Arraya Insights

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Cisco DNA Spaces: 5 Ways It Can Help You Safely Reopen Your Facility

Finding the task of bringing workforces back onsite as challenging as it was to move them offsite earlier this year? We’ve heard as much from many of our customers as they seek to balance reopening some sites while accounting for the health and wellbeing of employees and guests alike. It’s a big ask and, for many, it’s not in the cards quite yet. However, there is a tool that can help IT tackle it with more confidence when the time comes. This solution may even be one your organization is already licensed to use. You may only need to turn it on: Cisco DNA Spaces.

Cisco has made some adjustments to DNA Spaces, its cloud-based location services platform, in recent weeks to broaden its potential role in our transitional period. Organizations that have remained open to perform essential functions, like those in healthcare and logistics, too could benefit from these changes in their own efforts to keep all those who enter their facilities safe.

Let’s go into a few applications in Cisco DNA Spaces that can help support organizations in their move to reopen and stay open.

  • Right Now: How many people are in your facility? Where do they tend to congregate? Questions like these have taken on an added importance due to reduced occupancy limits and strict social distancing guidelines. By adding the Right Now app to DNA Spaces, Cisco has given organizations a centralized way to monitor the flow of people through their facilities. Right Now begins recognizing a device once it enters a facility and connects to Wi-Fi. The application will then track that device as it moves through a building using proximity to wireless access points. Using Right Now, admins can set “density thresholds” throughout their building, setting the maximum number of people that can safely occupy pre-determined spaces, e.g., a building, floor, zone, etc. Should that upper limit be reached, a safety alert can be triggered, notifying facilities teams, cleaning teams, etc. Note: DNA Spaces can be run in privacy mode to stop its applications from recording any potentially identifying information regarding people in the facility.
  • Impact Analysis: Staying on top of the trends unfolding at a facility will be key to not only reopening it, but to hopefully keeping it open for the long run. The Impact Analysis app tracks usage trends playing out across an organization, drawing its insights from Wi-Fi interactions much like the Right Now application. Time spent in the office and building utilization are among the metrics Impact Analysis can generate. These data points can be compared against those from other time periods to give analysts an idea of how they have changed over time. So, for example, a company could oversee how guest visits evolve from the early days of a push toward reopening versus how they look later on. Cisco is also exploring how to use Impact Analysis to allow organizations to alert visitors following a potential coronavirus exposure. Note: Cisco points out that the data gathered by DNA Spaces is now and will always be the sole property of the company that owns the network from which it was gathered.  
  • Additional Contextual Applications: Those tasked with reopening their facilities may also want to check out three other applications built in to Cisco DNA Spaces. The Captive Portal app can be used to put must-know details about a business in the hands of customers, including revised hours of operation, service updates, etc. Meanwhile, the Engagements app allows businesses to connect with visitors and employees via SMS, chat or another channel. Rules and triggers can be set so an engagement message goes out to, for example, alert visitors or employees when a building exceeds its maximum occupancy. Lastly, the Location Personas app can be used to create personas that can customize engagements to specific audiences.

Next Steps: Keeping your employees and guests safe with Cisco DNA Spaces

Cisco DNA Spaces is not strictly a tool for our current normal. Organizations, particularly those in verticals like healthcare, retail, higher ed and hospitality, should have no trouble leveraging the data gathered by it to better their customer and employee experiences long after our current normal has ended. If you’d like to learn more about the immediate and lasting potential of Cisco DNA Spaces, Arraya’s networking team can help. Our experts can walk you through solutions full capabilities in order to determine if it makes sense for your specific use case and, if it does, roll it out across your network.  

Visit https://www.arrayasolutions.com//contact-us/ to connect with our team now.

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What’s in Store from an Expanded Microsoft and Citrix Partnership?

Microsoft and Citrix recently announced they would be partnering together to help organizations build the “workplace of the future.” There’s a lot to unpack in that statement. For starters, on the surface, a partnership between Microsoft and Citrix isn’t anything new as the two companies have been working closely together for roughly two decades. So, what – if anything – makes this item worth paying attention to? Also, how are these two tech giants defining the “workplace of the future?” Especially given that the “workplace of the present” has had to be completely reinvented over the last few months?

With the help of Arraya’s cloud and workspace team, we dove into Microsoft and Citrix’s recent announcement to answer these questions and more.

Microsoft and Citrix take their partnership to new levels

A pair of promises are among the core tenets of the multi-year agreement signed by the two companies. For its part, Microsoft has vowed to feature Citrix Workspace as its preferred digital workspace solution. Meanwhile, Citrix made a similar pledge to promote Azure as its cloud platform of choice. As a result, existing on-premises Citrix customers will soon have a pathway directly to Azure.

