10 Ways to Improve MDF/IDF Closet Management

 

Main Distribution Frames (MDF) and Intermediate Distribution Frames (IDF) are integral components of modern data communication networks.

Buildings or campus facilities have one or more MDFs which are the
demarcation points where public or private telecommunication networks
interconnect with the internal network. The MDF then connects to any
number of IDFs in the building, and the devices in those IDFs connect to
end devices such as workstations.

As data centers become more decentralized, MDF/IDF closets are now
elevated to mission-critical status. However, they are often overlooked
and mismanaged when compared to more traditional data center sites.

Common challenges of managing remote sites include having no
visibility into equipment inventory and configuration, a lack of
understanding of rack capacity, inaccurate work orders for technicians
performing moves, adds, and changes, the inability to monitor site
health and security, and having siloed tools and teams that don’t
communicate.

Fortunately, there is a path forward to simplify and centralize the
management of your MDF/IDF estate. The key is to have the right tools
and processes in place that allow you to monitor and manage all your
global sites in a single pane of glass.

Here are the top ten best practices to successfully manage your MDF/IDF closet infrastructure.

1. Accurately document the network

MDF/IDF closets contain a lot of ports, cabling, and connections.
When the physical network infrastructure is mismanaged, you can end up
with cable spaghetti and spiderwebs that impede troubleshooting, make it
difficult to move or install equipment, cause unsafe operating
environments, and disrupt airflow. Poor documentation also leads to
inefficient capacity utilization, difficulty in planning and providing
instructions to technicians, and increased costs for unnecessary cabling
and hardware.

For accurate network documentation,
the network teams that often manage the MDF/IDF estate should not use
outdated tools like Excel and Visio that are manual and error-prone.

Instead, visualize all your connections of both active and passive
(i.e., structured cabling and panels) components across all your sites
with network diagrams that are automatically generated based on your
existing connection and circuit information with Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software.

DCIM software enables you to see your entire network in a single pane
of glass with a high level of detail and customization such as
color-coding, filtering, and tiered views based on your network
attributes. You can even track the connections and structured cabling
that connect the MDF/IDFs to the rest of the network. With automatic and
accurate network diagrams, you can boost productivity by reducing time
spent troubleshooting, planning, and maintaining manual diagrams.

2. Remotely visualize racks, devices, and cabling

With MDF/IDF closets, it is important to know what equipment you
have, where it is located, how it is connected, and where you have
capacity. This can be a challenge when you’re managing hundreds or even
thousands of individual remote sites.

A 3D “digital twin”
of all your sites dramatically simplifies infrastructure management by
enabling you to remotely explore and understand a real-time model of any
site including the assets, power, environment, and connectivity. This
allows for easier, faster, and smarter management than even being
physically there.

With 3D data center visualizations,
you can see your rack contents and panel placements (i.e., above the
rack) better than if you were standing in front of them. High-fidelity
images of each asset in automatic rack elevation diagrams provide a 3D
replica down to the port level that’s to scale. You can also visualize
the port-to-port physical connectivity of your devices to simplify
troubleshooting and capacity planning.

Plus, you can overlay the live measured readings from your power and
environmental sensors on your visualizations to instantly understand the
health and capacity of any site without leaving your desk.

 

3. Track the right KPIs and share data

Data visibility and transparency is critical to managing MDF/IDF
closets. It is common for the details about them to be maintained in
tools that are used by the network team and not shared with other
functional teams.

Data should be democratized via modern data center management software with business intelligence dashboards,
reports, and visual analytics that enable a centralized view of all the
physical infrastructure resources and capacities across your entire
enterprise. Then, all teams can understand, at-a-glance, the data that
is most important to them such as the real-time status of any site’s
health, capacity, inventory, and productivity.

KPIs you should track include the available capacity of key resources
(i.e., power, space, power, cooling, and data/power port connections),
energy cost, temperature per rack, power redundancy per asset, and data
ports usage per connector type, VLAN/grouping, protocol, data rate, and
media.

