Is the Cloud More than Your Business Needs?

 Five months into the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses have resolved to shift their operations and replace a lot of their onsite computing hardware with cloud solutions. While the cloud has proven to be a great method for businesses to obtain the resources they need without investing in the associated costs of a hardware refresh, its other costs could prove problematic. Let’s examine your options briefly and try to establish a sense of value.

Cloud Computing’s Benefits

In many ways, cloud computing seems like a bit of a no-brainer. As a secure and reliable platform, businesses can accomplish more without the concerns of security failures that once held them back. As a result, the cloud can provide the accessibility, mobility, and scalability today’s businesses need in a way that is very cost-effective. Since the provider maintains the cloud infrastructure, the business that subscribes to their services only needs to pay a manageable monthly fee.

Through this arrangement, businesses can access exactly the infrastructure that they will need—software and hardware maintenance included—available on a sliding scale. Any changes, increasing or decreasing resources, are as simple to make as can be. This simplicity is part of the reason that so many business processes are now entrusted to cloud services, from backup and communications to security and storage.

The Potential Downside to the Cloud

For all its benefits, there is one factor that makes the cloud a less appealing option: its costs.

Now, this can be hard for some people to believe. After all, an on-premise infrastructure requires you to purchase the expensive hardware and software needed to support it, deploy these resources where they are called for, and manage it. How can cloud computing be more expensive than that?

Simple: building an IT infrastructure has certain costs associated with it that need to be addressed.

That’s just it—the majority of cloud platforms aren’t delivered at a flat rate. While a service like Software as a Service can come at a relatively low monthly rate, once you begin the customization processes upon your cloud you’ll likely see your costs expand beyond what your own infrastructure would have cost.

The cloud can be either cost-effective or expensive. To help you avoid your budget being undermined by the added values of cloud computing, reach out to the IT professionals at Net It On. We’ll assess your situation and assist you in implementing the best solution for your needs. Give us a call at (732) 360-2999 to learn more.

How to Properly Manage Mobile Devices Connected to Your Business

 As remote work has become more common, so have tools that assist mobility and Bring Your Own Device strategies. Considering this, businesses need the means to keep control of their data and the technology that can access it. To do so, Mobile Device Management cannot be oversold as a benefit.

Let’s go through a few key best practices for utilizing MDM in your operations.

Defining Mobile Device Management

MDM is effectively the strategic application of solutions and software that establish and enforce policies that control how your business’ data can be accessed and used. In doing so, you give your IT resources the means to improve data security, enabling your business to make the most of a Bring Your Own Device implementation.

As with any solution, of course, it pays off to select your solution carefully. Here are a few considerations to make as you put MDM in place:

You Establish a Realistic Policy

If you’ve decided to enable your employees the ability to use their personal device, it is important that you consider the fact that there’s going to be some who prefer Android, and some who prefer iOS. Your MDM solution will therefore need to support both. Furthermore, you should ensure that your solution is compatible with both the devices you own and those that belong to your employees, with a policy that reflects the difference.

Devices Can Be Tracked and Managed

Unfortunately, there’s always the chance that one of your employees may have to be terminated. An MDM solution can help you to prevent any retribution. Let’s say that this employee was a part of your BYOD implementation. A good MDM solution will inform you if his device still has access to company accounts and revoke that access remotely.

These capabilities also make it a lot easier to troubleshoot and resolve any latent issues in your employees’ technology.

Enforceable Security

While security is clearly important to your business, your employees may not grasp the true extent of their responsibility in upholding it. The inherent optimism bias so many have simply won’t allow them to believe that they need to worry about security. Rather than trying to convince them otherwise, an MDM solution enables you to enforce the standards you want upheld, like password requirements, encryption and security benchmarks, remote wiping capabilities, and others.

Comprehensive Backup

Assuming you’ve properly backed up your business’ data, I have a question to ask you: does that include the data stored on your employees’ devices? An employee’s device is just as susceptible to damage and consequent data loss. In keeping with best practices, you need to ensure that any company data on their device is automatically saved to your cloud. That way, even if the device is damaged or lost, your data continuity won’t be.

How Will Businesses Adjust their Technology Use After COVID-19?

