Tag Archives: Scott Maurice

What You Need To Know About The Cloud in YOUR Workplace

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Here’s a question for anybody, regardless of industry: do you know if you use the cloud in your day to day activities? Even if you are not an IT specialist, it always pays to be cognizant of the technology at your disposal and the ways that you can use it to be more productive and improve the quality of your work.

Given the recent widespread adoption of cloud technology, it stands to reason that many businesses and industries already make use of the cloud in some capacity. I’d like to take a moment and talk about some of the industries that benefit the most from cloud adoption. If you belong to any of the below and are not aware of the ways in which the cloud can assist you, I encourage you to conduct your own research and push towards your company creating its own plan.

Banking

The banking industry needs the cloud to process massive amounts of data. Given the nature of the data, cloud security is paramount here. As security measures improve for this new technology, expect banks to use it more often. The cloud’s ability to make businesses more agile is ideal. This best serves banks that may have to handle acquisitions and improve outdated software over time.

Education

Education is always in demand. The need for student portals and administrative records is best served through cloud adoption. There are many time consuming processes in the education sector that can be improved or automated through cloud services, and platforms for email or other communications can be facilitated over the cloud. Furthermore, the mobile connectivity that the cloud can provide is necessary for the modern era of students and teachers.

Healthcare

I’ve spoken in the past about the value that the cloud brings healthcare, and would like to reiterate here. The massive quantity of patient records necessitates some level of streamlining and automation, especially when this data is traded across providers. The cloud can help make this process less of a hassle and ultimately provide further security and confidentiality for patients when their information is sent out to others.

Construction

The construction industry is based around logistics, something that cloud providers help improve. Often, with job sites and other projects, it can be difficult for administrators to track the information that they need. The cloud can provide remote and mobile access for these professionals, enabling them to get the information that they need at a moment’s notice. Plus, the financial concerns inherent in construction makes construction professionals a strong candidate for certain management platforms.

Startups

While less an industry and more a type of company, startup companies have the most to gain from adopting the cloud. Unlike established businesses, they don’t have to waste time and capital adapting their existing data infrastructure to the cloud; they can start right away and have the cloud make an impact on organizing their operations. Plus, the scalability of the cloud allows startup owners to adapt to the changing nature of their business.

Conclusion

Every company has something to gain from the cloud, even if only in the form of document sharing. Any savvy business professional should learn the benefits that this new technology can confer. They can stay competitive and evolve for the future.

If you have any questions about how your business can adopt the cloud, contact me through the form on the front page.

Master the Cloud With These 5 Books

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Are you the type of professional that is always learning and adapting? Then you have that in common with cloud computing, which is growing every year and becoming more relevant in every aspect of life. If you work with the cloud or are starting to learn, there are plenty of resources to help you out.

In this age of the Internet, there’s no reason not to choose a book that fits your time. Though many sources online are available to help you along, it can be difficult to sift through everything. Here are a few of the best books on cloud computing.

Cloud Computing: From Beginning to End by Ray Rafaels

They say that any expert should be able to write in a way that anyone can understand, and that’s what Rafaels has done in this book. From Beginning to End covers migrating to the cloud along with ways to leverage it in business. As Rafeaels is mercifully easy to understand, this book is suitable for all levels of experience with cloud technology.

Cloud Computing: Concepts, Technology & Architecture by Thomas Erl, Ricardo Puttini, and Zaigham Mahmood

While it can be a difficult book to read straight through, Concepts, Technology & Architecture is a great supplementary reference for anyone learning the cloud. If you want to understand the underlying concepts behind cloud computing, this is the book for you. Erl, Puttini, and Mahmood have taken the time to unpack real life examples for the benefit of the reader, giving practical insight into how to properly use the cloud in daily business practices.

Cloudonomics: The Business Value of Cloud Computing by Joe Weinman

While other works focus on the technical aspects of the cloud, Cloudonomics is a study in the ways that it has impacted business. This is good reading for company leaders that won’t be heavily invested in the cloud, but should have enough of an understanding of its capabilities to know the best ways to use it successfully. Using case studies and statistics about things such as ROI and costs, Weinman paints a picture of the state of adoption and posits how it might move forward.

Architecting the Cloud: Design Decisions for Cloud Computing Service Models by Michael Kavis

Practical and informative, Kavis lays out the myriad of cloud service offerings available in Architecting the Cloud. This is a great book for IT professionals with a smattering of knowledge that are now working on transitioning their infrastructure to the cloud. Even beyond the cloud, much of the advice offered in this book is applicable for IT best practices in general. It’s not overly technical, so you may need to look elsewhere for some of the minutiae, but there are plenty that will find the information here valuable.

