Top Trends Friday has become a weekly staple across Sentinel’s social media platforms. We reach out to our elite experts for their insight into the technology industry and related verticals to find the solutions and products making the biggest impact. We then share those trends every Friday afternoon to kick off the weekend.

This week, we wanted to reflect on some of our favorite Top Trends from last year and provide updates to highlight their continued impact today.

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OpenDNS

After being acquired by Cisco last fall, OpenDNS was renamed Cisco Umbrella and became part of the Cisco Security Ecosystem. Umbrella offers the industry’s first secure internet gateway. Since the acquisition, Sentinel has added Cisco Umbrella to our SecuritySelect portfolio, which delivers a comprehensive approach to business security.

Meraki Wireless

Meraki Wireless has also expanded significantly since last year. In October they announced the MR30H access point, created with the hospitality and retail industries in mind. 

They also released the MS350-24X, a multi-gig switch to support the MR53. This new switch offers visibility and control over thousands of ports, as well as built-in multi-site management and zero touch provisioning.

Meraki’s Cloud dashboard received a refresh too, making it more user friendly.

Business Continuity Planning

Business Continuity Planning is one of many services offered by Sentinel’s Strategic Advisory Group. This division of our company has expanded since last spring, and now combines technology advisory and business processes to deliver comprehensive analysis and alignment services to our clients.

Business Continuity Planning continues to be a top priority for organizations and includes a suite of assessments. Some of these include Business Impact Analysis, Disaster Recovery, and Runbook, along with Backup and Retention Planning. Customers can get the discussions started with our free alignment workshops, such as one focused on the NIST Cybersecurity framework.

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Technology is constantly advancing. In 12 short months, these 3 solutions have expanded and changed exponentially, yet remained prominent. We rely on our experts to stay on the cutting edge of solutions to provide our clients with most effective and efficient solutions for their organization. Check in with our social media accounts at the end of each work week for our Top Trends Friday to stay ahead of the curve!

By the Sentinel Customer Service Team

Sentinel was founded in 1982 as a technology maintenance and repair company. While our scope and offerings have expanded with new innovations throughout the industry, our core mission remains the same: to provide the highest quality IT solutions, customer service, and support so businesses can maximize their productivity and growth.

Customer Service is the beating heart of Sentinel’s operations. Our team works closely with customers to ensure that any problems or issues concerning Sentinel solutions within their IT environment are handled quickly and directly no matter when or where they occur. Customers can place service calls 24x7x365 using our online portal or 800 number, where agents are standing by ready to help. Some customers also have dedicated phone numbers, which allows our agents to answer calls with a special greeting written by the customer.

Our highest priority in Customer Service is on providing a quality experience that is fast, reliable and friendly. We understand that when someone calls in because their entire network is down, they want to speak to a real person and not an answering machine or automated system. That is why we invest so much time and effort to train our agents and emphasize the critical values of listening, patience and friendliness.

Of course agents also need to be highly knowledgeable in all aspects of the products and solutions we provide, so they can properly interpret a customer’s issue and escalate it as needed using the correct channels and/or technicians. Keeping up with all the new technologies and systems is one of the most challenging aspects of our jobs, but we pride ourselves on the ability to adapt quickly in an ever-changing industry.

At the end of the day, perhaps the best and most rewarding thing about working in Sentinel’s Customer Service is being part of a great team. The comradery in the Customer Service department is much like that of a family; we not only support our customers, but also each other on a daily basis. That atmosphere of teamwork, trust and professionalism is what enables us to deliver such efficient, dependable and responsive service to our customers when they need it most.

In the U.S., women earn about 76 cents per dollar earned by men on average, but the causes of the gender pay gap are a bit more complicated. Sentinel is committed to doing our part to close the gender pay gap. We have conducted a pay gap analysis every year since 2003 to ensure women and minorities are equitably paid throughout the organization.

Pay equality is an important issue for all of us, and by taking the Equal Pay Pledge on Glassdoor, we are formally telling our employees, candidates and the world that we are committed to equitable pay practices. The more companies stand up for equal pay, the closer we get to closing the pay gap and making salary equity a reality for all.

