Your IT partner should sit down with you regularly
Many businesses only talk to their IT provider when something breaks. That keeps the lights on, but it leaves a lot of questions unanswered.
What a regular check in can cover
A good IT partner sits down with you from time to time. What is working well? Which computers or equipment are getting old? What is changing in your business, such as new staff, a new location, or a new customer requirement? Those answers help you plan instead of reacting.
These conversations should be clear and plain. You should leave knowing what matters, what can wait, and who to call.
Local people, real conversations
Solid Networks is based in Salida and supports businesses across California’s Central Valley. Because our team is local, we can meet where it works for you. We are also SOC 2 Type 2 certified and keep a CMMC Certified Professional on staff.
Want to talk through your IT plan? Call 209.338.1400 or email [email protected].
CMMC Level 1: what the 15 requirements cover
CMMC Level 1 covers 15 security requirements tied to the basic safeguarding of Federal Contract Information. For a defense contractor, the first step is to understand which information and systems are in scope, then look at how those requirements work in daily practice.
What the requirements cover
The 15 requirements are drawn from the basic safeguarding requirements in FAR 52.204 21. They include limiting access to authorized users, protecting systems from malicious code, checking and correcting system flaws, controlling physical access, and sanitizing or destroying media before disposal or reuse. They are more than a policy document: a business needs to know who is responsible and how its safeguards actually operate.
Start with your information flow
Identify where Federal Contract Information is received, stored, shared, and disposed of. Review who can access those systems and what happens when an employee leaves or changes roles. Then compare your current process with each of the 15 requirements and document what you find. The applicability of CMMC requirements depends on your contracts and the information you handle, so confirm your scope rather than assuming every contract is the same.
Solid Networks is SOC 2 Type 2 certified and has a CMMC Certified Professional (CCP) on our staff. We can help you make sense of Level 1 and plan your next steps. Call 209.338.1400 or email [email protected].
Streamline new employee setup: automation for the busy first day
A new employee’s first day sets the tone. When the laptop is not ready, a login does not work, or the right apps are missing, that first impression suffers. So does the time of the people trying to fix it.
Where automation helps
Most onboarding steps repeat for every hire. Create the account. Add the person to the right groups. Assign the apps for the role. Order the equipment. These steps can follow a checklist that runs the same way each time, and alerts your team when something is missed.
Automation does not replace judgment. A manager should confirm what access each person needs, and your IT team should review it. The goal is to remove the repetitive work so people can focus on the decisions.
Fewer surprises for everyone
A consistent process also helps with security. When every new hire gets access based on their role, it is easier to see who can reach what. The same checklist can support offboarding when someone leaves.
Solid Networks is SOC 2 Type 2 certified and keeps a CMMC Certified Professional on staff. We support businesses across California’s Central Valley. Want to talk about simpler onboarding? Call 209.338.1400 or email [email protected].
Local IT help when the problem needs someone onsite
Remote support is useful for many IT problems. But some problems need someone in the room: a failed network switch, an offline production device, or a physical connection that cannot be checked from a screen.
Know when an onsite visit matters
When a problem affects your operation, start by telling your support team what is down, which locations or employees are affected, and what changed just before the issue began. That helps the team decide whether it can restore service remotely or needs to send a technician. An onsite visit can help check equipment, cables, and the conditions people are seeing firsthand.
Response time depends on the issue, the location, and the support agreement. Rather than assume every problem gets the same response, ask your provider how it prioritizes outages and when a local technician can come to your site.
Local support with a clear path to help
Solid Networks is based in Salida and supports businesses across California’s Central Valley. Our team can work with your people remotely and onsite when the situation calls for it. That local connection matters when the problem is on a production floor, in a warehouse, or at a business that cannot wait for a distant team to learn the environment.
Want to discuss how your business would get help when a critical system stops working? Call 209.338.1400 or email [email protected].
When a security incident starts, who makes the first call?
When an account is taken over or an employee opens a malicious file, the first question should not be, “Who do we call?” A simple incident plan gives your team a starting point when time and information are limited.
Decide who makes the first call
List the person who receives the report, the person authorized to make business decisions, and the technical team that investigates. Give them a way to reach each other if company email is unavailable. Record how to contact your IT provider, insurer, and legal adviser when their help may be needed.
Contain the problem and keep the facts
For a suspected device compromise, contact your response team and follow its instructions for isolating the device. For a compromised account, the team may need to revoke active sessions, reset credentials, and check for changes to access or forwarding rules. The right sequence depends on the incident. Preserve timestamps, messages, alerts, and the names of affected systems so investigators can reconstruct what happened. Do not erase evidence in a rush to get back to normal.
