New Tip: Ask an MSP Expert: How can our MSP implement a robust AI program? Q: AI is growing in popularity. How can my 10-employee MSP best leverage AI in day-to-day business? Could directly investing in more AI save me from having to increase my number of staff? Don’t put away your human resources hat just yet; artificial intelligence (AI) won’t be replacing the need for humans any time soon. Where AI can help is in freeing up technicians to perform other tasks that might be bogging them down. We’ve said before that the most valuable resource MSPs have is time, and AI can help save it in spades. Consider, for instance, “false alarms.” We know MSPs often have to scramble to check on intrusions that turn out to be nothing. Sometimes these breaches can be monitored remotely, other times it involves a costly trip to a client’s site. The promise of AI can help alleviate that. We caught up with Marten van Dijk, computer engineering professor at the University of Connecticut’s School of Engineering, to ask about the role of AI. Van Dijk has been involved in many studies concerning the role of AI in security and system integrity. “Any Intrusion Detection System (IDS) faces the problem of false negatives — when an attack is missed — and false positives. False positives occur when an attack is reported, when it’s actually a false alarm. In the case of an alarm, a human technician still may need up to 20 minutes to find out whether the IDS is correct or not,” details van Dijk. These unnecessary service calls can create an incredible drain on technician time. False alarms in networks are not much different from someone pulling a fire alarm at a school. It still has to be evacuated and personnel needs to be deployed to ensure everyone is safe. Investing in AI-driven technology that can help differentiate between actual and error could prove to be a boon to MSPs looking to save time from chasing non-existent attacks. Investing in #AI technology that can help differentiate between actual cyber attacks and false alarms could help #MSPs looking to save time from chasing non-existent attacks.
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“But this will never make security technicians obsolete,” says van Dijk. AI gives your MSP more time for client careWhat an MSP can and should do is invest in AI-infused security services, firewalls, and continuous back-up tools. Still, as hot as AI is, it’s HI – human intelligence – that remains the most important tool, according to van Dijk. “It is very important to educate employees on security threats. They need to understand how surfing on the internet, clicking links, and opening files can be dangerous. Employees also often have their own devices hooked up to the business’ infrastructure. This should be carefully thought through,” advises van Dijk. Other ways MSPs can leverage AI is in detecting not just intrusions, but also malicious behavior. Van Dijk’s team has been working on ways to improve AI learning approaches that continuously improve at proper detection. Another asset of AI is that it can be used to analyze specific security primitives by playing the “bad guy.” This is a form of virtual role-playing where AI can simulate bad actors. AI can be used to analyze specific #CyberSecurity primitives by playing the “bad guy.” This is a form of virtual role-playing where #AI can simulate bad actors.
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“We introduced a new circuit-based, so-called Physical Unclonable Function with a security analysis, showing that it withstands all known current-state-of-the-art machine learning attacks,” explains van Dijk. Bad guys keep pace with AI to create an arms-race“We want to do computations securely, but an attacker can often exploit interaction with computations. To find these exploits, an attacker can be helped by machine learning,” describes van Dijk. He adds that the “defender” should do the same to repair vulnerabilities. The arms race then continues in an intense cycle. For the moment, there are limits. “Security primitives and crypto protocols ought to rely on the difficulty of solving certain computer science or mathematics problems. We know these problems are hard — even the absolute brightest among us cannot efficiently solve such problems. We also know that an adversary with machine learning capability cannot break such primitives and protocols,” states van Dijk. For the moment, there are limits to AI. Humans are still very much needed, as they remain the most critical component of good cybersecurity plan. “In my opinion, the best investment is to educate the whole team on how human behavior can start a cyber-attack,” offers van Dijk. Photo: issaro prakalung / Shutterstock Looking for Affordable Managed Services Provider in Carson City? Learn More and Get a Fast and Easy Quote Now. Visit Carson City Managed Services Here: Source: Smarter MSP Read more here: https://managedservices.home.blog/2019/07/15/ask-an-msp-expert-how-can-our-msp-implement-a-robust-ai-program-managed-services-tips/
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New Tip: Turn emotions into your sales compass Like it or not, business is emotional. Even in the MSP space, where so much of the work is technical and automated, the human side of business always leads to some level of personal involvement. We care about our work, and our success or failure can have a real impact on not only ourselves, but the people we care about. There’s this fantasy that we can check our emotions at the office door every morning, but that’s not realistic. When we pour ourselves into our work, spending eight hours (or more) a day improving ourselves and the business, we’re bound to be emotional. For many, it isn’t just a job. It’s a career. As we move further along in our careers, the sales opportunities get bigger. If the stakes are higher, it’s no surprise the emotions are more prominent. Instead of trying to check our emotions at the door, we should use them as signals to guide us in the #sales process. #MSPsales
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Instead of trying to check our emotions at the door, we should use them as signals to guide us in our decision making process. Say a client has called your phone every day this week because they’re upset about an issue outside of your control. You want to help resolve the problem, but you’re starting to feel just as anxious as the client. Strong emotions are a signal to recruit outside helpOur sales coach, Dan Hudock, discusses this strategy frequently in our training sessions. Sales is a tough role and is often done alone, without any outside perspectives to inform our decisions. Because of this, we should step back and get a second opinion whenever we’re feeling emotional on the job. Here’s another concept Dan’s fond of: “Even coaches have coaches.” For example, the top athletes get all the praise on the field, but their success is thanks to the coaches, nutritionists, and other gurus that help them maintain peak performance. It’s tempting to resist seeking outside help when we’re feeling emotional. Pride gets in the way, and we don’t want to appear weak or out of control, especially if the emotion stems from a client issue. However, if you want to see through the fog and land more clients, you have to ask for help. When you’re thinking about where to seek out help, you should also consider going beyond the sales network you’ve built over your career. Some people to consider:
