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The latest blogs and news with the eGroup | Enabling Technologies team

CIS Security Controls and Compliance

CIS Security Controls and Compliance Cybersecurity is a persistent worry for CIO’s, CISO’s, Board of Directors and organizational leaders. CIO’s and CISO’s specifically are expected to provide leadership and direction to their IT staff and their...

Copilot Coming to Microsoft 365

Copilot Coming to Microsoft 365 By now you’ve seen the previews of Microsoft’s unique capabilities using large language models within Microsoft 365 Apps like PowerPoint and Excel. Known as Copilot, it’s generating a lot of buzz...

The Pros and Cons of Threat Hunting

The Pros and Cons of Threat Hunting Assuming Breach Stealthy supply chain attacks like Solorigate and Log4j have shined a light on the importance of assuming breach. When these attacks hit the news, vendors and...

Nonprofit IT Executives Talking Azure

Nonprofit IT Executives Talking Azure In a recent case study about his organization’s journey to the Microsoft cloud, a nonprofit leader stated, “Technology can be the great equalizer.” That evidence was again on display in a...

How to Save on Sentinel’s Recurring Costs

How to Save on Sentinel’s Recurring Costs While Microsoft Sentinel is a powerful tool to identify and resolve sophisticated cyber attacks, organizations who pilot without taking preliminary steps to minimize costs might experience some sticker...

The Journey to Zero Trust

The Journey to Zero Trust The Zero Trust concept has been around for a while now, and the rise of remote work related to COVID lockdowns supercharged the Zero Trust conversation.  Many organizations had to...

Improving Cloud Security Policies

Improving Cloud Security Policies Our Strategic Advisors find a consistent gap when reviewing our customers’ security policies: a lack of focus on cloud computing. Even in organizations with many traditional policy documents, there’s a lag...

The Value of the Roadmap

The Value of the Roadmap Since making the transition to consulting from technology leadership roles, I am constantly surprised at how many organizations have not documented and agreed upon a technology roadmap, yet have spent...

Compliance as Security Technology

Compliance as Security Technology One of my favorite security analogies is that enterprise information security is like an onion. Each layer of the onion represents a different control that secures the data at the center....

New Microsoft Usage Workshops

New Microsoft Usage Workshops Many Microsoft cloud customers have taken advantage of incentive programs like workshops and deployment funds. Microsoft’s thinking is that by reducing the fees normally charged by qualified partners, customers pay less...

Cyber Insurance Requiring MFA *Everywhere*

Cyber Insurance Requiring MFA Everywhere Cyber insurance providers are tightening their requirements for Multifactor Authentication. For starters, they are being more verbose about the systems and services on which MFA is enabled. They’re making what...

MFA is (Unconditionally) Not Enough

MFA is (Unconditionally) Not Enough Microsoft has seen a trending number of instances whereby an Office 365 user is phished and has their O365 session hijacked. The adversary uses the victim’s token to sidestep Multifactor...

A Maturity Model for Collaboration

A Maturity Model for Collaboration The Impetus for a Model There’s no shortage of productivity tools, but there is little means of judging their efficacy. Despite spending time and money on tools and technology, IT...

eGroup Acquires Enabling Technologies Corp

eGroup Acquires Enabling Technologies Corp CHARLESTON, SC, May 2, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — eGroup Holding Company, LLC (eGroup), a leading IT solutions and managed services provider, announced that it has acquired Florida-based Enabling Technologies Corp (Enabling). The acquisition—which closed on April 29,...

Cyber Insurance and Legal Advice

Cyber Insurance and Legal Advice Cyber insurance rates rose drastically in 2021, driven by the spike in frequency and payouts of ransomware claims. Many insurers tightened coverage terms and conditions while raising premiums 130% in...

Microsoft Teams SIP Gateway

Microsoft Teams SIP Gateway Capital expenses for 1000’s of new IP phones has been a top contributor to delayed migrations to newer phone systems, including Microsoft Teams.  Microsoft Teams now has the capability to connect and utilize several legacy,...

