NAVIGATION
CORPORATE OFFICE
Zunesis, Inc.
12303 Airport Way, Suite 100,
Broomfield, CO 80021
(720) 221-5200
Las Vegas
6671 Las Vegas Blvd S
Building D Suite 210, Office 260
Las Vegas, NV 89119
(702) 837-5300
For those of you who think that on January 1, 202 at 12:00 AM the world is going to go back to the way it was before COVID reared its ugly head, I have bad news for you; we’re still going to be in this fight. I wish it wasn’t true. I really do! However, contrary to the Peter Pan story, there is no Neverland; only the reality of what we face today.
Right now, in late November, we’ve regressed to nearly the same lifestyle we had when the country closed down in March. The worst part is that we already know what the casualties will be if it continues. I apologize for sounding like ‘Dave, The Downer,’ but not being realistic about what the immediate future holds for us would be incredibly naïve and unintelligent.
How do we handle what the near future will provide us? The first and most obvious goal is to rely upon your friends and family for support. We can’t go at it alone. There’s strength in numbers. One finds strength in functioning organizations as well.
There’s also strength in ‘think tanks.’ Heck, there’s been plenty of time to think about everything to the point of exhaustion. However, if one uses his/her time wisely and merges his/her ideas with their respective teams, more options will be available. These can be used to take on the next initiative or to overcome the next hurdle. Now, that’s the benefit of having time alone to think and then spend more time collaborating with your teammates.
However, there’s also a danger of having time alone to think. Since I work with an IT Solutions provider, I will focus on those scenarios that may be on your mind. Those brilliant (cough, cough) folks who dreamt up the scheme about sending money overseas to that nice person (they have to provide their bank account information first) so they can store it in an official bank account are cooking up all kinds of different scenarios.
Some of these evil actions will include even more advanced ways of attacking an organizations’ infrastructure. We’ve already had two clients succumb to this and the ‘reconciliation’ costs are astounding. If you know about ransomware, you know what I am talking about. There’s a 50/50 chance of not even getting back company information afterwards too. Last week, an article in Forbes mentioned British Airways, LifeLabs, and Marriot International all experienced data breaches.
Listed below are a few topics that are predicted to be trending in IT budgets in the year to come.
The airlines are very close to their ‘rock bottom,’ and many will likely disappear in COVID’s version of the Bermuda triangle. Forbes also mentioned the company’s budgets for 2021….
“will shift from travel to IT technology spend. This trend will likely continue even after there is a vaccine because everyone is realizing that doing business via the internet and platforms like Zoom is fine. Travel budgets can now be redeployed to “shore up” projects that need a little extra funding — such as cybersecurity and enabling high availability at the edge.”
For many IT implementations, travel is not needed. Zunesis has been hugely successful with doing deployments remotely. The only difficult part of these deployments is the ‘racking and stacking’ of these machines. Well, there are certified IT movers and many customers are even willing to ‘rack and stack’ the machines themselves in order to maintain social distancing.
Based on consumer privacy issues over the last five to ten years, consumers are finally putting their foot down. Forrester believes the following…
“Over the next few years, firms will deliberately choose to do business with partners that commit to data ethics and adopt data handling practices that reflect their own values and their customers’ values.”
As we all know, there’s been a lot of ‘discussion’ surrounding this topic lately. I am looking forward to witnessing how this trend will evolve. Gartner also mentions this but instead of calling it ‘Ethical AI,’ they call it ‘Privacy-enhancing computation.’
This is a slam dunk. We’ve even seen this rise in technology well before Covid. If there’s a way to minimize data disruption, Edge Computing is definitely at the frontier of expanding technology. Gartner also feels that ‘Distributed Cloud’ can…
“help organizations provide their services physically closer, latency is reduced, as are the costs of data, helping to ensure compliance with laws that dictate data must remain in a specific geographical region. Gartner notes that distributed cloud is the future of cloud technology generally.”
