eEye Digital Security, a leading provider of IT security vulnerability management solutions, today announced its upcoming Vulnerability Expert Forum (VEF) will comprehensively address this month’s Patch Tuesday vulnerabilities from Microsoft.

eEye’s VEF sessions are held online, the second Wednesday of each month, the day after Patch Tuesday, when Microsoft discloses their monthly patches. This month’s session will be held May 11, 2011 at 1:00 PM (Pacific) / 4 PM (Eastern). VEF attendees will have an opportunity to win an Amazon Kindle and $25 gift card.

VEF sessions provide insight and information on recently announced critical vulnerabilities from Microsoft and other software vendors, as well as:

• A complete analysis of the latest critical vulnerabilities, vendor patches, and zero-day threats
• Detailed assessment of the true criticality of each patch to best prioritize rollout
• Expert guidance on the actions necessary to protect systems

eEye’s VEF is one of several free, online resources that the company provides to the IT security community. eEye last week released an IT security research report, In Configuration We Trust, outlining simple configuration changes that can dramatically improve an organization’s security posture. Retina Community is a free asset scanner for up to 32 IPs, now being used by nearly five thousand organizations. Zero Day Tracker provides a catalogue of the newest zero-day vulnerabilities, instructions for quick remediation, and a historical record of past vulnerabilities.

“We continue to be encouraged by the hundreds of IT security pros who register to attend the VEF every month for specific insight on how to address vulnerabilities,” said Marc Maiffret, eEye cofounder and CTO. “There’s a growing appetite for this type of guidance, which in combination with the other free resources we provide hopefully makes the tough job of vulnerability management easier and more effective in minimizing risk.”

Register for the Vulnerability Expert Forum >>

About eEye Digital Security
Since 1998, eEye Digital Security has made vulnerability management simpler and more effective by providing the only unified vulnerability and compliance management solution that integrates assessment, mitigation and protection into a complete offering. With a proven history of innovation, eEye has consistently been the first to uncover critical vulnerabilities and prevent their exploit. eEye leverages its world-renowned research to create award-winning solutions that strategically secure critical IT assets and the data they hold. Thousands of mid-to-large-size private-sector and government organizations, including some of the most complex IT environments in the world, rely on eEye solutions to protect against the latest known, unknown and zero-day vulnerabilities. See more at eeye.com.

Even before the budget was handed down small and medium IT businesses were keen to remind the Government about the long term importance of programmes such as the NBN, which they clearly did not want trimmed.

According to Karl Sice, general manager at Acronis;

“Big investments in technology which free up commerce and enable growth are good news for the economy and to future proof it. Recent examples, such as the NBN, provide companies and particularly small to medium businesses like those which Acronis serves, unprecedented access to market opportunities and geographies which weren’t previously possible to cover.”

Treated as an investment rather than a budget item the Gillard Government’s first Budget proved a largely NBN-free zone.

It did however continue to focus on health related spending led by a $2.2 billion five year programme to improve the delivery of mental health services, $1.8 billion over six years on health infrastructure for the regions, and $740 million over five years to provide affordable access to medicines and technologies.

ICT services provider CSC Australia welcomed the health sector initiatives. According to Lisa Pettigrew, CSC’s National Director for Health Services; “We recognise the importance of electronic health records for mental health consumers, who need to be able to track what happens across the continuum of care from community and home to acute settings. It is important for all Australians, and particularly mental health consumers, to have choice and control over their own health records.”

She added that the investment of $14.4 million over five years to consolidate mental health websites and provide e-therapy services to an additional 45,000 consumers was important. “Continued funding of this magnitude is a major step towards empowering Australian consumers and the health system towards achieving a healthier population and a sustainable health system.”

Ms Pettigrew added that; “e-health is also crucial to regional health and CSC welcomes the Government’s announced spending of $1.8 billion for regional health services. In a tough budget year, it is heartening to see the government’s commitment to e-health is unwavering.

“The e-health reality created by this government in last year’s budget will ensure that the modernising of Australia’s health system will be underway by 1 July 2012.”

Data protection vendor Acronis has introduced what it says is the industry’s first product that combines backup and disaster recovery software into one application that protects data on physical or virtual IT assets, as well as in the cloud. Acronis emphasized that the Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 solution is designed to be easy to use, especially for small to midsize businesses that may not have the experienced IT staff to handle more complex solutions.