Also as part of the agreement, Microsoft and Citrix have said they will provide a set of shared tools and services to make the journey into Azure easier for current Citrix on-premises customers. The pair will likewise collaborate on a roadmap that will pull from the engineering expertise of both organizations to create forward-focused solutions built on Citrix Workspace, Citrix SD-WAN, Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365.   

It’s worth noting that, preferred partners or not, customers won’t have to relinquish their freedom to choose when working with Citrix or Microsoft. Both companies have promised to continue supporting customers who require or leverage a more diverse range of OEM solutions.

What does Microsoft and Citrix’s news mean for modern organizations?

That’s what the announcement said, but what about what it means for those either currently using or considering a move to Microsoft and/or Citrix solutions?

Like so much of what is taking place across the world at large, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic is near the center of this announcement. Demand for flexible work arrangements and access to virtual desktops has been increasing for years, but it’s reached new heights due to the pandemic. Organizations must be prepared, as much as possible, to pursue and adopt hybrid environments able to recognize a workspace as wherever an employee happens to be. However, that flexibility can’t come at the expense of security. Together, Microsoft and Citrix promise to make customers confident in their ability to scale resources quickly and spin up and down virtual desktops on demand, doing so securely to keep sensitive or proprietary information from falling into the wrong hands.

Of course, new ways to connect are great, but without seamless integration, they can become frustrating for users. Microsoft and Citrix understand that frustration could have an adverse effect on productivity – the exact opposite of what was intended by moving to the cloud in the first place. The tech leaders’ intention to jointly engineer solutions speaks directly to avoiding interoperability issues. Instead, the solutions will be built on the collective know-how of each organization’s team, resulting in a smoother user experience.

Here’s a sampling of what this partnership can produce. Citrix and Microsoft plan to bring together Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, Citrix Managed Desktops and Windows Virtual Desktops to allow users to run applications in Azure while also accessing Windows apps from an expanded variety of platforms or devices. Citrix also plans to build a Microsoft-oriented Citrix Workplace solution in support of Microsoft apps like Teams, a tool that has become increasingly mission-critical of late.

Next Steps: How to modernize your workplace with Microsoft and Citrix

Want to dive deeper into this news from Microsoft and Citrix and learn how else it could benefit your organization? Arraya Solutions can help. Our cloud and workspace experts are ready to take you through this announcement in greater detail. Also, they can work with you to ensure you pursue and implement workspace and cloud solutions that deliver on their initial promise and provide meaningful benefits to your organization and your customers for years to come.  

Visit https://www.arrayasolutions.com//contact-us/ to connect with our team.

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Earlier this month, Dell EMC unveiled PowerStore, a midrange storage solution “designed for the data era.” PowerStore is also being called a “clean sheet” solution because it’s the first storage product jointly engineered in-house, from the ground up by Dell Technologies since its formation in 2016. In this video, we site down with Ron Longley (Data Center Practice Director) and Kirk Freeman (Data Center Solutions Architect) to learn more about one of the features that sets PowerStore apart: AppsOn.     


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How to Address Security Compliance Shortfalls Using the CIS Top 20 (Part 1: Basic Controls)

Those in fields such as healthcare and financial services are no strangers to finding ways to live in harmony with data privacy and cyber security regulations. However, with the passage of statutes like GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act, those headaches are now being felt more acutely across all industries. What’s more, they’re also being shared up and down supply chains, sending vendors of all sizes in search of relief.

Regulatory compliance looks different from industry to industry. While the specific provisions vary, there are some general tools organizations can use, and tweak, to get closer to their goals. One option comes from the Center for Internet Security (CIS). The CIS Top 20 Controls list provides a compliance framework organizations can use to gauge their adherence to cyber security and data privacy best practices as well as their readiness to defend against some of the most common attack vectors.

CIS’s list is divided into three subgroups – Basic CIS Controls (1-6), Foundational CIS Controls (7-16) and Organizational CIS Controls (17-20). Rather than try to tackle all 20 of these controls in one sprawling post, we decided to devote a single post to each of those subgroups, starting with the Basic CIS Controls. We’ll also cover how Arraya’s security team can help bring CIS compliance within reach and expand those principles to address more industry-specific concerns.

