Is your company ready for a power outage?

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When the word “disaster” comes up in a conversation concerning your company, you probably think of tremendously damaging events caused by nature. Most people jump to thoughts of raging fires or blistering winds from a tornado. These are obviously incidents to be concerned with, but what about the less-flashy disasters that may befall your business?

You’ve probably got a fire extinguisher somewhere on your premises, and you also most likely have a procedure in place for a strong tornado, but do you have a disaster recovery plan for when the power goes out?

Power is about more than keeping the lights on

Keeping the electricity flowing is an absolute necessity for business continuity. So much technology goes into the daily operations of organizations these days that having the power go off unexpectedly can have serious effects.

Power outages are extremely costly. A power outage can be a serious drag on your company’s profits.

According to Gartner, the average cost of downtime has been calculated to be roughly $5,600 per minute. That means that a power outage lasting only an hour could cost your business up to $300,000. That’s a huge expenditure for a single point of failure within your organization, and points to the highly important role electricity plays in the enterprise today.

Think of all the actions your business conducts that require power. Everything from using a VoIP phone system to talk with clients to simply sending out companywide emails all require your organization’s office to have power. Once this connection to the grid is severed, your ability to continue business is completely destroyed. Electricity is at the center of just about everything you do at work, and the loss of it can be devastating.

Power outages more common than you’d think

While the statistics about network downtime in and of itself should be enough to convince you of the importance of disaster recovery planning, the truly frightening aspect of losing power is how common it is. In fact, Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty has discovered that these kinds of incidents happen a lot more than the average person would suspect.

The company’s research found that from 2010 to 2014, power outages were the 10th most likely cause of disruption to business continuity. Although other, more natural forms of disaster beat out loss of electricity, this study still shows just how vital power is to the average business’s continued profitability.

“Take the time to make sure your company is safe.”

Disaster recovery planning is a must

With the knowledge in hand that your company’s power is absolutely vital to business continuity, it’s time to take action. The only way to truly be ready for a trying event such as this is to have a plan that comes in the form of a disaster recovery solution. Not only will a solid disaster recovery plan allow you to mitigate the risk of a power outage, but it will also make sure your business doesn’t fall victim to other disruptive events.

However, it’s important to note that there is a certain level of expertise necessary in the creation of a plan. Your IT team is undoubtedly talented at what they do, but they probably don’t have the experience required to make a disaster recovery procedure.

Many people like to think that doing something in-house will end up being cheaper. This may be true of other functions, but not so for disaster recovery. In fact, a study conducted by Computer Economics found quite the opposite.

Of the organizations surveyed in the report, 92 percent stated that their expenditures in the creation of a disaster recovery plan were the same or even lower than when they attempted to do so with internal staff. There are obviously many reasons behind this, but chief among them is the fact that tasking your internal IT team to create a plan pulls their attention away from internal goals.

This not only wastes the time of these employees, it also wastes your company’s money. Allowing an outside firm that actually knows how to set up a disaster recovery procedure lets your workers get back to keeping your business up and running, thereby increasing efficiency.

If you’ve ever thought about creating a disaster recovery plan, there’s been no better time than now. Waiting until an unfortunate event actually hits your company could result in major downtime for your services, which is going to cost quite a lot of money. Take the time to make sure your company is safe and contact an ISG Technology disaster recovery specialist today.

What to know before deploying: Cloud capabilities

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Cloud environments are being used for more things within every industry. Its advantages come in many flavors: IT executives polled by the Harvard Business Review Analytic Services named business agility, collaboration and cost savings as the biggest drivers for cloud adoption. In fact, a full 72 percent of those surveyed reported that collaboration was the best business benefit of deploying virtual environments. After all, with the cloud, business partners can more easily communicate and share documents from remote locations.

This is only the top of the list of cloud benefits. Let’s take a look at how the cloud was used in 2015 and how it’s likely to be used as this year progresses:

“The cloud presents itself as the ready answer to DR problems.”

Disaster recovery and business continuity

Keeping companies afloat was right up the cloud’s alley in 2015. Cloud Tech contributor Monica Brink noted that one of the biggest trends seen throughout 2015 was the use of the cloud as a disaster recovery tool. As IT budgets diminish and cloud adoption grows, these kinds of virtual environments present themselves as the ready answer to DR problems. The market for Disaster-Recovery-as-a-Service, as a result, continues to grow. Projections in a report published by MarketsandMarkets indicate the DRaaS market will be worth $11.92 billion by 2020.