Consider creating and sharing personalized dashboards to drive
data-driven collaboration across functional teams. Leverage a solution
that can automatically generate and email reports on a recurring basis
to keep all stakeholders aware of the latest information.

4. Maintain an accurate inventory of assets, parts, and spares

The number of IT assets, supporting infrastructure assets, parts, and
spares in today’s data centers with many remote IDF closets can be
staggeringly high. However, everything must be tracked and managed to
ensure successful deployments, better manage the lifecycle of equipment,
and know the relationships and dependencies of all data center
infrastructure.

Legacy management tools like Excel and Visio are time-consuming,
inaccurate, and should not be used to manage the complex asset
inventories of your data center and remote sites.

DCIM software with complete asset management capabilities
is a must-have for real-time views across your entire footprint
including equipment in racks like servers, storage, networking
equipment, rack PDUs, patch panels, and even applications. Key
information like make, model, dimensions, weight, serial number, asset
tag, location, RU position, and configuration can be easily tracked.
Plus, custom fields allow you to track anything else that it is
important to your organization.

You should also track parts and spares
like hard drives, cards, memory modules, power supplies, and patch
cables. With this information, you can keep track of inventory levels to
know if you have enough parts in stock for new deployments or spares on
hand to quickly repair equipment.

5. Perform regular asset audits

Over time, undocumented moves, adds, and changes in your MDF/IDF
closets may occur. As these add up, your actual environment may be
substantially different than what your documentation shows. When this
happens, there is a greater likelihood of longer troubleshooting times,
underinformed and difficult planning, and delays in rolling out
services.

To maintain the accuracy of your asset inventory, you should perform
an asset audit of each location at least once a year. This has
traditionally been a struggle for many organizations due to the
distributed and ever-changing nature of modern data center environments
and not having enough people resources to conduct the audits.

However, new functionality in DCIM software dramatically simplifies data center asset audits so you can perform them faster, with fewer people, and more accurately.

One person with a barcode or QR code scanner can scan all the
equipment in a rack during the audit. Built-in logic anticipates the
next step in the process and a configurable voice response either
confirms the item is correct in the database or lets you know if a
change is recommended. Upon completing the audit, an exception report
can be generated and exported for review. After verifying the changes
suggested in the report, you can simply import the file back into the
tool to make the updates, ensuring your system always reflects the
actual state of your sites.

6. Monitor and alert on power and environmental conditions

One of the biggest challenges of operating many remote sites is that
they each have their own power and cooling systems that need to be
managed. Without a tool that can centrally monitor the power and environmental conditions of every site, you risk experiencing costly unplanned downtime and inefficient capacity utilization.

First, your sites should be instrumented with metered power
distribution infrastructure and environmental sensors for temperature
and humidity. Then, deploy data center management software that
automatically collects, stores, reports, and alerts on the live measured
readings from these meters and sensors so you always know what is
happening in any of your MDF/IDF locations.

Modern DCIM software transforms your raw data into actionable
insights that help you maintain uptime and increase efficiency. For
example, DCIM software with an enterprise health dashboard displays the
real-time power and environmental health and events for all your sites
in a single pane of glass. Easy-to-understand red-yellow-green
color-coding lets you know exactly which sites have a warning or
critical events based on the thresholds that you configure. You can then
drill down into the details to see what the issue is and proactively
resolve it before it becomes a serious problem. Automatic email
notifications of the threshold violations ensure you are always the
first to know of events anywhere in your global data centers.

Having an advanced warning of issues such as hot spot formation,
power capacity limitations, and loss of redundancy allows you to take
action to keep services online and customers happy.

7. Safeguard your closets from physical threats

Your MDF/IDF closets contain mission-critical infrastructure that is
easily exposed to both malicious and unintentional security threats.

If remote sites are compromised, the damage can be severe. Potential
consequences include sensitive information being stolen, increased
expenses for equipment replacement and legal fees, a ruined reputation
that loses customers, and disrupted business operations that stop
revenue until services are back online.

To protect your sites and assets, keep your equipment in a separate
and locked room, only allow access for authorized personnel, place
cameras in and around each room, and leverage a centralized security
management solution.

