Author Archives: CLASPdev

Hybrid Cloud Hosting: How to Efficiently Move to the Cloud

The rapid rate of change seen in information technology over the last decade has introduced stunning new efficiencies and connectivity. The growth of cloud has been driving much of this innovation, but with those efficiency gains and improved connectivity comes more complexity. Hybrid cloud hosting is a simpler, cost-effective way for businesses to build and maintain their multiple-cloud infrastructure.

Hybrid Cloud Hosting Definition

Hybrid Cloud hosting is a method of leveraging cloud computing by partnering with a managed cloud hosting provider. According to Citirix, “Hybrid cloud is a solution that combines a private cloud with one or more public cloud services with proprietary software enabling communication between each distinct service.” In the case of hybrid hosting, some or all of the organization’s private cloud is hosted in the managed service provider’s servers.

The hybrid hosting service provider is instrumental in creating and designing your cloud architecture and may also deliver the software to connect your various IT environments.

Related Reading: What’s the difference between cloud computing and cloud storage?

Hybrid Hosting Advantages

Advantages Hybrid Hosting, Hybrid Cloud Hosting
Hybrid hosting provides businesses with the flexibility of hybrid cloud solutions without putting the strain and expense of architecting a complex cloud environment solely on your internal IT team.

“Hybrid hosting is a simple way to enable a business’s multi-cloud strategy”

With the right hybrid hosting provider, services will include a team of experts with core competencies in the following:

Hybrid hosting is a simple way to enable a business’s multi-cloud strategy. Other hybrid cloud hosting benefits include the following:

Related Reading: 6 Essential Cloud Migration Strategies

Why Hybrid Cloud?

Cost Control

Hybrid cloud helps consolidate costs, reduce capital expense and reduce server maintenance, particularly when you deploy it through a hosting service.

Flexibility and scalability

With less critical software and data in multiple public clouds and critical data and apps in an in-house or hosted cloud, businesses have unprecedented flexibility to scale, add locations and grow or shrink their staff as their needs change.

Security

Dedicated hosted cloud usually offers the highest industry standards of cloud security with higher levels of service and monitoring than a large public cloud.

Compliance Management

Compliance is getting more complex. With all your systems connected in a hybrid cloud, creating, implementing and maintaining a compliance framework across your digital assets is easier to manage than a hodgepodge of solutions and platforms.

Uniformity & Continuity

Standardizing data and IT management practices throughout a complex infrastructure is a challenge. As with compliance, the right hybrid hosting provider can help simplify hybrid or multi-cloud strategy so the internal IT team can focus on how digital assets can best serve the business.

Workload Flexibility

Hybrid cloud makes it easy to choose the best locations for different workloads. For example, tried-and-true accounting processes can stay in your dedicated servers, while experimenting with new creative technology for your marketing department can be sourced through SaaS.

Learn about: Rejuvenating Your Aging Accounting Software with Minimal Strain.

Hybrid Cloud Challenges and How Hybrid Hosting Solves Them

Challenges Hybrid Hosting Hybrid Cloud Hosting

As we said before, multi-cloud IT environments are complex and therefore a major challenge for internal IT shops who also have to serve end-users’ daily needs. Partnering with a cloud hosting provider can reduce that strain by addressing these common challenges.

Compatibility

Making sure critical touchpoints between environments work reliably is tricky. Hybrid cloud hosting service providers can help. They also may be able to deliver solutions like virtual desktop hosting to create ubiquitous experiences across devices and platforms.

Latency and Bandwidth

Bandwidth and network latency are problems that face almost any internal hybrid cloud project. A hybrid hosting provider makes it their bread and butter to solve these issues.

Management

Managing and maintaining data and apps across platforms and cloud environments is time consuming and costly. Partnering with a hoster is a great way to offload some of that work.

When to Use Hybrid Cloud Hosting

Now is the right time to leverage hybrid cloud hosting. While very small businesses can get by with a bunch of SaaS tools and locally stored data, most businesses are already leveraging a combination of public cloud and internal networking. A hybrid hosting provider can help wrangle this jumble of digital assets.

If you are already using a combination of private and public cloud and are experiencing any of the following symptoms, you may be ready for Hybrid Cloud Hosting:

Are you ready to learn more about dedicated hosting services?
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Rejuvenating Your Aging ERP with Minimal Strain

5 Aging ERP Problems and 5 Awesome Solutions.

If your outdated accounting software is impeding growth or just causing delays and headaches, you might be thinking about updating your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). But new ERP implementations are costly, time consuming and prone to failure. Plus, switching to brand-new software causes a lot of strain on a business and its employees.

When updating to a new ERP, your current integrations and customizations may not be possible, especially if you switch to a cloud-native Software-a-Service application. A private managed hosting provider can help you bring your ERP system to the cloud with minimal changes or strain on the company. They may even be able to help update your software to the most recent version.

First let’s look at some of the problems you may be experiencing with your aging ERP solution. Then we will look at some ways a hosting provider can help solve them.

Related Reading: Cloud Migration Strategy for a Seamless Integration

5 Frustrating Problems with Aging ERP Accounting Software


1. Too Much Time and Money Spent on Maintenance
Running patches and are critical, but it takes up time that could otherwise be spent on innovation

2. Lack of Flexibility and Compliance
Compliance regulations are fluid and subject to frequent change. Accounting systems that lack compliance flexibility and agility put your business at risk.

3. Stifled Growth
With on-premise accounting systems your ability to grow into new locations and geographies is hamstrung. Trying to piece together multiple or disparate accounting data from different entities is prone to error, time consuming and unreliable.

4. Lack of Real-Time Data
Whether it’s a lack of integration and automation, or managing multiple accounting systems across multiple locations, outdated accounting software can create barriers to insights. In today’s data-driven landscape, this can be a major burden.

5. Lack of Mobility
Enabling mobility with legacy or outdated on-premise ERP is difficult and connecting them through a VPN tends to suffer performance and reliability issues, and it is difficult to secure.

5 Awesome Way Managed Cloud Hosting Can Help

A hosting provider can take your ERP software to the cloud with minimal strain, and they can even help you update your current system. Here are 5 ways managed hosting can help you solve the problems above.

1. Simplify Maintenance
Some managed hosting providers specialize in hosting a specific type of software. An ERP hosting specialist may include maintenance, patches and updates for your accounting software.

2. Compliance Ready
The right software hosting provider’s data centers will be compliance ready and stay up to date with changing regulations. They should also offer services to cater to your specific compliance reporting needs.

