We have expertise in many areas and can provide a wide range of services. Below is a sampling of our areas of expertise and services we offer.
We offer a range of hardware and software repair and upgrade services. We repair servers, desktops, laptops, printers, and more. We have replaced laptop keyboards, screens, touchpads, motherboards, power connectors, etc. We can also upgrade your computer or laptop's memory and/or upgrade it to use faster solid state drives (SSD) instead of older spindle-based hard drives without losing your data. Upgrading the amount of memory and upgrading to SSD drives can bring new life to an older machine. We specialize in Microsoft Windows. We also provide software support services. We can also provide remote support to your business or home.
We have expertise with all flavors of Microsoft Windows Server platform, from the early days of NT Server through Server 2022 today. If you need to utilize any of the server roles and features, we can help. Examples of roles we have expertise in are Active Directory, Group Policy, Hyper-V, Remote Desktop Services (formerly Terminal Services), Remote Desktop Gateway, IIS, the Essentials role, etc. We can help with on-premise physical servers as well as virtual Windows servers at Azure, AWS, or your cloud provider.
We are well versed in the implementation and administration of Microsoft Active Directory domains within the small to medium business arena. Active directory gives you centralized control over user accounts. We have used active directory for storing extended user information, user photos, as well as the typical controlling of application and resource (file, folder, device) access. We have integrated active directory (or LDAP) with third party applications. Our experience ranges from active directory on Server 2003 through active directory on Server 2022.
PeoplePlatform (formerly PeopleUpdate) allows you to automate and delegate all the common tasks associated with Identity Management in active directory. Simply put, PeoplePlatform provides a web interface to allow the laymen to manage most aspects of your active directory environment. Your HR personnel can change employee’s department, office location, and other user data. You can store additional employee information within AD and have a web interface for managing your data. Users can use the web portal to reset their passwords. PeoplePlatform is completely customizable.
We have leveraged the power of Microsoft Windows Group Policy for our customers to control all aspects of the user experience from deploying printer drivers, creating drive mappings, controlling third party software, to providing a consistent desktop experience. We can use group policy to set a password policy, a desktop screensaver policy, implement Bitocker, block the usage of USB thumb drives, and much more. We have utilized group policy’s new Preferences feature heavily. Group policy can be utilized in on-premise scenarios as well as remote (work from home) scenarios.
Microsoft Office 365 is a subscription-based productivity suite that includes tools like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and more. It also includes cloud-based services such as Exchange (email), SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, and more. Because Office 365 is cloud-based, the full-featured experience can be accessed from anywhere, on any device, as long as they’re online. Office 365 offers so much more than can be described here. We have supported a company on Office 365 with over 600 employees.
Google Workspace (formerly G-Suite) is an integrated suite of secure, cloud-based productivity and collaboration tools powered by Google. Workspace includes Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar, Meet, Chat, and much more. Rather than maintaining their own network storage, email server, and other various tools, Workspace allows organizations to use Google’s suite of cloud-based tools as the backend of their business. We have supported a company on Google Workspace with over 500 employees.
With Google Cloud Directory Sync (GCDS), you can synchronize the data in your Google Workspace account with your Microsoft Active Directory or LDAP server. You use GCDS to synchronize your Google users, groups, and shared contacts to match the information in your active directory environment (or LDAP server). This allows you to continue to use your active directory environment to manage many aspects of your Google Workspace. You can use GCDS to have active directory groups create and control membership to Gmail distribution groups. GCDS ican do so much more.
We have extensive experience with Microsoft Exchange Server from the early days of Exchange Server 2003 through Exchange Server 2019. We can help with on-premise Exchange server as well as the cloud-based Office 365 Exchange services. We have used Exchange Public Folders extensively for our customers. We also leveraged Dynamic Distribution Groups for really smart groups that change members based on the member’s active directory attributes such as title, department, location, company division, etc. Microsoft Exchange provides an industry standard tried and true email platform that is highly robust.
The Windows Server 2016 Essentials edition (or the Essentials server role in newer versions) is an ideal first server for small businesses with up to 25 users and 50 devices. This Internet connected server platform allows you to use shared folders, connect remotely to office computer and server resources (using Remote Web Access), and more. The 2016 version can automatically backup all of your client computers and be configured to integrate with Microsoft’s Azure Site Recovery Services for disaster recovery purposes. The Essentials Server has also been a specialty of ours.
• Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) is an older server role used to manage MS updates to your on-premise Windows computers. Typically WSUS stores all updates locally and clients download updates from it rather than Microsoft.
• Windows Update for Business (WUFB) is better suited for businesses with Windows computers and MDM-managed devices dispersed over a wide geographical area. Computers download updates from Microsoft but are managed by AD policies.
• Microsoft Intune is suited for businesses with a diverse mix of devices (Windows, iOS, and Android) dispersed over a wide geographical area. Intune is a cloud-based solution that is part of the Office 365 suite of solutions.We just had to mention Emile’s old favorite. We have specialized in Microsoft’s Windows Small Business Server for over 21 years. It was our flagship product for many years. We have deployed and supported Small Business Server 2003, 2008, and 2011. Windows Small Business Server was well suited for the needs of small businesses. Some of our customers still use this platform. If your business still has one of these servers, we can support it for you.