 The impact of COVID-19 to businesses has been such that we will not likely return to the way business was run before all of this happened. A major factor to this is how businesses once made use of their technology. The shifts that have occurred in the last few months will not likely go away, even after the pandemic ends.

Let’s take account of a few technologies that will likely see significant changes—even in the days after the pandemic.

Hardware

As fears of transmitting germs are growing in people’s minds—seriously, when was the last time it was scarier to see someone without a mask—many of your employees might be reluctant to use the equipment that spends all its time in the shared office environment. Heck, many people may not be too enthusiastic to return to the office at first, regardless, and may want the option to work remotely more often. Even your most mysophobic employee isn’t going to want to haul a desktop back and forth from the office.

This challenge will probably give an additional boost to Bring Your Own Device policies, as employees will not only have a familiar device to use… they’ll also know where it has been. Otherwise, mobile devices and laptops will likely become more often seen in the office, as their inherent mobility makes remote work easier.

Infrastructure

On a similar note, on-premise hardware solutions will likely be increasingly phased out by cloud-based options. The ease of use goes both ways in the business sense: it is easier for a team to access the resources they need, and the technology becomes easier to manage. After all, in-house hardware would require someone to enter the business to fix an issue. With a cloud-based infrastructure, the provider is responsible for maintaining and managing it. Cloud-based solutions are also inherently scalable, so adjusting your resources is far simpler to accomplish.

Collaboration

While collaboration at a distance may still sound strange to many, there are plenty of technology solutions available that allow you to accomplish just that. By combining the right software and the right hardware, or by enlisting a service for assistance, you can enable your team to virtually assemble. As a result, your business can accomplish more without adding to the health risks.

Regardless of what happens next, business operations are bound to change. Don’t get left behind because you didn’t make the changes quickly enough. Net It On is here to support you and your IT throughout these transitions and beyond.

Keeping Thorough Records Can Help Your Business

 If your business uses as much technology as the average business, you will need to ensure that it is properly documented. Today, we’ll go through what a managed service provider includes in their documentation practices.

What Does This Documentation Include?

All there is to know about every piece of technology you rely upon can easily be divided between your hardware and software documentation practices. 

Hardware

Here is some of the information you will definitely want to keep records of:

Serial/Model Numbers - Simple identification of the technology that needs support, as well as the kind of device it is for your support team’s benefit.

Purchase Dates - Knowing when a piece of hardware was acquired can help you to make decisions when looking to repair or replace the hardware.

Warranty Information - Knowing whether a piece of equipment is still under warranty can also help your decision-making processes. 

Installation Dates - Knowing when a piece of technology was installed can help with the troubleshooting process if it were to need support.

Physical Locations - Knowing where a device is located not only helps your support team to service it more easily, it enables you to keep better track of where your assets are.

Device Names - Naming the device helps to differentiate it from the others just like it.

IP Addresses - Knowing your IP addresses simplifies the process of locating it on your network.

Software

Your software is mightily important and should be documented properly. Here are some of the elements you’ll want to record:

Product Licenses - Tracking your product licenses gives you the individual identification number of the copy (or copies) of the software you are able to use.

Purchase Dates - Like the hardware, it helps you ascertain if your solution is under warranty and other important variables.

Install Dates - Knowing when a software solution was installed can provide a variety of important information, particularly involving any weaknesses in its programming.

Subscription Details - This information is vital to know if you want to keep these tools available to your users.

Usernames or Registration Emails -  You will want to know who can access each software title with their username. Often, getting support or logging in to the vendor’s website will require this.

Version History - Finally, keeping track of the current version of each of your software will allow you to know if an update is called for, or if there are any vulnerabilities that you need to be concerned about.

Additionally, you will want to create and maintain documentation on the proper procedures to keep these solutions current and working as intended.

What is the Benefit of All This Documentation?

Having all of this information documented will go a long way toward allowing you to keep track of your technology investments. If you would like help with the documentation process, or if you would like to speak to one of our IT experts about what information we keep, call us today at (732) 360-2999.

Remote Collaboration Depends on Good Conferencing Practices

 Like many other businesses, COVID-19 has foiled the big plans you had for 2020, but it has presented a different set of opportunities.