IT management

As mobile devices continue their entrance into the workplace and new computers are constantly added, network administrators have their work cut out for them to try and manage the growing number of endpoints any one organization has to deal with. A poll conducted by IT management provider Autotask found that the increase in endpoints is more easily managed with the cloud. Around 55 percent of the IT service providers surveyed said they had seen significant or steady growth in the number of endpoints they have to manage.

The majority of these respondents noted that they used the cloud to manage all of these endpoints. With network virtualization and cloud computing, it’s easier to view, manage and define all the devices on any one network, and that in turn enhances security.

Cloud storage

The market is looking good from the cloud storage end, as well, and related verticals are beginning to show the impact of the cloud. For instance, the video surveillance market is on the incline, according to MarketsandMarkets. This vertical is expected to be worth a total of $18.28 billion by 2020, growing at a compound annual rate of 22.41 percent. As a result, the cloud storage market will also exhibit some growth, because where else are companies going to store those surveillance videos if not in the cloud? The value of this market is projected to grow at a compound annual rate of 40.55 percent from 2015 to 2020, according to Research and Markets.

The cloud is used to enhance business agility and decrease complexity within an organization.The cloud is used to enhance business agility and decrease complexity within an organization.

Unified communications in the cloud

The CIOs polled by the Harvard Business Review Analytic Services reported that collaboration tops the list of priorities in terms of cloud adoption – and it’s for good reason. When the cloud is paired with powerful communications technologies that bring all methods of contact into one suite, it becomes monumentally easier to exchange ideas and get business done. According to MicroScope editor Simon Quicke, small to medium-sized enterprises are adopting cloud-based UC at a faster rate than ever before. These communication tools are flexible, cost-effective and reduce complexity within an organization.

All of these capabilities are going to be crucial for IT managers to take advantage of in 2016. By streamlining business processes and investing in managed cloud environments, your company can make sense of complicated IT processes and increase agility where it counts. Contact ISG Technology today for more information about how the cloud can go to work for your business!

Deploying hybrid cloud in 2016: Tips, tricks and stats

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The cloud is everywhere. No matter where you look, it seems nearly every company is using cloud technologies or talking about the cloud in some form. Verizon’s recent “2016 State of the Market: Enterprise Cloud” report indicated that 87 percent of organizations are now using cloud-based tools to run mission-critical workloads, with 69 percent of enterprises touting the cloud’s usefulness in helping them revolutionize business processes. While adoption of private cloud is on the incline, hybrid architectures are also set to enjoy an increase in the coming months.

Why are enterprises across the board and within nearly every industry adopting cloud technologies? The advantages speak for themselves. Cost effectiveness, increased ability for collaboration and better flexibility are only a few of the benefits that companies can glean from deploying applications in these virtual environments. Private and public cloud environments are useful in their own rights, and hybrid cloud allows companies to choose the best of each kind of deployment – mix and match cloud, so to speak.

The ability to combine private and public deployments into one solution is enticing for many businesses, and as such, the outlook for hybrid cloud is good.

Cloud adoption: Past and future predictions

In 2011, Gartner projected the rise of hybrid cloud by saying that 90 percent of organizations had plans to hybridize their IT strategies in the near future. The subsequent years have shown that, yes, hybrid deployments have practically skyrocketed since those Gartner predictions were made. Research published by MarketsandMarkets in March 2015 projected that the total market value of the hybrid cloud space would reach $84.67 billion in 2019, growing at a compound annual rate of 27.3 percent beginning in 2014. This is a huge portion of the market share allotted to the overall cloud industry.

The new year is already beginning to see important changes when it comes to hybrid architectures. Cloud Cruiser contributor Dave Zabrowski predicted that in 2016, the hybrid cloud would become the standard for operation among enterprises and small businesses alike. Zabrowski cautioned that deploying hybrid cloud environments can add complexity to IT infrastructure, but drawbacks like these aren’t slowing the adoption rate any. Network World contributor Brian Butte noted that because enterprises are learning the real benefits and disadvantages of each kind of cloud deployment – public and private – they are more likely to turn to hybrid environments to serve them for different purposes.