Sentinel stands alongside more than 3,000 organizations that have taken the equal pay pledge. We hope you’ll join us in this important conversation and share on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn that you #StandForEqualPay with us.

Sentinel regularly hosts events for our customers at various locations across the country. It provides us an opportunity to establish a closer and more personal relationship with those in attendance, and lend our unique expertise to highlight new and emerging technologies designed to optimize and protect the way you do business. We have a handful of fun and educational events coming up over the next month, and want to make sure you are aware of them. Please visit the individual event pages to RSVP and learn more!

**Thursday, March 23rd**

Join Sentinel and Cisco at Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar in Las Vegas for a special lunch and learn focused on next generation security. As cyber-attacks continue to grow in frequency and sophistication, it is more important than ever to have a complete defense strategy in place to monitor, protect and remediate against them. Our experts will explain the best ways to defend your business before, during and after an attack, as well as showcase the innovative security provided by Cisco Umbrella. Click here to RSVP.

**Friday, March 24th**

Learn all about the latest data protection strategies and take part in a wild indoor skydiving adventure at this fun event hosted by Sentinel’s Phoenix office. Our partners from Veeam, APC and Nimble will be on hand at iFly Phoenix to discuss the best ways to keep your data safe, your business compliant and your end users productive yet secure. Following the presentation, attendees will have the opportunity to experience the thrill and rush of skydiving without ever having to jump out of a plane. Click here to RSVP.

**Thursday, March 30th**

Hyperconvergence is an innovative solution that unifies a variety of physical and virtual technologies so businesses can more easily adjust their data center resources and promote growth, productivity, and mobility. Sentinel and Cisco are hosting a lunch and learn presentation at our Downers Grove, IL headquarters focused on how hyperconvergence can redefine your data center and enhance your organization. Those in attendance will also be able to participate in an interactive demonstration of Cisco HyperFlex. Click here to RSVP.

**Tuesday, April 4th**

Sentinel’s downtown Chicago office is holding a special lunch and learn with Cisco to discuss the latest innovations in cyber security to keep your business safe. 95% of large companies are targeted by malicious traffic, and 100% of organizations have interacted with web sites that host malware. The better you’re able to defend your enterprise network and infrastructure from attack, the lower the possibility of a breach that results in a significant loss of data, money and reputation. Our experts will explain simple ways to add layers of protection without creating additional complexity. Click here to RSVP.

**Thursday, April 13th**

If you are unable to attend one of Sentinel’s events in person, we are hosting a webinar on the morning of April 13th that is focused on security and our Security Operations Center (SOC). It offers advanced, proactive security protection options for on premise, cloud and distributed business environments. Your security infrastructure is monitored 24x7x365 in combination with security incident and event management as well as intrusion detection. This webinar will be led by Sentinel CTO Robert Keblusek and should last about an hour. Click here to register.

**Friday, April 21st**

Sentinel CTO Robert Keblusek will be at Chinook Tavern in Denver for a very special lunch and learn about next generation security.  Learn about the latest methods attackers are utilizing to breach your network and steal critical data, talk about your current challenges, and get advice on ways to keep your business safe. Mr. Keblusek will review Sentinel’s SecuritySelect solutions, with an emphasis on our Security as a Service and Security Operations Center offerings. Following the presentation there will be a roundtable discussion to answer any questions and dive even deeper into the state of business security today. Click here to RSVP.

By Gail Bianucci and Kathryn Lipps

The Sentinel Accounting Department processes and manages the transactions for products, solutions and services purchased by our customers. It may seem simple or straightforward in theory, but the reality is a bit more complicated. No two customers or solutions are alike, so our processes are different for each one.

The core of our activities are handled through the Sentinel Transaction System (STS), within which all sales or deals are entered. The STS supports all receivable and payable functions in conjunction with our corporate software system. A typical day for the Accounts Receivable (AR) team begins with a morning email generated by the STS system that displays all newly created sales agreements. Each deal is closely reviewed and verified before it is approved for purchasing with special note indicating the sales type, site location, contractual terms that will determine the invoicing schedule, and any unique or specific instructions requested by the customer. Daily AR tasks also include updating deal shipment status, Project Change Requests (PCRs), and assisting customers with additional invoice information as needed.