Amazon Web Services For Dummies by Bernard Golden

AWS is one of the most popular cloud computing platforms on the market, so it’s no surprise that it’s worth investigating further. Golden does just this, providing advice for implementing AWS effectively. Go into the API that you’ll be using with AWS and learn the functions important to running your business. This book can be used in conjunction with some of the free information that Amazon publishes on AWS for further value and to learn more.

The Big Switch: What You Need to Know About Transitioning to the Cloud

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Even for seasoned IT professionals, a switch to the cloud can seem intimidating. Yet, with more and more businesses adopting, transitioning is becoming increasingly necessary to stay on the cutting edge. With scalability, efficiency, and speed, cloud computing has already made a big impact on data infrastructure and productivity. 90% of companies report using the cloud in some way, according to Comptia’s report on cloud computing trends.

Still, making the transition brings with it an assortment of challenges, particularly in companies that haven’t bothered to update their IT infrastructure for a long time. For any company considering adopting cloud infrastructure, there are a few challenges worth knowing about.

Learning is part of the process

In order to successfully migrate to the cloud, companies don’t just need to adopt new technology, they need to properly educate IT staff on the specifics of cloud maintenance and management. The good news is that using the cloud decreases overhead and requires less maintenance, so after the initial adoption period, fewer resources will be spent on these tasks. While this can limit adoption speed, especially for larger companies with well-established IT infrastructures, it’s a barrier to entry worth working through.

Plan for time, money, and security

Moving data to the cloud is a slow, costly process. There’s no real way around this. When companies choose to make the jump to cloud, they should plan out the execution and research IaaS options before committing to anything. Ensure that your team is equipped well enough to manage whatever level of cloud infrastructure you plan to provide.

Security is another aspect of cloud adoption that many companies don’t consider. Cloud providers are generally not responsible for security—the majority of breaches happen on-site. Because of this, part of planning can involve paying for security in some form, whether through monitoring software or security measures offered by a cloud provider.

Why adopt the cloud?

While I’ve spoken many times on the benefits of using cloud technology in business, any company looking to adopt will need to know how they intend on using it. Simply finding an IaaS is not good enough; businesses need to figure out how the cloud fits into their overall strategy. Many cite total cost of ownership as the primary reason for cloud usage, but in reality, extensive research should be done to determine the platform that is most conducive to a company’s workload and objectives.

Know the costs.

Companies often overestimate the amount that they’ll need to pay for the cloud, moving only a few applications at a time onto cloud platforms. This incremental approach is in many cases not necessary, especially when public cloud offerings can be inexpensive and robust enough to handle business needs. When migrating, consider the services that you’ll be hosting in-house and the extent to which these can save you money in the long term.

Conclusion

Any company thinking of adopting cloud infrastructure should have a lot of questions about how migration can affect their companies. However, if they avoid falling victim to the hype and conduct thorough research both into provider options and their own goals, then they can bolster their IT departments and be prepared for the cloud’s future innovations.

Adapting to Data as a CIO

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The data revolution has put companies in an interesting position—swamped with information, it is now their responsibility to ascertain actionable insights as fast as possible to avoid falling behind. It’s a challenge to keep up—while there are plenty of tools for collecting big data, and plenty to analyze it as well, the sheer variety can overwhelm a CIO not prepared for the influx.

Because of this, data agility is king. Anyone can collect large amounts of data, but it takes a skill to translate this data into something that companies can take advantage of. Cloud platforms and databases such as Hadoop can help this effort in many ways, but it still falls to the CIO to track recent innovations and keep current. This in of itself requires a strong knowledge of data best practices; no company can adopt every new innovation, but picking and choosing the right scalable data infrastructure can ease the burden of adapting as time goes on.

A big part of a CIO’s responsibility to agile data is choosing a cloud platform that’s right for their business. Different individuals and stakeholders may have a diverse array of opinions on which is best. For instance, Google Cloud Platform may be preferred by a company’s data scientists for its machine learning capabilities, whereas the integration capability offered by Azure may be a good choice for developers. In cases like these, where a company will have to serve a variety of cloud users, it may be smart to consider a multicloud infrastructure to accommodate for as many needs as possible. This approach, though potentially more costly, can ensure that companies are able to harness the developments of each of these platforms in the future.