“Hybrid cloud is being utilized for more than simply storing and running applications.”

Cloud containers: Good news for everyone

Hybrid cloud deployments offer a bevy of advantages to those enterprises that make the decision to hybridize their IT infrastructure. Enhanced flexibility, better business agility and customizable pricing are all important incentives for cloud adoption. However, these are only surface-level benefits.

One of the biggest advantages of the hybrid cloud lies in the ability to develop and deploy containerized instances that run applications and store data. Containers work in a similar manner to virtual machines, except that VMs run complete instances of servers and thus take up a lot of space. Containers, on the other hand, are extremely small. Essentially, they represent building blocks that can form complete instances, instead of coming as a complete package. According to WindowsITPro contributor Orin Thomas, this facilitates the movement of containers between hosts, because all you have to do is shift the container files themselves.

This enhanced ability for movement and application support is advantageous for numerous reasons. In a hybrid cloud environment, this allows developers to streamline app development and delivery.

“[D]evelopers creating applications can build a container on their development machine, push it into their organization’s private cloud deployment for wider testing, and then push that same container up into Azure when the application is ready to be deployed into production,” Thomas wrote.

Hybrid cloud is helping enterprises make the most out of their IT infrastructure.Hybrid cloud is helping enterprises make the most out of their IT infrastructure.

Considering hybrid? ISG can help

Hybrid cloud is being utilized for more than simply storing and running applications. Development and delivery are two other important aspects of IT infrastructure that should be considered when making the move to the cloud – additional benefits that may not be at the top of administrators’ minds when considering options in the new year.

Partnering with a managed services provider like ISG Technology can help take out some of the complexity of deploying a hybrid cloud solution. Our cloud experts can successfully guide you down your path to hybrid IT deployment – call us today for more information!

What is the future of the hybrid cloud?

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With 2015 in the rearview mirror, people are starting to look ahead toward 2016. Although most people are looking forward to a New Year’s resolution they probably won’t be following, many in the tech industry are eager to see what 2016 holds in terms of cloud computing development.

The cloud has completely changed how modern business is conducted, but it hasn’t stopped revolutionizing yet. Improvements in the technology have brought about something called the hybrid cloud, an incredible combination of the private cloud’s security and the public cloud’s affordability.

This advancement is working so well that MarketsandMarkets predicted that the hybrid cloud market would be worth a staggering $84.67 billion in 2019. That’s a huge improvement over 2014’s worth of $25.28 billion and simply points out how fast this technology is catching on.

Hybrid cloud is the ‘next step’

The hybrid cloud really is a breakthrough and has quite a lot of fans all over the tech industry. One of these fans is Brian Butte, a contributor for Network World. Butte states that the hybrid cloud is the next big thing for IT due to the rapidly changing landscape of modern technological innovation.

He states that advancements like the Internet of Things and real-time analytics are “cloud-dependent technologies” that work very closely with the end user, thereby requiring a public cloud option. However, the public cloud isn’t a perfect solution.

A hybrid cloud solution solves a lot of problems.Thinking about the cloud? Now’s the time!

Cybersecurity is always a huge concern for businesses these days, and the public cloud simply isn’t safe enough for all company data. Some information is simply too sensitive and therefore needs the security of a private cloud. That being said, the private cloud isn’t very cost-effective for housing all the data a business might produce.

This is why the hybrid cloud is so incredible, and it’s why this technological leap is becoming so popular. By combining the best attributes of both cloud types, the hybrid cloud is making quite a name for itself in the IT world.

As Butte puts it: “Deploying hybrid clouds is the next step beyond private clouds in the evolution of cloud computing.”

“The hybrid cloud is only getting bigger and better.”

Implement your hybrid cloud solution now

The hybrid cloud is only getting bigger, and there has been no better time than now to invest in it. If your company has needs that can be met by public cloud managed services, but you need a more secure option for other data, the hybrid cloud is right for you.

Make sure to check out ISG Technology’s cloud services page today and see what the hybrid cloud can do for you!

Is your business ready for a winter storm?

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With snow finally falling in many parts of the country, winter has finally made its presence known. The first snowfall of the year is truly a wonderful event, and yet it poses a serious risk to businesses. Heavy snowstorms can cause damage to a company, both to physical infrastructure and the ability to conduct business.