Practice before you need the plan
Run a short exercise: someone reports a suspicious sign, the primary contact is unavailable, and email is down. Can your team still reach the right people and decide what to do? Update the plan after the exercise and keep an accessible copy.
Solid Networks helps Central Valley businesses prepare for and respond to security incidents. To talk through your incident plan, call 209.338.1400 or email [email protected].
Proactive monitoring: spot problems before they disrupt your day
A slow drive, a backup job that stops running, or a device that keeps dropping off the network can be an early warning. If nobody sees the pattern, the first sign a business notices may be an outage.
What proactive monitoring looks for
Useful monitoring starts with the systems that keep your business running. It checks device health, backup results, available storage, and other signals that call for investigation. An alert is a prompt for a person to check what is happening, not a guarantee that a failure has been prevented.
Some tools use automation or AI to sort signals and help a technician focus on unusual activity. The important part is what happens next: someone reviews the alert, confirms the cause, and takes action. A backup warning, for example, only becomes useful when a team checks the job and tests whether recovery will work.
Ask who owns the response
When you review your IT support, ask what is monitored, who receives an alert, how quickly someone checks it, and how your team hears about a problem. Include the systems that matter most to your operations, not just office laptops.
Solid Networks helps Central Valley businesses monitor and support the technology they depend on. Talk with us about what your current monitoring covers and where you may have gaps. Call 209.338.1400 or email [email protected].
Harvest season does not wait for a slow network
Harvest season does not wait for a slow network.
Right now Central Valley packing houses, ag offices and processing plants are running at full speed. Scales, scanners, inventory systems and payroll all depend on a network that does not blink during the busiest weeks of the year.
We see it every fall. A slow connection at a packing facility does not just slow down email. It slows down trucks, scales and the people waiting on them. A short outage during harvest costs more than the same outage in a quiet month.
Solid Networks supports agricultural businesses across the Central Valley with monitoring that catches problems before they become downtime, and a local team that shows up when hands on a switch or a server are needed.
Want your systems checked before the next truck pulls in? Call us at 209.338.1400.
Solid Networks. Managed IT, Cyber Security, Cloud and Compliance for Central Valley businesses since 1999.
Do you actually know your security posture right now?
Do you actually know your security posture right now, today?
Security posture is not a single tool or a single scan. It is the full picture: which endpoints are patched, who still has admin access they should not, whether your backups actually restore when tested, and whether your team can spot a phishing email before it costs you.
Most business owners assume no news is good news. No alerts, no tickets, must be fine. But blind spots do not send tickets. A server missing months of patches will not tell you. Neither will a former employee’s account nobody disabled.
We run a full security posture review for Central Valley businesses: endpoints, backups, identity and staff awareness, not just one dashboard. Solid Networks is SOC 2 Type 2 certified and has a CMMC Certified Professional on staff, so we know what a real audit actually checks for.
Want to know exactly where you stand? Call us at 209.338.1400.
Solid Networks. Managed IT, Cyber Security, Cloud and Compliance for Central Valley businesses since 1999.
Your best people should not spend their day on data entry
Your best people should not spend their day on data entry.
AI and automation are not about replacing your team. They are about removing the parts of the job nobody wants to do. Sorting inboxes. Copying numbers between systems. Chasing down the same status update every week.
We help Central Valley businesses put automation to work on those tasks. A ticket routes itself to the right person. An invoice gets checked and logged without a human retyping it. A report builds itself every Monday morning instead of eating someone’s Friday afternoon.
Done right, this frees your team to spend time on customers, not clicks. Done wrong, it just moves the busywork somewhere else. That is why we start by mapping your actual workflow before we touch a tool.
Curious what could run itself in your business? Call us at 209.338.1400.
Solid Networks. Managed IT, Cyber Security, Cloud and Compliance for Central Valley businesses since 1999.
Real people. One phone number.
Twenty seven years ago Solid Networks started answering its own phone in Salida, and that has not changed.
When you call today, you get someone who works down the street from you, not a queue in another country. Same team, same building, same number: 209.338.1400.
That is the whole idea behind local IT. Not just fast tickets, but people who already know your systems because they have been in your building.
Solid Networks has taken care of technology for Central Valley businesses since May 11, 1999. We are based in Salida, California and provide Managed IT, Cyber Security, Cloud and Microsoft 365, CMMC readiness, and AI and Automation services. We are SOC 2 Type 2 Certified and have a CMMC Certified Professional (CCP) on staff.
