Businesses today have a continually increasing list of IT requirements, allowing them to keep up with the latest trends and stay ahead of the competition. In some cases, IT is becoming increasingly difficult for these companies to handle on their own, increasing the challenges of hiring IT in-house. Even small companies and startups today need enterprise-level security, the capability to safely back their data, as well as ongoing support to ensure that everything will run smoothly.

That said, many would like to address these challenges internally. Nevertheless, an in-house IT department can be costly. What's more, finding and maintaining these IT unicorns can be a challenge in and of itself. Below, we'll be addressing some of the challenges associated with hiring IT in-house.

The Challenges of an In-House IT Department

Having an internal IT department isn't all negative. First of all, you will have direct control over your employees or employee working in IT. They will be the go-to person for any technical or network issues that may arise. Nevertheless, it can become somewhat tricky for companies to draw a definite line between their revenue and a substantial investment in internal IT resources. In other words, it's always wise to invest in comprehensive IT resources and personnel, but it's not always advisable or sustainable to have everything in-house.

Salaries, Benefits, Holidays, and Sick Leave

One issue to take into account when deciding to hire in-house are the costs associated with wages and benefits. According to Indeed.com, the average salary of an IT Manager is around $82,000 per year, while an IT Technician's salary is close to $74,000. That's quite a cost for a single person, and the chances are that one person won't be able to handle all of your IT requirements. What's more, these costs don't take into account benefits, certifications, turnover and onboarding rates, sick days, or vacation time, among others.

And while on the topic of vacations and sick days, if you have a limited number of IT staff members, it can make things quite difficult when one or more are not at work. This is even more problematic when there's only one member in the IT department. What happens if your systems go down? Who will address any issues that may arise when they're not there? Trying to fix the problem while they're gone can make it even worse.

Training and Turnover

Another thing that you will need to take into account after hiring a new IT person is training. Who will do the training and set aside the required time? It can take months before they will be fully acquainted with your systems, during which time your operations will not be at full capacity.

Also, you should take into consideration the risk of turnover. If your IT employee decides to leave your company, you will have invested countless hours into their development only to restart the process over again. This will create a significant burden on your company, its productivity, and its resources.

The Almost Inevitable Skill Gap

As businesses become more and more technology-driven, the IT skills gap will only continue to grow. It will become harder and harder to find an IT unicorn capable of handling everything an organization needs, even if it's just a startup. As such, more and more businesses are beginning to outsource part of their IT needs because most IT employees' skills will not be able to cover the entire spectrum of the business’s needs.

Image source: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/us-partner-blog/2018/02/21/windows-autopilot-deployment-program/

Every time a new Windows device is deployed, custom images need to be built, maintained, and applied to make it ready for new users, despite already having a perfectly good operating system installed.

After that, IT department members need to follow up with hours of manual app setups, drivers, policies, settings, etc. All of this, mind you, needs to be done for every repurposed device found in an organization, which implies a lot of time, energy, and resources being spent that could be used elsewhere. This is where Windows AutoPilot comes into play.

What is Windows AutoPilot?

Windows AutoPilot is a collection of technologies specifically created to remove all of the issues mentioned above. Its purpose is to set up and pre-configure new devices and get them ready for use. You can also use the AutoPilot to reset, repurpose, or recover old devices, allowing the IT department to do these tasks with little to no infrastructure.

The AutoPilot tool was designed to simplify the entire lifecycle of Windows devices, going from the initial deployment to the eventual end of the life cycle. In short, using cloud-based services, such as Windows AutoPilot, will help organizations by reducing their overall costs in terms of deployment, management, and even retiring old devices.

This is done primarily by reducing the total time spent on these processes, as well as the amount of infrastructure needed for maintenance, which will not only make life easier for the IT department but also the end-users.

That said, here are the main benefits of using Windows AutoPilot.

No More OS Re-Imaging

Traditionally, IT members had to manually install apps and drivers, manage the infrastructure, and set policies. With AutoPilot, however, all of this is done automatically. With a smart and easy pre-configuration, you will set all of these once, set up an AutoPilot profile in Microsoft Intune, and have all settings applied to all of your Windows devices under that profile.

The Self-Deployment Mode

Windows AutoPilot's Self-Deploying mode takes streamlining one step beyond by enabling any new Windows 10 device, which has been pre-enrolled in the AutoPilot program to be ready without any additional interaction from the IT department. In other words, your new device will automatically get all the settings configured the moment you power it on and connect it to the internet.

Stay on Top of Security and Compliance

AutoPilot’s Enrollment Status Page will ensure that your devices are fully configured, secured, and compliant with all requirements before users access it. Your system managers will be able to check the status of each device in real-time, allowing them to keep the equipment in out-of-box experience (OBE) until all policies and configurations are provisioned. They can then choose actions that users can perform in the event of failures and set up custom messages.

The Windows AutoPilot Reset Feature

Windows Autopilot Reset allows you to prepare devices for re-use by removing personal files, settings, and apps, reapplying the device's original settings. This is done while also maintaining the device's identity connection to Azure AD and its management connection to Intune. The Reset feature takes the device back to a business-ready state, allowing the next user to utilize the device at a moment's notice.

