Author Archives: Megan Carnes

Welcome back to another installment of our “Thrive Spotlight” blog series.

In honor of National Engineers Week, which runs through February 25, we want to recognize two of Thrive’s expert engineers who work on opposite ends of the world from one another.

Edward Gries is a Thrive Senior Systems Administrator transitioning to a virtual Chief Information Officer (vCIO) to advise Thrive clients on technology strategy and leadership to optimize their business technology needs and management.

Artur Wasilewski is a Project Engineer specializing in network equipment and deployments with low-level designs (LLD) designed specifically for each Thrive client.

Edward lives in Sarasota, Florida. When he’s not helping Thrive clients, you’ll find him soaking up some fun in the Sunshine State in his spare time. He enjoys running, cycling and visiting National Parks with his family.

Artur lives in Gdansk, Poland. He likes to travel throughout Poland to discover some of the country’s hidden gems. When he’s at home, he enjoys helping his wife in the garden, being outdoors with his four kids, or diving into a fantasy book/audiobook.

Can you tell us about your background and how you came to Thrive?

Edward: I started my career at a help desk supporting people with their computer issues. I was promoted to Engineer, where I solved more advanced computer, software and network problems. Later, I learned how to design and build computer networks, servers and firewalls. After being promoted to Senior Engineer, I worked on more advanced network and server projects, trained junior engineers and assisted clients by solving their business challenges with the right technology tools. I came to Thrive as part of the SouthTech acquisition in 2022 and have enjoyed the new opportunities and experiences in a large company that is an industry leader in Cloud and Cybersecurity.

Artur: I was initially part of the ONI team based in the UK Luton Office. I spent more than six years with the company, where I started as a senior TAC engineer and progressed into the project team, which I always wanted to do. After Brexit, I decided to return to Poland. During the pandemic, remote working opportunities accelerated and I served as a project engineer to support in-demand remote workforce IT initiatives. I joined the Thrive family as part of the ONI acquisition in 2021.

Where did you go to school or get training?

Edward: I graduated from Miami University with a bachelor’s degree and then completed a certification program in Information Technology from University of South Florida. I have received multiple technical certifications, including MCSE, VCP and CISSP.

Artur: I was born in Warsaw and stayed close to home to further my education. While at Łazarski Univesity, I signed up for Cisco Networking Academy, which made me realize that networking was my destiny instead of commerce. I got my degree in foreign trade and, while doing so, secured an entry-level networking CCNA certificate in 2002.

What do you most enjoy about working for Thrive?

Edward: The best part about Thrive is that the company shows how it values its employees by providing an array of customized career paths and opportunities in a leading large market MSP. At Thrive, every employee can tap into their true potential and design their career in a supportive environment.

Artur: It’s an exciting time at Thrive due to the company’s rapid growth through several acquisitions. Thrive’s accelerated expansion has afforded new and extraordinary opportunities for developing innovative projects involving a growing diverse client base and new technologies. In addition, expanding to a multi-vendor approach has set Thrive apart in the marketplace.

Any recent exciting projects at Thrive that you can tell us about?

Edward: Recently, I helped convert two customers from an on-premise file server environment to a fully Cloud environment utilizing Microsoft SharePoint. It’s rewarding to help companies find solutions that enable competitive advantages through digital transformation with efficiency and security.

Artur: I recently completed an exciting project that debuted in the UK involving Fortinet’s FortiGate firewalls. The complex and cutting-edge design involved a complex migration from a checkpoint firewall setup in several sites, including Microsoft Azure Cloud.

 Are you interested in learning more about Thrive? Click here!

And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn for the latest news, and continue checking our blog for more in our “Thrive Employee Spotlight” series. Until next time…

Thrive’s Rapid U.K. Expansion

Over the past two years, there has been a steady drumbeat of Thrive acquiring U.K. companies to expand its NextGen award-winning IT, Cybersecurity, Cloud, Collaboration and Business Continuity portfolio and operations in the international market. Here’s a timeline to demonstrate Thrive’s aggressive acceleration of expansion overseas.