3. Centralize and Support Growth
With improved agility and accessibility of ERP software, organizations can more easily centralize their accounting department. This simplifies adding new locations and expanding into new geographies.

4. Integrations and Real-time Data
By connecting your systems in the cloud, a hosting provider can help improve systems availability and connectivity across your IT landscape. This leads to better access to data and more insight.

5. Mobility
With advanced hosting technology and high cloud competency, an ERP hosting provider can deliver your current system to any device with an internet connection.

Conclusion

You don’t need to adopt or invest in a brand-new solution to go cloud with your ERP. A managed hosting provider can help you update to the newest version of your software and may even be able to eliminate lapsed maintenance fees. With increased mobility and accessibility on the solution your team is already comfortable using, hosting is a simple way to rejuvenate your aging ERP without breaking the bank or your IT teams back.

 

Is your aging ERP solution causing headaches or slowing your growth? CyberlinkASP can help.

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Cloud Migration Strategy for a Seamless Transition

What is Cloud Migration?

Cloud migration is the process of moving a business’s information technology systems to the cloud. Cloud migrations are often a phased process in which IT resources are moved piece by piece, or one department at a time.

A cloud migration may refer to a single application or an entire business being moved and is usually referring to cloud computing, cloud storage or both. In some cases, the cloud migration means moving apps or data from one cloud to another.

Related Reading: The Difference Between Cloud Computing and Cloud Storage

6 Cloud Migration Strategies

In the software world, there is agreement that cloud migration may include one of six methods for A cloud migration strategy. These are commonly called the 6 R’s of cloud migration. Let’s find out what each means for your business, particularly when it comes to application migration to cloud.

  1. Rehost: This is commonly referred to as the lift-and-shift method. Essentially a company moves its systems from in-house servers into a 3rd party subscription cloud storage. There are little to no changes made to existing systems. This may also include managed hosting services (See more below).
  2. Repurchase: This is when a company stops using an on-premise solution in favor of a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution.
  3. Refactoring: This often refers to proprietary software and re-architecting it for cloud optimization, whether for in-house use or for sale.
  4. Re-platforming: This also refers to proprietary software and includes rewriting the software from the ground up to be a cloud native solution.
  5. Retain: Retention of certain on-premise solutions to be revisited later. Most businesses maintain a hybrid cloud which means using on-premise resources along with hosted solutions, SaaS and public cloud storage.
  6. Retire: This simply refers to the discontinued use of servers, applications or other IT resources with the goal of a leaner IT ecosystem.

Benefits of Migration to Cloud

Cloud Migration requires a lot of planning but the benefits of migration to cloud can be substantial including:

Cloud Migration Challenges

Cloud migration comes with significant challenges that can lead to overspending, scope creep, downtime and lost data. Top challenges include:

Cloud Migrations for Business Software

For most businesses a cloud migration project tends to refer to specific workloads or solutions such as ERP and accounting. There are two main routes to take with cloud migrations for business software; they include private hosting, managed hosting or SaaS.

The Difference Between Managed Hosting & SaaS

As opposed to public cloud, managed hosting services generally include a dedicated server environment along with added levels of service from the provider including security, monitoring, software maintenance and more.

SaaS software is cloud-native software that is often procured directly from the app vendor and hosted in the vendor’s cloud.

As an example, let’s look at Enterprise Resource Planning software to differentiate between managed hosting and SaaS software migrations.

An example of cloud migration to a managed hosting environment would be taking all your data, integrations and your current instance of on-premise ERP and porting them into a dedicated server to be accessed using the internet. This falls under the rehost strategy above.

An example of SaaS cloud migration would be switching from your on-premise solution to a cloud-native vendor provider solution like QuickBooks Online, Dynamics 365 or Sage Intacct. Switching to SaaS will require a lot of configuration, customization and manual data entry. There is a higher risk of data loss with this method and many integration and customizations used in your on-premise solution may not be available in SaaS.

Managed Hosting Benefits

Understanding the benefits of hosting is key to your migration strategy. If you need to go cloud fast but investing in all new solutions isn’t an option, a private hosting provider for Remote Desktop, Accounting and other apps can help you move your most valuable IT assets to the cloud with minimal strain.

A managed hosting provider offers benefits over larger public cloud offerings. These include:

Further reading: Why Move Your ERP To The Cloud Through A Hoster

Keys to Successful Cloud Migration

Here are a few key steps for preparing a successful cloud migration strategy

Assess Cloud Needs: It is important to evaluate your current IT environment and identify pain points. Identify and prioritize workloads that most need improved performance, agility, scalability and mobility.

Identify Goals: is your goal to migrate one complex system like ERP, or are you moving your entire IT environment to the cloud.

Phased Approach: It is usually a good idea to take a phased approach to going cloud. This will require a priority list: Maybe desktop virtualization is your first priority, maybe it is moving accounting software to the cloud or implementing a customer service portal. This should happen early in your cloud enablement strategy.

Evaluate Architecture: Assess your current systems, including on-premise and cloud solutions, to better understand your network needs and gain a deeper understanding of what parts of the project will require the heaviest lifting.

Choosing A Cloud Partner: As mentioned above, there are many benefits to gain with managed hosting services. Of course, not all cloud providers are equal in terms of service, security, compliance and more. Choosing your partner can be the difference between a successful or failed cloud migration project.

What to look for in a hosting partner:

Conclusion

All cloud migrations are unique and require a lot of planning and expertise. To ensure success of your cloud migration strategy, it is important to understand each of the strategies listed above. Having your cloud enablement and migrations planned ahead of time will help you bring your project in on time and within budget.

You may also be interested in…

cloud migration adaptive business strategyWhat Is Adaptive Business Strategy?

An adaptive business strategy enables a business to work proactively on a continual basis to achieve long-term goals and quickly adjust those goals when necessary. This is done by identifying and quickly implementing short-term strategies and actions to achieve bigger picture goals. Read More

“I’m Not a Cat”– Can Lawyers Work from Home?

Work from Home Guidance for Working Lawyers

If you haven’t seen it, there is a Zoom video that went viral recently. The video shows a virtual legal hearing in which one of the attorney struggles to remove a filter that turns his face into a kitten. The laughable moment in the video comes when the lawyer assures the judge he is ready to proceed, saying, “I’m not a cat.” The video is funny but it also provides a good lesson and an answer to the question: Can lawyers work from home? In many situations, the answer is yes, but understanding the technology is critical and there are serious ethical and regulatory obligations to consider.

