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Implementing an Effective 3‑2‑1 Backup Strategy and Disaster Recovery Plan

Implementing an Effective 3‑2‑1 Backup Strategy and Disaster Recovery Plan

For decision‑makers and technology leaders, a 3‑2‑1 backup means keeping three copies of your data on two different media, with one copy off‑site. A Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) defines the procedures and responsibilities to restore your service after an incident. Together, these two pillars ensure business continuity and minimize the risk of prolonged downtime.

The 3‑2‑1 principles combined with a DRP form an essential duo for any organization committed to resilience and maximized ROI in security and availability.

1. Core Principles of 3‑2‑1 Backup and Disaster Recovery

Summary: The 3‑2‑1 rule secures your data; the DRP prepares you to restore it.

A 3‑2‑1 backup strategy relies on three distinct copies of your data: the primary production copy, a second local backup (NAS, hard drive), and a third off‑site copy (cloud or managed service). This setup limits single points of failure and reduces the chance of total data loss in the event of a physical disaster or cyberattack. Adopting this approach requires carefully assessing your Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) to select the right open‑source technologies and avoid vendor lock‑in.

Disaster recovery, or your DRP, complements the 3‑2‑1 backup. While backups guarantee data integrity, the DRP formalizes the steps to reinstate your critical services. It specifies roles, failover processes, and standby environments. It’s best to adopt a flexible plan—there is no one‑size‑fits‑all solution—that aligns with your business context and leverages existing components, whether banking systems, e‑commerce platforms, or ERP.

To stay agile, Edana’s approach combines bespoke development with proven open‑source components (Node.js, Linux, PostgreSQL…). This mix minimizes technical debt and optimizes costs while ensuring scalability and security. Every environment is unique, which is why we architect your ecosystem with a flexible methodology focused on digital transformation and, when relevant, eco‑responsibility.

2. Building a Tailored Disaster Recovery Plan for Your Organization

Summary: A custom DRP guides restoration and ensures business continuity.

An effective DRP begins with an audit of your business processes and critical scopes. This involves identifying strategic applications, their dependencies, and required service levels. In collaboration with your ops, security, and IT teams, our experts design a recovery plan that combines standby environments, automated failover procedures, and regular testing. The goal is to minimize downtime (RTO) and acceptable data loss (RPO).

Every context has its own requirements, so we customize each DRP accordingly. For example, for a Swiss bank, we built a managed standby platform with encrypted backups via Infomaniak and TypeScript automation scripts that handle failover in under five minutes. We then established quarterly test cycles to validate full service restoration and fine‑tune procedures based on feedback. This pragmatic approach not only significantly reduced RTO but also boosted operational teams’ confidence in their infrastructure’s resilience.

At Edana, we favor an iterative process: deploy a minimum viable recovery framework first, then enhance the DRP based on real‑world tests. This semi‑custom methodology keeps technical debt in check and integrates seamlessly with your development cycles, whether agile or waterfall. You achieve controlled recovery aligned with your business goals and budget.

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3. Selecting Open‑Source Technologies for Your Backup Strategy

Summary: Open source cuts costs and prevents vendor lock‑in.

When it comes to backup strategy, open‑source solutions deliver flexibility and transparency. Unlike proprietary offerings, they free you from costly licenses and long‑term commitments. Some of the most popular building blocks include:

  • BorgBackup for deduplication and encryption
  • Restic for ease of use and multi‑backend support
  • Duplicity for incremental archiving

These tools integrate naturally with orchestration frameworks (Ansible, Terraform) to automate snapshot creation, off‑site transfers, and integrity checks. Embedding them in a CI/CD pipeline validates backups with every deployment, reinforcing your confidence in the restore process.

Edana’s approach? Depending on your needs, we integrate these tools, develop custom extensions, or mix open‑source components with bespoke code. For instance, a TypeScript hook can extend Restic to trigger alerts in Slack or Jira upon failure. This tailored ecosystem delivers agility and real‑time visibility while respecting your governance and sustainability requirements.

By choosing these solutions, you benefit from active communities and regular updates—crucial for security. We also document each component in Confluence, ensuring long‑term maintainability and internal skill growth.

