“It’s time to do some spring cleaning! It’s been put off long enough!”
It’s easy to let things pile up to deal with them at a later time, especially when you are on strict timelines and only have so many resources. That’s why my desk can look like a disorganized disaster some of the time (but in my defense, it cleans up very well when it needs to).
Cloud computing is generally accepted today as a good option for businesses. While we aren’t arguing that this isn’t the case, we wanted to make sure that your cloud use--actual or theoretical--was sufficiently secure. Many will neglect to consider how secure their use of cloud solutions is, which is something that we’d like to fix.
Businesses today rely on a lot of data, and of course, this data typically isn’t stored all in one place, or even in the same format. Normally, this would make trying to manage this data far more complicated, but modern organizations have a way to simplify their data management: data virtualization.
The cloud is the new standard for businesses to handle their data storage and software distribution needs. We have a lot of experience in assisting our clients with the services they use via the cloud, and beyond that, most people are somehow connected to “the cloud” in some shape or form. However, this does raise a few questions about how secure our data actually is.
Data privacy is a huge issue right now, and with so many organizations possessing individual information, the issue isn’t going to be going away. Some of the biggest and most reputable organizations in business today have been breached in the past several years and it has put a new onus on individual data protection. Let's take a look at individual data privacy and what can be done to protect yourself online.
Many businesses are capitalizing on the vast amount of benefits Managed IT services can bring to the table. These service providers are able to assist your business in obtaining, and managing the technology that you rely on. Working with one of these providers can help your business simplify data management practices, as well as make them much more secure. Today we will go over how they are able to do so.
Data is everywhere. Nowadays, effectively everything we do produces data of some kind - especially where your business is concerned. If leveraged properly, your business can make good use of the data it collects throughout its operations. For this week’s tip, we’ll talk about how you can do so with a data warehouse, and discuss how to select the right one.
Blockchain technology is all the rage these days. Business owners are going to start hearing this buzzword as a bullet point in software solutions. Developers from all over the world are trying to harness the power of encrypted, distributed data, mainly due to the reputation that blockchain has regarding the “unhackable” permanence of the data stored upon it. However, it as powerful as blockchain is purported to be, it isn’t totally infallible.
With over 90 percent of people in the United States feeling as though their data is out of their hands, it should come as little surprise that many are looking towards the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation as inspiration. However, how close is the United States to passing this kind of legislation… and how will smaller businesses fare if (or when) some is passed?
For computer enthusiasts one of the major questions has always been Mac vs. PC. Most people prefer one over the other, while some are fine using either. The problem with having two popular non-compatible computer systems is that they each use proprietary file types. For documents, the answer was developed by Adobe: the PDF. Today, we’ll take a look at Portable Document Format.
As the technology that businesses have available to them develops, so does the propensity for this technology to be used unethically. This has become especially apparent where data collection is concerned, and what that data is used for after it has been collected. How can you keep operations moving both productively, and ethically?
For businesses that get a lot of work done while out of the safety and privacy of their offices, the importance of having a secure way to connect employees to important assets and data cannot be understated. To achieve these ends, many organizations implement what’s called a Virtual Private Network, or VPN. But what is a VPN, and how does it work to protect your business while out of the office?
I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how important it is to have a handle on your clients’ needs. After all, how else are you supposed to offer them the level of service that they need to remain satisfied enough to stay subscribed to what you offer? This endeavor is exactly why a customer relationship management (or CRM) system is so crucial.
At this point, the concept of the Internet of Things is a fairly familiar one, but that familiarity is to the Internet of Things on the micro scale--appliances with capabilities enhanced by an available connection to the Internet. There is another, more macro application to the Internet of Things: as a way to collect data in a municipal setting. However, like the IoT we are familiar with, these “smart cities” are host to many familiar problems.
Businesses of all sizes have come to depend on their IT for productivity. IT administrators that constantly monitor their network and infrastructure reduce downtime, leading to higher resource availability. With the increasingly complex makeup of an organization's network this becomes quite the task.
As technology has improved in function and convenience, we seem to demand more and more of it at an increasing pace. Take mobile data as an example: 4G was introduced in 2009, and less than a decade later, there is high demand for 5G. Unfortunately, while 5G has been worked on for some time already, it isn’t likely that it will be commonly available anytime soon.
On March 23rd, 2018, the United States Congress passed another spending bill that could potentially limit individual privacy protection all over the world. This bill included a provision called the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data (or CLOUD) Act, which makes changes to the Stored Communications Act of 1986 and provides unelected American officials a considerable amount of power over digital privacy rights.
As though the initial news of Equifax’s 2017 data exposure wasn’t bad enough, it has been discovered that there are even more victims than previously thought. While news like this is never good, it can bring a silver lining if the opportunities that such news presents are seized.
How much do you think a criminal would pay for your company’s sensitive data that’s been stolen by hackers? As it turns out, your data may not be worth as much as you may think, and that’s a bad thing for you and your business.
