It is without question a risky affair: allowing employees to use their personal devices to access your network and valuable, often confidential company data. Yet despite the risks BYOD (bring your own device) marches on and companies and organisations around the world are adopting tactics and technologies to make it work.
Data centre optimisation and consequential benefits for businesses
With so much focus on hacking and internet security, many firms of 10 - 100 people will feel that they have put a lot of effort into making their data as secure as possible. Unfortunately, internet security is a moving target, where the threat may be characterised as agile and continually evolving. Consequently, it is impossible for networks to remain impenetrable.
Standard IT best practice, such as upgrading and patching operating systems and applications, and maintaining a reliable backup and Disaster Recovery capability, are all layers that help to ensure that a firm is in a position to resume normal operations within an acceptable timeframe, should it be the victim of an attack.
Companies who require high levels of availability need a reliable disaster recovery strategy. For many organisations, that usually means adhering to the 3-2-1 backup rule, where the 1 refers to keeping 1 backup copy offsite. Traditionally, that copy is stored in a dedicated, company-owned and/or managed disaster recovery infrastructure. Lately, however, businesses have started turning to cloud-based disaster recovery solutions. This article explains why that strategy is better.
The 3-2-1 backup rule is a highly recommended backup strategy that says you must:
What if your firm was asked to improve productivity by 5% this year? To achieve that level of productivity improvement, you need to know all of your options. Improving your technology capabilities by adopting cloud services is one of the best ways to improve your productivity as an accountant.
Let’s take a moment to define our terms before continuing further.
You walk into your office tomorrow. Before you can get a cup of coffee, one of your managers tells you that your IT service contract is going to expire in two months.
You've been frustrated with poor service and technology for months. Now, you have an opportunity to improve the situation. Your IT manager stands at the ready with a few recommended IT service providers. Are you equipped to sort through the options and call them?
Before you sign on the dotted line to renew your IT service contract, go through these questions. Investing an hour today could save you months of effort, risk and frustration.
Shadow IT is the practice of using technology within a business without the knowledge or approval of the IT function.
This includes anything from a single employee using a low-cost app, to an entire department, such as Project Management, adopting a cloud software application to support its Line of Business (LoB).
When you enter into a managed services agreement with an IT support provider, you’re likely driven by the potential cost savings, particularly in terms of labour costs. What you probably don’t realise is that, in addition to helping you save on costs, an IT support provider can actually play a very critical role in the success of your business.
At HTL Support, we aim to offer professional IT support services with a difference. The foundation stone of our business is to employ expert technology support technicians with good people skills. Our friendly IT Guys take the hassle out of supporting IT issues so you can get on with the thing you most desire - running your business and practicing what you do best in servicing your customers or clients.
‘’Cloud Computing’’ could be akin to a tech buzzword that has been around for years. However, unless they have been living under a digital rock, accounting firms will be aware that cloud computing has finally moved from just another buzzword to a real tool for businesses.
According to a report by Intuit, almost 80 percent of U.S. small businesses will be fully adapted to cloud computing by 2020 with an increasing number of respondents currently using it or planning to within the next two years.
The National Crime Agency didn’t pull any punches in the report Cyber Crime Assessment 2016, published by its Strategic Cyber Industry Group. The Executive Summary warned of “an existential threat to one or more major UK businesses” and that “criminal cyber capability development currently outpaces the UK’s collective response to cyber crime.”