4. Embedding 3‑2‑1 Backup in a Scalable, Secure Architecture

Summary: Your architecture must grow with your business and protect your data.

A 3‑2‑1 backup is most effective when it’s part of a system designed to evolve with your needs. Rather than imposing an off‑the‑shelf solution, you build a modular “pipeline” that spans data collection, storage, and recovery. Depending on your constraints, you might combine local storage (a NAS or on‑premise server) for fast access with a remote location (public cloud or managed service) for resilience. You’re free to choose other options—object storage, cross‑datacenter replication, or even cold storage—while ensuring compliance with regulations (GDPR, encryption, etc.) and maintaining full control over your architecture’s future evolution.

Security is paramount: encrypt data at rest and in transit, centralize key management (e.g., HashiCorp Vault), and enforce strong authentication (OAuth2). Edana’s approach includes regular vulnerability scans and key‑rotation policies to minimize attack surfaces. We also assess the environmental impact of backups and favor storage sites powered by renewable energy to support your CSR objectives.

For monitoring, integrate metrics (Prometheus, Grafana) to track backup latency, error rates, and storage usage. Automated alerts notify your teams of deviations, enabling proactive scaling and preventing major incidents.

Achieve a Resilient, Controlled Infrastructure

By combining a 3‑2‑1 backup strategy with a robust DRP, you secure your data and guarantee business continuity. You gain not only strong protection for your information but also a detailed, tested emergency plan aligned with your operational objectives. Leveraging open source, custom development, smart integration of existing tools, and a scalable architecture, you maximize ROI while reducing costs and technical debt over the medium and long term. This flexible approach—centered on security, scalability, and digital transformation—ensures the longevity of your services and the confidence of your stakeholders.

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Health Data: Hosting Patient Records and Medical Data in Switzerland

Health Data: Hosting Patient Records and Medical Data in Switzerland

Increasing digitalization in the healthcare sector

The importance of digitalization in the healthcare sector is undeniable. Organizations seek to optimize their processes, improve the quality of care, and enhance the confidentiality of medical information. The growing integration of artificial intelligence in healthcare also opens up new perspectives, with the collection of data from a multitude of medical devices. These data, valuable nuggets of information, allow for refining diagnoses and patient profiles, bringing medicine closer to a personalized approach.

Significant legal challenges in Switzerland

However, these technological advances, whether in telemedicine, connected devices (IoT), or business applications, software, or computerized patient records, raise legal questions, especially regarding the hosting of health data. Many providers of telemonitoring devices, patient record digitization, or custom application and software developers opt for storage on cloud servers. This raises questions about the legitimacy of outsourcing this data, whether hosting can be done in Switzerland or abroad, and also raises questions about security and regulatory compliance more generally.

In this article, we will explore what Swiss law says and what the best practices are for managing and hosting patient and health data. We will also address crucial points for securing a server intended to host sensitive data in Switzerland. Examples of secure digitizations carried out by our teams will also be provided.

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Respect for medical confidentiality and data protection (LPD)

Article 10a, paragraph 1 of the Swiss Data Protection Act (LPD) authorizes the processing of personal data by a third party under certain conditions. However, the question arises regarding compliance with medical confidentiality (art. 321 CP) in the transfer of data to third parties, especially to IT service providers.

The majority doctrine considers IT service providers as “auxiliaries” of healthcare professionals, allowing them to subcontract data processing without violating professional secrecy. However, this qualification poses a problem when the provider hosts the data abroad.

Hosting health data abroad (Azure cloud, AWS, etc.): A legal puzzle

Article 6, paragraph 1 of the LPD prohibits the transfer of personal data abroad if the personalities of the individuals concerned are seriously threatened due to the absence of legislation ensuring an adequate level of protection. However, the transfer may be authorized under certain conditions, such as sufficient contractual guarantees.

However, doctrine emphasizes that hosting medical data abroad may result in a breach of professional secrecy. The risk is exacerbated by the uncertainty regarding the applicability of art. 321 CP abroad and the possibility that a foreign authority may request the disclosure of this data.

