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Oil and gas companies must explore far more than terrain and seismic reflection to remain nimble in an era of unstable prices and consumer pressure for decarbonization. While dealing with uncertainly caused by COVID-19 and ongoing calls from citizens, policymakers and businesses for lower-carbon futures, forward-looking oil and gas companies are capitalizing on technology to streamline operations -- both in the field and in the business. Upon this landscape, one of Structured’s long-time energy sector clients found itself considering a transformational upgrade to its legacy email and data protection practices. With nearly 1000 employees spread across sites that are hundreds of miles apart, this client needed a productivity boost that only the cloud could deliver. They turned to Microsoft 365 for its user-, device- and location-friendly ability to facilitate teamwork and communication. While the move to M365 was sound business strategy, the IT team quickly realized the platform’s biggest security limitation: While Microsoft guarantees uptime and availability for M365, it does not assume responsibility for backing up client data or protecting user accounts. The software behemoth provides only limited retention and recovery capabilities, and that risk was unacceptable. This energy firm could not tolerate irretrievable emails, files and user accounts…
Secure Critical Infrastructure Demands Proactive Measures
By Collin Miller, Director of Cloud Security -- Given the emergency brought on by rapid spread of COVID-19, many businesses have been shut down or are transitioning to telework to comply with public health measures. However, for the group of organizations that make up our critical infrastructure, shutting down is not an option. Critical infrastructure…
Puget Sound School District Aces Student Empowerment with Structured & Juniper
When students log into a classroom device, they don’t wonder about the district’s data center, switching and wireless technology. There is no reflection upon the components’ feeds, speeds, manageability or cost. No, students simply expect to quickly reach the internet, the applications and the data required to learn and thrive in the 21st century. And…
Back to Basics – Inventory Documentation and Network Visibility
By Brad Pierce, Structured Managing Director of Security, CISSP/CISA/PCIP -- One of the first things you must do as a network or systems administrator is document. Oh, Documentation! The bane of IT professionals everywhere. In our harried work lives, it is a tedious, time-consuming process. Most people prefer to avoid documentation. But, when it is…
David Douglas School District Boosts Achievement Via Access
Enabling student achievement is core to every decision made by the David Douglas School District in Portland, Ore. A highly diverse school district, with more than 70 languages spoken among the students and a population that is 50 percent bilingual, its small-but-powerful 3-word motto “Learn Grow Thrive” tells a big story about how far heart…
Proximity Tracing with BLE-Enabled Tech Answers Tough COVID-19 Safety Questions
By Jed Rabe, Structured Wireless Engineer, CWNE#280, ACDX#925, ACMPv8 Companies are surviving the COVID-19 pandemic with triage to their business structure and processes. For many, a distributed workforce of telecommuters provided the cure. However, for businesses that must interact in person with the public and are eager to resume normal operations, it is important to…
ArubaOS 8: Enhancements over ArubaOS 6
By: Structured Wireless & Mobility Engineers Jed Rabe, CWNE, ACDX, ACMPv8, and Don Wright, ACDX, ACMP, CWDP, CWNA, MGCA -- Clients rely on the team at Structured to plan, deploy and support their wireless infrastructure -- especially when that technology is from Aruba Networks. Improvements in the Wi-Fi standard, LPWAN, and indoor tracking and wayfinding…
Privacy Matters: A Look at the California Consumer Privacy Act
By Rob Wayt, CISSP-ISSEP, HCISPP, CISA, CISM, CRISC, CEH, QSA Sometimes we could all use a little privacy. Some downtime to unwind without being bothered by phone calls, emails and social media updates. Our world is moving faster and faster in the digital age, with no signs of slowing down. In a related way, this…