Arraya Insights

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OH24They say you can’t go home again, but Arraya did our part to disprove that theory with our 5th Annual Open House and Technology Day. After two years of hosting the event at an off-site venue, we brought our yearly event back to the friendly confines of our corporate headquarters andthe homecoming was a great success. As has become par for the course at our Open House, attendees had the opportunity to discuss the present and the future of the tech industry, network with their peers and enjoy some great food and drink in the process.

The event, which was catered by Victory Brewing Company, took place in a large tent set up in our parking lot. It had a fall theme which was evidenced by the pumpkins and jars of candy corn dotting the scenery.

Arraya’s CEO Daniel Lifshutz kicked things off with a welcome address covering some of Arraya’s 2015 highlights as well as some of the shifts he’s observed in the industry since co-founding the company back in 1999.

“We’ve been in business now for 16 years. We’ve seen a lot of different trends. Some of them changed the way we do business and changed the way our customers do business. Some trends didn’t work out so well,” Lifshutz said. “Through it all, it’s always about the relationships for us. The people in this room today, the partners, the customers, they give us a reason to wake up every morning and do what we do.”

In his address, Lifshutz also broke some big news. He officially unveiled the date of Arraya’s second Tech Summit: June 9, 2016. The Tech Summit debuted this past summer and featured a full day of breakout sessions and panel discussions lead by Arraya’s industry-leading team of engineers. It provides customers with a chance to learn about the latest IT solutions directly from some of the people who know them best.

Following the announcement of the date, Lifshutz invited attendees to complete a brief survey concerning the tech topics they foresee being most significant to their organization in the coming year. These answers will be used to help formulate the course list for the upcoming Tech Summit, ensuring the event maintains a “by techs, for techs” mentality. Attendees who filled out the survey were entered into a drawing and two winners were selected. One took home a pair of tickets to a Philadelphia Flyers game, the other won a pair of Philadelphia 76ers tickets.

Just as with past Open House events, a local celebrity was on hand to rally the crowd, impart some wisdom, pose for pictures and sign a few autographs. This year’s special guest was Sal Paolantonio, an NFL correspondent for ESPN, author, journalist and local radio personality. Paolantonio led a lively discussion with guests about football, the prospects of the Philadelphia Eagles and more.

After the group discussion wrapped, Paolantonio stuck around to chat with guests one-on-one, raffle off copies of one of his books, “Frank Rizzo: The Last Big Man in Big City America,” and even toss around a football.

The day’s giveaways didn’t end with the tickets and books. Arraya also sponsored a social media contest to encourage attendees to spend a little time tweeting about the day. The rules were simple: whoever tweeted the most using the official Open House hashtag (#ArrayaOpenHouse) would win a GoPro camera. To encourage participation, selfie sticks were scattered around the tent.

The allure of the GoPro and the easy access to selfie sticks did the trick, setting off a flurry of tweets. By the time a winner was announced at the end of the night, 249 tweets were sent using #ArrayaOpenHouse. The winner of the GoPro tweeted 79 times during the event.

Arraya’s partners were also well-represented at the Open House. On top of all of the other festivities, there were video demos from Microsoft, VMware, Cisco, EMC and VCE. Microsoft also brought along its device bar to give visitors a chance to see some of its latest tools and tech up close and personal.

If you weren’t able to attend, check out our Twitter feed, @ArrayaSolutions, or our Facebook page to see pictures from the event. Also, visit our News and Events page for a full list of the events and learning opportunities coming down the road from Arraya!

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The growing influence of the Internet of Things (IoT) has made for some strange bedfellows, especially in the manufacturing industry. In the old days, IT was in one corner, tending to thebusiness-hand-shows-touch-screen-mobile-phone-with-streaming-images_M1mJ9KH_ (1) hardware, infrastructure and software applications used to manage data. Meanwhile, OT concerned itself with the devices and real time processes that occurred on the plant floor. As more devices connect thanks to IoT, this separation becomes less acute.

With the added connectivity and the availability of devices, OT – as well as other line-of-business functions – have become more reliant on tools which used to fall under the domain of IT, such as cloud apps and services. Often they can procure that tech without any input or involvement from IT. If the link between IT and OT is thin and these services aren’t tuned to the overall corporate strategy, it can open potentially-costly security gaps.

While this has been going on, an increased pressure has been placed on IT to be more conscious of the business side. IT has been asked to shed its role as keeper of the infrastructure and instead accept a wider and more proactive focus. This means encroaching on unfamiliar turf, turf that line-of-business areas like OT know extremely well.

