Cloud Insights

Deploy Sage applications in the cloud with Sage Partner Cloud | Cloud at Work – with no monthly payments until August 2022. Cloud at Work, an approved Sage Hosting Provider is offering generous incentives to migrate Sage applications to the cloud now. You can now get up to 3 months of free cloud hosting* when you sign up for Sage hosting with Cloud at Work by April 29, 2022. You will receive immediate access to the hosting environment with no monthly payments until August 2022. This offer is available for all Sage applications: Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, Sage HRMS, Sage FAS etc. Get started today, for free, with Cloud at Work’s efficient, cost-effective, and scalable cloud deployment. Contact us directly to learn more about the Sage cloud hosting promotion and pricing options, or inquire with your Sage Business Partner. *Offer expires April 29, 2022. Qualifying businesses must establish a new 2 yr minimum Cloud at Work subscription.

We’re working our way through the series, The Cloud Wave: An SMB Imperative, where we’ve highlighted five areas of your operation at risk if you maintain the status quo. We encourage you to check out the first and second posts in the series. The third risk in maintaining the status quo surrounds cybersecurity, and it could be the most pressing single risk yet. For most small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), their security is, well, insecure. The risk of inaction is real, and potentially devastating. The good news is, it’s a risk they can mitigate. Why is cybersecurity a heightened risk for SMBs — and how can cloud hosting minimize the risk? Size doesn’t matter Some small and midsized companies have a false sense of security that they won’t be the target of a ransomware attack because they are smaller. In reality, perpetrators love to attack small businesses — they comprise between one-half and three-quarters of the ransomware victims.  A 2020 SMB cybersecurity report from Connectwise found that 55% of SMBs have experienced a cyberattack. SMBs who fail to take the risk seriously, and take proactive action to secure their technology infrastructure, are risking everything. Some 60% of small businesses that experience a cyberattack are closed within six months. The onslaught is real There’s a new ransomware attack every eight minutes. More than 30,000 websites are attacked each day. And it’s not just the frequency that’s increasing. The attacks are becoming more sophisticated too. For example, the US Treasury Department identified 68 separate ransomware variants in 2021. The list of scary metrics surrounding cybersecurity goes on and staying out in front on this security minefield requires more resources than most SMBs have internally. Cybersecurity insurance coverage is hard to get Cybersecurity insurance offers a measure of protection for SBMs, but it’s getting harder to buy. High demand in combination with high payouts leads to increased premiums. Businesses report premium hikes of 50% and even 100% year over year. Naturally, insurance companies want to mitigate risks by recommending — or even mandating — that their insured take the proper precautions to protect against loss. The newest and most significant of those mandates is the requirement for Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). Other requirements may include a current and tested incident response plan, an updated patch management program, air-gapped and encrypted backups, and employee awareness and phishing simulations, among others — all making it difficult for SMBs to secure and retain coverage. The security army is shy on soldiers The challenging employment climate, including the Great Resignation, has hit the IT industry particularly hard. Some reports have suggested a third of tech workers plan to quit in the next 12 months — others claim as many as three-quarters. On average, cybersecurity roles take 21% longer to fill than other IT jobs. Combine that with a significant uptick in demand for IT workers. It all adds up to an unprecedented zero-percent unemployment rate! There are simply not enough qualified workers to provide SMBs the protection they need. A 2021 Cybersecurity Workforce Study suggests the global cybersecurity workforce would need to grow 65% to effectively defend organizations’ critical assets. Remote work compounds the risk Companies are worried about the security habits of their remote workforce – and rightly so. More than a third of remote workers admitted to picking up bad cybersecurity practices and using security workarounds while working at home. These practices expose SMBs to additional security risks, such as email phishing schemes, which have accelerated during the pandemic. Other risks associated with remote work are remote desktop protocol (RDP) breaches. During Q1 of 2021, RDP breaches were responsible for the most ransomware attacks — despite reliable tools for securing RDP access. Cloud – a safe port in the storm More sophisticated and more frequent attacks combined with new mandates, fewer qualified IT personnel, and lax security practices create the perfect storm for SMBs. In our experience, SMBs have a very clear awareness of their security risks, but many lack the necessary internal resources to fully combat those risks. Even organizations with robust in-house IT departments are pressed to have the necessary resources to remain out in front of the essential security tasks and protocols. Cloud Services Provider (CSPs) like Cloud at Work host your business applications in state-of-the-art data centers where redundancy, security, and availability are maintained at the highest level. Our data centers, for example, are geo diverse, provide 24/7 support and monitoring, perform hourly snapshots and daily backups (stored on separate networks), and offer disaster recovery time guarantees. Moving business applications to a hosted cloud model can help mitigate risk. Cloud computing is one of the best things to happen for SMBs — a safe port in the storm.