Your data center security management software
should offer reporting, audit logs, and video surveillance feeds that
allow you to monitor who has access to various sites and racks, how
often they are accessed, and if attempts are successful or not. Local
RFID authentication or remote control of all your electronic door locks
can also mitigate security risks and help you comply with regulations.

8. Intelligently plan capacity

As with all data center locations, MDF/IDF closets and remote sites
are constrained by capacity limitations. Depending on the site, they may
be constrained by space, power, cooling, or data/power port
connections.

Accurately planning and managing capacity
is essential for maintaining uptime and ensuring efficient resource
utilization. Failure to do so can be expensive and detrimental to your
business. For example, if you don’t enough available capacity, you
cannot deploy new equipment or services until you purchase more. If you
have too much capacity, then you have an inefficient environment that is
wasting money and resources.

DCIM software makes capacity planning easy by allowing you to
visualize rack capacity in 3D, report on the most common capacity KPIs
with zero-configuration dashboard charts and reports, intelligently find
where you have the capacity to deploy new equipment in seconds, and
automate server power budgeting to safely deploy more compute devices in
your existing rack space.

With a modern data center capacity management tool,
you can always know the health and capacity of every site you manage.
For example, MDF/IDF closets often run out of port capacity, but with
DCIM software, you can know at-a-glance how many available ports each
rack has so you can let management know and purchase more resources
before you run out. Plus, real-time monitoring of actual rack power and
UPS loads let you understand your overall power consumption and battery
run time to maximize uptime and availability of IT services.

9. Ensure redundancy

Since each piece of equipment in an MDF/IDF closet is often connected
to hundreds or thousands of other devices that are necessary for end
users, redundancy is critical to the role these sites have in an IT
environment. A single failure in a closet can cause significant downtime
that costs your organization productivity and money.

To reduce the chance of downtime, your sites should have backup
power, cooling, and network systems that are available in the event one
or more of those components fail. It’s also important that you have a
fast failover to redundant systems to ensure you maintain uptime.

The failure of an IDF device may disable hundreds of end stations,
but an MDF failure may disable thousands. To mitigate the risk of a
complete loss of connectivity, many organizations deploy MDFs in pairs.
Some place all MDF devices in the same closet and rely on disparate
cable routing for redundancy while others prefer to place MDF devices in
two separate locations.

In addition to deploying hardware that provides redundancy and
resiliency such as UPSs, you should leverage a software solution that
helps you ensure redundancy. DCIM software enables you to run a failover
simulation report to identify exactly which racks are at risk and what
equipment will continue functioning in the event a rack PDU goes down,
and health polling of intelligent rack PDUs decreases the likelihood and
severity of outages by ensuring systems are online and alerting you of
potential issues.

10. Integrate tools and teams

MDF/IDF closets are typically managed by different teams than the
data center and facilities teams, and it’s a common issue that these
teams use disparate tools and databases. When these tools are not
integrated and there is no single version of the truth that spans the
entire environment, productivity, and data accuracy are reduced.

To reduce manual effort, drive a culture of data sharing and
collaboration, and streamline workflow across functional teams, the most
sophisticated organizations in the world leverage “data center automation via integration”.

Automation via integration is achieved by deploying and integrating
modern DCIM solutions with out-of-the-box connectors that automatically
populate data in the correct systems for a holistic view of all data
center resources and their relationships.

DCIM software is commonly integrated with CMDBs such as ServiceNow,
Jira, BMC, and Ivanti/Cherwell, ticketing systems such as ServiceNow and
Jira, Dev Ops tools such as VMware, Ansible, Chef, Jenkins, and Puppet,
and BMS systems such as Siemens, Johnson Controls, and Honeywell. It
can also integrate with any other tool you have with the appropriate
APIs.

Automation via integration empowers you to enable a single source of
truth and automate anything from virtual machine management,
provisioning and orchestration, parts management, server power
budgeting, scheduled charts and reports for management, and email alerts
for power and environmental threshold violations.

 

Why you Need Data Center Cable Management Software

Modern data centers are complex environments that often contain many
thousands of individual cabling and port components. When the physical
connectivity infrastructure is not properly organized, tracked, and
managed, you can quickly run into serious problems.