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The Threat Landscape is Changing

The threat landscape has evolved dramatically in recent years. It seems every day we hear another headline about an organization getting breached. We’ve responded by changing the architecture of Windows 10 so that we’re not just building bigger walls against these attacks; we’re locking the criminals out. Windows 10 provides a comprehensive set of protections against modern security threats. The average cost of a data breach per incident is $3,500,000 (2014 Cost of Data Breach: Global Analysis. Ponemon Institute, 2014.) According to a recent survey of CIOs, security spending is increasing at double the rate of overall investment.

Identity Protection

• 75% of individuals use only three or four passwords across all of their accounts.

• Passwords are not secure. Others can access your corporate network by pretending to be you.

The solution: Windows 10 introduces an alternative to passwords with Microsoft Passport and Windows Hello.

Information Protection

• 57% of us have sent data to the wrong person.

• 87% of senior managers have leaked corporate data to unmanaged personal locations.

Solution: Windows 10 provides Enterprise Data Protection, now at the file level, to help ensure corporate data isn’t accidentally or intentionally leaked to unauthorized users or locations.

Device Protection

• An attacker can go over 200 days undetected in your environment, now that people are bringing their own devices to work—that’s scary.

Solution: Windows 10 offers Trusted Boot to help ensure that a genuine version of Windows starts first on your device, preventing attackers from evading detection.

Online Protection

• More than 300,000 new malicious files are are being created every day and spread through the Internet.

Solution: Windows 10 Device Guard completely locks down your device, so you can run only trusted applications, scripts, and more.

It’s time to take action to protect your business.

By deploying the security features in Windows 10, you can outmaneuver today’s cybercriminals and neutralize their destructive tactics before they’ve even begun.

Contact Managed Solution to schedule a Network & System Assessment to build the most strategic architecture around your systems and networks. 858-429-3084

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Protect & Transform Your Business With A Healthy Active Directory

Presenter: Rob Meyers, Director Of Systems Architecture, MCITP, MBSP, MCSE

Robert Meyers is the Director of Systems Architecture at Managed Solution in San Diego, California. He has well over a dozen current certifications from on various products from Windows Server 2008 to Private Cloud. Robert has had a diverse career, beginning in 1991, and included owning an internet service provider and a managed services provider in the past.

Since joining Managed Solution, he has been Published as “Industry Ally”, Top Tech Exec Awards 2011 by San Diego Magazine in addition to being staff nominated twice, and was a regular at the Microsoft Management Summit. Today he is an avowed technical evangelist, blogger and systems architect.

The webinar covers:

• Domain Services: New Components And Deployment Scenarios

• How To Identify Issues Using A Pass/Fail Model

• Concepts And Best Practices

• Single Sign On

• Azure AD Device Registration

• Workflow Automation

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Benefits of Active Directory

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Through our proven process we’ve transformed over 500 businesses using Powerful Identity Protection Strategies. Contact us today 858-429-3084.

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A Healthy Active Directory Can Protect And Transform Your Business

If your Active Directory is unhealthy it can be the root cause to countless issues in a business environment.

How certain are you that your environment will PASS? Contact us today to get started on your Active Directory Pass / Fail Project 800-208-3617.

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Secure Your Staff and Their Devices with Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS) from Microsoft. EMS lets you keep corporate data secure even on an unsecure network. Meet the needs of your mobile workforce—and their roaming devices.

Managed Solution provides businesses with complete, end-to-end solutions for their technology needs.

Get cutting-edge security as a service to enable mobility without risking company data. For more information call 800-208-3617

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Monitor Critical Services & Applications With Microsoft System Center Operations Manager

With Infrastructure monitoring and insights for high performance, Managed Solution’s unmatched methodology to deliver Systems Health we can bring a new level of security to your network.

Get Started Today 800-208-3617.

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With SCCM & our proprietary SHARC tool, automating your client’s computers health has never been easier.

You can discover, diagnose, and clean all your client devices with just a mouse click, even the ones you didn’t know were on your network... without human intervention.

The future of client health automation is here.

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Optimize Uptime, Take the Fast Track to the Cloud

See how our expert engineers are helping business move quickly & securely to the cloud.

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Could this be you?

• You have purchased Azure licensing, but it is not yet being used.

• You are currently evaluating Azure for disaster recovery, development, or infrastructure needs.

• You have implemented Azure, but you are looking to expand and need more assistance with governance or automation.

Azure Quick Start is customizable to your needs. Learn more.

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With time, your Active Directory (A/D) database can malfunction and become filled with data that you do not need anymore, such as references to users or servers that do not exist anymore. Here are 10 things to know before "de-gunking" your Active Directory.

1: Think simple before anything else

Erratic Active Directory behavior is not always due to a corrupt Active Directory database. For example, not being able to create or remove a domain may be due to the fact that the domain controller hosting the FSMO roles for the domain is down, or even more simple, the user attempting to perform the operation may not have the necessary permissions.

