All posts by SystemsNet Administrator

How Does VoIP Differ from Regular Office Phone Number?

Close-up shot of an employee's hand pressing buttons on its VoIP phone system.

Easy communication methods within the company and with third-party entities

Does your organization utilize an office phone number for SMS/MMS text messages? In this case, you need to understand how it affects your organization. Everything is becoming digitalized, and so are communication methods. Many businesses are replacing text-based communication forms with modern technology. Nowadays, businesses prefer VoIP systems to connect with employees, vendors, and customers. VoIP, Voice Over Internet Protocol, is a type of Internet phone service. If your system has a good Internet connection, you can reap the benefits of VoIP. Using this method of communication, you can improve the way you communicate. It will ease communication within the company and with third-party entities. Let’s have a look at a few features of VoIP.

  • Remote Calling Ability

If you have multiple offices, VoIP can help you in many ways. The system’s remote calling ability will help you transfer the incoming calls. With such a system in your office environment, you can offer excellent customer service. You can connect the customer with your local office team. Thus, it ensures that you get the best benefits from an affordable investment.

  • Auto-Call Recording Facility

Thanks to the auto-call recording facility of VoIP, it’s easy to record calls. When you record conversations, it will help you deliver the right services. But how? VoIP offers a facility by which you can organize recorded calls. By placing them in the searchable indexes, it will help your company to review the calls later.

  • Enhanced Mobility 

If your business relies on mobility, you can prefer VoIP over traditional methods. The reason is that it relies on the Internet. Instead of a grounded phone, it will help you unplug the IP phone according to your needs. It will still work when you shift the IP phone from one place to another. Thus, it ensures that your work never ends if you demand flexibility.

Still on the fence about why you should choose VoIP? Fret no more; here is the list of perks that the modern system offers. Check out!

Perks Of Using VoIP – Voice Over Internet Protocol

Many modern businesses are replacing traditional phone systems with VoIP. The reason behind this is simple – the multitude of benefits.

  • Reliable Solution

VOIP is a highly reliable solution as it works on Internet access. Until and unless you have Internet access, you have access to phone lines. However, this isn’t true in the case of landlines and other traditional methods. By choosing VoIP, you get access to reliable and functional solutions.

  • Affordable Choice

When compared to traditional phone services, VoIP is affordable. You don’t need to access any additional infrastructure for deployment. What’s more, it is light in weight and therefore costs less extra. You don’t have to burn a hole in your pocket with VoIP systems.

  • Highly Functional 

VOIP is exceptionally functional and comes with plenty of features. The reason is that the service is digital and offers plenty of benefits. The unique features of VoIP will offer you a high return on investment.

Pick VoIP To Enhance Your Business Efficiency 

If you’re looking to add VoIP systems to your business, look no further than SystemsNet. When you choose VoIP services through SystemsNet, you get additional features too. Your employees will get access to SMS and MMS text messages functions. They can send messages via VoIP without using their personal cell phones. So, are you ready to implement VoIP in your organization? Contact SystemsNet to handle the task of installation. Even if you wish to know more about SystemsNet VoIP services, we would love to answer. Get in touch today to get rid of traditional communication methods!

 

What Is EventTracker Security and Why Use It

IT professional working on a computer to access EventTracker for their company's security strategy

Addressing security issues beyond mere technology.

Many businesses are now popular with SIEM, a foundational technology to secure networks from threats and demonstrate regulatory compliance.

According to Gartner, Security information and event management (SIEM) are technologies that support threat detection and robust incident security. They feature real-time collection and historical analysis of your company’s security events from broad events and contextual data sources.

SIEM technology further allows users to support compliance reporting and incident investigation using historical data from reliable sources. The core capabilities of SIEM technology are a broad scope of event collection and the ability to analyze and correlate events across disparate sources.

To enable businesses to enjoy the benefits of SIEM technology for small networks, Netsurion developed EventTracker Essentials to address security issues beyond mere technology.

What Is EventTracker?

Netsurion’s EventTracker is a world-leading security management platform that offers users complete protection through an adaptive security architecture. The platform integrates prevention, prediction, detection, and response to boost effectiveness and reduce costs. Furthermore, users can monitor and analyze alerts and reports produced by SIEM technology.

With EventTracker security, users enjoy support on event log monitoring and management to enable enterprise network work seamlessly and boost day-to-day administration. The platform further unifies security orchestration, machine learning, and behavior analytics to protect your organizations against cybersecurity threats. Here are some of its top advantages.

