The holiday season rush is almost over and the new year is right around the corner. As we quickly approach the end of 2016, your business may be slowing down or perhaps increasing productivity. Whatever the case may be, one very important question to ask is whether your network is ready for 2017 and beyond! Before we look to the future, it pays to analyze some of the IT successes and challenges of 2016, to better prepare for the 2017 network landscape.
2016 Successes:
It may be safe to say that most of the world can now explain the difference between natural clouds and cloud computing. The ‘Cloud’ and Big Data was a confusing concept for some, but has made its way to a world paradigm shift so great that it makes the introduction of the telephone appear trivial. It’s no passing phase - the emerging technology of cloud computing and data storage (now the size of the moon and beyond) is here to stay.
Cloud-based services are the new normal as they offer (to name a few:)
- Scalable flexibility and centrally stored files and documentation
- Affordable disaster recovery for small to medium businesses
- Automatic software updates and work from anywhere functionality
2016 Challenges: Security Hacks and Data Breaches
If you thought 2016 was hit with only a few high-scale-data-breaches, you would be wrong. The year 2016 was jam-packed with THOUSANDS of the largest data breaches in recent history. According to ZDNet.com, ‘Over two billion records were stolen in 2016 – exposing more than 2.2 billion records.’ With social networks such as Linked-In and Twitter, and giants like Oracle Micros, Yahoo, and the NSA falling victim to data breaches, small to medium businesses must closely examine how their critical data is being saved and backed up. Similar to a bad remake of an old ‘hit’ song, we’ve learned that old ransomware and virus elements have a way of reappearing, much like a sound bite in a new single. The original was dreadful to begin with, and now we are subject to its reincarnation!
Our ‘new-normal,’ as successful as it continues to be, also comes with reservations as businesses greatly consider the challenges:
- Security and privacy continues to be the obvious point of concern – knowing where your data resides and exactly how it is protected is necessary when employing the most up-to-date security systems
- Lack of internal expertise and time – Partnering with the right IT provider, such as Platinum Systems, will help offset the costs of implementing internal solutions, allowing businesses to focus on growth
- Downtime and accessibility can be greatly impacted when internet connection is down – employing a strong infrastructure can help diminish outage issues and keep your data protected
2017 Recommendations: 5 Ways to Prepare Your Network
The digital business transformation continues to kick into high gear. For many, the potential challenges are not enough to deter from the advantages that cloud computing can provide. With the right IT provider, many of those challenges can be minimized and easily managed. Platinum Systems has compiled a few key steps your business can take now to ensure network readiness for 2017:
- Replace out-of-date software programs and systems that slow performance and growth
- Shift from IT capital expenditures to simple pay-as-you-go cloud-based scalability
- Replace disk-based backups with an offsite data backup solutions such as PtCB (Platinum's cloud backup for data loss prevention)
- Increase internet speed to optimize network performance
- Wherever there is cloud data, there will be risk, which is why increasing security measures through administrator network policies, email and spam filtering, and encryption are important first-defense practices to implement
Give Platinum Systems a call at 888-910-4407 and ask for information on a Network Assessment.
Whittacker, Zack. (2016, November 15). These were the biggest hacks, leaks and data breaches of 2016. Retrieved from http://www.zdnet.com/pictures/biggest-hacks-security-data-breaches-2016/