Lewan Achieves Cisco Master Collaboration and Master Cloud & Managed Service Designations

In addition to successfully passing the requirements and audit to re-certify as a Cisco Gold Partner, Lewan Technology is honored to announce achievement of two Master Specializations: Collaboration and Cloud & Managed Services.

“These Master level certifications are the absolute highest achievement that a Cisco partner can attain in any technology area. There are only 43 partners in the United States that hold these two certifications,” explained Ray Dean, Lewan’s Director of Networking and Communications. “This honor recognizes the great engineering teams and processes we have in place, as well as our commitment to ongoing customer satisfaction and solution integration.”

Cisco Gold Partner Certification

Gold Certification offers the broadest range of expertise across high growth market opportunities known as architecture plays – Enterprise Networking, Security, Collaboration, Data Center Virtualization and SP Technology. Gold Certified Partners have also integrated the deepest level of Cisco Lifecycle Services expertise into their offerings and demonstrate a measurably high level of customer satisfaction.

Lewan has been a Cisco Gold Certified Partner since 2005.

Cisco Master Collaboration Specialization

The Master Collaboration Specialization demonstrates the highest level of expertise attainable with Cisco collaboration solutions.

Master Collaboration Specialized Partners represent an elite partner community that has met the most rigorous certification requirements and are therefore the best for complex deliveries. Lewan demonstrated the ability to design and deploy solutions that conform to Cisco validated designs. In addition, Lewan showed current examples of successful projects in which we integrated multiple solutions and technologies to support client needs. No other Cisco specialization or certification demands such extensive proof of the partner’s design and implementation capabilities.

Cisco Cloud & Managed Services Master Service Provider

The Cloud and Managed Services Program (CMSP) helps partners respond to their customers’ business needs with innovative and validated Cisco Powered services. The exclusive Master Cloud and Managed Services designation recognizes partners at the highest level of achievement, competency and capabilities.

Lewan is recognized as a partner uniquely positioned to offer best-in-class Cisco Powered services and Cloud Managed services which are validated to insure security, reliability, and performance.

Lewan Named to 2015 Tech Elite 150 List

For the third year in a row, Lewan has been recognized for our exemplary approach to delivery of Managed IT Services and been awarded a spot on the 2015 MSP Elite 150 list, part of CRN’s Managed Service Provider 500 (MSP500) list. The Elite 150 group is recognized as large data center-focused solution providers with a strong mix of on-premise professional services as well as off-premise services.

From CRN:

This annual list distinguishes the top technology providers and consultants in North America whose leading approach to managed services enables their customers to improve operational efficiencies, elicit greater value from their IT investments, and successfully leverage technology to achieve greater competitive advantage.

In today’s world of outsourced IT, the expertise of MSPs has become increasingly important to organizations. The plethora of choices in terms of consumption and procurement of technology can become overwhelming. To help facilitate companies’ selection and adoption of managed services and providers, CRN, the leading media outlet for technology vendors and solution providers who serve end-user customers, has identified the top 500 MSPs.

“The allure of Everything-as-a-Service to organizations is largely rooted in the appeal of predictable operational expenses, cost-cutting, resource allocation and access to on-demand/pay-as-you-go technology. Therein lies a great need for the expertise of managed service providers,” said Robert Faletra, CEO, The Channel Company. “We congratulate the managed service providers who have engineered, or re-engineered, their businesses to deliver the services their customers rely on for future growth and ongoing success.”

Lewan Named to 2014 Tech Elite 250 List

Lewan has once again earned a prestigious spot on CRN’s 2014 list of Tech Elite 250 IT Solution Providers. This elite group of IT solution providers have invested in the training and education needed to earn the most advanced technical certifications from leading vendors.

From CRN:

In compiling the list, CRN editors worked with The Channel Company’s research group to define the most customer-beneficial technical certifications in the IT channel. These technical certifications – from vendors including Cisco, Citrix, Dell, HP, NetApp, Microsoft, VMware, and Symantec – have enabled solution providers to deliver the most premium products, service and support to their North American customers.

“The solution providers highlighted on our annual Tech Elite 250 have demonstrated a commitment to excellence and gained industry credibility by investing in the IT certifications necessary to stay competitive and deliver the highest level of service to their customers,” said Robert Faletra, CEO, The Channel Company. “These featured solution providers have enhanced and strengthened their partnerships by earning some of the most difficult certifications from some of the biggest names in IT. We congratulate these organizations and look forward to their continued success.”

Lewan Named to Managed Service Provider Elite 150

Lewan Technology has been named to the Managed Service Provider Elite 150 of CRN’s 2014 Managed Service Provider 500 (MSP500) list! As part of the list’s MSP Elite 150, Lewan is recognized as a top large data center-focused solution provider with a strong mix of on-premise professional services as well as off-premise services.

From CRN Magazine:

The MSP500 is a brand-new annual list which recognizes the top technology providers and consultants in North America whose cutting-edge approach to managed services puts end-user customers in the best position to improve efficiencies, cut costs and speed time to market for their own products and services.

