I have become a fan of Joe Stangarone’s mrc’s Cup of Joe Blog. This blog he writes about signs that point to the need of a new IT strategy. He has tapped me before to be a contributor to his column and he does so here again. He gets some great input from some other IT professionals as well. It is a short, but value packed read. Here are the six signs. You can go to the bottom for the link to the full blog.
1. Key IT constituencies are expressing dissatisfaction
2. Shadow IT is growing
3. Your IT strategy has diverged from the company strategy
4. Development projects are slow and frequently delayed
5. IT isn’t invited to strategy meetings
6. You spend most of your resources maintaining legacy IT
Link to the full story – 6 signs that you need a new IT strategy
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Need help or some advice, e-mail toli@alvaka.net or give me a call at 949 428-5000 extension 213

You want to enter in a fully burdened labor rate for this field. What that means is that you want to take the base hourly rate, plus 25-30% for employer payroll taxes, benefits, vacation/holiday time, etc.
Smoke testing is a type of software testing performed by Alvaka after a software patching sequence to ensure that the system is working correctly and to identify any misconfigurations or conflicts within the patched system.
This is a basic cost calculator for you to compute your typical monthly cost for patching your servers, PCs, laptops, tablets and associated application software. It also forms the basis for you to begin calculating your Return on Investment for software patching, or for comparison with alternatives to the manual process of patching operating systems and application software—such as Patch Management as a Service, also known as Vulnerability Management as a Service.
Smoke testing is a term used to describe the testing process for servers after patches are applied.