Streaming in the office is a topic of hot debate amongst business owners, and for good reason. Depending on the type of media being streamed, it can either enhance or hinder office productivity. What does your company need to know about streaming, and what you can do about employees who can’t resist the urge?
Depending on your business’ operations and industry, there’s a solid chance that your company has some sort of investment in cloud storage. Over 85 percent of businesses today use some type of cloud platform, and many of them use a multi-cloud approach to their organization’s IT. At the center of this trend is cloud storage. This month, we take a look at the types of cloud storage and how one (or more) of the types can help meet your business’ needs.
How does your business manage its data backups? How about restoring them in the event of a disaster scenario? These are questions that no business wants to have no answer to on the spot. You want to have both data backup and disaster recovery put into place to avoid losing a considerable amount of progress.
Managed service is a relatively new concept, but that doesn’t mean that the industry hasn’t grown rapidly. You can now get a managed service contract for your household appliances and one for your automobile. The truth is that not having access to a large cache of capital needed to make proactive investment used to be the bane of the small business. The service model has changed that completely. It has certainly revolutionized the IT deployment and support models. In fact, from hardware support to cloud computing, there are service options for most IT products. This month, we will take a long look at the Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP), and the circumstances that need to happen to gain value from one.
More devices are taking advantage of Internet connectivity now than ever before, including some that have no business having a connection to the Internet whatsoever. While there are some practical uses for connective technology on devices on security systems, thermostats, and vehicles, others simply can’t be justified. Even blenders and refrigerators have access to wireless communication nowadays. These types of connected devices are part of the reason why so many businesses are worried about the Internet of Things.
It’s not uncommon to hear about small businesses having difficulty with managing and maintaining IT solutions. Even the most basic topics regarding business technology can be troublesome for businesses with limited budgets and resources. It makes sense that you would want to remove this responsibility from whoever is doing it, but how can you do so without destroying your bottom line?
You may have noticed that there has been a lot of discussion about data recently; specifically, how it has become a driving force in organizational decision making. This month we will take a look at the data revolution, how the data (created by the analysis of other data) has become a commodity, and what is the real value of an individual’s data.
The business world has been presented a lot of threats recently, and perhaps one of the most notable is ransomware. The reason it has become so notorious is because it’s incredibly difficult to remove from a system; and, the way that it spreads is constantly changing and adapting to further its influence. How can your business prepare against such a volatile threat? It all starts by remaining mindful of how ransomware spreads.
Cloud computing is an ever-growing industry, and it’s only going to grow more popular as time goes on. More businesses than ever have started to adopt the cloud in at least some capacity. Is your company one of the few that haven’t yet moved to the cloud? If so, you’ll want to at least consider it, as your business could gain considerable benefits from doing so.
Have you ever wondered what it would take to knock your company out of business for good? It might surprise you if we said that, in theory, it doesn’t take much at all--perhaps a thunderstorm or a hacking attack to cause irreparable damage to your data infrastructure. Is your company prepared to handle any and all data loss incidents? With a business continuity plan and data backup, you’ll have as great a shot as ever to bounce back following a major disaster or data loss incident.
If your business isn’t already taking advantage of the cloud in some way, you’re in the minority. Most businesses use it for something or another, depending on the industry and service rendered. Yet, there are all kinds of different cloud-based infrastructures that your organization can take advantage of, which might make the decision somewhat challenging to make. What’s the best type of cloud solution for your business?
Paper documents can hold businesses back for several different reasons. For example, have you ever tried to move to a new office and drag along countless heavy filing cabinets? What about digging through folders just to find one specific document? It’s difficult to sort them in the first place as it is. Technology has made this job much easier, providing businesses with tools to better manage and maintain their wealth of paper documents in the form of a digital cloud environment.
Let’s take a moment to imagine the worst-case scenario for your business. You’ve been struck with a crippling disaster and your infrastructure is rendered inoperable. Maybe it was a fire that burned your office to the ground, or a hardware failure that wiped out any information located on your local network. Maybe a hacker infiltrated your IT infrastructure and installed ransomware on your network, or a user error led to a compromised account and infected network.
Let’s say that one of your employees downloads an attachment from an email claiming to be a receipt for an Amazon order or other online shopping outlet. The attachment then proceeds to infect their workstation with a virus or malware. This puts the integrity of your infrastructure at risk--all because of a simple mistake. Do you send the employee to cybersecurity training, or do you trust they will learn from the mistake and never repeat it?
For most of us, the dust has settled after a hectic holiday season and it’s time to start thinking about getting our finances in order. There will be, however, a few of us who are dealing with the aftermath left behind by cybercriminals looking to profit from misfortune. Identity theft and credit card fraud are two of the most popular ways to defraud unsuspecting victims - and the terms are often used interchangeably.
What would you do if you had an impossibly slow connection speed to either the Internet or your in-house network? Granted, no infrastructure is the same, but you still need to ensure that your business can handle its workload with the cabling setup that you have. If you haven’t updated your business’s infrastructure in some time, you should consider the latest and greatest cabling technologies for your connection purposes.
If you were to lose your business’ data, would you be able to continue operations? The answer is almost always “no,” so you need to take precautions before you inevitably suffer from an unpredictable threat like a hardware failure or hacking attack. Unfortunately, the average small business might have trouble affording such comprehensive coverage, which is a trend that we’re trying to help local organizations buck. If you’re stuck on data recovery, we want to help you better understand data redundancy.
Without communication, would your business be able to function as intended, or would it fall apart? Often times the only thing holding together a project are the links between all of the pieces of it--your employees--each working on various individual parts of its implementation. This is where communication comes in. A unified communications solution is the best way to keep your organization together at all times, whether in the office or not.