• In June 2021, Thrive started its international expansion by acquiring ONI, a leading U.K. Cloud, hybrid managed IT, Cisco Gold Partner and data center services provider based in Luton, Bedfordshire, England. Thrive deepened its NextGen portfolio and infrastructure in the U.K. by adding its robust Microsoft and Cybersecurity capabilities to the ONI Cisco WAN, Unified Communications and Cloud services.
• In June 2022, Thrive acquired Connecticut-based Edge Technology Group, a leading global technology advisory and fully-managed IT service provider for alternative investment managers. The acquisition added new global offices and data centers across the United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Philippines, strengthening Thrive’s international presence for all customers. Edge clients, including hedge funds, private equity firms, family offices, and asset managers worldwide, now benefit from Thrive’s next-generation managed Cybersecurity, collaboration and Cloud services.
• In November 2022, Thrive acquired Custard Technical Services, a leading U.K. IT support company based in Nottingham, England, that specializes in managed services in the East Midlands and surrounding areas. The acquisition enables Custard clients, including manufacturers, charities, and insurance groups, to benefit from Thrive’s next-generation managed cybersecurity, Cloud services and automation platform.

Thrive’s Strong U.K. Footprint Benefits U.S. Businesses

While Thrive has rapidly grown its footprint in the U.K., it is helping other businesses do the same by leveraging its secure and efficient IT technology and proven services.

The U.K. is ranked as one of the best locations for businesses looking to expand internationally. Thrive’s expertise and 200+ seat workforce in the U.K. helps U.S. companies leap across the pond to expand international operations or fully manage their established U.K. locations.

Here are some benefits Thrive offers U.S. businesses looking to expand to the U.K. and Europe.

1. Acquire global talent With more than 200 people working in Thrive’s U.K. locations, U.S. businesses can tap into the global knowledge and expertise in NextGen technology, digital transformation, Cloud and Cybersecurity managed services in abundant international hubs.
2. Reduce costs Global expansion is often more cost-efficient than a local/national expansion. Bypass the extra costs of managing NextGen technology for your business by leveraging Thrive’s innovative technology and infrastructure already successfully operating in the U.K. With Thrive, you can reduce CapEx spending, meet stringent compliance thresholds, and gain the benefits of advanced security threat detection without requiring specialised security staff or costly dedicated hardware.
3. Become more resilient Business operations can suffer negative events localized to the U.S. A downturn in sales for one country can be balanced with an uptick in revenue in another part of the world. Data backup and security are essential, along with a Disaster Recovery Plan. Thrive has you covered to keep your business overseas uninterrupted.
4. Experience advanced Cybersecurity As business systems grow in complexity, there is an increased risk of vulnerabilities, exploits and security breaches. Thrive’s comprehensive Cybersecurity solutions protect your business, uncover and mitigate risks and meet stringent regulatory requirements. Our security-first Cloud approach is flexible and economical, provides specific, actionable information and is backed by a 24x7x365 Security Operations Center.
5. Expand globally for growth opportunities Discover opportunities for your product or service around the world. With comprehensive IT services, organisations can focus more on their business. From moving to the Cloud to ensuring remote employees have access to their applications, Thrive works with a quick turnaround time to deliver value and solutions.
6. Enhanced compliance benefits Some overseas locations may have compliance regulations that are different or more favorable to your company. Thrive’s experts can help your organisation gain agility without sacrificing safety or compromising compliance. Thrive performs a risk assessment and provides strategic IT consulting services to ensure fully-customisable IT, digital transformation, Cybersecurity and Cloud plans are designed, executed and managed.

Contact our team today for more information about expanding your business in the U.K.

We spoke with Chip Gibbons, CISO at managed services firm Thrive, to discover mitigation plans post-outage. Here are the highlights:

• Planning is imperative for companies of all sizes – Many businesses can leverage a comprehensive data backup and recovery plan with relative ease. Larger organizations might require more details to be addressed, specifically how systems are to be recovered, as well as applications and working conditions. However, certain aspects of data recovery always need to be addressed, such as understanding how a backup system works, who is in charge of it, what the responsible recovery point objective (RPO) is, and the amount of data you need to back up. This can dramatically reduce the time it takes to get back in business following a disaster to help you meet your specified recovery time objective (RTO).
• Routine testing of DR strategies – Testing is a must, but it can interfere with your business operations and potentially even cut into productivity. Whenever systems are tested, IT teams will be bound to find something wrong with the DR strategy and would have to adapt it over time as you address these issues. If these issues are appropriately addressed during the testing phase, organizations will have a better chance when they need to truly utilize a DR strategy.
• Remember that IT infrastructure is governed by people – So a DR strategy must take human behavior into account. For example, if a company’s location is compromised by a disaster, organizations need to check if they can get employees to access the data they need to effectively do their jobs.