Via Forbes, Peter High of the CIO Network defines Total Experience as…
“Total experience combines customer experience, user experience, employee experience, and ultimately multi-experience to impact and transform business outcomes. The overlap in these experiences can be improved with technology, and it enables companies to take advantage of disruptive aspects of the current pandemic such as distributed customers, remote work, virtual and mobile.”
It’s about time this was on the forefront. A seamless transaction? What a concept and I am glad to see this as one of the most important IT trends for 2021. Our way of working changed overnight it seemed. Adjusting to the ‘new normal’ with regards to tangible and intangible products has been challenging; especially in education.
These are just some of the changes to expect in the Infrastructure Technology world. There are a lot of dynamic strategies taking place. We will be covering these as we close out 2020 and come out swinging in 2021. We’ll come out on the other side of this as more immune and adaptable than ever before. So, while it may not go back to normal at the stroke of midnight on January 1st, 2021, we’re on our way to the Promised Land!
“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgiving.”
William Arthur Ward
Maybe Thanksgiving isn’t on your radar yet. Or maybe you skipped right over it and are already draping your dog in tinsel. (No judgment here; it’s been a weird year, and we could all use the holiday cheer.) But you’ve got just over a week to plan the perfect Thanksgiving meal. You need to figure out how a table of buttery biscuits and creamy casseroles and socially distanced house guests are going to work.
The stress of the season is upon us just as we have just packed the anxiety away. You’d think we’d be used to the holiday shuffle by now as this happens year after year. The circus juggling act that includes holiday planning, work, kids, and making it look somewhat effortless. Imagine if your job was that of a Systems Administrator on top of everything else life demands of us!
I wanted to give thanks to all our dedicated Sys Admins of the IT industry. A system administrator’s job is to ensure computer systems are in good working condition. The job includes software and hardware installations, data recovery, troubleshooting, and software and hardware maintenance.
For example, a hospital has its own software that produces data daily to run their operations. A system administrator is responsible for its installation and maintenance. He or she also ensures that the software is correctly configured. So, a system admin typically deals with the computing resources in the infrastructure, hardware inventories, software license, and capacity planning. WOW, and they probably already have their holiday shopping done!
If you are a small business and blessed to have a systems admin on your team, thank them for keeping the daily operations flowing. If your sysadmin needs some time off, an extra hand on a special project or the business is growing, and the thought of hiring another admin is on your mind, check out what we here at Zunesis can do to offer additional support for them.
Zunesis helps provides your organization with the information you need to understand your environment, make informed decisions, and set strategies through our assessment services.
They include the following:
Data Management Assessment – Can be used to focus separately on Production Data, Archive Data, Backup/Recovery, or it can encompass all three.
Recurring Data Center Advisory Services – RDCAS is designed to help clients maintain their HPE infrastructure.
VMware Assessment – Operational Analysis can provide you with the information needed to improve your virtual environment or fast track your IT project.
Wireless Site Survey – Whether you are looking to upgrade your wireless network or validate a recent installation, a professional site survey will give your engineers the data they need to minimize the support calls.
Ransomware Recovery Preparedness Assessment – This IT Risk Assessment, a Zunesis engineer will review and analyze your site to provide observations and recommendations to better prepare your organization for future data attacks.
Firewall Assessment – We will discover the overall utilization of an organization’s current firewall and their adherence to industry’s best standards through a Network Vulnerability Assessment.
When gratitude is elusive and anxiety and stress are taking center stage, I offer more wisdom by one my favorite writers and inspirational maxims.
“Before you act, listen.
Before you react, think.
Before you spend, earn.
Before you criticize, wait.
Before you pray, forgive.
Before you quit, try.”
~ William Arthur Ward
If you have ever read my blogs (or know me at all) then it will be no secret, to you, that I enjoy movies. I also like to use things I enjoy in an analogous way to help me better explain or convey things. For this reason, I will be hypothesizing the years 2020 and 2021 as entries in a 2-part film franchise. Where 2020 is the nail-biting first act filled with plot-twists, red herrings and maybe even a cliffhanger ending (sorry you’ll find no spoilers below, you’re just going to have to stick around until the end credits). This inevitably sets up the much-anticipated sequel: 2021. Where high stakes, big reveals, and even bigger emotional payoffs are to be expected (maybe even a massive deus ex machina will come into play? You never know!).
