FAQ's

View our frequently asked questions to learn how Cube 6 Development's certified professionals can provide custom IT solutions to meet the unique needs of your business.

Service providers can differ greatly. Most offer a variety of service level agreements.

We believe it’s important to have matching or similar core values to those of our clients. This promotes smooth integration and helps meet operational objectives. Investigate each provider to determine if they have documented standards, best practices, and clearly defined service level agreements.

Cube 6 Development has a proven track record of meeting civil and federal regulatory standards. This includes those for private, non-profit, and publicly-traded business sectors.

We have participated in deep inspection security audits annually since 2008. We do this to ensure confidential information is safe and recoverable at all times. We will help you determine your security goals and achieve them. Call us at 512-671-7500 today.

Backup technology has improved drastically in recent years.

Unless you have the latest fail-safe solutions in place, you may not be able to retrieve important information. Ensure you back up data regularly. Test your backups periodically to ensure data is backing up properly. Learn more about how to protect against a data disaster here.

Everyone should learn to recognize the signs of hidden attacks to avoid becoming a phishing victim.

A reputable spam filter will sift out most threats before they reach your inbox. However, we all need to be aware that perpetrators are always trying to stay one step ahead. They usually try to exploit the vulnerabilities of humans to launch their attack. Learn more about threat protection here.

Update and patch your operating system, critical applications (like your web browser), and antivirus.

That way, you’ll avoid becoming vulnerable to hackers and others looking to steal information. Secure your laptop with a strong password. Use a password containing:

  • at least eight characters
  • a variation of letters, numbers, and symbols

Do not leave your laptop unattended or out in the open for potential thieves to grab.

Managed Services (MS) is the practice of outsourcing day-to-day IT management and support responsibilities. This is a strategic method for improving your business operations.

MS is a proactive approach to handling your IT needs. You may opt to have the provider handle a fraction of your IT needs (e.g. security/firewall management). You may opt to outsource all IT to make sure your employees are efficient and not interrupted by IT problems. An IT managed service company takes responsibility for your IT services for a fixed fee. Learn more about managed services here.

MS providers may offer different service levels. These levels pertain to the scope of the agreement.

Reputable MSP will be able to show a ROI (Return on Investment) for their services. MS may provide a large cost savings because they use best practices and standards. This increases efficiency, so their services cost less than actually hiring on a company employee.

Ensure the service agreement provides value for your company. Understand the average costs in your industry for IT technology so you’re able to make a good value assessment.

Some managed services are month-to-month, while others are multi-year commitments.

Some MSP’s have high startup costs and lower monthly retainers. Others might incorporate the startup costs into the monthly recurring fee.

Cube 6 Development often recommends the MSP and customer engage in a month to month agreement for the first year.This time should incentivize MSP performance. It also gives both parties ample time gather metrics and study analytics.

Organizations that must meet civil and/or federal security standards may pay a little more than those who are not required to meet the same stringent security guidelines.

Though many businesses rely on IT technology, it isn’t their focus and they don’t understand its nuances.

Ask yourself if you are spending too much time focusing on things other than your core business.

Want to go the “wait till it breaks” route? Okay, but understand that lower performance and reliability does have a price. It will cost your company in lost productivity and opportunities.

Security

MS providers will manage:

  • firewalls
  • security policies
  • anti-virus/malware suite
  • core services to align with the MA Privacy law.

Backup and Business Continuity

End the hassle of changing tapes, tracking backups, dealing with online backup targets. A business continuity service provides data backup along with a full business continuity plan.

Infrastructure / Network Monitoring

Management and monitoring of:

  • internet
  • phone circuits
  • VPNs
  • switches
  • wireless access points
  • network room components such as servers, storage, network printers and key network devices

“I already have internal IT. I have a computer guy. Now what?”

An MSP can act as an extension of your IT department. By handling routine tasks, your staff is free to focus on strategic IT initiatives to improve your business.

An area that you may need help in is IT management. Some MSPs offer a managed service to oversee your IT staff. It’s difficult to hold someone accountable in areas that we do not understand. IT personnel may appear busy, but deep down we have to question if they are doing their job in an efficient manner.

To hold your staff accountable, MSPs can:

  • recruit
  • interview
  • manage
  • train
  • plan and budget
  • provide task management systems

If you relate to four or more of these categories, managed services will benefit you:

  • You just want it all to work!
  • You did not choose your career to monkey with IT issues.
  • You understand what it costs your company for you to not focus on your top priorities.
  • You do not want to be in the IT business.
  • You do not want to deal with IT.
  • You’re frustrated trying to get techies to understand what you really need.
  • You realize the hourly cost of downtime and business interruption costs more than a technician’s hourly rate.
  • You’ve had it with trying to manage depreciating assets.
  • You manage a business, not an IT department.
  • You realize that like death and taxes, technology is unavoidable.
  • You never want to deal with technology vendors blaming each other while you pay their bills.
  • You put up with IT support issues because you do not want the trouble of changing to another support provider.

What are the benefits of the traditional route?

  • You control the IT costs by virtue of your pain threshold. You only pay when the pain is unbearable.
  • You have no real financial commitment.

Focus on Business Activities

Time spent on your business vs. time spent on tech support adds to your bottom line.

Reduced Stress

Dealing with non-expertise areas is stressful, which adds to the fact that problems in these areas may cost thousands of dollars.

Controlled Cost

You can budget expenses and hold the MSP accountable to the results.

Reliable Performance

The service level agreement should guarantee performance or you do not pay.

Efficiency of Scale

MSPs have the experience and knowledge from supporting many networks. This experience cannot be gained by supporting one network.

Increased Security

MS providers have resources that proactively manage and maintain business critical components (e.g. firewalls, employee usage, and antivirus/malware suites).

Full Back-up and Business Continuity

You no longer have to remember to back-up media and tapes. MS providers offer back-up and business continuity services. They’ll return your business to operational within minutes.

IT Accountability

Have you ever wished you could have more control over your IT results? Without an MSP agreement, you are trading hourly IT help for money, and often you do not get what you desire. A MS level agreement is based upon a performance guarantee.

You are a do-it-yourself type and only want help when you cannot figure it out yourself.

Thinking you know something and actually knowing it are two different things. The following beliefs will cost your company productivity and efficiency (which equals money):

  • “We can handle these problems in our IT network for now. We’ll deal with it when it crashes.”
  • “I don’t know our business performance or how to measure it. Big deal.”
  • “What’s the “work-around” to this problem? Where is the duct tape?”
  • “I don’t care how the employees use business resources during business hours.”
  • “Those IT problems aren’t that bad… we’ll just work harder, longer, and hire more people.”
  • “So what if the server is five years old. It’s still running right? Why upgrade?