Poor cable management and using the wrong management tools lead to cable spaghetti that prolongs maintenance and troubleshooting, extended
downtime due to not being able to quickly identify issues, and
inefficiency caused by uninformed planning decisions.

However, data center cable management software can simplify how you
document and track your cable infrastructure to greatly improve data
center operations.

Why is Data Center Cable Management Important?

Following data center cable management best practices:

  • Boosts productivity. Pushing cable documentation to
    the back burner might seem like an inconsequential move, but poor cable management can lead to delays in rolling out new services and
    troubleshooting connectivity issues. Accurate documentation ensures that
    technicians have the information they need to quickly perform moves,
    adds, and changes. Plus, you can easily trace connections via the
    software rather than having to have someone visit the site to manually
    trace cables.
  • Improves uptime. Proper cable management makes identifying and responding to issues easier which reduces downtime.
    Also, well-organized cables eliminate cable spaghetti that obstructs
    access to racks and servers, potentially resulting in an outage. With
    cable management software, you can conduct failover scenarios and impact
    analysis to know what infrastructure would be affected should a failure
    occur.
  • Increases efficiency. Data center cable management
    software helps you know which cables and ports are available for use,
    identifies stranded capacity, and helps project when you will run out of
    capacity. This allows for more informed capacity planning and maximum
    utilization of your existing resources.

Why You Shouldn’t Use Excel and Visio for Cable Management

It’s common for data center managers to use legacy tools like Excel
and Visio for cable management. However, these tools aren’t designed to
handle the complexities of modern data center environments.

Tracking assets and connections in Excel and Visio is a
time-consuming and manual process, and any time manual effort is
involved, there is a risk of human error. Inaccurate data can cause
bigger problems like longer troubleshooting times and inefficient use of
resources.

Why You Need Data Center Cable Management Software

Ten must-have features of modern data center cable management software include:

1. Visualize all your cabling infrastructure in 3D. See
all your port-to-port structured, patch, and power distribution cabling
on your 3D floor map so you don’t have to waste time physically visiting
the data center. In addition, you can visually document all your
servers, edge switching (top of rack/end of row), core routing and
switching equipment, patch panels, multiplexing equipment, demarcation
points, rack layouts, IDF closets, cable trays, and more.

2. Automatically generate network diagrams. Visualize
your entire network in a single pane of glass with complete network
diagrams that include both active and passive (i.e., structured cabling
and patch panels) equipment. The diagrams are automatically created and
updated based on the existing circuit information in your database.

3. Map device relationships and conduct impact analysis.
A holistic view of all your assets and their relationships and
dependencies makes it easy to conduct impact analysis from any point in a
data circuit or power circuit. You can know exactly what devices will
be impacted by maintenance or the failure of any other device. This lets
you react quicker to unexpected downtime and determine if you need to
make changes to ensure redundancy.

4. Accurately measure cable lengths before installation.
Stop wasting time walking the data center floor with a tape measure and
reduce expenses on unnecessary cabling. Instead, capture the horizontal
and vertical distances between items in just a few clicks so you always
purchase the exact amount of cabling you need.

5. Track port capacity by port types. Keeping track of
the available capacity of all your individual port types can be
overwhelming. Cable management software eases that pain point by
tracking the ports, port types, and connections for every device and
displaying that information in easy-to-understand dashboard charts and
reports. Then, you can make more informed capacity planning decisions at
a glance.

6. Ensure accurate port count and types for each device you deploy.
Data center cable management software with a vast model library
provides the correct port count and specifications for tens of thousands
of devices. This combined with an intelligent capacity search feature
lets you know the optimal cabinet to deploy new equipment in by
displaying exactly where you have the available capacity.

7. Track spare cable inventory by location. Tracking
spare cable inventory across your global data centers is made easy with
the right tool. Then, you will always know on a site-by-site basis
whether you need to buy more, have enough for new projects, or need to
redirect inventory to fulfill a location’s needs.

