropriate. Should you decide to purchase DLP technology be ready to see a lot of new issues and be prepared to respond appropriately. Installing one of these devices generally causes several gasps as people begin to identify the vast amount of sensitive information is stored and transmitted inappropriately. Make sure to plan the integration to include initial incident plans- work with TIG bring the experience and to ensure smooth implementation.
May 19, 2009
What are some of the benefits of Unified Communications?
- Better collaboration internally; leveraging things like an internal audio/videoconferencing bridge versus using an expensive, external service for this application
- Better collaboration with vendors
- Better and faster communications using features like instant messaging and integration with corporate directories
- Lower cost in hardware and energy requirements (going green) if all of the various applications can reside on less servers, which allows a single server to support IP telephony, IP messaging, IP conferencing, email and many other business applications
May 18, 2009
If you ask someone what Unified Communications is, you’ll likely hear a broad range of answers — from voice mail and email integration to instant messaging to video capabilities. But unified communications is really about application enablement. Using unified communications gives you the power to enable business applications to truly change the way your company does business. One example of unified communications is the ability to have an inventory application automatically call a vendor and let it know that a supply of stock is low and to send new stock. But, in order to be able to do this, different technologies need to be able to interact, which is where standards become important and where having a nonproprietary, open architecture is key.
May 15, 2009
If your company is expanding in China, TIG can help you ensure fast and efficient IT setup and maintenance for new office sites. TIG China is headquartered in Shanghai and covers top-tier cities. With TIG you can maintain the same standard of IT service across continents. Our staff in China and the US can interface directly with your staff in the US, making communication regarding your china office technology easy. Trust TIG as your full-service computer systems integration in the US and in China. For further information email chinainfo@tig.com or contact your local TIG sales representative.
May 14, 2009
Data security begins with a security program that defines a data classification policy. Data classification is not a new practice; it has been used by our government and others for many years. However, classifying data and ensuring that it is stored in the appropriate storage container with the appropriate security and access control policies can be difficult to implement and maintain. It is a necessary process, and today you must protect your data against not only outside threats but internal threats as well. Making sure that your employees only have access to data that they need to have is critical. Internal theft of data that happens every day is obviously the most difficult attack vector to mitigate. Access control must be enforced and monitored on a regular basis to be effective.
May 11, 2009
There are various types of assessments that TIG offers, some of which include:
- File system assessments. These look at the files on your servers and disk storage devices to determine the files’ ages, sizes, types (.doc, .pdf, .xls, etc.), last access dates, last modified dates, etc.
- Network assessments. These identify IP addresses, equipment, subnets, routing, etc.
- Virtualization assessment. This looks at your stand-alone Intel servers running Windows, LINUX or Solaris to determine your current environment in order to model a virtualized environment.
- SAN assessment. This looks at the physical disk, tape and switches that create a storage area network to determine if best practices are being followed regarding data placement, zones on the switches, whether or not there are ‘hot spots’ being created by incorrect load balancing, etc.
A trained engineer knows the software that aids in compiling the data used in assessments. Additionally, from years of experience in a variety of environments and familiarity with many vendors’ equipment, a trained engineer can sift through the mountain of data and produce a comprehensive, coherent and complete report.
Not using an experienced and trained engineer can result in not having the assessment tools collecting the correct data, or for that matter, you may not get the tool to collect data at all. Further, a skilled engineer pulls out the relevant data from the inconsequential. For an assessment to be effective, the data collection tools run for an extended period of time, from two to four weeks. That generates a lot of information and, without the know-how, you could be searching for a very long time to find what you’re looking for.
May 8, 2009
TIG understands that business continuity is a key part of your IT strategy. In a world where businesses need to operate 24 hours a day the disruption of IT services can be fatal to a business. TIG can work with you to implement virtualization products which give you the means to eliminate planned downtime, deliver high availability, and be better prepared for disaster recovery.
May 7, 2009
TIG offers computer recycling services that provide the logistics and disposal capabilities to recover and dispose of owned and/or leased computer equipment in a secure and environmentally safe way. Along with removing identifying tags and labels, the hard drive of each system is overwritten or physically destroyed to help protect the security of your data. We can help you to comply with legislation including HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, FACT Act, and EPA when disposing of your old equipment.
May 6, 2009
Three key topics when securing VMware environments:
Virtualization provides tremendous potential to optimize power, cooling, and data centers operations. Benefits are high, and so are the risks. Co-mingling production & non-production servers, ensuring network-based countermeasures are still functioning as intended, and provisioning are just a few of the issues which need to be addressed during planning, acquisition, and deployment of virtual systems and architectures.