Billing for online store orders, equipment/licensing only deals, HANS agreements, and time & materials (T&M) professional services are processed daily, however the majority of invoicing activity culminates during the last week of each month. Recurring services for maintenance, monitoring, cloud, WebEx, consulting, onsite engineering, and projects all invoice during this time, which requires coordination and communication with various departments. For example, when preparing project invoicing, our team utilizes several reports from the EPMO and distribution department to gather information regarding the project status for equipment in staging and professional services, which allows us to generate accurate and timely billing amounts for each project phase.

The Accounts Payable (AP) team manages and processes vendor/supplier invoice approval and settlement, bank statements reconciliation, and inventory tracking. Daily AP tasks include responding to vendor/supplier inquiries, processing payments, and verifying expenses. This team also communicates and coordinates with various departments through reporting tools.

The accounting department supports all ten nationwide Sentinel Technologies locations with diverse customers who have diverse needs. As a result, our responsibilities and processes are constantly evolving, producing a dynamic that is fast-paced and creative. There’s rarely a dull moment!

By Paul Rybka, Terry Mitchell and Tom Hill, Sentinel Bench Repair Technicians

Everybody with a computer is familiar with that moment of panic when a hard drive crashes or a monitor goes blank. If you work in business, it tends to feel like that always happens at the most inopportune time, like when a deadline is approaching or a project is just about finished. Since nearly every individual today is armed with a computer or mobile device where so much valuable information is stored, the loss of critical data and functions can have a significant impact on our lives.

The very nature of electronics repair, with its extraordinary rate of technological development, creates a constant need for technicians to update and advise customers on computer-related issues. Sentinel’s core strength lies in our team of certified, highly trained and experienced electronics and computer technicians. We are fully prepared to handle maintenance and repair needs for any technology product, as our skills extend to a wide variety of niche areas and continue to expand as innovations and changes occur throughout the industry.

As long as physical electronics such as computers and mobile devices exist, there will always be a need for them to be repaired, serviced or installed. Sentinel understands this better than anybody, since we were founded in 1982 as a maintenance and technology repair company. While our portfolio of offerings has grown exponentially over the years, those original services remain available today to our customers. Please contact us if you would like to learn more about our maintenance and repair services.

By Ted Joffs, IT Solutions Team Lead

As an IT solutions specialist and team lead at Sentinel, I work with a wide variety of products and systems – some ancient, some newer, some cutting edge. While each project is a unique adventure and learning experience, I’ve noticed that many businesses facing issues often share similar symptoms that could easily have been prevented had they followed a few basic steps to properly safeguard and maintain their infrastructure. Here are five easy ways to extend the life and safety of your system:

1)    If you are still running any version of Microsoft Exchange older than 2010, you need to upgrade immediately. Not tomorrow, not in 15 minutes, right now. Microsoft has stopped all support for pre-2010 versions of Exchange, meaning your servers are not protected from any new or emerging security threats. Critical data and key systems are at risk, so don’t wait to upgrade until it’s too late!

2)    Your Active Directory is your company’s lifeblood. Data is important, but if you can't get to it because your AD is not replicating, fails, or is older than molasses, you will wish you had kept it up-to-date. At the very least I’d recommend running a "dcdiag" once a month to check for and correct any AD errors so things continue to run smoothly.

3)    If your hypervisor is more than two versions back, no matter what you’re using – VMware, Hyper-V, Xen/XenServer, VirtualBox, or something completely custom – keep it updated! Hypervisor functionality, OS support, VM versions, virtual hardware, etc. all develop and change quickly, so you should too.

4)    If you own a storage array such as a NAS, SAN, Filer, or FreeNAS JBOD and you aren’t currently monitoring it, you need to address that ASAP Like stop reading and get a monitoring platform right now. Storage monitoring provides important insight and visibility into utilization and application layers, as well as issues alerts when encountering thresholds or bottlenecks.

5)    If you are a manager, director, VP, C-Level, or even an owner and one of your employees recommends something like buying more SAN or upgrading a particular component, you should probably hear them out. They probably wouldn’t make such a suggestion without a valid reason.