This is one of the reasons why cloud services offered by web giants such as Amazon and Google such as Azure, AWS, Digital Ocean, Linode, etc., are generally to be avoided for hosting such sensitive data. Although some of these giants are starting to establish data centers in Switzerland, they are still controlled by foreign parent companies. From a purely ethical point of view, it remains safer to turn to a completely Swiss provider.

Our customized solution for Filinea and its data management

As experts in custom business software development and digital transformation, we have assisted various Swiss companies in storing and handling patient data and sensitive data as well as increasing their profitability and optimizing their operations.

Filinea is a company mandated by the state of Geneva to support young people in difficult situations. To optimize the daily work of its thirty or so employees, the company entrusted us with the development of a custom internal software. The management and storage of sensitive data (including medical data) were included, all of which are stored on a secure server located in Switzerland that our engineers deployed and manage according to appropriate security standards.

Discover the Filinea case study

Create your own secure digital ecosystem

In the following sections of this article, we will provide various technical and administrative recommendations regarding the protection of health data that we apply when designing our projects handling patient and health data in Switzerland.

Recommendations from our experts for prudent management of patients and medical data in Switzerland

Faced with these challenges, recommendations emerge to ensure the security of health data:

1. Prefer hosting in Switzerland

Opt for hosting providers in Switzerland as much as possible, benefiting from a strong reputation for data protection.

2. Ensure anonymization of health data

In case hosting in Switzerland is not possible, ensure that data is anonymized end-to-end, with the private key held by the data controller.

3. Obtain patient consent

If transfer abroad is unavoidable, obtain explicit consent from the patient for the transfer, thus lifting medical confidentiality.

4. Risk assessment

If transferring to a provider outside of countries recognized as offering adequate protection is the only option, carefully assess the risks and obtain explicit consent from the patient as well as lifting medical confidentiality.

5. Avoid violating medical confidentiality at all costs

If none of the previous options are possible (or in case of patient refusal), refrain from transferring data to avoid a breach of medical confidentiality.

Contact our experts to discuss your digitalization in complete safety

How to secure a server to host sensitive data such as patient data?

Hosting a server within a Swiss data center is not enough. Securing such a machine intended to host medical data is a crucial task that requires a rigorous and attentive approach. Confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data must be guaranteed to comply with security standards and protect sensitive information in the medical field. Here are some recommendations for securing a web server hosting medical data:

1. Encryption of communications

Use the HTTPS protocol (SSL/TLS) to encrypt all communications between the web server and users. This ensures the confidentiality of data transmitted between the server and users’ browsers. Be sure to use advanced encryption protocols and avoid weak encryption such as 128-bit whenever possible. Also, use a recognized and reliable certification entity.

2. Regular update of the operating system (OS) and software

Regularly apply security updates to the operating system, web servers, databases, and any third-party software installed on the server. Known vulnerabilities are often addressed by these updates.

3. Firewall and packet filters (Firewall)

Set up a firewall to filter incoming and outgoing network traffic. Limit server access to authorized IP addresses and block any unnecessary traffic.

4. Strict access control

Implement rigorous access control mechanisms. Limit access to medical data only to authorized users. Use individual user accounts with appropriate privileges.

5. Server monitoring

Implement server monitoring tools to detect suspicious activities, intrusion attempts, or abnormal variations in traffic. Well-configured activity logs can help identify potential issues.

6. Regular backups

Regularly back up medical data. Store these backups in a secure location, ideally off-site, to ensure recovery in case of data loss or a major incident.

7. Vulnerability management

Conduct regular security scans to identify and address potential vulnerabilities. Intrusion testing and security audits help ensure system robustness.

8. Strong password policies

Implement strong password policies. Require complex passwords, encourage frequent password changes, and use two-factor authentication mechanisms.

9. Isolation of services within the secure server

Isolate services on the server as much as possible. For example, run the database on a separate server and limit access to other services only to necessary machines.