Keep in mind that all of the events laid out below are ones that were a direct result of the Covid-19 pandemic. If we are comparing 2020 to a movie, it is pretty clear that the coronavirus would be the primary villain. I realize other notable events occurred in the last year, but I think it is safe to assume that we all know the key storyline as well as the chief antagonist.
Note: The forecast of 2021 events are merely conjecture and should be viewed as the expected outcomes based on the current information we have. As much as I would love to give a concrete story summary, we should always be prepared for unexpected plot twists.
What Happened in 2020: Capacity Restrictions and Curfews- For the majority of 2020, many restaurants, bars, gyms, and other communal locations were put on stringent capacity reductions or required to close completely.
What This Means for 2021: Many of these restrictions have already been dialed back or lifted entirely. In 2021, we can expect to not only get closer to “the old normal” but also see a big increase in traffic in all previously affected social locations.
What Happened in 2020: Remote and Hybrid Learning- Most schools across the country had to adopt a new E-learning model, with some schools still able to provide an in-person or hybrid model.
What This Means for 2021: This necessary alteration to educational institutions has brought a rise to methodologies and new solutions to make this transition possible and much easier. It is expected that students will return to physical classrooms in 2021, but now they will have a foundation to fall back on for unexpected remote necessities. Find out More Here
What Happened in 2020: Movie and Concert Reschedules – Seemingly common occurrences like going to the movie theater or attending a concert venue were completely derailed in 2020 and forced to be postponed.
What This Means for 2021: Good things come to those who wait. If these fun events can’t take place now…. But they have to happen sometime. And that time is pointing towards being 2021. Artists have pushed most shows off to a date and time where it will be safe for them to perform, again, in front of crowds. And as far as the 2021 movie schedule? It is now going to be STACKED.
What Happened in 2020: New Health and Safety Precautions- Over the past several months, a plethora of new health initiatives, such as face-coverings, hand-sanitizing stations, and temperature checks, have been put into place. Both as a mandated requirement and as a necessity.
What This Means for 2021: Organizations all over the world are rising to the challenge and meeting demand to supply valuable PPE and employ other methods to monitor the population and keep people safe (including, but not limited to, temperature-screening kiosks from Meridian. The need for these precautions may minimize over time (that plotline might be saved for 2022 and we can make this a trilogy 😉). For the time being, it looks like 2021 will constantly be churning out solutions to keep folks safe.
What Happened in 2020: Commercial and Public Sector Budgets – Once the uncertainty of the pandemic began to play out, many organizations across the country, had to limit or freeze all spending.
What This Means for 2021: Help from multiple directions has come into assist in a multitude of ways. Small business loans, grants, The CARES Act, and new changes to e-rate funding, will all significantly help a wide array of companies with securing much-needed funds. Find more info here
What Happened in 2020: No Live Sporting Events- Some organizations delayed their seasons, some televised them from empty stadiums, and others cancelled their seasons entirely. Regardless of the route taken, there was no way for fans to watch “live” sports for the majority of 2020
What This Means for 2021: This one is an ever-evolving landscape. In the last portion of 2020, SOME fans have been able to attend live sporting events in a heavily social-distanced format. With these small victories, all we can hope is packing the stadiums again, in the near future, like the good ol’ days!
What Happened in 2020: Working from home- An unprecedented amount of businesses and their office workers had to quickly switch to a remote workforce.
What This Means for 2021: Like the developments brought about by the aforementioned E-learning model, the sudden shift to a remote workforce has opened up the floodgates for new solutions encompassing VDI and cloud gateways. It will also change the way that future business is conducted for merchants and customers alike.
