Transportation Digitalization

Transportation, not just in the U.S., but around the globe, is undergoing a digital transformation thanks to a handful of companies using new technologies to create value for customers and carriers alike. The result is that transportation companies will be able to do things tomorrow that they can’t even do today—and movers and shakers from the transportation industry agree that it’s happening faster than anyone imagined.

Since the transportation and logistics business is one of the world’s fastest-growing industries, it must adapt more than ever from long-standing practices to meet the difficulties of international trade. By 2026, it is expected that the worldwide logistics industry to be worth $16.445 billion.

What is digitalization in transportation?

Transportation digitalization is a broader term that refers to the use of electronic means, such as computers and smart devices, to facilitate the collection and exchange of data in the transportation sector. Digitalization in transportation is helping to improve the efficiency and safety of transit systems and private vehicle fleets by providing real-time updates, enhancing customer experience, and increasing transparency.

The role of digitalization in transportation technology has become more apparent as mobile devices have proliferated among consumers. In automobile fleets, for example, digitalization allows for remote monitoring, so businesses can inspect vehicles remotely rather than checking each vehicle manually. Digitalization enables transportation companies to improve processes by increasing visibility into supply chains and allowing companies to identify areas that need improvement.

Digitalization has allowed for increased operational efficiency through automation and improved routing of shipments. This has been achieved through machine learning forecasting techniques and algorithms used to predict where demand will be highest based on historical data. With this insight, companies can plan more effectively.

How transportation and logistics services are benefiting from digitalization

While physical delivery is required for transportation services, digitalization is revolutionizing the sector throughout the transportation supply chain  in many ways.

The Internet of Things, AI, new energy, and Big Data drive this transformation. Everyone in the industry has a shared vision: to provide safe, reliable, and efficient services to customers. Consequently, the digitalization of the transportation industry is a necessary step in achieving this goal. Here are some of the most important benefits of Transport Digitization.

• Vehicle/ship design
• Infrastructure: rail, ports, roads, bridges, tunnels, and terminals
• Transportation operations (e.g., capacity allocation, cargo management, shipment tracking and tracking, customer service, and so on).
• Supporting services: monitoring, warehousing, and inspection
• Transport equipment maintenance and repair
• Information and document transmission among multi-players (shippers, shipping lines, port authorities, Customs, terminal operators, and so on).

Characteristics of digital trends

• Improved, excellent connectivity; Smooth operations
• Higher levels of automation; reduced margin of error
• Internet of Things, cloud computing, big data analytics, automation and robotics, and artificial intelligence are the most common digital technologies and solutions.
• Digital platforms have evolved into a new business model that enables innovative transportation services, more effective service delivery, and more service credibility.
• Both corporations and authorities are adopting a data-driven strategy.
• Digital synergies between transportation/logistics services and other service sectors: The digital transformation of transportation and logistics services relies on the support of other services, but it also accelerates the advancements of those services, such as telecom, CRS, construction and engineering, energy, environment, and other business services.
• Transport Digitalization can improve profits and customer satisfaction.

The industry itself is vast and highly diversified, with countless sub-sectors and modes of transportation. However, three major internal forces drive the transformation: improving customer experience, increasing business agility, and increasing operational efficiency.

Freight Transportation Digitalization in Different Forms

Digitalization and the future of transportation!

The transportation industry has grown significantly over the decades and is an important area for improvement. Technology plays a huge role in keeping the industry moving forward to meet growing demands. This is why the digitalization of this sector is so important. As efficient as it already is, the industry can become even more effective with technology. It’s exciting to see what future innovations hold for the transportation industry.

In addition to the benefits, digital transformation also creates a new business model. It allows organizations to build more efficient transportation processes. As a result, the company can improve its profitability by increasing efficiency and reducing costs. The digitalization of the transportation industry is a critical trend shaping the industry’s future. For example, the integration of new technologies has boosted efficiency. A digitalized transport infrastructure will be more responsive to its customers and more affordable to them.

A digitally-driven business is a win-win situation. Its implementation will ensure the future of transport. Not only will it create new opportunities for companies but it will make the transportation industry more competitive moving forward.

To wrap things up

It’s become clear that transportation companies should be looking to digitalize their business practices – whether they operate across thousands of miles or within their neighborhood. The only questions are which direction you choose to go in and how your decision will affect your business for years to come. These are fundamental questions, and you owe it to yourself to give them due consideration before making your decision.

Short term, you can use technology to your advantage, But in the long term, your only choice is to embrace technology. If you haven’t already started to implement digitalization, now is the time to strike and go digital with one of the leading transportation services providers such as TMS Digital.

