IT service

A domain - not to be confused with 'domain' - is used in the IT sector when dealing with a closed (company) network. In most cases, this is a 'Windows domain', which is of course also based on this operating system. The system administrator assigns the access data and also monitors the entry of a new 'client'...

We all use the standard MIME format (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) for e-mail traffic worldwide. This allows us, for example, to use special German characters outside the ASCII format (ß, ä, ü etc.). However, standardization is always susceptible to attack - which hackers try to exploit for their own purposes. To avoid this danger, the S/MIME format was...

The new European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was not on the radar of many companies and internet users for too long. The first draft dates back to 2012, the new paragraphs were adopted in April 2016 and the GDPR will now come into force on May 25, 2018. A lot of time has passed since then. The aim of the regulation is to harmonize data protection across Europe...

EcoStep was developed together with companies and is an offer to all small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with up to 250 employees that want to optimize their operational processes and take environmental and occupational health and safety aspects into account. EcoStep 5.1 is a practice-oriented alternative to the conventional ISO standards. It uses the...

The method of extorting a 'ransom' by blocking the computer has increased considerably in recent years. The user of a computer then only sees the attackers' 'ransom note' on the monitor. The particularly perfidious thing about this is that if the victim agrees to the demand, their computer usually remains blocked anyway. So you can only...

Data loss There are many causes of data loss: hardware defects, software failures, inadequate backups, cyber attacks, fire or water damage. Accidental deletion of the contents of a hard disk can also occur. Data loss can threaten a company's existence due to production downtime and damage to its image. Blackmail "Pay 30 Bitcoin,...

Not every workstation needs a fully equipped PC with all the technical refinements. A 'thin client' is a desktop computer that has no moving parts at all, i.e. no hard disk, DVD drive etc.. Instead, it uses resources from the connected data center, which saves a considerable amount of energy. Any processing of data...

Good ideas are like children: they are born small and grow up over the years. In our case too, it started out as a mere seed, which then - as in a supersaturated solution - grew into a large crystal of consequences. The progress simply began with pent-up anger about excessive electricity bills for the company's own data center. As a result...

A service is any support that is not based on an exchange of goods or merchandise. The user does not buy 'tangible things' from service providers, but primarily expertise and experience. Such services are therefore essentially 'immaterial', even if concepts or carrier media are handed over at the end. The classic services...

The Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) has long been the encryption protocol for secure data transmission on the internet. However, the cryptological lead is only ever razor-thin and hackers are always hot on the heels of security experts. Which is why the old SSL protocol has now been replaced by Transport Layer Security (TLS). However, the principle remains the same: if a client...

The term sustainability originates from 19th century forestry: a forest should always be managed in such a way that, firstly, the biotope remains healthy and undiminished and, secondly, the timber yield does not decrease over the generations. Sustainability therefore describes a method of management. Subsequently, this principle was applied to other branches of...

Transport Layer Security (TLS) has replaced the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), while retaining many of its functions. TLS is an attempt to create a high-security wing for transmitted data on the internet. Five protocols are intended to guarantee security and data integrity on the Internet. In the case of TLS, too, improved versions follow in closer...

The entire life cycle of data centers was taken into account by the "TEMPRO" project Using energy and raw materials in data centers more efficiently - this is the goal of the "Total Energy Management for Professional Data Centers" (TEMPRO) project, which was successfully launched in October 2019.

The Sender Policy Framework (SPF) was created to combat unauthorized tampering with IP addresses on mail servers. Essentially, the administrator of a domain stores the IP addresses of all authorized senders ('Mail Transfer Agents' - MTA) for the mail recipient to view. The receiving system retrieves this SPF information for the specified domain via the...

Information theorists call everything that is superfluous in a data set simply 'redundant'. They initially regard these duplications as annoying because they only unnecessarily inflate databases without adding information. Almost every message contains such redundancies, which could be omitted without harming the information content. IT programmers call such redundancies...

Today, hardly any business idea can be realized without resorting to digital support. IT solutions are concerned with how you can strategically and economically realize your plans in the network world. For example, consulting services cover the technology and software to be used, in-depth knowledge of the market and cost issues, which means that every...