Well, my friends, the good thing about “2020: The Movie- Part 1” is that we are in the final scenes of the third act. We won’t be able to rate this bad boy until we see the final credits on New Year’s Eve. Regardless, 2021 is shaping up to be a killer sequel. If 2020 is Mad Max, then 2021 will be Road Warrior….and I can’t wait to catch you all at the premier!
Addressing data-related challenges has been a predominant concern that will continue for the foreseeable future. As budgets are redrawn for next year, investing in your data is a wise choice.
Developing a data management plan with a focus on the projection of expected future storage needs for data, specifications on data sources, data collection and storage, and data security should be at the forefront of the IT Planning list for 2021 for all IT organizations.
Zunesis can schedule a data management plan “kick-off” with your organization. It is an assessment and inventory of the current state of your environment. The Zunesis Data Management Assessment Service can be used to focus separately on Production Data, Archive Data, Backup/Recovery, or it can encompass all three. The goal of the Data Management Assessment service is to help our customers develop their data management plan. We, then help implement processes that will accommodate data growth and provide data availability, security, and protection of business-critical information.
Zunesis Data Management Assessment Deliverables:
· Storage Architecture Diagram
· Observations about current data management practices
· Recommendations for improving data management practices
· Documentation of short-term and long-term goals and objectives
Zunesis Data Management Assessment Benefits:
· Document current data management practices
· Document strategies for aligning data management to the goals of the business
· Develop processes for protecting data based on business needs
· Document short-term and long-term objectives
Contact Zunesis today to create a data management strategy that fits your individual needs
I know a professional blog site is not usually where you will see personal revelations about the author’s current state of mind. I am going to go against conventions and tell you where I am in life. I am somewhat trepidatious about what the future holds. Now I know that to some of you that might be the understatement of the century.
However, those that know me, that will instead be quite an eyebrow raising moment. I am not one who is usually anxious about things or worries about tomorrow. I instead am a person that focuses on the now and works to complete the tasks of life that are directly in front of me. I don’t know whether it is the pandemic, the elections, or the state of flux in the economy, but I have caught myself thinking a lot about “what’s next?” When will the other shoe (or in the case of 2020, the other, other shoe) drop?
I also came to realize that if I am feeling this, I sure many others are as well. This includes many of our customers. So what to do? Well, for me, on the rare occasions that this happens to me, I like to go back to basics. Take a step back and do what I am comfortable with and what I know I can do successfully. Things like spending more time with family, working the nuts and bolts of my job to the best of my abilities, and listing out the things that are positive in my life every morning when I wake up. This may not work for everyone, but it works for me.
This process did get me thinking about my job and our customers. What would a calming “getting back to basics” process be that we might be able to offer or help them work through? I tossed many things around, and I came up with a few. The one I wanted to share with you today is the workings of a datacenter refresh plan.
Now you might ask, “with current flux in budgets and instability in the market place, why would you look at a refresh?” That is a great question. The answer is not a refresh in a “what am I going to buy” kind of mentality. Instead, a refresh PLAN that will allow you to immerse yourself in your environment and thoroughly understand exactly where it sits. Let me explain further.
Firstly, what do I mean by a Datacenter refresh? I would define this as a strategic IT infrastructure project intended to overhaul storage, servers and related network devices. Refresh project plans that address on-premises hardware, cloud-based platforms and services, and the in managed or co-located data centers — or a hybrid approach involving all.
But is that all it is? I would argue that there is more to this. You can also develop a good Datacenter refresh plan that is a top to bottom assessment of the current state of your IT infrastructure. This not only tells you what might be aging, but also what is costing you too much money to maintain. Discover where possible security vulnerabilities might be, or something as simple as what firmware needs to be updated.
Knowing this, the next step would be to understand what to consider when looking at a Hardware/Software Refresh.
For example:
Next, you would need to prioritize what part of your infrastructure needs to be refreshed or enhanced. A couple areas to start would be:
Once you have prioritized and completed these tasks/ and audits, you will have a much better idea of where to focus your budget. You can plan how best to take your environment through the next calendar or fiscal year. We also recommend to develop a best practices routine for how you can keep yourself focused on next steps and maintaining your current environment optimally.
