So you have been cruising along at your business for years and all has been great, but now, out of the blue, people on your network are having trouble viewing websites.

You found that if you reboot that firewall (pull the plug on the thing since there is no power supply) that YOU get back online right away, but then later that day, someone else on the network is now having trouble accessing websites so you reboot the firewall and all is well, for a while.

What could it be? It MUST be the firewall going bad since that fixes it.

Before jumping to that conclusion and just replacing the device, think back. Has your company grown? Maybe you have added a few new employees, or, maybe you have added tablets or other connected devices.

What could be happening here is that you have added one too many devices to your network and exceeded the number of seats that your firewall appliance supports. When you originally purchased that device, a technician counted the number of computers, servers and connected devices and said “You need a 25 user firewall and it will cost $xxx.xx”, to which you agreed and promptly forgot about.

Now, flash forward to today and your 12 users and a server have grown to 15 users, two servers and many people have iPads or Android tablets or phones, taking you past the 25 user limit.  The last person to connect once you go over the limit will generally be denied access to websites by the firewall, as a warning that you have exceeded the license terms, and it probably won’t “reset” just by turning that computer off, you will have to reboot the firewall to free unused seats up.

So what are you going to do about it? I guess you could tell the employees to stop connecting their personal phones to your network, or you could replace the firewall with a cheap router that has no limitations.

Both will work, but are bad ideas.

The real solution is to correct the licensing issue. Determine how many connected devices you have within your network, and estimate how many you will need for the next year, then talk to a vendor who can provide the proper licenses and apply those for you. Don’t forget to include VoIP and security systems, even copiers and connected printers, as they may require a seat too.

If you are experiencing rapid growth, consider upgrading to an unlimited license.

Just a note – If you have an old device, say 4-5 years old, now may be the time to consider upgrading the entire device to the latest technology at the same time you correct the user limitation!

Should you require help with this, Homeland Secure IT offers sales and support of most major brands of firewalls. We partner with Cisco, WatchGuard, SonicWALL, TrendNet, D-Link, NetGear and more! Call us for more information in the Greenville / Upstate SC area – 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com

Here’s a sad story… A local (Spartanburg, SC) music store was broken into over the weekend and 40,000 dollars in gear was taken.

The theft doesn’t look like your typical smash and grab either, because the thieve/s appear to have known the layout and went to great lengths to avoid detection. They entered through a skylight, after cutting power to the store, cutting video surveillance wires and disconnecting the alarm system backup power. A newspaper article about the break in and theft can be found here.

As a small business owner, I know the devastation the proprietor of the music store must be feeling, and I sincerely hope the perpetrator/s is/are caught and the equipment returned, and that there was insurance covering that inventory.

However, as a supplier and consultant in the security field, I have to wonder about a few details and offer some suggestions.

The article states the power was cut.  That would not normally matter to an alarm system, as it has a backup battery.  Now if the phone lines were cut before the power, then the system could not dial out.  UNLESS the alarm system has a cellular backup system as our home and our office both have.  This costs a few dollars more, but in the event of a power failure and loss of telephone connectivity, it can make the difference between the system working or not.

Dropping through a skylight SHOULD have been picked up by motion.  Was it not functioning? Was the system unable to call out?  The alarm should have sounded and strobe lights in equipped should have been flashing.  Pulling the battery on the alarm would have then silenced it, but not before it dialed out on the cellular backup system if it used that, or VoIP if the internet were not disabled too.

Which brings us to video surveillance. Obviously, no system is perfect, but many modern systems are capable of alerting staff of intrusion before it happens.  If you walk into my yard at my home, or come into the parking lot of our businesses, still shots will be emailed to me.  This functionality is easy to configure and helps let you know about sketchy things taking place. If I receive email at 10pm on a Saturday then I am going to be paying special attention to it, watching in real-time.

