Information Technology Navigator

 

For many of us, a rock-solid business continuity/disaster recovery (BC/DR) plan can mean the difference between a good night’s sleep and living in constant fear of impending doom. Hyperbole aside, many BC/DR plans are under-tested, under-architected, and misunderstood by businesses. Sure, you may have a copy of your data at a secondary site, but how do you know it’s accessible to applications in the event of a failover? How do you ensure your most business-critical applications (complex interdependencies and all) come online properly and quickly? How do you automate and orchestrate changes to networking or startup scripts when your VMs fail-over? Just as importantly, how do you effectively test that all of this will work when it matters most? 

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The benefits of migrating applications to Microsoft’s Azure cloud make a very compelling business case – agility, scalability, a pay for what you use cost model, etc. But as you move workloads to Azure, don’t assume they are automatically protected, because while Azure does ensure a secure infrastructure, you are responsible for ensuring protection of your data – not Microsoft.

It’s all detailed in Microsoft’s Shared Responsibility Security Model. Understanding where the Shared Responsibility model starts and stops is critical to ensuring your data is secure and compliant. Here are some key considerations:

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Time is running out. Microsoft deadlines for SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 end of support are quickly approaching with Extended Support for SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 ending on July 9, 2019 and Extended Support for Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 ending on January 14, 2020. Don’t risk possible security or compliance gaps of unsupported software.

Security Options

End of support for these releases means the end of regular security updates. With cyberattacks becoming more sophisticated and frequent, running applications and data on unsupported versions can create significant security and compliance risks. With these risks and end of support dates coming soon, Microsoft has provided a cost-effective alternative to allow you to keep your 2008 release servers by migrating to the Azure cloud.

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A large number of businesses are increasingly embracing all that Microsoft Office 365 cloud technology has to offer and are getting there using a hybrid model. This model is based on - maintaining their on-premises Exchange infrastructure while slowly migrating mailboxes into the O365 cloud tenant. It’s a strategy that makes sense when organizations have large numbers of mailboxes or don’t have sufficient staff to support a “big bang” cutover approach.

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Last week, 5 members of the Daymark Cloud Consulting team traveled down to Orlando, Florida to attend the annual Microsoft Ignite technical conference. As always, the first day of the conference was filled with several major announcements. This blog will focus on the Azure related enhancements that were announced and Daymark’s thoughts on how they could help our clients in the future.

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With end of extended support for Windows Server 2008/2008 R2 and SQL Server 2008/2008 R2 quickly approaching within the next year, Microsoft has announced a program that will provide an additional 3 years of extended support if these workloads are migrated to Azure. Since this announcement in July, customers have been trying to figure out the most efficient way to migrate these workloads to Azure while preventing any security or compliance issues.

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During two hot July days a team of dedicated Daymark employees traded a couple of days in the office for a great cause at the build site of the current Habitat for Humanity project in Boston. The Daymark group of volunteers worked tirelessly on the construction of Habitat Greater Boston’s newest location, a five-unit condominium on Balina Place in Dorchester, MA. The units at Balina Place will be three stories, approximately 1,300 square feet each, and each unit will have three or four bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms, a kitchen, and a living room-dining area.

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Thanks to All on Team Daymark

For the 9th straight year, Daymark employees, their families and clients supported “Run to Home Base” an annual event committed to helping veterans suffering from mental trauma and brain injuries. It’s an inspiring event that Daymark employees are fully committed to. At this year’s event we were able to offer our clients the unique opportunity to join “Team Daymark” thanks to our partnership with Cisco.

This year, “Team Daymark” was 31members strong joining the more than 2,400 others who participated in this great cause on July 28^th. With this year's fundraising of more than $25,000, “Team Daymark” has now raised more than $145,000 for Run to Home Base.

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On July 12, 2018, Microsoft announced new options for SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 end of support. End of support is quickly approaching:

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In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, restrictions on monetization of personal information (aka PI or PII) are coming to California in 2020. The California legislature unanimously passed a historic bill to adopt many of the core privacy principles of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for California consumers. The bill was fast-tracked into law in order to avoid the likely passage of a more rigorous ballot initiative in the November election.

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