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Accessibility, extended visibility of the IT infrastructure, and fast-tracking of security events. These are the main benefits of a Log Management solution that can help you proactively identify vulnerabilities and possible attack attempts while fulfilling the audit and compliance requirements.

They say that lightning never strikes the same place twice. However, ransomware threats do, and they can leave you without your data. Sometimes for good, other times only until you pay the ransom. Still, even when you pay up you are continuously exposed to risks, because there is no guarantee that the vulnerabilities that were exploited once would not be used again and you are never certain that data confidentiality has not been compromised. In this case you are also liable for a GDPR fine, if the security breach is discovered.

"What does this year lay ahead of us?" is a question that, while not spoken, each manager searches solutions for. We can have a realistic picture of the near future if we draw upon the estimates produced by analysis companies relying on current and historical data. Thus, from the many forecasts published early in the year, we selected four important technology areas for all companies, regardless their scope of business, industry or size. Our selection criteria were the impact of technology changes at the business level, their scale, and, last but not least, their relevance in terms of the ECKO competences in these areas.

The Software Defined Network (SDN) technology recently celebrated a decade since its launch. Ten years during which the concept that was first presented by Martin Casado at the Stanford University materialized in a solution market that is set to reach approximately 53 billion euros by 2023 according to Market Research Future.

"Island hopping" attacks have increased significantly in recent years, accounting for 50% of security events reported globally in 2019. According to the Global Incident Response drafted by Carbon Black, this year the most aimed at targets were: Financial banking institutions - 47%; Companies in the production area - 42%; Retail industry - 32%; Institutions in the health field - 21%; Professional service providers - 16%; Public institutions - 16%.

Software vulnerabilities are currently one of the most significant security risks to which organisations are exposed. Every day, security researchers and software and hardware vendors identify tens of such problems that they make public. However, many companies only become aware of the threats to which they are exposed after a security incident; and the damage caused and the remedy actions necessary are always more expensive than any preventive actions.

Critics ranked "Software-Defined" in the "buzzwords" category, 7-8 years ago, while others still consider it as a marketing formula, used to wrap up an abstract concept with limited applicability.

Nevertheless, public perception has changed radically, because "Software-Defined" (SD) represents at present not only a "concept", but also a market of billions of euros, which is growing at a fast pace.

Last year 90% of organisations considered that they were vulnerable to insider threats. According to Insider Threat Report 2018, the main risk factors indicated were: the great number of users who can access information which, according to their job description, they shouldn't even be able to view (37%); the ever-increasing number of equipment that has access to sensitive data (36%); the increasing level of complexity of IT technologies (35%).

In order to prevent and block such categories of risks, there are advanced solutions for Data Loss Prevention (DLP), Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), Intrusion Detection Solutions (IDS), Unified Threat Management (UTM) bundles, etc. In addition, by implementing the IEEE 802.1x security protocol you can ensure the basic protection of physical access to wired and/or WIFI networks within the company.

The end of May has found part of the ECKO team at VeeamON 2019 in Florida, the annual event organised by Veeam, together with the most relevant global partners. Why a 5000 km and 12 hour flight in the age of videoconferences? Because we like being wherever people talk about technology, because several product releases were announced, and because we could not miss the chance to meet with the Veeam specialists, as well as the best global partners. Moreover, by going beyond the threshold representing a turnover of 1 billion and more than 350,000 customers (many of them from Romania, as well), Veeam has crossed over into a new league so we expected that the event would be bigger, which actually happened.

Guaranteed availability and data security, low costs and constant addition of new functionalities make Azure Site Recovery the leader of the global Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service market. ECKO's specialists can help you turn to account such competitive advantages, and thus to benefit from the quality of the Microsoft Cloud services.

Pushed in the public agenda since 2013 - 2014, Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) is already a mature technology. Moreover, the earnings generated by SD-WAN make many specialists recommend it as the ultimate solution for all the network problems. But the pace and adoption pattern differ depending on the requirements and resources of each company, and the start of such a project requires some more attention.

In today's business world, every IT department is required to develop a simple, manageable, efficient and flexible infrastructure that can easily adapt to any change. However, the expansion of mobility, Cloud services, distributed applications and heterogeneous equipment complicates the situation and generates critical issues.

Managing the life cycle of software solutions has become a complex task that not many companies manage to perform efficiently. Cybersecurity Software Asset Management (SAM) processes by ECKO can help you not only cope with your licensing requirements and make some savings, but also increase the security of your entire organization.

Due to the drop in purchase price and the growing adoption of SSD in the enterprise environment, companies are starting to show increasing interest in Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) technology. The subject of NVMe is, however, "overwhelmed" by a series of preconceived ideas.

The phenomenon is visible not only globally, but also in Romania, as confirmed by the demands of organizations that have turned to the skills and experience that ECKO already has in this field. However, the interactions we have had so far on this topic have shown us that quite a few companies automatically associate technological novelties with a low level of applicability, business risks and high acquisition costs.

In regard to NVMe, these assumptions are not valid. This is why we wanted to quickly identify them.