Cloud Computing 101

With more and more people and organizations accessing the Internet, and as the potential uses of the web grows, the way business is done is naturally evolving as well. One example of this is the emergence of cloud computing services. In essence, this is the outsourcing of an organization’s IT services to a different company. Everything is managed through the Internet – through “the cloud”, hence the term. There are three things that make cloud computing services different from usual hosting services: The company only pays for the resources they use. Subscribers can adjust the amount of service they get based on their need. The service is completely managed by the service provider. Cloud computing services also include providing virtual data storage – meaning you store your data off site on the cloud service provider’s secure servers. You can, however, still access your data through the Internet. There are both private and public cloud services. A public cloud service is available to everyone on the Internet, while private services are only available to specific clientèle. Some cloud services use public clouds to provide private service, making them a virtual private cloud computing service. The increasing use of the web in our personal and social lives as well as in business gives the trend of cloud computing services vast potential. However, this service is not for everyone – for instance, if you have reservations about keeping sensitive information in a location outside your organization, you might want to pass. Want to learn the pros and cons of cloud computing services for your business model? Give us a call – we’d be happy to discuss a possible cloud computing road map with you.

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Five Reasons to Consider Managed Services

Managed IT services are the technology solution of choice for large businesses, but many small and medium businesses remain resistant to considering this approach. Below are five reasons you may want to change your mind. Reason #1:  You need to control costs. In today’s economic environment, IT budgets have been slashed – but a cut in IT spending doesn’t come with a cut in demand for IT services. As a result, you have to do the same amount of work with fewer resources. Although managed services might cost more in the short-term, they cost far less in the long term once you account for the domino effect of lost productivity and customer dissatisfaction. Reason #2:  IT complexity is increasing. The breadth of information technology a company requires places small- to mid-sized businesses at a distinct disadvantage. Equipment is constantly upgraded in the market, and new IT-related specialties are emerging in a variety of areas, from telephony to networking. It’s difficult for small businesses to maintain the expertise necessary to properly manage these new technologies. Reason #3:  You’re more dependent than ever on IT. At the same time, companies have become dramatically more dependent on IT in the past few years—and increased use of IT leads to increased outages and greater loss of productivity. Reason #4:  Your existing solutions are inefficient. In today’s world, a one- or-two person in-house IT department or consultancy simply cannot handle the occasional IT breakdowns that are bound to occur. In many cases, employees have to wait in line to receive help. As a result, not only are your employees less productive, their morale is also decreased—and unhappy employees are less productive employees. Reason #5:  You need to maintain compliance. More and more companies are finding themselves subject to regulatory compliance, from Sarbanes-Oxley to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)—and most small businesses don’t have the resources to fully understand the requirements of these regulations, let alone comply with them. Of course, the best reason to consider managed IT services may be that IT isn’t your specialty. If managing IT infrastructure has absolutely nothing to do with your core competency, why wouldn’t you outsource it to an expert? By implementing managed services, you can utilize your internal IT resources for other purposes, such as supporting your strategic business objectives.

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Backup, Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity: 3 plans you can’t afford NOT to have

Small and medium-sized companies sometimes think that disaster planning is only for larger corporations, but recent changes in technology make such planning affordable for almost all business sizes. In fact, small businesses today can’t afford to be without such planning. As a small business owner, you should have three goals when it comes to disaster planning: ensuring that you never lose critical data, minimizing downtime, and recovering as quickly as possible in the event of a disaster. Those actions fall into three different categories: backups, disaster recovery, and business continuity. What’s the difference? Backing up is the process of safeguarding your data by copying it to a safe medium for recovery in the event of loss. Disaster recovery is the process of restoring operations that are critical to your business after a disaster occurs. Business continuity is the creation of a plan that details how your organization will recover and restore interrupted functions after a disaster. Business continuity is the most comprehensive of these three functions, because it involves much more than just a discussion of IT issues – it’s a detailed action plan. Certainly, you need to consider how you protect your IT infrastructure and data, but you also need to consider what you and your employees should do if a disaster occurs. Do your employees know where to meet in the event of a building evacuation? Do you have a plan for reaching out to all employees and their emergency contacts to communicate critical information? Do you have a way to communicate to customers when and how you’ll resume providing products or services? What will you do if one of your major suppliers experiences a disaster? It’s hard to underestimate the importance of these three plans, but many small and medium businesses do. That’s because when most people think of disaster, they think of floods, earthquakes, and fires. They may even consider equipment failures. But there are human-induced disasters as well—for example, disgruntled or incompetent employees who delete critical information, or hackers. It could easily happen to you. Perhaps you have a backup system in place. Maybe you even have backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity plans. But because business goals and environments change, any plan needs to be re-evaluated from time to time to make sure it’s still meeting all of your needs. We can help you evaluate your current plans, or sort through the options if you don’t yet have plans. Contact us for today for details.

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