The biggest challenge that Priority One solves for its customers is keeping their systems available 24/7 and secure. The smaller companies it supports need the enterprise-grade system uptime, but have less budget to do that — which is why they rely on Priority One services to support their IT needs. Priority One realizes that patching operating systems and applications needs to be done continually to be sure that these programs continue to work together. For example, certain applications will stop working if they are not on the latest versions and subsequently, you may not be able to upgrade the apps without being on the latest build. More significantly, known vulnerabilities in apps or operating systems provide plenty of opportunity for adversaries to exploit them. According to leading industry data, adversaries are weaponizing new critical vulnerabilities in seven days on average. And zero-day vulnerabilities are already weaponized at the moment of disclosure. Companies that hold off patching increase their odds of a possible breach. Given that security has become more urgent, the need for rapid patching has never been greater.

When Damartex began its journey, the company grappled with inefficient, time-consuming, and fragmented manual patch management processes. Employees used an array of third-party software management tools, resulting in inconsistencies in patch deployment. The lack of uniformity led to incomplete patching, raising concerns about security and systems stability. The objective was clear: Damartex needed to find an automated solution to address these challenges and transform its approach to IT management. With this goal in mind, Damartex focused on overcoming the inefficiencies of their manual patch management process, which took too long and raised security concerns, and streamlining software deployment within their IT infrastructure and seeking a solution with a centralized platform and user-friendly experience.

Schenker Deutschland AG needed to standardize the transition between its global network and branch offices, ensuring stringent controls to prevent data or process manipulations. The solution had to be suitable for smaller branches with limited IT expertise and require minimal local administrative intervention. Additionally, the project aimed to centralize management processes to increase configuration security and reduce administrative costs. The rollout had to be completed within a limited time frame due to the company's 24/7 operations.

An essential element of the scientific work at the INM is storage and processing of person and patient-related information. Very tight legal stipulations defined by the Bavarian and Federal Data Protection Acts must be adhered to when dealing with this sensitive data. All data protective measures must stand up to an intensive discussion and examination with the controller for data protection at the University Hospital in Munich. It soon became clear to those responsible for IT at the Institute that the existing firewall solution—a pure packet filter solution—could no longer satisfy the current technical security requirements under the existing conditions. The four-man IT department at INM managed by Dr. Marc Lazarovici, M.D. began searching for a suitable alternative. The IT Team initially defined the core requirements for a new solution at the beginning of the evaluation phase. The following criteria had to be fulfilled: Increasing security standards: In addition to meeting the strict data protection law stipulations, an effective solution was required to counter the diverse attack attempts and malicious code activities. It was clear at this point that the route which the Institute for Emergency Medicine had to follow was to move away from a pure packet solution and onto an application level firewall. Secured access to the Institute’s network via VPN: The 30 full-time employees and their external colleagues should have easy access from outside onto the Institute’s network, without compromising the security. Increasing failsafe security: The new system should have a redundant concept. Several physical computers in distributed premises should be used here.

Before 2005, DEK struggled with keeping email, one of its most important communication channels, flowing due to increasing amounts of unsolicited email hitting employees’ inboxes. The legacy email filtering system DEK relied on was not stopping the spam from bombarding the company’s 800+ globally based email users who were located both in the field and 18 satellite offices. According to Chris Bill, IT security analyst at DEK, an estimated 20% of spam was getting through to its email users. Originally DEK’s MIS department began filtering email to ensure compliance, however, spam had become a primary issue. Previously, the MIS department would check its email filter periodically. However, this became nearly a full-time task, which included the risk that a genuine email, possibly an order from a long-standing customer, could be inadvertently deleted. Bill says, “I cannot begin to think how much time was wasted by employees.” Plagued by complaints from frustrated users who had to wade through massive amounts of spam, as well as those who had lost important emails, Bill was tasked with finding a more capable email security solution that could also provide protection against ever-present threats. Compliance was also paramount to DEK. The MIS department and DEK management were keen to stop inappropriate content from entering the company and they also needed to ensure that employees did not send email that might include inappropriate language or content to customers.

The Universiti Malaysia Perlis faced significant challenges in protecting its network and data from sophisticated attacks. The university needed to ensure uninterrupted online access, support a multi-application environment, and prevent the loss of personal and sensitive data. Additionally, the solution had to be scalable, easy to install, and manage. The university was subject to SQL injection attacks five to ten times per hour, making it imperative to find a robust security solution. The primary challenges included blocking constant attacks, ensuring the security of inbound, outbound, and peer-to-peer communications, preventing data loss, and scaling to meet the needs of a growing university.

Ontario, Canada-based energy services provider St. Thomas Energy Services Inc. has an IT staff of only three people yet they are responsible for managing massive amounts of data and networking needs for the company. St. Thomas Energy Services Inc. was using an LTO2 tape library, autoloaders and Symantec Backup Exec for its data backup solution which – if backed up successfully – could hold up to two weeks’ worth of data. Any data beyond that timeframe was stored on tapes. IT Supervisor Shawn Southern recalls needing to restore a drawing for project engineers, a process which ended up taking two full days to complete because it involved finding a tape that had actually completed a successful backup. Instances like this ultimately made it necessary for St. Thomas Energy Services Inc. to look for a more reliable and cost-effective solution.

Mechanicsburg Area School District was using Symantec Backup Exec, a tape backup solution, and had become frustrated with its unreliability and the length of time to restore files. Often retrieving the tape library and waiting for the machine to acquire the right tape was excruciatingly slow. Additionally, the District was supporting 30 Windows servers, six Linux servers, one Mac server, a Microsoft Exchange agent, and multiple Microsoft SQL databases, which required an extensive amount of time to adequately backup to tape, and required the District to purchase additional, costly agents for the solution. Fed up with tape solutions and their high maintenance costs, Todd Ritter, IT systems administrator, evaluated solutions meeting certain criteria: hardware backup with a subscription-based model. Ritter found that a subscription-based solution worked better with the budget planning that the District implements each year.

