Springtime is the perfect time for upgrades. With the world waking back up after last year’s mild winter, people take advantage of the spirit of renewal that the season brings in and start to take on projects to improve and refresh their environment. For many people, that means renovation, but for businesses, that could mean reviewing IT infrastructure and seeing what aspects can be improved and updated.
With the new year well underway, developers in the field of information technology are on the move to bring out the newest versions of their programs to benefit their customer base and stay above the rest.
Online backup and storage are becoming essential to ensuring easy and automated access to company information and increasing network data protection. Mounting storage and network backups online stabilize and secures company information while establishing easy channels for accessing information and backed-up data for authorized users. Utilizing an online backup system will circumvent the risks of a physical backup, eliminating the risk of data being corrupted or lost should something happen to a physical disk the backup would otherwise be stored on. This also allows for companies to automate the backup process. An online system can have scheduled backup times that can run on their own without disrupting network service.
With online backups, there’s no lost time hunting through tapes or disks to find the correct backup file as there would have been in the past. The move from saving and storing information onto physical hardware can create a more streamlined approach to data and document recovery that won’t waste an IT team’s precious time. Online storage is creating more opportunities for companies to save time, space and money by decreasing the amount of physical hardware that needs purchased and securing backups in a space that’s easy to navigate and safe from instabilities.
Network function virtualization will be a big step in the right direction for companies looking for intuitive versatility and stability in their IT infrastructure. Virtualization can be a multi-faceted venture of improvement that could include moving things like software, network servers, document management systems and other aspects of a company’s infrastructure. When parts of an infrastructure are virtualized, they are moved off of dedicated hardware and onto a virtual machine. By hosting infrastructure on a virtual machine, companies decrease the amount of space taken up by hardware in their building.
The use of virtualization also allows companies to intuitively adjust their resources depending on the company’s needs. This lets companies prioritize different parts of their virtualized network and assign resources accordingly while also being able to shift those resources as needed later on without much effort. By virtualizing servers, a company can not only create a backup server in a pinch if a server goes down, but they can also have a server piggyback resources off of a ‘mother’ server to keep it stable.
Security upgrades are a vital part of the future of IT infrastructure. The world has its attention on the recent outbreak of security breaches in the world of business. Big time conglomerates are suffering from the efforts of hackers, stealing customer identities and leaking important company information. Even governments struggle to keep their network secure in the current world climate. Network security upgrades will be vital to a stable and safe infrastructure in the next few years. Updating your company’s current methods for online storage, document management, and network access will be important to keeping your customer-base and your employees safe from identity and information theft.
With all of these updates to your company’s IT infrastructure, supplemental staffing will be the backbone of really improving the effectiveness of your infrastructure’s overall performance. With business becoming more computerized by the day, additional bodies on call that specialize in the different aspects of IT work will be vital to the maintenance of a company’s growing virtual presence. By having contracted workers on hand for repair, maintenance, and support, your IT staff can be relieved of the excess stress of constant maintenance and upkeep while having extra bodies available as needed when emergencies strike.
Supplemental staffing brings the benefit of not having to expand your company’s IT department and increase your budget or staff count. Having contracted external IT support lets you have the help you need but only when you need it. Creating a professional relationship with your local business solutions corporation allows you access to a multitude of experts already trained to tackle any problems that arise within your current network. These experts can also offer advice on how to better optimize your infrastructure and provide suggestions for upgrades that might benefit your company’s productivity.
Ford Office Technologies can provide solutions for all of your company’s IT needs for 2017 and beyond. With expert staff on hand to assist with upgrades, virtualization, document digitization and overall maintenance of your infrastructure’s machines, Ford Office Technologies is your number one resource for optimizing your IT infrastructure for the coming year. Contact us and schedule a meeting to start on your way to building a better, more efficient system for your company today.