CIS Control #1: Inventory and Control of Hardware Assets

What it means: Hardware can be a pretty substantial blind spot and not just in terms of the solutions that permanently call an organization’s network home. BYOD programs that allow smart phones, tablets, or laptops to travel in and out of a network represent a juicy target for attackers on the watch for an easy in. As for those rooted in a data center, solutions left unpatched or new deployments that haven’t been properly configured are also at risk. The onus is on organizations to understand what hardware is on their network, track what it does and regulate its access.  

Where to start: IT must map out an organization’s hardware footprint. According to CIS, this should include any asset capable of processing or storing data, whether it stays on the network or not. Additionally, IT should include hardware that the organization controls even if it doesn’t connect to the internet as these can still provide a foothold for cyber crooks already inside a system. A process should be created to deal with any unexpected network occupants, e.g., booting them from the network, quarantining and attempting to validate them, and/or updating the inventory. Depending on the size and maturity of an organization, it may be possible to do this manually or by leveraging active/passive discovery solutions. Processes should be enacted to make this a living document that is updated as an environment grows.   

CIS Control #2: Inventory and Control of Software Assets

What it means: Hackers are also fond of using software to let themselves into an organization’s network. They typically do this using a few different tactics. Many will scan for and exploit unpatched or no-longer-supported software solutions. Others will blindside organizations through the use of zero day vulnerabilities. In other cases, attackers will use vectors like email or compromised websites to install malicious software inside an organization’s perimeter. In each of these cases, software is used to create a backdoor into a network and through which attackers can funnel sensitive corporate data.  

Where to start: IT should start by compiling a catalog of all software instances installed on their network and, again, implement a process to keep this document up to date. Those authorized for business purposes should be noted as should those still receiving regular updates from their developer. Any that don’t fall under both of those labels should be looked at more closely. Wherever possible, plans should be made to modernize away from any that aren’t authorized or don’t provide meaningful value. More mature organizations should automate this process, using a software inventory system to discover and record details such as software version number, publisher, and its install date. Whitelisting can also be used to restrict the use of software within a network (Note: These capabilities may already be built in to an existing security solution and may just need to be turned on.).   

CIS Control #3: Continuous Vulnerability Management

What it means: Information is everything in cyber security. The best way to stay safe is with a constant flow of advisories and bulletins to inform decisions. Patches and updates also fall under this umbrella. Organizations need to stay in the loop about what their vendors and developers are doing to improve their own offerings. Another element of this is threat and vulnerability scanning. Organizations should keep a weather eye out for the threats attempting to breach their perimeter as well as any gaps that exist with those defenses. All of this data can keep organizations from being caught flat-footed.      

Where to start: Organizations should put a procedure in place prioritizing patches and updates. Operating system and software patches and updates are easy to shift to the back burner in favor of more pressing projects, but the risk of doing so is great. If possible, these processes should be automated – or entrusted to a managed services provider. Additionally, more mature organizations should expand automation to include vulnerability scanning. The results of these scans should be compared against earlier iterations to gauge the effectiveness of remediation efforts, giving IT access to even more valuable data. Software and hardware assets discovered should be compared to current inventories to assist in keeping the inventory accurate.

CIS Control #4: Controlled Use of Administrative Privileges

What it means: Cyber criminals eager to secure access to “the keys to the kingdom” know to set their sights on administrative privileges. With this kind of access, criminals can increase their reach and the scope and severity of their attack. Attackers favor a few tactics to try to gain access to administrative privileges. The first is to set a trap – either in the form of a malicious email attachment, download or website – and tricking an admin into engaging with it. They may also try a more direct approach: breaking into an admin account, usually due to a weak or repeatedly-used password. Properly protecting administrative accounts and privileges can help keep a breach from getting out of hand should one occur.            

Where to start: New deployments represent new opportunities for cyber criminals. IT pros should change any default passwords on new solutions to something more fitting, particularly in the case of administrative credentials. Additionally, administrative activities should be restricted to dedicated accounts. Administrators should use separate, user-level accounts for any non-managerial tasks, e.g., answering or sending emails. From there, organizations should also audit their running processes in search of any instances of administrative accounts being used for more mundane tasks. Some level of this may be acceptable and even necessary, however, routine usage should be stopped.

CIS Control #5: Secure Configuration for Hardware and Software on Mobile Devices, Laptops, Workstations and Servers

What it means: Tools like mobile devices, laptops and workstations are all typically designed with something other than security in mind. This is evident in default operating system or application configurations that make a device very usable right of out the box. Little regard is usually given to securing open services and ports, implementing modern protocols, or requiring password resets. Meanwhile, built-in applications allow manufacturers to force potentially unnecessary and unsafe pet technologies into the hands of end users. Even if a product comes off the production line with security ingrained in its DNA, it can fall on individual users to keep their devices updated and to avoid inadvertently compromising them in any way.       