In this post we look at some of the important obligations for working lawyers to consider for their home offices as well as some tips for success with remote legal work.

Can You Work Remotely as a Lawyer?

3 WFH Considerations for working lawyers

Legal Obligations: One thing to note about the cat face video is a warning that appears in the video’s upper left panel of the screen: “Recording of this hearing or live stream is prohibited. Violation May constitute contempt of court and result in a fine of up $500 and a jail term of up to 180 days.”

The moral here is that it’s important to understand your legal obligations specific to virtual conferences as well as cloud computing and cloud storage. It is often your responsibility to secure virtual meetings.

Ethical Obligations: Working layers also have ethical obligations to their clients and their own firms to maintain high levels of professionalism, security and confidentiality when working from home.

Cybersecurity: As we’ve already touched-on, cybersecurity is a key consideration for remote legal work. A recent survey conducted by the American Bar Association identified these as top risks to legal firms after experiencing a data breach.

  1. Consulting fees to resolve problems caused by breach
  2. Downtime loss of billable hours
  3. Costs for replacing hardware or software
  4. Destroyed or lost data
  5. Notifying clients of the data breach
  6. Exposure of sensitive non-client data
  7. Exposure of sensitive client data

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Cybersecurity Checklist for Law Firms

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10 Tips to Work from Home as Lawyer

1. Know & Test Your Streaming Technology

The “I’m not a cat” video teaches us that knowing how to remove a filter from your Zoom is important, but there are more ways things can go wrong. Know how to mute and unmute, share your screen and adjust settings for better performance for all your collaboration tools. If you don’t have time to improve your skills with meeting apps, make it a priority for someone on your team who can guide you and keep your virtual meetings and hearings professional. It’s always a good idea to test audio and video before you go live.

2. Create Work from Home Policy

A documented work from home policy will help legal teams stay productive and compliant with privacy and other regulations. In a recent article, Gartner Research offered some tips for a work from home policy so businesses can reap long-term benefits.

Here are a few considerations from Gartner to keep in mind before creating your work from home policy:

3. Cloud Governance

Cloud governance is a written framework of policies and guidelines a business applies to its use of cloud data and applications. The goal of cloud governance is to optimize cloud resources for network security, continuity, performance and costs. Cloud governance policies affect architecture, deployment, maintenance, operations and usage of cloud technologies. Learn more about defining cloud governance policies.

4. Connect Your Offices Through Managed Cloud Hosting

From collecting client information to sharing important legal documents, law firms face unique data management challenges. There are a number of options for secure cloud hosting for the legal industry, from VPN and virtual desktop integration, to application hosting. Managed cloud hosting is a type of tailored cloud services. With high levels of service, monitoring and control, managed cloud hosting is the best option for remote attorney work. It’s the easiest way to connect your systems safely.

Related Reading: VPN Pros and Cons for Business

5. Notify Clients & Colleagues

Communicate changes with your clients, staff and colleagues. If you are shifting from a traditional brick and mortar office to largely remote practice, transparency is vital. Send letters outlining your plans to set expectations and align stakeholders on communication and collaboration platforms you will be using. Include how clients can best reach you and what steps you’re taking to ensure they continue receiving high levels of service and confidentiality.

6. Go Paperless

Going paperless is a huge efficiency gain, particularly for a paper-laden industry like the legal profession. It’s simple to streamline remote attorney work with an entirely digital law firm. Benefits include better accessibility and flexibility, plus going paperless provides working lawyers accessibility to documents in the office, in the car, and in the courtroom.

E-filing: As part of your paperless strategy, check with the courts where you work for e-filing options as many are going digital.

Free ebook: Guide to the Ultimate Paperless Law Firm

7. Prioritize Video Chat Professionalism

Looking and sounding good on video will help you stand out with new or potentially new clients. It is best for lawyers to appear on video conferences with no filters (cat or otherwise), and without a virtual background. While many industries can present using a virtual background, there may be transparency concerns for lawyers, and an authentic, professional background will go a long way toward earning client trust. Consider redecorating your office space and consider investing in a good mic, webcam and light.

8. Be Prepared for Change

If you are transitioning from a traditional law office to work from home, the change can have more impact than you might expect. Be prepared so you can mentally adjust to the change. Here are 7 Tips for keeping your sanity and staying on task while working from home.

    1. Give yourself at least an hour between waking up and logging on
    2. Stick to your ordinary morning routine
    3. Create a break schedule for yourself
    4. Compartmentalize your workstation from your home
    5. Invest in your usual office supplies
    6. Exercise – Don’t become too sedentary
    7. Stay Social – connect with friends and colleagues for reasons other than work

If you want more info, we break these 7 tips down in this post.

9. Communication

Making sure it’s easy for your clients and team to connect with you is more important when working from home. Be sure to have multiple options for contacting you.

10. Software Automation, Tracking & Traceability

With remote attorney work, software solutions become even more important. Software like case management software, productivity management and billable hours tracking are critical to success. Collaboration tools like Slack and Teams will also help you stay on track.

How Can Lawyers Work from Home Securely

All joking about cat filters aside, cybersecurity is among the top concerns facing law firms and data breaches are a growing problem. Cybersecurity is a regulatory and moral obligation for working lawyers and securing a home office can come with its own unique challenges.

While the challenges around preventing a law firm data breach increase with remote work, the door to remote legal practice has now been opened and it is probably never going to fully close again. We recently published an in-depth article on this subject. Learn more: The Importance Of Law Firm Cyber Security And Remote Work

 

“I’m Not a Cat” Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGOofzZOyl8

The Importance of Law Firm Cyber Security and Remote Work

Law firm cybersecurity is a regulatory and moral obligation. While the challenges around preventing a law firm data breach recently increased due to social distancing requirements of the last year, the requirements to secure data remain stringent. The door to remote legal practice has now been opened and it is probably never going to close back up. Here’s what you need to know about law firm cybersecurity and remote work.

Risks of Data Breach for Law Firms

With the digitization of client records and increasingly stringent privacy regulations, law firm IT has more liability risks around information security than ever. A 2019 survey on law firm cybersecurity by the American Bar Association revealed that about 26% of law firms experienced some kind of data breach while almost 20% said they were uncertain whether they had experienced a breach or not. More than 35% of law firms said their systems have been infected by a virus, spyware or malware.
law firm cybersecurity 26 percent law firm data breach

Top Risks of a Law Firm Data Breach

The ABA survey identified these as top risks after experiencing a law firm data breach.

