Small businesses seemingly always need to take a long look at the way they do things because they need to be as efficient as possible to carve out a market share. This often means using technology to make everything work. There are many different types of technologies that can help any SMB build more efficient operations, but the two we will outline in today’s blog, are two technologies that are probably doing the most to help SMBs improve.
Cloud computing has undeniably become one of the most important tools a business can use. Most businesses use some form of cloud computing, with 4-of-5 using multiple SaaS applications, virtualized computing environments hosted in the cloud, or other cloud-based tools. Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of using cloud computing.
You might be familiar with the concept of hosting a service or application in-house on your own server units, and if you are, you know all about the struggles that come along with doing so. But what if we told you that you can get the same benefits of hosting your own applications and IT systems without the need for any of the bulky equipment taking up space in your office? Yes, that’s right—you too can host your business applications, even if you do not have the space to do so, and it’s all thanks to the cloud.
The cloud is a great tool to improve the accessibility of applications and data, but with so many options available to businesses, it can be a bit intimidating to get started with it. Let’s go over some of the various types of cloud solutions available, as well as some of the more well-known services that you might find helpful.
Cloud computing has been one of the most utilized tools for business in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has made it crucial for businesses to give remote access to tools and one effective way to make that happen was to look to the cloud. This has expanded an already booming market and presents businesses of all sizes with the opportunity to get the computing they need without huge upfront costs. Today, we’ll take a look at the cloud computing market and how you can leverage hosted computing solutions to improve your business.
A lot is made about cloud computing and its cost and time saving benefits, but when your business is small, a lot of times, it could just be looked at as an unnecessary addition to your computing infrastructure. Today, we thought we would go through a few ways that even the smallest of businesses can utilize cloud computing.
Cloud computing has taken the business world by storm, fulfilling so many needs and simplifying as many processes. If you’ve been on the fence about incorporating the cloud into your IT infrastructure, you should know a few of these benefits to help you make your choice.
Cost Efficiency
Let’s face it, when you’re running a business, cost is a factor in every decision you have to make. Leveraging the cloud for any of a variety of purposes can help you to trim some expenses and make some others stretch a little further. A cloud setup provides the ability to scale your resources to match your needs, ensuring that you aren’t paying for more than you need. This simplifies your budget, and may help free up some capital to invest in other business needs.
Multiple Purposes
While the cloud is most famously associated with storage, it has the capability to serve your business in other ways as well. For instance, the cloud can host your software solutions for you as a part of a Software as a Service agreement. In these cases, any time there are improvements made and a new version is available, your solutions will be upgraded immediately.
Alternatively, the cloud can be used to facilitate a backup and disaster recovery strategy. By housing a backup of your data in an offsite cloud environment, it will be safe should some calamity damage your in-house infrastructure. In these cases, you can even virtualize your systems and run them directly from the cloud to preserve productivity while the office is repaired.
Finally, we return to storage, as it relates to the collaborative benefits to be had with the cloud. By storing business files and data in the cloud, you and your employees can share access and work together to achieve your shared company goals--whether or not you’re anywhere near each other.
Security
Your data is undeniably precious to your business, and as a result, it must be protected from threats from all sides, both external cyber crime and internal user error. Using the cloud permits you to keep your most sensitive data accessible on a need-to-know basis, and allows you to wipe a device in the hands of someone who doesn’t need to know, if need be.
If you want to use the cloud to accomplish these things, reach out to The Connection, Inc at (732) 291-5938.
All businesses have certain software solutions that they need to keep their operations going. Be it an email solution or a productivity suite that you lack, your business is held back from ideal operational efficiency. The traditional way of acquiring these pieces of software can be holding your organization back, so we’ve come to you with a solution: Software as a Service (SaaS).
There are plenty of benefits to allowing your employees to work from home, but that doesn’t mean you can just implement it without consideration and planning. You have to have a system in place that allows you to enjoy the benefits of remote capabilities while mitigating some of its potential risks.
