#firewallandsecurity

[uplevelsystemsblogs]

Top 3 Ways to Boost Business with IT Infrastructure Managed Services

The pandemic forced a lot of small businesses to learn about remote work very quickly (the alternative is to go out of business!). They discovered two key things: first, employees can be trusted to work from the comfort of their homes; and, second, qualified IT professionals were far more critical to their business than they had realized.

However, keeping technology and tools up-to-date is complex: when employees are working remotely, this is even more difficult. Break-fix and ad-hoc IT support simply doesn’t cut it for maintaining remote-worker productivity, and this is where IT infrastructure-managed services step in.

By outsourcing IT functions to IT infrastructure service providers, who have the necessary skills and expertise, SMBs can focus on their business – again – and leave security and reliability to the professionals.

3 Ways to Boost Business with IT Infrastructure Managed Services

From cloud services to IoT networks, let’s look at how 24x7 managed IT support can help boost business.

1. Managed Remote Access Services

Businesses usually select managed IT services to let them obtain IT and networking expertise without needing to hire more staff. MSPs traditionally handle SMB IT issues such as computer policies, Internet access, security, and data safety. With remote work, however, getting employees back on reliable communications networks from anywhere became a corporate issue, not something that was the employees’ responsibility.

MSPs suddenly found themselves helping businesses acquire 5G network services, sorting out redundant WAN links, and all manner of remote access needs. Post-pandemic, this represents a growth area for MSPs, and also a productivity increase for their SMB customers.

2. Managed Cloud Infrastructure

Pre-pandemic, SMBs generally avoided cloud computing, mostly because they didn’t quite understand it. However, delivering applications and services from the cloud is often the most cost-effective way to improve business efficiency and scale. The sudden de-emphasis on “office-centric” businesses and focus on “mission-centric” ways of doing things also caused a lot of SMBs to realize that the cloud wasn’t such a terrifying thing after all.

Managed service providers were quick to capitalize on this, by assisting in the transition to a decentralized office, moving many line-of-business applications to their cloud variants, and setting up remote desktops and virtual infrastructure. This trend is only expected to continue – and should result in serious business expansion all around.

3. Secure Remote Worker Gateways

Maintaining corporate policies and a consistent security posture becomes difficult when half the workforce is working remotely, often from completely insecure environments. A home full of teenagers cannot be remote HIPAA compliant! MSPs were called upon to solve this conundrum.

Enter the secure remote worker gateway: a solution that can be remotely installed and managed in WFH situations, but allows cybersecurity managed service providers to extend the corporate security perimeter into remote worker homes – painlessly. More and more SMBs are now relying on secure remote worker solutions to keep them safe and secure. A growth area indeed.

As most companies shift to working from home or a hybrid model, the need for IT infrastructure-managed services will continue to grow. Such services enable businesses to focus on their priorities and outsource their technical infrastructure. Why not bring on Uplevel Systems?

Let Uplevel Systems help you take care of your customer's IT infrastructure as you plan strategy and prepare to take YOUR business to the next level.

Source: https://www.uplevelsystems.com/blog/boost-business-with-it-infrastructure-managed-services

[uplevelsystemsblogs]

What SMBs should know before installing Active Directory Domain(™) Services?

An Active Directory (Microsoft trademark) domain controller is used in many high-security environments, such as healthcare, financial services, accounting, etc. Most IT professionals know about Active Directory, but are also aware that it’s complex and generally difficult to set up correctly. (Unless you’re using Uplevel Systems built-in cloud-managed Active Directory compatible Domain Services … then it becomes easy!) Let’s take a look at what it really is.

What are Active Directory Domain Services?

A directory in the IT world is a hierarchical structure that stores data about the network and its users and devices. A directory service like Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) goes further: not only does it store directory information and makes it available and accessible to users and administrators, but it also controls access rights to information, provides a simple way to distribute and enforce corporate IT policies, and maintains audit logs for forensics and security audits.

What does Active Directory Domain Services actually do?

Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) act as a centralized storage and management system for information about machines and resources on a network. It allows network administrators to manage user accounts and group memberships to enable/restrict access to enterprise resources. Active Directory Domain Services is a critical component of the Windows Professional operating system, for all businesses big or small.

AD has a hierarchical structure of logically organized items such as computers, users, and groups. This structure is based on a concept known as the directory information tree (DIT), which is organized into a set of containers. Each container includes a subset of the objects in the directory, and is identified by a distinguished name (DN).

The hierarchical structure lets you delegate authority, control access to resources, and create a logical structure that reflects the physical structure of your organization.

Advantages of Active Directory Domain Services for SMBs

AD provides benefits that can be helpful for small and medium businesses (SMBs):

1. Quickly manage and organize policies pertaining to data and resources; for example, you can automatically mount a shared drive on a group of users’ workstations, or enable access to printers by subsets of users.

2. Provide security and Single Sign-On (SSO) capabilities. Users can walk around from workstation to workstation as required by their job function; when they log into a workstation with their credentials, they will see their own desktop and data, and will not be able to see the data of other users.

3. Create and manage Group Policy Objects (GPOs), which control users' and computer settings in an organization.

Summary

Active Directory Domain Services are an essential component of many small businesses that have extensive security needs. While Active Directory involves many complex concepts - and is often difficult to set up correctly - it is extremely powerful; when used properly, it can elevate security substantially, and make it much easier to manage a customer’s IT system.

Uplevel makes implementation and management of Active Directory far simpler by integrating a full Active Directory compatible Domain Controller into its gateways and enabling it to be set up and managed from the cloud with a few mouse clicks.

‍About Uplevel Systems

Uplevel Systems offers comprehensive, easy-to-use, and remotely managed IT infrastructure. We ensure flexible and adaptive solutions that may potentially fulfill every customer's needs and budget.

‍Source URL: https://www.uplevelsystems.com/blog/what-smbs-should-know-before-installing-active-directory-domain-services