In fact, AccuWeather found that winter storms cost the American economy $3.7 billion in 2014 alone. This number only accounts for the physical damage to buildings, leaving out the devastating cost snowstorms can cause in terms of downtime.

“Winter storms cost the American economy $3.7 billion in 2014.”

Although that number is frighteningly high, heavy snowfall doesn’t have to completely disrupt your revenue stream. With the right tools, and the right help from an experienced disaster recovery provider like ISG Technology, any business can weather the storm.

You’ll need to prepare the office

Just because you’re not able to control the severity of a snowstorm doesn’t mean you have to be at its mercy. Like many parts of life, failing to prepare for heavy snow is preparing to fail. There really isn’t anything big you can do to get ready for one of these storms. Rather, there are a lot of little ways you can prepare your company for massive snowfall.

Ready, a public service campaign created by the American government, has a large list of ways people can prepare for heavy snow. The list is targeted mostly at the average citizen, but it works just as well for a company preparing a disaster recovery plan for the winter.

Everyone should have rock salt and sand ready in the event of icy roads. This is great advice for companies with their own parking lots, as having clients and employees getting stuck in the ice every 10 minutes simply isn’t good for business.

Pushing cars in the snow is no fun, invest in salt and sand now. Having salt and sand will help you avoid the embarrassing situation of pushing a client out of your parking lot .

On top of that, businesses should invest in shovels for days when snow falls during work hours. Note here that the word used was shovels not shovel. Nobody wants to scrape ice and snow off of pavement alone, and your employees will thank you for spending the extra money.

Get help from the experts

Although all of this is all great advice for those wishing to ready themselves for the winter, there are a whole host of other aspects to consider when making a winterized disaster recovery plan.

Do you know how long your IT systems will last without maintenance in the event of a major snowstorm? How about what to do when the snowfall gets too heavy and crashes through your facility’s roof?

These questions and many more all require a disaster recovery expert to answer them, and attempting to make a plan without experienced personnel simply isn’t feasible. Thankfully, ISG Technology is here to make the process simple, easy and affordable.

If you’d like to make sure your business is ready for winter, or any disaster that might come your way, make sure to check out ISG Technology’s disaster recovery page today.

3 reasons why your business should consider colocation

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Technology has grown by leaps and bounds over the last few years. It seems like new innovations are coming out every day, each with more benefits than the last. One of these incredible jumps forward has been colocation. Basically, this is where companies bring their own servers to an outside data center and share space – or colocate – with other companies.

Colocation has revolutionized enterprise IT, as many organizations have jumped into this innovation with both feet. In fact, the market surrounding this feat of modern technology is expected to absolutely explode in the years to come. According to 451 Research, the global data center colocation market is projected to be worth around $36 billion by 2017. That’s a huge amount of money for a single service, and simply goes to show how popular this innovation has become in recent years.

So, to bring more exposure to this incredible advancement, we’d like to take some time and discuss the top three reasons why your business should consider colocation.

Colocation is an interesting innovation with many benefits. Colocation is doing a lot for enterprise IT.

1. Affordability

The first – and perhaps most important – benefit of colocation is the cost savings that it can provide to organizations. Servers are absolutely necessary for modern business operations, but their care is incredibly expensive. The electricity used to power them alone is a huge expenditure, not to mention the fact that you need to hire employees to make sure the machines are safe and well maintained.

This is probably the biggest reason why so many companies are opting to switch to colocation services for their computing needs. Although you’ll still have to provide your own servers, sharing space in a single data center means sharing electricity costs. That’s good news for the environment, and it’s also a great way to slim down that budget.

What’s more, colocation providers have highly trained staff on duty 24/7 making sure your machines are kept safe and sound. This frees up your own IT team to work on internal goals and projects, rather than simply paying them to maintain the servers. In a way, you’re paying less money to get more done.

“Average network downtime costs around $5,600 every minute.”

2. Reliability

While saving money is always a good thing, businesses need more than that. Companies need to know that their services will be provided at all times, as the loss of these capabilities can be extremely expensive.

