Creating an acceptable use policy establishes rules for everyone using the company network
All small companies need an acceptable use policy (AUP). An integral part of any company’s network security program, an AUP is a set of rules that describes how everyone may use the company’s network and network resources, including the Internet. An AUP also spells out the consequences for not following these rules. With an AUP in place, you can protect your company from dangerous behavior online and hold those responsible for their actions. It’s relatively easy to create an acceptable use policy. To be truly useful, though, it must be tailored to your company’s specific needs and business operations.
There are times when budgets are relatively flush, and the decision to invest in the business comes relatively easily. Then there are times like we’ve seen recently. “Do we really need to buy this box of paper clips? Hmm. Better call a meeting.”
And with plenty of speculation about the direction of economic things to come, IT purchase decisions are being made as carefully as ever. To a certain extent, pent-up demand has loosened the flood gates. But sales and refresh cycles are still a bit long in certain circles, and the emphasis is constantly upon how the recommended investments will either pump up the revenues or trim back the expenses. That’s not a bad thing. That’s just good business in the post-bubble world.
Understanding the terms associated with network storage is the first step to making sure your critical data is protected
Storage may not be top of mind for many small businesses, but it should be. Small businesses are built on data—intellectual property, financial records, marketing materials, and more—and losing that data can cost your company in lost revenue, reputation, and customers. Your company’s continued success depends on protecting that business-critical information.
In this installment of our Talkin’ Tech series, we define key terms to help you understand the basics of network storage so you ensure your data’s protected in the event of a disaster.
Today, Cisco came out with a new wireless VPN firewall specifically designed for the smallest of small businesses. In fact, the router is built for offices with one to five people that need remote access on a secure connection. The new router has what we call “business class” performance without the complexity often found in larger-scale products. Since the Cisco RV110W is designed with the “do-it-yourselfer” in mind, it’s very easy to use, and at $99 it’s affordable, even for extremely small companies.
It’s easy to set up, and requires no IT resources. You just plug it into the network. Partners can put it in place quickly so that you can stay focused on your business and not lose any time. The four-port switch that is integrated into the product lets you connect securely to computers, printers, IP phones, cameras, and other devices. It works on both Windows and Mac OS-X for remote access to data anytime, anywhere. Also, the high-speed, wireless-N access points give you a faster file transfer time, which increases performance and the coverage area, helping employees to stay productive even if they are not at their desks.
With hosted VoIP, small businesses can reduce telecommunication costs and enhance collaboration between employees.
Smaller businesses are turning to cloud-based services for a variety of applications, especially hosted voice over IP (VoIP). According to AMI-Partners, 30 percent of small businesses and 50 percent of medium businesses believe VoIP will become critical to their business operations in the near future. Hosted voice services offer many benefits, from reducing upfront costs to accessing advanced communications technologies, and they’re no longer considered a risky way to acquire business applications. Because hosted VoIP removes the burden of maintaining separate phone systems, it offers particular advantages to small businesses with remote offices or mobile employees.
A hosted voice service, such as Cisco Hosted Small Business (HSB) Communications, is the great equalizer. It can lower the cost of remote employees communicating with colleagues. It can also help a mobile sales force stay in touch both with their contacts in the field and back at headquarters. All employees, no matter where they’re working, have access to the same calling and messaging features through the hosted voice service, including extension dialing and conferencing.
Before installing IP cameras at your small business, make sure you understand the potential “gotchas”.
Small businesses install surveillance cameras for many reasons. They keep your business and assets safe, improve productivity, and can provide a strategic advantage. Today’s IP cameras and monitoring software make it easy for any small business to manage its own surveillance. But before you aim any cameras at your front door or shop floor, make sure you carefully consider all of the legal ramifications of setting up video surveillance. There are more legal ”gotchas“ than just what you can and cannot record.
Guest Post by Contributing Author Ken Presti
What does DMR stand for?
Dexy’s Midnight Runners. Right?
Well, maybe in some circles. But not here. A direct market reseller (DMR) does online or call center-based sales of IT products directly to customers without benefit of a brick-and-mortar retail outlet.
DMRs largely create their profit margins by sourcing products in sufficient quantities to attract volume discounts. They also go to great lengths to ensure efficient logistics and processes which can help to strip as much cost as possible out of their model. Clearance items also tend to find their way to these web sites on a frequent basis, which also helps to keep prices down. So DMRs have always tended to be a good option for cost-conscious end customers with enough tech knowledge to know what to do when the box shows up.