TMS Digital suite of logistic software includes Dispatch, Tickets, IFTA Manager, Equipment Maintenance, a Drive Safety package, and more! Imaging, EDI options, and email triggers help keep you paperless. With our 3^rd party APIs and interfaces, Mobile applications, and remote access to the cloud, we can help you bring your business into the future! In addition, we would be remiss if we did not tell you about our highly configurable and customizable options.  Contact us today to learn more!

Remote work is here for the long term

As companies consider making remote work or flexplace cultures permanent, some are worried about the long-term damage to employees and employers. A recent report from KPMG found that long-term remote working hampers the progress made in diversity and inclusion efforts and hurts team-building and the cross-pollination of ideas that occur with in-person interaction.

“Change is the only constant,” said Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher. Even he would be surprised if he were able to look at how we work together remotely and distance no longer plays a role. Much has recently changed in the IT industry and will continue to change faster.

Would continuing to work remotely cause the growth of intercultural and business skills at a slower pace? Many multinational corporations seem to think so. At Protected Harbor, we see it as another opportunity for more technological innovations and using existing software in innovative ways. Remote work post-Covid is the new normal. We need to find the silver lining

Protected Harbor’s Take

As times change, organizations need to adapt and restructure their office culture. Choose what works best for both the company and the employees.

“Remote work allows flexibility and better productivity. Employees can choose where to work from and can focus for longer periods.”                               – Richard Luna, CEO

One of the most significant advantages of remote work is a vast talent pool since the employer has no geographical limitations. Companies that allow remote work save lots of time, energy, and money as less office space and resources are needed. Also, our carbon footprints can be reduced.

With remote work, employees can have a more flexible schedule. Office distractions are eliminated, and productivity can be dramatically increased. It may help in extending the company’s operational hours. We also save commuting time and costs.

After the pandemic, employees expect their employers to allow remote work, especially if their physical presence is not needed.

The challenges in creating an actual remote work environment

A recent survey by Deloitte Tax LLP concluded. Remote work is a new reality. Perhaps, here to stay for the likely future- although in diverse degrees.

The report anticipated a pronounced shift, around 50%- 75% of employees working remotely in the future. Creating a proper remote work environment is far more complex than it seems due to several challenges.

According to the report, the greatest fear for employers is safety and security. They are further adding sustainability as a question to the model. Psychological safety is a challenge as some employees may feel isolated and overlooked. Security relies heavily on the infrastructure in use with the team at work.

The remote work is sustainable if we overcome the limitations. Team building and leadership is the first challenge. Since everyone in the team is spread across multiple locations, the reliance on technology poses a challenge. Taking the help of a specialized remote work technology service provider is a solution.

While reconnecting the workforce with a shared vision and purpose is also essential.
After the Covid-19 crisis has passed, managers may have to look for ways to re-establish trust among remote groups on a longer-term basis. Because now it’s more challenging to understand employee actions and motivations in a remote work setting. Establishing competency and interpersonal trust can be difficult.

Setting the remote work environment

Since you’re reading this column, you may even be considering remote work for your company’s staff or perhaps yourself. With Protected Harbor’s Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), you can set up your complete IT infrastructure. RDP is safer for company data, especially when employees are working remotely. With Remote Desktop, all of the data in and out is encrypted – no possibility of the company data being stolen. But if a laptop is stolen, regardless of how secure the computer is, the data will be stolen a high possibility.

A remote worker using a Remote desktop gets technical problems solved faster because a technician can respond quicker. When the employees work on RDP, the application runs on the server, not on the local machine, meaning the local machine can be a less expensive one. Thus saving significant unneeded expenses.

Click here to learn more about adopting the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) for your business.

“Success in a hybrid work environment requires employers to move beyond viewing remote or hybrid environments as a temporary or short-term strategy and to treat it as an opportunity.” George Penn, VP at Gartner.

AWS global outage; disrupts services and aftermath

Facebook, Alexa, Reddit, Netflix, and more apps were affected by the AWS outage.

If you faced problems logging in to Amazon.com for shopping ahead of Christmas, you’re not alone. On Tuesday, December 7, large parts of the internet and apps reported disrupted services based on the AWS platform. Netflix, Alexa, Disney+, Reddit, and IMDB are some of the services reported downtime.

UPDATE: 19:35 EST/16:35 PST, The official Amazon Web Services dashboard published the following affirmation. ” With the network device problems resolved, we are now operating towards the recovery of any impaired services. We will roll out additional updates for impaired services within the connected entry in the Service Health Dashboard.