Where to start: Once again, the first steps toward compliance involve documentation. Admins should gather together the base security configuration standards for any operating systems and/or software solutions their users leverage (Note: Both CIS and the National Institute of Standards and Technology offer pre-baked tools organizations can use to avoid building out this document from scratch). These tools can be modified to suit the needs of a given organization or the demands of an industry. Adjustments should be documented to ensure consistency within an environment and in case of any future audits.

CIS Control #6: Maintenance, Monitoring and Analysis of Audit Logs

What it means: Security logs are a treasure trove of insights. They can alert organizations during the early stages of an attack, giving in-house security teams a chance to respond before a situation snowballs. Once an incident has been thwarted or contained, security logs provide a real time account of exactly what happened. They can show how attackers got in and what they did while inside. Without these details, security teams may be left guessing as to whether or not they truly eradicated the threat from their network. Too often, however, logs become an afterthought if they are even saved and reviewed at all. Instead, attackers’ actions are left uninvestigated or worse, unnoticed.     

Where to start: The simplest and most effective place to start is by ensuring activity logging is occurring throughout the organizational network. This should be an easy bar to clear as logging comes standard with many of the technologies organizations may have already deployed. It may only need to be turned on if it isn’t already. From there, IT will want to consider having those logs feed into a centralized spot where they can be easily accessed and regularly reviewed. At this point, larger organizations may want to consider incorporating a security information and event management (SIEM) solution as well as enlisting the help of a trusted technology partner to help analyze the resulting data.

Next Steps: Furthering your journey through the CIS Top 20 Controls

Incredibly, this really only scratches the surface of what’s covered under the first six items on the CIS Top 20 Controls list. In our next post on the subject, we’ll go into the Foundational CIS Controls (numbered 7 through 16).

Want a proper deep dive into the CIS Top 20 Controls or another framework you can use to help your organization begin or further its compliance journey? Arraya’s Cyber Team can help. Our experts can not only walk you through these various compliance frameworks, but they can help you accurately interpret them to your unique use case.

Visit https://www.arrayasolutions.com//contact-us/ to connect with our team.

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How to Overcome Turbulence and Find Flexible Stability in the Cloud

If the cloud was seen as the future back in our pre-pandemic world, then our current reality has done nothing to change that perception. In fact, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic seems to have heightened interest in the cloud. One study, Flexera’s 2020 State of the Cloud Report, found nearly 6-in-10 (59%) expect cloud use to surpass initial annual forecasts due to the pandemic. Another, McAfee’s Cloud Adoption and Risk Report, tracked a 50% growth in enterprise use of cloud services from January to April. This comes as, in some cases; entire organizations have spent the last several months working offsite. The strategies and architectures behind the technology environments supporting those workforces have had to be reimagined. Decisions have been made on the fly to allow organizations to be more malleable during an unprecedented time.

As businesses inch toward reopening, additional research suggests not to expect this push to diminish. In the 2020 Remote Work From Home Cybersecurity Report from Pulse Secure, 84% of participants anticipated broadening access to remote work and making it a permanent part of their culture. Cloud will likely continue to have a role in enabling and supporting that shift.

Two of the cloud’s biggest selling points have always been flexibility and consistency. While those traits may have once been labeled as desirable, in our current normal, they have become essential.

Expanding beyond hardware during times of need

There’s no shortage of pathways into the cloud. Once there, organizations have just as many options on how to expand and grow their footprint. One often overlooked element in all this is disaster recovery. Too many organizations seek to address the problem of a primary data center outage with hardware spend. It’s in these types of scenarios, however, where the cloud really shines. Arraya has developed a two-fold offering designed to help organizations not only take advantage of the flexibility the cloud offers but to bring greater efficiency to disaster recovery postures.

Let’s check in on the individual pieces of the above solution map.   

