|
To
view this update as a Web page, copy this link into your
browser: http://www.qtsnet.com/stayinformed/quiknews/quiknews_july2004.htm.
To
subscribe or unsubscribe, please follow instructions at
the bottom of this page.
Welcome to the July edition of QTS QuikNews, our monthly
e-mail newsletter. In this monthly e-mail, you will
receive an update of what's new at QTS - new products we
support, new patches and upgrades, solution ideas and
promotions to save you money, and information about our
company and our clients.
In
this issue:
- QTS
and Partner News
- Events
- President's
Corner
- QuikSecure
Tip of the Month
- Patches
and Upgrades
- Product
Support Lifecycle Watch
- Solution
Spotlight
- Special
Offers
- Partner
Spotlight
QTS AND
PARTNER NEWS
WELCOME
TO NEW CUSTOMERS
QTS offers a “welcome aboard” to the following new
customers:
·
Key
Handling Systems
·
Lakeland
Bank
·
Lifetime
Television
·
Shiseido
Corporation
SURFCONTROL
RELEASES “END USER SPAM MANAGEMENT” UTILITY FOR MAIL
FILTER
SurfControl has released a utility, free to SurfControl
Mail Filter Customers, to allow users to receive an
email listing all “spam” mail being held by the
filter, so individual messages can be released or
deleted. The
utility gives users complete control of their spam mail,
removing the burden from system administrators.
Contact your QTS Account Manager for more
information.
2004
CSI/FBI COMPUTER CRIME WHITE PAPER AVAILABLE
The Computer Security Institute and the Federal Bureau
of Investigation have released the 9th annual
CSI/FBI Computer Crime and Security Survey, an extremely
informative survey of IT managers from across a broad
spectrum of organizations.
The 2004 study presents very useful information
on security trends and patterns, and is available at no
charge at GoCSI.com.
QTS
OFFERS FREE SYSTEMS STRATEGY CHECK-UPS
Having developed this unique engagement jointly with
Microsoft, QTS is now offering Systems Strategy Check-Up
engagements to qualified customers and prospects
throughout New Jersey and New York.
This high-value, half-day consulting engagement
helps businesses evaluate how they are using Microsoft
technologies and identifies best practices and
recommendations for how to best deploy Microsoft
technologies in a business.
For more information on this no-charge
engagement, contact your QTS Account Manager.
QTS
IS HIRING!
QTS is recruiting for senior level technical personnel,
as well as entry and senior level sales
staff/telemarketers. If you know anyone who might
be a good fit, please have them submit their resume to
Liz Meechan, our Office Manager. Liz can be reached at lmeechan@QTSnet.com,
or (973)984-7600 x223.
SUCCESS
STORIES
CHILTON
MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
QTS
implemented Microsoft SMS and SUS to help this rapidly
growing hospital comply with HIPAA and manage its
growing desktop environment.
http://www.qtsnet.com/about/success
stories/chilton memorial success story.pdf
CITY
OF NEW YORK DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE
QTS
helped the New York City Department of Finance to
improve network reliability, security and performance by
conducting a comprehensive network assessment and
engaging in strategic planning to help the organization.
http://www.qtsnet.com/about/success
stories/nyc dof success story.pdf
PRESS
RELEASES
QTS
WINS “WINNING CUSTOMERS” AWARD AT MICROSOFT
WORLDWIDE PARTNER CONFERENCE
7/21/2004:
QTS and Microsoft today
announced that QTS was a winner of the Winning
Customers award at the 2004 Worldwide Partner
Conference. The awards recognize Microsoft
Certified Partners that delivered exemplary solutions
for their customers during the past year. Award
winners were chosen from a group of finalists from
around the world. Read
more at http://www.QTSnet.com/stayinformed/l3_stay_pr53.htm
Back
to Top
EVENTS
No
events are scheduled for August.
Back
to Top
PRESIDENT'S
CORNER
I’ve
recently returned from Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner
Conference in Toronto last weekend, an event that I find
extraordinarily helpful in understanding where Microsoft
is going and how to best align my business with them.
This year’s conference was again extremely
valuable to me in that regard.
A
few key themes ran through the presentations (aside from
a strong ongoing commitment from Microsoft to enhance
its relationship with its partners), and I think it
would be helpful to share some of this information with
you.
First,
multiple presentations all concurred in the fact that
security is the number one priority for CIOs and IT
leaders now and in the future.
This is supported by numerous market research
studies. Organizations
are investing heavily in this area to prevent future
exploits – I was pleased to see a much better response
this year when the audience was asked about SUS
deployment than I did last year.
Microsoft remains critically focused on security
– not just reactively, but to move into a leadership
role in this space and turn it into a product advantage.
Windows
XP Service Pack 2 (largely a security enhancement
release) is the company’s overriding product focus
right now, and many efforts are queued up behind SP2
pending its release.
SP2 will include a number of important new
features – memory protection (which may cause
compatibility problems with some programs, so it will be
able to be turned on and off), an attachment manager to
reduce the likelihood of users opening inappropriate
email attachments, a popup blocker and script controls
for IE6, and a built-in firewall that is turned on by
default. There
is also Windows Security Center, an applet that brings
patch management, antivirus and personal firewall status
information together into one easy to use location.
Network Defense (the ability to deny network
access to computers that don’t meet specific criteria
for patches, antivirus software, etc.) was initially
positioned as part of SP2, but is now planned be part of
Windows 2003 Service Pack 1 which is targeted for late
this year or 2005.
After
security, CIOs noted the top priorities as web services
(which we cover through our partnership with Econium)
and mobility (which we’ve built a practice around,
leveraging GoodLink, Cisco wireless technology and other
offerings). So
overall, I felt good that QTS was well-positioned to
align with IT organizations’ top needs and areas of
focus.