In today’s world of computing power, end users are barraged by options. CRN, the leading media outlet for vendors and solution providers attempting to understand sales and service channels, selected the top MSPs in order to bring clarity to the decision-making process.

This year, CRN’s MSP500 is broken down into three groups highlighting the MSP Elite 150, who are large data center-focused solution providers with a strong mix of on-premise professional services as well as off-premise services.

“The managed services landscape continues to evolve rapidly as organizations are discovering they can impact both bottom-line and top-line growth,” said Robert Faletra, CEO, The Channel Company. “When it comes to strong managed services and off-premise solutions, these companies are the industry’s proven leaders, showing just how they can change the game for their customers and we congratulate them on their success.”

Fixing a Corrupted Nickname Entry in Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft Outlook maintains a list of formerly used email addresses which is used for the automatic completion feature. If one of these “nicknames” becomes corrupted it can cause any emails to that address to bounce. If this happens, the proper way to fix itis is to delete the corrupted entry and retype the email address in the To… field.

How to remove a corrupted nickname cache entry

1. Open a new email message.
2. Type the first few characters of the nickname cache entry that you want to remove from the cache.
3. When the entry appears in the list of suggested names, use the Up and Down arrow keys on your keyboard to move the highlight to the entry you want to remove.
4. Hit the Delete key on your keyboard to remove it from the list.

McAfee Spam Report

The report lists the emails that have been filtered because of potential spam content. The Spam Report includes email that was quarantined for your primary email address and any associated alias email addresses you may have. If your service is configured for users to receive the Report, it is emailed to you based on a frequency set by your administrator. Simply double-click the email in your email application. The report will be displayed.

How to use the Spam Report

Review the messages listed in the report. For email you believe is NOT spam, click Release (1). If the email comes from a trusted source, click Allow (2) to always receive email from the sender.

Click Delete all messages (3), to permanently delete the messages from the quarantine.

View list of all quarantined messages (4) will take you to your quarantine list online. From there, you can manage your quarantine through the web interface and access older quarantined items.

If you would like to adjust the frequency of your Spam Report or adjust other settings, click on To change your preferences and spam report settings, click here (5).

Asigra Linux Restore with ‘sudo’

Conduct an Asigra restore to a UNIX or Linux server using sudo credentials

Verify that user is listed in /etc/sudoers file on restore target system

The sudo utility allows users root level access to some (or all) subsystems without requiring users to know the root password. Please look at documentation for the sudo utility for more information.

From Asigra restore dialog, choose files to be restored

Select Alternate location and click on ‘>>’

Enter server name or IP address for restore target and check both “Ask for credentials” and “‘sudo’ as alternate user’

Enter username and password for user configured in /etc/sudoers file

Enter “root” and same password as in previous step

Do NOT enter the ‘root’ password. The sudo utility uses the regular user’s password.

Select restore location and truncate path, if required

Accept defaults

Restore in progress…

Verify restore completed

Managed Services customers: Submitting a help desk ticket from the desktop

If you’re one of our Managed Services customers, there’s an easy way to submit a help desk ticket to us by using our management agent’s system tray menu. In your system tray (the lower right corner of the Windows task bar), there is an icon for our agent which looks like a little blue ball with white stripes.

If you click on this icon, a menu will pop up and one of the options will be Create Service Ticket.

Clicking on this option will open up your email client with our helpdesk email filled in. Just tell us what the issue is and hit send. We’ll take it from there.

Managed Services Customers: Capturing error messages for submitting tickets to the help desk

If you’re one of our Managed Services customers and you submit a helpdesk ticket because an error message popped up on your screen, it is generally very helpful for us to be able to see the full text of that error message. Rather than writing down the entire message which can sometimes be very lengthy, you can capture the information and send it to us using our management agent.

In your system tray (the lower right corner of the Windows task bar), there is an icon for our agent which looks like a little blue ball with white stripes.

If you click on this icon, a menu will pop up and one of the options will be Screen Capture.

Clicking on this option will send us a current capture of your screen, complete with whatever error message is on screen at the time.

Then when you submit the helpdesk ticket by calling us or emailing support@lewan.com, just mention that you sent us a screenshot. We’ll be able to find it in our management interface.

LabTech Reboot Messages

If you are one of our Managed Services customers, one of the services provided to you is scheduled patching of your computers . Microsoft releases patches on a regular basis as do some other application vendors and our remote management software (LabTech) will apply these patches to your machines as needed and as approved by our staff.

Once patches are applied to your machine, if those patches require a restart of the computer you will be prompted by LabTech to reboot your computer with the dialog box below.

If it is inconvenient for you to restart your computer at the time the reboot is requested, you can simply dismiss the dialog  by clicking the No button. The dialog box will count down from 90 seconds and if no response is given during that time the dialog box will dismiss itself and not restart the computer. This is to prevent loss of unsaved data should you be away from your computer and not able to answer the question in a timely fashion.

If the dialog box is dismissed it will pop back up hourly to remind you that a reboot is needed. Since the patches will not be effective until after the restart, it is a good idea to save any unsaved work and allow the reboot as soon as possible.