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Alvaka News
Alvaka News Articles regarding Computer Network Services and IT Management.
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Alvaka Announces Partnership With Ingram Micro to Bring U.S. Channel Partners Ransomware Remediation Solutions
Alvaka has teamed up with Ingram Micro to offer prioritized access to our trusted ransomware remediation and recovery services to Ingram’s U.S. channel partners and their customers.
Pentagon’s lack of cyber authority leaves data at risk…
Lawmakers on the Senate Armed Forces Committee claim that the Department of Defense is not taking strong enough action against defense contractors in regards to protecting Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), which is putting all of that data at risk. Given [...]
Six of the Most Dreaded IT Projects
Written by Dan Tynan (Writer, Editor, and Consultant). Originally posted on CIO.com on June 25, 2018. Alvaka Networks CEO, Oli Thordarson, and CTO, Unnar Gardarsson, contribute to this discussion on what projects IT professionals dread the most. The projects that most IT [...]
The Questions to Ask When Hiring an IT Security Consultant
by Jessica Thiefels, VP of Community Management for PolySwarm. Learn what questions to ask when hiring an IT security consultant, including insight from Alvaka Networks CEO, Oli Thordarson. If you can’t afford an in-house IT security team, you have to look [...]
Beware the ‘thought police:’ The dangers of human and AI integration
Kevin McDonald discusses AI integration and possible negative consequences. Humans have always strived to become smarter, faster and more creative through the use of tools. Starting with the basic calculator and advancing to the amazing computing devices we use today, [...]
Imran Awan case shows lax security controls for Congressional IT staff
By Kevin McDonald Investigations into the conduct of the IT staff of the House of Representatives raised alarms. Kevin McDonald explains what we can learn from the case of Imran Awan. Those who operate with high-level system access, [...]
Private sector’s national cybersecurity strategy contributions lacking
By Kevin McDonald The U.S. government has been very public about its concern for national cybersecurity. There have been grandiose speeches, presidential declarations and several attempts by the legislature to pass new cybersecurity laws. Private companies should be responsible for [...]
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.
Smoke testing is a term used to describe the testing process for servers after patches are applied. 
Estimating an average time for patching servers and PCs can be a bit tricky. It can vary from one month to the next, depending upon the number and complexity of the patches released by your software vendors. You must consider all versions of operating systems and have a complete inventory of all your application software to do this job correctly. Our experience has shown that manual patching of systems takes on average of about 1.5 hours each.
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.