If the world consisted only of digital data, no one would be able to read these long strings of zeros and ones. The 'digital world' is that mysterious place where only computers can find their way around. Strictly speaking, this is the core meaning of the word 'digital', which refers to the binary world where the language of transistors rules. Colloquially, we use the word...

A cluster is a computer network consisting of networked IT machines. Different forms of networking are used depending on the intended use. A high-availability cluster (HAC) ensures constant availability and a high level of reliability. If a problem occurs in one node of the network, all running services migrate to another node. Both the hardware and...

Metaphorically speaking, the hardware is just the calculating machine with a keyboard; it is the software that writes its novel on it. Software' is a collective term for 'programs' or 'algorithms' that tell the machine what to do and how to do it. The software then turns a computer into the customized tool that makes our lives easier.

In Germany, Section 11 of the Federal Data Protection Act and Section 80 of the Tenth Book of the Social Security Act regulate 'commissioned data processing' or 'commissioned data processing (ADV)'. They determine the 'outsourcing' of data processing orders to external third parties. Since 2009, the Federal Data Protection Act has provided the legal framework for data processing...

Basically, passwords have no place on the hard disk. They should also be complicated and contain a number of special characters. Words such as 'I', 'boss' or the name of your esteemed wife are virtually an invitation to phishing. In phishing, an unauthorized and anonymous source tries to 'tap' such and other data. Often via fake emails, which are then...

If you use Google, you also get visitors: a web crawler - also known as a 'Google bot' - visits your server and notes the latest changes to the homepage or other World Wide Web content. However, Google cannot register what happens outside the www area. This is where the realm of the 'Dark Net' begins. The interest of every commercial...

Everyone is familiar with the phenomenon that led to 'blacklisting': that myriad of annoying spam emails that clog up your inbox in the morning. To ward off this unwanted garbage, DNS-based Blackhole Lists (DNSBL) were created, which compare addresses used with suspected cases in real time (with the Real Time Blackhole Lists - RBL). The Domain Name System (DNS) is...

Almost everyone has experienced Internet offers for Viagra, unheard-of chances of winning, almost free health insurance or even penis extensions, most of which arrive uninvited in the mailbox. A spam filter is a program or module that filters such unwanted and annoying advertising from the data stream. There are various methods of removing such 'spam'...

Glass fibers are created when long, thin fibers are drawn from a silicate melt. These light-conducting media are then used in optics and laser technology, but are also increasingly used in data technology. It is above all the unheard-of 'bandwidth' of up to 100 TBit/s that makes fiber optic cables the ideal data transmission medium. Glass fibers consist of a...

Another term for WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) is also 'WiFi'. In both cases, it is a method of wireless data transmission in a local area. The range of a WLAN depends on the radiation power and the type of environment. The domestic transmission power in Germany is between 100 and 500 mW and thus covers an area of 30...

Encryption transforms 'plain text' into 'ciphertext', which the recipient can only read if they have the right 'key' to decipher it. The process is old, its use began long before the 'digitalization of the world'. Not only texts can be encrypted, but also voice recordings or (moving) images. A particularly simple...

Essentially, a code of conduct formulates the 'rules of conduct' for companies and their employees. It is an internal guideline that can also have other names such as 'Corporate Behavior' (CB) or 'Guiding Principles'. It is the 'inner law' that everyone in the company has to follow. Violations of these rules can have consequences under labor law. A code of...

In simple terms, a mobile device is any IT technology that you can carry around with you: Smartphones, USB sticks, PDAs, tablets, etc. These devices have a different technical structure to fixed desktop or server technology, they have to be shock-resistant and lightweight, and they must not burn holes in the owner's suit - see Samsung. Nevertheless...

During the war in England, 'spam' was the kind of food you could reliably get in any store: a nutrient chopped up from meat scraps with no taste value. This ubiquity and worthlessness is also what the term 'spam' refers to, as it is commonly used today for unsolicited mail in e-mail correspondence. It is that 'waste' in times of...