Cybersecurity for Law Firms

Cybersecurity is an ongoing problem facing law firms. While threats like data breaches and viruses continue to grow, there are actions law firms can take to protect themselves. You may also be interested in Cyberattacks and How to Defend Your Small Business

8 Ways to Secure Law Firm IT Against Cybersecurity

  1. Create and enforce basic security practices & policies and communicate them to your team.
  2. Create and enforce a BYOD security policy
  3. Monitor and firewall your network
  4. Backup regularly
  5. Require separate user accounts with strong passwords for all users.
  6. Audit your security regularly to ensure it’s up to date
  7. Create security training opportunities for your team
  8. And of course, install the latest security software and keep apps up to date with the latest versions.

Related Reading: Defining Cloud Governance and Why It’s Important

Law Firm Ethical and Regulatory Security Obligations

“Attorneys have ethical and common law duties to take competent and reasonable measures to safeguard information relating to clients and also often have contractual and regulatory duties to protect confidential information,” said a Law Practice Today article.

Law Firms are ethically bound by the following, according to Law Practice:

Law firms are not only expected to take all reasonable measures to secure their systems and protect client data; if a law firm is hacked in any way, it is also the opinion of the ABA that they are morally obligated to notify their clients that a breach occurred.

See ABA Model Rules pertaining to Law Firm Cyber Security: Click Here

Cybersecurity Audits

Regular audits of cybersecurity is essential to securing sensitive law firm data. “When it comes to cybersecurity, it’s difficult to improve anything if what already exists is a mystery,” said a recent article on security from TechRepublic.com. So what does this mean?

A cyber security audit is a complete review and analysis of IT infrastructure and helps mitigate the consequences of a breach. Cybersecurity audits are vital to building, maintaining and improving a law firm’s comprehensive cybersecurity. Regular auditing is also key to demonstrating a firm’s commitment to security and the prioritization of protecting client data.
law firm cybersecurity 20 percent law firm data breach

How to prepare for a cybersecurity audit:

What to expect in a cybersecurity audit:

A cybersecurity audit is generally a one-day audit that sets out to review all of your IT resources, identify vulnerabilities and the likelihood of your organization coming under attack.

Auditors will likely review:

Data and Security Policies

How To Protect A Law Firm Against Cyber Attacks

  1. Train Your Team – Set up security practices and policies that include responsible internet usage guidelines and email usage guidelines. Stay up-to-date on latest threats and educate your team.
  2. Protect Your Resources – Security software should be installed to protect your network. Keep all apps up to date with the newest versions, including web browsers, email, web apps and operating systems. Leverage antivirus software to scan software updates.
  3. Monitor and Firewall Your Network – Protecting your network behind a firewall is a basic and essential security measure. Monitoring your systems for any sign of a breach is critical. If you allow your staff to access your systems remotely, it is important to implement remote access usage policies and work with staff to secure home offices.
  4. Create and Enforce a BYOD Security Policy – If your team uses mobile devices like tablets or phones to access network resources and files, restrict usage to approved devices and require encryption. Your team should also know that quickly reporting stolen or lost devices to administrators is critical to keeping your network secure.
  5. Backup Regularly – Automatic weekly backups with copies stored offsite and in the cloud is critical to keeping your data safe should a breach occur, or even in the event of a natural disaster such as a fire or flood.
  6. Secure Your Devices and Apps with Strong Passwords – Require separate user accounts with strong passwords for all users. Consider implementing multi-factor authentication requirements and require password changes every 90 days.
  7. Audit your Security – As mentioned above, regular audits will ensure you are staying up-to date with the latest security challenges.

law firm cybersecurity 35 percent law firm data breach virus

Why Private Dedicated Hosting is Key to Law Firm Cybersecurity

While the legal industry is often slow to adopt new technology due to its rigid regulations and adherence to law, the tipping point of going cloud has reached law firms. Law firms want to focus their talent resources on legal talent, so building and securing cloud environments is a costly distraction from their main mission. With this in mind, it is optimal for law firms to partner with a private cloud provider who understands the legal industry and can deliver dedicated cloud infrastructure tailored to the requirements of law firms.

With a cloud hosting provider who is totally focused on security, your law firm can spend more time focusing on delivering services to clients.

Tips for Your Law Firm’s Data Security in the Cloud

8 things your hosting provider’s data center security should include:

  1. Multi-factor security infrastructure
  2. Alarmed access/egress points
  3. Kevlar impregnated drywall (NOC) and bulletproof glass (NOC)
  4. Man trap
  5. Onsite NOC staffing 24/7/365
  6. Biometric identification with dual factor authentication
  7. Video surveillance of core data center infrastructure and data rooms
  8. Perimeter detection alarms

Are you ready to go cloud and ensure your law firm cybersecurity is properly managed? See what CyberlinkASP can do for you:

SECURE CLOUD HOSTING – LEGAL INDUSTRY

Defining Cloud Governance and Why It’s Essential

A cloud governance framework and written policies are essential to maintaining security, compliance and performance of a business’s IT environment. In this post we will start by defining cloud governance and then cover some best practices and methodologies for getting started.

What is Cloud Governance?

Cloud governance is a written framework of policies and guidelines a business applies to its use of cloud data and applications. The goal of cloud governance is to optimize cloud resources for network security, continuity, performance and costs. Cloud governance policies affect architecture, deployment, maintenance, operations and usage of cloud technologies.

You may also be interested in: Cloud Enablement – What it is and How to Get Started

Why is Cloud Governance Important?

Why Cloud Governance is Important

A cloud governance framework is essential to scaling and driving value from cloud technology by creating a foundation of best practices and consistent processes. A fully-realized cloud governance model will include guidelines for public cloud management, SaaS applications, multi-tenant and dedicated hosting services, as well as in-house networking technology. Because of the growing complexity of today’s hybrid IT environments and self-service acquisition inherent in cloud computing, cloud governance is of growing importance.