Benefits and Insights of EventTracker

Key advantages of EventTracker include:

Centralized Management of All Endpoints on the Network

EventTracker enables you to have complete control of all your network endpoints. With this, you can improve threat response without hassle.

You enjoy security orchestration and automated response functionality with a faster threat response. You’ll consolidate data sources, leverage threat intelligence feeds, and automate response, improving efficiency. Also, this reduces your business response times, improves remediation, and increases your SOC productivity.

Enhanced Threat Detection

The EventTracker SIEM platform is integrated with ATT&CK to improve actionable threat intelligence. You will get better data protection and cybersecurity maturity by improving your readiness for future threats and stealthy adversaries. Such a comprehensive co-managed solution will increase visibility and boost detection.

Thorough Vulnerability Assessment

Attacks are always coming from inside and outside the business. It is essential to avoid these issues by identifying vulnerable systems and versions before becoming significant. A managed vulnerability assessment service provider scheduled scans, dashboards, and detailed reports for offering accurate results while prioritizing exploitable data.

Ensure Compliance

With EventTracker, organizations can secure their business environment, track user activity,   form baselines, create-audit ready reports, and send probable violation reports. Its solutions ensure you remain compliant and maintain yourselves by automating the steps required by each standard.

Advanced Analytics

Through machine learning capabilities, businesses require user and entity behavior analytics to trigger actionable and detailed alerts. This is possible with EventTracker. Its security intelligence platform enables users to understand and determine the normal system activities and event occurrences across their organizations.

Industry Leading Solution

EventTracker is a popular managed security device rated highest in value and performance over the past few years. Recently, SC Media announced was the industry-leading in news and product evaluation production. It is used in several industries, including energy and utilities, finance and banking, higher education, legal, healthcare, government, and retail.

Get Reliable Security Solutions for Your Entire Business from SystemsNet

Disasters are not predictable, and that is why you require reliable security solutions like EventTracker. At SystemsNet, we proactively monitor your systems and provide support and repair services along the way based on what you need. Our experts will ensure your network is always up and running to eliminate downtimes. Let us help you prepare your business continuity for your software, hardware, and cybersecurity concerns. Contact us today to get a free assessment.

What Are My Mailbox Size Concerns with Office 365?

Businessman and his administrator doing a routine check on their organization's computers - checking their Office 365 mailbox size.

Be sure your admin is checking your organization’s mailbox sizes regularly.

Microsoft Office 365 offers a variety of features to its users, but one feature that is often overlooked until it becomes a problem is mailbox size. Whether you are running a small business or a personal email account, having the right-sized mailbox is critical to ensure that email messages are delivered on time and without any issues.

Many people start using Office 365 with a small mailbox and then realize their mailbox has become too full. At that point, it cannot be easy to find out how to increase your mailbox size in Office 365.

So, what are your mailbox size concerns? Here we explore and explain some of the common questions around Microsoft Office 365 mailbox size.

How Do You Check Mailbox Size in Office 365?

Office 365 only offers a limited amount of storage space. However, the default size varies according to the subscription pack you choose and the type of mailbox. While some default sizes are 50GB, others are 100GB.

As you can see, it is a limited space that sooner, might not be able to serve your needs anymore. And that’s why it is good for your admin to regularly check the mailbox size to avoid issues like the inability to send and receive messages.

However, the Office 365 Admin Center does not provide any tools to manage mailbox sizes, including your own. Office 365 natively uses Microsoft Exchange Online, which allows you to manage user mailbox sizes.

To get the usage report from the Microsoft 365 Admin center, here’s how to go about it:

  • Go to Microsoft 365 Admin Center
  • Click on the Reports tab, then Usage and select Report
  • Go to Exchange, and there you get the Mailbox Usage

So, the Mailbox Usage report you get from the Admin Center will indicate the consumed storage space. Luckily, you can still access the real user mailbox size, shared mailbox size, and resource mailbox usage report via the Exchange Admin Center (EAC) or Exchange Online via the Other Exchange Reports in the left pane.

And this is how to view the actual Mailbox size report:

  • Login to Microsoft 365 Manager Plus.
  • Click the Reports tab.
  • Traverse to Exchange Online, then the mailbox Reports in the left window.
  • Within the Size Reports group, tap on Mailbox Size report.
Can I Increase My Office 365 Mailbox Size?

Yes, you can. Any user can increase their mailbox size in these two ways:

  • You can allot it an Exchange Online Plan 2 license to augment the storage limit from 50GB to 100GB.
  • Allow Exchange Online Archiving. You will get an extra 50GB of space, and with the auto-expanding archiving, you can get even unlimited space, but it’s contingent on your Microsoft 365 license.

