FIRST Agency + TNTMAX Forge Lasting Partnership in IT Services NJ

  At TNTMAX, we are proud of the lifelong connections we make with our clients, as this case study from our working relationship with FIRST Agency will show.  FIRST Agency needed a full range of IT support for their growing company, and TNTMAX helped them with it at every step of their growth journey.  If you’re considering outsourcing your IT services, NJ company TNTMAX is your best bet for local support and global growth.

Just check out how TNTMAX was able to help FIRST Agency with their various, specific IT needs to help you determine if outsourcing your own IT support is right for your Garden State business.

 FIRST Agency offers global event coordination and event marketing campaigns for clients in banking, finance, technology, manufacturing, transportation, medical and healthcare. The company first started in the UK, but quickly expanded to offices around the world and a new headquarters in nearby New York City. FIRST had a rapid exponentially increasing growth over the last 10 years and is now helping to organize events and support clients that require their expertise everyday all over the globe. TNTMAX was called upon for IT services in NJ when the New York office housed less than twenty employees and was in search for an IT firm they could trust and one with which they could grow. The company wanted a partner that would take on board their technology requirements and provide suggestions, then apply, manage and fully support those suggestions. Their overall goal was to outsource these needs so they could focus on their core business. While the company was growing exponentially, their demands for security and compliance grew as a direct result of client demands. Once FIRST Agency had established a whole new sustainability and continuity plan for their growing company, their management team realized a need to be available 24/7, 365 days a year. To do so, they needed to attain redundancy – and they needed to achieve it with a short interval to recovery. As their business grew across continents, their daily managed IT services, support, and training needs grew exponentially.

 

 How TNTMAX (IT Services in New Jersey) Met Their Needs

 

As the business of FIRST grew, the team at TNTMAX helped them to fine-tune their managed services to meet their very fast pace of growth. We helped them determine and evaluate the technology they needed to meet their new business goals, while still focusing on return on investment (ROI) and speed.

 

We had parallel work going on two of FIRST’s main offices – US and UK.  Each office dealt with a different information technology environment, strategy and management style. Therefore, we were required to develop a global standard information strategy that would help in improving communication, reliability, fault tolerance and security.

 

Step 1: Email security and redundancy

We began by focusing on email communications by building redundancy across all continents and increased security layers.

 

Step 2: Migrating to the Cloud

We decided to transfer some information assets to the Cloud, where it was more logical for the company. We merged other components in-house and in data centers so that we could have higher control over certain digital assets. This also helped with increasing fault tolerance and reliability.

 

Step 3: Implementing a Virtual Private Network (VPN) & Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS)

We implemented a secure VPN connectivity that had features like two-factor authentication and ASE-256 for secure remote access.  Additionally, we assisted in interconnecting the company sites that were across all continents using encrypted VPLS.

 

Step 4: Staff management & training

TNTMAX’s IT services in NJ assisted in recruiting an in-house Vice President of Technology and Security (VPTS) for their new partner FIRST, and we worked along with the VPTS for managed IT services, security and disaster recovery testing, policy and procedure development and implementation, GDPR compliance requirements and daily support. We succeeded in developing the company’s information security, data protection, cyber security, physical security, audit policies and procedures and are performing a phased deployment and training. We lodged TNTMAX staff in the company to provide daily on-site support and management as part of our augmented managed services.

 

As of today, FIRST has grown to several thousand employees world-wide with continued growth expected in the future. TNTMAX plans to grow with them to assist with staff management and training in IT services.

 

IT Services Provided to FIRST Agency

 

In the partnership between TNTMAX’s IT services in NJ and FIRST Agency, a pivotal role has been played by the reliable and secure services provided to FIRST. The following are some of the services that were required for FIRST to succeed at a global level.

 

• Malware Protection

Malware is a phrase that everyone has been hearing a lot lately, though most people don’t exactly know what it is.

 

Malware is short for malicious software and the term is used to describe a lot of the security threats that exist on the internet. Malicious hackers may be trying to steal resources from your computer or trying to steal from your company directly.