But what if someone were to manage to disable the internet connections? Wouldn’t that disable the ability to notify anyone?  Not necessarily. Businesses can consider secondary internet services, such as wireless broadband internet (3g/4g) for their video surveillance.  Total cost, 450/year and doubles as a failover for the business internet.

What if the power were cut to the building? The video surveillance system should be on an UPS (un-interruptable power supply) to keep it running for many hours. Our system is on an inexpensive UPS which will keep the DVR and the cameras functional for about 72 hours.  Total cost, 350 dollars.

WHAT IF (Lots of what if’s here!) the bad guys managed to actually get in without being detected… Couldn’t they just take the Digital Video Recorder?  Yes, they could, if it were not in a hardened enclosure.  But, there are ways to deal with that too. All video up until the time the DVR went offline can be synced to a remote location.

We have opted to sync our video to multiple machines, so if the DVR were physically destroyed or taken, the video would still be elsewhere.

If you would like to discuss how to better protect your Greenville /Upstate SC business or home, give us a call… 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com.  We offer CCTV, IP Video, Surveillance systems,  DVRs and NVRs. We can also help plan for failover systems, such as UPS and cellular / 3g/4g wireless backups.

Privacy advocates are fired up over the multi-million dollar video integration center planned for Atlanta Georgia.

This system will monitor up to 500 cameras simultaneously, some owned by the city and some private, at a centralized data center. At that center, software will be in place that can identify “suspicious” behavior and allow monitoring employees to deploy emergency personnel rapidly. Another feature of the software is that it is able to pinpoint where gunshots originate from.

What do you think about this type of network? It is used elsewhere with great success, and recently an art thief in San Francisco was caught thanks to a similar setup.

If your business has an IP surveillance system, would you be willing to offer your feed to a government agency for this type of centralized monitoring endeavor?

Acording to the IMS, by 2012 more network cameras will be sold in the Americas than analog cameras… And the growth rate continues to climb dramatically after that….

This should come as no surprise to anyone who is familiar with the two technologies.

IP Surveillance Systems offer a multitude of advantages over analog, including return on investment, ease of deployment, enhanced feature set and an owner experience and satisfaction.

Homeland Secure IT is happy to be a partner with D-Link, a world leader in IP Surveillance. Though we offer many others brands, a growing number of businesses and organizations are turning to D-Link’s products. If you would like more information about what IP Surveillance can do to give you peace of mind and security, call us at 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com

We are always happy to give a demonstration in the Greenville / Upstate area, at your office or ours. We can even meet for coffee and demonstrate the remote viewing and management capabilities using an Android, iPad or notebook computer.

Stop wondering what is happening at your business when you are away. Be notified of movement in sensitive areas on your smartphone.

Put an end to the unasked or unanswered questions about personnel attendance or actions.

Watch that blind spot in your store where product has vanished in the past.

Who’s using all the office supplies? You’ll know.

Watch the parking lot, know what is going on outside your walls.

All that and more is possible!

I’m away on vacation with my lovely wifey Pamela, and our first stop on the Gulf tour was the IP Casino and Resort in Biloxi, MS, where we met my older brother, his wife and their oldest daughter…

While roaming around, it was easy to see that the “eye in the sky” was ever present, and I do mean EVERYWHERE.  Heck, at check-in, there were 17 cameras that I spotted without even turning my head around! On the 2nd floor, where the big buffet and the non-smoking casino area is, there were at least 60 cameras clearly visible. (How many were not visible?).

There were cameras in hallways, elevators and parking garages. Who knows, maybe even some in the bathrooms. (Let’s hope not).

What it reminded me of was how grateful I am that we have surveillance at our places of business (Homeland Secure IT has at least a dozen that you can see inside and outside), and at our home.

When we are away from work or home, we get alerts in email, letting us know that something, or someone moved in view of our cameras. We can then use our Android smartphone, computer or iPad to watch the cameras in real-time. They record video and audio automatically. They see in the dark, and offer very high resolution.

While setting up a casino is not outside our realm of expertise, setting up your home or business is right in the middle of our sweet spot.

