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About Red Level

As a comprehensive technology services company, Red Level delivers customized scalable technology solutions designed precisely to our client's unique needs – solutions that accelerate growth, reduce costs and enable collaboration. As a preferred partner to technology leaders such as Microsoft, DellEMC, and VMWare, we deploy the most advanced business technology solutions, ensuring optimal reliability, productivity and value.

Identity Challenges for Today’s Organizations

As we move into a cloud-first world, identity protection is becoming more necessary and prevalent. A cloud-first world has a lot of benefits, but it also comes with its challenges. Identity Challenges for Today’s Organizations The explosion of apps on-premise and BYOD and external users outside your corporate network are coming in, and those could be customers, vendors, partners, contractors, whoever is needing access to collaborate share data. The result of that there’s been an increase in identity attacks, and for most organizations, they lack the visibility and control. Increases in identity attacks and lack of visibility and control is leaving organizations vulnerable. Some organizations have protocols in place to watch out for suspicious activity. However, organizations may not have the time to go and proactively review every log. The lack of visibility and control has been a big struggle we have seen for businesses of all sizes. Evolving data ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:25+00:00

Modern Workplace Summit Delivers Business Insight to Michigan Companies

The modern workplace is coming into its own as more and more companies jump on board with advancements in technology and tools that digitally enable the workforce. Where the conference room used to be the meeting hub, now digital collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams effectively lead virtual “in-person” meetings. Where note pads, folios, and pens dotted tables in boardrooms, now e-pads and screens replace paper with Microsoft OneNote as the preferred mode of notetaking. Red Level, along with Microsoft, recently hosted the Modern Workplace Summit to help focus Michigan businesses on their evolution to the modern workplace. “Continual change is the new normal. New systems and practices sweep away old ones with almost predictable regularity,” said David King, President and CEO of Red Level. “Our annual Modern Workplace Summit tackles the necessary efficiencies everyone needs to smoothly transition as a digital workforce.” Power Summit for IT and Business Leaders Alike ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:25+00:00

Protect Against Spoofing

Office 365 Exchange Online is a robust email platform, but it’s still vulnerable to cyber-attacks. One such attack is spoofing. Spoofing is when somebody with malicious intent sends an email to trick you into thinking that the email is coming from someone you know within your organization or someone you receive emails from regularly. For example, I received one last week from someone that appeared to be from Amazon for Business the email was telling me to reset my password to click to verify and asking me to put in my credentials. It looked very similar to an Amazon email. It had the Amazon logo, and the form was professionally done. However, I do not have an Amazon for Business account, so I knew it was a spoofing attempt. Here are a couple of examples of what you might see when someone has sent you a spoofed message: The display ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:26+00:00

Developing and Deploying SharePoint Framework on a Mac

Developing in SharePoint Framework (SPFx) or any Microsoft technology on Mac is new to .Net Core and highlights Microsoft’s shift to becoming open source. The value of developing SPFx on a Mac? You don’t need to a setup windows machine or virtual desktop to be able to build, compile, and deploy SharePoint Framework. Microsoft’s shift to being Mac and Linux friendly opens the field for developers to use their preferred system and still produce Microsoft based products. Development of SPFx on a Mac is simple, and the basic setup is straight forward. You’ll first need to have Node Package Manager installed, as that is the tool we use to pull from the Microsoft repositories to get the generator. The generator is an SPFx Yeoman generator. With the basics set up, you’ll also want a code editor, such as the Sublime Text. Pro tip: Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code is free. The step ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:26+00:00

Excel Automation Add-In

Today we are going to cover Excel Automation Add-In which allows you to set your own User Defined Functions. Now, before we jump in, I had a desire to write functions using C#. And I wanted them to be deployable, so not just linked to an excel macro worksheet. With those two requirements, there are a few ways to write Excel Add-Ins which allow User Defined Functions (UDF’s). There are COM add-ins, Automation Add-ins, and XLL Add-ins. For the sake of not using a library to build the XLL Add-In, I was sitting between using a COM Add-In or an Automation Add-In. When researching, I discovered Automation Add-Ins are simpler to set up initially, and also are extensible to the full feature functionality of a COM Add-In. Thus I settled on building an Automation Add-In. Now, to dig into how to get the ball rolling. Getting Set Up Firstly, you’ll ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:26+00:00

