Axxys Update
Jack Safrit, President

I hope you had a restful and relaxing Thanksgiving Holiday. The beginning of December brings some changes to Axxys we wanted to share with you.

Three New Faces at Axxys
First, starting this week we are adding two new team members. Bobby Pennington, Help Desk Technician, joins Axxys from a CTSI, one of our HTG and VTN partners in Lubbock. Bobby first was an intern at CTSI while finishing his degree work then was brought on full time with CTSI after graduation. Initially he will be added to our help desk and will be working with Lynn Sides to help with our remote support solutions. The ability to solve issues remotely and as quickly as possible is a key ingredient to our success as a service provider; Bobby contributes well to our remote capabilities.

Andrea Bell (Angie) will be filling the Operations/Dispatcher position. Most recently Andrea worked on the Sherman ISD IT support desk; however, she worked with Wade Kilgore, Axxys Vice President of Services, for a local service provider in Sherman. Her job duties with this provider as well as at Sherman ISD will give her the experience needed to fill the operations role at Axxys.

Finally, Chris Hansard was added to our team about a month ago tasked with ramping up our Axxys marketing department. Chris has been raising his daughter the last few years and decided now was the time to step back into the job market, even if on a part-time basis. His initial task has been to create content for our new website to be unveiled later in December. Next up for Chris will be to develop the social networking aspect for Axxys. Coming soon: Facebook, Twitter (www.twitter.com/axxys) , and the Axxys Blog.

New Quoting System
Starting on December 1, Axxys will go live with a new quoting and ordering system. Quotes will have a new look and feel and clients will be able to approve orders and quotes on line to save you time. The actual quotes will still be sent via email as before but they will now be in pdf format attachment.

Upcoming Expiration of the 2009 ARRA and Section 179

The Economic Stimulus Act and Section 179 "The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009" has been officially extended. The Section 179 Deduction increases made available in the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 through December 31, 2009, if you have purchased and installed the equipment.

With the current news that is all around us it is sometimes hard to justify opening our pocketbooks and investing in our companies. We all know that the best way to improve ourselves and our businesses is to invest time, energy and money in accomplishing our goals. As the year draws to a close you need to take a look and see what can be done to improve your business. The decision to improve may save you money.

With the changes to the Section 179 Deduction made by the Economic Stimulus Act signed in February 2008 there are some exciting benefits for business.

2009 Limits
Deduction Limit $250,000 same as in 2008
Total Amount of Equipment $800,000 also identical to 2008
(deduction decreases dollar for dollar after limit reached as in 2008)

Section 179 can change yearly without notice, so it benefits you to take advantage of this generous tax code while it's available. Section 179 offers small businesses a great opportunity to maximize their purchasing power. In addition, the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 has provided the small business owner with generous new (and higher) deduction limits. Most of the equipment your business will purchase or lease qualifies for the deduction, so do your homework and verify that your company is leveraging the Section 179 Deduction this year.

Of course, we recommend you speak with your tax advisor on how these provisions can benefit you directly.

For more information online including a Section 179 Deduction calculator and a list of qualifying equipment visit www.Section179.org.  

Don't Stop fortifying against risk
Four ways to mitigate risk in a tough economy

Every business deals with risk. But medium-sized businesses, with smaller IT staff and tighter operating budgets are often more exposed to risk than larger companies. This reality is never more evident than in a down economy: When the repercussions of a business disruption are as grave as they are, how do you insulate your business from risk?

"For mid-sized businesses, the financial impact of business disruptions is tremendous," said Anil Miglani, senior vice president, AMI-Partners. "We estimate that through security breaches and data loss alone, medium-sized businesses worldwide lost approximately US$4.7 billion in 2008."

According to strategy consulting firm AMI-Partners, in 2008 medium-sized businesses worldwide lost approximately US$4.7 billion due to security breaches and loss of data.

However, taking the right precautions with your IT infrastructure can help you steer clear of danger. Here are four steps you can take to mitigate risks to your revenue, your reputation, and your investment ¨C all the things that keep you awake at night as you wait for this storm to pass.

1. Reduce the probability of downtime
Your order system goes down, leaving your e-commerce customers unable to place orders. In addition to lost revenue, this downtime can derail employees, leading to productivity loss. While you're focused on fixing the problem, your competition has a chance to poach your customers. Worst of all, failing to detect and fix the problem means it may happen again.

High availability of critical systems is the medium-sized business's highest IT priority, and it's attainable with a few key changes:

►Invest in reliable servers. Look for servers that have been extensively tested and certified to run on the latest operating systems. Couple that with a comprehensive set of server management tools.
►Virtualize. Virtualization can improve application availability, reduce costs and simplify IT management.
►Build redundancy into your network. Look for routers and switches with virtual router redundancy protocol (VRRP) to eliminate single points of failure.

2. Protect your data
Data breaches might not happen as often as network and application downtime. But when they occur, they can be catastrophic. Implementing a few key protections can greatly minimize the chances of data loss.

►Replicate and use deduplication. Look for a storage backup solution that lets you cost-effectively replicate data for quick recovery. Deduplication helps ensure that you don't waste bandwidth, disk space and effort backing up multiple copies of the same data.
►Encrypt the data you back up to tape. If you don't encrypt your tape data, anyone can walk off with your tape and access its data. Hardware encryption that comes with the Linear Tape-Open update (LTO-4) for tape drives, will give you the added security you need.

3. Secure the network
►Prevent security breaches. Deploy a solution that has automated threat detection and offers a single-screen view of the network. It should allow you to map, configure and monitor both wired and wireless networks.
►Don't forget printers and PCs. Improve your data security with print security solutions that can prohibit unauthorised users from accessing information and documents.

4. Reduce disruptive changes
If your own planned maintenance and management tasks are the biggest cause of downtime, opt for automated solutions. Automation simplifies management so you focus on the business.

►Automate routine server and PC management. Management software can minimize complexity and lower risks of downtime. As for PCs, it can accelerate installations and deployments of software and operating systems.
►Delegate. If you don't have in-house IT staff who can monitor your systems around the clock, consider outsourcing that function.