Professional IT Services that Andromeda Provides for Elk Grove Village, IL Businesses:

Managed IT Services
Elk Grove Village,IL

Andromeda offers a range of service plans—anything from month-to-month "time & materials"-based assistance to fixed service contracts that permit "no-brainer" conformance to an annual budget. Beyond the functions you would expect from a full-service MSP, you'll have a dedicated C‑CATs team that includes a Service Coordinator directing the same field and remote technicians day-to-day, month-to-month, and even year-to-year to manage your IT network needs.
This isn't simply a glorified Virtual CIO offering. Imagine the cost of hiring your own CIO AND tech team for this same level of customized service and knowledge of your particular (and evolving) network setup!

Cloud Services & Migrations

Typically, the biggest issue you'll face when initiating Cloud services is not the services themselves, but rather the proper migration of your existing services to the Cloud without loss of functionality, downtime, and scores of other details that could undermine the whole process. Andromeda has a long history of expertise in physical on-premises systems. Don't make the mistake of turning all your current systems over to a "Cloud expert"; we'll save you from a lot of heartache and pain with a virtually seamless Cloud migration from your current setup— whatever it is.

Data Backup & Recovery
Elk Grove Village,IL

It's a crazy world. Literally thousands of people you don't even know attempt to break or steal from systems like yours every day. Good 24/7 monitoring is a first line of defense, of course. But no matter how great and state-of-the-art your defenses are, you'll almost certainly succomb to a successful attack in time. That's why advanced data backup and data recovery need to be tools that you and your IT partner have at the ready from Day 1. Don't be tempted to "shortcut" this element of your network in the name of expediency or to save a few dollars. Ultimately, you'll lose out on both counts with that thinking. You need a complete and integrated solution that addresses every contingency as well as IT professionals who know how to make that happen.

Cyber Security

Not only do we provide multi-tier approaches to your network security, but Andromeda also provides built-for-you solutions for disaster recovery and business continuity devices. We provide, manage and monitor a variety of devices including physical hardware, Cloud-based and hybrid options. Our team actively monitors over 403 servers and 101 physical backup devices in the field. All with 100% local engineers and technicians.

Onsite/Remote Support
Elk Grove Village,IL

Andromeda's team is completely staffed by local technicians near Elk Grove Village,IL. No matter the hour, your issue is resolved quickly and professionally. In fact, 68% of incoming calls are connected to a live technician for immediate response. When a technician isn't available, our average response time is less than 30 minutes. And if that isn't impressive enough, emergency after-hours support response times average less than 10 minutes!

IT Network Management

IT networks are our bread-and-butter. We have provided these services to clients since 1994. Some have continued to rely on us for their evolving network needs since the very beginning. We stand behind our work day to day and year to year because we foster relationships with our client-partners that absolutely demand that of us. It's in our DNA and how we prefer to do business.

AndroPedia Tech Library

As part of our service, it is important to keep our client-partners well informed on IT developments, news, and best practices. Here is just a sampling of typical items from our AndroPedia^SM library archive:

By the end of 2017, Microsoft’s Office 365 Suite of applications had over 120 million active business and commercial users. Microsoft projects that in fiscal 2019, approximately two-thirds of all Microsoft Office users will be subscribed to Office 365 instead of the traditional licensing model.*

Cloud applications have made a great impact on business, connectivity, accessibility, and productivity. From the looks of it, more and more applications and even hardware solutions are moving to the cloud.

This is exciting for business and the technology sector because there are many real benefits to business owners and employees built into cloud applications.

Office 365 offers different subscriptions and packages built to suit the specific needs of your business, but across their offering, there are many shared benefits.

Let’s take a look at the top 4 reasons Office 365 is the right choice for your business, and why Andromeda Technology Solutions recommends it.

1. Say Goodbye to Expensive Microsoft Licenses

Licensing for the Microsoft Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) can be very costly. Depending on which version of Office you are purchasing, each license can set you back hundreds of dollars. Even for the average small or mid-sized business, this adds up to thousands of dollars very quickly.

Microsoft also phases out legacy software over time, which means that your current professional Microsoft Office license will no longer be supported, maintained, or updated at some point. For example – Microsoft Office 2010 will reach end of life in 2020, and businesses with these licenses will need to purchase new ones for all machines or migrate to Office 365.

With Office 365, your software is always up to date and there are no licenses to worry about. Whenever a new version of the product becomes available, it is automatically pushed out across the cloud applications and your employees keep working without issue. Any documents, presentations, spreadsheets, or other items you’ve created within Office 365 will automatically update to the latest version of Office.