If you crave the peace of mind offered by high quality video surveillance, then give us a call and let’s talk about how we can put a system in place that will meet your needs and desires.

We offer IP Network cameras, both wired and wireless, as well as conventional CCTV solutions. We are dealers for quality products from Cisco, Panasonic and other manufactures and we serve the Greenville / Upstate SC area.

864.990.4748 or info@homelandsecureit.com for more information!

Most businesses have a love-hate relationship with their phone systems, often settling for less than everything they need because it is inexpensive, low-maintenance or not too complicated.

We have always wanted the most features that we could get, so a VoIP (Voice over IP) solution was the only way to go! We initially used enterprise class Cisco 7960 VoIP phone sets with an Asterisk based system and a couple phone lines provided by Charter, and a couple provided by Vonage.

We had everything we wanted and needed with that system…

• Automated Attendant
• Voice Mail
• Voice Mail sent to our Email
• Full featured SIP phones with multi-line, displays, etc
• Call tracking, with full logs showing incoming/outgoing call detail
• Music On Hold
• Ability to forward calls to cell phones
• Good audio quality, speaker phone capability

We never really wanted for additional features, but along comes the Cisco UC 320 series which is an ideal fit for many of our own clients. Obviously, we want to provide support to those who may be using this type of system, so we purchased one for ourselves and at the same time purchased a few of the latest SPA 525G2 phones from Cisco and some SPA504s and even the SPA301.

Seeing as how change was coming, we also switched to a SIP trunk with 8 channels (simultaneous lines in use) in addition to the two lines from Charter, so we should not be hurting for available phone lines and nobody should get a busy signal…

The Cisco VoIP solution is very nice for small to medium offices like our own! Out of the box, it supports everything we had before, but here are a few of the details:

• Support for four copper (standard) phone lines from MaBell (or Charter, or a Vonage ATA, etc)
• Support for sending out to analog devices (you can give your FAX  its own extension number for instance or use analog phones)
• Support for using SIP trunks (cheaper than analog lines)
• 24 phone extensions (more on this further down)
• Built-in gigabit switch
• Built-in router
• Built-in 802.11 n/b/g wireless for phones and data
• Music On Hold
• Automated Attendant
• Call logs for external calls
• Supports the full line of Cisco SPA series phones

If you need MORE incoming copper lines, you can add them 4 at a time (up to 12 total) with another device, but you lose an extension for each line you add.

The old 7960G phones rocked for their quality, phone books, and their ability to use external XML scripts to get the weather, etc, but the new phones do not make me miss them at all!

The SPA 525G2 desk sets have too many cool features to list without you getting bored and your eyes glazing over! Here’s a few:

• Color display
  

  Cisco SPA525G2 with 32 button sidecar

• Built-in MP3 player lets you listen to your favorite music directly on your speaker phone (pauses when an incoming call comes in)
• Bluetooth headset support
• Bluetooth linking to your cell/smartphone – Lets you use your smartphone as an additional extension. Answer your cell via your desk phone, place calls on it, even load the cell phone’s directory directly onto your desk phone. Also view the battery charge and signal strength on the SPA 525G2.
• Ability to link up to two 32 button consoles
• Outstanding audio quality on handset and speaker phone
• View Cisco Small Business security cameras on the color display of the SPA 525G2 phone (you can place a camera and a one line phone in your lobby for instance, view who is there, and speak with them)
• Built-in web applications, let you get the current news and weather on your phone’s display

If you are considering a new phone system for your business and you never need more than 12 lines or 24 extensions, then this may be the system for you! In fact, if you did happen to expand past its capabilities, Cisco has a trade-up program to move you to a larger system and you can continue to use the existing phones with it.

We are offering the Cisco UCW320 and the complete line of Cisco Unified Communications systems for Small and Medium Businesses for sale, but also offer consultation, planning, installation and support of these amazing VoIP solutions. In Greenville / Upstate, SC, please call us at 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com for more information.

