3 Critical Services Your Current IT Support Is Missing

a man standing in front of a server holding a laptop

It’s always fun for IT guys to see people in the financial industry marvel at Bitcoins and their fluctuations. Here in IT, fluctuation and change are the norms.  A significant service can be a lifesaver now but give it a few years, and it will be completely null. Herein lies the problem. In IT, things change fast, and businesses that don’t adapt to these changes are flushed down the toilet. This is why choosing IT Support is a daunting task. The service spectrum is broad, needs are always changing, and it’s always difficult to tell if your IT service provider is providing you with the best services, or leaving some vital things out of their checklist.

Your IT service provider may be missing the following boxes on their service provision checklist:

Cloud Cost Optimization

The internet always seems free for everyone except for IT firms. Your internet provider may be intentionally or unintentionally, making you pay way more to the Cloud Service Providers than you should. Statistics show that most companies spend about 36% more than they should pay to their Cloud Service Providers such as AWS.

Most IT businesses lose out on massive savings by outsourcing their Cloud Management to IT Service Providers who overlook cost optimization. To these providers, getting you to the cloud is an accomplishment, even if your business has to spend fortunes to use it.

There are a plethora of actions your MSP should be undertaking to cut your cloud costs significantly. Your IT service provider should be:

  • Using or being heavily invested in Cloud analytics
  • Integration of Auto Scaling To reduce costs
  • Using AWS cost optimization tools
  • Power Utilization Practices such as Power schedules
  • Right-Sizing Of Computing Services
  • Use of Spot instances when necessary

Contingency Plans and Security

Once you have outsourced most of your IT service requirements to an IT firm, the security and safety of your data and the customer’s data become a priority. The two most essential things in security are contingency plans and constant improvement. Though most MSPs invest heavily in security, very few offer “Plan Bs” when the ceiling caves. Failure to plan, in IT more than in any other industry, is planning to fail.

  • Your MSP should have:
  • Clearly laid out Disaster Recovery Plans
  • Insurance in case of a Cyber Attack
  • Extensive and Secure Backups for your data

In terms of constant improvement, your IT service Provider’s security plan should always be evolving. Security in IT is not a destination but a journey. Malware is continuously changing and improving, and so should your IT providers Security Plans. Your IT provider should be keeping up with the following cybersecurity and malware trends:

  • Increase in instances of Ransomware
  • Third-party Cryptomining
  • State-sponsored cyber attacks
  • Artificial intelligence in cyber terrorism

Regulatory Compliance

For years now, it was assumed that the web and IT were beyond regulation. Well, the amount of regulation in IT has significantly increased for two fundamental reasons. Governments and regulators have spent the past few years catching up. Also, the rise of IT and its growth has seen IT expand into uncharted territory and industries increasing its influence. This has called for more regulation.

Navigating the regulatory landscape is an essential service your MSP needs to offer. Some of the past, present and future regulations that have been lorded over the IT industry include:

  • The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union
  • Consumer Privacy Act in California (CCAP)
  • The Biometric Data Law in Illinois
  • Consumer Online Privacy Right Act(proposed Bill)
  • Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)
  • To show how a lack of regulatory compliance can cost a business and how fast the regulatory climate is changing, YouTube was recently fined $170 million for violating the COPPA regulations.

Regulation in itself is a noble idea, but it may lead to massive losses in money and time if neglected. Your IT provider has the responsibility of preparing you for future regulations and how they will affect your business. Your IT provider should be able to

  • Extrapolate your current investments and plans to see if they will be legally viable in the next ten years or so.
  • Align the services they offer to ensure that they comply with present and possibly future regulation.
  • Assure the privacy of your IT firm and the data of your customers and staff.

Though it’s true that the IT climate is always changing, we here at 4 Corner IT have always been changing with it. For any inquiries about IT and Custom solutions on your IT needs, contact us and let us be part of your story.

Also, check out our cabling services!