Columbia University’s Advanced Computing Research Support (ARCS) faced significant challenges with increasing amounts of spam negatively impacting productivity and the speed of their Microsoft Exchange server. The Exchange Server was directly on the Internet with no anti-spam solution in place, leading to a mounting problem of spam emails. This situation necessitated a robust solution to manage and mitigate the spam issue, ensuring efficient email delivery and maintaining the performance of the Exchange server.

Residents of Europa House, a certified housing facility for the University of Illinois, faced significant issues with Internet connectivity. The single cable connection provided was insufficient to handle the bandwidth-intensive activities of approximately 100 residents, including accessing university web resources, online libraries, research databases, and other essential academic and non-academic resources. Network administrators received numerous support calls regarding Internet latency, which hindered students and faculty from completing critical coursework and accessing necessary resources.

Paulsboro Public Schools needed better solutions for protecting students from inappropriate content and managing bandwidth. Its previous web filter and firewall solutions lacked many of the key features they needed, including SSL inspection and next-generation application awareness. In addition, these solutions were difficult and time-consuming to configure and manage. Magazu wanted feature-rich, easy-to-use, and affordable solutions for his district.

The direktanlage.at and Schoellerbank were to be separated to increase future flexibility and implement a powerful, scalable security structure. The requirements were high, with all external connections needing to be separated from internal networks by firewalls managed by several administrators with individual areas of responsibility and authorization. To ensure the permanent availability of services by Schoellerbank and direktanlage.at for customers, all components were designed to be highly available. The migration of the old system to the new one had to be implemented in just three hours, accompanied by a partial migration of the network from Token Ring to Ethernet.

The Amateur Radio Relay League (ARRL) faced significant challenges with their existing backup solutions. The process was tedious, the interface was confusing, and the device was labor-intensive to manage. These issues led to inefficiencies and potential risks in data protection and recovery. The organization needed a more reliable and user-friendly solution to ensure their data was securely backed up and easily recoverable in case of system failures. With over 64 TB of data, conserving storage space was also a critical concern for ARRL.

Kirkpatrick Bank faced significant challenges with their existing backup system, which relied on Symantec tape backups. The tape system was unreliable, leading to frequent backup failures and concerns over the security of sensitive data. The process was also extremely time-consuming, taking up to eight hours, which was not feasible for the Network Administrator, Shane Danels, who had multiple responsibilities. Additionally, the bank struggled to protect data across its remote sites, further complicating their backup strategy.

At Greenman-Pedersen, one of the top engineering design firms in the U.S., much of the action happens in the field. That’s where engineers, scientists and other staff design and build bridges, highways, golf courses, sustainable and walkable urban centers and more. An organization that is often conducting field-based work can present cybersecurity challenges. For example, a significant portion of staff work remotely, making it difficult to patch and maintain security. Moving from McAfee endpoint protection software to Bitdefender GravityZone Elite has provided GPI with increased protection and streamlined security administration.

Developing and preparing veterinary pharmaceuticals requires a powerful, reliable IT infrastructure, including innovative systems for secure IT-based business processes. The company’s existing security solution only scanned endpoints and file servers for malware, and it sometimes degraded system performance, forcing the company to disable scanning during business hours. The security system had no Exchange module either, so e-mail traffic was not secure, and it could not reliably protect mobile devices. So, the company’s IT managers decided to seek a security solution that offers maximum security, doesn’t affect system performance and is easy to use.

In hospitals, rapid and reliable access to medical data is critical to clinicians improving patient outcomes. The IT team at Austrian healthcare provider Tauernklinikum was logging extra hours to ensure infections missed by its previous ESET security solution did not result in any lost data or disrupt patient care. IT also grew concerned when reduced network performance caused by ESET began slowing transfer of files and data. Before long, IT evaluated solutions from Bitdefender, Avast and Kaspersky and determined Bitdefender GravityZone Elite integrated security offered the best solution.

ARCOL, a leading manufacturer of resistors, faced the challenge of maintaining lean operations while ensuring high-quality production and efficient order fulfillment. The company needed an integrated system to streamline its manufacturing, purchasing, sales, and accounts processes. Additionally, ARCOL required a solution that could support its multi-tier Kanban system for managing sub-assemblies and bespoke products. The goal was to enhance productivity, improve quality tracking, and facilitate continuous improvement initiatives across the business.

Lantech, Inc. of Louisville, Kentucky, faced a significant challenge in their journey to Lean Manufacturing. The existing information systems at the time of Lantech’s conversion to Lean Manufacturing were inadequate to support the new processes under consideration. These systems would have prevented Lantech from achieving its objectives for improvements in product design, manufacture, product quality, and delivery. The company needed an information system that was compatible and synergistic with their redesigned processes and Lean Thinking. This required a comprehensive search for a suitable software solution that could support their Lean business process re-engineering.

Crimson Renewable Energy (CRE) is the largest producer of biodiesel on the West Coast of the United States. The company takes used cooking oil and other feedstocks and processes it into cellulosic biodiesel for retail gas stations. CRE grew quickly since it was founded in 2006. However, by 2016, the company was still using QuickBooks for its accounting software, despite having “outgrown [its] capabilities,” according to James Cowan, Controller at CRE. The unreliable data led to challenges when it came to making accurate projections and continuing to grow the company. There was also not a way to view consolidated financial information across its five legal entities; the CRE team had to manually search for and balance intercompany transactions in different locations. CRE needed an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that could replace QuickBooks, offer a more robust accounting and data management solution, streamline production, manage orders, and track inventory.