Let's hope your server room never gets THIS hot!

We are helping a client move their entire network (servers, computers, switches, firewalls) to a new facility. Unfortunately, the new digs do not allow for an optimum placement of their servers. They are to be relegated to an upstairs location in the building, and an air conditioner system is being installed to provide the cooling required to keep everything from melting down.

The worst part is that this far removed server room will contain 4 servers, a computer used for remote access, switches, backup solutions, VoIP system, UPS and various other components, and nobody will be close by to hear if alarms are going off for the RAID, UPS or overheat conditions.

What to do? We will use software to monitor the device temperatures, and we are suggesting a remote temperature sensor for the entire room which will maintain a chart of temperature trends, and allow us to set email alerts in the event the room itself exceeds a determined threshold.

These devices are inexpensive insurance against a meltdown that could cost thousands of dollars to recover from, not to mention downtime for the business affected. We will also be recommending an IP camera in that room that will allow remote visual monitoring, including alarms should something move in the room itself (there will be a log of who entered the room this way). And should the server and room temperatures rise beyond the threshold and alert someone via email, they can then view the camera with a browser or smartphone (Android, iPhone or Blackberry) and see if the room is in flames.

Should you be interested in one of these devices for your Greenville / Upstate server room, or wiring closet, please contact us at 864.990.4748 or info@homelandsecureit.com to discuss options that are available for you.

Cisco, internationally known for manufacturing cutting edge security, telephony, connectivity, video and storage solutions has bestowed upon Homeland Secure IT, the title of “Cisco SMB Select Partner”, rewarding our competencies, our know-how and the professional manner in which we manage projects.

While we have been able to offer the Cisco product line since we first opened our doors, we can now offer the entire SMB line of products which are designed with the Small and Medium business in mind. The Cisco SMB Select Partner is specially trained and certified to assist businesses with less than 250 users with this line of products designed especially for them!

Some of the products include:

Network video cameras to protect your business from slip, trip & fall type claims, theft, vandalism and even terrorist or violent criminal activities.

NAS or Network Area Storage, which allow centralized storage of your video from cameras, data from users and even backups.

VoIP or Voice over IP phone systems that permit your business to have state of the art features, such as a single number for people to dial that rings your desk phone and cell phone simultaneously, voice mail that goes to your email, automated attendant, etc.

Firewalls and other security products required to protect your internal infrastructure from external intrusion and to keep your business in compliance with regulations, as well as stopping spam and virus at the gateway before it enters your network.

Connectivity devices, like switches (both managed and unmanaged), routers, wireless access points and bridges.

In addition to offering these products, we also offer complete service and support for the entire Cisco SMB line and licensing of SMARTnet, Trend Micro / Cisco Spam & Virus Blocker subscription sales and renewals and more!

If you would like more information about the Cisco SMB offerings, please visit our Cisco Showcase,  email info@homelandsecureit.com or call 864.990.4748. We are proud to be your Cisco SMB Select Partner in Greenville and Upstate SC!

Stranger lurks behind our office

I was reminded just how useful cameras can be after watching a segment on the news this morning where a young lady was using an inexpensive app on her iPhone that allowed her to check in on her dog by viewing the camera on her PC. She just happened to catch a burglar in the process! More on that HERE.

That story had a pretty happy ending. Through the use of the video captured, the police were able to apprehend the suspect, though I didn’t hear whether her iPod and chargers were recovered. If they have the right guy, thanks to a 5 dollar iPhone app, she helped get one more bad guy off the street.

Over the weekend here at our office, I received emails from our digital network video recorder (DVR / NVR) which alerted me to motion taking place around our building. Police cruisers driving behind the building are not uncommon, but the fella to the right who changed clothes, washed stuff off his boots and hands and left his clothing behind was pretty sketchy.

Thanks to the full motion recordings, we are able to offer law enforcement high quality photo stills and video, complete with time stamps, from several angles and cameras. (We have about 13 cameras around our office).

