“The Hostess W/ The Mostess!”

Okay, GAM Tech isn’t hosting a party or working at a restaurant of any kind but we are now hosting your businesses critical data and applications.

In the ideal world, all businesses would have unlimited funding and be able to get all of the equipment and resources that they need.

Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world!

The good news is that there are always options and we like to provide as many of them to our clients as possible. Our new tier 3 data centre is live and is guaranteed to provide 100% uptime and power and is another example of the wide variety of ways we can provide support for your business. This means that for a low monthly fee, your data and applications can be hosted securely on our servers and eliminate the possibility of any power bumps or other environmental issues that may currently affect your ability to do business.

As with all of our services, we provide the information you need to make informed decisions and this is simply another way to do that. We will still provide hardware and configure/maintain it for you without forcing you to move to our data centre but this allows some flexibility and peace of mind as well as helping to control your expenditures by eliminating upfront costs that come with hardware upgrades.

Whatever plan works best for your business can be provided and supported by GAM Tech and you can always trust our advice and ability to provide the highest quality support, the way you need it.

Connect IT Was A Hit!

The numbers are in and Connect IT was a big hit in Calgary!

GAM Tech wants to sincerely thank all of the people that made the event a success and especially our loyal clients (both existing and potential) and partners that took time to attend last Thursdays expo.

It was an opportunity to illustrate our experience and the connections that we have built within our industry as well as keeping you informed on what the new trends are in the industry by connecting you right to the manufacture themselves.

Feedback is always appreciated and we heard from both sides that the event was well done and great value was given to manufacturers and attendees alike. Let us know if you have any thoughts on what we can do to make next years’ event even better.

We look forward to all of the conversations that will continue between now and then!

No One Is Immune!

Now that I have your attention, I am not referring to an outbreak of any kind or giving you a reminder about flu shots!

What I am referring to is that similar to ransomware and other hacking threats, even big guys with large budgets are not immune to I.T. outages. The key is to have as much redundancy in place as possible (especially when dealing with critical applications) and a disaster recovery plan in place to act on when something like this does happen.

You can see in the following story: http://www.thompsoncitizen.net/westjet-says-it-issues-delayed-dozens-of-flights-1.23078054 that there are repercussions that can affect an organization and its clients and we need to be aware of this. Not all things can be predicted and not all budgets allow for absolute redundancy but we also can’t bury our heads in the sand and pretend that this couldn’t happen to you in your business. The fact that we share these stories is not meant as a scare tactic but simply to raise awareness that these things happen and we often think it’s not going to happen to us despite having no reason to justify the optimistic outlook.

If you aren’t sure where you stand, give us a call and we can schedule a free assessment to let you know.

Find Us Here!

GAM Tech is always looking for the best and brightest talent we can find. As a company that is involved in the I.T. industry, things are always changing and the need to stay relevant involves staying ahead of competition and knowing the trends that are altering the landscape of how business is done.

As our service isn’t vertical specific, we can’t simply be satisfied by finding a comfort zone with a product or product line and continue to only put those devices in our clients’ environment as we won’t be the only ones falling behind and we will put restrictions on what our clients’ can do as well if that is our approach.

We ourselves are constantly learning and training but we also know that with young talent comes a drive that we may need to be reminded that we once had. It injects energy into the office we work in and keeps us on our toes and helps us stay relevant in an industry where months can be like years in terms of the evolution of technology and it won’t take nearly as long as we think to fall behind in competitive business markets that we all face nowadays.

It is because of this knowledge that you can now find GAM Tech listed in the 2018 Career Directory which shows the best places to work for recent post-secondary graduates. Our environment is a great place to learn and put the knowledge gained in school to use in ways you never imagined while in the classroom.

Check our careers page or contact us directly as we are always looking for the right person whether you find a position posted or not.

Happy Friday The 13th!

We aren’t superstitious at GAM Tech so if your office is having I.T. issues today don’t look for the black cat, just pick up the phone!

Honoured By The Opportunity!