1- Production Vs. Development Environments
If your organization develops, in-house or outsourced, custom applications you may have several environments used to test and promote code to production operations. Quality Assurance (QA), Development (DEV), User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and Integration are a few of the environments we find in many organizations. Both from an audit and control perspective, and that of resource utilization, the controls surrounding production systems are often greatly different than those protecting the lower environments. This facilitates a smaller set of in-scope systems for the auditor. This also means not as many countermeasures need to be purchased, and maintained- costs are therefore reduced.
Some organizations look to consolidate these various environments within the same hypervisor. While this looks great architecturally, it does not bide well for the auditor looking to determine scope. Remember the auditor may have limited technical depth. Describing why systems sharing the same hardware, and using Virtual LANs (VLANs) for segmentation is often an uphill battle for the technical challenged. Equally, the auditors with significant technical background may pose that a hypervisor does not provide adequate segmentation between environments. Based on these burdens I generally recommend a different hypervisor for production versus non-production systems. The risk of expanding the audit versus purchasing another physical machine generally makes it prudent to clearly segment the lower environments.
2- Network-Based Countermeasures
Many network based countermeasures are intended to monitor network traffic to evaluate content for potential issues. Often Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS), Data Loss Prevention (DLP), and Content Filtering software are architected based on the premise the tool will be able to see all traffic going between two points. Should connections take place between virtualized systems these will go un-noticed and bypass the network-based countermeasures. If you are using these types of countermeasures make sure you have compensating controls within the virtual environment to maintain the level of control intended.
3- Migrating storage? Use the migration to reduce risk
Moving, or migrating SAN storage is a common activity combined with virtualization- it makes sense. As you migrate the terabytes of data, you will have a moment in time where you speculate about the amount of duplicate, erroneous, useless, and improperly stored data you are migrating. Regulations are intensifying, E-Discovery is on the rise, and budgets are tightening. Reduce cost & risk during the project. Data Loss Prevention and de-duplication are two areas where prudent executives dig-in to drive additional value from the budget.
Virtualization is a great technology. I am a huge proponent, and have even created open-source virtualized solutions to help organizations on a limited budget. The benefits are obvious- the destination is clear. Make sure to prudently spend and mitigate cost during this project. Many managers want to depict their prudent stewardship of organizational assets- leverage virtualization combined with a solid architecture to ensure success and maximize results from your budgeted efforts.
May 1, 2009
As a small business you probably have limited money to spend on IT support.
However, if you are relying on ad hoc support from an ad-hoc one person operation you may be exposed to greater losses. In the event that your systems go down – what is the cost of extended downtime? What if you didn’t have email for a few days? What if you lost all your old email? All your old data? Are you subject to compliance issues like PCI ?- (you are if you take credit cards). When was the last time someone tested one of your backups? We have affordable options for all size businesses that can help protect you before something goes wrong and you have to pay a lot more to try and put your business together again
April 30, 2009
Interested in laptop depot repair solutions?
The first solution is a rapid repair depot, typically serving a geographically concentrated group of users, such as a school system that has issued laptops to the students. TIG can visit the sites on a consistent schedule and bring the units to a central facility stocked with parts and staffed by trained technicians who perform an immediate repair, image the systems, if necessary, and return them back to the site.
The other depot solution is designed to support a geographically dispersed work force, such as salespeople or claims adjusters. This is the ‘advance exchange’ depot model. The service features a pool of ‘hot spares,’ which are preconfigured with the organization’s standard software image and can be immediately deployed to a remote user via overnight express freight. Generally, any request received by 5 p.m. will be delivered to the end user by the next business morning (Saturday delivery is also available). The user then transfers personal data from the faulty system, if usable, or from a backup and returns the defective system to the depot in the pre-addressed return carton via a prepaid return airbill.The typical turnaround time is about 12 business hours. The cost, in most cases, is covered by the manufacturer’s warranty, so this becomes a no-cost service to the client.
April 28, 2009
The news is going crazy with the recent outbreak of the Swine Flu virus. Many organizations have worked pandemics into their Incident Response plans in preparation for outbreaks just like what may occur with this flu. Here are 5 steps to ensure your organization is taking to prepare:
1. Governance: When an incident occurs is not the time to be making decisions with regards to plans, escalations, roles, and responsibilities. Ensure that your governance clearly defines the participants necessary to manage the incident.
2. Ensure Bandwidth for Incident Response: If the plan includes employees remotely accessing the organization ensure adequate bandwidth is in place. As the types of traffic and network flows change ensure adequate bandwidth is in place.
3. Quickly Enabling Remote Access: Many organizations are hesitant to enable remote access for all employees. If a mass enabling is necessary make sure policies and procedures document how this can occur expediently.