According to Gartner, the average network downtime costs around $5,600 every minute. This makes a lot of sense, considering the importance of connectivity in the Internet age, although that amount of money being lost every minute should be extremely frightening to the average business owner.

This fear of downtime is driving a lot of company leaders into colocation services, and for good reason. Colocation service providers often also offer disaster recovery planning. This means that these companies will be much more prepared than your organization at dealing with a disastrous situation, therefore ensuring the uptime of your mission-critical services better than your company ever could on its own in its own facility.

3. Scalability

Sure, your company may only need a single server right now, but don’t you think that will change as your business grows? The whole point of the American Dream is to start small and eventually work your way up to massive success, but is your company prepared for that?

Scaling up on your own can be incredibly frustrating, as finding the space for new servers is not easy. Your company’s office probably has a finite amount of space, and while growth means more computing needs, it also means more employees. How will you find space for your servers if you have more workers than ever? Once again, this is is where colocation comes in to help save the day.

One of the best parts of colocation services is the fact that you can scale your company’s operations up or down to your heart’s content. Taken on a lot of new business and can’t handle the workload? Just rent more space. Had a bad year and don’t need as much server space? Scale down. Colocation services are almost entirely customizable, allowing your computing operations to grow or shrink with your business.

Colocation really is an incredible innovation. It allows your company to receive the server power it needs, without forcing you to buy space you don’t. If you would like to see what colocation can do for you and your business, contact ISG Technology today. Our years of experience in the field will allow you to leverage this amazing technology to benefit your company.

Hackers hit hard and fast: Is your company ready for 2016?

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As the world increasingly moves online, cybersecurity will continue to play a large role in how businesses operate. A Forbes report found that the cybersecurity market is predicted to hit $170 billion by 2020. Organizations will obviously be putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to the security of their data, but will it be enough?

Hackers are a malicious bunch, but they aren’t stupid. They are always working to take what’s rightfully yours, and they’re often successful. Less-than-perfect cybersecurity systems are no match for today’s cybercriminal, and companies that don’t take security seriously in 2016 will be paying the price.

“Around 84 % of data breaches took only minutes.”

Many companies just aren’t prepared

The problem that many organizations face is that hackers are consistently refining their techniques, working daily to stay one step ahead of standard cybersecurity protocols. These attacks have gotten so sophisticated that cybercriminals are gaining access to networks faster than ever before.

According to the Data Breach Investigation Report put out by Verizon, around 84 percent of data breaches took only minutes for hackers to gain access to private information. The speed at which these criminals can get their hands on your company’s data is scary enough, but the truly frightening part of this report has to do with how long it takes to discover this kind of intrusion.

The study found that 66 percent of these breaches weren’t discovered by the organization until months after the original intrusion. That’s a very long time to have your company’s information completely open to hackers, and would allow these cybercriminals to get away with a lot of private data.

Finding an intrusion can take a very long time. Hackers love when companies take their time discovering cyberattacks.

While the theft of sensitive information is certainly bad for business in and of itself, the thing organizations really have to worry about is their public image. Money comes and goes, but reputation is all a company really has. The Ponemon Institute found that a business’s client-facing reputation can be damaged by as much as 31 percent following a data breach.

Although it is kind of cruel to blame the victim of a cyberattack, this data makes sense from a consumer’s point of view. Purchasing products or services from a company often requires the exchange of personal information, and no one wants to do business with an organization that’s known for having been hacked.

What’s more, the Verizon report found that around 9 percent of breaches were discovered by a client rather than the company itself. Being known as the company that was hit with a cyberattack is bad, but that’s nothing compared with the reputation blowback of not even being able to discover the leak yourself.

Finding cybersecurity professionals is tough

After reading all of that, you might be thinking to yourself that it’s probably time to beef up your cybersecurity team. While that’s probably a good idea, the reality of the situation is that actually hiring these professionals is a lot easier said than done.

According to Peninsula Press’s analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers, there are around 209,000 unfilled cybersecurity positions in America right now. Due to the high level of training these professionals have to go through in order to work in the field, cybersecurity workers are few and far between.

This will make it incredibly difficult for you to find new members for your team. The pickings are really slim at the moment, and if you’re lucky enough to find someone with this kind of training you’re going to be paying quite a lot to hire them. Low supply equals high demand, and cybersecurity professionals know exactly what their skills are worth.