Previously, data backup and disaster recovery required separate solutions because backup involved finding a specific file or folder while disaster recovery involved replicating or restarting an entire data center down to the bare metal, says Izzy Azeri, general manager for the Americas for Acronis. For the first time, in version 11, those tasks can both be managed in one solution.

Backup & Recovery 11 also catalogs each item saved and notes whether it was saved to tape, disk or a cloud storage array. The catalog also records when a particular file was last saved.

The new version provides wizards for setting up data retention policies, establishing what is to be saved, where and how often. The wizards make it easy for IT novices to manage their data backups, Azeri says, although there are also advanced features for more experienced IT professionals.

Version 11 also creates a step-by-step disaster recovery plan that takes into account compliance regulations a business must follow, such as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) for companies that handle credit cards, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) for those in the health care industry and Sarbanes-Oxley for publicly traded companies. The plan can be automatically updated each time a new file is saved in the event file names change or data is backed up to a new location.

“The automatic creation of the disaster recovery plans is a very cool feature, one that I have not seen before in this area,” says Dick Csaplar, senior research analyst at Aberdeen Group. “The fact that one is created automatically means that the person doing the recovery doesn’t have to be the one who did the initial backup.”

Managing backup and recovery for any IT system is “daunting,” Csaplar adds, especially for SMBs juggling physical, virtual and cloud assets with small IT staffs. Although Acronis faces competition from companies such as EMC Avamar, Symantec, CommVault and Quest, “I believe the bar has been raised by this Acronis product.”

As SMBs expand their use of virtualization, Backup & Recovery 11 manages data protection on virtual machines, providing simultaneous backup of all the virtual machines (VMs) on a host server. “It’s hard to back up all the VMs on one host because there’s a short backup window and the backup has to be done sequentially. With this new feature, you can do all VM backups in parallel,” says Azeri.

As some MSPmentor readers know, my hard drive failed on May 3. A few readers have asked me for an update. Specifically, was my cloud-based backup service able to restore my files? Unfortunately, it’s not a simple Yes or No answer. Here’s why… plus an important cloud sales lesson for managed services providers. In short, there’s a simple way to sell SMB online backup and disaster recovery (BDR) services vs. consumer cloud backup services.

The good news: My cloud-based backup service worked as advertised. All of my files and content were safely backed up to the cloud. The bad news: Restoring all of those files, using my home broadband connection, would have required a continuous three-day download. As a workaround, I restored only my email and a few selected files. The online backup company, which competes in the consumer market, is mailing me a CD containing the rest of my data.

There’s an important lesson here for MSPs that are striving to compete with commodity backup and restore services: Backup is important but restore times are even more important. In separate conversations and email exchanges over the past week, both Doyenz and Intronis made that point to me. Plus, some readers are telling me to check out hybrid cloud solutions — which backup data to local appliances as well as off-premises clouds.

The Sales Lesson for MSPs

Here’s a simple suggestion: MSPs should back up 50 gigabytes of sample (non-critical) data to a consumer online backup service. Then, practice a restore with the end-customer present. Show them how long the restore process — over a broadband Internet connection — can take for a mere 50 gigabytes of hard drive data. Now, do some math and show the customer how much longer the restore would take if the process involved 500 gigabytes of data, a terabyte of data and so on.

Bottom line: Based on my anecdotal experience last week I suspect most consumer online backup companies can’t restore data fast enough over the Internet for typical small business customers.

By the end of the conversation you should be able to upsell the customer from a consumer online backup service to a true cloud BDR (backup and disaster recovery) service.

The latest release from Acronis combines disaster recovery and data protection in a single solution. With version 11, the vendor aims to help organizations address IT environments that are increasingly hybrid in nature, consisting of physical, virtual, and cloud-based systems.

According to Izzy Azeri, senior vice president and general manager for the Americas at Acronis, business customers are facing several challenges today that are fueling the need for the vendor’s products. “For one thing, the amount of data that needs to be protected is skyrocketing. Increasing storage requirements are being driven by email, ERP, document management, and imaging,” said Azeri in an interview. “For another, backups need to be spread across physical, virtual, and cloud targets in order to reduce risk. That’s complicated, and it costs more money.”