Here are a couple of our most recommended:
In the end, whether you use these examples or not, the idea will be to put together a thoughtful, immersive, end to end deep dive. Discover what is working, what will soon need to be addressed, and what is critical to replace/enhance/ refresh. To me, that sounds like comfort food for the IT soul.
That knowledge and understanding would help me sleep at night. Knowing that I don’t have some unknown surprises lurking in a unsupported product that is about to die, or a security vulnerability because I did not update my firmware, or any other host of small issues that this kind of plan can mitigate. If you would like to learn more on this from Zunesis, we are of course standing by to help when and where it is needed!
Every 11 seconds, a network is attacked by ransomware. Each successful attempt costs a company $80,000 on average. This adds up to over $20 billion each year. This number continues to grow each year. Cyber security is quickly becoming one of the most important investments for companies large and small.
These investments come in many forms; training, antivirus programs, spam filters, and backups to name a few. Once your data is compromised though, there is really only one thing you can do. You need to do a restore from a backup.
So, how does Veeam backup help protect data against ransomware?
Immutable backups are copies of your data that cannot be changed. Veeam offers immutability in the capacity tier of their Scale-out Backup Repository (SOBR). It leverages a native function of object storage that prevents blocks of data from being changed for a set amount of time. Not even a malicious admin with full access to backups can change this data, let alone ransomware.
A related concept is air-gapping your backup repository. This basically means backups are unreachable or offline after the backup is taken. A common way of doing this is tape backups. Once the tape is written, it is physically removed from the network. It is stored in a secure location, inaccessible until the tape is moved back onto the network.
Another feature offered by Veeam that is similar is rotated media. This allows to swap hard drives for the backup chains so that one or more hard drives with backup data are offline or air gapped at all times. This protects that set of data from attacks.
Detecting ransomware in its initial stages can be difficult. Veeam ONE provides the ability to monitor your environment closely and be aware of any suspicious or abnormal activity. By analyzing CPU usage, datastore write rate, and network transmit rate, Veeam ONE can help identify higher than normal activity on a particular machine, trigger an alarm, and immediately notify you to inspect the machine.
SureBackup is a feature of Veeam that allows you to create a sandbox to test your backups before restoring them to production. It can run virus and malware scans on backup sets, automatically or manually. It ensures your data is not infected without the need to restore the data somewhere first.
A related feature is Secure Restore, which scans your data as it is being restored. This gives you access to the latest virus definitions which helps safeguard against viruses that were previously unknown at the time of the backup.
Unsure of a workload, or suspect it may be infected? DataLabs gives you the ability to restore the data to a fully secured and isolated environment to test. A fully isolated sandbox lets you run any tests you want without impacting production systems, so you can make sure your workloads are uninfected before you restore them.
Veeam is part of a group of leading hardware and software companies, like HPE, Cisco, and AWS, that work together to make sure their products integrate using the highest security standards possible. They bring together the most powerful recovery solutions to combat ransomware.
Veeam backup and recovery is a powerful tool in the fight against ransomware. It is completely dependent on how it is implemented and used. You should always secure your backup server, follow the 3-2-1 rule, implement Veeam’s features for ransomware detection, protect your network, and test your backups. A good backup strategy is just another piece in the puzzle in the fight against ransomware.
Contact Zunesis to find out more about Veeam backup and recovery solutions for your organization.
Previously, I talked about being a leader, even when you are not the boss. I believe a good leader is a person that people want to follow. They are honest and have a high level of integrity. These traits are important to get people to buy into the strategy and the journey. A leader has a clear vision, and a path to get there. They inspire others and make sure everyone knows their importance to achieve the vision. As a result, they must have great communication skills. These are the people that lead by example, that people gravitate towards.
So, now the question is how do you be a great leader with a remote workforce? Given the changes created with COVID-19 and working remote, how does a leader continue to be successful? From what I have observed, communication and availability are key ingredients. Managing remotely changes the dynamic of leadership and requires an additional set of skills.
