The cloud has taken the computing world by storm. You?d be hard-pressed to find a technology that didn?t tie back to the cloud in some way. This is especially true when you consider the needs of the small business, and how the cloud can provide for those needs. But why would you want to trust your computing infrastructure to some other company? We?ve actually seen this paradigm shift before. Around one hundred years ago, many businesses used to have to generate their own electricity. There wasn?t a power grid to simply plug into. Could you imagine having to manage and maintain your own generator for all of your electrical consumption? We?re seeing the same thing with cloud computing. Businesses now have the opportunity to ?plug-in? and use computing resources without needing to purchase and maintain in-house hardware. While many associate the cloud with data storage, the cloud is actually capable of much more. Of course, that isn?t to say that the cloud doesn?t provide powerful and flexible storage solutions. With the ability to access data from anywhere, and with many hosted utilities including software, communications, and security solutions, the cloud presents a valuable option to any business? computing infrastructure. Businesses need to ascertain what kind of computing issues they can solve by leveraging the cloud. Do you need extra storage? Are you looking to enhance your organization?s communications? Do you need solutions to build a more collaborative or cooperative offering? Are you searching for a solution to improve operational efficiency or reduce your computing costs? There are many cloud-based solutions you can choose from to enhance your organization?s computing power and provide ubiquitous and secure delivery of those solutions to the people within your organization that needs them most. For the modern business that can?t commit the kind of money to hosting on-site computing environments that they would typically need to ensure a secure and dynamic computing platform for their staff, utilizing White Mountain IT Services?s expertise to find the cloud solution that is right for you is a great option. For more information about utility computing in the cloud and other hosted solutions, call us today at (603) 889-0800.

Telephone solutions have long been a part of the business environment, but it?s not always a simple process to implement, as no two organizations are the same. How many users do you have? How many telephone units do you need? How many wires will you need to run through your office? These questions, and more, make it much more appealing to consider a digital voice telephony system for your business?s needs. We?ll discuss the various benefits that Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, can offer businesses, regardless of the industry. Reduced CostsTraditional telephone systems rely on you going through your local provider to get service. However, this means that you?ll also be tied down by whatever their service agreement entails. Often times, these agreements will include services that you don?t necessarily want or even need, like television or otherwise. This makes you pay more for a basic service like a telephone, but without any real significant benefit for the extra costs. It?s like paying for Netflix but not using it for anything. VoIP doesn?t ask you to sign up for anything extra. You get exactly what you pay for, and it takes advantage of a service that you already use regularly: your Internet. Your voice can be transferred through the Internet to the recipient instead of traditional telephone lines. The only thing to watch out for is your bandwidth, since relying on VoIP for your communication needs will require more network resources. A Simpler InfrastructureIt?s not easy to make changes to your organization?s cabling infrastructure once it?s been established. This also makes it a bit more difficult to grow in the long run, as the same cabling infrastructure that worked for you years ago, may not necessarily be able to handle an increase in growth. Therefore, businesses that want to be able to adapt to changes in their infrastructure must create one from the ground up that?s designed with flexibility in mind–not the easiest of tasks. Thanks to the one-time setup costs of VoIP, you don?t have to tear down walls and run new lines just to add new users to your telephone infrastructure. All you have to do is contact your provider and have them add new users into the system. A More Flexible Business ModelOne of the most difficult parts of running a business is managing the many communication mediums at your disposal. You might even have multiple phones that you use–one for your personal affairs, and one for your business dealings. Wouldn?t it be great if you could get all of your different phone numbers without carrying multiple devices on you at all times? The great thing about VoIP is that your employees have multiple ways of accessing your telephone solution. Whether you want a desktop soft phone, a smartphone app, or a traditional telephone handset, VoIP allows for a highly customizable experience. This flexibility allows your organization to fully leverage mobile devices and connected technology, making VoIP a fantastic solution for organizations that need the extra boost. For more information about VoIP, reach out to White Mountain IT Services at (603) 889-0800. We can assist your organization with setting up VoIP from start to finish.