Upgrade Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams

On July 30th Microsoft formally announced that Skype for Business Online was going to be retiring and a lot of our clients have been reaching out to us wondering how this will impact them. “We aren’t ready for Microsoft Teams.” “We don’t know what Teams is.” “We use Skype, what do we do?” We can help you answer those questions and concerns. Microsoft has shared that Skype for Business Online is going to be retired on July 31st, 2021. Which gives you plenty of time to learn and implement Teams into your organization. However, after that date, the Skype for Business Online Service will be completely inaccessible. As of September 1st, of this year all new Office 365 customers are going to be directly using Teams for chat, meetings, and calls. A disclaimer that we want to make sure you know is the Skype consumer brand, product, and Skype for ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:26+00:00

Wind River VxWorks and URGENT/11: PATCH NOW!

Notice: SonicWall physical firewall appliances running certain versions of SonicOS utilize third-party TCP/IP code for remote management that contain vulnerabilities named URGENT/11. At this time, there is no indication that the discovered vulnerabilities are being exploited in the wild, however: SonicWall STRONGLY advises applying the SonicOS patch immediately. Patches are available for all recent SonicOS versions. Detailed instructions are provided in the Security Advisory. SonicWall provides the patched versions of SonicOS at no charge, including for customers not currently covered by an active support contract. SonicWall also recommends updating to the latest SonicOS release (6.5.4.4), which provides firewall capabilities to help protect other devices vulnerable to URGENT/11. Wind River VxWorks and URGENT/11 vulnerabilities Security researchers at Armis have discovered and responsibly disclosed 11 vulnerabilities in the TCP/IP stack of Wind River’s VxWorks real-time operating system, which is utilized by millions of devices around the world, as well as in space, ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:27+00:00

Say Farewell to the old SQL, Windows, and Exchange Servers

You’ve probably heard about SQL Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 and Exchange Server 2010 hitting end of life. A lot of our clients are asking us what End-of-Support really means for them and their business? The answer requires an understanding of Microsoft’s product lifecycle. All Microsoft products have a 10-year lifecycle. The first five years is called mainstream support and that’s where you are going to get things such as new features, security updates, and non-security updates. The second five years is called extended support where you are going to receive security updates and non-security updates. During this time there is no additional product feature functionality added to the product. Important End-of-Support dates you need to be aware of: July 9th, 2019 – SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 January 14th, 2020 – Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 7, and Exchange Server 2010 We ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:27+00:00

End of Support for SQL and Windows 2008

What could July 9, 2019 mean to you? What about January 14th, 2020? End of support if you are using SQL or Windows 2008. That means Microsoft is no longer going to provide automatic fixes, updates, hotfixes or online technical support for any SQL or Windows 2008 servers, including R2. As a business, you want to upgrade or migrate to a newer version of these servers to ensure your servers are up to date and protected. To prepare your business for a seamless and smooth transition, whether you are planning on migrating or upgrading the servers, consider taking these actions: For SQL server - You want to start the process by identifying what’s out on your SQL server and move things off. It may be as simple as creating a new SQL server; detaching the database, copying the database and files, re-attaching and changing the SQL collation. Then go to ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:28+00:00

Top 5 Infrastructure Trends for 2019

We’ve bid 2018 farewell and welcomed 2019 with open arms. So what's next? What’s going to happen in 2019 from an infrastructure perspective? The answer for 2019 is similar to that of recent years. Cloud and security are still the top priorities. Let’s take a quick look at what may impact your infrastructure focus. 1. Exchange Migration Migrations from Exchange on-premises to Exchange online and upgrades from older versions of Exchange to the latest version are both projects going strong in 2019. We continue to support our clients who are going through these Exchange migration and upgrade processes and predict that Exchange migrations, upgrades, and support will continue to be a trend with our clients. 2. Multi-Factor Authentication To add additional security, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) provides one or more additional forms of authentication for users when they log into company resources. Traditionally, users would log into their computers or other ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:29+00:00

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