Manufacturing on the forefront of IoT

In recent years, the move towards the IoT has gained significant momentum. Enterprise IoT deployments have grown by an astonishing 333% since 2012 according to a study by Forrester Research and Zebra Technologies. For another look at the development, consider this: Just 15% of respondents said they’d deployed technology to support IoT in 2012 compared to 65% who said they’d done so last year.

Moving forward, it’s expected manufacturers are going to play a huge part in IoT growth. The folks at Cisco foresee manufacturing being responsible for driving 34% of all IoT value over the next decade. That fact is supported by additional research by Cisco which indicates 86% of manufacturing companies expect their IoT investments to increase “somewhat” or “significantly” over the next three years.

The enhanced decision-making abilities and reduced cost, risk and project timelines brought on by new-found, IoT-driven connectivity can give manufacturers a significant edge. But in order for manufacturers to thrive in this changing environment and meet or even exceed their goals, it’s essential for IT and OT to work together and share their know-how.

Linking these formerly disconnected units isn’t going to be easy. In his article “IT is from Venus, OT is from Mars,” Maciej Kranz, the Vice President of Cisco’s Corporate Technology Group, laid out a few steps to get things moving in the right direction.

This includes:

  • Cross-training IT engineers on OT requirements and training OT engineers to be better able to recognize IT technologies and best practices
  • Adjusting IT policies to account for OT needs (e.g., scheduling routine outages around production schedules)
  • Linking IT and OT through the adoption of integrated networking, data and security architectures

These are positive first steps. However building a strong union between IT and OT can also require a hand from someone who understands both sides. IT knowledge is something Arraya Solutions has in abundance. We’ve spent the last 16 years working with our customers to design innovative and intelligent solutions to their IT challenges. But our knowledge and experience aren’t limited strictly to IT. Our team excels at reaching across the aisle to line-of-business units to learn what they need and what makes them tick. We recognize the importance of ensuring the solutions we deploy address the total continuum of a company’s needs.

Ready to learn more about IoT, its impact on manufacturing and what’s coming up next for the industry? Join us for a free half-day seminar on Wednesday Dec. 2 at the Sheraton in King of Prussia, PA. This multi-session event will feature presentations led by Cisco and Arraya that are geared specifically towards the trials faced by and opportunities presented to manufacturers as a result of IoT.

If you have a question you would like answered before the event, feel free to reach out to us at www.arrayasolutions.com/contact-us/. We can also be reached directly via our Twitter account, @ArrayaSolutions. There you’ll also find our latest company news, the Arraya take on industry hot-buttons and links to special offers.

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How about getting into the Halloween spirit with a few scary stories? Only these aren’t about vampires or zombies, they’re about a real business fear: keeping control over data. While the undead DSC_6178-2317 (2)may be enough for some, seasoned IT pros know the threat of sensitive data falling in the wrong hands is where the real scares lie. After all, only one of those can end in hefty fines, upset customers or employees and mountains of bad PR.

But first, let’s set the scene. Traditionally, many companies relied on NTFS security to protect their data. They would format a disk with NTFS and set permissions based on Active Directory so only certain groups could access certain files. The problem with NTFS? As soon as that file was emailed, the security vanished. The same thing happens with SharePoint. Once, it’s out there, you can’t control it.

In comparison, Azure Rights Management Services (Azure RMS) provide file-level protection. Data is secured by way of encryption, identity and authorization policies. The protection doesn’t disappear when a file changes hands either. It travels on the file from device to device and location to location. This persistent security makes certain only the right people are able to access or edit a file. Not only is this a valuable feature, in some industries it may be a legally-mandated for compliance or legal discovery.

Azure RMS at work

Let’s take a closer look at Azure RMS by using four specific scenarios – or scary stories, if you will – to show what it can do:

Scenario #1: A low-level manager prints off a list of his/her direct reports’ salaries, but then forgets to pick it up from the printer. Now those salaries are office gossip.

How Azure RMS Could Have Prevented This: With Azure RMS, a document’s owner can set a policy which prevents a document from being printed. In this scenario, the low-level manager’s boss or the Finance team can lock that list of salaries down so that it can’t be printed. Even if that low-level manager emailed it to him or herself, the lock on printing would still be there. In addition, Azure RMS can also be used to encrypt a file so it can’t be copy and pasted and screen shots can’t be taken, providing even greater security.