8. Create work orders with port-to-port instructions.
Clear instructions ensure that remote hands complete the job correctly
and quickly. Data center cable management software provides detailed
port-level instructions for technicians that eliminates the likelihood
of failed installations and spaghetti cabinets.  

9. Track power at each breaker connection. Monitoring
budgeted and actual power loads at every breaker point in the power path
let you know how much power capacity you have for new equipment before
you approach thresholds that will trip a breaker and cause you to lose
power on either side of your power chain, losing redundancy and causing
downtime. 

10. Validate that connections are compatible and available.
Data center cable management software can automatically validate the
compatibility of your planned connections to ensure that they will work
in the real world. When looking for space to deploy new equipment, the
software will not show any cabinets that don’t have enough available and
compatible ports.

Bringing it All Together

Data center cable management software has the potential to save you a lot of money and provide an instant return on your investment. You can reduce operational expenses by automating manual and time-consuming tasks and eliminating the need to send technicians onsite and defer capital expenses by improving capacity planning to get the most out of your existing resources.

Don’t underestimate the importance of cable management and push it to the back burner. Address cable management head-on and implement the best practices and tools to improve uptime, productivity, and efficiency.

Are You Looking To Outsource Your IT Services?



In today’s world, businesses require IT solutions to operate on a day-to-day basis. With technological advancements, there is a need for businesses to keep up with paying customers and keep important data secure. As a result, many companies are looking to outsource their IT services to a third-party vendor.

 

Outsourcing IT services can bring several benefits for companies. Firstly, outsourcing allows companies to focus on their core competencies – their main business duties without the additional worry of IT issues. Secondly, outsourcing allows companies to gain access to state-of-the-art technology and advanced resources without any major investment. Finally, outsourcing IT services can help businesses save money and reduce costs and expenses.

 

However, there are some potential drawbacks to outsourcing IT services. Business owners may have concerns about data security when it is being managed by an external company. Additionally, language barriers, unreliable service, and cultural differences could make communication difficult.

 

Business owners should evaluate several factors before outsourcing IT services. The first step is to assess your current IT capabilities and whether outsourcing is necessary. The next step is to research vendors and determine the best fit for your company. Business owners should consider the vendor’s expertise, experience, availability, and support capabilities. It is also essential to determine the vendor’s pricing model and ensure that it matches with the company’s budget.

 

When outsourcing IT services, it is important to communicate all expectations and goals upfront to avoid any misunderstandings. Business owners should also set up a plan for service level agreements and establish a clear understanding of the vendor’s response time expectations, including after-hours support.

 

In conclusion, outsourcing IT services is a strategic move for businesses looking to streamline their operations, access advanced resources, and save money. However, it is vital to research vendors and services carefully to ensure that the outsourcing process is smooth and effective. A thorough understanding of your business requirements, vendor capabilities, and communication procedures is necessary to reap the full benefits of outsourcing IT services.

How Office 365 for Small Businesses Brings New Advantages?

Office 365 is a subscription-based service provided by Microsoft that offers cloud-based productivity tools to its users at a minimal cost. It has been designed keeping in mind the needs of small businesses to help them manage their daily office work with ease. It brings along many advantages for small businesses as they can now shift their focus towards growth while Office 365 provides assistance in managing daily operations.

One of the greatest advantages that Office 365 brings to small businesses is the ability to access the service across multiple devices, whether it be desktops, mobile phones or tablets. This allows flexibility and freedom to access the work from anywhere and at any time. This feature ensures that even if an employee is away from the office on a business trip, work progress can still continue. This results in an increase in productivity, as well as the attainment of work goals.

Another critical benefit that Office 365 provides to small businesses is improved communication and collaboration. The service offers various tools to communicate with team members or customers, such as instant messaging, video conferencing or e-mails. Additionally, collaboration among co-workers has now become easier and efficient. With Office 365, business owners can share calendars, documents and other information amongst team members. This feature ensures that projects or tasks are completed in a timely fashion.

Office 365 also provides top-of-the-line security features that ensure the safety of sensitive business data. It helps in preventing data breaches and protects against cyber-attacks. The service comes with built-in security capabilities such as encryption of data traffic, two-factor authentication and access control. This ensures that business data remains protected and confidential, which is critical for businesses to maintain customer trust.