Is Microsoft 365 E5 Worth It?

Is Microsoft 365 E5 Worth It? The short answer…Yes!  Microsoft 365 E5 is the “Cadillac” of licenses.  It provides the most capabilities and features within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.  That also means it comes with...

Windows 365 Deployment: Licensing and Requirements

Microsoft 365 Deployment: Licensing and Requirements Microsoft introduced Windows Virtual Desktop (now called Azure Virtual Desktop or AVD) in three years ago and released it into General Availability two years ago. AVD allowed for a fully customized virtual desktop and...

The Cloud for Non-Profits

The Cloud for Non-Profits Tech for Social Impact Microsoft Tech for Social Impact (TSI) presented its vision for the Microsoft Cloud for Non-Profits March 30, 2021. It is designed as an affordable solution for non-profits...

Introduction to Azure Purview – Data Governance

Introduction to Azure Purview – Data Governance The word “purview” is loosely defined as range of vision, scope, operations, and/or insight. In the vast cloud technology landscape that most organizations operate today, data governance is becoming overwhelmingly challenging to maintain.  Data...

Managing Content Sprawl in Microsoft Teams

Managing Content Sprawl in Microsoft Teams Managing Content Sprawl in Teams Many of us rolled out Teams in the spring of 2020 as the pandemic sent us all home. We connected our newly remote users to each other and to our organization resources. We got everyone...

Azure Sentinel Hunting

Azure Sentinel Hunting Hunting Overview Azure Sentinel Hunting is based off queries. It allows for manual, proactive investigations into possible security threats based on the ingested data as well as retroactive pursuits of attacks and...

Azure Sentinel Operations

Azure Sentinel Operations Introduction Now that Azure Sentinel has started collecting data, it’s time for a deep dive into each component to discover how to utilize the data. The examples below are sample use cases...

Intro to Azure Sentinel

Intro to Azure Sentinel Azure Sentinel is a cloud native Security Information Event Management (SIEM) and Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) solution. A SIEM solution aggregates data and provides real-time analysis of security alerts generated by applications and network appliances. A SOAR solution automates the investigations and responses of security alerts. It is common...

5 Tips for Securing Remote Workers

5 Tips for Securing Remote Workers As organizations hustle to enable employees to work from home, they’ll inherently expand their attack surface. Here are five simple steps that can mitigate the risk in the months ahead.  1.Don’t...

Make every experience a great one

As the trend towards branch offices and remote workers continues to rise, organizations are rapidly adopting Microsoft Office 365 to lower infrastructure costs and increase flexibility to accommodate these distant locations. Users are now expecting...

Modern Apps Need a Modern Network

These days, companies of every size are increasingly dependent on cloud apps and services like Office 365 to make their business work. For most, they are simple to procure, quick to set up, and easy...

Who Should “Own” an Office 365 Tenant?

Who Should “Own” an Office 365 Tenant? We periodically get this question, especially when consulting larger organizations who have multiple administrators handling Active Directory, Exchange, and/or SharePoint. Some ask as they are just getting started,...

Carolina Radiology

Carolina Radiology Seeking to take a major step forward in the evolution of their business, Carolina Radiology Associates, LLC needed to discover a way to protect and secure massive quantities of data. Two years ago,...

Microsoft Exchange Hybrid Agent

Microsoft Exchange Hybrid Agent Microsoft Exchange Hybrid Agent – New method available for email migrations Exchange Hybrid environments have been around for years and continue to be the primary method to migrate mailboxes to Office...

Azure AD Third Party MFA Integration with DUO

Azure AD Third Party MFA Integration with DUO 3rd Party Multi-factor authentication Integration with Azure Active Directory and Conditional Access is available to allow administrators to use an alternative Multi-factor authentication provider instead of Azure Multi-factor authentication....