Implement a secure, customized solution to manage my patient data

In summary: managing and hosting patient records in Switzerland

In conclusion, the dilemma of hosting health data in the era of artificial intelligence and digitization of companies and organizations raises complex issues, requiring a thoughtful approach in line with Swiss legal requirements. Respect for medical confidentiality and data protection should guide healthcare professionals’ choices in an ever-evolving digital landscape.

Hosting on a server located in Swiss territory and securing this server with reinforced cybersecurity measures is imperative to comply with current legislation and protect patient data as well as any sensitive data in general.

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How to Ensure Data Security with Your Enterprise Software?

How to Ensure Data Security with Your Enterprise Software?

Data security has become a critical concern for businesses of all sizes. With the proliferation of cyber threats and the increasing value of data, it is imperative for organizations to implement robust security measures to protect their sensitive information. Enterprise software, often the guardian of valuable data such as customer information, financial data, and trade secrets, is a prime target for cybercriminals. Therefore, ensuring data security within your enterprise software becomes a top priority to ensure business continuity and maintain customer trust.

In this article, we will explore different strategies and best practices for enhancing data security with your enterprise software. From risk assessment to establishing a robust security infrastructure, managing access and permissions, data encryption, and employee awareness, we will provide practical advice to help you effectively protect your critical information. By understanding potential threats and adopting a proactive approach to security, you can reduce the risk of security incidents and ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your essential data.

Understanding Risks: Threat Assessment and Vulnerabilities

Before implementing effective security measures, it is essential to understand the risks facing your enterprise software. This involves a thorough assessment of potential threats such as phishing attacks, malware, and intrusion attempts, as well as identifying vulnerabilities in your IT infrastructure. By understanding these factors, you can better prioritize your security efforts and focus your resources where they are most needed to reduce risks and strengthen your data protection.

Once you have identified threats and vulnerabilities, you can develop a security strategy tailored to your organization. This may include implementing firewalls and intrusion detection systems, regularly updating software to address known security flaws, and continuously monitoring network activity to detect suspicious behavior. By taking a proactive approach to security and remaining vigilant against emerging threats, you can better prevent attacks and protect your data from cybercriminals.

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Notable Data Breach Example: Yahoo

Let’s look at an example that highlights the devastating impact a data breach can have on a company and underscores the crucial importance of implementing robust security measures to protect users’ sensitive information.

In 2016, Yahoo confirmed it had experienced a cyberattack in 2014, compromising data from over 500 million user accounts. This attack was considered one of the largest data breaches in history at that time.

The stolen data included sensitive information such as names, email addresses, hashed passwords, and in some cases, security questions and their associated answers. Additionally, Yahoo revealed in 2017 that another cyberattack, occurring in 2013, had affected all existing Yahoo accounts at the time, totaling around three billion accounts.

These incidents had a significant impact on Yahoo’s reputation and also had significant financial consequences for the company, including a reduction in the purchase price during the acquisition by Verizon.

Establishing a Robust Security Infrastructure

Establishing a strong security infrastructure is essential to effectively protect your data from potential threats. This involves defining clear security policies and implementing appropriate tools and technologies to monitor and control access to sensitive data. Key elements of a robust security infrastructure include firewalls, intrusion detection systems (IDS) and intrusion prevention systems (IPS), as well as identity and access management (IAM) solutions to ensure that only authorized individuals have access to critical information.

Additionally, careful planning for data redundancy and regular backups can ensure the availability of information in the event of a disaster or system failure. Network segmentation and securing entry and exit points are also important measures to limit the scope of damage in the event of a security breach. By adopting a multi-layered approach and combining multiple security technologies, you can strengthen the resilience of your IT infrastructure and protect your data from a variety of potential threats.

Some of Our Case Studies

Our software engineering teams are dedicated to creating robust and secure business solutions specifically designed to meet your unique needs and challenges. We are committed to providing solutions fully tailored to your use cases, with a particular emphasis on data security. Below, we present two examples illustrating our expertise in creating secure business solutions for Swiss companies that have invested in advanced digital transformation.

