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| newsletter@quarkit.com.au | www.quarkit.com.au | issue 5 | february 2005 |
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Update Zone |
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Maintenance Contracts |
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What is Maintenance? As we all unfortunately know, computers break down. They normally choose their moments well and break down when we need them most. Murphy truly was an optimist. There are two ways we can handle this (apart from throwing them out the window, that is). The first way is known as "break fix" which means, basically, that we are all running around putting out scrub fires and hoping that we can keep up with things as they fail. As you can probably guess, we're not big fans of this as it means that you are always in a reactive situation, which generally isn't good for business (neither yours nor ours). The other way to deal with this situation is through a scheduled, proactive method where your network is constantly being monitored and possible issues are being dealt with before they become showstoppers. Break/Fix The least desirable form of maintenance is where a reaction is made to a situation that just reached critical. This situation (failed computer, failed backup, virus infection, and so on) is now causing you lost money - a staff member cannot do their work because a computer has failed, a billing cycle is late because the bookkeeper's computer became infected by a virus, your Internet connection has been temporarily disabled because your email server started sending massive quantities of spam, your server crashed because its hard drive filled up and now no-one has access to any of their data. All of these things can be detected and a plan made to avoid issues during a regular maintenance program, but are next to impossible to prevent from happening if you don't have a proactive maintenance plan. Nobody likes chasing their tail over and over. Nobody likes faulty or unreliable IT, and nobody really gains anything when a business fails because of something that could easily have been prevented, or at least planned for. These failures cost money and time, and add to the frustration of running a business. We'd rather reduce your frustration and have your IT infrastructure running smoothly to aid you carrying on your business. Regular Maintenance A much better way to ensure that your IT works as expected is to implement a regular maintenance program that is designed to not only ensure that your IT is running optimally now, but to ensure that it runs optimally in the future. There are a number of things that can be performed during regular maintenance that will assist your network to remain a valuable part of your business including applying the latest Windows and software patches, ensuring that your backups are reliable and data can be restored when needed, ensuring that your UPS batteries are functional, performing physical maintenance on computers and equipment to keep out dust and other contaminants, performing Server maintenance to ensure operation is within acceptable limits, and so on. |
Welcome to the Real World One thing that needs to be understood by all parties is that regular maintenance will not detect all possible causes of system failures, nor can it prolong the lifetime of your IT beyond a certain point. Regular maintenance can predict a number of things, such as the need for more RAM in certain computers, larger hard drives, larger backup devices, replacement batteries in a UPS, better spam protection, antivirus updates, and things like this. Regular maintenance can also predict some failures in computers and other devices, but there's no way that regular maintenance can predict everything - it cannot, for instance, predict whether a power supply in a computer will fail due to a power surge, nor can it predict when a particularly malicious virus will bypass your antivirus protection and infect your computers. Nothing is totally infallible and we do not claim that a regular maintenance program will solve all your woes nor make your mortgage payments for you. Regular maintenance can help to extend the life of your computers and other devices by keeping them within recommended operating conditions, but it cannot make a Pentium 90 remain useful until 2006. :) Maintenance Contracts Quark IT offers a number of levels of maintenance contracts that may be suitable to your business. We can start with a simple Patch Management contract where operating system and major applications are patched regularly to ensure they remain secure and stable, and then other options can be added to this to include backup and restore maintenance, physical maintenance, workstation maintenance, help desk support, and other options. A number of the services we can provide can also be performed remotely, allowing us to schedule the maintenance so it impacts your business operations as minimally as possible. Of course, sometimes remote management isn't possible or desired, and in these situations we can come onsite during your quieter times to perform these maintenance tasks. There are obviously also times when remote management will not be the best way to apply certain patches - especially those that require critical servers or other devices to be rebooted, and we will schedule time to perform these updates onsite. Remote Maintenance There are a number of secured options that Quark IT can employ to perform remote maintenance ranging from Terminal Server and RDP to a secured VPN connection. All of these methods are implemented with the same standard of security you have come to expect with us - ensuring that no unauthorised users can breach this connection. Feel free to contact Quark IT to discuss general maintenance and Maintenance Contract options to suit your needs. |
Spyware Update |
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Why AntiSpyware? Many of the reasons that spyware is such a burden on modern computing are related to not only poor operating system design, but also poor application design. Many applications require that the end user be given administrator rights to the computer when in reality, administrator rights should only be needed when performing, well, uummm, administrative tasks on the computer. By taking advantage of these "elevated user rights", Spyware can infiltrate many Windows systems from Windows 98 to Windows XP SP2 - and even your servers - and create havoc with not only your computing experience, but also the security of your data. Windows XP SP2 is inherently less likely to be affected by much of the spyware currently in existence, but that does not mean that spyware authors will not write malicious programs to take advantage of weaknesses detected in Windows XP SP2 in the future. Having Windows XP SP2 on all of your desktops is a very good start. It is far from the end of your worries, though. Antispyware is one layer in your security system. It is needed alongside antivirus, antitrojan, a firewall, regular patch updates, physical security, backups and a good dose of common sense. |
Microsoft AntiSpyware? Microsoft recently looked at the various antispyware offerings, and decided that it liked Giant Company Software's "Giant AntiSpyware" so much, it bought the company. We are Borg. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. Microsoft AntiSpyware is currently released as a free "Beta" product that expires on 31 July 2005, with no information as to its projected price (if any) nor when the final release will be made available. Windows Secrets reports that the best that you can expect from any single antispyware application is 63% from Giant AntiSpyware (now Microsoft AntiSpyware). We have been testing Microsoft AntiSpyware on a number of machines in a number of situations, and have agreed that it is very good at what it does - detecting and cleaning spyware. By using Microsoft AntiSpyware in combination with Webroot Spy Sweeper, you can expect to detect and remove about 70% of current spyware. This is still far lower than we would like to see, but it is a start. If only Microsoft AntiSpyware were as good at catching spyware as NOD32 is at catching viruses - NOD32 has just received its 30th VB100% award.