Deploy Sage applications in the cloud with Sage Partner Cloud | Cloud at Work – with no monthly payments until July 2022. Cloud at Work, an approved Sage Hosting Provider is offering generous incentives to migrate Sage applications to the cloud now. You can now get up to 3 months of free cloud hosting* when you sign up for Sage hosting with Cloud at Work by March 31, 2022. You will receive immediate access to the hosting environment with no monthly payments until July 2022. This offer is available for all Sage applications: Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, Sage HRMS, Sage FAS etc. Get started today, for free, with Cloud at Work’s efficient, cost-effective, and scalable cloud deployment. Contact us directly to learn more about the Sage cloud hosting promotion and pricing options, or inquire with your Sage Business Partner. *Offer expires March 31, 2022. Qualifying businesses must establish a new 2 yr minimum Cloud at Work subscription.

Earlier in this series, The Cloud Wave: An SMB Imperative, we highlighted five areas of your operation at risk if you maintain the status quo and took a closer look into the first of those, supply chain challenges. Here we’ll discuss the impacts and dangers a remote workforce presents to an SMB’s technology infrastructure — and how cloud hosting can minimize those risks. What is the current state of remote work, and what does the fall of the office have to do with the rise of cloud technology? The state of work Forty-five percent of full-time US employees worked from home either all or part of the time in Gallup’s September 2021 update of its monthly employment trends. And 91% of them want to keep it that way — so much so that one-third of employees said they’d look for another job if their employer eliminated remote work. The reality is that digital tools such as Excel, Google Docs, video conferencing, virtual whiteboarding, and chat channels like Slack or Workspace have made a worker’s presence in offices less essential. At the same time, though, those digital tools have created or magnified significant technology challenges for employers. We’ve outlined three of those challenges below. Remote workers can be a bit messy There’s mounting evidence that remote workers aren’t as neat as they should be when it comes to risky online behavior. A recent survey from Tessian uncovered some facts that are sure to keep management up at night: Almost 40% indicated their cybersecurity behavior at home differs from what they practice at the office. More than a third admitted to picking up bad cybersecurity practices and using security workarounds while working at home. A majority of remote workers allow household members to access corporate devices for personal use, and 82% of workers admit to reusing passwords. Remote workers are also likely to use their personal devices for work, and they may also run mobile app versions of applications like Microsoft Teams or Zoom that can increase the risk that company data will pass through an insecure environment. Another study found that half of employees have downloaded or installed software not approved by their IT department. The VPN ain’t what is used to be Pre-pandemic, many SMBs relied on VPNs to provide remote access to a subsection of their workforce — typically purchasing enough VPN capacity to serve about 10% of their employees at any one time. Once everyone began working from home, these companies were hard-pressed to buy, install, and configure the additional VPN concentrators needed to keep newly remote workers working. The result? Slow, intermittent connections and frustrated, unproductive workers. In fact, executives in a poll conducted by Tanium in June 2020 named overtaxed VPNs as the second-biggest security challenge they faced as they moved to more distributed workforces. (The number one challenge was identifying new computing devices on the network, as remote workers logged on with their personal devices. More on this below.) An endpoint explosion The number of network endpoints has tripled during the pandemic — and more endpoints mean more risk. Unfortunately, the vast majority of cyberattacks are launched through network endpoints. One remote work security report surveyed security leaders and found that 79% pointed to network access as a top concern for securing a remote workforce. There’s good reason for their concern. A report from KuppingerCole shows that globally in 2020, endpoints connected to the internet experienced 1.5 attacks per minute! Another study by the Ponemon Institute found that 68% of organizations have experienced one or more endpoint attacks that successfully compromised data and/or their IT infrastructure. How cloud can help With an ever-increasing number of network endpoints, slow and over-taxed VPNs, and lax employee security habits, SMBs face a digital crisis. Fortunately, it’s a crisis that can be mitigated through the deployment of cloud technologies. For example, hosting the company’s ERP and other business productivity tools in the cloud minimizes, or even eliminates, the demand on VPN resources. Advanced, cloud-based endpoint protection tools along with multi-factor authentication provide increased security to remote connections. Today’s SMBs are wise to embrace the technology tools that support a remote workforce. Cloud applications provide remote workers with secure, fast, and reliable access to business applications while providing for essential security measures. If you’re considering a move to the cloud, reach out to a member of our cloud consulting team. And stay tuned for our next post in this series where we’ll explore the third risk in maintaining a technology status quo — data security.