The cloud has revolutionized the way that businesses approach computing. Companies can implement solutions in a flexible and accessible model that makes it much easier to take advantage of technology solutions. Yet, you should know that not all clouds are the same, and you can’t treat them as such. Here are four questions that you need to ask your cloud provider about the services that you’ve been rendered.
What is Your Business Responsible For?
Depending on the cloud provider that your business goes with, you’ll want to know exactly what their responsibilities are. For example, the cloud provider might be responsible for security to a certain degree, with the rest of the responsibility being shared with your organization. How can you best protect your organization if you don’t know who is responsible for what? You should clearly outline the responsibilities of both your cloud provider and your own organization.
What Type of Cloud Security Do You Need?
You’ll inevitably have different cloud-based services that you take advantage of. Whether it’s an Infrastructure as a Service type of solution or a Software as a Solution approach to cloud computing, your security needs will change. Your cloud provider should be able to adapt to the needs that your business has.
What Kind of Training is Offered?
It’s great if you know how to use your business’ cloud solution, but what about every other one of your employees? While you could spend all the time to make sure that your business’ employees know how to work with your cloud services, why should you waste the time doing so if your cloud provider offers it for you instead? The more time you can save, the more money you can save. Furthermore, cloud training shouldn’t be limited to during the implementation process; instead it can be used incrementally to keep everyone up to date on the latest and greatest practices.
How Much Visibility Do I Get?
In this case, visibility can be defined as insight into how your business’ data is stored, managed, and secured. Depending on the type of cloud provider and services you work with, you’ll have varying data visibility. For example, a small business might have limited control over its business’ data. On the other hand, a larger enterprise or corporation is trusting the cloud provider a lot with their patronage. This patronage also offers a considerable insight into the way that your data is being used.
If you want a cloud provider that offers complete and total transparency, The Connection, Inc can help. To learn more, give us a call at (732) 291-5938.
It can be argued that your organization isn’t considered “modern” without taking advantage of truly modern technology solutions. This includes the cloud, which provides anytime-anywhere access to important information or products. This type of access--also known as Product as a Service--can help your budget by eliminating large up-front costs in favor of smaller payments more regularly. This might seem ideal for your organization, but we urge you to take a step back and think about the solution before accepting terms of service without looking for extra hidden costs.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a business these days that doesn’t use the cloud in some way or another. Before investing in the right cloud solutions, it’s important that your organization considers several factors. Here are three of the most common ones that your business should consider before investing in and implementing a new cloud service.
What Type of Cloud Is It?
If you’re trying to determine which cloud solution you’ll be implementing, the number one thing to consider is if it’s going to be a public, private, or hybrid cloud solution. Public clouds are generally hosted off-site on a third-party provider’s infrastructure, but a private cloud is more focused on hosting the service in-house on your organization’s infrastructure. A hybrid solution is typically a solution that is hosted on another organization's infrastructure, but still offers a level of control that you don’t have with the public cloud. Depending on your business’ needs, a public cloud solution might not be enough. For example, a public cloud’s storage space might be partitioned off so that only you can access your storage space, but it’s still hosted on the same infrastructure as someone else’s, which might make some organizations shy away from it. If your business would rather have its own private storage or private cloud, hosting on your own hardware is the way to go--or working with a MSP to make it happen in a hybrid environment.
What Responsibilities Does Your Business Have?
This is incredibly important to know, especially if your business isn’t the one hosting the solution. You should know what expectations there are on your end of the dealings with your cloud provider. An example of this is if you’re getting your cloud storage through a third-party provider. While they are the ones responsible for hosting it, you’re the one responsible for accessing it. This includes having workstations and an Internet connection with enough bandwidth to make full use of your new solution or service. After all, if your business is using solutions that it can’t reliably access, it’s time to reevaluate your options so that downtime isn’t ruining your bottom line.
What is Your Service Level Agreement?
Part of working with other organizations that provide goods and services to your business is communicating with them when you’re in need of assistance. Therefore, you’ll have to consider just how timely you can expect your cloud providers to be when faced with support requests. If you aren’t aware of these details, you could suffer from downtime that could have been avoided with a little more proactive thought.
The Connection, Inc can help your business build out a solid cloud computing strategy. To learn more, reach out to us at (732) 291-5938.
