It seems like wireless networks are everywhere these days. If you don't have one it's likely you probably want one and if you do have one you are probably concerned with either its reliability, its security or its speed. Many people have regular issues with their wifi networks and aren't even aware that these issues could be fixed. We've had clients express disbelief that wireless connections weren't supposed to drop connections regularly or that rebooting a router daily wasn't normal.

The reality is that stability, security and speed from a wireless network is possible with the right equipment and right configuration. Speaking about wireless security, many people are unaware that older WEP security can be cracked in less than a minute using common software. If you have old equipment or you've never changed the default settings you are a prime target for people looking to do malicious activities. If someone uses your connections for illegal activities you could be the one paying the price.

We provide support for both new and existing networks, both wired and wireless, and can help you get the most out of your investment.

There may be no greater current issue than security. Every day more and more companies are being hacked and exposed. Nearly every day on the news you hear about a major business somewhere being hacked with customer details and private data being stolen. One example is Sony's immense Playstation Network which was offline for weeks and exposed over 75 million people's personal information to anyone willing to buy it from the hackers. Besides the obvious downtime and poor publicity, Sony will be fighting lawsuits from individuals for years to come.

And then there's the real threat: viruses and spyware. There's an entire industry in place to plant data on your computer so that information can be stolen and your desktop is flooded with advertising. This malware can turn your brand new computer into a zombie under someone else's control, flooding your internet bandwidth with garbage data and bringing everything to a crawl.

We offer comprehensive security solutions to protect from both the inside and the outside. We continue to test and update them on a regular basis because hackers never stop and old security is almost as non-effective as no security at all.

Servers are the heart of every network. They are the most critical point of the entire system. As such, they need to be constantly monitored for hardware issues, software issues, virus protection, backup errors and numerous other things. The majority of small businesses we've dealt with usually have 1 or 2 servers that are sitting in some back room somewhere and are only looked at when they lock up or otherwise need to be rebooted. Very rarely does anyone actually monitor the logs and reports and check to make sure everything is running peachy.

The problem is that when they go down it's generally too late for anything except disaster recovery. Unfortunately, a number of our clients have become our clients when they needed someone to come in and try to recover a server that was dead. This is stressful for both the business owners and us since it's something that can be avoided.

We strongly urge that if you haven't had anyone look at your servers recently, you get someone to check for any small problems that could lead to major problems. Not everything dies with a catastrophe boom. Sometimes it's a slow death that can be prevented.

The Internet, since it's infancy, has always been promoted as a way to increase employee productivity by giving them all these new and wonderful options to get their job done quicker. Unfortunately, along with all those new options also came numerous ways to successfully waste time online. Many employees treat company PCs just like their home PC. They download games & music, install insecure software, waste time on social websites and numerous other things. While it's good to give employees a certain amount of freedom, too much of it can cause a lot of issues as we discussed above. There is also the major issue of bandwidth loss that is attributable to these types of things. A 1.5Mbit DSL/T1 line can be completely useless if even 15 people are streaming Internet radio.

There are many solutions for this, from firewalls to content filters to simply locking down the PCs from certain things. However, this is still an ongoing process since new programs come out every day that attempt to help users get around the security protocols.

We can provide many solutions to help you maximize network efficiency and increase employee productivity.

The unfortunate reality is that most small/medium businesses don't have a disaster recovery plan in place. They know they have some sort of backup system, whether it's tape or otherwise, but very few of them are actually sure it works. Maybe you diligently replace the tapes every day, perhaps even going as far as checking the status screen to make sure it says 'successful'.

But when was the last time you tried to restore something off of tape? They can often fail and you wouldn't even know it. And what do you do with the tapes each day? Do you take them off-site? Do you put them in a safe? Do you keep any single-use long-term backups in case you need to restore documents from 2 years ago? If your backup actually works, is it backing up everything you need?

We can offer answers to all of these questions and offer a highly managed disaster recovery system so that you can keep your mind on business at hand without worrying about future "what-ifs."

Smartphones and laptops have made working on the go quite easy but many corporate networks aren't configured to support remote users. Maybe you can get your email on the road but what about accessing your files? Can you login to your work computer from home? The better question is: can anyone else login to your computer because of poor security?

Being able to work remotely offers a major increase in productivity but also brings a major increase in potential security issues. Once you open your network up for one person how do you stop anyone else from getting in? Proper configuration is a must for mobile computing to allow access to those who need it and keep out the people who don't.

Whether you're interested in getting a telecommuting-friendly network in place or you just need support on the one you already have, we can help. There are many options available and we can put a secure solution in place which will allow you to work from anywhere.