To appreciate the scope and impact of the computer chip shortage, you need only consider that everything in your life that has an on/off switch requires one. We’re talking about your phone, car, coffee maker, that Peloton you bought in 2020 — and your company’s computer server. It follows that when semiconductor production slows, so too does the manufacturing and distribution of every device that uses one. To jump straight to the chase here, computer chips that power servers, like the one sitting in your backroom, aren’t readily available. If yours fails, a new one is a long way off. When even Apple can’t lay its hands on a chip, there’s not much hope for SMBs. In the introduction to this series, The Cloud Wave: An SMB Imperative, we highlighted five areas of your operation at risk if you don’t take action, promising to look more closely at each area in subsequent posts. Welcome to part one, where we consider how supply chain agility (or in this instance, the lack thereof) is putting your company at risk. It’s not too far of a stretch to say that your business is hanging by a chip. So, how did we get here, where is the danger, and what can SMBs do to ensure business continuity? Plenty of TP, but not a chip in sight We all recall the early pandemic shortages, toilet paper being perhaps the most notorious. Now the big pinch is computer chips/semiconductors. If you haven’t shopped for a new or used car lately, you may not have felt the immediate impacts of the shortage — but it’s real. In addition to the automakers, large tech companies face major supply chain challenges. Apple has lost billions as a result. Microsoft and Samsung report losses too. Even online game players are feeling the effects. How did this all happen? The short story is this. When the pandemic hit, automakers dramatically cut production, ordering fewer semiconductors. In response, semiconductor makers reduced their production rates. Considering that a single modern car can use anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 chips, the ripple effect was enormous. At the same time, a newly remote workforce began gobbling up laptops, notebooks, video devices, consoles, and cabling — not to mention Pelotons. HP’s CEO, Enrique Lores reported that  PC use alone is up more than 20% during the pandemic. Quickly, we were in the perfect supply chain storm of too much demand and not enough products. Out of bargaining chips According to CEOs of major tech companies including Intel, IBM, Extreme, Cisco and Juniper, a shortage of processors and other components could affect the availability and price of IT hardware for at least the next 12 to 18 months. Current lead time on networking equipment is 50-plus weeks. Many manufacturers and other buyers of computer chips have less than five days’ supply on hand. If your server dies, or you need to scale operations, can you wait months for relief? What would being without your critical business management applications cost your business? “The supply chain has never been so constrained in Arista history,” said Jayshree Ullal, CEO of the cloud networking provider Arista. “To put this in perspective, we now have to plan for many components with 52-week lead time.” Mark Dohnalek, president and CEO of Pivot International, a global product development company, sums up the challenge well, “The new way of thinking during this chip shortage has become: if you don’t have it in stock, you don’t have it. This chip shortage has taught us that the only way to succeed is to buy way out in front of demand in order to secure what is needed from the supply chain. Without this security, companies will have a higher risk level of being shut down for periods of time.” The chips are down. It’s time to cash in. In light of the challenges, partnering with a cloud hosting provider who already owns and manages hundreds, thousands, or even millions of servers is a viable busines continuity strategy for SMBs. Cloud services providers have reserve capacity built into their infrastructures, insulating them from the worst of the chip shortage impacts. In addition, they are continually ordering new servers and server components, so the long lead times are less disruptive — they’ve built staggered lead times into their operating models. Plus, cloud providers have buying power that individual SMBs simply do not. When computer distributors do have inventory available, they are selling to big buyers. We often speak of the need for SMBs to build agility into their supply chains, but SMBs get a pass on the chip challenge. Through no fault of your own, the chips are down. All you can do is respond in the most tactical ways. For most SMBs, the best advice is to rely on fewer chips by retiring the office servers and hosting business management applications in the cloud.