Scenario #2: An IT staffer at a healthcare organization unknowingly uploads a number of files containing patient records from a traditional file server onto a SharePoint site which can be accessed by the entire organization. That information is suddenly available to employees from multiple departments.

How Azure RMS Could Have Prevented This: IT can set policies to protect documents which contain certain information types. For example, a healthcare provider might want to protect patient records. Now, say all of those patient records are marked with a specific sequence of numbers. Azure RMS could be set to recognize that sequence in a document and apply the necessary policies to any file containing it – keeping them from ending up in the wrong hands.

Scenario #3: A restaurant houses all of its recipes in Word. These recipes are its intellectual property and if they fall into the wrong hands, there goes one of its primary advantages over the competition.

How Azure RMS Could Have Prevented This: In order to protect the recipes, the restaurant’s IT team can create a folder on a file server and set it so only one group of users, its chefs, can access it. Even if someone were to email that file out, it would be useless since the receiver likely wasn’t included in that original group of chefs.    

Scenario #4: A company processes its new direct deposit enrollments quarterly through a third party. Once a quarter, the company’s HR group emails bank account info to that outside Payroll management provider.

How Azure RMS Could Have Prevented This: Azure RMS allows the company sending this sensitive info to put an expiration date on it. Once that limit is reached, the file will self-destruct. It will be completely unusable to the external Payroll processor or whoever the recipient was. This keeps data from sitting forever in a potentially unsafe location.

See the benefits of Azure RMS for yourself

These are just some of the ways in which Azure RMS can ensure greater data security. If you’d like to learn more about it or are ready to put it to work at your facility, Arraya’s Microsoft team stands ready to help. Azure RMS is part of a larger suite of products called the Enterprise Mobility Suite, which you can learn about here. Our experts are well-versed in the many features and components of Azure, including RMS, and will work closely you to ensure Azure is fine-tuned to meet your specific needs.

To begin a conversation with Arraya and our Microsoft team, visit us at www.arrayasolutions.com/contact-us. Also, you can follow us on Twitter, @ArrayaSolutions, to gain access to our latest special offers, company news and insights.

 

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What better time than the middle of National Cyber Security Awareness Month, with Halloween right around the corner, to share a few security statistics bound to give IT chills? Don’t worry, DSC_6178-2317 (2)we’re not just trying to scare you. We also have some ideas on how to address the challenges presented by those statistics.

Recently, Spiceworks released its “2016 State of IT Report.” This study covers a broad range of topics, including IT budgets, current trends and projections for the future state of the department. These findings are based on data collected from more than 800 IT professionals representing multiple organizational levels and industries.

According to the study, security breaches are right at the top of IT’s list of concerns. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of respondents believe their organizations are at a moderate-to-high risk of an IT security disaster or incident. In comparison, only 40% of those surveyed feel their organizations are at a moderate-to-high risk of suffering a natural disaster or incident.

So what’s being done about these concerns? Well, that’s where things take a turn towards the macabre. When asked what they saw from their organizations’ security efforts, survey participants said:

  • Newsworthy breaches haven’t led to any changes in our security procedures (74%)
  • We don’t conduct regular security audits (62%)
  • We don’t adequately invest in IT security (59%)
  • Our data/IT assets aren’t sufficiently protected (48%)

That’s not particularly positive news. The same goes for this tidbit also pulled from the survey: Only 34% of organizations are currently leveraging advanced security solutions to combat threats.

The numbers aren’t all doom and gloom, however. Roughly 21% said they plan to invest in an advanced security solution within the next year. That figure puts advanced security solutions as by far the number one trend IT is hoping to invest in 2016.

In terms of what was holding back security efforts to this point, it doesn’t seem to be IT. Almost three-quarters (73%) of those in IT study saw security as very or extremely important to current business practices. The percentage who feel that way jumps up to 78% when the focus is changed from current to future business practices. Each of those figures took home the top spot in their respective categories, showing IT recognizes the importance of security efforts both today and in the coming months and years.

The question remains, though. What’s keeping IT from acting on those beliefs? It may come down to those outside of IT not seeing the immediate business value in security upgrades or regular audits. Or it may be a situation where IT lacks the resources or time to take on the projects it wants or to prioritize them accordingly.