The Case for Preparedness

The Case for Preparedness Are you prepared for the unexpected? If your answer is yes—are you sure? In the early minutes of a Saturday morning in April 2011, a water main broke below the streets...

Azure Site Recovery Deployment

Azure Site Recovery Deployment Once you have reviewed the costs of Azure Site Recovery (ASR), ensured it will meet your necessary requirements, and properly planned out your deployment using the ASR Planning Tool as well as all other environmental components...

The Power of the Trust X Alliance

Technology Solutions of America (TSOA), a information technology organization based out of Florida, was in need of assistance with a major healthcare customer and turned to the Trust X Alliance program through IngramMicro to partner...

Azure Site Recovery Capacity and Planning

Azure Site Recovery Capacity and Planning Before any project begins it is essential to perform proper planning to ensure a successful project, measure twice, cut once mentality.  Azure Site Recovery (ASR) provides a pure cloud-based...

Azure Backup Server Configuration and Recovery

Azure Backup Server Configuration and Recovery With Microsoft Azure Backup Server (MABS) installation complete, we can begin setting up backup configurations.  Remember, the initial backup copy writes to local storage.  Therefore, before setting up items...

Azure Site Recovery Features

Azure Site Recovery Features Azure Site Recovery (ASR) can provide quick, simple, and cost-effective means to design and deploy a functional disaster recovery plan.  ASR can work with many on-premises technologies as well as within...

Azure Backup Server Installation

Azure Backup Server Installation The final two deployment options for Azure Backup are System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) and Microsoft Azure Backup Server (MABS).  Since both are very similar this article will review how to deploy...

Getting Started with Azure Storage

Getting Started with Azure Storage Microsoft Azure Storage is a cloud-based storage solution that provides easy access and secure, high availability for all storage needs.  Azure Storage has many different options to configure based on the type of...

Azure Pricing

Azure Pricing In our last article we discussed the four (4) different ways to use Microsoft’s Azure Backup services. With Azure Backup, regardless of the way you deploy, the cost of Azure Backup is the...

Four Primary Ways to Use Azure Backup

Four Primary Ways to Use Azure Backup Azure Backup is the Microsoft’s cloud-based service you can use to back up and restore your data in Microsoft Azure. Azure Backup can replace your existing backup solution with a pure...

Availability = Survival

As IT veterans, I’m certain we all have stories like the one I shared previously – many of those without the happy ending. It reminds me of the prime concepts of a (fascinating) survival book...

How Secure is Your Environment?

Most companies today understand the very real need to protect their data. Most invest significant funds to mitigate or prevent the threats that aim to compromise their data. Typically, the go to investment is a...

How Strong are Your Passwords?

Recently, I learned of a significant – and honestly quite brilliantly executed – security breach of a major company. The breach infiltrated a sophisticated system secured with some great security equipment. This company invested large...

Nutanix – Self Service Restore

Since Nutanix Acropolis Operation System 4.6, Nutanix has offered the Self Service Restore function for virtual machines running Nutanix Guest Tools. This feature allows VM admins to complete a recovery from the Nutanix data protection snapshots...

Advanced Disaster Recovery Made Simple – Zerto 5.0

Zerto is an industry leader in disaster protection and disaster recovery for virtual computing environments. With the recent version of Zerto 5.0 released, businesses can take advantage of advanced disaster recovery technology while also introducing simplicity and...

The Best New Technology from CES 2016

This year’s annual Consumer Electronic Show was attended by more than 150,000 visitors and 3,800 exhibitors from all over the world. Each year, the event gets bigger and better – jam-packed with new technology and...

eGroup Named to CRN Tech Elite 250

eGroup announced it has been named to The Channel Company’s CRN® Tech Elite 250. This annual list recognizes an elite group of IT solution providers that have invested in the training and education needed to...

First Day, 4 Questions – Ed, Project Manager

“First Day…Four Questions” is an ongoing blog series highlighting eGroup’s newest team members. We want you to understand what makes our new colleagues tick, and what drives them to be “Serious Competitors”. We hope you...