Everyone knows that everything in the break room fridge needs to be replaced after a certain amount of time, but that?s not all that?s at your business that needs regular updates. The solutions you use every day will also need maintenance, for quite a few reasons. While their offerings are quite different, there are actually quite a few similarities between a software developer and a food producer. Both offer something that many rely on in the modern world, and both put quite a few resources into improving what they have to offer. However, this is where the two begin to differ. While a food producer may focus on things like taste and marketable nutritional content, a software developer is responsible for making other improvements. These improvements are usually directed towards the solution?s security, to fight the improvements that cyber criminals constantly make to their methods. Improvements like these are why there are frequent updates available for your solutions. They are also why it is so important to implement these updates. To explain why, we?ll return to the break room fridge for a moment. Let?s say that each of your employees keep a yogurt in the fridge. However, let?s say that these yogurts go uneaten, and are just left in the fridge to spoil. If your employees eat them anyways, there are likely going to be problems: employees could get sick and productivity will take a hit. Now we?ll just replace the yogurt in that example with your software, the fridge with your network, and spoiling with becoming vulnerable to issues and threats. Your employees? applications are kept on your network. If they were to become vulnerable to some threat or create some issue, your employees would not be able to do their jobs properly, resulting in a productivity deficiency. What if someone was there to check for outdated yogurt/software and keep the contents of your fridge/network up-to-date? If this was the case, your employees wouldn?t have to worry about suddenly becoming vulnerable without realizing it. Here at White Mountain IT Services, we keep an eye out for any updates that your business may require and install them so that they will cause minimal interruption to your day-to-day operations. While we can?t keep the contents of your break room refrigerator from expiring, we can maintain your software to preserve productivity. Give us a call at (603) 889-0800 to find out more.

This is the result of one year of training where Watson sifted through immense amounts of data to find information pertaining to cyber attacks. Watson can dig through various news sources and online databases to take the good fight to the latest security problems, and by taking a look at what the industry?s current best practices are, it?s even capable of prioritizing the most dangerous threats out there. Granted, Watson wasn?t built from the ground up to be the best detective in the world. At first, it couldn?t even identify what ransomware was. It actually thought that ransomware was the name of a place, rather than the nastiest threat that you could run into on the Internet. Thanks to Watson studying a ton of data, the supercomputer can now take the next step in its journey to end all cybercrime. The computer will look through security events from all kinds of companies in an attempt to find patterns or trends that hint toward actual threats, and ones that are caused by simple user error. Of course, any new technology will suffer from the same faults as you might expect, including the learning curve. However, the capabilities of Watson to find potential threats can only increase as development continues. Unfortunately, not all organizations have the luxury of relying on a supercomputer to manage their network security, so you need to make arrangements to ensure that your business isn?t vulnerable to potential threats. Network security is something that all businesses need to consider. White Mountain IT Services can equip your organization with what?s called a Unified Threat Management (UTM) solution. A UTM includes a firewall, antivirus, spam blocker, and content filter, allowing your organization to detect threats and eliminate problems in a prompt manner. It?s a great way to protect your business from the dangers of the web without hindering operations. Furthermore, it?s an automated solution, so while it?s certainly no Watson, you?ll have your own detective-like security solution looking for dangerous entities on your network. To learn more, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.

Too many businesses find themselves in this exact situation, suddenly left “up the creek without a paddle” as they discover their data has been lost. There are plenty of causes for data loss, such as user error, malicious invaders, and hardware failure. These circumstances can have catastrophic effects on a business; effects that often lead to the business in question closing its doors for good. Fortunately, this doesn?t always have to be the case. A good way to avoid this data-loss scenario is to have a backup solution implemented by a trusted provider. They can ensure that your data is backed up incrementally, allowing data redundancy as often as every 15 minutes. That way, even if your systems fail, the amount of progress you have made on a task will not be completely lost. Today is World Backup Day, and at White Mountain IT Services we dedicate a lot of time and effort to implementing and managing comprehensive data backup and disaster recovery protocols for New Hampshire businesses. To that end, we have the solution your business needs to protect and preserve your information. For more information about data backup, business continuity, and hardware and network management, call us today at (603) 889-0800. One of our knowledgeable professionals can work with you to procure and deploy the technology solutions your company needs to forge ahead.