AWS down

Users began reporting issues around 10:45 AM ET on Tuesday about the outage and took to Twitter and other social media platforms to discuss. More than 24,000 people reported cases with Amazon, which included Prime Video and other services, on DownDetector.com. The website collects outage reports from multiple sources, including user-submitted errors.

3 hours later we have a detailed message with the important information like the real affected services. #awsDown pic.twitter.com/t3ooQohWn1

— José Antonio Ruiz (@joseant_ruiz) December 7, 2021

The AWS global outage recovery problems came from the US-EAST-1 AWS region in Virginia, so users elsewhere may not have noticed as many issues, and even if you were affected, you might have seen a slightly slower loading time while the network redirected your requests.

Peter DeSantis, AWS’ vice president of infrastructure, led a 600-person internal call about the then-ongoing outage. Some said it was likely an internal issue, and others pointed to more nefarious possibilities.
“We have mitigated the underlying issues that caused network devices in the US-EAST-1 Region to be impaired,” AWS said on its status page.

What caused the outage?

Engineers at Amazon Web Services (AWS), the enormous cloud computing provider in the US, are still unsure of AWS global outage causes on December 7. AWS does not list any issues on the status page currently. Previous outages have also not been reflected on the status page or even brought down the site entirely, so it is not unusual.
There is, however, a 500 Server error on the specific page for the us-east-1 AWS Management Console Home, instead of information about the Northern Virginia region.

A 500 server internal error means their server is trying to show the requested web page (the technical answer is delivered rather than the web page). But it can’t show the webpage because something within the server failed – for example, the storage failed, so the file is unavailable.

“Possible causes are internal routing problems within Amazon, a defective Amazon-wide update, an Amazon-wide misconfiguration. A defective API (application programming interface) or network device issue might also be a cause of the amazon console down,” said Richard Luna, CEO, Protected Harbor.

Amazon global outage comes just a few months after Meta Platforms, Inc. (FB) went offline due to network problems, affecting some of its most popular apps, including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger.
The research firm Gartner Inc. estimates that major cloud platforms suffer significant outages once per quarter per year. Many people felt the AWS service disruption; however, since AWS controls about 90% of the cloud infrastructure market and many people continue to work and study from home during the pandemic, the outage was widely felt. Gartner vice president Sid Nag told The Wall Street Journal that these guys have become almost too big to fail. Our day-to-day lives rely heavily on cloud computing services.

Hasn’t This Happened Before?

Yes, AWS downtime is not a new occurrence. The last major AWS global outage happened in November 2020. Numerous other disruptive and lengthy cloud service interruptions have involved various providers. In June, the behind-the-scenes content distributor Fastly experienced a failure that briefly took down dozens of major internet sites, including CNN, The New York Times, and Britain’s government home page. Another cloud service interruption that month affected provider Akamai during peak business hours in Asia.

In the October outage, Facebook — now known as Meta Platforms — blamed a “faulty configuration change” for an hours-long worldwide AWS downtime that took down Instagram and WhatsApp in addition to its titular platform.

Credible solutions

On Tuesday, the world received a reminder of just how much we rely on Amazon Web Services and AWS global outage recovery. A simple outage for a brief period disrupted the operations and services of millions of people. Amazon is in the monopoly and would never partner with another provider. So the simplest solution is to opt for a service provider who puts customers first.

Amazon, as big it is, is still just one location and provides a single server location to the clients. At its core, it is one batch of servers. Protected Harbor solves this problem by spreading the customers across multiple server locations, preventing a site-wide misconfiguration. We protect our clients by using various services; we expect one service to fail- that gives us time to resolve and repair the situation quickly.

We differentiate from other providers by being proactive and planning for failures like this. We do it all the time- partner with other providers to deliver unmatched services to the customers because their satisfaction comes first.

Key Takeaways:

• An hours-long AWS outage crippled popular websites and disrupted smart devices, as well as creating delivery delays at Amazon warehouses.
• Companies like Facebook, Netflix, Reddit, IMDB, Disney+, and more were affected by the outage.
• Amazon stated that it “identified the root cause” but yet to reveal what precisely the root cause was?
• AWS controls almost 90% of the cloud services market, and the outages are not uncommon.
• Now is the time to choose the provider which satisfies you and your business needs.

Go complete risk-free

Protected Harbor is the underdog player in the market that exceeds the customer’s expectations. With its Datacenter and Managed IT services, it has stood the test of customers, and “Beyond expectations” is quoted by all customers. Best in segment cloud services with optimum IT support, safety, and security, it’s a no-brainer why organizations choose to stay with us. This way to the crème de la crème.