The
conference also focused heavily on Microsoft Office 2003
as a “smart client” and on “Integrated
Innovation” between Microsoft products – Office,
server platforms, and other applications including
Microsoft Business Solutions products (Microsoft CRM and
accounting/ERP platforms).
There was a strong focus on the knowledge worker,
and the ability of this solution stack to help them make
better decisions faster, with realtime data.
Numerous examples were shown of Microsoft
SharePoint Portal Server and Microsoft InfoPath as an
integrated platform for workflow applications and
knowledge worker productivity.
One
of the more interesting demos was of the Information
Bridge Framework – a new technology to allow for even
tighter integration between Office and BackOffice
applications, leveraging XML to make data elements
“smarter” and to allow for even more efficient
workflows. In
the example Microsoft demonstrated, a customer service
environment, Office was used as a front-end to pull data
from a third-party ERP system and from Microsoft CRM to
make it easy for customer service letters to be
generated based on a fictional service problem.
The integration was smooth, and for a mid-size
business with some level of repetition and consistency
in its workflows, the payback potential on this
technology would seem to be truly significant.
Microsoft
SQL Server 2005 will be released next year, and
attention was paid to the improvements in performance
and scalability, but also to enhancements in SQL Server
as an analytical and reporting platform.
Microsoft improvements in this area show a strong
focus on Business Intelligence, to help customers make
better decisions with the data in their systems.
The
Office Accelerators still remain one of Microsoft’s
best-kept secrets, though this isn’t intentional.
Microsoft is continuing to release new
Accelerators – including one they demonstrated to help
organizations deploy Windows/Office.
Look for this to appear tied to a QTS service
offering in the upcoming months as an enhancement to our
QuikWin methodology for Windows platform migrations.
Microsoft
ISA Server 2004 was released concurrent with the
conference, and Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 and
Virtual Server 2005 are targeted for release later this
year. Look
for QTS to be ramped up on these products concurrent
with or shortly after their release.
In
addition, Microsoft made several announcements about its
partner program, including its new Competency structure
and the need for partners to pick a limited number of
specializations and focus on delivering excellent
service and a strong value add in those areas.
This was a positive to me and is an area where
“we get it” – our approach of focusing on Network
Infrastructure (and Advanced Infrastructure) and
Security was validated, and our partnership with other
best-of-class Microsoft partners such as AKA Enterprise
Solutions (Microsoft Business Solutions) and Econium
(Microsoft Collaborative/Information Worker Solutions
and Application Development) was strongly validated.
Finally,
it was a pleasure to accept on behalf of QTS
Microsoft’s Winning Customers Award, as one of only a
small group of global partners to win this recognition
in 2004. This
was the first year for this award, which recognizes
exceptional effort to help drive Microsoft customer
“wins” and satisfaction, and our Systems Strategy
Check-Up initiative was selected as an award-winner.
All
in all, it was quite a few days.
The amount of information that was presented was
fairly overwhelming, and the pace of the days (and
evenings) was exhausting.
But I feel we are well aligned with Microsoft in
our strategic partnership, and we will work together to
help our customers maximize the benefits they receive
from their investments in Microsoft technologies.
As
always, feel free to email me your comments or thoughts
at nrosenberg@QTSnet.com.
Thank you.
Neil
Rosenberg
President & CEO
Quality Technology Solutions
Back
to Top
PARTNER
SPOTLIGHT
This
month QTS is spotlighting its network security and
penetration test partner, Razorpoint Security
Technologies, Inc. Based in New York City,
Razorpoint Security specializes in researching and
analyzing security vulnerabilities and conducting
comprehensive security testing. Razorpoint
Security’s testing goes well beyond the average
“port scan” or “vulnerability scan” exercises.
They look at your network through the eyes of those
looking to do you harm. As Razorpoint Security’s
president Gary Morse says, “We know what they know, we
know what they see, and we know what they do.”
Razorpoint
Security’s assessments provide business leaders and
corporate clients the necessary security services and
solutions that help keep corporate networks secure.
They have exceptional expertise in network security,
attack/penetration testing and identifying security
vulnerabilities especially as they relate to Internet
solutions and web applications. They provide
security services that focus the view of your operating
environment. Razorpoint Security offers all
sectors of business the services to maintain a firm
grasp on the evolving state of network security.
Razorpoint
Security’s attack/penetration tests identify
potentially disastrous security vulnerabilities and help
ensure the protection of network infrastructures and
e-business ventures. While many security firms
provide singular penetration tests with limited
documentation, Razorpoint Security offers a year-round
assessment schedule, customized documentation
deliverables, and monthly security advisories that help
keep clients up to date.
As
Razorpoint Security Technologies approaches the start of
its fourth year in business, they have clearly become a
leading force in the network security industry. In
addition to providing comprehensive security services to
its clients, Razorpoint Security has become a prime
media source on information security. News outlets
such as The New York Times Magazine, ABC/CourtTV, CBS
News, Crain’s NY Business, Entrepreneur Magazine, CSO
(Chief Security Officer) Magazine, CRN Magazine and
Wired News are among those that have tapped Razorpoint
Security for their expertise.
As
local leaders in the security field, QTS and Razorpoint
Security have worked together to develop a Penetration
& Attack Testing offering that fits into QTS’
QuikSecure methodology and is a logical progression for
customers who have completed QTS’ QuikSecure Security
and Vulnerability Assessment offerings. This
QuikSecure PAT offering has been scaled, and priced,
appropriate for the Medium Business market space.
For
more information on Razorpoint Security Technologies,
please view their web site at www.razorpointsecurity.com,
email them at sales@razorpointsecurity.com, or call
212.744.6900. Or, contact your QTS Account
Manager.
Back
to Top
|
