In 1970, around the same time David Bowie was writing “Changes”, Alvin and Heidi Toffler wrote a book entitled “Future Shock,” arguing that the ever-accelerating rate of technological and social change would create fear, confusion, and tension across the globe. In the last 50 years, their predictions have been largely prescient. While cloud technologies keep getting better and have improved our lives in a myriad of ways, there is no doubt that it leaves some people’s heads spinning. So how do you keep up with the cloud?

Have you wanted to move some or all of your organization's infrastructure to a cloud service provider (CSP) such as Microsoft Azure, but have reservations? These could include security, compliance, and/or costs — areas you would not want to have surprises. This is why it is important to consider how you will get you there in a way that is both secure and optimized for cost and performance. To help you navigate this process, we put together some key points to consider in your cloud migration strategy.

What is digital transformation, and what does it mean to my organization? The concept of digital transformation takes on many different meanings. What business you are in will dictate the specific factors involved. For many companies, the pandemic jump-started their digital transformation. Others simply embraced the changes they already had underway. Aspects of digital transformation that speak to all organizations include the need to be adaptive, resilient, and relevant to customers and stakeholders. Here is a look at what it means to adopt digital transformation within your organization.

What would it be like for your organization if there was an IT disaster such as an office fire, systems failure, or ransomware attack? If all your data was lost, how long would it take for your organization to be functional again? Minutes, hours, days, or weeks? How would this affect your customers and your employees? These are types of questions business leaders should ask when thinking about their data backup solutions and recovery needs.

Trends in Information Technology are continuously changing and, as a result, organizations are having to adapt to those changes. Let's look at the most prominent IT trends that are showing up today. 

Cloud-Based Modern Desktop

Many organizational networks are now cloud-based, allowing end users to connect from literally anywhere at any time, and with any device. Businesses who look towards enabling employees with a "Modern Desktop" environment typically want to meet these objectives:

What is Webex Teams?

Cisco's Webex Teams, utilized by businesses around the world, is a cloud-based, or hosted, collaboration platform that’s modeled around teamwork in the modern working environment. Built on the Webex platform, it can act as a phone system, a video conferencing system, a file share, and a whiteboard environment. Persistent, or ongoing, chat can be utilized by people within an organization as well as with partners and clients who work externally. Essentially, it’s a communication platform that will change how your organization collaborates, seamlessly and for the better.

When organizations decide to move data to the cloud, there are several benefits including cost efficiency and time savings. Consistent and frequent updates to make usability easier and friendlier is yet another benefit. For those organizations that have adopted Microsoft Office 365, (or better yet Microsoft 365, a.k.a. 'Modern Desktop') for example, you might have noticed that once a login occurs, the default page seen now is Office.com. As such, Microsoft announced the following explanation earlier this week:

If you haven’t heard the term “SD-WAN” (software-defined wide area network) by now, you’re either awakening from a two-year coma, or you haven’t been paying close attention to the onslaught of demonstrative offers, vendor emails, and introductory phone calls likely thrown in your direction.

The topic of SD-WAN has become the moniker for “building your company’s next WAN design." Needless to say, the term is out there as a hot topic, information is readily available, and most people feel that SD-WAN will be a positive disruption over the next three to five years. Due to the fact that clients want to build a better WAN experience with the benefit of lower costs, this makes perfect sense. Let's explore.