The common theme in these tips is to make sure that the key components of your company’s infrastructure remain up-to-date and carefully monitored. That might seem like a no brainer to most people, but you’d be surprised at how often these things slip through the cracks during day-to-day operations. If your IT department is under-staffed or you would simply like more time to focus on growth and innovation, Sentinel offers a variety of proactive maintenance and support services that will monitor, update and repair critical portions of your infrastructure. Please contact us for additional information.

Last week at our Downers Grove headquarters, Sentinel held a special lunch & learn event highlighting the benefits of hyperconvergence. The customers in attendance enjoyed a presentation from Sentinel experts and also had the opportunity to engage with a live demonstration of Cisco Hyperflex. In case you missed this highly informative and entertaining session, we’re hosting another one on March 30th in our Business Solution Center. We hope you can join us! As a preview of what to expect, here is a brief Q&A on hyperconvergence from Sentinel Solutions Architect Geoff Woodhouse:

**If you’re starting out with nothing and want to venture into the hyperconverged space, what would you recommend doing first?**

At the very least, start with a 3 node with 2 fabric interconnects system and build up from there. Sentinel can work with you to determine what exactly you need. Sizing can be a little tricky because we’ve got to know what your workload is like, what are your metrics, CPU, memory, how many IOPS and other kinds of things. After we have that information we can make a recommendation that’s best for your particular business.

**What’s the best path if you have a hybrid solution and want to eventually adopt Hyperflex?**

We’ve had people want to install Hyperflex to replace a storage area network (SAN) but keep their blades. In that case we would typically recommend something like a middle-of-the-road processor with a lot of disk. So for example you’d get 3 nodes with 30 TB and allow them to function like a new SAN as we migrate off your current blades. You can move the workloads on there or pick up another node as needed, whatever you’d like to do.

If you wanted to, you could buy a simple SAN with a CPU and continue to use your current blades to do the workload. But at some point down the road you’ll have to get a new SAN and will be forced to do a SAN migration, which will result in a temporary outage and other inconveniences. With Hyperflex, you just add a node and you’ve instantly have more storage. Any old nodes that you don’t need any more can be taken away from the cluster, and the Hyperflex software will move everything around without any problem.

**If you have multiple Hyperflex clusters, can data be replicated between them?**

You could create a hot site and use Site Recovery Manager, which is part of the VMware suite of tools. Hyperflex is just the guts underneath. Therefore, you could do something like SAN to SAN copy, but generally if you have VMware and you want to develop a hot site, I’d recommend Site Recovery Manager.

The challenge is that if you don’t have or want a hot site, then you’ll have to take the data and store it somewhere like a data domain or compress it with Veeam before you can send it to a backup site, cloud or anywhere else. So it all depends on how important that data is. If you’re looking for a real-time, five-minute difference kind of RTO/RPO for your DR site, that’s where a hot site is essential. If a 4-hour to 24-hours RTO/RPO is fine, then maybe our cloud would be an option for you. You can send it off there, and if you do have a disaster, you can call us.  This way you can save the cost of buying a second set of hardware hoping you’ll never have to use it.

If you are interested in learning more about Hyperflex or hyperconvergence in general, please contact us or RSVP to our next lunch and learn on March 30th.

By Ben Piorkowski, Sentinel Sales Executive

Recent studies affirm that human error contributes to at least 95% of all cybersecurity threats and breaches. Therefore, it is absolutely crucial for an organization to not only stay on the cutting edge of technology tools, but be willing to adopt a stronger and stricter company culture in order to actually maximize their cybersecurity investment as well.

Many people in the industry understand that having a good firewall, having antivirus and malware protection installed, not clicking on suspicious emails, keeping systems up to date, and using strong passwords all play critical roles in keeping data secure. What it ultimately comes down to however is effective execution and the adoption of a comprehensive and multifaceted cybersecurity strategy that is continually monitored and reinforced. The following principles are important cultural guidelines to help implement and maintain the technologies and procedures essential to protecting your company’s critical data.

