Business Solutions & Software Group Blog

The cloud is undeniably a useful approach to technology, for reasons ranging from its accessibility to its scalability to its purported cost efficacy. Why purported? Well, there are hidden costs that can very well impact whether or not the cloud is your best option.

To the layperson, a business is a business is a business. From your customers to your employees, they don’t always view businesses on a sliding scale. For the enterprise business, this is an advantage, since most digital tools are developed with the B2B enterprise space in mind. For the small business, there are definitely times when the software they use is more than they will ever need and it can be more expensive than they would normally need. In today’s blog, we’ll go through a few technologies that enterprise businesses use that small businesses can use too. 

There’s a lot to consider when it comes to cloud computing… a lot more than many people might anticipate. Let’s hash out what is really required when it comes to properly managing your cloud resources.

Some vulnerabilities can fly under the radar for quite some time, some for months or even years. This is the case with a recently discovered Microsoft Azure database vulnerability. The exploit, discovered by cloud security provider Wiz, is found in Cosmos DB, Microsoft Azure’s managed database service, and it’s a real nasty one at that. Let’s dive into the details and see what we can learn from the incident.

The cloud is used quite often in the business world, but different organizations use it in different ways. Some might use it to support a remote workforce, whereas others might use it to get around the up-front capital expenses of purchasing software licenses through the use of “as a service” offerings. Regardless, the cloud is capable of solving countless problems for the modern business, but only when it is implemented in a calculated and intentional way.

The cloud is a common tool for businesses, but organizations tend to utilize it in different ways. Some use it to support a remote workforce, while others use it to avoid financing new hardware on a regular basis. Some even use it to fill in the gaps created by product and service demand. However your business uses the cloud, chances are that you will encounter issues if you do not take measures to adequately manage it.

The cloud has proven to be a valuable asset for businesses of all kinds, and more organizations are buying into it as a solution to some of the most notable problems in the professional environment. Transitioning to cloud computing comes with its own fair share of challenges, however. Here are some of the most common challenges that organizations migrating to the cloud face.

With the considerable costs that a business’ hardware investments can bring, it only makes sense to identify any means to optimize these costs available. One very effective means of doing so is to adopt a virtualized environment, either hosted onsite or in the cloud. Let’s take a few moments to consider how virtualization can benefit your organization.

Businesses need to make a decision about where they want to host their central infrastructure, and with so many options available to them nowadays, it’s often a matter of the demands on the data and applications required. Really, the decision comes down to two options: host your central hardware onsite or host it in the cloud. Let’s take a look at the debate now. 

Paper documentation has long been a fixture in the office as a means of helping to organize information and other resources. Of course, asbestos was a fixture in building construction for quite some time as well, so it should be clear that the established way of doing things is never guaranteed to be the best. Considering this, let’s go over what a modern Document Management System is and what options a small to medium-sized business has to choose from.

Technology has helped countless businesses, big and small, approach their operational challenges and overcome them. As an example, let’s look to what global toy producer The Lego Group did to resolve some of the technical hurdles they were encountering with improved IT solutions, before we consider how your business could do the same to scale.

Today, every business needs a certain amount of technology. The more that people depend on the Internet to manage their affairs and procure goods and services, the more businesses will need to focus on getting the IT infrastructure in place to help them succeed. Over the past several years we have begun to see a lot of businesses dipping their toe into the cloud computing pool. Many started with cloud backup and moved to some type of hosted software platform like hosted email through Outlook or Gmail or cloud-based productivity suites offered by Google and Microsoft. Today’s business is moving past these platforms and actively hosting their computing infrastructure online. It was only a few short years ago that this strategy was looked upon as far too risky. Let’s take a brief look at hosted infrastructure and its benefits.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been jamming up business progress for over half of 2020 and it has led a lot of organizations to push off any new technology investments or to find hosted solutions that will allow them to meet their current business demands. On the surface, these cloud investments are a great way to secure the resources your business needs, but it can have an alternate effect. Today, we take a look at how cloud computing can be just too expensive, even if it doesn’t carry large upfront costs. 

Cloud computing can be a huge benefit for your business, but most times it is thought of as just a cost-saving measure. In reality, investing in the cloud can have a number of serious benefits for any business bold enough to commit to hosted computing. Today, we will go through some of these benefits and explain how they set a business up for success.

Businesses need access to some considerable amounts of data these days, regardless of their size, which means that even a small business has a few things to weigh out. For instance, should they keep their IT in-house with on-premise solutions, or should they cast their gaze at cloud-hosted solutions? Let’s consider the benefits available for either.

It’s no secret that cloud computing brings a great many benefits to businesses of all types. Being able to have a computing platform that can be accessed from nearly anywhere enhances your staff’s ability to collaborate and be productive, even if they aren’t sitting at the office.

If you’ve ever moved files from a flash drive, you are likely well aware at how troublesome limited storage space can be. Business data storage is no different, however the flash drives transition into servers, and the $10 tech store purchase transitions to thousands upon thousands of dollars storage server. There has to be a better way to store data, right? Luckily, thanks to cloud computing -- there is.

We always recommend cloud platforms to our clients, especially those who need a central place to host important data and applications. However, it is possible to go too far when implementing cloud services. We’ll discuss how you can monitor your cloud computing costs, as well as how access to cloud solutions can be a detriment to your organization.

In order for your business to effectively use its technology, you need to consider your data storage capabilities. You need to make sure that you’re in the Goldilocks zone (not too much, not too little, just right) in terms of your storage space in order to avoid issues. For this week’s tip, we’ll review some of the things you need to ask in order to optimize your business’ data storage.

Many businesses have already used the cloud to great success, but others might not even know where to start. The thing is, the cloud has so many features and potential solutions that organizations who don’t know where to start might be overwhelmed by the possibilities. Today, we’ll look at some specific benefits offered by cloud-hosted solutions and services.