Private cloud computing is on the rise, and it’s for a good reason. Data security is a major problem for countless businesses out there, and in the wake of growing concerns over privacy and security threats, it has urged organizations to take it more seriously than ever before. Putting together a comprehensive private cloud system has its fair share of challenges, but if done properly, it can solve the data security problem as well.
Businesses spend a lot of time thinking about new technology solutions, but new organizations in particular need all of the tools they can get to be competitive in the competitive marketplace. The cloud is one of those tools that will continue to grow alongside your business provided you take measures to keep it flexible enough to change as needed. We’ll help you understand how the cloud can be great for new businesses, as well as some of the solutions you can take advantage of through it.
The Cloud for Communications
All businesses need a telephone system of some kind. The traditional telephone infrastructure used by older organizations got a lot of mileage, but it’s unnecessary for the modern office. In traditional business telephone solutions adding users can be irritating and expensive. Cloud-based communication solutions like Voice over IP allow you to add extensions while taking advantage of everyday features that you would get with a more traditional telephone system. The benefits include eliminating an unnecessary service in traditional telephony while consolidating your infrastructure to use your bandwidth for communications.
The Cloud for Data Storage
The cloud allows for easy access to data storage. This gives your team the capabilities to access the same files from anywhere at any time as long as they have the correct permissions. Cloud-based data access promotes flexibility in devices used for work purposes as well as productivity by enabling employees to work as they see fit. Of course, permissions are something that must be paid attention to, as the more people who can access data, the more likely it is that something goes wrong with it. A good rule to follow is limit data access by user role.
The Cloud for Application Access
Some businesses have critical applications installed on every workstation, but this can be expensive and time-consuming. For one, you have to install this software on all devices they are needed on. This means you need multiple software licenses for each instance of the software running, whether it’s in use or not. Storing applications in the cloud gives your business more opportunity to apply patches and updates as needed, as well as making account management much easier.
How does your business use the cloud to its advantage? Let us know in the comments, and be sure to reach out to us at (732) 291-5938 for more tips on how you can leverage the cloud to your organization’s benefit.
Technology plays an integral part in just about all modern businesses in some way, shape or form. Without a place to purchase devices, however, no one can reap the benefits of them. Some businesses are vendors that provide organizations with these devices. In a sense, they act as the middle man between the producer and the consumer, acquiring devices for sale to businesses and users alike. In this way, vendors are critical for every single business.
The cloud can bring numerous benefits to a business. Public cloud offerings can reduce technology costs, provide scalability and flexibility to a business’ computing infrastructure, promote collaboration, protect your business from data loss, and much, much more. What it cannot do, however, is guarantee the control some organizations wish to have over their technology infrastructure. Some businesses prioritize that control, while others are bound by industry and government-induced regulations. For those businesses, there is the hybrid cloud.
The hybrid cloud is a cloud interface that combines the cost-effective solutions from the public cloud with the control and organizational effectiveness of a private cloud. With processing or applications working in each environment, there needs to be some coordination that provides the business’ resources the ability to integrate the two systems. Let’s take a look at the basics of a hybrid cloud strategy.
Some businesses can get away using public cloud resources for their whole IT strategy. Being able to trust cloud services vendors with your business’ most sensitive information is not easy. That’s why many businesses keep that data in onsite servers. If a company has a remote workforce--and, according to the latest numbers, nearly 56 percent of companies allow for some semblance of remote work--the LAN network isn’t going to cut it.
For this reason, the private cloud was born. The private cloud, which is a centralized computing environment that can be accessed remotely, was able to significantly speed up business, but the capital costs were substantial. To reduce capital costs, public cloud services were retained. Hybrid cloud computing was born. Businesses can get the cost reduction found with public cloud services, while also getting the control and security that comes with onsite-hosted, remotely accessible IT solutions. Companies now could do more with less; and, their workers could do it from wherever they are, delivering value all the way around.
Since a company’s hybrid cloud isn’t either a public cloud or a private cloud, in order for them to work in concert, there needs to be some coordination. In hybrid cloud computing, an orchestration layer enables users to easily move data and applications in, over, and around a hybrid cloud interface.