5 Benefits of Cloud Computing Governance

  1. Access Control
    IT architecture is sensitive and these days it is easier than ever to implement new technology solutions in the cloud. Because cloud enables end-users to easily acquire new technology, it is important to have written policies. This will protect your technology ecosystem and improve reliability of cloud resources by preventing unskilled or unauthorized users from making changes.
  2. Security
    A robust cloud governance framework will not only improve network security and monitoring to mitigate risk, it will help administrators identify vulnerabilities and establish metrics to measure security performance for ongoing improvement.
  3. Compliance
    With a cloud governance model that meets the highest industry standards, businesses ensure that their cloud processes and storage adhere to necessary compliance requirements. Good protocols in place around cloud will also establish traceability and audit readiness for any external guidelines from SOX and SEC regulations to HIPAA and FDA requirements. Frameworks often include compliance review and documentation standards.
  4. Lowered Costs
    With cost optimization policies in place a business sets a standard for managing spend, taking advantage of discounts when possible and automation to reduce costs and control return on investment of resources.
  5. Mitigate Shadow IT
    As we mentioned above, it is easier than ever for business users and departments to circumvent centralized IT shops and implement solutions on their own. We call this shadow IT and it creates security risks and increases spend, sometimes allowing third party providers access to your systems. Written policies and access restrictions will help prevent shadow IT from growing.

Challenges to Implementing Cloud Governance

Cloud Governance Model Challenges

Many of the challenges to implementing cloud governance revolve around shadow IT, but it’s not the only challenge. Let’s take a look at a few common challenges with cloud computing governance.

Lack of Buy In: While a CIO or other decision maker may understand the importance of cloud governance, some of their peers in the C-suite and department managers may not support or prioritize a governance initiative.

Accountability: In many organizations there is uncertainty regarding who is accountable for securing and monitoring confidential information in the cloud

Disconnect Between IT and The Company: The IT department is often not included in decision-making around cloud usage and many IT leaders are not aware of all the cloud resources being used due to rogue implementations.

Encryption: While most business leaders understand the importance of encrypting applications, cloud resources and applications often go unencrypted.

Control: IT leaders often lack the ability to control employee usage of third-party cloud resources and users often deploy cloud apps without proper security training. This can result in third-parties accessing sensitive systems.

Enforcement: While a cloud governance framework may be in place, there is often uncertainty as to who is responsible for enforcing those policies.

Most of these challenges can be addressed with due diligence. Auditing and analyzing the businesses needs and barriers to adoption early in the process will make it easier to create policies that work. Which brings us to our next section…

Setting Cloud Governance Policies

Cloud governance policies should be reviewed regularly by decision makers and third-party experts to ensure they are up-to-date with the latest requirements. In general, cloud governance policies include standards and guidelines for the following:

In order for a cloud governance framework to provide a clear and complete roadmap, policies should cover four basic areas of IT ecosystems:

A rigorous set of policies and guidelines around cloud governance will help close security loopholes, optimize performance, protect privacy and secure the business against data loss.

How to Implement a Cloud Governance Strategy

How to Implement Cloud Governance Framework

As we already mentioned. Due diligence is key. Getting the ball rolling on a cloud governance strategy requires a little up-front leg work to assess the company’s needs, shortcomings and strengths that will impact the success of the initiative. Some early considerations to remember include:

3 Phases of Cloud Governance Implementation

There are 3 basic phases to cloud governance framework adoption. They include:

Awareness Phase

Early Adoption Phase

Mature Adoption Phase

In this stage there is little or no governance in place. This phase is a survey and audit phase in which project leaders will ask the questions listed in the previous section. At the end of this phase, governance teams should start to plan the long-term vision for policies.

Policies should be mapped out in this phase. Scoping for costs and reassessing the working governance model for vulnerabilities and gaps is important during this phase. This is the time when teams should be established and the cloud governance framework is being refined and fine-tuned.

At this stage the cloud governance framework is operational. Automation may be in place to monitor compliance with the new set of policies. Things should be running themselves, but the governance team should still be reevaluating their policies to stay agile, patch holes and meet changing needs.

 

Why Tailored Hosting is Key in Cloud Governance

With a managed cloud service provider you can hit the ground running as the right hosting provider will already have a rigorous cloud governance model in place. What’s more, they can tailor your hosted cloud environment to meet your exact governance needs in a way that big, one-size-fits-all providers can’t do. Plus with a private hoster you get to maintain control over your systems and data.

Tailored hosting in a dedicated cloud environment is the ideal solution for migrating mission-critical or sensitive systems like financial software, customer/patient management systems, legal software and more.

 

Ready to learn more about dedicated cloud hosting? Our team has the answers to all your questions.

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Why ERP VARs Partner with Cloud Service Providers

A Value Added Reseller (VAR) in technology is just what it sounds like—a company that resells software, hardware or networking technology at a markup in exchange for their value-add. For example, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is developed by a vendor such as Sage or Microsoft. An ERP VAR resells the vendor’s products along with implementation, configuration and customization to tailor complex software to work for a specific user or industry.

Traditionally, VARs have been project-based businesses, delivering per-user licenses for software and implementation expertise. Often there is ongoing support after the initial project is complete, but this has historically not been the key focus of VARs. Cloud computing has changed this.

5 Reasons ERP VARs Partner with MSPs for Cloud

With the rise of cloud computing and Software-as-a-Service, many VARs have adapted their businesses to either sell SaaS-native solutions or add Managed Services to their offering.

“A Managed Cloud Service Provider partner allows them to focus on their core business and adapt to change more easily”

This transition can cause a lot of strain on the VAR, but a Managed Cloud Service Provider partner allows them to focus on their core business and adapt to change more easily. VARs may look to cloud MSPs to provide virtual desktop hosting and application hosting. Here are some of the reasons why VARs go this route.

1. Cloud Architecture Partner

With an MSP partner to focus completely on cloud architecture VARs know they are delivering high levels of cloud service to their valued clients. It also frees them from spending time and resources building cloud technology so they can focus their R&D on designing customizations to deliver higher value solutions for their software clients.

2. Service & Sales Partner

Similarly, customer service that is focused on software is not the same as service that is focused on cloud services. A VAR can help their software clients more confidently knowing their cloud partner is there to provide robust customer service around cloud.

3. Support Partner

Similarly, MSPs allows VARs to focus their talent and resources on support for their software solutions. And let’s face it, cloud services requires high-volume, 24/7 support. Many VARs are small shops without the resources to manage this, or simply don’t want to get into that end of the business.

4. Security Partner

With a cloud partner that makes secure cloud hosting the core part of its business model, VARs can rest easy knowing their customers’ data is supported by the highest industry standards for security and 24/7 monitoring.

