Top Backup and Disaster Recovery Challenges
Alvaka Networks President and CEO, Oli Thordarson, recently answered some questions posed by John Edwards for a story he is writing for TechTarget. Oli’s personal thoughts and experiences are based on over 35 years working in the IT profession—and alongside [...]
Dharma Ransomware-as-a-Service Places SMBs at Significant Risk
In the cat-and-mouse world of ransomware and cybersecurity, with businesses and governments needing to place two steps between them and cybercriminals, comes a new obstacle – Ransomware-as-a-Service. Dharma, a cybercriminal firm, provides, “one of the most popular offerings around, saying [...]
Ransomware Attacks Can Target Your System Backups
An evolving threat Ransomware now has a frightening new threat: preventing your ability to recover from backups. At Alvaka Networks, we are currently involved in some of the largest ransomware recovery projects, both insured and uninsured. The most sinister [...]
Important Questions and Answers about DRworx
DRworx solution is a backup, recovery, and virtualization software developed for the protection of your business. Click here to learn more about DRworx or by reading our responses to questions below. Are Alvaka DRworx cloud backups stored off-site and [...]
Air Gapped Backups: What is it and how does DRworx solution fit the criteria?
What is Air Gapping? Air gapped backups are part of a cyber-defense strategy in which a network’s backups are not accessible by LAN or WIFI, keeping them isolated from the network. In order to retrieve air gapped backups, an individual [...]
Critical: Microsoft Discovers 17-Year-Old Vulnerability
Major news has been revealed this week that Check Point, an Israeli Security Firm, discovered a vulnerability in Microsoft's domain name system protocol (DNS). Most alarming is that the bug has existed for roughly 17 years. It is advised that [...]
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.