The best leaders engage remote employees in frequent and authentic conversation. They put time aside to make sure they are communicating frequently and effectively. They dig for real information by asking direct questions including “What’s frustrating you? or What’s getting in your way?” They also ask the very simple, but important question of “How are you doing?” Some remote leaders may set aside time for virtual team coffees and social conversations. No matter what method is chosen, being mindful to communicate often and openly is very important. Be transparent.
Leaders should also prioritize the development of clear boundaries and guidelines. At its most basic level, this involves assisting employees in defining their availability. Clearly define when the employee will be working. What is the best way to reach the employee at home. If additional personal challenges such as childcare and home schooling are involved, how will the employee address these challenges.
The typical leadership characteristics still apply. A good leader will still need to understand team dynamics. He or she needs to create and communicate a clear vision. Provide coaching and mentorship when needed. One must understand the implications and effective use of technology. These are all still very important.
They require an awareness of how distance and a lack of frequent physical interaction impact how a team works together. When you’re not together, how do you read the signs of team interactions? Do your teams continue to work effectively? This goes back to frequent and open communications. One needs to really listen to what people are saying and how they say it. Providing and using technology effectively to communicate with the team and each other is critical. Sending people remote to work is not enough. You must provide them the tools they need to work remote. In addition, being a great communicator around a conference table isn’t the same as delivering an effective webinar. It is every bit as critical wherever one is communicating.
I saw a quote the other day that I truly believe. “Leadership is not about being the best. Leadership is about making everyone else better.“
DENVER, CO October 1, 2020 – Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has completed the acquisition of Silver Peak, an SD-WAN (Software-Defined Wide Area Network) leader. For many years, Silver Peak has been a strong leader in the WAN Optimization and SD-WAN market. Silver Peak is now part of Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company.
The acquisition will enhance and strengthen Aruba ESP (Edge Services Platform). This helps to advance enterprise cloud transformation with a comprehensive edge-to-cloud networking solution. It covers all aspects of wired, wireless local area networking (LAN) and wide area networking (WAN).
Steve Shaffer, CEO of Zunesis, a long-time Platinum Aruba and HPE Partner, says “Silver Peak provides a key piece of a comprehensive end-to-end Aruba solution offering. It creates additional value for our clients providing reliable and secure work-from-home and branch office connectivity. Work from home and branch office solutions just got a lot easier to deploy, secure and manage thanks to the combination of Silver Peak and Aruba’s SD-Branch & remote work solutions. All of us at Zunesis are very excited about these new developments.”
“WAN transformation is a key component of HPE’s Intelligent Edge and edge-to-cloud vision and growth strategy,” said Antonio Neri, president and CEO of HPE. “Armed with a comprehensive SD-WAN portfolio with the addition of Silver Peak, we will accelerate the delivery of a true distributed cloud model and cloud experience for all applications and data wherever they live.”
“I am very excited to welcome the Silver Peak team to the Aruba family,” said Keerti Melkote, president of Intelligent Edge for Hewlett Packard Enterprise and founder of Aruba Networks. “With the evolving nature of the hybrid workplace, enterprises are looking to extend connectivity to branch locations and enable secure work-from-home experiences. By combining Silver Peak’s advanced SD-WAN technology with Aruba’s SD-Branch and remote worker solutions, customers can simplify branch office and WAN deployments to empower remote workforces, enable cloud-connected distributed enterprises, and transform business operations without compromise.”
As part of the acquisition, Silver Peak founder and CEO David Hughes, will join HPE as the senior vice president of the WAN business within Aruba. “I look forward to leading the new WAN business unit within Aruba and accelerating our customers’ edge-to-cloud transformation initiatives,” said David Hughes, founder of Silver Peak and senior vice president of the WAN business at Aruba. “Digital transformation, cloud-first IT architectures, and the need to support a mobile work-from-anywhere workforce are driving enterprises to rethink the network edge. The combination of Silver Peak and Aruba will uniquely enable customers to realize the full transformational promise of these IT megatrends.”