Hassle-free IT security 

This is where having a partner like Arraya Solutions on your side can help. Arraya’s Managed Services for Network Security is designed to give customers a direct link to Arraya’s security experts. This allows companies to expand on the skills, knowledge and availability of their current IT teams without expanding the size of those teams through new hires or contractors. Our experts work with your team to find, configure, deploy and support the advanced security solution that best meets your needs.

Tasks covered under this offering include:

  • Managing (security) zones, networks and locations
  • Inspecting, blocking and altering malicious traffic (using intrusion detection policies)
  • Handling early detection, reputation-based blacklisting

Managed Services for Network Security solves time and resource availability issues that can often plague security efforts. It’s one of many solutions we offer to help boost the security of your IT environment.

Special National Cyber Security Awareness Month offer

Not sure what solution or strategy is right for your organization? In honor of National Cyber Security Awareness Month, we’ve decided to carry over our summer security promotion. This deal includes an in-person or virtual, no-cost, no-strings attached security consultation performed by one of our expert technicians. Our techs will look for possible weak spots in your defenses and discuss options on how they can be reinforced. These findings can also be used as an icebreaker to open dialogue within your organization about security improvements.

In addition to the free consultation, you’ll also get a free gift from Arraya just for signing up. You can choose from one of the following:

  • 2 Tickets to Dorney Park
  • 2 Tickets to Hershey Park
  • 2 Tickets to Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary

Ready to take advantage of this limited offer? Visit: http://go.arrayasolutions.com/NextGen-Security for more information or to sign up. You can also go to www.arrayasolutions.com/contact-us/ or reach out to us on Twitter, @ArrayaSolutions, to open a dialogue with our team about security or any of the other services and solutions Arraya offers.

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Arraya Solutions’ CTO David Bakker presented at the annual Equipment Leasing & Finance Association Operations and Technology Conference & Exhibition on a number of bakker cohennoteworthy IT topics, highlighted by a discussion of the hybrid cloud. The presentation – which was titled: “To Cloud or Not to Cloud: What is My Strategy?” – also featured Doug Cohen, the Senior Channel Manager for Vertex, Inc. It helped cap off the three-day ELFA conference which was held at the Hilton Philadelphia at Penn’s Landing from Sept. 16-18.

ELFA’s Ops & Tech Conference draws hundreds of attendees from financial services organizations and manufacturers representing America’s $903 billion equipment finance sector. The conference is designed to guide and support member companies on using technology to improve internal processes and operations, leading to a more positive experience for their customers.

“It was an honor to be invited to speak at ELFA’s conference,” Bakker said. “In my 20-plus years in tech, I’ve never seen a shift in technology that’s on the scale of the cloud. It holds tremendous value for companies and my hope is that this presentation inspires attendees to begin having real, meaningful conversations about the cloud if they weren’t already.”

The presentation took a high-level approach to the topic at hand, first giving attendees some essential background on cloud technologies, namely, what they are, what they can be used to do and why they’re worth exploring. It also delved into the impact to date of the cloud on IT. From there, it touched on the advantages of molding private and public cloud environments together to form a hybrid cloud and the strategies and solutions which can be used to implement and support it.

Also covered in the presentation were some of the pitfalls companies can encounter on their cloud journeys – and how they can be addressed. These included concerns about keeping data secure in the cloud and how the cloud will affect the budget.

The conclusion of the discussion sought to fully dispel the myth that the cloud is mere hype through figures and statistics from the companies using it each and every day. These numbers also affirmed that the cloud can deliver an evolutionary experience.

“Today’s reality is that my phone is my office. The cloud is chiefly responsible for that because it allows me to be productive no matter where I am or what time it is,” Bakker explained. “Bringing that reality to your company isn’t as difficult as it seems. Often, a large part of companies’ cloud strategies have already been defined. Sometimes it just takes a little help to be able to recognize that fact and act on it.”

If you’re interested in learning more about the cloud, or would like to see this presentation live for yourself, please visit www.arrayasolutions.com/contact-us/ to schedule an appointment.

 

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I’m not typically one for business books, however, I came across one recently which stood out for me: Patrick Lencioni’s “The Advantage.” In the book, Lencioni makes the point that the best way arraya valuesfor companies to improve and grow stronger often isn’t found externally but rather inside the company itself. Instead of looking for new tools or tricks from outside their four walls, companies should look to their corporate culture. By cultivating and refining this through the rooting out of miscommunication and traditional office politics, companies have the potential to see profound improvements.

As I read through the book, I noticed many of the paths Lencioni suggests taking are ones we already follow here – and they’ve paid off for us. Earlier this year we were fortunate enough to be named as one of the top workplaces in the Greater Philadelphia area, an honor entirely based on employee voting.