You might need some outside help

Asking for help can be hard, especially when you’re used to running an autonomous company. But considering the huge threat of a cyberattack against your company, now is no time to be proud. Hiring an outside company to help with things like malware removal and secure data management allows you to find the cybersecurity professionals you’re looking for without having to pay their massive salaries yourself.

Thankfully, ISG Technology makes acquiring these service easy and affordable. With everything from virus protection to intrusion prevention, ISG Technology can help keep your company safe as it moves into 2016.

4 aspects of disaster recovery you probably haven't considered

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Regardless of the industry your business operates in, having a disaster hit your company is always a possibility. Whether it’s a tornado, equipment failure or just human error, something bad could happen to your business at anytime. This may sound like a gloomy way to view the world, but it’s simply the reality of the situation.

That being said, there is something you can do to mitigate the risks of a catastrophic event. Having a plan in place has long been seen as the best way to maintain business continuity after a disaster. Sadly, many company leaders haven’t considered all sides of disaster recovery before making a decision on it. To that end, we’ve put together this list of four aspects to examine about disaster recovery planning.

1. Your business can easily shut down following a disaster

Although you probably don’t like to think about it, the fact of the matter is that your business is only one major disaster away from shutting down. According to statistics from the Institute for Business and Home Safety posted on the Small Business Association’s website, about 25 percent of smaller businesses don’t come back after a disastrous event.

Disaster recovery planning mitigates the risk of events like a fire. Don’t let a fire ruin your business.

Creating a successful and functioning business takes a lot of time and effort, and the prospect of losing all that hard work due to a single disaster should make you seriously consider how your company is approaching disaster recovery. If you don’t have a solid plan, or just don’t have one at all, your business could very well shut down for good due to a single tragedy.

2. Not having a plan is expensive

When taking on additional expenditures, many business leaders like to talk about how much the service is going to cost. While this is certainly a good place to start for other ventures, the expenses of creating a disaster recovery plan aren’t what you should be focused on. Rather, you should be discussing how much not having a plan is going to cost you.

This is because the absence of a procedure generally results in higher costs in the wake of a disastrous event. According to the Ponemon Institute, the cost of a data breach increases 10 to 15 percent if the organization doesn’t have a disaster recovery plan in place.

The reason for this is simple: Not having a plan typically creates confusion. Confusion in the wake of disaster often creates panic, which results in employees running around not knowing what to do or where to start. This causes more downtime, which means a higher cost to your company’s bottom line.

3. Just having a plan isn’t enough

So now that you’re fully aware of the importance of having a disaster recovery plan in place, it’s time to discuss testing this procedure. Once again, this is another area that many companies tend to take lightly at their own peril. Creating a disaster recovery plan and then never testing it is almost as bad as never having made one at all.

“Roughly 23 percent of organizations with a plan have never tested it.”

This is because it is impossible to predict what kind of challenges your organization will face during a real disaster if you never test for them beforehand. According to a survey conducted by the Disaster Recovery Preparedness Council, roughly 23 percent of organizations with a plan have never tested it. While this is a disturbing fact by itself, the truly frightening aspect of this is that 65 percent of those that did conduct a test didn’t pass their own inspection.

Basically, this means that a majority of the 23 percent that never test have a faulty plan and don’t even know about it. Having some sort of procedure in place is obviously the first step toward preparing for a disaster, but never testing this plan pretty much negates its ability to save your company’s business continuity.

4. All disaster recovery plans are not made equal

On a similar note, it’s important to understand that just because you have a plan doesn’t mean that it’s effective. This again harkens back to the importance of testing, but having a good procedure in place starts with the plan’s creation.

The Disaster Recovery Preparedness Council’s survey speaks to the importance of diligence in the creation of a plan. The study created a metric for grading the preparedness of each organization within the survey, with a grade of A  being the highest and an F being a failure to prepare. The survey found that 73 percent of respondents received a D or an F, meaning they were in no way ready for a disaster.

“Organizations need to focus on having the right plan.”

This again shows that simply having any sort of plan won’t help your company when disaster strikes. Organizations need to focus on having the right plan, and one of the best ways to do this is to get help from disaster recovery experts. There are simply too many aspects to consider when making a procedure for your staff to do it in-house, and there’s nothing worse than discovering your plan is lacking after a disaster has hit your company.