5. Licensing Partner

Many VARs have licensing expertise for on-premise licensing, but often lack subscription licensing expertise. With the right MSP, software licensing is backed by people who have experience navigating subscription-based software licenses.

The MSP Partner Difference

While many managed cloud service providers offer a quick way to migrate to the cloud, an MSP Partner has deeper knowledge to help plan strategic solutions across their customer’s IT environment. MSP Partners often have additional expertise in the software they host, so the VAR gets a cloud partner as well as a software partner. This equates to better service to the end user.

Conclusion

Partnering with a Managed Cloud Services Provider allows a VAR to focus on their bread-and-butter business—building innovative software solutions to meet the needs of their core industry verticals. This allows more assurance that the software experts build the software and the cloud experts build the cloud architecture. With the right cloud provider, this is a win for the VAR and the customer.

Learn More: Why Managed Cloud Hosting Is A Win-Win For Users And Software Providers

 

Cloud Enablement: What it is and How to Get Started

The COVID-19 and resulting telework requirements spurred renewed adoption of cloud solutions. However, as we move forward into the “Next Normal,” a purposeful cloud enablement strategy is key to a successful cloud migration project. So let’s get started with a cloud enablement definition and then we will examine the benefits and best practices.

What is Cloud Enablement?

Cloud enablement is the process of assessing a company’s existing IT environment and architecting and building an effective cloud environment for businesses to deploy IT resources. This process generally includes implementation of new solutions as well as migrating existing servers, data, applications, desktop and operating systems to the cloud.

Cloud enablement may involve dedicated private cloud, multi-tenant private cloud, or public cloud. Often, cloud enablement projects take a hybrid approach and require careful assessment and planning to reduce disruption to business operations and ensure ROI. What is Managed Cloud Hosting?

How Cloud Enablement Helps Businesses

Now that we have a cloud enablement definition, let’s look at some of the benefits of cloud enablement.

What are Cloud Enablement Challenges

About 83% of organizations say security is a top challenge to enabling cloud. Other challenges include managing cloud spend, governance, lack of resources and a lack of expertise, according to Statista.com.

In answer to these challenges, the various “as-a-service” offerings are among the most widely used cloud enablement solutions.

“These services provide organizations with access to computing power, software, and other cloud-related functions without the need for in-house hardware,” said Statista.

Benefits of Partnering with a Cloud Hosting Provider

With a private cloud hosting partner, businesses get the best of both private cloud enablement and outsourcing cloud. Benefits include:

Discover the benefits of Virtual Desktop Hosting

Cloud Enablement Strategy

Here are a few key steps for a successful cloud enablement strategy.

Assess the Needs of the Business: It is important to evaluate your current IT environment and identify pain points. Survey your management team to gain a deeper understanding of what each department needs and what is currently working well for them.

Identify Goals: Define exactly what you hope to gain by enabling cloud across the organization. Common goals may include reduced IT overhead, improved agility and enabling teleworking opportunities.

Prioritize for a Phased Approach: It is common to roll out a phased approach to going cloud. Maybe desktop virtualization is your first priority, maybe it is moving accounting software to the cloud or implementing a customer service portal. Understanding these priorities will help you in the early planning stages of your cloud enablement strategy.

Evaluate Architecture: Evaluate front-end customer platforms, back-office platforms, cloud-based delivery and your network needs to understand where the heaviest lifting will be required. Understanding the interactions between these architectures will help you design a holistic strategy rather than a patchwork approach.

Choosing A Cloud Partner: As mentioned above, there are many benefits to supporting cloud enablement by partnering with a cloud hosting provider. Of course, not all cloud providers are equal in terms of service, security, compliance and more.

What to look for in a cloud hosting partner:

Understanding Cloud Choices

Many businesses build their own in-house cloud environment, but there are also three essential types of 3rd party cloud. Here’s how the benefits of each break down:

DEDICATED PRIVATE CLOUD

MULTI-TENANT CLOUD

PUBLIC CLOUD

Despite earlier projections that cloud demand would decline in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and new work-from-home requirements changed everything. As it turned out, cloud demand remained steady at 30%, and is expected to hold at pre-2019 levels through 2025, according to Deloitte research. To be successful in the cloud, a holistic cloud enablement strategy is vital to success.

Cloud is an increasingly complex and important part of your business’s IT environment. While many businesses lack the expertise to deploy their cloud enablement strategy, partnering with a cloud provider and hosting partner can help even small organizations go cloud with minimal upfront investment and reduced strain on the business.

Ready to get started in the cloud? CyberlinkASP is an award-winning cloud hosting provider with a proven track record for enabling cloud for businesses of all sizes.

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VPN Pros and Cons for Business

While Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) have seen an increase lately in private users looking to improve privacy and subvert geo-locking and other restrictions, VPNs are rapidly falling out of favor as the “backbone” of the business network. Despite the growing number of downsides against VPN for business, there are still plenty of advantages to VPN. In this post we will look at some VPN pros and cons, and discuss alternative solutions to VPN.

In March of 2020, American VPN usage grew 124% due to the COVID-19 outbreak, according to Satista.com. Though the majority of these users were private users and not businesses.

“Increased VPN usage can have many reasons, the most popular ones being access to other digital media content and social networks, and most importantly, access to different news sources,” said Statista.

What is a VPN for Business?

A virtual private network or VPN is a long-established method for connecting users to a corporate network and resources such as shared folders, printers and applications. VPN allows a business user to connect their personal machine to their office network using the internet by way of an encrypted tunnel that prevents malicious spying and attacks.

Despite the long-held pros of VPN there are some points in the cons column to consider. Let’s take a look…

VPN Pros and Cons

Pros of VPN

“In the wake of COVID-19, VPNs can help businesses ensure data security as they encourage their employees to work from home,” said a recent article from Clutch research.

Here are some of the top advantages of VPN for business:

Cons of VPN

“Virtual private networks (VPNs) are under attack and hackers may be winning the battle, using exploits that are becoming all-too-common,” said a recent article at Security Boulevard Magazine. “While many may argue that VPNs are salvageable and can be returned to their once-lofty status of protecting data, it’s a fact that more and more exploits are discovered daily.”