4. Communication is Key: Ensure appropriate capabilities to communicate to employees, suppliers, and vendors are in place. To ensure minimal business impact plan for potential telephone circuits being overloaded, potential email outages, etc.. Having multiple communications channels that can broadcast to a large group is prudent.
5. Post Mortem: After any incident it is critical to discuss lessons-learned. The greatest plans often falter due to the lack of visibility into issues until they happen. Make sure you can "see the forest through the trees" by testing your Incident Response plans at least yearly.
April 27, 2009
TIG Managed Services is able to leverage a wide range of expertise to provide holistic management solutions. Security, Storage, Virtualization, Servers, Desktop, Infrastructure, Unified Communications – TIG has dedicated practices focused on all of these areas and thus we are able to put together management solutions that can support the areas of your data center where you don’t have the resources and can’t afford to add them.
April 24, 2009
Assessing your security program: What’s most important for executives to understand is that in order for their security program to get better it needs to be measured on a regular basis. Good metrics help executives make decisions based on facts instead of pain. Security posture is measured through security assessments and ethical hacking activities that TIG can provide. These assessments provide you with a snapshot in time of what your security posture looks like today and also shows what would happen if your company were under a deliberate attack. Assessments are critical to understanding what needs to be fixed and pinpointing where to spend valuable time, money and resources.
April 23, 2009
Stop the reactive IT firefighting and mature into a proactive IT Support model. Tired of being woken up in the middle of the night or having to deal with the fallout when a key server goes down? By utilizing our proactive monitoring and management services we can help you avoid unplanned downtime by identifying problems before they hit critical state. Our service also provides detailed reporting so that when someone says “the XYZ server is ALWAYS going down” you can show them the real uptime statistics.
April 22, 2009
New printer and toner technology can help your company go green. Ask your TIG rep about Solid Ink Technology, which uses unique ink formulations that are solid blocks of ink at room temperature. During the printing process these sticks are melted and image transfer happens in a single pass. This simplified process requires fewer supply items – as much as 90% less by weight – than a comparable laser printer, reducing the potential for waste.
April 21, 2009
Get rid of monotonous, mundane management tasks in supporting your IT infrastructure to free up time for your staff to focus on IT strategic projects. By utilizing TIG Managed Services we can efficiently manage everything from the desktop to the NOC. This approach not only makes better use of your limited resources but keeps them motivated by the opportunity to work with new technologies and make a difference in your organization’s ability to execute and be competitive in your industry.
April 20, 2009
What is TIGER? TIGER stands for TIG Enterprise Roadmap, which is an integrated approach to providing clients with IT solutions that meet the needs of their entire organization. TIGER takes a holistic approach to providing clients a comprehensive view of their IT needs and offers comprehensive, thorough integrated solutions. TIG practice areas such as security, networking, enterprise storage and unified communications are all tied together by the integrated solution that must be created for the customer. By using the TIGER approach, TIG provides solutions to customers that align all requirements of the organization for the most effective standards-based IT design, deployment and operations.
April 17, 2009
In virtualization, most people are concerned with processor speed and dual core versus quad core. But, the No. 1 area of concern when you virtualize is input/output (I/O). The No. 2 area of concern is RAM, and No. 3 is storage. This sometimes surprises people, but even in a virtualized world, when you look at servers and the utilization of processors, it is extremely low utilization due to proper load balancing and the ability to share resources in a virtual cluster. A virtualization solution is never just one piece. Your technology provider should touch everything, from data centers to applications to networks to storage.
April 16, 2009
Big solutions for small budgets.
If your company’s size does not justify a fulltime IT professional, TIG has the answer for you. Our My IT Manager program can be tailored to your specific needs. We offer numerous individual services that stand on their own or can be combined to meet multiple needs. This program can also be used to augment your current IT staff, taking on the burden of routine maintenance and support, freeing them up to work on strategic IT project.
April 15, 2009
What is a print management solution, and how would a company implement one?
A print management solution is a key part of a consolidation plan. TIG can work together with you to determine exactly what printing devices you need and why and when you’re going to get them. As part of this process you should consider a print management solution. The first step in a print management solution is to identify where your biggest printing problems are, and then do what is necessary to eliminate those pain points.
TIG will conduct a comprehensive assessment to identify just how much you are spending — and wasting — on printing, including costs for devices, cartridges, toner ,maintenance and energy. Then, recommendations are made to help you find the solution that’s best for you. There are many ways to improve printing efficiencies. Sometimes, it’s as simple as a balance deployment plan, moving your current devices into areas where they will be better utilized. Another easy improvement is streamlining printer locations, reducing document flow or switching from costly inkjet printers to laser devices. Usually, it will take time to change a company’s printing culture. The net result, however, will be increased productivity, less waste, less maintenance, streamlined supplies purchasing and lower overall costs.
|