Growing your mailbox to your maximum share isn’t the only way to make your mailbox space. Also, Exchange Online lets you use retention policies to keep or do away with data automatically, depending on the criteria you select.

There are also backup and archiving tools available online to decrease the data stored in your cloud. These tools allow you to preserve data discoverability and hinder the mailbox from congestion.

How does Archiving Operate?

There are two ways to archive:

  • By creating an archiving policy. The policy operates by retention, where the old data is automatically archived or depending on the retention tags your company allocates data.
  • Sending the items yourself (manually).

The plan you choose will determine how much storage space you have per mailbox and the other features you will receive. Each plan also allows archiving mailboxes, which hold emails that are no longer in daily use but still needed for reference.

Archiving is charged based on storage size, so it is good to look at cheaper plans if you’re not expecting your employees to need more space.

Conclusion

Office 365 is a very capable email server. Users with larger mailbox sizes may want to take a moment to consider their storage options with Office 365. Smaller mailbox sizes may be more than sufficient for their needs.

You can do most things on it on Exchange, such as auto-responders, archiving, and other capabilities. And Microsoft has found workarounds to make it possible for even those with mailboxes over the threshold. As long as you’re willing to be cautious about some of the issues surrounding this solution, your organization can use Office 365 and have mailboxes upwards of 25 GB.

Well, are you stuck with any network issues? Feel free to get in touch! We at SystemsNet are a reliable source for your network issues.

Are You ready for the Microsoft Server 2012 Obsolescence?

Employee using a tablet device running a Microsoft 2012 operating system.

Getting critical security updates is a must for the security of the network and running an efficient environment.

Microsoft announced the changes that affected their 2012 servers on January 14, 2020. However, they extended the date to October 2023. Microsoft Server 2012, launched in October 2013, completed its mainstream support phase in 2018.

Microsoft has specific lifecycles for Windows Server products released under Microsoft’s LTSC (Long Term Servicing Channel). Microsoft supports each product for ten years in two phases. The first five years are mainstream support, and the second five years are extended support.

Microsoft Server 2012 was launched in October 2013, completed five years in October 2018, and started the extended support phase, ending in October 2023.

Mainstream Support

Microsoft continually updates the server with new updates, service packs, fixes, features, etc. This phase also gets real-time support such as phone support during this phase.

Extended Support

Extended support is the second five-year phase. At this point, Microsoft had already released another product, giving the previous product less attention. In this phase, customers only get reliability patches and essential security updates.

What Happens After The Extended Support?

The end of the extended support for Microsoft 2012 may not seem imminent. However, it is safer to start planning your strategy earlier. With cyberattack threats rising, running data and apps on the unsupported version can pose security risks. You have several options during this period to prepare yourself:

Upgrade

To upgrade to the latest Windows version to experience superior performance, and get critical security updates. You can buy the extended security updates to buy more time on the current version.

Migrate

You can migrate to Azure and get extended security updates for another three years.

Budget

You have to talk to your MSP (managed service provider) and estimate how much it will cost you. Confirm whether the price is fixed or hourly, and develop a project budget.

How to Install, Upgrade, or Migrate to a New Windows Server

If you opt to move to the newer Windows server version, you have several options:

Clean Install

The simplest way to install Windows Server is a clean install. In this technique, you overwrite the existing OS or install it on a blank server. Before you do this, you must back up your data and expect to reinstall all your apps. Check for any requirements for hardware on Windows Server.

In-Place Installation

An in-place installation allows you to upgrade but keep the previous hardware and the server roles without deleting and uninstalling the OS. You keep all the previous settings, features, data, and server roles intact. However, not all older operating systems have pathways to newer ones.

Some features or roles may not support the installation, and you might need to take additional steps. In-place upgrades work perfectly in virtual machines, which don’t need specific OEM drivers.

Cluster OS Rolling Upgrade

The rolling upgrade of the cluster OS (operating system) allows an admin to upgrade the cluster nodes’ OS without stopping the Scale-Out File Server or Hyper-V workloads.

Migration

For migrating a Windows Server involves moving one feature or role from a source computer running Windows Server to a different destination machine running the same or a newer version of Windows Server. In this instance, migration is moving one feature or role to a separate computer and not upgrading the features on this computer.

Complete your plan by January 2023 for ample time to migrate or upgrade and get used to the new system.

Maybe your server has no dedicated IT team, and you have no idea how to navigate the server operating system. When you are ready to learn more about this product and implement it in your organization, contact SystemsNet to handle your installation. We offer you comprehensive IT support, including a complete IT hardware roadmap.