By Sarah Pollock, May 9, 2013

Ever wonder who has the fastest internet connection in the world?  Well, according to a recent report from Computerworld, the current record for the fastest home internet belongs to the country of Japan.

While you are sitting at your fancy work computer boasting about your download speeds in megabits, the Japanese are sitting at their home computers or lounging around with their tablets enjoying speeds up to 2 Gbps (yes, that is G for gigabit!)

So who’s the Internet Service Provider behind these amazing speeds?  It’s a company called So-net Entertainment, better known to the rest of the world as just Sony.  The company’s “Nuro” fiber-based service has a slightly slower upload speed at “only” 1 Gbps.  Considering that is the same as Google Fiber’s download speeds and 100 times faster than an average home internet connection, it leaves little room for complaint. 

So what’s it costing the good people of Japan for internet service speeds faster than Superman?  Well, hold onto your hats ... they get all of this for a mere $51 per month.  Okay, plus a hefty $535 installation fee with a two-year contract - but still, that calculates down to less than $100 USD per month. In addition, the price includes the rental of an Optical Network Unit (OUN) designed to handle all of the speed packed into a 2 Gbps network.  Not too shabby! 

How fast is your internet connection speed at your business? Is it way too slow to handle your daily tasks?  If so, give us a call at 877-708-8900 and let us help you discover the right solution to meet your needs.

By Sarah Pollock, April 25, 2013

Did you hear about the latest denial of service (DoS) attack this week?  American brokerage and banking company, Charles Schwab & Co. was hit with a DoS that crippled the company’s website and mobile app for an hour and forty minutes right before the stock market closed on Tuesday.  Reportedly, the outage wasn’t recovered overnight and spilled into Wednesday causing additional site unavailability issues off and on throughout the day.
 
The DoS attack left Schwab’s customers with only one option - calling the online brokerage company’s customer service line.  The phone lines quickly clogged as frantic customers rang the number in an attempt to place their last trades of the day on Tuesday.

Although the denial of service attack was unusual for the San Francisco discount brokerage company, Tuesday’s access issues coupled with Wednesday’s intermittent problems could potentially be costly to the firm and its customers.  In particular, the bad side of all of this is that customers rely on the ability to make quick trade execution and could potentially claim that the DoS prevented them from making their profitable trades.     

It is time to face the facts: a denial of service attack can happen to any business or enterprise at any time! Many corporate websites, just like Charles Schwab, have suffered from illegal DoS attacks more than once. 

So what can you do fight against a denial of service attack?  Global Communications Group, Inc. (GCG) has formed partnerships with cyber security firms that specialize in assessment, testing, forensics and remediation services for our clients.  These specialized services provide the solutions for your business to be pro-active about protecting data and networks from hackers, malware, viruses and dreaded denial of service attacks.

For more information, call GCG today at 877-708-8900 and speak to one of our cyber security experts!

By Sarah Pollock, April 11, 2013

An annual survey released earlier this week reveled that 98% of 300 IT decision makers at large North American corporations plan to expand their data centers in the next two years.  Campos Research & Analysis, who conducted the annual study on behalf of Digital Realty Trust, Inc. for the past seven years, found that this is the highest percentage rate to date.

The IT decision makers who participated in the survey this past January were senior level executives or management. When it came down to the participant’s need for data center expansion, they ranked the following four reasons by most importance:

1) Need for increased security
2) Energy efficiency
3) New applications and services
4) More space

In addition, the study found that 61% of the IT decision makers indicated that a key motivator for data center expansion was the implementation of an internal private cloud. 

Other findings from the study revealed that data center budgets are also slightly on the rise from a 7.2 percent budget increase last year to a 7.7 percent increase this year.  Furthermore, there is a trend towards larger data centers with more raised floor space, more power and better cooling efficiency. 

Preferences in data center locations were also explored in the study and found that approximately 200 of the 300 participants preferred to have the data center in the city where their business is located: however, locations in Europe and APAC were not completely ruled out. 

In conclusion of the survey results, Michael F. Foust, chief executive officer of Digital Realty Trust, stated:  “Data center executives face the need for cost optimization as well as the support of important existing and emerging business initiatives. The strong demand revealed by this survey indicates that senior leaders recognize the importance of data center strategies in meeting these requirements.”

Learn more about data center solutions, available data center locations and pricing today! Give GCG a call at 877-708-8900 and speak to one of our friendly data center experts. 

Do you think you are safe from cyber attacks?  If so, you should probably think again.  Since the beginning of 2013, hacking has picked up and the threats are becoming even more severe.  From a Denial-of-service attack (DDoS) at American Express to a cyber attack that resulted in a $2.7 Million loss affecting 3,400 Citigroup customers ... no one is really safe.  Not even our first lady or the former president Bush’s family, who were both recently victims of various hacking jobs that compromised their personal information and family photos.
 
Do you have a Twitter account?  Both social media sites were hacked into recently resulting in the potential compromise of approximately 250,000 Twitter account holder’s usernames and email addresses.  Do you game online? Microsoft just confirmed that a group of hackers recently accessed Xbox live accounts.
 
Around the world, the famous hactivists group “Anonymous” have not only hacked into the U.S. Federal sentencing website to make a declaration of “war” on the U.S. Government, but they also were involved in a hack job affecting Israel’s Mossad spy agency.
 
As you can see, hacking is serious business and it’s not slowing down anytime soon.  Now more than ever, hackers are working overtime to launch DDos attacks and compromise both financial and personal information. 

According to the FCC, the theft of digital information has become the most commonly reported fraud, surpassing physical theft and that every business using the Internet is responsible for creating a culture of security that will enhance business and consumer confidence.  The FCC has warned that whether a business is thinking of adopting cloud computing or just using email and maintaining a website, cyber security should always be a part of your communications and technology plan. 

Is cyber security a part of your plan?

It may sound something from like a science fiction movie featuring Will Smith but we can assure you it is not.  Business intelligence is here and it is here in a big way. Business intelligence or BI is the result of “data rich and information poor” enterprises that struggle to make pertinent decisions quickly. Sure they have access to lots of data but without meaningful analysis it is essentially useless. All of the data gathered often equates to a common condition called “information paralysis.” Fast forward through time to the present and business intelligence is being adopted at a faster rate than ever thought possible. It is the “must have” technology for all decision makers in health care, financial, manufacturing and more. The business intelligence market is exploding with software, services, consulting, strategy and training.

So what is it exactly? Business intelligence is an umbrella term that refers to a variety of software applications used to analyze an organization’s raw data. BI as a discipline is made up of several related activities, including data mining, online analytical processing, querying and reporting.
 
Enterprises today are using it to greatly improve decision making, cut costs and identify new business opportunities in the marketplace. BI is more than just corporate reporting and more than a set of tools to coax data out of enterprise systems. It gives CEOs real time analytics and information to examine the overall health and prosperity of their business and navigate a clear path to future growth. CIOs can identify inefficient business processes that are ripe for re-engineering.  CFOs have been able to evaluate the financial performance of business units, departments, and sales personnel for profitability to boost the bottom line.

With business intelligence tools, decision makers can jump in and start analyzing data themselves in real time, rather than waiting for complex reports to come in from multiple locations company wide. This democratization of information access helps users back up - with hard numbers - business decisions that would otherwise be based only on gut feelings and anecdotes.

Interested in turning data into a meaningful analytics?  If so, contact GCG to learn more about our business intelligence services and consulting.  Call 877-708-8900 to speak with an expert.