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Access and Authorization Management: Principle of Least Privilege

Effective access and authorization management are essential to mitigate the risks of unauthorized access to your sensitive data. The principle of least privilege, which involves granting users only the access privileges necessary to perform their specific tasks, plays a central role in this strategy. By adopting this approach, you reduce the potential attack surface by limiting the number of users with extended privileges, thus reducing the risks of misuse or compromise of sensitive information.

Furthermore, implementing granular access controls and strong authentication mechanisms, such as two-factor authentication (2FA) or biometrics, can enhance the security of your systems by adding an additional layer of protection against unauthorized access. By regularly monitoring and auditing access to sensitive data, you can quickly detect suspicious behavior and take corrective action to prevent potential security breaches. By following these best practices, you can better control access to your data and reduce the risks of security compromise.

Data Encryption: Protecting Sensitive Information

By using robust encryption algorithms, you can make your data unreadable to anyone unauthorized who attempts to intercept or illicitly access it. Encryption can be applied at various levels, ranging from encrypting data at rest on servers to encrypted communications between users and servers, as well as encryption of backups and external storage devices. By adopting a holistic encryption approach, you can ensure that your data remains secure even in the event of a security breach or data theft.

Additionally, effective management of encryption keys is essential to ensure the integrity of the encryption process and prevent unauthorized access. By using secure key management practices, such as regular key rotation and separation of responsibilities, you can enhance the security of your data and minimize the risks of compromise of encryption keys. By incorporating data encryption into your overall security strategy, you can create an additional barrier against potential threats and ensure the protection of your most sensitive information.

Employee Training and Awareness: The Human Element of Security

Employees are often the weakest link in the security chain, as they can inadvertently compromise data security through human errors or negligent security practices. Therefore, it is essential to provide regular training on best security practices, including identifying threats such as phishing, malware, and social engineering attacks.

Furthermore, raising employee awareness of the importance of data security and the potential consequences of a security breach can encourage them to adopt secure behaviors in their daily use of company computer systems and data. Effective awareness programs may include phishing attack simulations, interactive training sessions, and regular reminders about company security policies. By investing in employee training and awareness, you strengthen the human factor of security and reduce the risks of security incidents related to human errors.

Conclusion

If you are looking to ensure the security of your data, our Swiss team specializing in strategic consulting and custom development is ready to support you in this endeavor.

Edana provides expertise to design personalized solutions that go beyond conventional standards in data security. By integrating security at every stage of managing your complex projects, our goal is to create memorable and secure experiences, surpassing simple business interactions.

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Why is Network Security important?

Why is Network Security important?

What is network security?

You should implement network security features to protect network architecture from undefined exploitations, accesses, changes, demolitions, and exposes. Network security is a process that guarantees the safety of your information and data. 

Securing a network needs various combinations of instruments, such as routers, hardware, software applications, and many more. Also, it requires high-tech professionals who can provide working of the system. Because all these essential resources to have good network security system are often expensive and unavailable. 

Importance of Network Security

The number of cyber-attacks increases every day, not only to the government’s data and large businesses but also to the regular people’s computer networks. It doesn’t matter how important information is on your devices; Keeping them safe is always essential. A secure network can avoid data loss, theft, misusing your information, or shutting down the whole system. 

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The reasons why Network Security is important

Here are some most common reasons you should consider when it comes to the necessity of the protection of your network:

  1. First, it secures your and your client’s data

For businesses, their data and their client’s information are essential. As a business, your data may consist of financial details, marketing bases, and everything necessary for your company. Other than that, every business collects its clients’ data, especially when you are e-commerce. Their card details, numbers, emails, and all these things are in danger without solid network security. 

  1. Improves performance of the network

If you make sure to get a quality system, it protects your network from attacks and helps it run faster. Good network security provides better performance for your computer networks and allows you to work more swiftly. 

  1. Raised cyberattacks

There is no news without one fact about cyber-attack. It is rising for many reasons, including the progress of artificial intelligence and machine learning, also the spread of the 5GB network. That is why it gets more necessary to have strong network security that will protect data.

  1. No protection will cost more money

Besides the emotional stress from having your information stolen, it costs a lot, especially when you are a business. If we see examples of companies that lost their information, we see how much money it costs from them to compensate for the loss. For instance, when Yahoo was attacked, it affected its 3 million users and ended up costing 350 million dollars. So you can see how expensive it gets when you don’t have solid network security. 