 

Types of Malware:

1. Not all malware is destructive, but it can cause very annoying behavior, such as generating nuisance pop up ads or causing your computer to run very slowly. These programs are not malwares and instead known as Potentially Unwanted Programs which can come bundled in legitimate software programs as a package.
2. Next is Adware – software that displays unwanted advertising on a computer or mobile device, usually in the form of pop up ads or by redirecting your browser to a certain website.
3. Browser Hijacker is the type of malware which directs your computer’s browser to a different website. Generally, it is used to display advertising, but it can be used to lead you to a certain website or a malicious website that might download malware onto your computer.
4. Spyware, which hides on your computer and monitors everything you do. It can be used to steal your username and passwords.
5. Ransomware, on the other hand, can be used to lock up your computer, holding it hostage and forcing you to pay money to get your files back.
6. Worms are a type of malware whose main objective is to spread as many copies of itself as possible from computer to computer. They can modify and delete files and even inject additional malware onto your computer.
7. Trojan Horses hide in an innocent-looking software. You might be tricked in some way to download this malware onto your computer. Once activated, digital thieves can steal your data and get complete access of your system.

 

TNTMAX’s IT services in NJ provides best protection against such malwares for FIRST Agency. The excellent reliability of our services has helped in creating a successful partnership between the two companies.

 

• Backup and Disaster Recovery

About 10 years ago data backup was simple. You could simply copy files to a disk or backup to tape and all was done. Today, we have much more data and a research predicts that there could be 40 Zettabytes of data by 2020. As businesses learn to leverage their data for growth, the data itself becomes more valuable. With the sheer volume of data produced on a daily basis by companies, we’ve had to develop new methods of more secure backups. And businesses should take caution, as not all data backup is created equal.

 

A quick look at today’s backup options:

1. File Based Backups: Specific files or folders are saved as needed. They also allow you to restore individual files. Full restores are also possible, but because restoration software handles only one file at a time, the process is time consuming.
2. Image Based Backups: This format takes pictures of the entire machine. With these backups you can restore individual files, do bare metal restores, verify images, boot virtual machines and even run remote offices. As this backup contains a more complete data picture, full restores are much faster and more reliable.
3. Agentless Backups: These do not require any software to be installed on the machine you want to protect.
4. Backup Agent: The backup process can be made more efficient by installing a piece of software known as Backup Agent. They can monitor sector-level changes on the machine’s drive. This lets the backup process know exactly which sectors to pull, resulting in a low load on the machine during backup. The agent has an advantage in that it has two Backup Engines. If one engine fails, the other one kicks in automatically. This greatly improves the chances of catching a healthy backup.
5. Local Backup: Local backups can save data to an on-site device. It can be quick and easy, but relying solely on this backup can be dangerous.
6. Direct-to-Cloud Backup: This form of backup sends data to an off-site Cloud. Transferring data to and from the Cloud is dependent on the bandwidth speed, so it can be slower than local data backup.
7. Hybrid Cloud Backup: It combines best of both local and Cloud backups.  A hybrid cloud backup is less dependent on your bandwidth speed than Cloud backups alone. It can schedule transfers without the risk of having no backup data. With this solution you can be up and running in seconds.

 

TNTMAX’s IT services in NJ has helped FIRST Agency to find a solution that met all of their needs and further strengthened their partnership with a high quality and reliable backup solution.

 

• Website Hosting

Another service TNTMAX offers that FIRST Agency took advantage of is website hosting. You see, all of the files and data that combine to make up your website must be physically stored on a server – a large, high-powered computer that is connected to the Internet. Some companies specialized in hosting several web servers in one location (aka a “data center”) and provide the software, support, security, and bandwidth that is needed for your company’s website to stay connected and published.  TNTMAX offers website hosting services for our clients, and in doing so, we’ve helped FIRST Agency keep all of their divisions connected across the continents by a single website.

 

FIRST Agency Today

 

As of today, FIRST has a consolidated global IT strategy with a focus on all the sites across different continents. FIRST is moving ahead by executing key security compliance to ensure company and client data is protected. Because of TNTMAX’s ability to adjust our clients’ needs and provide them with a high level of supplemented managed services and partnership, FIRST can continue focusing on their core business without being bothered by other day-to-day IT matters.

 

If you think your company has outgrown your in-house IT services, NJ’s TNTMAX would be happy to set up a consultation to discuss how outsourcing your IT services can open the floodgates of growth for your business.