Info Advantage Blog

How often does your technology experience trouble? If your business is constantly dealing with technical hiccups, your assets that are meant to be a boon to your organization, can quickly become a nuisance that holds you back. How can you take better care of your technology, and use it to usher in a new era of productivity?

First, we might need to explain the nature of break-fix IT services. This is what you normally get when you take your technology to traditional tech support. They’ll take a look at your technology, tell you what’s wrong, and provide their services for a hefty cost. They won’t take measures to help you mitigate your technology problems down the road. After all, their livelihood depends on your technology breaking down, so why should they have your budget’s best interests in mind?

The other type of IT service seeks to do exactly that; managed IT wants to prevent issues from becoming major problems that cause downtime. This enables your business to save money and time by not having to deal with near-constant technology troubles. The idea is to use preventative maintenance in order to detect minor issues, and resolve the overarching cause, before they can escalate into costly problems that could derail your budget.

Some examples of effective managed service offerings include:

• Server hosting: Your server units are used for the storage and transportation of critical data, so it makes sense to take proper care of them. However, the average small or medium-sized business might not have the staff or skillset necessary to care for or accommodate the physical server component. Businesses will often outsource this responsibility to guarantee the consistent uptime of crucial systems.
• Network security: Do you know the difference between viruses, malware, trojans, phishing scams, and other online threats? This is one of the many reasons why organizations would rather outsource their network security to cyber security professionals. Managing and maintaining a security solution that includes a firewall, antivirus, spam blocker, and content filter, can be tiring and knowledge-intensive.
• Remote maintenance and management: Often times, business professionals might be able to effectively use technology, but don’t notice telltale signs of degradation. Many of these signs can be spotted remotely, and the patches can swiftly be administered without a costly on-site appointment.
• Backup and disaster recovery: Small businesses need to preserve their data at all costs. It’s been proven that businesses that fail to restore their data following a loss incident are likely to go out of business within one year. This is why so many organizations turn to outsourced managed IT services to handle data backup. With Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR), backups can be taken as often as every fifteen minutes, and data can be rapidly deployed in the event of a data loss incident.

Does your business have trouble managing and maintaining its critical technology assets? With Info Advantage, we try to make it as easy for you as possible. To learn more about any of the above services, and more, reach out to us at (585) 254-8710.

 The first thing you’ll need to understand about migrating to the cloud is that it’s a much more involved process than simply performing a single software upgrade. Truth be told, properly migrating your data to the cloud involves a lot of prep work, and, as is the case with other kinds of moves like packing up your personal belongings to settle into a new house, the better prepared you are for the move, the smoother the transition will go and the less of a chance that you’ll lose something of value.

ITProPortal provides some insight into what migrating to the cloud properly takes: “It involves a complex infrastructure migration process. Good preparation is the key to success. Those organizing the migration process should ensure that all data is ready for the move and that the company network has the necessary capabilities to interact with the cloud.” This is a major reason why you’ll want a professional assessment of your IT infrastructure before deciding to move to the cloud.

Preparing your network for a move to the cloud involves a few considerations:

Sorting and Labeling Your Files
It’s important to take the time to determine what files are worth saving and moving, and what files aren’t so you’re not wasting time and resources moving and storing old files that your company no longer needs. This can be a time-consuming process, but the work will be worth it in the long run.

Preparing Your Network Infrastructure
Migrating to the cloud comes with demands on a network that may require major adjustments to be made to your IT infrastructure. When migrating to the cloud, there are two major additions to your network you’ll want to consider; setting up a direct Internet breakout in order to distribute traffic across external networks, and multiple firewall instances in order to secure the various Internet connections.

Have a Migration Timetable
Even the best planned move to the cloud can take weeks or even months to complete. Therefore, you’re going to want to present your staff with an accurate timetable so the transition won’t interrupt workflow. One particular thing to plan for is how user settings will be migrated, like profiles, address books, calendars, etc. To help with this, ITProPortal advises: “Instead of moving all their data to the cloud, more and more companies are opting for a hybrid solution. This means that some users and storage locations stay with Exchange on-premises, while the rest move to the cloud.”

With all of your data successfully migrated, you will next want to consider strengthening security, archiving, and data backup in order to fully prepare your organization for the unique challenges of cloud computing. Rest assured, Info Advantage is here to assist you with any challenges your organization faces as you operate within your new cloud environment, as well as to help you through every step of your cloud migration process. Reach out to us at (585) 254-8710 for any IT assistance that you require.