The cloud wave is coming. Perhaps it’s more accurate to call it a cloud tsunami. Your business has two options: ride the wave or get crushed by it. And if that weren’t enough, the tide is bearing down on businesses during one of the most uncertain times in recent history. Call it the perfect storm. Surviving the storm requires you to continually move your business technology forward. The forecast is clear: it’s time to move your business management operations to the cloud. In the introduction to this series we’re calling The Cloud Wave: An SMB Imperative, we overview five areas of your operation that are at risk if you retain the status quo. In upcoming posts, we’ll visit each of the five in greater detail — not as a scare tactic, but rather as straight-up advice from technology professionals who’ve seen firsthand the differences between businesses that embrace change and those that ignore it. Five Risks in Maintaining the Status Quo Our team here at Cloud at Work have identified five areas of risk potentially affecting every small and midsized business (SMB). Still,  companies that have not invested in cloud infrastructure are at particular risk. Supply chains lack agility The computer hardware supply chain is in chaos. Hardware lead times can be as much as one year. What if your server dies? The office is (almost) gone Everyone is working remotely, putting added stressors on your technology infrastructure, security, and collaboration. Security is insecure It’s not a matter of if, but when an attack occurs, and cybersecurity insurance carriers have strict new mandates. Inflation is a one-way street Inflation is higher than it’s been in decades. Even if it comes down, computer hardware costs are only going up. The workforce has forever changed The employment landscape has changed in ways no one could have predicted. Attracting and retaining top talent is a permanent challenge for technology laggards. The Experts Have Spoken We’re not alone in our concern for companies that aren’t investing in their business management technologies. Industry research giants like McKinsey, Aberdeen, PwC, and IDC all warn of the threat of obsolescence for companies that don’t invest in IT modernization — and highlight the opportunities for those that do. McKinsey researches note, “Success in the age of digital disruption will belong to companies that digitize their core businesses, launch new business models, and apply state-of-the-art technologies— activities that are possible only with sophisticated IT architectures and well-coordinated technology teams.” Aberdeen research found that when businesses transform their entire IT infrastructure to support the today’s technologies, they see significant benefits, including improved security (60%) and a reduction in regular IT costs (33%). PwC asks, “If not now, when? That’s the question to ask about modernizing your legacy applications. Building and running cloud-native applications frequently contribute to overall improvements in scalability, reliability and cost efficiency.” IDC’s VP of Worldwide Research said, “In today’s digital-first world, business outcomes and innovation are increasingly tied to the ability to develop and use innovative technologies and services anywhere, as quickly as possible. Cloud is the foundation for meeting this need. Entire industries want to intelligently leverage data to their advantage and can do so because they have faster access to digital technologies built on a cloud foundation.” In a recent Forbes article, the CEO of a cloud migration company put it bluntly, “Moving your data and workloads to the cloud is an imperative. Delaying may harm your company’s operational efficiency, while doing serious damage to your competitive edge.” The Risk in Inaction Business as usual is no longer enough. The risk inherent in inaction is too great — and the opportunities associated with cloud technologies are too compelling. We invite you to join us throughout this series. We’ll look more closely at each of the five business stressors, and how migrating all or part of your business management applications to the cloud can help mitigate the risks — and in many cases even turn the risks into opportunities.