To start with, our company embraces a small, specific set of behavioral ideals. We call them our “Arraya Values.” These revolve around our commitment to creating forward-thinking solutions, making our customers’ lives easier, delivering superhero service to – and forming lasting relationships with – our customers, and maintaining an expert level of knowledge in our field. Everyone in the organization has made these values a part of how we do our jobs. They’re in our minds during every interaction with customers.

Also, as a leadership team we’ve sought to “over-communicate,” as Lencioni calls it, those values to all of our reports and ensure that they do the same with theirs and so on down the line. This takes place in one-on-one meetings, in company-wide events like our town halls, holiday parties, etc. and, as we mentioned, in our day-to-day actions.

That level of communication isn’t reserved only for our corporate values either. We pride ourselves on having a variety of different lines of communication connecting our company. This allows employees to get their Arraya news and updates in-person, in-print or digitally. Our employees are always on the go and having multiple avenues ensures they can always access the info they need, when they need it, regardless of where they may be working from.

As part of our commitment to open communication we ask that leaders have a simple and consistent method for setting goals and reviewing progress with employees. This means creating and utilizing metrics wherever possible. As an example, let’s look at our Marketing team. For every event Arraya holds, our Marketing team tracks open and closed business, the number of new prospect meetings, etc. Basically, they monitor any new business opportunities which stem from an event to see how successful it was. By incorporating metrics and measurables in this way, it gives employees an idea of what the return is on all of their efforts.

Metrics also help leaders set clear and concise expectations. Everyone has to know what’s expected of them. Metrics offer a clear road to success. If these expectations are poorly defined, it can lead to missed objectives and frustrated employees.

Another area where we seek to incorporate that clarity is with employee career paths. Having an opportunity to grow in their career and assume new responsibilities is a fantastic motivator for employees. Without this, improving overall satisfaction and the employee experience will be an uphill battle. We encourage employees to get the latest training to further their skills and we support them in those efforts. I’m positive this contributed to Arraya being named as a Best Place to Work. Our employees feel as though they have an opportunity to grow their career here.

We’re by no means perfect. We recognize that there’s always room for improvement and every member of our team is working together to continue to make Arraya a great place to work. We’ve even set a metric to let us know whether or not those efforts were worth it: reaching an even higher place on the top workplaces list next year. In the meantime, however, each of us can remain proud of everything we’ve achieved and the way in which we’ve achieved it.

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If you’ve ever listened to Julia White, General Manager of Office at Microsoft, speak about Office 365, then you know two things. Microsoft updates Office a lot. As in over 400 improvements in New Improved Meaning Latest Development To Upgrade Productone year, a lot. Secondly, Microsoft has decreased the amount of time it takes to roll out a customer-requested update. This has resulted in a good amount of changes that you may or may not know about.

Office 2016 is out!
The first big change is the release of Office 2016 on September 22nd, 2015. I personally have loaded it up and I love it. Here are some features that I think you’ll really enjoy:

  • Despite Office reducing our need to email attachments around now and use SharePoint or OneDrive for Business sharing, sometimes an attachment is needed. When creating a new message in Outlook, there is now an Attach File drop down that shows the files you’ve recently worked on. This makes it extremely easy to attach files.
  • Word and PowerPoint now support co-authoring. Word has gone one more step to allow real-time changes to be seen by those you are working with.
  • Sharing is even easier with the Share button at the top right of Office applications.
  • There is an interesting fact checking feature in Office now. If you right click text in a document, you can do a Smart Lookup, which searches Bing. No more second guessing or even leaving your document to check something out.

Delve
Delve has been out for a while now, but if you aren’t using OneDrive for Business or SharePoint Online, you’re missing out. Usually, people start the day and check their email. Delve is the second thing that people should check. It learns about your relationships in the organization and shows you the documents that your co-workers are working on, always honoring permissions on what people can see.

This is an extremely powerful tool and Microsoft will be growing it soon into Delve Organizational Analytics, which will help businesses learn how groups of people work together and give insights into what might be working and what isn’t.

Office 365 Video
Video sharing has always been a challenge of SharePoint. Who wants to store large video files in a SQL database? With Office 365 video, you can now host your internal videos easily. There are a number of ways this handy service can be used. Your HR department could host training videos or Directors could host webcasts.

