NITS making technology convenient

In the spirit of encouraging and promoting our ICT players, across small, medium and large enterprises via Press review, we had plethora of ICT Africa exhibitors who are heeding calls to system security and quality service delivery.

New ways to ambush the clientele base and untiring innovation is the formulae to say on top in this dynamic and volatile industry.
Our attention was caught by National IT Services (NITS), an exhibitor showcasing its prowess in end user connectivity and support.
I can vividly remember the suaveness portrayed by one of the staffers manning their stand, while nailing down some facts to the patrons on their stand, it dawned on me that we are definitely stepping into new era.
NITS were part of this year’s ICT Africa exhibition where they proved to be indispensable and their relevance to the growth and contribution of ICTs in Zimbabwe could not be understated.

National IT Service is a Harare-based technological company offering, networking, workstation and server solutions. NITS is a Cisco and HP-certified partner, authorised to sell and distribute tried and tested genuine products.
Nowadays, counterfeiting products are difficult to detect especially when you are not an expert in the sector, even worse with the intermission of Dubai imports, detection has never been this challenging.

Mr Jasper Mangwana, a marketing executive with NITS confirmed that the only sure way is to buy from the authorised dealers and partners.
From their ICT stand there were showcasing their networking products comprised of both wired and wireless LAN (Local area Network) equipment of routes, switches and state of the art servers. These are the gadgets that complement the networking backbone structure.

While our service providers do their part to ensure security the other real threat most network administrators tend to turn a blind eye to is their own internal network security. We are meant to believe that our outside networks and the internet pose unprecedented risks yet the real bad guys could be the same people we share same table with, the Judas, our own employees and internal stuff.
These are the guys who know just a little bit to cause too much network havoc.

Most small to medium companies cannot afford the costs of running an independent IT department hence outsourcing is the only convenient option for a smooth operation. NITS is strategically filling up this gap by evaluating network security and recommending security implementations for organisations. Because security and connectivity matters, NITS is doing a tremendous job in filling up this gap so that our networks and systems remain flawless.

Of interest is the way they offer security and network penetration evaluation using Network Intrusion Prevention Services (NIPS) and Host-Based Intrusion Prevention Services (HIPS).
It is time we really move from the traditional firewall setup to take care of our important network security issues, because network attackers are changing the way they attack, a more introspective approach has to be taken to ensure that both our inside and outside network systems are fully secured.

NIPS and HIPS are the solution to boost internal security issues. These are dedicated routes and servers that monitor and control user behaviour on the network. They log periodic events for reviews and report any unusual operation keeping the administrator abreast of all activities.

Anomalies such as network congestion, bandwidths chew up or denial of services can be easily noticed and captured by these detection systems.
A disgruntled employee can and has access to easily launch what is commonly called a man in the middle attack.

This is when a user can introduce a rogue device like a router to take over control of internal traffic as at when he wants. Because our internal workers have physical access to the networking structure more security strategies have to be implemented.
Mr Mangwana said slowly but surely organisations are appreciating the need to keep our networks flawless and secured, “previously these implementations were not taken seriously, but with current rampant cyber

attacks, security is improving. We are also offering real network audit to check on bandwidth issues and the actual speed being offered by ISPs to our clients.”
VOIP, Voice over Internet protocol is among other technological systems they are installing.
When VOIP technology was introduced I was so sure our traditional PABX phone systems would pack up, but amazingly they have endured this long.

VOIP is the cheapest and convenient way to make phone calls across your local or wide area network saving hundred thousands of dollars annually.