Enterprises are increasingly investing in SD-WAN technologies as legacy WAN architectures incur relatively high costs. They are cumbersome to operate, manage and secure. Aruba and Silver Peak share a common vision and goal to provide simplicity, scalability, and application-awareness at the edge of the network. Aruba’s all-in-one SD-Branch portfolio and remote worker solutions, combined with Silver Peak’s self-driving SD-WAN and WAN optimization solutions, allow Aruba to better address a wide set of customer requirements in order to capitalize on a promising and growing market opportunity.
At the same time, enterprises are also moving applications, including Internet of Things (IOT) and real-time analytics, to the edge of the network. Aruba is uniquely positioned to help organizations to support this network evolution while providing the needed connectivity to Public cloud resources. “We believe HPE Aruba are making all the right moves to help us offer the best and most reliable networking solutions for our customers large and small” says Shaffer. The next few years are going to be very exciting!
About Zunesis
Zunesis, headquartered in Englewood, Colorado has been an HPE Platinum Partner for 16+ years. Zunesis has expert engineers in HPE server, storage and networking technologies along with common software applications like VMware and Microsoft. We serve clients large and small but our sweet spot is the mid-market organization – the heartbeat of the US economy. Our mission is to make the lives of our clients and community better. www.zunesis.com
Many of us are now dealing with the reality that we have children who will be attending school online. This will likely put a strain on parents to provide adequate wireless coverage, internet bandwidth and a practical computing platform for their children. It can be overwhelming to identify and understand the logistics of remote learning at home. I will explore the technical options and opportunities available to parents. This will enable parent to provide their students with a productive and resilient learning environment.
Most students will leverage online classrooms and conferencing technologies like Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google Hangouts while attending school. These video conferencing technologies can really impact the overall performance of your internet when more than one person is utilizing them. Understanding internet service speeds is important to make a good decision when choosing a plan.
Most consumer internet is available with high download speeds and lower upload speeds. It is often marketed as 100Mbps down and 5Mbps up. Understanding how much bandwidth you need can be confusing. I have found that a good rule of thumb for estimating the necessary bandwidth is to take the number of concurrent users utilizing Zoom or whatever virtual meeting software and multiply by 2.5. The number 2.5 represents the necessary speed needed to attend a meeting leveraging 1080P HD web cameras. So, if two students are attending a video call then they would consume on average about 5Mbps (2 x 2.5) both download and upload speed concurrently. Most consumer broadband plans would accommodate that need.
The only type of internet service that will not support two or more users is DSL where service numbers look more like 40Mbps download and 1.5Mbps upload. Most cable or fiber internet providers offer even better speeds than what my examples have shown. If you have a plan that doesn’t mathematically fit our equation, then you should upgrade the service or find a provider that can support the speeds you need. Keep in mind that it is always better to have more bandwidth than just enough to facilitate your requirement.
Your internet provider will often provide this device for you when you subscribe to their service. The device is often a multipurpose all-in-one and acts as the modem and the wireless/wired router for your home. While these devices are convenient and have a small physical footprint, they often leave a lot to be desired with regards to wireless performance and features.
Additionally, your provider is likely leasing this device to you which is something I do not recommend participating in. The cost to lease this underwhelming device is often 10-20 dollars a month. A cost that you will pay for in perpetuity. By the time the provider replaces that device you will have payed for 2 or 3 of them outright. An alternative is to purchase your own wireless router and modem separately. I do not recommend purchasing a device that does both functions.
A great resource to find what device is best for you is to look at purchasing guides for modems and routers. Most of the devices found in the linked guides will service 90% of home users. They will support the highest speeds provided by your ISP and will also provide exceptional wireless coverage to a small or mid-sized house or apartment.
Providing coverage for a large multi-storied house is somewhat of a different story. In that scenario I would look for network solutions that can provide mesh coverage. A product like Aruba’s Instant On series is meant for large houses or small businesses . It has advanced features not found in most consumer network devices.