2. Office 365 is Budget-Friendly

Office 365 is a subscription-based cloud application. As mentioned before, there are several different subscription levels with multiple applications. This offers flexibility to suit most any business needs and budget. You can easily calculate and anticipate your annual budget with Office 365 and build it into your regular expenses.

The solution is billed per user. It should be mentioned as well that each user can install the application on multiple devices. This means that you only pay for one subscription per user – even if they access Office 365 on multiple computers, a tablet, and even their smart phone.

3. Work from Anywhere

While you’ll need an internet connection to collaborate with your coworkers in real time, or use certain applications, Office 365 lets you work from just about anywhere. You need an internet connection for the initial setup, migration, and sign up. After that, you have the option to install the latest Microsoft Office Suite directly on your computer. You can save your files directly onto your PC and host them in the cloud for accessibility on the go.

The real productivity magic with Office 365 lives in your ability to access and work on things from anywhere with an internet connection.

Whether you are in the airport, at home, drinking coffee on the go, or in your car before a big meeting, you can login to Office 365 to review your files or make last minute changes at any time: you can even do it from your smartphone.

You can also work with multiple teammates in the same documents from multiple locations. For example – teammates in 2 different locations can work together to complete presentations, spreadsheets, and other deliverables in real time without locking one another out of documents.

4. Increased Storage & Security

Microsoft knows that to make Office 365 attractive to businesses like yours, they have to make sure that the cloud environment and application is secure and trustworthy. There are many features and add-on security settings available to you like encrypted email, spam filters, data loss prevention services, mobile device management, and more (some may require additional fees).

On top of built-in security features, Office 365 subscribers benefit from increased storage capacity in Outlook and OneDrive. The Office 365 Enterprise E3 license offers 100GB mailbox storage and unlimited personal cloud storage as a standard. If that isn’t enough for your environment, or you outgrow any of your storage over time, Office 365 is built to scale and grow with you. This is possible by offering additional storage, security, and application options specific to your needs.

When it comes to accessibility, ease of use, budgeting, and ongoing support, Office 365 is the leading option for business. We anticipate it will continue to dominate the market for both small to mid-size businesses and enterprise.

If you are interested in Office 365 for your business, a great first step is a consultation with one of Andromeda’s local account managers. There are many different subscription levels, applications, and migration details that you will want to go over before making the switch. Additionally, you will want to make sure you are working with an IT Services Professional to make your project and migration as seamless as possible.

Simply reach our team by phone (815) 836-0030 or email: Contact@WeNetwork.com to schedule a conversation. You’ll be glad you did!

*For more on Office 365 users and statistics, check out this article from zdnet.com.

The post 4 Reasons Office 365 is the Right Choice for Your Business appeared first on Andromeda Technology Solutions.

We’ve spent some time over the last two months dedicating our articles to the Dark Web. Specifically, what it is and how your information is stolen and sold on the elusive Dark Web.

Part 1 – What Is The Dark Web & Why It Matters To You

Part 2 – 5 Ways Your Information Gets On The Dark Web

In this final article in our three part series, we thought it would be valuable to introduce our readers to some of the popular strategies and tools used both professionally and personally to reduce risk and protect you from losses related to data theft and the Dark Web.

One of the things we make sure to talk about with our clients in regard to cyber security and the Dark Web is that no matter how secure you make yourself and your business, these criminals are always going to come up with something new. It’s what they do.

With that in mind, there are still things you can do and one tool that you should put in place as your failsafe against all cybercrime and data theft.

How To Protect Yourself From The Dark Web

Identity Theft Protection

You invest time and money into data security at the office, but what do you do to make sure that your personal data is secure?

Personal data is very valuable to hackers and criminals. They can use it to steal your identity, open up lines of credit, purchase goods and more.

This isn’t a new story . . .

According to the Department of Justice, the average identity theft victim incurs over $1300 in personal damages. Not to mention reputational damage, time, stress and credit damages.

Because of how big of an issue personal identity theft is, there are services available that monitor your personal information for suspicious activity.

Services like LifeLock, IDWatchdog or IdentityForce are available to you among many others.

These services provide monitoring tools and alerts so when a criminal gets ahold of your info and attempts to use it, you are alerted and can cut them off before the damage is done. Some of them also provide insurance as well.

Andromeda doesn’t provide consumer solutions for identity theft protection but these services are a great asset to you for your personal protections.

Password Management Service

Password management is a necessity when it comes to keeping track of and maintaining strong passwords.

As you probably know, you want to have a unique password for every account you login to. So that means you should have a different password for Facebook, your personal email, your professional email, your primary bank account, any other bank accounts, Netflix . . . you get the idea.