We talked a little about cost reduction, but more specifically it isn’t that at all. It is more of a cost redistribution. In fact, over time, you should expect to pay the same for a private cloud as you would a public cloud service. The effect it has for your business isn’t any less noteworthy, however. Capital expenditures, especially significant outlays that come with new hardware, can vary quite a bit depending on many different factors. This variability is a problem for your IT budget. With a per user/per month solution you can quickly identify what your costs are and predict them months ahead of time. Since you take in new revenue, paying for public cloud resources is easier.
The private cloud’s benefits are easier to ascertain. Having control over sensitive data is always important, but when your customers and employees (and everyone else who trusts you with data) are at stake, it is essential that you have the control over that data. Since keeping this information, and often centrally-used applications that may have some of this data tied to them, out of the public cloud is prudent, the hybrid cloud interface effectively protects the data and applications you need protected, while still providing the access your organization needs.
Are you searching for a solution to your organization’s computing needs? Contact the professionals at The Connection, Inc today at (732) 291-5938.
There is no denying that the cloud has exploded into the fastest growing business computing method, and for good reason. The cloud has a plethora of options that are designed to meet the needs of the modern business. Today, we examine how your business can leverage the inexhaustible supply of cloud options.
Modern businesses generate a lot of data, some of which they couldn’t really function without. This makes the prospect of data loss especially dangerous, making a data backup imperative. Today, cloud computing is seen as the premiere option in terms of data redundancy and availability. Today, we’ll look at why you want to consider storing your backed-up data in the cloud.
This is a strange time for everyone. For business owners, it’s filled with uncertainty as many of their businesses have had to shut down in the face of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Others were forced into embracing remote operations. For these companies, their cloud platforms are turning out to be major benefits. Today, we’ll explain why.
Cloud computing is one of the best ways that your business can compete with larger enterprises. Today, you can adopt the cloud and take advantage of countless services, but are you doing so yet? If not, we’ll help walk you through some of the best ways that your organization can leverage the cloud.
Of course, the type of cloud you will need depends on several factors, including data control, maintenance responsibility, and the complexity of your operations as a whole. You will generally be choosing from a public, private, and hybrid cloud for your business’ needs. With each of these comes new benefits and challenges to overcome, however, so you’ll want to consider all options before going all-in on a solution.
Public Cloud
If your business has a limited budget, the public cloud may be an ideal solution for you. The public cloud allows users to take advantage of the cloud without investing in on-site cloud infrastructure. You can use all of the great parts of the cloud, including storage, access to cloud-based applications or services, and communication solutions. The public cloud offers a great starting point for businesses that want to utilize the flexible cost the cloud offers, and don’t have the assets available to invest in anything more complicated. Some of the services provided through public cloud solutions include Google’s G Suite and Microsoft Office 365. Yet, it’s not all rainbows and sunshine for the public cloud, as the lack of customization and control may deter some organizations.
Private Cloud
Where the public cloud provides general catch-all solutions for businesses that don’t want to manage or maintain their own infrastructures, the private cloud offers hosted or on-site solutions that need to be maintained by an IT department of some kind. Basically, you need to have the infrastructure to manage a cloud system, as well as a team that can provide maintenance for it (unless you have arranged to outsource this--more on that later). Private clouds are in high demand because they allow businesses to easily customize their solutions to suit their needs--particularly in regard to network security and scope of services offered. Private clouds are best for businesses that want to maximize control over their data and know exactly what they want out of the cloud.
Hybrid Cloud
If neither the public nor private cloud are attractive to your organization, then perhaps a mixture of the two will provide the best results. A hybrid cloud takes all of the benefits of a private cloud and combines them with public cloud offerings thereby allowing for a customizable and flexible solution that is built specifically for your business’ needs.
The best part of this is that you can have an outsourced provider like The Connection, Inc host your cloud infrastructure so that you don’t have to. It’s the best way to take advantage of the best of both worlds. To learn more, reach out to us at (732) 291-5938.
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