The cost-effectiveness of Office 365 makes it a go-to service for small businesses. It eliminates the need to purchase expensive hardware or software to manage business operations. The subscription-based cost model means that businesses only pay for what they need and can easily upgrade or downgrade the services that they choose to use. The low cost of Office 365 ensures that small businesses can save money on IT infrastructure and invest in other areas of the business.

In conclusion, Office 365 brings new advantages to small businesses. Its flexibility, improved communication, collaboration, security features and cost-effectiveness make it an ideal service for small business owners. It provides a cheap and efficient way to manage office work while allowing businesses to focus on tasks that bring growth to the business. With Office 365 as a helping hand, small businesses can now worry less about daily operations and focus more on growth and success in the long run.

How to locate all accounts connected to your email in order to maintain your privacy

Nowadays, an average person in the US has more than 100 online accounts. Some of these we use daily, others – once (10 years ago). The ability to sign into various services using your Google or Facebook account has made the situation worse. Now, you don’t need any effort to create hundreds of throwaway accounts!

So why is it important to keep tabs on your online accounts?

Well, for one thing, accounts mean all sorts of data, some of it sensitive – you don’t want it in the wrong hands! So, in this article, we’ll discuss how to find all accounts linked to your email and revoke those you don’t wish to be linked. Moreover, we’ll share some additional tips on staying private online.

Why is finding linked accounts important?

Identifying accounts that are linked to our email is necessary for protecting our personal information. Here are the main reasons why you should spend time to find all accounts linked to your email:

  1. To enhance your privacy. As the number of data breaches increases daily, doing all you can to stay private is non-negotiable. This includes identifying the accounts that are linked to your email, and deleting some of them if needed.
  2. To avoid unnecessary money spending. Say, years ago you signed up for a photo editing program, and stopped using it almost immediately. Despite that, you are charged monthly for that service. While the amount of money may not seem big eventually it adds up. Taking care of such subscriptions will prevent you from wasting money.

Now, let’s take a look at what steps you could take to enhance your safety.

How to find all email accounts in my name?

There are several different ways you can find the accounts that are linked to your email account. Take a look at the most reliable ones.

1. Find accounts linked to your email

The ways to find the accounts linked to your email may differ depending on which email platform you use. Here, we’ll discuss two of the most popular ones – Gmail and Outlook.

To find all the linked accounts, Gmail users will have to complete the following steps:

  1. Click your Google Account button at the top-right
  2. Click Manage your Google Account
  3. On the left menu, choose Security
  4. Scroll down to Google apps with account address and click Manage access
  5. Scroll down to the very bottom to edit Password Manager and Linked Accounts.


    Here you’ll be able to see all the websites that you login to with your Google Account. You’ll also find a list of Google apps that have access to your Google Account. Review it carefully, and remove the no longer needed ones.

    For Outlook users the process is as follows:

    • Sign in to your Outlook account on your browser
    • On the top right, click the Settings cogwheel
    • On the bottom right, choose View all Outlook settings
    • Click Sync email on the second column
    • On the third column, find Manage your connected accounts section
    • Review all the linked accounts – Edit, Remove, or Refresh.

2. Check the accounts linked to your social media accounts

You can also find the accounts linked to your email by checking your social media accounts. Doing so is key if, say, your Facebook is attached to third-party services that require your permission to see your contact list or contact details.

By identifying accounts linked to your social media profiles, you can manage them more wisely, and revoke access to those that are potentially harmful to your privacy. Let’s see how to do that on the most popular social media sites.

Facebook users can find the linked accounts by completing these steps:

                  1. Click your Account icon at the top right
                  2. Choose Settings & Privacy and then Settings
                  3. Click on Apps
                  4. On the left menu, choose Apps and Websites.
                  5. To revoke access, tick the box next to your chosen app and click Remove.