 

2: Make sure DNS is properly functioning

Active Directory is completely dependent on DNS, so if this server fails, Active Directory begins to have problems too. Indications of a DNS server issue include error messages such as "Domain Not Found", "Server Not Available", or "RPC Server is Unavailable".

 

3: Know the power and ease of DCDIAG

Windows domain controllers include a command-line utility called DCDIAG. Running this utility performs a number of diagnostic tests on a domain controller, and often times, DCDIAG will help you quickly determine the cause of the problem.

 

4: Delete extinct metadata correctly

While you can use ADSI Edit to manually remove references to extinct servers, doing so often does more harm than good. With Active Directory being a relational database, removing an entry for an extinct server can orphan other database entries and cause a whole slew of problems. A better approach is to use the NTDSUTIL tool's METADATA CLEANUP option. This TechNet article provides a full set of instructions on the process.

 

5: ADSI Edit is unforgiving

You can use ADSI Edit to manually create and delete Active Directory entries, however, making a mistake can destroy your entire Active Directory. Therefore, it is important to know when and when not to use it. For example, Exchange 2007 can't be uninstalled until the last public folder has been removed, but a bug prevents you from removing the remaining public folders. ADSI Edit is useful to work around this issue, but take extreme caution in using it for other purposes.

 

6: Don't use domain controller snapshots

With virtualization being so popular, many organizations have virtualized their domain controller and server virtualization products on the market allow you to create a snapshot of a server. That way, in the event that something goes wrong with the server, you can roll it back to a previous state without having to restore a backup.

While backing up your domain controllers before attempting to repair Active Directory is a good idea, you shouldn't use snapshots. Rolling back to a snapshot of a domain controller can have catastrophic consequences. Active Directory transactions are numbered and rolling back a domain controller causes the numbering sequence to be disrupted. This leads to all sorts of domain synchronization issues.

 

7: Active Directory is based on the extensible storage engine

Normally, NTDSUTIL is the tool of choice for repairing Active Directory problems. But in the case of severe corruption, NDTSUTIL may not be enough for the problem at hand. In this case, the best option is to restore a backup. If that isn't possible, though, you can try using ESEUTIL.

ESEUTIL is a database maintenance tool for extensible storage engine databases and it can be used to repair structural problems within the database. This technique should only be implemented as a last resort due to the possibility of data loss during the repair process.

 

8: The difference between authoritative and non-authoritative restore

When you restore the Active Directory database on a domain controller, the restoration is usually non-authoritative, meaning that the restoration process restores the domain controller to the point at which it existed when the backup was made. The domain controller is brought into a current state by the replication process. Other domain controllers replicate any missing entries to the recently restored domain controller.

An authoritative restore does not backfill a restored domain controller using data from other domain controllers. Instead, you are effectively telling Windows that the recently restored domain controller contains the desired data and that you want to remove any subsequent data from the other domain controllers in the organization.

 

9: Check NTFS permissions

When Active Directory related services fail to start on a domain controller, the problem is often mistaken for database corruption while often, an administrator has recently tried to secure the system volume. Excessive NTFS permissions can actually prevent Active Directory from starting. Microsoft discusses this problem in Knowledgebase Article 258062.

 

10: Back up your domain controllers

Before performing any major repair or cleanup work on your Active Directory, it is imperative to perform a full system state backup of your domain controllers. Countless knowledgebase articles talk about the importance of backing up a system prior to modifying the registry — and modifying the Active Directory database is much more dangerous than editing the registry. If you make a mistake while editing the registry, you can destroy Windows. If you make a mistake in Active Directory, you can destroy the whole thing which potentially affects every system in your organization. Therefore, the importance of a good backup should never be underestimated.

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Have you ever tried to use Distributed Applications in Operations Manager, but got frustrated with the manual process of creating the diagrams? They can be difficult to create and harder to maintain in modern, dynamic systems.

Wouldn’t it be great if those diagrams could be built and maintained for you automatically? With the public preview of the new Service Map management pack, that reality is here.

Service Map is an Azure service automatically discovers application components on Windows and Linux systems and maps the communication between services. You can create diagrams for individual servers or complex maps of groups of servers representing your business services.

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With this new integration, you can take the dynamic maps that Service Map creates and have them automatically create and maintain your Distributed Application Diagrams in Operations Manager. As your business services change, your diagrams will change along with them. Now, you can set up dashboards showing the health of your services and trust that the underlying Distributed Applications represent the real-world infrastructures, even as they change.

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Industry Leading System Center Engineering Talent

 

Do you have the tools in place to empower the "always on" worker, the co-mingling of company and personal business, compliancy, access and data loss? It's time to think about your overall Identity & Access Management Strategy and we can help. Get started with System Center.

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Unify your IT management infrastructure & simplify client health with 0 touch deployments.

Streamline operations with a unified infrastructure that integrates device management and protection across mobile, physical, and virtual environments. With System Center Configuration Manager and our patented SHARC tool automating your client's computers health has never been easier.

You can discover, diagnose and clean all your client devices with just a mouse click, even the ones you didn't know were on your network... Without human intervention.

The future of client health automation is here. Managed Solution provides businesses with complete, end-to-end solutions for their technology needs.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]