Facebook Down Globally: A Case of the Mondays for Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp as they go dark midday Monday

Some of the biggest social media sites on the planet, including Facebook, went down globally starting at noon EDT and are still not up in some regions. That’s right, no Instagram #motivationmondays or “Ugh, is it Friday Yet?” Facebook posts from your first semester freshman year college roommate. As the sky was falling for millennials (myself included) and your favorite newly-political aunt, the teams at Facebook were scrambling to keep their sites (including Instagram and WhatsApp, of which both are Facebook-owned) operating.

Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schoepfer took to Twitter to address the situation:

“*Sincere* apologies to everyone impacted by outages of Facebook-powered services right now. We are experiencing networking issues and teams are working as fast as possible to debug and restore as fast as possible”

Facebook outages of this magnitude are rare, to have Facebook down globally for this amount of time is something that hasn’t happened in years. To put in perspective just how impactful the Facebook outage is, the term “Facebook down” was Googled more than 5,000,000 times today alone.
The cause of the outage is speculated to be tied to a recently aired “60 Minutes” segment where whistleblower and former Product Manager at Facebook, Frances Haugen claimed that Facebook knows the platform is used to spread hate and that they have tried hiding evidence of it, of course, Facebook denies this claim.

“The interview followed weeks of reporting about and criticism of Facebook after Haugen released thousands of pages of internal documents to regulators and the Wall Street Journal. Haugen is set to testify before a Senate subcommittee on Tuesday.” According to CNN

Jake Williams, CTO of cybersecurity firm BreachQuest mentioned to the Associated Press that this was an “operational issue” caused by human error.

Regardless of the reasoning, I’m sure this will be an issue that will be discussed for quite some time in the technology space as the outage was global and not regional. Facebook shares opened at $335.50 and closed at $326.32, a drop of 4.89%.

Nonetheless, as I’m sure many were beside themselves that they couldn’t post a nice “Los Angeles” filtered photo of their lunch on Instagram to show their followers, we can only hope, for Facebook’s sake, they can have it fixed by the time we want to show off our dinner.

It has been confirmed that per a Facebook blog that the outage was due to a botched configuration change. Facebook posted the following:

“Our engineering teams have learned that configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between our data centers caused issues that interrupted this communication. This disruption to network traffic had a cascading effect on the way our data centers communicate, bringing our services to a halt.”

Information about the depth of the outage continues to grow, it’s reported that Facebook’s internal chat was also down limiting communications within the company, it even went so far as the employee’s keycards began to fail which made them unable to enter certain buildings.

The Krebs on Security blog explains the problem as follows:

“…sometime this morning Facebook took away the map telling the world’s computers how to find its various online properties. As a result, when one types Facebook.com into a web browser, the browser has no idea where to find Facebook.com, and so returns an error page.”

The Facebook campus was only the beginning, due to the sites interconnectivity it stretched to sites that were utilizing Facebook’s authentication process as well, these effects resonated across the board, from those who rely on Facebook/WhatsApp for primary communication purposes, to small businesses unable to get in touch with their customer base, and even the large number of folks in countries where Facebook is their internet.

We will continue to update as information becomes available.

Protected Harbor’s New PBX Phone System

Protected Harbor is proud to introduce a state of the art phone system 3CX.  It is available to all our current clients and anyone in the market looking to upgrade their current set up.  Protected Harbor partnered with 3CX, and provides system configuration and support.

The benefits of this new phone system are plentiful, starting with the end-user being in complete control.  This PBX can be installed on-premise and virtualized on a Linux or Windows platform.   It is easily set up via iOS and Android apps for remote work via QR code.  Staff can easily be added, and voicemail can be set up in minutes.  The user management is simple and easy which will save countless hours of work.

The biggest benefit perhaps, of our system is that it has a softphone so you can make and receive business calls from your PC, tablet or smartphone.  There is no need to be tied to a hard physical phone in your office.  It’s perfect for businesses that have employees working from home during COVID-19.

Moreover, many of the phone features that other vendors classify as add-ons, such as video conferencing, iOS and Android mobile apps or call center features, are included with Protected Harbor’s PBX. So, there are no hidden costs for the features you need.

Switching to this configuration makes complete sense when you compare pricing to that of other PBX vendors such as 8×8 and Avaya. Our system provides a complete unified communications solution that is easy to manage, flexible and affordable. Whether you are a small business or a large enterprise, you can save thousands and avoid all the hassle of purchasing additional extensions and add-ons as your business grows.