Alternatives to VPN

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure or VDI creates virtual machines which reside on a remote server. VDI is a much more modern approach to networking for businesses. It can be more complex than VPNs, but VDI offers vastly better performance and enables thin-client access, seamless user experience and is less vulnerable to cyberattacks. More about VDI

Remote Desktop Services (RDS)
Remote Desktop Services allows users with credentials to log into a remote desktop hosted on their server. One great advantage RDS has is its straightforwardness. RDS is relatively simple and offers solid performance and security. It is generally more cost effective than VDI. However, RDS does not ensure the same ubiquitous experience across devices and lacks customizability compared to VDI.  More about RDS

Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) 
ZTNA is an encrypted tunnel and is more or less the next iteration of VPNs. Unlike VPNs which allow full access to a LAN, ZTNA is a networking solution that denies access by default and only allows access to resources which users have explicitly been granted access to. Where a breached endpoint or pirated credentials to a VPN would permit scanning and compromise resources throughout the network, ZTNA technology will stop attackers at the endpoint. You may still see performance and flexibility issues you find with a VPN.

Conclusion

The pros of VPN haven’t changed over the years but the list of cons might be growing for businesses. While there are still many advantages to VPN, it is a technology that is rapidly falling out of favor for business uses. Companies looking to modernize their network would be wise to consider VDI or other solutions mentioned above before reinvesting in VPN.

Learn More: Which is Better? VDI vs VPN vs RDS

Sage 50 vs Sage 100 vs Sage 300

Weighing your options between Sage 50, 100 & 300.

In general, the difference between Sage 50, Sage 100 and Sage 300 can be summed up like this: Sage 50 is more affordable for SMBs to manage accounting simply. Sage 100 costs a little more and is a little more robust to meet the needs of growing companies. Sage 300 is more expensive and is a highly customizable, enterprise-level solution. But there’s more to the “Sage 50 vs Sage 100 vs Sage 300” discussion than a paragraph can explain. Below you will find a breakdown of each option.

We aren’t going to “review” Sage ERP products in this post because each flavor is designed with specific goals and each serves its purpose well. Instead we will give you an idea what each solution does, the size of company they each suit and the industries they serve best.

Sage 50 Accounting Software

As the most affordable of the group, Sage 50 is ideal for small businesses, start-ups and entrepreneurs. Sage 50 offers simple-to-use accounting functionality to streamline processes, save time, improve accuracy and increase insights generated from financial data. Sage 50 is ideal for new and small businesses because it is affordable and easy to get started, but performance decreases with more than 10 users.

Top Features in Sage 50 Accounting Software

Top 5 Industries Using Sage 50

    1. Computer Software
    2. Construction
    3. Accounting
    4. Hospital and Healthcare
    5. Retail

SAGE 100

In the middle range, Sage 100 is ideal for growing businesses because it is easy to get started and supports growth. It is more tailorable and scalable than Sage 50. It supports hundreds of users and includes robust functionality for improved warehousing and reporting over Sage 50, but expect a little bit higher price tag for implementation and maintenance.

Top Features of Sage 100 ERP:

Top 5 Industries Using Sage 100

    1. Computer Software
    2. Construction
    3. Hospital & Healthcare
    4. Wholesale
    5. Retail

SAGE 300

On the higher-end you find Sage 300. This is an enterprise-level solution with more robust features and deeper automation capabilities than Sage 100 or Sage 50. With multi-entity and multi-currency functionality like intercompany transfers, Sage 300 is best for big businesses with multiple lines of business and complex financials, including global companies. It is sold by module so it is highly customizable to meet the needs of large organizations, but again, expect to see a higher price tag.

Top Features of Sage 300

Top 5 Industries Using Sage 300

    1. Construction
    2. Computer Software
    3. Real Estate
    4. Information Technology & Services
    5. Hospitals & Healthcare

Sage ERP in the Cloud

Sage offers a variety of cloud-based ERP software solutions, but if you are already using Sage 50, 100 or 300 on premise, you don’t need a brand-new solution to modernize your current Sage ERP. Going cloud through a private hosting provider allows you to digitally transform your accounting department with greater control than cloud native apps.

You probably already know the benefits of going cloud—superior data recovery, more storage, flexibility for your workforce, reduced downtime, improved security and expert support. But with so much uncertainty in the last year, now might not be the best time for your company to switch to a brand-new accounting system. The good news is you don’t have to. A private hoster can move your Sage ERP to a tailored cloud environment with the following benefits:

Learn more about benefits of private ERP hosting

Are you ready to go cloud and boost the performance of your Sage ERP solution?
CyberlinkASP is your tailored hosting provider.

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How to Close the Books Fast

Closing the books is a perpetual headache for many accounting departments. Without some amount of automation it can be like herding cats. If you are relatively new to the process you’re in the right place. First, we’re looking at what closing the books means, why it’s important and what the basic steps are. Then we will look at some tips to optimize and close the books faster and minimize your headache every month.

What Does Close the Books Mean in Accounting?

Closing the books is a financial process in which the accounting team verifies and adjusts account balances at the end of a given time period. Many companies close their books monthly, quarterly and annually. This means reconciling financials and producing reports for the given period. These reports reflect the company’s true financial position and inform stakeholders, including management, investors, lenders, shareholders and regulatory agencies such as the SEC.

Why is it Important to Close the Books?

Closing out your books at the end of a period is so important because it allows you to prepare important financial statements, plus you gain an accurate view of your financial status so you can plan for the future.

How to Close the Books in 8 Steps

These are basic steps to close the books. This is not professional accounting advice, but these steps should give a good idea of the procedure for closing out a period.

  1. Post Journal Entries to General Ledger: Post account totals from your journals to the appropriate General Ledger (GL) account. These journals include sales and cash receipts and cash disbursements journals.
  2. Sum Up Your GL Accounts: To get a preliminary ending balance in each of your GL accounts, add up all your transactions for each GL account.
  3. Preliminary Trial Balance: A trial balance adds up your total credits and debits. Sum up your ending balances for each of your GL accounts. Your total debits and credits should be equal.
  4. Adjusting Journal Entries: Before you close the books, adjustments must be made for items that aren’t recorded as daily transactions. These include accrual of real estate taxes, depreciation accrual etc., for the period.
  5. Adjusted Trial Balance: Once adjusted journal entries have been made, sum up your GL accounts again to get your updated trial balance. Again, your debits and credits should be equal.
  6. Prepare Financial Statements: If your debits and credits are equal, you are ready to create a balance sheet and income statement. These are also referred to as a profit and loss report or P&L.
  7. Closing Entries: Closing entries allow you to zero out your revenue and expense accounts by transferring balances from these temporary accounts to permanent accounts such as the retained earnings or owner’s equity account. Zeroing out accounts is important to starting the next period fresh.
  8. Prepare Final Trial Balance: Now that your revenue and expense accounts have been zeroed out, your final trial balance will reflect your balance sheet account. The total debits and credits should match again. You’re ready for the next period.