Anyone worried about the safety of their business needs a disaster recovery solution, and ISG Technology has the experience to create a plan that is just right for you. We’ve spent years developing procedures for all kinds of companies, and we can help you keep your business online when times get tough.

If you’d like to see what ISG Technology can do for your company, make sure to check out our page on Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity today.

BYOD in schools: Advantages and disadvantages

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As highly advanced technology becomes more affordable, people are beginning to rely more on their own devices within the workplace. Using a smartphone or personal laptop for work purposes – a movement that’s been coined bring your own device – has been catching quite a lot of traction lately within the corporate world.

However, this trend isn’t just for businesses. Many people have suggested letting students utilize their own devices within the classroom as well. While this idea certainly has some good aspects to it, it also has some downsides. Here, we’d like to take some time here to discuss both so educators can have a fuller view of what a BYOD classroom would look like.

“The world is very quickly moving to a digital space.”

Advantages

Lower initial costs for schools
This is usually the first point of interest people like to focus on when discussing BYOD. The world is very quickly becoming ever more digital; as such, organizations need specific hardware in order to connect in an efficient and effective manner. This is just as true within schools as it is in the business world, as educators must make sure the next generation is prepared for the technologically advanced society that awaits them.

Gone are the days of classes in cursive, as they have given way to typing and coding courses. As such, many schools are struggling to stay current with the technology contained within their facility. With budgets being as tight as ever in most education environments, it makes a lot of sense to just let the kids bring their own devices.

The Pew Research Center stated that 58 percent of American teens had a tablet, while 73 percent of them personally owned a smartphone. These students could very easily bring their devices into the classroom, thereby increasing the number of usable machines while still keeping budgets low.

Students get to learn with familiar tech
A huge part of the educational process is connecting new knowledge with the old. It’s why students who are just learning how to write are asked to talk about their summer vacations and what they want for their birthday. It makes the process personal, and it is yet another big advantage to BYOD in schools.

When students use their own devices in school, they skip over that awkward part of class where they have to learn how to use the tech first before actually getting to the lesson. This not only wastes time, but it causes confusion that often is disruptive to the learning process. BYOD would allow teachers more time to discuss the actual lesson plan, while also increasing the receptiveness of the students.

BYOD promotes receptiveness in students. Students can learn more if they use their own devices.

Disadvantages

Disparaging to lower-income students
While BYOD is great for schools in more affluent areas, many regions of the country simply are not ready for it. Poorer students won’t have ready access to these devices, and forcing them to buy technology they can’t afford in the first place just to participate in the classroom simply isn’t an option.

While lower-income areas absolutely need technology-based learning within the classroom, doing so with a BYOD policy won’t work. Schools that work in these kinds of regions need to be aware of the financial situation of its student body and should therefore avoid implementing BYOD.

Can students be trusted with cybersecurity?
Poverty might be one of the most obvious of detractors from a BYOD policy, but the most poignant reason this trend might not work for your school is that teens are not exactly the most reliable in terms of policing their online habits. It’s not their fault, rather some teens simply don’t know how to avoid certain scams while using the Internet.

“16 million mobile devices suffered a malware attack in 2014.”

That being said, security is something to consider when thinking about a BYOD policy for your school. Motive Security Labs discovered that around 16 million mobile devices suffered a malware attack in 2014. Hackers are working constantly to access information stored on mobile tech, and allowing your students to use these devices for classwork could open your school up to a host of cyberattacks

Basically, school administrators need to come up with a system for making sure students don’t invite cybercriminals into their network. This could be the banning of certain high-risk websites, or even only allowing devices within the school to connect to a specific number of safe sites. Either way, it would be a mistake to allow students to govern themselves within a BYOD policy.

The verdict

When it comes to BYOD in schools, it really all depends on the facility itself and the people working within it. Enacting this kind of policy in a school is a lot easier said than done. There are a lot of variables to consider, and missing one tiny detail could result in a massive cyberattack that could cause a lot of damage to your facility’s reputation. That being said, there are also a lot of benefits to letting kids use their own devices. The monetary advantages are obvious, and teens are a lot more receptive to a lesson if they’re allowed to complete it using their own tech.