Politics aside, it’s very rare that a business person gets the opportunity to meet a former world leader but we had the chance to do just that yesterday and wanted to share that with you. As members of the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce, GAM Tech was a part of a wonderful event they put on called Opportunity South. It offered a “mix and mingle” trade show on Oct 3^rd which was very well attended and introduced members like us to people from all over the city. Then on Oct. 4^th we had the good fortune to sit through many feature speakers as well as fellow chamber members that had informative breakout sessions throughout the day.  This event was capped off by a speech from the 22^nd Prime Minister of Canada, Mr. Stephen Harper himself and then we had the opportunity to take part in a private dinner and were able to meet, speak and obviously, be photographed with Mr. Harper.

Not quite an average Wednesday night!

Knowing May Be More Than Half The Battle!

Digital security breaches are a fact of life nowadays. It’s time to come to terms with that and figure out a way to operate our businesses in such a way to LIMIT our exposure as its most likely not something that can be altogether eliminated.

I am not trying to have a “gloom and doom” attitude or come at you with a sales pitch telling you that we can prevent attacks from happening to you and your business altogether as that is most likely not the case.

What I am trying to get across is that pretending these breaches don’t happen or won’t happen to us needs to stop. The REAL issue that we have isn’t that attacks are happening since they are all but inevitable, it’s that we only find out after the fact.

There are many causes to delays in public notification about security breaches and data being compromised but what are we supposed to do about something when we find out about it ourselves weeks/months down the road?

Vulnerability exists in the digital world at all times and when we realize there are threats only after the fact and someone else suffering immense loss or exposure of critical info, what good does that do the rest of us?  How do we protect something that may have already been compromised?

There are methods of prevention that can be utilized to minimize risk and maximize security all without adding multiple layers of complexity to simple tasks and slowing down your day to day operation.

While there may be no 100% effective solution, the trick is to know about vulnerabilities as soon as possible and work to eliminate them before they cost you data, time & most importantly, money.

Being proactive instead of reactive is a concept that can be hard to adjust to. How do we fix an issue that doesn’t exist yet? The key is to stay current on security, not run antiquated soft/hardware, using enterprise grade products/programs and staying up to date on best practices when it comes to security (password changes on a regular basis, password complexities, etc.).

Just a couple very big examples of personal and critical data being breached over the last couple years which illustrate my point can be found here:

https://globalnews.ca/news/3755613/equifax-hack-social-insurance-number-safety-protection-privacy/

http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/15/technology/yahoo-security-breach-billion-users/index.html

http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/25/technology/deloitte-hack-cybersecurity-guardian/index.html?iid=ob_homepage_tech_pool

Happy 20th www.google.com!

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the www.google.com domain registration. While not the official release of Google I think we still need to take a moment to think about life before they came around and thank them for changing the way we connect and learn forever!

GAM Tech is very happy to be included in STEM Learning Lab’s September Issue of Education Today Digital Magazine.

One of our blogs was added to the magazine that embraces a growth mindset and believes that every child can and should be literate in the domains of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

Given their belief that “every child deserves a well-rounded, connected, and meaningful learning experience, our mission is to promote opportunities for all children to engage in high quality, inquiry-based STEM activities both inside, and outside, their classrooms” we felt like it was a great opportunity to put our name on something that will help future generations embrace technology even further and we look forward to working with STEM Learning Labs and being included in the magazine again in the future.

Check us out on page 32 at the following link: http://stemlearninglab.com/stem-education-today-magazine/

GAM Tech is using its strategic partnerships to show you what we do and some of the great technology that we work with and implement in businesses throughout Canada. Connect IT is a showcase that connects you to vendors and industry leaders to enhance your awareness in relation to where IT is headed and what we can do for your business by utilizing the latest technology paired with our expertise and knowledge of infrastructure.

Register for the event using the following link http://connect-itshow.ca/register_eng.asp and drop by our table to say hello. Show up early as the first 20 people to come to the event and check in will receive a $50 gift card and you can also stick around for a bit and you may win some very cool prizes as part of the raffle draws that take place at the end of the event.

See you October 26^th at the Hotel Arts in downtown Calgary!