Combine this with Office Mix and PowerPoint and you can have presentations pre-recorded with your voice, video and notes to be watched anytime.

Advanced Threat Protection
How many times have you told Gary in Finance not to click links in unsolicited emails? With Advanced Threat Protection, an Office 365 add-on, Gary’s incoming emails can be scanned deeply for fake links, phishing, and malware.

Advanced Threat Protection is per user, so not everyone needs it. It can be used to protect individuals, like Gary, who deal in sensitive information. It re-routes inbound email for the protected users to a special area where they are scanned for about 10 minutes before being delivered. Hopefully, Gary will stop handing out your bank account and ABA number!

Ongoing Improvements
With all of these improvements, it can be difficult to keep track. These are only a few of the more interesting features released for Office 365 during 2015. We recommend keeping an eye on the Office 365 Roadmap, read the Office Blog, and work with a great partner like Arraya Solutions to help you stay in the know!

If you’d like to open a line of dialogue with Arraya and our team of Microsoft experts, visit us at: www.ArrayaSolutions.com/contact-us/ or reach out to us on our Twitter account @ArrayaSolutions.

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Office 365 and Active Directory are made for each other. Through Directory Synchronization (DirSync or Azure AD Connect), Active Directory can be extended out into the cloud, allowing for Businessman hand draws success words on whiteboardeasier management of identities across platforms. Customer impressions differ from reality though. Even with a good partner message, some customers forget about the benefits and begin to ignore DirSync entirely. This can lead to two things. First, DirSync becomes mismanaged and account issues are not remediated. This often leads to the second thing, which is that the customer turns off DirSync and develops a hodgepodge of processes to manage accounts in the cloud.

As more time passes though, the pains of not having DirSync become evident – account provisioning and de-provisioning times become longer and more complex leading to broken SLAs, identities and group membership become inconsistent, and worst of all, licenses are not accurately tracked. These companies eventually realize that if they want to take full advantage of the soft and hard savings Office 365 offers, they need to have DirSync up and running.

The challenge is re-activing DirSync can be dangerous. It sounds simple, but it is really complex. You are shifting authority for Active Directory attributes in Office 365 from the Cloud identities to back to your Active Directory on-premises. You must consider all the changes that have been made to both the on-premises directory and the cloud while DirSync was disabled. If it hasn’t been running for a long time, DirSync could end up overwriting a lot of valuable user objects and properties stored in the Cloud.

Arraya Solutions recently worked with a client which found itself in that exact situation. The client is a global leader in the supply chain services industry which has helped customers transport products more efficiently for almost seven decades.

The Business Situation

A few years back, the client migrated from Exchange 2003 to Office 365. During this process, they leveraged DirSync to create the necessary Office 365 user accounts and Exchange Online mailboxes. Once the user and mailbox data was migrated, the client decommissioned the on-premises Exchange Organization, but went further and removed DirSync server as well. The internal messaging was to go 100% Cloud. DirSync was a victim of this message.

By removing DirSync, the client created a situation where IT lost the efficiencies it once had, even when they were on Exchange 2003! They were now managing identities separately across two directories across the entire user’s lifecycle – provisioning, management and de-provisioning. The client’s low turnover rate and relatively small number of users masked the real scope of the problem.

When the client became interested in the Enterprise Mobility Suite, the issue surfaced. IT turned DirSync back on to support identity synchronization for Azure Active Directory Premium. The reactivated DirSync overwrote the client’s Cloud-based identities, a lot of which only existed there, resulting in deleted mailboxes and lost productivity.

The Solution

The client engaged Microsoft support to recover the lost data to the tenant. Even after the data was restored, the client wasn’t yet at the point where it could safely turn DirSync back on. That’s where Arraya Solutions came in. Arraya faced the challenge of trying to normalize the different directories so that the client could restore efficiencies back to their identity lifecycle management and roll out the Enterprise Mobility Suite.

Since IT had been performing dual management for so many years, it meant there were three categories of users existing within its environment.

  1. Accounts which had existed in Active Directory on-premises and had been synchronized to Azure Active Directory during the Office 365 migration process, thereby becoming linked.
  2. Accounts which existed in both Active Directory on-premises and in Azure Active Directory, but weren’t linked.
  3. Accounts that existed in either Active Directory on-premises or in Azure Active Directory, but didn’t have a matching counterpart in the other.

In order to avoid data loss when we turned DirSync back on, all of the accounts needed to be created, remediated, or matched. We first made sure all the accounts existed where they needed to.

