In the coming year, how will your organization be less vulnerable to security threats, remain in compliance, and continue to receive the latest product support?

Quick answer: Upgrade.

Review the chart below and ensure that your Microsoft products are not about to expire. The chart quickly points out some significant end-of-life/support dates that are on the horizon for some of the more popular Microsoft products, including Windows 7, Exchange 2010, and Office 2010. 

It seems these dates are far out, but in reality, upgrade discussions should begin now in order to prepare appropriately. By applying upgrades before products fall out of support, your business will be less vulnerable to security threats, remain in compliance, and continue to receive the latest product support.

In this quarter's SE Spotlight, we decided to highlight the amazing interns  who are with us over the summer. This talented group of students and graduates joined Systems Engineering (SE) to receive real-world job experience and hone the skills they already have while learning new ones. SE Spotlight provides a brief look at our 2018 interns:

There are so many reasons small- to medium-sized business are moving to the cloud. There is the attractive CapEx vs. OpEx model, scalability which comes with elastic payment strategies, and flexibility. While those business benefits are some of the chief reasons businesses migrate to the cloud, many aren’t taking advantage of the full range of productivity capabilities that are available.

SE Help Desk is here to support the daily needs of our clients and it is no small task.  Our team services 121 businesses with approximately 3,850 (+/-) end-users.  Each day they work hard to deliver engineering excellence and superior customer service. To achieve this, they focus on providing a high level of service that delivers value in every interaction and results in a positive outcome for the client. To accomplish this outcome, we have outlined some of the SE Help Desk metrics that demonstrate their commitment to improving the end-user experience.

It is reported that around 269 billion emails are sent worldwide each day with 150(+/-) of those being delivered straight to each of your employee's Inboxes. According to Symantec’s 2017 Internet Security Threat Report, one in 131 emails contains malware. This means that on a daily basis every one of your employees is faced with emails that threaten the security of your organization’s data.

This summer, Systems Engineering (SE) is undergoing its first official internship program opened to graduates, or soon-to-be graduates of Southern Maine Community College (SMCC), with technology-focused degrees.  These technical candidates chose to join SE to get a flavor of what it’s like to work in a technical environment as well as for professional growth and development.

To begin, let's define three popular infrastructure architectures:

• Distributed: A complex architecture where multiple components, typically in various locations, work together to achieve a common goal.  In this case, servers or compute, disk storage, and network switches may be spread across racks, rooms, or even a campus.
• Converged:  This architecture groups together separate IT components into a single, optimized computing package.  While compatible, each component needs to be managed separately. All components including compute, storage, and switching are part of a highly standardized or referenced architecture and are typically deployed in a single rack.
• Hyperconverged: An architecture that is similar to converged as it is a consolidation of multiple IT components into a single package similar to a rack server; however, the components cannot be used separately.  In this case, to add either compute or storage capacities, you must add additional units.  Another big difference between the systems lies in the management.  A hyperconverged system can be managed from one central location.