Sources:

Preparing Financial Statements

For most small businesses the balance sheet and income statement are key statements prepared for end-of period reporting. An enterprise resource planning solution or other accounting software can make generating these statements simple. However, you may be required to hire a professional accountant to prepare your financial statements if you are reporting to a third party or regulatory agency. Go cloud with ERP Hosting Services

How to Close the Books Fast

How to close the books fast

For many organizations, closing the books is a necessary and recurring headache. Just when you’ve come up for air from closing out one month, the wave of the next month’s close is already pushing you back under water. But you can close the book faster and prepare financial reports that help drive decision making and increase the strategic value of your accounting department.

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Preparing and planning a period close can be the missing ingredient to fast period closings, according to a recent article from Sage. “The secret sauce to closing the books is equal parts planning and execution. The planning part is often what’s missed and deserves a spotlight,” said the Sage article. Below are six tips they offer to close the books faster.

1. Understand Why

Increasing the speed of any business process can save money, but when it comes to closing the books there may be other motivators. For example, you may want to speed the process in order to reflect the timeliest financial position of the company to inform better decision making. Whatever the reason, clearly defined goals are critical to success.

2. Get Buy-In

From expense receipts and invoice approvals to time sheets, having your entire organization understand the importance of timeliness is key. Getting buy-in across the organization helps ensure a faster close.

3. Know Your Audience

Who are you preparing reports for–internal leadership, investors, shareholders? What are the key metrics they want to see? Knowing this ahead of time will help you focus and prioritize.

4. Optimize for what Matters

If, for example, your accounts payable department makes up the bulk of your paid expenses, having a streamlined AP process can significantly reduce the amount of time you spend closing the books each month. On the other hand, if expense reports are materially unimportant, it might not be effective to spend a lot of time chasing them down early in the closing process. Identifying and optimizing for these priorities is important for speeding up any period close.

5. Automate and Innovate

Audit your entire process to understand the areas where manual processes are consuming the most time. With the right ERP package it should be easy to automate you process for period closings, including management of revenue earn-out schedules, amortization and depreciation. Many accounting solutions come with standard reports built-in. You should also be able to innovate to create custom report automation where necessary. With automated report scheduling you can avoid a lot of time-consuming prep. Other software solutions may become increasingly important as you grow. Purpose built solutions like Payables and Receivables Automation, Time and Expense Tracking and Paperless Processing may become necessary to close the books efficiently each period.

Continue to Reevaluate and Improve

After each period close, evaluate how the process went and look for areas to improve the next time. Tracking period closings over time will give you a better view of your process so you can continue to improve and reduce your time to close the books.

Do you need anywhere access to your accounting software? CyberlinkASP can move your current system to a private cloud so you don’t have to adopt a brand-new solution.

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Microsoft Exchange Cyberattacks

What you need to know about securing Microsoft Exchange.

Multiple cyberattacks on on-premise Exchange Server instances were detected by Microsoft this month, according to recent updates from Microsoft.

The attacks by “hacker” group, Hafnium, have targeted entities in the United States across a number of industry sectors. While Hafnium was cited as the main attackers, Microsoft reported multiple actors were exploiting the same vulnerabilities in Exchange.

Microsoft listed the vulnerabilities and delivered patches which can be found on this page.

“We strongly urge customers to update on-premises systems immediately,” said the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC). Microsoft Exchange Online users were not affected by the recent attack.

“We heard about this latest threat and got to work immediately.”

At Cyberlink, we understand minutes matter and work 24/7 for your cybersecurity. We heard about this latest threat and got to work immediately to apply all recommended patches and updates, and secure our clients from these attacks.

MSRC has provided additional resources to help users determine if they have been attacked so they can defend themselves, including new mitigation guidance:  Microsoft Exchange Server Vulnerabilities Mitigations – March 2021

What Are Security Patches? Security patches are small adjustments made to software to address specific vulnerabilities as they are discovered. Like other software updates, security patches are critical to the performance of your applications and should be applied on an on-going basis.

About 28% of U.S. cyberattacks in 2020 targeted small businesses, according to research on cybersecurity trends. One of the benefits of bringing your systems into the cloud though a private hosting provider is 24/7 monitoring. Another is having updates, patches and fixes included.

“28% of U.S. cyberattacks in 2020 targeted small businesses”

Keeping your software up to date and responding quickly to threats like the recent Exchange attack is so important to your cybersecurity.

It’s all about staying ahead of attackers as they discover vulnerabilities in a piece of software, but there are other reasons why keeping software up to date is important.

Five Reasons to Keep Your Systems Updated:

  1. Patch security flaws
  2. Fix bugs
  3. Get new features
  4. Spread costs out rather than paying cumulative update fees later
  5. Keep up with tax and other compliance updates

This is one of the ways a private hosting provider can help by assuring your systems are up to date. With a cloud hosting provider who is 100% focused on cloud security and performance, businesses get the added reassurance their provider is ready to respond to threats at a moment’s notice. With regular backups, monitoring and maintenance from the cloud hosting provider, software and data are always available and up to date. Learn about the benefits of tailored cloud hosting.

8 Ways to Make Your Small Business Cyber Secure

Cyber security is an ongoing problem that businesses face. While threats like the one on Exchange are largely up to vendors like Microsoft to identify and respond to, there are actions SMBs can take to protect themselves.

  1. Create and enforce basic security practices & policies and communicate them to your team.
  2. Create and enforce a BYOD security policy
  3. Monitor and firewall your network
  4. Backup regularly
  5. Require separate user accounts with strong passwords for all users.
  6. Audit your security regularly to ensure it’s up to date
  7. Create security training opportunities for your team
  8. And of course, install the latest security software and keep apps up to date with the latest versions.

Again, a private hosting provider can secure many of your systems so your IT team can spend more time focused on running the business, innovation and delivering strategic dashboard insights.

Going cloud can help you secure your business and prevent attacks on your systems, but it’s important to choose a cloud provider for your needs. While going cloud through Azure is a popular option for many software cases, accounting software or other critical systems often require more control. When you carefully select a private hosting provider, you get the best of both worlds: cloud service from a provider whose core business is securing your systems, and you remain in control.

Do you have ERP software you need to move to the cloud? Need updates? CyberlinkASP can help.

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