In this podcast episode, Multimedia Editor at SD Times Jakub Lewkowicz talks about how to track your business’s cybersecurity preparedness and where to get started with improvements.

His guest is Dave Sampson, vice president of consulting services and cybersecurity expert at Thrive, a nextgen, managed MSP and MSSP cyber services provider.

Chip Gibbons, CISO at Thrive, sits down with Dave to talk about how to defend against social engineering attacks in banking. Dave starts us off this week with a story about Amazon opening up its selling market to Pakistani residents, and what consequences that led to for the organization’s business. Joe’s story follows a scam targeting soldiers in the Army. The Army warns against unknown individuals purporting to be noncommissioned officers that are calling said soldiers and asking them for money to fix a “pay problem” and, if questioned, threatening them with a punishment. Our catch of the day comes from listener Manie who writes in about a scam found when trying to download a HDRI (High Dynamic Range Image). The scam involves a fake ad asking for people’s cell phone numbers as soon as they click on a button that reads “download here”. Manie shares how after she clicked the ad, she realized the mistake and immediately researched more before proceeding further.

Meanwhile, there have been concerns around a skills shortage in IT. Rusty King, CTO of the European division of managed services company Thrive, said this has made companies eager to retain their existing IT staff.

King said this desire to retain staff is also linked to the ongoing cost-of-living and energy pricing crisis.

“Match this up with home or hybrid working practices in place from the pandemic and the introduction of a younger workforce with different desires and collaboration practices, we will see far more ingenious flexible working patterns and locations,” King said.

King added that this could lead to more professional services-as-a-service opportunities for managed service providers (MSPs), in order to provide “some stability in case of IT team losses”.

Welcome back to another installment of our “Thrive Spotlight” blog series.

Our featured Thrive employee is John Padron, Solutions Architect at Thrive. John works closely with the sales team on solving business issues for clients and prospects with Thrive’s deep NextGen technology portfolio.

Security has always been in John’s blood. He spent years as a police officer before entering the technology world. While at Thrive, he is a sought-out Information Security expert for top Florida law enforcement agencies.

John lives in Lakeland, Florida, and enjoys traveling, sampling new cuisine on the weekends and catching the latest Sci-Fi flick.

Hi John! Can you tell us about your background and how you came to Thrive?

I joined Thrive through the acquisition of DSM Technology Consultants in June 2022. I was with DSM for almost ten years, initially starting as a Systems Engineer on the Professional Services team and transitioned to Solution Architect at the end of 2018. Before DSM, I was a System Analyst and Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Local Agency Security Officer (LASO) for the City of Key West and mainly focused on supporting the Police Department. I am also a former Police Officer, having served seven years with the city.

Where did you go to school or get training?

I attended the University of West Florida in Pensacola. I also interned with BellSouth while still in high school. Most of my training was on the job and through self-education. I earned several IT certifications in PC Support, Server Administration, Virtualization, Networking, Security and Cloud Computing.

What do you most enjoy about working for Thrive?

Although we are currently going through our integration with Thrive, the company provides a solid foundation with an encouraging environment for employees to learn, grow and succeed. Everyone has been so helpful and supportive at Thrive.

Any recent exciting projects at Thrive that you can tell us about?

I’m proud of a project we recently did with the Florida Department of Highway Safety. I assisted with the initial hardware deployment and set-up of the environment. It was rewarding to implement a solution that I helped design. We also recently worked on a significant Disaster Recovery project for a South Florida city. Our team performed a three-day DR assessment, and we designed, implemented, and strategized a comprehensive roadmap that will begin soon. City officials are thrilled with Thrive’s elegant technical solution that exceeded requirements while staying under budget!

Are you interested in learning more about Thrive? Click here!

And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn for the latest news, and continue checking our blog for more in our “Thrive Employee Spotlight” series. Until next time…

Today, security threats outnumber the resources available internally in most organizations to mitigate and manage them. While an array of security softwares exists to create layers of protection over various assets, attackers aim directly for the gaps in that mesh when trying to gain access to valuable data.

The notion is simple; organizations that lack sufficient data security are the most likely to be targeted and breached. Implementing intrusion detection systems (IDS) can increase awareness of the threats a business faces, but do the internal resources exist to quash that danger and prevent it from happening again?

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