  • VMC on AWS for VDI: VMware Cloud on AWS provides elastic burstable virtual desktop capacity that can start in the hundreds and easily scale well into the thousands of desktops should the need arise. Starting with a minimal reserved 3-node footprint allows you to keep costs down while giving you the flexibility to rapidly expand that capacity if necessary.
  • DRaaS in Cloud Hub: At a high level, this solution can leverage hyperconverged or three tiered infrastructure to execute disaster recovery workloads. These activities can be governed by orchestration tools like Zerto Orchestrator or VMware Site Recovery Manager. Using the cloud for failover gives organizations the base necessary from which to launch remediation efforts that will unfold in accordance with targeted Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO).
  • Cloud Connectivity Hub: Serving as the central point in a hybrid cloud environment, Cloud Connectivity Hub offers fiber patch, public, or private access to Azure, AWS, Office 365 and other platforms. Cloud Connectivity Hub can be integrated with a compatible network security solution, allowing key applications to travel safely between the Hub and the various platforms making up an organization’s cloud environment. Additionally, as performance requirements and organizational marching orders shift, the Cloud Connectivity Hub can ensure IT will be able to pivot in response, moving data and workflows from home to home in the cloud in order to maximize productivity and efficiency across all scenarios.

Next Steps: Utilizing the cloud to maintain productivity even in a worst-case scenario

Want to learn more about VMC on AWS for VDI DRaaS in Cloud Hub and Cloud Connectivity Hub? Interested in kicking off a broader conversation about what you can do to help your organization better anticipate and respond to today’s challenges more effectively? Arraya’s data center team can help. Our team can help you analyze your existing environment and organizational objectives. Then, we will work to connect you with customized solutions designed to help your organization reach its goals.    

Visit https://www.arrayasolutions.com//contact-us/ to connect with our team now.

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Mastering horizon cloud on microsoft azure

Understandably lost in the chaos of mid-March was a news item our engineers wanted to circle back to concerning Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure. As part of Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure’s 3.0 release, VMware announced the solution would include full, native support for Microsoft’s Windows Virtual Desktop platform, finally paying off months of buildup. Given the realities of, and trends shaping today’s business world, our team felt a dedicated discussion of this solution was in order.

The past three months have seen an unprecedented transition, as employees have left traditional workplaces behind in favor of remote work in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. There are signs that, for many employees, this transformation could be destined to become permanent. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of CFOs and business leaders surveyed by Gartner back in March said they intended to move at least 5% of their onsite workforces offsite for good. The flexibility and reliable access such an arrangement would demand are exactly the things the union of Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure and Windows Virtual Desktop can address.

Windows Virtual Desktop comes to Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure

Let’s cover three ways in which bringing Windows Virtual Desktop to Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure can keep decentralized workforces connected and productive.

  • Support for a diverse catalog of solutions and configurations. Standardization isn’t always an option when it comes to remote workforces. Whether it’s due to personal preference or strictly availability, remote workers often leverage an array of different devices and platforms to do their jobs. While this can make life more difficult for IT, VMware’s Horizon Cloud can mitigate some of the difficulties. The solution supports a variety of endpoints, operating systems, clients and more to allow remote workers to work on the tools with which they are most comfortable. A variety of desktop configuration options are also on the table, including floating, dedicated and pooled, applicable to either on-prem or cloud-based deployments.  
  • Rich user experience regardless of location. For some, working from home means lowering expectations regarding user experience. That isn’t the case with Horizon on Azure Cloud as it supports the platforms many depend on as part of their jobs, including Microsoft Teams and Cisco Jabber, as well as peripherals like cameras and printers. Users also won’t have to accept less in terms of performance, even if they intend to run bandwidth-intense workloads remotely. Horizon Cloud leverages PCoIP and Blast Extreme protocols in support of Network Intelligent Transport to overcome obstacles like network congestion and deliver consistent, optimized connections. Additionally, automated, intelligent brokers (using criteria pre-defined by IT) can mechanically route users to the best virtual workspace for their needs.
  • Management simplification via Control Plane, FSLogix. Even in the cloud, IT admins still have full plates. Horizon Cloud can help them more efficiently manage heavy workloads with its control plane feature. This gives admins a single site from which to perform routine tasks, including user and image management, health checks, performance monitoring and end user support. Support functions can be performed no matter where the user is physically located. More broad features, including load balancing, on-prem or in the cloud desktop deployments can also be handled from this central hub. Management overhead is further reduced by Windows Virtual Desktop’s ability to leverage FSLogix profile containers. Aside from the seamless, fast profile logins these containers offer users, admins are able to easily layer additional management controls on top of what’s already available with FSLogix.

Next Steps: Prepping for the new normal of workspaces

The conversation about Windows Virtual Desktop support coming to Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure doesn’t have to end here. Our experts can work with you to determine if this solution makes sense given your organization’s current (and long term) workplace flexibility strategies or potentially uncover a better path forward. Reach out to Arraya now to pick up where this post leaves off!

Visit https://www.arrayasolutions.com//contact-us/ to connect with our team now.

