The Best Business Benefits of Cloud IT Solutions

the best business benefits of cloud it solutions
Migrating to cloud IT solutions can make your business safer, more future-proof, and more productive. Here are the best business benefits of the service:

Business Continuity

What happens to your business if you get hit by a snow storm in the winter or a hurricane in the summer? With cloud IT solutions, the answer is: not much.

Off-site backups are a great thing. They insure your business against physical harm in case something ever happens to your office. You can more or less remove business downtime from the equation.

Modern Security to Protect Against Modern Hackers

You need current technology to protect your business against current attacks. With cloud IT solutions, you’ll protect your business against data breach now and in the coming years. As the attacks become more sophisticated, so will the technology behind your service.

Flexibility Moving Forward

Who knows how much storage you’ll need in a few years? Alternatively, many businesses experience busy seasons in the summer or winter. With cloud IT solutions, you can always scale your plan up or down so you’re paying for just the right amount of storage. As your needs change, you can update your plan.

Mobile Employees

If your employees spend a lot of time out of the office, then you can let them access their files with cloud IT solutions. This also opens the door to who you can hire, since employees will essentially be able to work from home.

Collaboration

By storing your files and data on the cloud, you can make it easier for employees to collaborate. In general, the more employees work together, the bigger the projects they can complete. Cloud IT solutions make collaboration easy and practical.

Environmentally Friendly

Forget about buying traditional servers that take up lots of physical space. You can reduce your carbon footprint by getting cloud IT solutions and losing your servers. Prospective customers will appreciate your decision to protect the environment.

Cost Savings

Economies of scale make cloud IT solutions relatively cost-effective. This is the same reason why car manufacturers can produce affordable vehicles while it would cost a fortune to put one together yourself. Let the cloud services provider focus on IT while you invest in your core operations.

For more information about the benefits of cloud IT solutions, contact us today.

Backup Your Computer With These Cloud Computing Tips

backup your computer with these cloud computing tips

In the business world, there are plenty of ways you can backup your data and keep it safe from threats. As an example, some people use a USB flash drive for securing their data, while others use cloud computing. Speaking of which, the latter option is one of the best ways to backup your computer data. Here are a few cloud computing tips to back up your computer and stay safe.

Cloud Computing tips

First of all, when you store your data via cloud computing, it’s impossible for that info to be physically lost. If a flash drive is one of your common storage methods, for example, it’s easy for the device to get misplaced or stolen. Flash drives aren’t particularly large, after all. With cloud computing, however, you never have to worry about losing track of your stored information.

Another benefit of using cloud computing to backup your computer, is that your data is accessible from anywhere, and an attack on your hard drive would have no affect on it. For example, let’s say that your computer became infected with ransomware, and your files were threatened with deletion. You could still access stored copies of your files from any device that has Internet connection. The biggest factor in these attacks isn’t destroying your computer, but erasing your valuable info. In the long run, cloud computing makes your data pretty much untouchable.

For more information about the best way to backup your computer, feel free to contact us today at AE technology Group. We look forward to hearing from you, and assisting you in the best way possible.

Computer Tip of the Day: NAS vs. Cloud Storage

computer tip of the day nas vs cloud storage
computer tip of the day

Modern business is all about storing and sharing data. The cloud is a great solution to keep your business’ data safe and available to employees from anywhere. Some businesses use services offered by 3rd parties like Dropbox or Google Drive while other companies use a NAS or network attached storage.

Let’s review the pros and cons of a NAS and cloud services so you can make the right choice for your business needs.

NAS

With a NAS you have complete control and ownership of your data. No corporate giant has anything to do with your data or risking your privacy. A NAS solution is infinitely scalable. This means you can add additional storage at your own terms. With a NAS you have complete control of your data and how it is stored, backed up, retrieved and deleted. This can be daunting as it does get technical and one wrong move can put your data at risk. So it may be best to hire an IT professional.

Cloud Storage

Cloud storage is hosted offsite. Meaning that no matter what happens to your physical location, your data is untouched. Cloud storage for business can get pricey. Subscription services are available but to increase your storage capacity usually requires paying more money.