To get DirSync running safely, Arraya reverse engineered the way in which DirSync operates. When an on-premises user object is synchronized to Azure Active Directory, the object in Azure Active Directory has an attribute called the immutableID, which aligns to the objectID in Active Directory on-premises. This is how Azure Active Directory reconciles user objects with their on-premises equivalents.

Once we verified all accounts were in place, our team reconciled each account object’s immutableID attribute to their correct objectID. Writing a value to this attribute is a task that only DirSync performs, but Arraya updated it outside of DirSync via a script to correct the problem. This allowed us to forcibly link any accounts we wanted together.

The End Result

By performing the reverse DirSync manually, our team made sure all of the data in the Cloud corresponded to what was on-premises. When we turned DirSync on there was no data loss. DirSync still overwrote what was in the Cloud with what was on premises, only this time it was replacing one set of data with an exact copy.

Once DirSync was re-activated and validated, the client’s IT department could again manage the identities from a single location, knowing that their data was consistent across directories. We then helped them enable another workload in the cloud, namely the Enterprise Mobility Suite.

Keeping DirSync healthy and active is always the recommendation when spanning an on-premises Active Directory to Azure Active Directory. It runs so well that clients forget about it or turn it off on purpose or accidentally. Re-activating DirSync without careful consideration or validation of data can be very disastrous. In this case, Arraya was able to correct the issue manually through a deep understanding of how DirSync works.

The client in this case was able to bounce back and reach its desired end state, but it had to endure unnecessary headaches and invest additional time and resources to get there. More often than not, avoiding those consequences requires the help of a partner like Arraya. Our Microsoft Practice has the Office 365 knowledge and experience to put vetted processes in place which allow organizations to steer clear of issues en route to realizing the full benefit of their Office 365 solutions.

To learn more about Arraya’s Microsoft Practice or to schedule an appointment today, visit www.arrayasolutions.com.

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Mobility solutions are becoming more established in all industries, including healthcare. In order to give employees the flexibility they desire, IT is being asked to let go of control over howbusiness hand shows touch screen mobile phone with streaming images employees connect to organizational networks, from where they’re able to connect, and the devices they use to do so.

The productivity gains which can be achieved by allowing employees to work from multiple locations and across multiple devices are clear. Enabling a more mobile workforce allows your staffers to provide patients with better care by making sure health information is always close at hand. In addition, there’s the element of improved communication between staffers and patients that can be powered by mobility solutions.

However, no industry is immune to security breaches. A quick glance through the tech headlines on most days will show that. No organization wants to deal with the costs – both financial and otherwise – associated with a data breach. This puts IT in the unenviable position of finding an equilibrium between loosening its restrictions on employees while still maintaining a secure environment.

Balancing mobility and security 

Thinking about rolling out or expanding on a mobility initiative? The government has some advice for extended care facilities as well as other healthcare providers who are mulling that option. Check out the five steps which the government believes can lead to a secure mobile environment – and how a Managed Services partner like Arraya Solutions can help with each:

  1. Nail down the scope of your mobility plan. Are mobile devices going to be used to access, send or store resident or patient information? Or will they be used to complement your organization’s existing infrastructure, e.g., as part of an electronic health record system? Arraya is adept at working with companies from all industries, including healthcare, to develop comprehensive and customized strategies capable of addressing the mobile challenges of identity, security and management.
  2. Conduct a risk assessment. What are the biggest threats? Where are you most vulnerable? Most importantly, do you have the resources available to cover those weak spots? Arraya’s Managed Services team has extensive experience deploying a range of mobility solutions. That experience (and our vendor-agnostic approach) helps know where to look to find the threats and weaknesses most likely to cause problems and the solutions that are best for the job.
  3. Formulate a long-term risk management strategy. Arraya’s goal is to build lasting relationships. From initial rollout out through regular maintenance and upgrades, Arraya’s Managed Services team is capable of evaluating and supporting mobility solutions for their entire lifecycle.
  4. Develop, document and implement mobile device policies and procedures. The boundaries and security settings need to be well-defined for mobile device management, BYOD and more. That info also needs to be on the books and available to all potentially-impacted staffers to ensure compliance. Arraya has been down this road before with facilities and can help step you through the documentation process.
  5. Conduct mobile device privacy and security awareness and training. Tech know-how is just part of what Arraya’s Managed Services team brings to the table. It also takes pride in delivering top-notch personal service, including providing training on new mobility solutions to give your team the foundation it needs to achieve enduring positive results.

