A few recent projects by DigitalSunrise
When a major alarm central station in western Maryland was searching for a platform on which to run their 24/7 operation, they came to DigitalSunrise for a solution.
This client operates a call center. When an alarm goes off somewhere in the U.S. - fire, burglar, gun shot, etc. - it triggers a call from the central station to determine the appropriate first responder to send. The systems these operators depend on need to be up and running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The call center was using traditional servers to host their systems. When a server was down, the service it provided was down as well. This was unacceptable.
DigitalSunrise consultants engineered a solution that combined the redundant capabilities of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Proliant servers, Buffalo Multi-Gigabit switches, Microsoft Windows Server 2019, Microsoft Cluster Role, Microsoft Hyper-V and Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct to form a cost-effective Hyper-Converged infrastructure. This infrastructure allowed the call center to move virtual workloads between servers in the cluster with no downtime. This allowed systems to remain online during routine hardware maintenance and unplanned hardware failures.
Easy access to safe drinking water for consumption, bathing and irrigation is a basic requirement for a modern society. Municipal Authorities are on the front lines, delivering this essential product to most households in the U.S. It’s a huge responsibility, and requires constant quality monitoring and reporting to government agencies to ensure a high standard of quality.
A south-central Pennsylvania municipal authority was spending an large number of man-hours manipulating data collected by sensors in the creek where much of the authority’s water was harvested.
DigitalSunrise developed a solution using the Python programming language running on a Microsoft Windows 10 Hewlett Packard ProDesk computer. It takes seconds for the program to analyze the data, saving several days of labor each month. This allows staff at the municipal authority more time to do what they do best, maintain the physical systems that bring high quality H2O to each household.
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit Pennsylvania and the state’s government ordered non-essential businesses closed, one insurance agency came to DigitalSunrise for help keeping business flowing. They needed to get their employees working from home, and they needed it now.
DigitalSunrise quickly procured temporary used notebook systems, refurbished them, and deployed them. Using Microsoft Windows 10’s Remote Desktop functionality, Avast Cloudcare and Firewalls from SonicWall, DigitalSunrise was able to deploy the systems and configure them remotely. This remote configuration capability allowed DigitalSunrise to get all staff online and working from home without traveling to the employees home and potentially contributing to the spread of Coronavirus. The insurance agency remained open, able to serve their customers, without a day of downtime.
Especially hard-hit by the Covid-19 pandemic are the nations schools. Suddenly, everybody needed to be extremely flexible with the means of education. Depending on the rate of infection, a school might be up and running business-as-usual, or they might have all faculty, staff and students attending class virtually, over the Internet, from home. Or they might be somewhere in between.
Achieving this flexibility meant procuring the tools to get the job done, as quickly and as cost effectively as possible. Due to our strategic partnership with Hewlett Packard, Inc., DigitalSunrise was able to meet demand and achieve favorable financing, while saving schools tens of thousands on hardware costs. We were proud to be part of the effort to keep kids learning while stretching each American’s tax dollar during this crisis.
Ransomware is a huge problem. There is no foolproof, guaranteed protection. Anyone telling you otherwise is not being truthful. It can cause an enormous interruption to your business. You need a strategy.
A business with a 24/7 operation could ill-afford the downtime created by a Ransomware attack. They approached DigitalSunrise for assistance. Our engineers offered a layered approach to offer the best protection possible, leveraging product from multiple vendors.
The solution started with high availability SonicWall firewalls running their Advance Gateway Security Suite. These unified threat management devices inspect both encrypted and unencrypted network traffic to stop the bad stuff. They also use something called “Capture Advanced Threat Protection.” If the firewall isn’t sure a file being downloaded is safe, it stops the transfer, uploads the file to a server in the cloud, and executes it, to see if it does bad things. If it’s bad, the file is stopped in its tracks.
The second part of the solution was antivirus. Sophos Intercept X Advanced with its CryptoGuard Technology is a great desktop, server, and mobile device solution for stopping viruses and malware. In the case of Ransomware, where a process encrypts your files and demands a ransom from you, CryptoGuard shines. This technology makes a backup of your file on access, so if the accessing process attempts to encrypt it, the process is stopped and the file restored.
Last, but certainly not least, is data backup. In the event that ransomware is successful in encrypting your files, you’ll need to restore those files and systems affected. It’s imperative that backups of vital systems be taken as often as possible. In the event that ransomware is successful in encrypting your files, you’ll need to restore those files and systems affected. Those backups should be maintained both on premises and taken off site. A DSCloud backup subscription combined with direct or network attached storage gets the job done right. Backups are encrypted off-site, with a local copy for quick restore. Running Office 365 - no problem! We can backup your email, OneDrive and Sharepoint files.
There is another part of the solution that DigitalSunrise does not offer, and that is Cyber Insurance. We’re not an insurance agency, but we’re happy to work with yours to get them the information they need to get you the best coverage possible.
Every situation is unique. We’re very interested in working with you to get you the best coverage for your environment.
A dental office in Franklin County was frustrated and dissatisfied with the service they were receiving from their present IT vendor. Their systems were Microsoft Windows 7 and Microsoft Windows Server 2008r2. Microsoft had discontinued support for these operating systems and they had not been informed by their IT vendor that it was time to upgrade. Their third party dental practice software vendor needed them to upgrade in order to run the latest version of their practice management software.
The dental office contacted DigitalSunrise for assistance getting up to date. During the initial consultation, they also revealed dissatisfaction from their existing phone system. To make matters worse, they were not protected by Antivirus, nor did they have a Firewall providing a barrier to Internet threats.
DigitalSunrise engineers worked with their third party dental software vendor to determine system requirements and upgrade processes. A Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Proliant server running Windows Server 2019 and a few Hewlett Packard, Inc (HPI) ProDesk desktop computers running Windows 10 Professional provided a perfect platform on which to run their dental practice management software and Microsoft Office Standard. A SonicWall firewall was deployed to protect the network from Internet threats.
DigitalSunrise was able to cut their phone bill in half while increasing their Internet access speed more than 10-fold by using DSPhone services and Comcast Internet. The customer especially enjoyed the bluetooth wireless headsets and Internet fax services integrated into the solution.
Ongoing support is cost effectively supplied remotely, on-demand by leveraging the remote control features of Avast Cloudcare. Avast Cloudcare protects their systems from viruses and malware and allows DigitalSunrise staff to provide technical support from any location with an Internet connection.
All computer networks and systems, regardless of size, have to meet the unique requirements of the organization they serve. DigitalSunrise strives to make that happen.