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PowerScale, the latest entry in Dell EMC’s storage portfolio and the official successor to the Isilon solution line, reached general availability recently. With this new release, Dell EMC seeks to address the ever-expanding need for help managing and storing unstructured data, particularly in the form of documents, images, and videos. Research firm Gartner anticipates this need will triple by 2024. Should Gartner’s projection hold true, now is the time to look into how to best capture and capitalize on unstructured data sets.

It’s more than just the “power” branding that PowerScale shares with another new Dell EMC offering, PowerStore. The two solutions were also both built to help organizations navigate what Dell EMC has dubbed “the data era,” essentially the data-intensive world we live in right now (Note: You can read all about PowerStore and what it means for organizations in need of a midrange storage solution in our blog post Dell EMC PowerStore: 7 Stats That Set It Apart).

The outgoing Isilon brand has earned a lot of good will amongst data center professionals over the years. Filling those shoes promises to be a big job and we checked with our in-house data center team to see if PowerScale looks up to the task.     

4 highlights from Dell EMC’s PowerScale announcement

Here are four reasons our data center team thinks it’s worth keeping a close eye on PowerScale now that it is available in the wild:

  • Operating system consistency and improvement. The OneFS operating system should already be familiar to those who’ve used Isilon as it previously powered those servers. PowerScale will continue this tradition by utilizing OneFS version 9.0. Admins who’ve worked with the Isilon line previously will likely see some similarities, however, there are some enhancements coming as well. Supercharged data reduction capabilities will allow organizations to use their storage space more efficiently. New integrations such as Amazon S3 protocol support give customers the chance to build new applications directly in the cloud while Kubernetes and Ansible support can make the app dev process more efficient. Finally, this new version of OneFS has been decoupled from the underlying hardware, opening up new frontiers on the edge and in the cloud while also expanding use cases and shrinking price points.           
  • More intelligent data management. As the name clearly implies, the inclusion of DataIQ software is all about injecting additional intelligence into data management. It does this by first sniffing out all unstructured data across a landscape that includes PowerScale and PowerStore as well as third party and public cloud storage solutions. Once discovery concludes, DataIQ indexes that data, making it possible for admins to search what they have and apply policies as the need dictates. The resulting comprehensive storage snapshot means fewer data siloes and empowers admins to quickly find the data they need and put it to work. Another intelligence-boosting piece of software – CloudIQ – lets admins keep close watch over the health of their environment. They can see, in real time, performance and capacity analytics (backed by historical data) which make it possible to spot complications before they occur.
  • Industry-leading hardware foundation. PowerScale’s hardware profile varies depending on the flavor of the solution an organization elects to go with, e.g., PowerScale F600 All-NVMe or PowerScale F200 All-Flash. No matter the build an organization chooses, they will receive one with an impressive list of credentials and technological capabilities. For example, scale is part of the brand and PowerScale can grow from 11TB of raw capacity up to 50PB by adding more nodes in as little as 60 seconds. This can be achieved through the use of new 1U PowerEdge-based nodes as well as existing Isilon all-flash, hybrid and archive nodes – with no disruption to existing operations and minimal administrative overhead. Those new PowerScale F200 nodes promise 5x the speed of their Isilon forerunners. Meanwhile, the enhanced data reduction we mentioned earlier can make the platform 6x more efficient than legacy solutions. From a throughput perspective, PowerScale can handle nearly 16 million IOPS per cluster. This processing might make the solution well-versed at handling demanding workloads including AI and analytics. Lastly, PowerScale’s failover flexibility enables 85% storage utilization and the ability to survive multiple node outages.  
  • Public cloud integration. There is one final point about PowerScale that our team wanted to cover in this post. We hinted briefly at PowerScale’s ability to play nice with the cloud earlier, but there’s still room left to explore regarding this topic. PowerScale for multi-cloud allows organizations to leverage all major public clouds, including Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services, as part of a hybrid storage model. Use cases for this capability include any organizations looking to run resource-intensive applications without overburdening their onsite environments. Instead, these applications can be shifted offsite and into the organization’s cloud platform of choice. Efficiency is another topic that has already come up in this post. However, this is just one more way in which PowerScale lets organizations operate as effectively as possible.    

Next Steps: Learn more about PowerScale, Data Center Modernization

PowerScale is still a relatively new solution and the above represents only a sampling of what it can do. If you’d like to keep this conversation going – or would like to take a broader look at how you can modernize and refine your own data center, Arraya’s team is ready. Simply reach out today to schedule an assessment or conversation! 

Visit https://www.arrayasolutions.com//contact-us/ to connect with our team.