If you’re on Twitter, complete these steps:

    1. On the top left menu, choose More
    2. Click on Settings and privacy
    3. In the third column, choose Apps and Sessions
    4. Review all the apps linked to your Twitter account, and if needed, remove them

For LinkedIn users, the steps are as follows:

          1. On the top right, click Me icon.
           2. Choose Settings & Privacy.
           3. In the top menu, select Account > Partners and services
           4. Review the list of all third-party services
           5. To remove access, click Remove


If you use Instagram, you’ll have to complete the following steps:

          1. Click your profile icon at the top right
          2. Go to Settings
          3. Click Authorized Apps on the left
          4. To remove access, click Remove

3. Check your browser

To find linked accounts, you can also check your browser for saved accounts. Let’s see how to do that on Google Chrome and Firefox.

Chrome users should complete the following steps:

              1. Click Customize and control Google Chrome at the top-right corner
              2. Go to Settings
              3.Click on Auto-fill
              4. Click on Passwords


In this window, you’ll be able to see all the passwords that your Chrome browser remembers. This is the place where you can remove the passwords you no longer wish to stay in your browser.

To identify linked accounts, Firefox users need to:

            1. Go to Options
            2. Click on Privacy & Security
            3. Scroll to Login and Passwords
            4. Click on Saved Logins

If you follow the steps above, you’ll be able to remove the passwords you no longer want to be saved on your Firefox browser.

We highly recommend you delete them all as keeping passwords in your browser is not safe. As an alternative, consider using a reliable password manager.

4. Searching through your emails

There is another way to find all the linked accounts, and that’s by looking through the emails in your mailbox.

To make it easier, try typing in the most common words to find the linked accounts:

  1. Verification
  2. Subscription
  3. Activate
  4. Confirm
  5. Welcome
  6. Unsubscribe

You can also type in your username in the search bar. Keep in mind, though, that this step may give you a larger result list, and most of the results will not be relevant.

Can you find the accounts linked to your phone?

The bad news is that finding accounts linked to your phone number is not easy, as there is no database where you could be looking to find them.

More often than not, you know that certain apps or websites use your phone number when you receive a recovery request. Therefore, whenever you get some kind of confirmation text message, make sure it’s from an app or website you actually use.

Check if your email has been hacked

As our data is the new currency, it’s important we take good care of it. One of the best ways to do that is to regularly check whether your most sensitive information (e.g., your email) is safe.

To do that, you can use our data leak check. After entering your email address, you’ll be able to know if your account has been hacked by online fraudsters.

As this tool is completely safe (meaning, we don’t track and store your data) you can use it once in a while for prevention purposes. It will help you know if an email address that you are using is safe. And if not, what to do to recover it.

Things you can do to protect your online privacy

Once you find all the linked accounts, make sure you take all the necessary steps to protect your online privacy. Some things to consider are as follows:

  • Changing your passwords.

Make sure you update your passwords so that you are not using the same one on more than two accounts. When creating a password, make sure you include both capital and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols.

If you want to go one step further, consider investing in a high-quality password manager that has a built-in password generator.

  • Using password manager.

Choosing a reliable password manager is key when it comes to keeping your credentials protected. Check our guide on the best password managers on the market today.

A built-in password generator will create the strongest password possible, preventing fraudsters from hacking it.

  • Signing up for a secure and encrypted email account.

One of the first steps you should take when protecting your online privacy, is opting for an encrypted email account. Doing so will enhance the security of your most sensitive information.

  • Tracking your activity on your most visited websites and apps.

While this task may seem tedious and time-consuming, it’s something you should do once in a while to prevent losing your data.

For example, you can check your activity on Google account by heading to myactivity.google.com. If you’re on Facebook, you can go to your profile, press the three dots icon, and click on Activity log.

 

Bottom line

Altogether, finding all the accounts that are linked to your email is key when it comes to protecting your identity.

You can do that in various ways – starting from looking for linked accounts in your email or social media accounts to checking your browser or the entire mailbox. Whichever way you want to choose (or combine), take this process seriously as it protects and strengthens your privacy.

Once you are done with that, make sure you take extra steps to enhance your privacy. That includes, strengthening your passwords and keeping them in the password manager, and using an encrypted email account.