Think less about maintaining your PBX, and more about your business – call or email us today to find out more about Protected Harbor’s new phone system! www.protectedharbor.com

Disadvantages of AWS, Azure, and Other Big Brand Hosting

When it comes to hosting for a business, you don’t want to use just anyone. There are many critical factors to consider including security, stability, uptime, scalability, and more. Because of this, many businesses gravitate towards big, established brands for hosting and management such as Amazon’s AWS or Microsoft’s Azure.

Companies like these can likely provide well beyond your technical needs. That’s not to say they’re all the exact same. Azure caters to Microsoft products, allowing large companies to move their Windows-based infrastructure online more easily. Meanwhile, AWS boasts their general flexibility and universal capabilities.

Each brand has its unique strengths. When it comes to weaknesses, however, there are some overlapping issues that basically any large-scale hosting company deals with.

Overwhelming Options

Right from the start, many businesses are overwhelmed with the variety of packages and services offered by large hosting companies. AWS, for example, greets you with an entire library of services and products to choose from. Simply trying to find basic website hosting proves to be difficult and confusing.

Unclear Pricing Structures

Equally confusing are the pricing structures. Many companies try to sign you up on free trials or temporary discount pricing, only for you to discover the true inflated price months down the road.

These companies also tend to work off a pay-per-use model. In other words, the more data you process and store, the more your hosting costs. While it sounds nice in theory, as you only pay for what you use, it can make it very difficult to predict your monthly costs as prices fluctuate.

It also leaves you severely exposed to DDoS attacks.

DDoS attacks infect a large number of devices with malware and then use them to unleash a coordinated flood of traffic on an unsuspecting network. In addition to slowing down and (likely) crashing your systems, it results in a massage spike of data use.

The average size of a DDoS attack is 2.5 gigabits per second. If you’re being charged per data used, you’ll be left with a very large hosting bill following a DDoS attack.

Advanced Knowledge

Once you’ve figured out what your business needs, the real difficultly begins. Within any given service, there are countless add-ons, tools, settings, and more. While this provides a lot of flexibility and customization, it requires a lot of work and understanding. The deeper your needs go, the deeper your understanding needs to be.

Each platform is different, which means you either need to hire someone who is experienced on a particular platform, or you’ll need to invest in training a current employee. The question is, do you want someone learning a new platform as they’re managing your IT needs?

Support Problems

Platforms like AWS and Azure do offer their own technical support, should you require it. In fact, they often provide a certain amount of free support when you sign up. However, those hours can quickly be eaten up during the onboarding. After that, you’ll pay for support.

Things can get very expensive very quickly.

A better solution is generally to find a third party to help manage and maintain your hosting needs. This can provide more affordable support, but it also adds complexity to your hosting management and expenses.

A Simpler, Yet Powerful Hosting Solution

At Expedient Technology Services, we provide straightforward, yet diverse hosting solutions for businesses of all sizes. Whether you’re a start-up or an enterprise, we have the capabilities to meet your specific needs.

We operate under flat rate costs, so you know exactly what you’ll pay every month. We can even bundle in support hours so that you get professional assistance when you need it. As your company grows, we can easily scale our services with you.

While our initial costs may seem higher, they’re generally cheaper in the long run. Best of all, they’re much less stressful to understand and manage. After all, ETS exists to provide Stress-Free IT. For hosting, computer services, and technical support in Dayton, Ohio, and beyond, contact ETS today.

What Does Downtime Cost the Average Business?

How did Twitter get hacked?

On July 15^th many Twitter accounts were compromised.  How did this happen to a company like Twitter?

‘This was the worst social media hack ever happened in history’

The security involvement of the hack are also wide-reaching, not just for Twitter but for other social platforms.

Early suggestions are the hackers managed to access administration privileges, which allowed them to bypass the passwords of any account they wanted.

Twitter appeared to confirm this in a tweet saying: “We detected what we believe to be a co-ordinated social-engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools.”

As we generate more content online we are creating a larger digital footprint.  These attackers simply contacted Twitter and asked for the names of key personal, the head of the customer service, their CIO, etc.  Once the attackers knew the identity of key individuals they then researched their web pages, Facebook links, LinkedIn profiles, etc.

The attackers were able to gain enough information from those pages to be able to correctly answer Twitter’s support questions and gain access to those accounts.

Once the attackers had access to an Admin account they could reset end-user accounts and then login as those users.  It was that easy.

Some questions that should be asked; What would have helped prevent this disaster?  Is your system(s) vulnerable to a similar attack?   How can your system(s) be protected?

2FA or Two Factor Authentication would have stopped this attack.  With 2FA the mobile device is registered to the account and the login is not possible until a code on the mobile device is entered.

At Protected Harbor we support 2FA for all systems, allowing our customers to be safe, secure, and protected, as in Protected Harbor.