CCC Technologies Ask the Expert

  By: Yesenia Villagran, Project Manager Hosted Fax is a solution that we have been rolling out to many of our customers as it’s incredibly easy to send and receive faxes either using a web-based portal, or through your email, and is much more cost-effective than traditional POTS lines. This solution can work for you regardless of whether you’re using a hosted, on-premise, or even a competitor’s voice product. Existing phone numbers can be ported into our Hosted Fax solution, and new numbers can be requested as well. Below are the instructions on how to use the Hosted Fax solution via the portal or Outlook: User Login: Using your Browser type in the URL address below. URL: http://portal.myhostedfax.com Your username and password will be sent to you in an e-mail. The e-mail will look like this below. Hello, Please find your fax account login credentials below: Username: NEW USER Password: ^wxTir8rg2z(s You will need to provide these credentials...

By: Danny Poull, V.P. Network Operations Center Running business continuity and disaster recovery scenarios and exercises are nothing new to the CIO. It can be easy to get overwhelmed with these exercises, and one should break it down and take it one step at a time. Following this rough guideline below, you will be able to run the exercise for your own company, and also get you the data to support your conversation with management.  At the end of the day, you need to be to realistic with management, so they understand the risk and recovery before an emergency and not after. The first place you want to start is with RTO (Recovery Time Objective). The best way to figure this out, is to break down IT by application or system. For example, one organization might have Office365 for email, a Fileshare with Quickbooks, a CRM for sales, and a SQL application for production/operations. You need to look at the items individually. Application RTO Office365...

The CCC Process Through the Eyes of a Project Manager Kevin Jermyn, Sr. Project Manager Originally shared June 12, 2018 CCC Technologies successful upgrades/Migrations in the Avaya CM world all start with developing a project plan with emphasis on minimum risk to customer and end user. To start, CCC Account Executives and Design Engineers engage the Project Manager, Lead Engineer, and the VP of operations once the design and customer needs are realized and developed.  We collaborate with design changes to maximize flexibility and minimize risk, which allows for less down time for the customer.  Most designs will end up with new equipment or the customer moving to a virtual environment; some with a mix of both. Once a project is in house, the PM and Engineer discuss deploying the solution. We look at multiple sites or single sites with the same savvy. Whether new servers or virtual servers, the key is to stand up the new servers/gateways with the existing env...

https://www.clicktime.com/blog/5-things-your-it-disaster-recovery-plan-should-cover/

Be Proactive: How to Avoid Potential Network Failures For small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), an IT network failure can be devastating because they don't have the resources of large corporations to bounce back from such disasters. Preparation against such devastation may be the only course for them to avoid failure and survive with the least damage if failure occurs. SMBs must be proactive in recognizing the eventuality of a cyber attack or human error that can cause data loss and disrupt business continuity. This is what needs to be done to help prevent a potential failure. Be prepared: Being proactive is an essential step for preparation against a disaster. There are two ways to determine how to best prepare to prevent potential failure of your infrastructure. First, you need to identify the weaknesses throughout your systems, and second, determine how you are going to eliminate those weaknesses and protect your network. Identify the weaknesses: ...

It is Heaven! Using the Cloud to Challenge Big Business Has anyone suggested you begin moving your business to the cloud? Cloud data storage or cloud computing? What is this, anyhow? And isn't it something for huge companies? In the last post we explained what cloud computing is. Simply put, it is the offsite storage of your data, and perhaps even the software packages you use. The primary benefit is pretty straightforward. Somebody else pays for all the hardware and support costs needed to store your data. You pack up all your own servers, wiring, etc. and take them to the recycling center, and save money. But is that all it is? There is a much stronger case for a small business to incorporate the cloud in their business model. The cloud allows you to become competitive with the big players in your industry. The traditional issue holding back small business: they do not have the capital to create the infrastructure to compete with large firms. They are...

5 Ways SMBs Can Save Money on Security Small-to-medium sized businesses and large enterprises may seem worlds apart, but they face many of the same cyber-security threats. In fact, in recent years, cyber-criminals have increasingly targeted SMBs. This is because it’s widely known that SMBs have a smaller budget, and less in-house expertise, to devote to protection. Thankfully, there are several things SMBs can do today to get more from even the most limited security budget. And, no, we aren’t talking about cutting corners. Far too often, SMBs cut the wrong corners and it ends up costing them more money in the long run. It’s a matter of taking a smarter approach to security. Here are five smart approaches to take Prioritize - Every business has specific areas or assets critical to its core operations. Seek the input of valued staff and team members to determine what these are. Is there certain data that would be catastrophic if it was lost or stolen?...

Four Key Components of a Robust Security Plan Every SMB Must Know Most businesses are now technology dependent. This means security concerns aren’t just worrisome to large corporate enterprises anymore, but also the neighborhood sandwich shop, the main street tax advisor, and the local non-profit. Regardless of size or type, practically any organization has valuable digital assets and data that should not be breached under any circumstances. This makes it the responsibility of every business, especially those collecting and storing customer/client information, to implement a multipronged approach to safeguard such information. Yes, we’re looking at you, Mr. Pizza Shop Owner who has our names, addresses, phone numbers, and credit card information stored to make future ordering easier and hassle free. Today’s SMB Needs a Robust Security Plan Protecting your business and its reputation comes down to developing, implementing, and monitoring a robust security p...

Just Because You’re Not a Big Target, Doesn’t Mean You’re Safe Not too long ago, the New York Times’ website experienced a well-publicized attack, which raises the question – how can this happen to such a world-renowned corporation? If this can happen to the New York Times, what does this bode for the security of a small company’s website? What’s to stop someone from sending visitors of your site to an adult site or something equally offensive? The short answer to that question is nothing. In the New York Times’ attack, the attackers changed the newspapers’ Domain Name System (DNS) records to send visitors to a Syrian website. The same type of thing can very well happen to your business website. For a clearer perspective, let’s get into the specifics of the attack and explain what DNS is. The perpetrators of the New York Times’ attack targeted the site’s Internet DNS records. To better understand this, know that computers communicate in numbers, whereas we sp...

Stay Secure My Friend... More Hackers Targeting SMBs Many SMBs don’t realize it, but the path to some grand cybercrime score of a lifetime may go right through their backdoor.  SMBs are commonly vendors, suppliers, or service providers who work with much larger enterprises. Unfortunately, they may be unaware that this makes them a prime target for hackers. Worse yet, this may be costing them new business. Larger companies likely have their security game in check, making it difficult for hackers to crack their data. They have both the financial resources and staffing power to stay on top of security practices. But smaller firms continue to lag when it comes to security. In many cases, the gateway to accessing a large company’s info and data is through the smaller company working with them. Exposed vulnerabilities in security can lead cybercriminals right to the larger corporation they’ve been after. Cybercriminals Target Companies with 250 or Fewer Employe...

Cloud Monitoring Can Be the Difference Maker for SMBs It’s a fast-paced world. Not only do people want things, they want things right now. This sometimes-unnerving need for instant satisfaction has only intensified now that we have Wi-Fi and mobile devices that keep us connected regardless of where we are, what we’re doing, or the time of day. There is no longer any tolerance whatsoever for waiting. A business with a website that fails to load, or loads too slowly, will lose customers and leads to competitors. So what has your business done to address this need for constant accessibility and optimal uptime? Do you feel you’re doing enough to meet the demands and expectations of your customers, new business prospects and those who have just now found you on Google? If you’re a small-to-medium sized business owner, do you have confidence in your technology infrastructure? Can you say with certainty that your website, internal server, and mobile applications fun...