These devices can better accommodate a growing network and, therefore, your growing business.
As your business grows is your network prepared to grow with you? When building your small business network, you undoubtedly used stand-alone switches to connect employees to the resources they needed. But as a burgeoning small business, you may be finding that managing individual switches and adding new switches is a complex process. If that’s the case, it may be time to consider implementing stackable switches.
Everyone seems to have their head in the “clouds” these days. At my house, we are CNN junkies. If you want to get the low down on top business news of the week in a humorous way, watch Quest & Ali (Q & A). They recently discussed, “Should you ditch your hard drive for the cloud?” Being a consumer and/or a small business it’s a decision worth investigation. By using the cloud over a hard drive, you can access your data from anywhere, it’s more efficient and you can’t lose it. US eCommerce says, sales for cloud computing equated to 142B last year and an added 100B expected this year.
The old school hard drive users are not quite there with the cloud. They realize it’s the future but not yet. Some feel the cloud offers too many risks with security, viruses and bugs. They also don’t believe it is more cost efficient to use a cloud server than their own hard drive. Small businesses have found cloud computing to be worth the risks according to 75 percent of respondents to a Cisco survey. At my house, my totally tech husband can’t wait to have our home computing in the cloud.
If you’re a small business owner, or a multi-hat-wearing entrepreneur, and you’re not a member of the Cisco Innovators Program, you could be missing out. There are dozens of reasons why you should take part, but primarily it comes down to the simple fact that technology can help you reach and exceed your business goals and get ahead of your competitors. Want to increase your bottom line? Would you like your business to grow? Do you want to be able to quickly and easily communicate with your vendors and other contributors involved in your company? This program can help you do all of these things.
Join Cisco Innovators Program for free. A great perk is that by joining, you could win one of three 16G Apple iPad 2s. All you have to do is select either the BizWise or TechWise newsletter to qualify for the iPad drawing.
We offer a few tips and staying legit to ensure your messages don’t set off spam alerts.
Information is the lifeblood of business. To protect your small business, you’ve put safeguards in place to protect your critical information, such as a firewall, antivirus and antispam software, and maybe even a web threat or intrusion prevention system.
The methods for sending spam continue to evolve and considering that malicious webmail represented 7 percent of all web-delivered malware in March 2011—an increase of 391 percent from January 2011, according to Cisco 1Q11 Global Threat Report, it’s not surprising, then, that you and your customers have spam filters and extra precautions, cranked up to block any potentially dangerous email. So how do you ensure your important communications actually reach those you do business with?
Things to consider when buying a wireless routers for your small business.
We live and work in an untethered world, and your small business is no different. When you initially built your network, you may not have seen the need for wireless. Now that your company has grown and your workforce has become more mobile, you may be considering adding wireless to your network. Wireless offers a lot of benefits, such as allowing your employees to work from anywhere and providing Internet access to visiting guests.
If you’ve been looking at adding wireless connectivity to your company’s network, you know it can be confusing. There’s the alphabet soup of standards—“b,” “g,” “n”— and terms like “dual-band,” “selectable,” and “two radio.” What does it all mean? Below, I explain the basics so you can better understand which wireless router best fits your needs.
When your network slows down, taking advantage of network intelligence can be a more effective and affordable solution.
Nowadays, more small businesses have a converged network running three types of traffic simultaneously—voice, video, and data. Delay-sensitive and real-time applications such as voice and voice applications have different characteristics and requirements from those of traditional data applications. Because they are real-time-based, voice and video applications will only tolerate a small amount of delay affecting delivery. Voice and video traffic will also only accept a small amount of network error and jitter, both of which degrade the quality of the transmission delivered to the end user. To effectively transport voice and video traffic over a network, mechanisms are required that ensure reliable delivery of packets with low latency. In addition, more and more companies are running automated backups during regular work hours, so converged network can easily get bogged down, resulting in slow and spotty performance. A simple and easy solution may be to add more bandwidth, but that isn’t always the best fix. Instead, network intelligence features in your switch can improve network performance more effectively and affordably.
During a short break between meetings at a recent trade show, I found myself chatting with a guy who is an IT buyer for a small company. At one point, he told me that we analyst types have fallen short in our coverage of the things that matter to small businesses. “Oh sure. You’re all fine when it comes to technology speeds-and-feeds, but at the end of the day, a technology purchase is a financial decision, and you’re all woefully unprepared to engage at that level.”
As an analyst who specializes in go to market strategies, I figured I had the upper hand in this discussion, but he was unimpressed.