Citrix Partner Service Provider South Florida

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Citrix Solutions in Miami and South Florida

9 Things You Should Know About using a Citrix Partner:

  1. 71% of small businesses need Citrix for mobile workstyles.
  2. The migration is fast and affordable and there is really no learning curve since Citrix brings you the applications you’ve come to know and love and use on an everyday basis to all your devices, be it smart phone, laptop, tablet, or desktop PC.
  3. 4 Corner IT can help you adopt these cloud services with a one vendor, one solution approach where everything you need from email and word processing to billing and CRM is provided in one easy to use desktop software.
  4. When it comes to cloud computing, Citrix is the #1 proven solution by over 1,500 partners. It is based on the same technology used by 99% of Fortune 500 companies.
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  6. Citrix delivers apps and desktops to over 1. 5 billion devices around the world.
  7. 50% of small businesses think a Citrix partner solution is important to their business.
  8. As a SMB, you probably want to be mobile and have the flexibility to work wherever you want, on whichever device you want, but may lack the resources to do so. Citrix can do this and more at SMB prices.
  9. Call or message 4 Corner IT today. We’ll schedule a live demo to show you how you can get all this and more with Citrix. (954) 474-2204

One in Three Mission Critical Apps Currently in the Cloud

a person holding up a piece of paper with a cloud cut out of it

Research from identity management provider SailPoint has revealed that US and UK based IT leaders see one in three mission critical apps as currently in the cloud. That figure has risen sharply by 2015.

The Market Pulse Survey of 400 IT and business leaders, which defined ‘mission critical’ as apps mainly focused on storage, file-sharing and communications, forecast that the number is expected to grow to one in two in three years.

The figures differed slightly dependent on which side of the Atlantic respondents were based. 32% in the US compared to 30% in the UK for cloud mission critical apps now. However, the consensus was the same.

Another element of the research centred on pain points with moving to the cloud, with the usual suspects present.

Security in Mission Critical Apps

Security was the top risk for 73% of US and 74% of UK-based respondents, with compliance (56% US, 52% UK) and uptime and performance (48% US, 42% UK) rounding off the top three.

With security still a high risk, another facet of the research considering what the IT leaders saw as ‘high-risk data’ in the cloud – and how much they were prepared to put into it – was illuminating.

The figures were again very similar. Just over one in three (35% US, 36% UK) agreed that some of the data they were storing in the cloud was high risk. This is as opposed to half (50% US, 49% UK) who were adamantly against the gamble.

Worryingly, 15% on both sides were not sure. This is because they had no way of knowing if sensitive data is stored in the cloud at all.

Security is still top of mind when discussing a move to the cloud. Recent Stratsec research inferred that some cloud providers were unable to stop malicious attacks. Meanwhile, security was the number one initiative when selecting a provider. This applies to both cloud and non-cloud users in a recent Raconteur Media paper.

The fact that nearly half of those polled stated availability was an issue is significant. Especially when considering Forrester’s 2013 cloud forecasts – one of which stating that cloud SLAs will become less important.

Roughly one in three survey respondents accessed their company’s cloud system on a mobile device (35% US, 30% UK). Understandably, these figures are lower than the standard email and intranet. However, as the report notes: “Business users are increasingly using their devices for a broader range of work activities than ever before”.

This also seems to fit in with another Forrester prediction. The continued convergence of cloud and mobile, so expect higher figures for SailPoint’s 2013 Market Pulse Survey.

For the Construction Industry Cloud Computing Makes a Huge Difference

a person holding up a piece of paper with a cloud cut out of it

Building contractors were told this week that cloud computing could make a huge difference to the construction industry, especially when it comes to project management. 

Autodesk, which develops some of the most influential design software such as AutoCAD and 3DS Max, claimed this week that the construction industry could use cloud hosting to power remote servers, given the nature of working on a building-site, an essentially rugged environment. 

This would enable an industry which has otherwise been slow in taking up cloud technology (mainly due to security / reliability concerns) to flourish, changing the nature in which projects are run.

Autodesk senior VP Amar Hanspal thinks that the technology is now ripe for the construction industry to jump on board, just as they did for Building Information Modelling (BIM). 

Hanspal said that by using technology such as mobile phones, the work force could be reached and drawings, building models and instructions delivered. He stated that the cloud could be used as an integral tool for construction.

Cloud computing has been adopted by a lot of industries outside construction, which proves its value. 

It is enabling users to do things previously unheard of and with proper management can transform business processes. The cloud will be used, it is hoped, to accelerate the BIM which will enable engineers and designers to compute complex calculations on a much larger scale. 

It would enable not only remote access but combine this with increased processing power. 

A motorway for instance could be designed and analysed as a whole section rather than in sections. Structural engineers could compute could make large scale calculations whilst town planners look at building design solutions within an urban context. 

The possibilities are far reaching and could well negate the need for high powered expensive individual computers in the future. Such is the power of cloud computing.