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Work from home policies have taken center stage throughout the coronavirus pandemic. For many organizations, Microsoft Teams serves as the keystone of those policies. In this video, we connect with Arraya’s resident Teams experts, Chuck Kiessling (Director, Presales Solutions) and Matt Amato (Arraya’s Cloud Solutions Architect), to learn more about the platform and how to best leverage it.

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Microsoft Quick Assist

One of the many operational challenges resulting from our current normal is the fact that, even though technology has never been more important to our daily routines, support for that technology has never been farther away. Right now, if something were to go wrong with a user’s machine or mission critical application, help wouldn’t be just around the corner or down the hall. The thing is, physical separation doesn’t mean those end users have to feel like they’re on their own.

Organizations leveraging Windows 10 have access to a built-in application capable of shrinking the distance between users and the technology guidance they need. Microsoft’s Quick Assist allows those in need of help to receive – or for experts to deliver – support via a remote connection.

We reached out to Michael Pocock, Security Team Lead for Arraya’s Managed Services Practice (and all-around Microsoft wiz) to learn more about Quick Assist.

Arraya Insights: What stands out to you most about Quick Assist?

Michael Pocock: For me, there are a few things. It’s a built-in solution so there’s no need to spin anything up or install anything. Also, there are no licenses to worry about beyond that initial Windows 10 license. This makes Quick Assist a very user (and admin) friendly solution. If something is going wrong, it’s not going to add to their frustrations. All it takes to get started is searching for and clicking on Quick Assist in the Windows search bar. It’s that easy.

AI: So, how exactly does Quick Assist work?

MP: When a user requires assistance, they simply need to open the Quick Assist app on their Windows 10 device. It is installed and configured by default in all versions of Windows 10. The admin also opens Quick Assist on their machine and selects the option to “Give Assistance”. After signing in with a personal or organizational Microsoft account, a code will be provided to send to the user. Detailed instructions can also be emailed to the user from this screen. After entering the code, the admin will be prompted for the level of access (either view, or full control) and the user will be prompted to grant access. Once access is granted, the session is started.

AI: What kinds of things can the person giving assistance do?

MP: The admin will have full control of the machine in order to provide remote diagnostic or remediation support. It also gives the admin the ability to annotate the user’s screen. This can be useful when training a user. Ex. “Please click the button I circled on your screen.” A simple clipboard is also enabled so that text can be copied between the participants.

AI: What are some best practices or inside tips people should know about Quick Assist?

MP: In all circumstances, it is better for the admin to also have a voice call with the user. This will make the user feel more comfortable with what is happening and potentially help them learn from the session. Before connecting with a user, tell them to close all sensitive documents and save anything that they are working on. Also, depending on the user settings, prompts may appear that the user will have to interact with so they should be engaged and ready for that.  

If the machine requires a reboot, Quick Assist will restart on the user’s machine and should rejoin the session once the device reboot is complete.

In addition to using this for corporate reasons, you can use this to assist family and friends with Windows 10 as well.

AI: Is there anything else worth covering about Quick Assist?

MP: One other thing is that it works from anywhere. As long as a device has an internet connection, it can take advantage of Quick Assist. That is a big plus right now since most users are at home and may not be connected to the enterprise network.

Next Steps: Get your remote end users the IT support they need

Our thanks to Michael for sharing his insights! If you want to learn more about Quick Assist or any of the other tools you can use to keep your teams connected throughout this current normal, reach out to Arraya today!

Visit https://www.arrayasolutions.com//contact-us/ to connect with our team now.

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Now in its 13th year, the Verizon Business Data Breach Investigations Report has become an annual repository of data points showcasing what’s working (and what isn’t) for cyber criminals and those who oppose them. This time, Verizon’s research team began with a global pool of nearly 160,000 suspected security incidents, distilling them down into the lessons contained within the final version of the hundred-plus page report. The resulting insights challenged popular conceptions and provided insight into whom hackers are and what makes them hack.   

Granted, we just dove into an extensive security study last month, putting out a post on nine stats from Cisco’s 2020 CISO Benchmark Study that caught our attention. Yet, there’s truth in that old saying about knowledge equaling power, particularly in regards to cyber security. So, feel free to treat this as a companion piece to our earlier post.

Here are seven findings from Verizon’s research you can use to improve your organization’s security posture even further.     