Arraya’s Managed Services provide the resources organizations need to keep their infrastructure safe, secure and problem-free. These resources reinforce existing IT personnel to ensure the technologies that support your business are available when they’re needed.

To learn more about how Managed Services from Arraya Solutions can help your organization reach its mobility goals or to schedule an appointment with an Arraya Account Executive, visit us at www.ArrayaSolutions.com. Also, don’t forget to follow Arraya on Twitter, @ArrayaSolutions, for access to the latest company and tech industry news.

 

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Most things in business are governed by policies. There are detailed sets of rules surrounding everything from PTO usage to intra-office relationships and beyond. Historically, one area that hasRules File On Laptop Showing Policies Or Rules Guide been tougher to lock down with policies has been the corporate network. Often this stems from poor visibility into the network itself, a misalignment of IT and the rest of the business or a lack of flexibility in today’s always evolving corporate world. However, if recent trends continue to hold – and there’s every indication that they will – stronger, more business-focused policy-based networking will become essential.

These trends should be especially familiar topics to regular readers of this blog. We’ve touched on most of them recently and they’re all almost unrivaled in terms of sheer landscape-altering impact. They consist of the rise of Cloud computing, virtualization and Software as a Service (SaaS) applications; increased consumerization of the business network and end user demand for mobility due to the proliferation of tablets, smart phones, etc. and the burgeoning availability of video-oriented applications – both for business and non-business use.

Each trend holds ample value for organizations, provided of course the security and efficiency issues each one presents are addressed ASAP by IT. Building a policy-based network is the best way to do just that. Doing so can enable IT to better meet user expectations and the needs of the business in several critical ways, including by:

  • setting pre-determined limits as to where users are able to access sensitive data from, when they can do so and what kind of device they can use
  • encrypting and guaranteeing higher quality to highly-sensitive data, while leaving less at-risk info un-encrypted and at a lower priority
  • prioritizing multimedia calls with customers over nonbusiness video in the event that bandwidth has become an issue
  • provisioning virtual desktops to company data centers closest to traveling employees, allowing them to reach a new level of productivity
  • restricting employee access to nonbusiness social media sites during work hours and possibly even banning contractors from accessing them from select devices at all times

That all sounds great, but in reality those challenges we talked about earlier, the ones that are keeping organizations from achieving a true policy-based network – the visibility, alignment and flexibility issues – haven’t gone anywhere. In order to fully reap the benefits of a policy-based network, companies need a solution that can help them overcome those challenges.

Enabling policy-based networking with ISE

Cisco’s Identity Services Engine (ISE) can help. It’s been called the first step on the road to policy-based networking. ISE is a security policy management platform capable of increasing IT’s visibility into the network, controlling who has access to what and containing any threats which happen to make an appearance. With ISE, companies will be well-positioned to achieve policy-based networking, that in turn will make them better able to thrive in the face of today’s IT trends.

Still not sure what to make of ISE? Here are four ways it supports policy-based networking:

  1. ISE can reduce the number of unknowns on your network. ISE features superior device-profiling and a zero-day device profile feed to keep the solution updated on all the latest devices. This increases visibility and reduces unknown endpoints which could mask threats.   
  2. Traffic classification in ISE is based on endpoint identity. This is what makes ISE so flexible. In the event that a policy needs to be changed, it can be performed in relation to an endpoint, eliminating the necessity for a network redesign.
  3. Dynamic visual workflows make access management a breeze. Onboard guests and manage their accounts quickly and easily. In addition to its easy-to-follow workflows, ISE also features customizable guest portals which allow secure access in mere minutes.
  4. Compatible with partner solutions. ISE not only improves the performance of partner solutions through providing greater context, it also works closely with them. Select solutions can execute access policy changes in ISE to efficiently contain threats.

Special offer: Learn more about ISE, get free stuff 

Arraya Solutions has a long history of working with Cisco’s industry-leading security solutions, including ISE. If you have questions about how any of these solutions can benefit your organization, there’s never been a better time to ask. If you reach out to Arraya now, you’ll receive a completely free, no-strings-attached security consultation (in-person or virtual) with our team of experts. In addition, you’ll also receive another free gift from Arraya.

Ready to get started? Visit www.arrayasolutions.com/contact-us/ to schedule your free consultation and to claim your gifts.

Also, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, @ArrayaSolutions, to stay updated on all of our latest company news, industry insights and special offers.