This type of protection is available for your home and office for an amazingly small investment. We have CCTV and network camera systems to fit every possible scenario and budget. From a single camera at your home, to 4, 8 or 16 at a small business, or even dozens of cameras with pan, tilt and zoom capability at your corporate office. We have cameras available that see in complete darkness, and even cameras that are so small you can’t see them (or may be disguised as a smoke detector, sprinkler head, exit sign, etc).

You can view the cameras in real-time from your iPhone, Android or even Blackberry smartphone, or any web browser, from anywhere in the world! You can be alerted when motion occurs in a particular area via an email. Recordings can be accessed days, weeks or even months after an event occurs.

For a free consultation about how security cameras can help protect your Greenville / Upstate SC property, loved ones, and even reduce your insurance costs, please call us at 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com.

Today you can hardly have a conversation with IT professionals without the buzz words, “cloud computing”, “in the cloud”, “cloud solutions”, etc popping up.

What do these terms mean? To over-simplify the definition, it means that something is not stored at your location. It is stored “in the cloud”, or on a remote server, and accessed via the internet. The “it” could be data, as in your databases, email, files, or it could be programs / applications, such as web based suites of software like Microsoft Office suite, including Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word or custom applications.

All this talk about moving to “the cloud”, a term which is generically used for the internet, has people thinking about how it can be used for their business. Let’s take our own small business and use it as an example.

Currently, we use a large server which has Microsoft Server 2008 loaded on it and functions as our domain controller, DNS, DHCP, and other standard server tasks… It also serves as our file server, and it hosts Microsoft Exchange for our in-house email. Other tasks this one piece of hardware is responsible for are: TFTPd for management of our VoIP phone system’s configuration files, backup of data (Using multiple backup systems such as Servosity Online Backup Solution, an “in the cloud” product, and MozyPro) and Trend Micro Worry Free Business Security Advanced for anti-virus and anti-spam.

We have a second server which hosts additional files, Blackberry Enterprise Server (not currently in use due to the switch to Android phones), and is a test bed for us. Then we have two other servers, a Voice over IP server based on Linux OS which is in control of our phone system & voice mail, and a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) for storage of video from our CCTV cameras.

In order to reduce some overhead, we could potentially maintain a smaller main server with only Windows 2008 R2 running on it as a domain controller, then utilize Microsoft Aurora, or even Microsoft BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite), allowing mail storage and transport to take place outside our building.

We could then switch from Trend Micro Worry Free Business Security Advanced to the Trend Hosted solution, relieving our server from those duties.

Since we are already using a remote backup solution, we would not have to worry about that, and our backup requirements would actually drop since we would no longer need to backup the Microsoft Exchange Store (Microsoft would handle that for us with the BPOS solution).

As you can see, eliminating the main server entirely from the equation here is not going to be possible, however a considerable amount of storage, backup, and resources could be moved elsewhere.

One thing to take into consideration before moving to these hosted solutions is, what if our internet is down? That is a good question which still has many people concerned about these technologies. In the case of online file storage, if you do not have cached storage at your location, you simply have no access to it. In the case of mail, if you are caching the information locally, you CAN see your old/existing email, but you cannot send or receive new mail until the connection is reestablished. It is important to note that cloud based email will still RECEIVE email when your business is without an internet connection and you will get it as soon as the connection is reestablished, something that doesn’t happen now if you use an onsite Exchange Server, unless you are using a mail hold & forward (spool) system at your ISP or other provider.

Should you desire to discuss your needs and how products like Microsoft Aurora, BPOS, Google Apps, Servosity and other cloud services can fit into your infrastructure, please call us at 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com for a free consultation!  We are partners with Microsoft, Google, Servosity, MozyPro and other cloud providers. We also offer a full line of computer, server & network service, support, sales and consultation here in Greenville & Upstate SC!

Microsoft is offering a free 30 day trial of their Business Productivity Online Suite if you would like to see it in action.