Many businesses had deliberately avoided providing remote work opportunities for their employees, mostly out of the fear that their teams would become inefficient, less productive, and present management and security challenges. Now, after a few months with little choice but to suddenly embrace it, the major challenges are actually delivering the resources your nelly remote workforce needs to produce results in line with expectations.

One important solution that has emerged during the duration of the pandemic was one that most businesses already had access to but didn’t have to use in the manner they do now is video conferencing. With health concerns surrounding a full-time return to the office, video conferencing gives your remote staff the opportunity to work directly with contemporaries and clients to drive business initiatives forward. In fact, in many cases major projects that couldn’t be delayed any further are now being administered over the Internet. Collaborators have discovered that many of these platforms have responded with feature-rich offerings that include integrations with operations and project management software. 

Project Coordination Without Leaving Your Home

For a while, most small business owner’s only goal was to get the capital they needed to keep business running. It was important that the core revenue streams were maintained, and with workers finding themselves working remotely for the first time, it was essential that they were able to stay involved in a manner that would allow them to produce. Much of the time, this means collaboration. Let’s look at some strategies businesses are using to maintain their collaboration using video conferencing. 

Collaboration Strategies

Most businesses rely on a coordinated effort. Some rely on side-by-side cooperation. This typically means meetings. Workers are now utilizing video conferencing to eliminate a lot of wasted times that in-person meetings create. This is all well and good as long as the video meetings are used productively. Here are three suggestions to make this a reality.

1. Don’t be brief just to save time - Video meetings, like meetings in a conference room, aren’t very interesting to people if they aren’t included. As a result, most people will try to duck out of meetings early. You’ll want to keep your meetings short, but don’t just fly through an agenda just to be brief. A big part of coordinating a team effort is making sure everyone knows their roles and how it fits into the whole. 
2. Don’t send too many messages - Remote workers--especially ones that work as a part of a team--get a lot of messages. Getting redundant messages on multiple different mediums can be downright frustrating. Try to keep your messages targeted and in one medium. 
3. Don’t just use the video conference for work - When people work side-by-side in an office and collaborate on projects, being in different places can alienate people. Have optional team-building exercises over video conferencing. It will also give them the idea that it’s a valuable tool, not just an interruption.

Keeping your business on solid footing is going to take both an acceptance that you will have to rely on new tools and strategies and having the right technology in place. Call Net It On today at (732) 360-2999 to talk to one of our expert consultants about getting the tools your remote team needs to stay productive and secure.

New batteries in the weather station sensor 9-27-20

 

Solid Inventory Management Starts for Under $100

 While stocking up ahead of time may be a sound strategy for things like breakfast cereal and toilet paper, the same cannot often be said in your business. In fact, excess inventory can sometimes cost your business a lot of money. That’s why we figured that we would discuss how an inventory strategy can help prevent redundant spending in your business.

Keeping Track of Your Hardware

To begin, let’s go over a surprisingly old-fashioned solution to this age-old problem: taking inventory.

You want to have a running tally of all of your hardware resources, from your servers and their components to the extra computer mouses (technically the plural for the component) you have saved in a box. The best way to do this? Invest in a label maker. Today, you can get label makers available for less than $100 that can print out barcodes or QR codes. Tagging all of your hardware with these labels makes it a lot easier to pull up the information on each piece when you need it.

Managing Your Inventory

Once you have a handle on what you have, you need a platform that will help you to manage it going forward. An inventory management system (or IMS) is a tool that allows you to track your items as they move about your business. This transparency can help eliminate some of the redundancy while making your overall management much easier.

This software can also allow you to embrace automation. Items can be reordered automatically when supplies are low, your team can be alerted when items need to be restocked, and other basic processes are made much easier. Try to find a platform that supports the following:

• Barcode scanner - An obvious addition that allows quick information on any tagged item. 
• Optimization - Make sure that you have the right amount of a product. Overstocking and under-stocking can be problematic for numerous reasons.
• Report generation - Being able to view sales history, manage current inventory, manage sales levels, and more. 
• POS integration - One beneficial strategy is to integrate your point-of-sale system and your IMS. 
• Purchase order management - Get an IMS that gives you a single view of purchasing records. 

Some of these solutions have even more features, intended to automate warehouse management, and give you product demand insights. Most businesses won’t need these features to simply manage their own operations, so keep this in mind as you review your options.