To put it simply, in the IT sector everything that can be touched is hardware. Nevertheless, all hardware also has plenty of 'intelligence' because a wide range of logical functions are already integrated into the processor, monitor or graphics card. The distinction between 'hardware' and controlling 'software' is therefore not clear-cut,...

Data protection must be kept strictly separate from data security, information security or IT security. Data protection in the IT sector is about protecting people's privacy, i.e. their 'informational self-determination'. It is about ensuring that their data is not used improperly, for example in the case of a flourishing trade in...

The good old 'advertising prices' have become pretty irrelevant on the Internet. Advertising is done with banners, and payment is based on the number of mouse clicks. The click-through rate (CTR) has thus become the new key figure in Internet marketing. If, for example, a page with an advertising banner is called up a hundred times and the banner is clicked once, then this 'click-through rate' is one...

The 'Trojan horse' or 'Trojan' for short has long since replaced the virus as a threat to IT systems. Today, 55% of malware are Trojans, only ten percent are viruses. As a rule, Trojans do not aim to destroy, but rather to 'spy on' computers or 'use' them to carry out other functions. The programs are called 'Trojans' because...

In Germany, the tasks and activities of an internal or external data protection officer are governed by Sections 4f and 4g of the Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG). There are also regulations under state law. The data protection officer is responsible for monitoring compliance with the BDSG and other laws (Telemedia Act (TMG) or Telecommunications Act (TKG)). The data protection officer...

Since June 1, 2011, we have been using 100% renewable electricity generated from hydropower. We therefore operate a natural IT service. This sustainable approach of an energy-efficient data center that relies on renewable energy, in combination with the green IT concept, makes us the ideal partner for a growing number of companies that are looking for...

"What is a data center? My God, everyone knows that. A data center is - uh, uh, wait a minute...". Simple questions often cause the biggest problems. Here is a brief definition: A data center is an IT facility that provides computing technology for large amounts of data at a central location. Above all, however, the servers in a data center can be used without downtime...

Everyone is familiar with the dubious attachments in e-mails, where you don't know whether they contain malicious code or not. The solution for checking a possible destructive effect is called a 'sandbox'. Just as generals used to play out the expected course of a battle in a sandbox, the impact is first analyzed in a quarantine area....

Page views - or page impressions - measure the number of views of online content. It is primarily a commercial key figure that is determined monthly by the 'Gesellschaft für die Verbreitung von Werbeträgern e.V.' (IVW). Anyone who participates in the process is also subject to the IVW regulations. The IVW figures are particularly important for media providers,...

The best-known data execution prevention (DEP) is found on Windows computers. This is a method of preventing the launch of unwanted or malicious program code. DEP does not allow programs to use their own or third-party memory areas in a suspicious manner during their intended execution. Such attacks...

A program must always open a 'port' - or at least a porthole - if its generated content is also to be visible on other monitors worldwide. As in the case of a homepage, for example. Where something can leave such a 'port' or 'harbor' into the virtual world, something can of course also enter it. Therefore, in order to protect a computer from...

The 'Domain Name System' (DNS) is essentially an information service that manages addresses in the 'namespace' of the Internet and thus directs user queries to the right destination. The user enters a reasonably comprehensible query - such as the URL 'brm.de' - and the DNS then converts this text into a long number combination in one of hundreds of thousands of 'name servers',...

The terms 'web page' and 'website' are often incorrectly used interchangeably. Where the 'website' describes the entirety of an Internet presence, the 'web page' refers to a single document that can be called up with the help of a unique URL (Uniform Resource Locator). It is therefore a standardized document that is usually written in HTML (Hypertext...

The Internet is the fastest letter carrier in the world. Emails allow text messages and digital documents (e.g. graphics or Office documents) to be delivered anywhere in the world in just a few seconds. In 2012, 3.375 billion people around the world already had an active email account. Where there is such a concentration of people, there is also a concentration of crime...

Being available at all times - that is the blessing (and for some, the curse) of modern communication technology. Today's world demands access to essential data from any location: on construction sites or in the field, with a cell phone, smartphone or on site at the customer's premises on a monitor. Our online service proDelta opens up these possibilities for administrations and companies....