Beyond infrastructure, other tools exist to help a company maximize its data agility. Apache Drill is one such tool that circumvents the need for IT assistance to query data. It’s an SQL query engine that avoids the problems associated with schema creation while being ANSI SQL:2003 compliant. This and other tools like it are the key to gaining data insight as quickly as possible by cutting down on cycle time.

And concerns about data processing have changed over time. Before, hand coding data architecture was more common, and though it may still be serviceable for small, specialized projects, it is the antithesis to data agility in that it is time consuming to develop and always created for a specific platform. A better alternative for the modern business is data integration software, which takes the burden off of the business and supports new innovations and all types of cloud data.

That said, it takes a bit of vetting to choose the right integration software. The ideal software should be scalable, cross-platform, and allow for real-time data processing. It’s called an agile data fabric, and it’s meant to synthesize all types of data a company will need to work with. Platform agnosticism is important for the same reasons why a multicloud infrastructure is valuable; it allows the company to take advantage of new innovations and specific capabilities.

Organizations should also strive to be self-sufficient with their data. A controlled move to properly distributed data can greatly enhance insight. However, this requires a number of different participants within a company, including IT staff and dedicated data analysts, all with their own needs. A savvy CIO can craft an infrastructure that meets everyone’s needs and allows for scaling as innovation continues its mad rush forward.

How to Teach Employees Cloud Security

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Businesses have worked hard in recent years to bring their IT infrastructure in line with cloud best practices, but security is still an ever-present issue. It can be hard to regulate all of the data shared over the cloud, and information is always being updated. It seems, in many ways, like a zero-sum game—but given the amount of sensitive data freely shared over the cloud, it is still valuable to ensure that employees at your company are informed of the ways that they can practice good cloud security.

Training has multiple benefits; not only can it prevent sensitive data from leaking, but instructing employees on the finer points of VPNs and WiFi as well can dispel myths about the technology and ward against future mishaps. If you are a cloud professional, consider collaborating to set up a training program with other relevant IT staff. If your office lacks a reliable source of knowledge and you use an external provider for cloud services, inquire about the viability of a training program and work with them to reach a suitable arrangement.

The first thing to understand about cloud security is that it involves everyone in the office, not just IT staff. Pay special attention to anyone handling sensitive information; they may need extra instruction in this area. It may seem difficult to educate non-IT staff on the intricacies of the cloud, but in reality, there’s a lot that they can do to improve security on an individual level. Teach them how to avoid malware and unauthorized applications, and give them the resources to create strong passwords.

When training, it is of the utmost importance to impart onto employees that action is taken immediately. Companies cannot afford to take a reactive stance when it comes to cybersecurity, as a data breach can cost dearly in capital, time, and reputation. Often, once data is gone, there is no retrieving it. For businesses pursuing training, they should incentivize it and discuss the benefits that it brings. While it may take time out of their normal work schedules, a better understanding of cloud sharing can improve efficiency in the long run.

It is also important, when planning a training program, to ease employees into cloud usage with practical applications. Use a simple site or API to highlight how the cloud can be used to make it more efficient, and how it can safely be used. Keep in mind that employees will have different learning styles, and strive to offer supplemental guides and videos to allow them to fill gaps in their knowledge.

To go along with training, companies should take the time to reevaluate their cloud permissions, and which employees make use of it. Cloud protocol should be integrated into a company’s policies; don’t just make it a suggestion by way of training, but identify areas that can unwittingly be breached from within and work to fix them and mitigate the risk.

It can be difficult to get staff to comply with these changes. After all, for the average employee, much of it will seem sudden and difficult to understand. Understand and listen to your staff’s concerns about learning this new technology and empathize with them; if something in a training program isn’t working, you should consider working with them to fix the problem. Get them to apply what they’ve learned to practical office problems, and demonstrate their knowledge. Many compliance laws will require demonstration that employees have learned the material, so be cognizant about the steps you will need to take to fully comply.

In addition, it will be necessary to update training every year or so. It may sound like drudgery, but with security concerns changing by the day, your staff will need to stay up to date on the best ways to keep data secure. For IT staff, this obligation may be even more extensive, requiring consistent research into recent attacks and best practices for security.

With cloud migration continuing unabated, it is valuable for any company to educate their employees on its proper use. It affects all aspects of business, which could potentially be problematic for individuals not trained in using it in a secure manner. The sooner businesses embrace cloud education for their employees, the sooner they can adopt new changes and continue to leverage the cloud and its myriad of benefits.