Remote work is great for work-life balance, but can be bad for security. New networks may be unsecured and data from your business’ IT systems could be compromised during transfer. Without warning, something as innocuous as working in a coffee shop or knocking out a few tasks between flights could be enough to put your entire operation at risk. It’s no wonder 86% of chief experience officers (CXOs) believe remote employees increase the risk of a data breach. But they’re certainly not the only hack factor. Here’s how to approach protecting your sensitive company data from multiple angles with the help of hybrid cloud. What is hybrid cloud + security? Hybrid cloud combines the benefits of public cloud services with on-premise, private cloud infrastructure to create a powerful computing model for handling complex workloads and modern applications. Hybrid cloud security protects the data, applications, and infrastructure which are part of the hybrid cloud. That includes data security for information in transit as well as at rest. The design gives businesses more flexibility and increases their agility. At least 39% of global businesses are already using hybrid cloud, based on results from a 2020 O’Reilly survey. Protecting your data Leaders, employees and entire IT systems all share some responsibility in keeping your organizational data safe. To preempt a breach, take the following data security steps: Solidify and share your cybersecurity policy. Data security should be everyone’s priority. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. The onus is on leaders to continually educate their staff, contractors and other vendors on their role in protecting the company’s information assets. Use a cybersecurity policy to keep everyone informed and accountable. Secure your internet connections. The coffee shops and coworking spaces employees often feel most productive aren’t always the most secure. Instead of policing where remote teams can work, encourage them to utilize the company’s virtual private network (VPN) before connecting to public Wi-Fi. Doing so encrypts the data they access and provides a layer of protection from cyberattacks. Utilize a password manager. Remembering a series of unique, long passwords for every account is challenging for anyone. Password managers do the heavy lifting by generating strong passwords, storing them securely and logging the user in automatically. Update accounts with two-factor authentication (2FA). You’ve probably seen 2FA when you log into your bank accounts. It’s the two-step process that asks you to answer a “secret question” or sends a new, time-sensitive code to one of your devices after you’ve entered your username and password. This additional protection has been shown to block 99.9% of automated attacks. Install encryption software on your devices. Lost or stolen devices pose a serious risk to your SMB. Encryption software allows you to restrict access if an unauthorized user attempts to use a device once it’s been reported missing. Encourage your employees to encrypt files and documents they share via email or chat applications, too. Include firewalls, antivirus software and anti-malware for everyone. These should be regularly updated for any device that accesses company information. Make sure you have a technical support team in place who can help remote employees with this type of device management. Don’t rely on your hybrid cloud’s default settings. To ensure configurations align with your needs, perform regular systems audits. Leverage your well-defined API frameworks to identify bottlenecks and better adhere to data compliance regulations. Finalize backup and disaster recovery plans. Hybrid cloud architecture solutions often come standard with data duplication and recovery tools for cloud assets. However you’ll want to create a plan for any on-premise applications or data. Duplicates will ideally be stored in regionally diverse areas and backed up remotely from your source data. As we’ve seen, data security goes beyond remote workers, even if they are on the front lines. Staying ahead of the growing number of sophisticated attacks means addressing vulnerabilities across multiple fronts. A hybrid-cloud storage solution can help fortify your efforts. ol { list-style-type: decimal; list-style-position: inside; padding-left: 20px; font-size: 22px;}ol li {padding-bottom: 15px; font-weight: lighter;} ol li strong { font-weight: bolder;}

Deploy Sage applications in the cloud with Sage Partner Cloud | Cloud at Work – at no cost until April 2022. You’ve likely seen messaging from Sage surrounding its cloud initiatives. It has gained a lot of momentum with end-users, and Cloud at Work, an approved Sage Hosting Provider is offering generous incentives to migrate Sage applications to the cloud now. You can now get up to 3 months of free cloud hosting* when you sign a Cloud at Work contract by the end of December 2021. You will receive immediate access to the hosting environment with no payment required until April 2022. Plus, add in additional savings available via our Sage Cloud Development Fund: Sage Users who subscribe to Cloud at Work hosting for a minimum of 24 months will receive a credit to be spent with their Sage Business Partner to be used for: Sage version upgrades, software, support contracts, ISV’s, or other Sage projects. This year-end offer is available for all Sage applications: Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, Sage HRMS, Sage FAS etc. Get started today, for free, with Cloud at Work’s efficient, cost-effective, and scalable cloud deployment. Contact us directly to learn more about the Sage cloud hosting promotion and pricing options, or inquire with your Sage Business Partner. *Offer expires December 31, 2021. Qualifying businesses must establish a new Cloud at Work subscription.

Deploy Sage 100 or Sage 300 in the cloud with Cloud at Work – at no cost until 2022. You’ve likely seen messaging from Sage surrounding its cloud initiatives. It’s an initiative that’s gaining a lot of momentum, and both Sage and Cloud at Work, an approved Sage Hosting Provider are offering generous incentives to migrate Sage applications to the cloud now. You can now get up to 4 months of free cloud hosting* when you sign a Cloud at Work contract by the end of September. You will receive immediate access to the hosting environment with no payment required until January 2022. Plus, add in additional savings available via our Sage Cloud Development Fund: Sage Users who subscribe to Cloud at Work hosting for a minimum of 24 months will receive a credit to be spent with their Sage Business Partner to be used for: Sage version upgrades, software, support contracts, ISV’s, or other Sage projects. Get started today, for free, with Cloud at Work’s efficient, cost-effective, and scalable cloud deployment. Contact us directly to learn more about Sage cloud hosting pricing options or inquire with your Sage Business Partner. *Offer expires September 30, 2021. Qualifying businesses must establish a new Cloud at Work subscription. The subscription and access to the hosting environment will begin when the contract is signed and continue through December 31, 2022.