On top of making sure your passwords are different, you should also make sure that they are STRONG.

• No Personal/Guessable Phrases
• Both Upper and Lower cases
• At least 8 Characters
• Include numbers
• Include other characters – !@#$%&

Do you think that you’d be able to keep track of all of your passwords if each one were unique? Do you think that you’d be able to keep track of them AND change them every 90 days (at a minimum)?

If you answered no, you aren’t alone.

That is why so many people use the same passwords across many accounts.

But that is also how a hacker can get access to your Facebook or Gmail password and then log in to your bank account.

To avoid this, get your hands on a professional password management solution.

There are a lot of options out there and they offer different features. Some are free and some are subscription based.

If you want a great comparison of the leading options, check out this side by side comparison from PCMag here.

Add Cyber Security Tools to Your Data Security Arsenal

The previous two tools are great for protecting you both personally and professionally but Andromeda specializes in protecting and service your business so of course, we need to pay attention to professional tools too.

In respect to cyber security and your business, there are many different tools you need in place. Things like a professional firewall solution, spam filtering and professional anti-virus software (NOT Freeware) are the basics. Nonetheless, there are added layers of security you should request from your IT Service Provider.

Some of these might include:

• Professional Disaster Recovery/Data Backup & Recovery Solutions
• Dual Authentication Software
• Patch and Update Management (we recommend weekly updates)
• Employee Cyber Security Training

These are just a few things you can have a professional technology partner handle for your business. Once you have these in place, you’ll be more secure and hopefully you’ll sleep a little better knowing you are proactively fighting off the criminals who want to ruin your day, interrupt (or even destroy) your business and steal your data.

Dark Web Monitoring Services

The Dark Web is an area of the web most people can’t or don’t regularly access. As discussed in previous articles, the Dark Web is an area where cyber criminals go to sell and purchase digital credentials (email addresses, passwords, personal information).

You won’t know a criminal has access to this data or whether they are using it against you until it is too late.

Unfortunately, with all of the different ways hackers and criminals can steal your data (Read our previous article for more on that – here), it is pretty much impossible to guarantee your data will NEVER be breached.

You should invest in password management, superior cyber security tools and identity theft monitoring. All of those services and tools will build up a strong defense system. However, you want to make sure that you are also proactively defending yourself from the attacks and strategies of tomorrow. You want to make sure you are defending yourself from the threats that haven’t hit the market just yet.

A tool that can help you defend yourself in this way is a Dark Web Monitoring Service.

In a nutshell, this tool scans the Dark Web for your businesses domain.

When an email address with your domain is found, an alert is sent out to your technology partner and appropriate actions are taken.

Password information changes before a criminal can get into your network and compromise data.

Andromeda Technology Solutions provides Dark Web Monitoring services to clients. We would love to discuss how we can help secure your info before compromise turns into catastrophe.

If you’re interested in taking a look at your current cyber security solutions and figuring out whether you are truly protected, give us a call or send us an email at Contact@WeNetwork.com. Mention this article when you contact our team and you’ll receive special pricing.

The post How You Can Protect Yourself from the Personal And Professional Losses Related To Data Theft & the Dark Web appeared first on Andromeda Technology Solutions.

Microsoft is making some long overdue and welcome changes to Outlook to include the Windows and the Web-based version.

People who use either one will now see a "Coming Soon" option that allows users to toggle between the version they've got now, and the new and improved version with the changes.

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As to those changes, they fall broadly into three groups:

1. Better Organization - The improved Outlook offers intelligent technology, specialized icons, visual changes and a "highlights" feature that are all designed to help you manage your time better and provide a greater level of focus on your daily and weekly activities.
2. Improved Speed and Efficiency - The redesign is sleeker and faster. Using it will allow you to schedule meetings, read and act on emails and write new emails much more quickly than the old version.
3. More Customization - Hotmail users know only too well that Outlook on the web has lagged behind its competitors in terms of customization, and the redesign seeks to change that. Microsoft is playing a bit of catch up here, but any improvements on this front are welcome indeed. Among other things, you can now apply additional themes, personalize your inbox and simplify the ribbon.

There's no word yet on how long the new features will be offered as an opt-in option, but of course, at some point, the company will mandate the change.

On balance, these are good changes. Perhaps more modest than long-time users would like to have seen, but again, any changes to one of the oldest email systems still around have to be counted as a positive.

Kudos to Microsoft for keeping Outlook reasonably up to date, and here's hoping that the user base embraces them. which we hope hope will encourage the company to make additional improvements.

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