ZR Systems Blog

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) simply don’t have the large budgets that come with running an enterprise, and because of this, many of them have trouble affording IT maintenance and management. In a similar sense, these smaller organizations struggle with planning out an IT infrastructure. Does your business have a plan in place?

When considering a business’ strengths, there is a tendency to focus on its more quantifiable aspects - it generates x dollars in revenue, or leverages advanced solutions a, b, and c. While these kinds of competitive advantages are valuable to have, it is also important to recognize how critical one of your more qualifiable strengths can be: your company culture.

Cloud computing is a major part of most businesses today. In the past, businesses had to pay in-house technicians to research, design, and purchase the infrastructure needed to run an onsite server. This was expensive, especially if a business wasn’t able to get the solution they needed the first time around. Cloud computing has changed things to the point where the costs associated with implementing these solutions has decreased considerably, all while solving the problem and improving operations. We’ll help you take a look at cloud computing as a way to change up and improve the way your business functions.

Compared to an enterprise corporation, a small-to-medium-sized business is going to have far fewer resources, especially in terms of its IT. Having said this, an SMB isn’t necessarily without a few quality options. Let’s review the needs that any business needs to have filled, and how they can do so with the right solutions.

One thing that all offices gradually accumulate over time is a surplus of cables. Each device you have is compatible with a specific cable, but identifying them all can be challenging. In today’s blog article, we’ll outline some of the common cable types and what you might need them for.

The cloud is one of the most valuable tools available to modern businesses, but the extent to which organizations utilize it will vary depending on their specific needs. For example, some organizations might be fine with the limited control offered by the public cloud, but others might need more dynamic features and control over their data with a private cloud. We’ll help you determine which is right for you, as well as some of the specific considerations needed for a private cloud solution.

Do you know what can completely kill a business’ momentum? Downtime. Businesses of all types look for a myriad of ways to save themselves the headaches that come from significant downtime. One way that is sure to reduce an organization’s downtime is by having conscientious IT management and support at the ready. One problem with this is that it's typically costly to hire a team of IT professionals with the experience and knowledge to keep your technology up and running.

One industry that most people wouldn’t necessarily consider to be IT-rich is manufacturing. With automation becoming a major point of emphasis for many businesses, IT has taken on a larger role for today’s small and medium-sized manufacturers. Today, we will take a long look at what the manufacturer’s IT needs are, and what solutions they use to help steer their company forward.

Consider the following question: is your business’ Internet connection feeling a bit sluggish lately? If you haven’t examined your bandwidth since you started your business, then there’s a chance that you aren’t being as productive as you could be if you took a closer look at it. We’ll discuss some ways you can make the most of your IT solutions with proper bandwidth.

Technology training is something that all employees have to go through at some point in their career, whether they are a CEO learning how to use a new solution, or an end user that uses it every day. However, we know that your employees don’t necessarily have time to sit down for training, as they likely have other responsibilities that must be tended to. How can you make sure technology training is a valuable investment on your part?

There’s a big reason why phishing is a primary threat to businesses, and it’s because this method gives hackers a relatively risk-free way of gaining access to a network or other resources. Even being aware of the issue is often not enough to prevent it, as hackers are known to get quite aggressive and crafty with their phishing campaigns. If only a fraction of the 57 billion phishing emails that go out every year are taken seriously, hackers make quite a bit of profit off of users.

Biometrics are a common sight in futuristic or science-fiction settings, but they are increasingly entering the real world in practical ways. In fact, similar technologies are being implemented every day for businesses all over the world. Let’s take a look at some of them, as well as what benefits they provide these organizations.

Over two billion devices in the world run the Android mobile operating system. Most of them that have been purchased in the past year, as well as the ones that have been updated recently, run on the current operating system, Android 9.0 Pie. With this latest mobile operating system, Google has made it clear that they want to be seen as the smartphone software provider. Today, we’ll take you through how you can get the most out of your Android Pie experience.

Many people can find it challenging to constantly remain productive, which is only understandable. Nobody can be firing on all cylinders all the time. However, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t ways that you can optimize your productivity. Here, we’ll review three general approaches to improve your productivity, with examples describing how to enact each.

Meetings rarely go as planned. The issue is that meetings generally aren’t planned as well as they can be, meaning that they run the risk of going on longer than necessary. If you find your meetings could be managed more efficiently, then read on; we’ll discuss three tips that you can use to improve the quality of your meetings.

Windows 10 is a remarkable tool. Having said this, it can sometimes seem to slow to a crawl… not the ideal situation when you’re trying to be productive. That’s why we’re devoting this week’s tip to speeding up Windows 10.

All businesses need consultation from time to time. After all, nobody can be an expert in everything. These professional services, including those provided by lawyers, financial consultants, accountants, advertisers, and marketing specialists are all important to the success of any organization, but just like any other business, these companies have IT needs.

Microsoft has been at the forefront of security through their numerous operating systems for decades. As the security of computing systems and communication gets more important, and with threats to that security growing exponentially, the world’s leading software company has made it a point to introduce a new security platform to help people in many walks of life keep their endeavors secure. Today we’ll look at the new security & compliance services that are bundled with the Microsoft 365 cloud platform.

It is little wonder that, with millions of businesses relying on their secure servers for a variety of computing needs, that Microsoft reigns supreme in profitability. In order to maintain this status, Microsoft must make sure that their software is properly cared for and supported - or retired if these titles are no longer practical to maintain. SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 are soon due for the chopping block, with an official retirement date of July 9, 2019.

Cryptojacking is one of the upcoming threats that your business should have on its radar in the upcoming years. This process involves a malicious entity installed cryptomining malware on a device without the user’s permission. What this provides the hacker with is a steady stream of income at the expense of the victim’s device. What can you do to keep your business’ devices from falling prey to this?