  1. Everything in this world depends on technology

Another reason why network security is essential is how integrated technology is in our lives. Everything around us has a technological system, hardware, or algorithm. Our cars, computers, and even homes are known as technologically intelligent, so because of this, it gets more imminent to have network security. 

How to be Secured?

If you have never thought about how to protect your system as an amateur, you can do these few steps to store data safely and reduce the risk of possible attacks.

First and most importantly, use a powerful router admin username and password. It isn’t news that these two things are most valuable regarding the security of your network. The next step is to change the network name. Use more firewalls and turn off any guest network. 

This obviously isn’t enough, and hackers do magic to enter your network and access the data, but it is the first step to securing a computer network system. 

Conclusion 

Protecting confidential information from unauthorized access is the whole society’s responsibility, including business. Every little detail your client gives you or your company needs for the function is vital for you and needs to be safe, so start securing your networks today and be sure to make them as strong as possible. 

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For more similar articles, scroll through our Publications on Edana. And for Expert-Level assistance from your Swiss Digital Agency. Our expertise includes Software Engineering Services. Feel free to contact us anytime!

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Use SSL to improve Security of your Digital Channels

Use SSL to improve Security of your Digital Channels

SSL Basics You Should Know

Did you know, that all in all most of digital product users are concerned with the security of their online transactions? We all know the risks of inserting even the smallest confidential classified information into a website. This is exactly where the SSL comes in.

SSL deciphers as Secure Sockets Layer. It’s a protocol for web browsers and servers that allows the forms of authentication, encryption and decryption of the data roaming in and out of the server we are using.

Keep Connections Secure

Now, to step aside from the transactional part of internet which generally reminds us of internet banking in most of the cases, let’s discuss connections as well. Current browser contains loads and loads of information which overlap at a certain point.

To put it more simply-let’s take the example of messaging apps. It can be Viber or WhatsApp for example right? Quite often at the header section of an application we see it’s end to end encrypted.

The point of this security method is to make sure that the information shared between two individuals is not just flowing around the whole server heightening the risk of it being hacked and viewed by anybody else outside the authorized users.

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So, basically we all need to keep our connections just as secure because quite simply this is just as much of confidential information as your CC card credentials.

How SSL is a MUST for your Digital Channels

Now, no matter what type of information we are speaking about, please keep in mind, that whatever does not seem confidential to you, can be very important for your target audience.

Do not forget that in current society one of the most active problems is stalking. A lot of individuals, especially females are facing this problem and especially on social media platforms.

If your website is focused on syncing information from social media, such as registering via Facebook accounts-you cannot let any synchronized information fall into the wrong hands. After all, for your own good, a customer whose information has been leaked will be completely eligible to take the matters to court for cyber-security guidelines.

And surely, we don’t want that, so it’s always better to invest in your SSL and have more guarantees that such problems are least likely to occur.

Encryption Parties

The two main parties in encryption process are: The User and Website itself. Now, as we have already discussed the mobile application above, that can be counted as sub-party. But, yet the primary encryption recipient is the website in the first place. SSL is the one neutral party of software ensuring the security of data flow.

Validate your Domain-SSL Certificate

There are several options for getting SSL certified. What it means to be SSL certified, is that your webpage when googled for example will ensure the user that it’s free to roam. How does Google warn users on SSL uncertified users?

At least once you might have a warning page from google before browsing a specific site that it can be dangerous to insert any of your information. This is when Chrome browser asks you whether you’d like to continue to visit a website or go back to the previous page.

Here are a few options to get SSL certificate:

  • Verify your domain information through ICANN lookup.
  • Generate CSR (certificate signing request)
  • Validate your domain by submitting the CSR
  • Install the certificate on your domain/website

What We Offer

For more similar articles make sure to scroll through our Publications on Edana. And, don’t forget to check our services for Expert-Level assistance from your Swiss Digital Agency. Our expertise includes Software Engineering and many more. Feel free to contact us anytime!