At the end of the day, it all just depends on what kind of school you run. If you have the time to police online activity and have a student body with a lot of personal devices, BYOD can do quite a lot for your school. If not, this trend might not be right for you and your students. BYOD is a fantastic move in the right direction for many corporate institutions, but implementing it within the educational space is going to take some time.

If you do plan on enacting a BYOD policy, you’re going to need some help. The cybersecurity aspect of this trend especially calls for professional experience, as your school’s private data is incredibly sensitive. Thankfully, ISG Technology can help you work out the kinks of a new BYOD policy. With years of experience helping people integrate BYOD into the workplace, ISG Technology can help bring your classrooms into the 21st century.

The ins and outs of mobile tech: What does it mean for you?

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If you ask tech-industry experts what they think has been the most disruptive technology of the last couple of years, you’ll get a few different answers. Some will say cloud computing, and others will say virtual infrastructure. Quite a few, however, will simply say one word: mobile. Smartphones, tablets, smartwatches and the Internet of Things are all examples of mobile technologies that have changed the way enterprises, medium-sized companies and small outfits alike operate within the business world. Recent numbers from The Pew Research Center indicated that 68 percent of American adults own a smartphone, and that statistic is only going to increase as 2016 progresses. It seems that everything we do is now tied up in mobile or has a mobile component – including everything in the business world.

Why is mobile so important to the way we do business now? Let’s take a look at how this disruptive technology has had such an irreversible influence on how companies approach their IT infrastructure:

1. Business and consumer tools

Computing on the go has never been more important for our fast-paced society. Research is being done every day exploring the efficacy of these kinds of tools for consumers and companies alike. For instance, according to a new study from research firm Sequence, consumers are using their devices to make wish lists and spend time with family this holiday season. If given the chance, the study found, one-third of them would use the time saved by mobile shopping to stay in bed longer.

This is a fun example of how mobile tech has changed the way we look at things, but enterprises and SMBs are also benefiting more from devices like laptops and smartphones. Business can be conducted on the fly thanks to these kinds of devices – leading to an increase in productivity and improved outcomes throughout the business world. Bring-your-own-device policies are helping companies save money in overhead and operational expenses while at the same time giving employees the means to be more productive and more efficient.

Myriad kinds of mobile devices can be used to impact office productivity.Myriad kinds of mobile devices can be used to impact office productivity.

2. Security

As mobile devices have evolved to meet the growing needs of enterprises in every industry, so too has the technological landscape developed in order to accommodate their increasing use. BYOD is even one of the driving forces behind the endpoint security market, according to a recent report published by MarketsandMarkets. The endpoint security market is projected to be worth $17.4 billion by 2020, growing at a compound annual rate of 8.4 percent over the next five years.

This market is growing proportionately with the number of malware samples discovered every day by security teams around the world. Motive Security Labs found that 16 million mobile devices were targeted by malware in 2014. To negate these kinds of threats, it’s crucial for companies to make – and stick to – a BYOD security strategy.

This strengthening of the security space is a clear indication that the need to mitigate risks has been compounded by the introduction of mobile technologies into the workplace. When unknown employee devices are connected to the network, it can sometimes cause headaches for the IT department in the form of shadow IT. Networks sometimes aren’t prepared for the intrusion of different kinds of tech, which means there may be hidden vulnerabilities waiting to be exploited.

“Improvements in terms of productivity, efficiency and expense-cutting are well worth the risks.”

3. The good parts about shadow IT

However risky it may be to allow mobile tech on your network, the benefits can outweigh the disadvantages if you play your cards right. Shadow IT has gotten a bad rap (understandably) in recent years, but improvements in terms of productivity, efficiency and expense-cutting are well worth the risks. In addition, according to CMS Wire contributor Joanna Schloss, shadow IT can lead to the adoption of new technologies that work hand-in-hand with mobile tech. This in turn helps companies see better return on investment from these tools.

Navigating the ever-changing mobile tech landscape can seem daunting when you undertake this task by yourself. Partnering with a managed services provider like ISG Technology gives you access to trained professionals who know what they’re talking about when it comes to new devices and how to best use them to your advantage. We can also help you determine the best course of action in terms of increasing your security protocols and taking charge of your computing infrastructure.

Contact the experts at ISG Technology today for more information!