Regardless of what class of wireless router fits your use-case or budget, make sure to purchase a device that supports at a minimum the WIFI 5 standard or 802.11ac wave 2. Ideally, I would recommend finding a router that supports the all new standard of WIFI 6 or 802.11ax. Purchasing either technology will ensure great coverage in your house. In addition, the long-term support for mobile devices and wireless computers for your student.
Many students are being provided a computer by their school district while for some the burden is shifted to the parents. Depending on the grade level of your student and the type of schoolwork being assigned to them, choosing a computer is a little more straight forward.
For most students, any contemporary laptop or desktop will do. If the computer has an up to date operating system like Windows 10 or Apple OSX 10.8.5 or higher, your student will have what they need. Most laptops have integrated webcams and adding one to a desktop is very easy to do.
For those in the market for a new computer, I do have a few recommendations. Focus on the specs of each computer linked not necessarily on the brand and model number. I prefer HP but you may prefer Dell or any other brand.
For Windows
For Apple Mac
If purchasing new is not feasible or possible, there are great opportunities to purchase refurbished computers also. I support this decision when computer expectations exceed available budget. This is especially the case when more than one child needs a computer. I would recommend purchasing refurbished business grade computers. They are affordable and are built to a higher standard than consumer grade equipment.
A few accessories may be necessary for your home schooler to get the most out of online classes.
A few things that may come up will be:
We are all dealing with a very strange and tumultuous time given the pandemic and other national events. As parents, it is important that we support our kids by making their online learning experience as normal and pleasant as possible. We have enough to deal with in the world. Home IT problems should not be added to the list of our burdens. I hope this guide will help someone who feels lost negotiating the decisions for supporting their kids who are transitioning to online learning at home.
Contact Zunesis for more information on remote access solutions.
Back in March which seems like ages ago, Aruba Networks announced the release of Aruba ESP. It’s the industry’s first cloud-native platform designed to automate, unify and secure the Edge. Why the need for this new platform in today’s world? What are its secret powers for your network? And, how does it work?
According to IDC, 55 billion devices will be connected within the next two years and are expected to generate 79.4ZB of data by 2025. Combine that with the shifts to work from home and distributed work forces, there is a definite need for the right tools to keep pace. With this large amount of data at the Edge, today’s networks and the teams that manage them are struggling to keep up.
Organizations need to ensure they have the right network foundation while being ready for the next big technology transition or event. This is where the need for Aruba ESP came in. Aruba ESP combines AIOps, Zero Trust Security, and a Unified Infrastructure.
It helps IT with the following:
Aruba ESP offers services at the Edge that include onboarding, provisioning, orchestration, analytics, location and management. These are accessed through Aruba Central. The SaaS consumption model enables rapid deployment and provides unified management, AIOps, and security. Through Central, network admins can use AI insights to help quickly troubleshoot, identify, and resolve issues before issues occur.
Several new innovations are within the Aruba ESP platform:
Recently, new enhancements were announced that help unify IoT, IT and Operational Technology networks to enable customers to quickly adapt to changing environments and user requirements. Unifying these networks, enables hyper-aware facilities that are safer, more adaptive, and enhance productivity. This is a big leap forward over what can be achieved with basic connectivity and machine learning-based monitoring.
These enhancements are integral to sensing, analyzing, and reacting to device data and contextual information. Virtually every subsystem spanning machine inputs and outputs (I/O) on a manufacturing floor through multimedia devices in the CEO suite can be accommodated. Solutions are available for education, enterprise, healthcare, hospitality, industrial, manufacturing, retail, transportation and government applications.
Some use cases with Aruba ESP-based hyper-awareness include smart buildings, industrial/manufacturing facilities and the broader Intelligent Edge.
Aruba ESP produces AI- powered insights with greater than 95% accuracy. It helps automatically improve communications and visibility across and among IoT, IT and OT Networks.
Have more questions about Aruba ESP? Attend our webinar on September 30th or reach out to one of our account reps to learn more.
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