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Small Business Server 2003 Features: Exchange 2003 Server |
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Microsoft’s Windows Small Business Server 2003 is built upon the solid base of Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and incorporates Exchange Server 2003. Exchange Server 2003 is a very mature
email and collaboration server that is as suitable to a Small Business as it is to a large Enterprise. Exchange Server 2003 Standard Edition Besides being an Enterprise Level e-mail server, Exchange Server 2003 also offers may more features, some of which we will cover below. Exchange Server requires Outlook 2003 to take advantage of the full feature set, the good news is that every Exchange Client Access Licence (CAL) and Windows SBS 2003 CAL includes an Outlook 2003 licence. Exchange Server collaboration features help you to share information quickly and efficiently. Some of these features are:
These features enable one person to easily schedule an appointment for multiple people based on the times they are available according to their shared calendars, and allow the entire business to use a single address list, instead of an individual, unmanaged and unsynchronised list per person. Other key features of Exchange Server 2003 are:
Outlook Web Access will be covered in more detail in a future article. Outlook Web Access in Exchange Server 2003 is almost full featured enough that many users will not ever need to access a full Outlook client. Sending and receiving faxes with SBS 2003 will also be covered in more detail in a future article. |
Security in Exchange Server 2003 has also undergone a major redesign, some of the improvements are:
Microsoft has undergone a change of heart with regard to security of late. The Windows 2003 and Windows XP range of products is where this is starting to be noticed. Windows XP SP2 is a major leap ahead for desktop security, however there is further to go. The security that has been implemented in Windows Server 2003 and especially Exchange Server 2003 enables these products to be deployed without needing to spend many, many hours securing the products against external attackers. Reliability has also been vastly improved over previous versions. Some of the improvements are:
As you can clearly see Exchange Server 2003 lets you achieve a level of functionality and control previously unheard of for small to medium sized businesses and with Small Business Server 2003 it is now affordable. For the first time you can be in full control over your company's messaging needs without having to rely on your ISP. For example you could set up a new e-mail address in seconds that relates to a current project and once the project concludes disable the e-mail address.
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Next Month |
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Microsoft Security Summit This year's Summit will include topics as diverse as "Fighting SPAM", "Defending against Malicious Software" and "Tools for Quality Code". We'll focus on practical skills, processes and technology that can help with your day-to-day security challenges. Best of all it's complimentary! So you can come all day or just to the sessions in the agenda which interest you. Places are strictly limited and filling fast so click here and register today. |
Wireless Networking and SBS 2003: SharePoint Wireless networking is still all the rage. We will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of WiFi as well as the various methods of securing wireless traffic and the requirements these place on your network architecture. We also continue our SBS 2003 series with a look at Microsoft SharePoint Services and the value that its intranet functionality can provide. |
Signing off |
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| Well, finally, this newsletter is now complete. We've had a really busy past couple of months, including assisting with the office relocation of a number of our clients.
If you do need to move office, let us know well in advance as we can take care of your Internet connectivity, server reconfiguration and ensuring all your IT equipment makes it to the new office
in an orderly fashion. Quark IT has just established a dedicated server located in the USA for our website hosting requirements. We have a colleague we work closely with who can design or redesign your website and then we can host that on our server at affordable rates, or with your current hosting provider. Also, something to note is that Eset is discontinuing antivirus database definition updates for NOD32 Version 1. This isn't a real issue as anyone with a current NOD32 license can easily upgrade to NOD32 Version 2 (for free - included in the license). Also, a recent NOD32 antivirus database update increased the number of known malware (viruses, trojans, and so on) by over 1300 - that's an increase of 1300 malicious applications in one day! | |