By expanding beyond the world of sales, you’ll capture ideas you would have never considered. Each individual will help you get a different perspective, offering you a full panoramic view of both the problem and potential solutions — details that could be clouded by your emotions. You don’t have to make the tough decisions alone. By leaning on your network, you can arrive at informed conclusions, regardless of your emotions. #MSPsales
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You’re the one ultimately responsible for your decisions, but you don’t have to make the tough ones alone. By leaning on your network, you can arrive at informed conclusions, regardless of your emotions. Photo: Tortoon / Shutterstock Looking for Affordable Managed Services Provider in Carson City? Learn More and Get a Fast and Easy Quote Now. Visit Carson City Managed Services Here: Source: Smarter MSP Read more here: https://managedservices.home.blog/2019/07/15/turn-emotions-into-your-sales-compass-managed-services-tips/ New Tip: Tech Time Warp: IBM Watson and Wimbledon make a match Few sporting events are as steeped in tradition as Wimbledon, the Grand Slam tennis tournament taking place at the All England Club through July 19. Look past your cup of Pimm’s and the British royalty in attendance, and you’ll note that Wimbledon is also a highly innovative sporting event. This year, Wimbledon and IBM celebrate 30 years of partnership, and IBM’s contributions have enhanced the tournament experience for both players and fans:
Other innovative enhancementsWimbledon has also implemented technology from other tech giants, including the Hawk-eye camera system developed by Sony. Hawk-eye uses multiple cameras to track balls to millimeter accuracy. This year, #Wimbledon and #IBM celebrate 30 years of partnership, and IBM’s tech contributions have enhanced the tournament experience for both players and fans
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However, the system is not without controversy; the system’s 2.2 mm margin of error came into question during a 2007 match between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. No matter how high-tech Wimbledon becomes, tennis purists can rest easy that players are still wearing white and they’re still playing on grass — though even the growth of that grass is now tied to data analysis. Photo: Leticia Lorenzo S / Shutterstock Looking for Affordable Managed Services Provider in Carson City? Learn More and Get a Fast and Easy Quote Now. Visit Carson City Managed Services Here: Source: Smarter MSP Read more here: https://managedservices.home.blog/2019/07/12/tech-time-warp-ibm-watson-and-wimbledon-make-a-match-managed-services-tips/ New Tip: Smart MSPs follow the data in the age of the cloud Despite all the momentum cloud computing has enjoyed for the past ten years, around 80 percent of all applications are still running in on-premises IT environments. The trend that managed service providers (MSPs) need to close track is the rate at which applications will be moving to the cloud from here on out. A new report from Gartner suggests that the rate at which applications will be moving to the public cloud is about to dramatically accelerate. Gartner is predicting that by 2022, a full 75 percent of all databases will be deployed on or have migrated to a cloud platform. Since applications tend to be deployed where the data resides, the Gartner report is essentially saying that most applications will be running in the cloud within the next three years. According to a new #Gartner report, 75% of all databases will be deployed on or have migrated to a #cloud platform by 2022.
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Gartner notes that most of the growth the database management system (DBMS) is being driven today by cloud services. According to Gartner, the DBMS market grew 18.4 percent to $46 billion in 2018. Cloud DBMS revenue accounts for 68 percent of that DBMS growth, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS) account for 75.5 percent of the total market growth. Databases draw applications to themRather than incur the performance penalties associated with trying to access data across a network, most developers prefer to deploy their applications as close to where their data resides. As more data moves in the cloud, the gravitational forces surrounding that cloud only become stronger. Cloud service providers are trying to accelerate this transition by providing managed database management services, through which they become the database administrator for organizations deploying databases in the cloud. At an AWS Summit event in New York City, AWS CTO Werner Vogels told attendees the cloud service provider migrated more than 150,0000 databases to its cloud. Many of those migrations involved moving away from proprietary databases running in an on-premises environment to an open source database running on AWS. MSPs have their role to playMost organizations are going to need help with everything from migrating data into the cloud to setting up backup and recovery processes across multiple clouds. MSPs need to position themselves as the proverbial easy button for making the transition to cloud. The challenge MSPs will face is making sure they stay relevant to their customers once that transition is made. Many of the manual tasks associated with an on-premises IT environment are automated in the cloud. There’s no such thing as a storage administrator for a public cloud. #MSPs need to position themselves as the proverbial easy button for making the transition to the #cloud
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The need for IT management doesn’t disappear in the cloud. It’s just all the processes for managing and securing application environments in the cloud are fundamentally different. Where most organizations get into trouble quickly is when they try to lift and shift their existing IT processes along with their data into the cloud. They quickly discover all the nuances associated with a shared responsibility approach to ensuring cybersecurity in the cloud. Smart MSPs are closely tracking where data is not just today, but also where that data is going to be tomorrow. After all, data will always be king regardless of where it’s located. Photo: Olaf Holland / Shutterstock Looking for Affordable Managed Services Provider in Carson City? Learn More and Get a Fast and Easy Quote Now. 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