**Integrity**

Establishing a culture of integrity is of utmost importance to maintaining the security of your data. All employees and shareholders need to have a very clear understanding of what is acceptable and unacceptable, along with a known process to identify sins of commission or slips in protocol so any errors can be eliminated right away. People should report problems immediately so as to avoid lengthy and costly investigations later on or to avoid an emergency entirely. A large part of this is also personal accountability – being willing to accept and admit when a mistake has been made.

**Depth of Knowledge**

Having depth of knowledge starts with having top notch talent. Any employees who have access to company data need to have some basic understanding of how these systems work. The more advanced or high risk the system, the greater their knowledge should be. This means understanding how a system works, its potential vulnerabilities, and the procedures on what to do in every circumstance. If they really know the system, they will be able to recognize problems early on, know how to deal with them and when to report them. This is why attracting top talent and thorough training is crucial.

**Procedural Compliance**

Passing industry audits is a necessity, but in addition to simply being at the industry standard, everyone in your organization should know where to find operational policies and follow them to the letter. This is particularly important for critical systems and company data. They also need to be able to recognize when new policies are needed. Taking the time to write policies and procedures for the various layers and positions within the organization can help greatly. Another way an organization can maximize compliance is through periodic inspections such as written tests, interviews, observations, and responses to fake emergencies. 

**Forceful Backup**

Closely monitor any critical or high risk system being worked on by senior personnel. In most complex systems it is prudent to require two people to work on it so you don’t create the dreaded “single point of failure.”

**A Questioning Attitude**

This can be counterintuitive in any rank-structure organization, however, this mindset can be invaluable. It is important that people know it is okay to listen to their internal alarm bells, search for the causes of problems and immediately take steps to solve them (according to specified policies and procedures). These people will then double and triple check processes and be very thorough. 

**Formality in Communication**

Those giving instructions should state their orders clearly and have subordinates repeat steps back verbatim. This establishes an appropriate gravity for each procedure by the eliminating small talk and personal familiarity that can lead to inattention, assumptions, slip ups, etc.

IBM sponsors the “Cost of Data Breach Study”, which is a gold-standard security research study independently conducted by Ponemon Institute. The 2016 study found the average consolidated total cost of a data breach grew in the last year from $3.8 million to $4 million. In a separate study, Cisco cites the average loss of value to a brand after a security breach is now a staggering 31%, doubling over the past five years from $184 million in 2011 to $332 million in 2016:

So it’s more important than ever for corporate leadership to have tough conversations about the importance of investing in cybersecurity as well as effective training and change management. Breaches almost always occur when one or more of these principles are broken. Embed all of these in daily lives of all your employees and the difference will pay off exponentially. 

Sentinel’s SecuritySelect offers the complete security solution for your organization, including employee and manager training to significantly reduce the possibility of breaches due to human error. Please contact us for more information. 

By Jason Golba, Sentinel E-Commerce Specialist

The Sentinel store is an online portal that provides customers with access to more than half a million of our product and solution offerings. If you’re looking to place a smaller technology order, the store is a quick and easy way to do that without having to engage with your Sentinel sales representative. You can browse our extensive selection and inventory, and our dedicated store team is available to answer any questions and offer support as needed.

Just like any online retailer, it’s simple to make a purchase using the Sentinel store. Say you want to buy an additional headset and a couple of switches for your environment. Start by visiting store.sentinel.com. Menu bars on the left and right side of the page enable you to view products by category or sort by specific brand/manufacturer. Of course you can always use the search bar at the top of the page to find something using keywords or a manufacturer part number. All search results display the product list price, sell price, part number and amount in stock. Clicking on a specific product brings up additional information, including descriptions and technical specifications to help ensure it will work in your particular environment.

An account is required to buy or save any items. We make it easy to create an account, log in or recover a forgotten password. Once you have decided on a product, you can select the quantity and add it to your cart. If you are not ready to make a purchase at the time or want to remember it for later, you can also save it to your account favorites. After an order is placed, the Sentinel team will process, pack and ship your items to you in a timely fashion. Express shipping is available at an additional cost.

If you need any assistance with the Sentinel store, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Our team is highly knowledgeable and more than happy to provide support. We also have a Help Center, which contains answers to frequently asked questions. The store is just one more convenient way Sentinel is able to deliver industry-leading technology solutions to your business at an affordable rate.