Internet Consulting
The Internet has transitioned from 'neat conversation piece' to a required commodity similar
to the telephone. Catalyst Solutions has been involved with the
Internet from the beginning
and has more experience than any other organization in the region. Catalyst can help you
determine the most efficient means of connecting to the
Internet, keep you protected and help
you use the Internet to make your organization more effective. Select one of the following areas
to get more information on how Catalyst can help your organization:
Internet Connectivity
 The foundation for a successful
Internet project begins with a sound, effective
Internet infrastructure. What the
Internet infrastructure looks like and how it is implemented should be based on the organization's objectives. From the beginning, understanding how the
Internet worked helped in making wise decisions with respect to vendors and products. Today, with more companies and technologies to choose from, it is even more important to understand
Internet connectivity and separate the sales pitch from the reality. The
Internet is being delivered over a variety of mediums (transports) including dial-up, leased line, frame relay, cable, DSL (digital subscriber line), ISDN and wireless technologies.
Internet services are being hosted on Unix, Microsoft and other systems. Turnkey applications can be purchased and implemented and shareware/freeware software can be found and installed. There are many decisions to be made:
- What kind of access to the
Internet does the organization need (fast, slow, reliable, cheap)?
- What services will the organization provide (Domain Name Service, telnet, e-mail, web site, database integration, etc.)
- What kind of access do clients need to those services (fast, slow, 24 hours/day, reliable, cheap)?
- Should the services be hosted on-site, or should they be outsourced?
John Pritchard of Catalyst has been involved with Wide-Area Networking, and specifically the
Internet since the mid-1980s. He was a founding board member of IREN (Iowa Research and Education Network) which helped several colleges establish connections to the
Internet. Catalyst has had the opportunity to work with local and national providers. John was involved in most of the
Internet connections in the Siouxland area through the
1990s including being the developer of SiouxLAN.com and the primary consultant during the development of Pioneer Internet, the area's largest ISP.
Internet Security
The tremendous growth of the
Internet in the early and mid-1990s was spurred by simplicity and openness.
As the Internet became more popular, people took advantage of the openness to capture private information
or use someone else's resources. Catalyst provides expertise and products to help guard against these
"hackers" through security analysis, detection and prevention. The following areas summarize
a sound security strategy:
Security Auditing and Vulnerability Testing
One of the toughest
questions to answer
as a consultant is
how much security is
the right amount of
security. The answer
requires a
combination of
understanding of the
client's data, resources
and the underlying
technology available. Catalyst Solutions
has more experience in the Siouxland area than anyone regarding Internet Security,
Auditing and Vulnerability Testing.
Catalyst utilizes a testing service that will run more than 1500 tests to identify any
possible leaks (see sample report) and packet sniffing and analysis software to detect
network issues. Auditing services can be as simple and inexpensive
as running a vulnerability report up to a complete security study.
Firewalls
Catalyst has worked with a wide variety of firewalls and has concentrated on three product lines:
- SonicWall
-
Fortinet
- BorderWare
- Microsoft ISA Server
- Other firewalls including CheckPoint, SnapGear, Netscreen, Linux IPTables and CISCO
SonicWall has several levels of easy to use, cost effective firewall appliances.
Their SOHO product line is a great fit for smaller locations (home, small offices
or branch offices) and firewall-to-firewall Virtual Private Network applications.
The SonicWall Pro line provides large organizations with a secure connection to the
Internet for less than $3,000, including VPN capability.
Fortinet...
Borderware is a market veteran that provides a secure "Internet Server",
including e-mail, domain name service (DNS), web serving as well as an ISCA-certified
firewall solution. For those who value company technical support, Borderware's is
second to none.
Microsoft has significantly improved their role in the security arena with the
introduction of the Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA).
In addition to the speed enhancing 'caching' of web pages, ISA server is now a
stateful inspection firewall that is competetively priced for larger installations.
A significant advantage of the Microsoft product is its ability to restrict access
through NT 4.0 (SAM) and Active Directory user and group assignments.
Catalyst Solutions has experience in the installation, configuration
and maintenance of other firewalls such as CheckPoint, SnapGear, IPTables/IPChains (Linux),
Netscreen and Cisco IOS and PIX. This wide variety of experience is especially useful
when implementing and debugging VPNs (virtual private networks) between vendors.
Secure Web and e-mail (SSL)
Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology is an industry standard for authentication
and encryption between clients and servers. It is best known for enabling security
between web browsers and web servers for securing the transfer of information from
the client to the server through a web 'form'. SSL can be used for other TCP/IP
applications such as telnet and e-mail. SSL is a requirement for e-commerce
applications. To implement SSL as a secure connection, the application running on
the server must be SSL capable and have a 'Secure Certificate' and you must ensure
that the people using that service have SSL capable clients. In the case of secure
web pages, most standard web browsers support SSL. Enabling the server can sometimes
pose a challenge. Catalyst Solutions has experience enabling Unix and Microsoft-based
servers running Apache, Netscape Server and Microsoft Internet Information Server for
Secure Socket Layers. Catalyst has purchased and installed many personal (e-mail) and web
certificates from Verisign and has experience with the intricacies of the process
E-mail Security (SPAM and Virus Protection)
Internet users can sometimes be lulled into the understanding that if they have a firewall
that they are protected from viruses. Not very many firewalls capture, analyze, and
filter e-mail before passing it onto the organizations e-mail server.
E-mail security
must be addressed separately. Some e-mail servers (like Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Notes)
and some e-mail clients (Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Netscape Mail) will include
add-ons or features that do SPAM and virus detection. With the increase in SPAM and viruses
new services and products have been developed such as PostINI and Borderware's MXtreme that
capture the e-mail, check it out, and forward it on if all is OK. Catalyst Solutions
has experience at all levels of the e-mail process, we are in a good position to identify,
implement and troubleshoot e-mail security issues.
Virus
Prevention
Add description here.
Web Sites, Web Applications and e-Commerce
 Web sites are 'neat', but
Internet applications are productive and profitable. You have most likely experienced a program that helps you perform a function of your business more efficiently or effectively. Internet applications extend those benefits beyond the boundaries of the office to provide you, your staff and your clients more accessibility. Catalyst has experience with Microsoft and Unix-based
Internet application development using HTML, Active Server Pages, JavaScript, Java, Java Servlets, Java Server Pages, Perl, PHP,
ASP and CGI programs to provide clients with the best
Internet fit for their application. Catalyst has also worked with complete
Internet development environments such as Microsoft InterDev, IBM WebSphere, MIVA Script and PROGRESS WebSpeed.
Processing financial information of the
Internet is becoming more cost effective every day. Commerce over the
Internet requires application software that can securely capture and send information to an Internet Payment Processor that will in turn work with the Financial Networks and Account Providers to formalize the transfer of funds. Catalyst has worked with shopping cart software such as Internshop, ShopSite and MIVA Merchant;
Internet payment processors such as Verisign Payment Services, CheckFree, CyberCash and Payment.Net; and a variety of banks and financial institutions peddling
Internet merchant accounts. The number of options and the range of costs can be overwhelming. Catalyst has experience analyzing your application and translating it into a solution that can be understood, both from an application and a financial/profitability standpoint.
Search Engine Placement
Getting 'hits'
on a search engine site is a difficult and
time consuming task. Catalyst Solutions recommends the Web Position Gold program as a tool
to reduce the effort required to move your page up in the search engines. Web Position Gold
will identify where in the search engines your page shows up, help modify the pages for better
placement and will even aid the effort to submit the pages to the search engines. Catalyst
can perform this work for you or we can provide access to the Web Position Gold software and
training so that you can perform those duties on your own.
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