  • Hackers don’t want to work too hard. You know that scene in horror movies where a would-be victim throws furniture, boxes and anything else available in front of the monster but nothing seems to slow it down? Unlike their big-screen counterparts, cyber villains seem far more easily deterred. Verizon’s team found putting more steps in front of a hacker resulted in fewer incidents and breaches. The total number of each really cratered when hackers were forced to take three, four or more steps. Something like MFA – which we called a “table stakes” solution in our Cisco post – is an excellent way to throw frustrations in front of attackers, sending them off in search of quicker wins.
  • Simple mistakes make attractive targets. Hacking, malware, physical intrusions – despite what headlines might suggest, all of these attack vectors have decreased in frequency. The only one increasing? Errors. Exploiting misdelivery, misconfiguration and publishing issues has become one of attackers’ new favorite hobbies. Technology environments remain complex organisms, even as Cisco’s report suggests greater interest in vendor unification. Complexity, coupled with IT’s maxed-out workloads, is sure to contribute to mistakes. Increased reporting of these errors is also a factor. Still, streamlining vendor relationships, embracing automation and even bringing in outside help through a managed services partner are all ways to ease the burden on IT and reduce risky errors.     
  • Cyber crooks are doing it for the money. Whether you’re studying the art of war or the art of cyber security, knowing your enemy is a best practice. The thing that motivates most cyber criminals, according to the report, is money. Finances were a driver in more than 80% of cyber security breaches and in more than 60% of incidents. Incidentally, Verizon also classifies more than half of malicious activities as stemming from “organized crime” with just shy of 20% backed by nation-states. Verizon’s team is quick to point out that, in this case, organized crime means criminals with processes and not the kind notorious for making offers you can’t refuse. Knowing who is on the other side of the firewall and what they’re after are both critical to keeping them out.
  • Email links remain a popular source of malware. How does malware find its way into your organization? Malicious links in emails remain the most popular vector, having a hand in just shy of 40% of breaches. Direct install is the second most likely vector, with download by malware and another email based method (malicious attachment) following right on its heels. The most likely payload being delivered through these various approaches is a password dumper, which featured in just about 40% of attacks. Behind that were app data capturers, ransomware and malicious downloaders. While ransomware remains a headline darling, it’s important not to lose sight of the array of threats targeting users (and your network).      
  • Winning the battle (not the war) against phishing. Good news! Progress has absolutely been made in the fight against phishing, although we should leave the cork in the champagne bottle for now. Overall, phishing activities have dropped about 6.6% from last year’s Business Data Breach Investigations Report. There’s also plenty more good news where that came from. Awareness campaigns seem to be paying off as test phishing efforts are being reported at an all-time high. Additionally, phishing click-through rates are at their lowest point, coming in at just 3.4%. Congratulations are certainly in order for a job well done, however, it’s important to be ready for the response from cyber criminals.
  • On-prem assets still hackers’ top target. It might be time for those who automatically question the security of the cloud to do some soul-searching. Verizon’s team found that on-premises assets were involved in 70% of data breaches. The cloud laid claim to just 24% of breaches. Digging into that cloud number reminds us of an important truth. Just shy of 80% of those cloud breaches involved breached credentials. So, for cyber crooks, it’s not a question of on-prem or in the cloud. It may simply come down to which one, for whatever reason, happens to look easier to them at that given moment. It’s up to security pros to make those paths as difficult as possible to scare off work-averse attackers.
  • Spotting – and containing – threats at a record pace. While we’re on the topic of good news, this edition of the Business Data Breach Investigations Report marks the first time more breaches were discovered in “days or less” than in “months or more.” It’s not just about spotting them as more than 80% of breaches were contained in “days or less” as well. Verizon does add a couple of addendums, including that, as an annual report, it may not include a full accounting of a year’s attacks. Furthermore, the report does give credit to managed services partners for helping to lower detection and remediation timelines. In our post on the Cisco study, we highlighted six ways organizations could rein in the financial fallout of data breaches, including regular process reviews, usage audits, and solution maintenance. Those unable to devote internal resources to executing these tasks should look outside to prevent breaches from going unnoticed or unaddressed, minimizing the financial costs in the process.

Next Steps: Improve security based on industry-tested strategies

Research projects like Verizon’s 2020 Business Data Breach Investigations Report and Cisco’s 2020 CISO Benchmark Study provide a valuable look at what other cyber security professionals are seeing in the field. Our in-house security team can help you take those insights, vet them based on your unique circumstances and, wherever appropriate, apply them within your own organization. Reach out to Arraya today to schedule an assessment or conversation! 

Visit https://www.arrayasolutions.com//contact-us/ to connect with our team.

Comment on this and all of our posts on: LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

Follow us to stay up to date on our industry insights and unique IT learning opportunities.