Cloud storage is easy. Nearly anyone can create an account and manage permissions and accounts for employees. Your data is relatively safe in the cloud as hosting companies do a great job of backing up data and using redundant storage. Although it rarely happens, cloud storage services are a high value target for hackers and your information could be at risk.

Ready to migrate your data to the cloud? Or just want to upgrade your existing solutions? Contact us to see how we can help.

Outsourced Computer Support for Your Business – Disaster Recovery

outsourced computer support for your business disaster recovery

Disaster Recovery

Did you know that computer downtime costs US businesses approximately $26.5 billion annually? Also, companies that have a network down for more than ten days never completely recoup the financial loss to their businesses. These statistics demonstrate just how vital it is for your business to have an adequate IT disaster recovery plan in place.

Outsourced computer support for your business can help you design one. To create a solid plan (or improve an existing one) these questions should be asked:

  • Does my current plan (if one exists) provide enough protection?
  • How long can my company afford to have its system(s) down?
  • How much data can my company afford to lose?
  • What are the critical servers, applications, and related software?
  • What is the availability of my company’s IT personnel if disaster strikes? With respect to outsourced computer support, how fast can their personnel be on my company’s premises?

Testing

A recovery procedure is only as good as its performance when tested. If you don’t test it, you don’t even know if it works. Don’t fall back on excuses – insufficient time, workflow disruption, no allocation of funds in the budget, etc. You don’t want to wait until your system crashes to discover the glitches in your plan.

A test of your system will give you the following important information:

  • The length of time the recovery took.
  • What data presented a challenge to recover.
  • Which applications did not return to the expected state.
  • The ability of your IT personnel to handle the recovery.

Assistance is at Hand

If creating and testing a plan seems somewhat daunting, you don’t have to do it alone. We can create and test an optimum backup and recovery plan for you. Take advantage of our expertise and your downtime will be minimal.

Please get in touch with us for more information.

Comparing the Office 365 Enterprise Plans: E3 vs E4

Microsoft Office 365 provides a powerful option for any business that wants to move forward with an all-inclusive office software platform. The enterprise plans are a step above those offered at the small business level, providing business analytics, data and information security, more internal networking options, and greater possibilities for a diverse workforce.

The Office 365 enterprise plans as a whole boasts that they have, “Integrated collaboration services with advanced compliance features and full IT power.” With the full Office suite across devices and accessible online, advanced data protection and legal services, and flexible IT with greater control over automation, the claim that Microsoft makes is quite justified.

Take a look at what the two top plans have to offer.

Office 365 Enterprise E3 vs E4

The top plans that Microsoft has offered look very similar on the surface, and that is honestly because they are. Here is a quick rundown of the features that you will find in both:

  • Full Office suite for PC and Mac, installed on up to 5 computers per user, 5 tablets per user, and 5 phones per user. All users also have access to the full suite online.
  • Skype for Business with video conferencing and instant messaging (for Mac users, Lync is provided since Skype for Business is not yet available).
  • Business-level email accounts with 50 GB of storage, an unlimited inbox, and an upper limit on attachments of 150 MB.
  • OneDrive storage for business with 1 TB of storage per user.
  • Intranet site services and corporate social-networking support.
  • Digital storytelling and presentation with Sway.
  • A corporate video portal for uploading and sharing videos, as well as web meeting broadcasting options.
  • Application management via Sharepoint.
  • Powerful new tools for searching content in 365 using Graph or Delve, and new Excel tools Power Pivot and Power Query.
  • Compliance and information protection for rights management, data loss prevention, and encryption.

What is the Difference?

The price, for one. E3 is $20 per user per month, and E4 is $22. When it comes down to it, though, the E3and E4 plans are very similar. Both include all of the features listed above, and even more if you look at the detailed specifications. The E3 plan specifically touts information and data protection over E4, but it is actually included in both. The difference comes down to one inclusion in the E4 plan.

E4 includes the option for Enterprise Private Branch Exchange via Skype for Business. What this essentially means is that with E4 your business can have a unified communication system with on site enterprise voice and PSTN access.

The E4 plan will no longer be available as of June 30, 2016. If E4 is the plan for you, be sure to take advantage of it while you can! Not sure?

Please contact us and we will help you narrow down your needs so you can be positive you are making the right choice.