Azeri said most companies are using two or three different products for disaster recovery and data protection, and that spells higher maintenance, support, and licensing costs. With Acronis, everything is built into one offering that can be used across cloud, virtual, and physical environments. Acronis Backup & Recovery 11, which will be available later this quarter, delivers new catalog and search data protection capabilities, improved disaster-recovery plans, multi-destination backups, improved support for tape drives and libraries, and an enhanced GUI that provides simplified workflows.

Azeri said more than 175,000 business customers across a broad range of industries use Acronis software. About 80% of them are small and midsize businesses. And the vendor uses a channel-driven model to disseminate its solutions, engaging more than 20,000 partners around the world.

As virtual and cloud environments propagate in the corporate arena, the need for a multifaceted solution such as Acronis 11 will increase. Azeri said virtualization is expected to increase 50% in the SMB space in the next 12 months, while cloud computing is expected to climb about 16%.

Intronis, a leader in the IT service industry for cloud backup and recovery has been awarded Best Revenue Generator for the second time at the ASCII Success Summit in Washington, DC.

The ASCII Group, Inc. is the World’s largest IT Solution Provider community. This prestigious award is presented to the technology company that is deemed to have the best revenue generator for the IT industry. These esteemed awards are voted on by the Solution Provider attendees at The ASCII Washington DC Success Summits 2011.

“I signed up with Intronis, and it was as simple as 1, 2, 3. I set it up and it just worked,” stated current partner, Chip Evans, Computerware, Inc. “I couldn’t believe how easy it was to get started and even better, I could sit back and not worry, because Intronis is reliable and consistent with their value-add service and partner focus. I finally found a backup and recovery service, which allows me to be confident and assure my customers they are receiving only the best. It’s a great feeling.”

About Intronis
Intronis is a cloud provider of backup and disaster recovery services for the IT channel. Intronis utilizes 256-bit AES security and multiple data centers located on opposite coasts to ensure data protection and availability. Intronis offers IT service providers a secure data solution combined with a robust partner program, the efficiencies of full web-based account management, and an industry leading technical support team. http://www.intronis.com.

About the ASCII Group
The ASCII Group, Inc., headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, was established in 1984, with additional offices in Canada, India, and the UK. ASCII is the largest paying community of independent computer resellers in the world with more than 2,000 members and system wide end-user sales of approximately $10.5 billion. ASCII provides technology tools, products and services to assist independent information technology resellers increase profits, reduce costs, and grow their respective businesses. For more information, please visit http://www.ascii.com or http://www.asciievents.com for more information on the ASCII 2010 Reseller Success Summits.

Businesses may be swooning over the ability of social media marketing to woo customers, but business owners shouldn’t forget that email still has substantial commercial chops, a new report shows.  It’s the Web’s common denominator, used by virtually all Web users for both personal and marketing messages.

According to email marketing provider ExactTarget, 93 percent of all U.S. Internet users get at least one permission-based email daily.

But there is still significant debate over whether email is even relevant to Web users anymore. The perceptions about email’s demise are off target, said David Hallerman, the author of eMarketer’s new report on best practices for email marketing. It remains a key activity among Internet users of all ages, and marketers have become more sophisticated in how they use it in order to optimize their chances of success.

“Best practices for email marketing can be summarized in one sentence,” said Hallerman. “Get accurate and detailed data from people who want to hear from you, then automate the numerous steps involved in sending them relevant messages.”

Marketers need to ensure that emails are delivered to the recipient’s inbox at a time when they might be read, he said. They need to find a balance between outsourcing email campaigns and handling them in-house. Automation can help customize and trigger emails based on the recipient’s activities and interests.

Landing pages and emails should be optimized for multiple devices, particularly mobile ones. Marketers should try to convince recipients to share their emails with others and test campaigns to boost email open rates and clicks.

“Not only does usage remain a prime activity among Internet users of all ages, it allows marketers to contact their target audience with timing and personalized details and social media cannot match,” said Hallerman. “And the rise of mobile usage helps marketers reach their customers via email more than before, since people use those devices to check email much more frequently than they might have in the past.”