The 'middleman attacks' (MITM) require a network in order to work. A computer interposes itself between two communication partners and functions there like a 'double agent': it pretends to be the correct recipient on both sides, which is why the procedure is also known as a 'Janus attack', after the two-faced god of antiquity. Naturally, the...

Fake sender IDs in email correspondence have become a plague - mainly because they are so easy to forge. In principle, any layman can create a new 'war name', a 'pseudo', in the browser. The astonished users then often even receive an email from themselves that they never wrote. The method of fake...

There are many competing names for permanent storage media in the IT sector: Hard disk, hard disk drive (HDD) or simply hard disc (HD). These are magnetic storage media with rotating disks ('platters') on which data is stored without contact. Recently, there have also been solid state drives (SSD) that no longer contain any moving parts. These...

Computer viruses are programs that spread through the system or the network. In order to do this, they need a 'host' that introduces them into a system before they infect other programs. Colloquially, they are often lumped together with 'worms' or 'Trojans', although these forms of malware have different modes of operation. 'Viruses' act...

Following the debate on data transfer outside Europe, the EU initially favored the Safe Harbor Agreement with the US government. When the European Court of Justice declared this agreement invalid due to obvious shortcomings in the transfer of personal data, the "EU-US Privacy Shield" came into force on July 12, 2016. The Obama administration had previously...

Fake sender details on emails are becoming an ever-increasing problem in the digital space. In particular, the overflowing 'spam' and 'phishing' are making their way with the help of 'forged' addresses. The Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is used to control this avalanche of spam. With this procedure, the administrator stores a list of addresses for each domain...

Article 28 of the GDPR, Section 26 of the Federal Data Protection Act (2018) and Section 80 of the Tenth Book of the Social Security Act regulate 'data processing by order' or 'order processing (AV)' in Germany. They govern the 'outsourcing' of data processing contracts to external third parties. Order processing replaces 'order data processing (ADV)' from the "old"...

Blade servers are based on the idea of operating several computers on a single power supply, on a single shared storage medium and with a single ventilation system. This saves space, energy and simplifies the system architecture. The circuit boards with the microprocessors and RAM are pushed into the server side by side like 'blades'. More than...

There are many definitions of IT service. In essence, they all agree that this service must be based on information technology, that it must streamline the customer's business processes profitably and that it is the responsibility of a provider. Customers recognize good IT services because they usually don't even notice them. So that his...

Being connected to everything and everyone at all times - the law of mobile communication demands access to essential data from any location: on construction sites or in the field, with a cell phone, netbook or on site at the customer's monitor. Our online service proDelta opens up these possibilities to the business world. The mobile service allows structured storage...

The Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) methodology was introduced to provide increased protection against cache poisoning. It should no longer be so easy to attack the Domain Name System (DNS), an abuse that has often redirected data traffic to a foreign computer. Denial of service attacks...

Since its foundation by Harald Rossol in October 1991, b.r.m. Technologie- und Managementberatung has developed into a sought-after IT service company for the region and beyond - especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Centrally located in the 'Bremer Überseestadt', we are quickly on site in the event of a problem, with years of experience in all...

With greylisting, an email that has come under suspicion is initially held back by the provider. However, the recipient receives an automatic message about the process and can - if they wish - subsequently release the mail within a certain period of time. Greylisting is therefore an IT service that was developed to prevent the erroneous deletion of emails....

In 1995, the EU adopted Directive 95/46/EC. Since then, it has regulated the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data. For each data transfer to 'unsafe third countries' (e.g. USA or India), individual contracts had to be concluded at first, which proved to be a cost-intensive obstacle, especially for large companies. The first companies...

IT consultants are doubly talented: they must be able to combine extensive digital engineering knowledge with the business acumen of a management consultant. No wonder that good IT consulting is one of the most sought-after services with a turnover in the billions. As an IT consultancy, b.r.m. has specialized in a market niche. With us, there are no telephone waiting loops,...

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