Managed IT Services Blog

Public cloud infrastructures continue to rise in popularity. According to Gartner, Amazon Web Services (AWS) accounts for nearly half of the global infrastructure-as-a-service market. For many organizations, moving to the public cloud can seem intimidating, but it offers benefits of high reliability and scalability.

AWS is popular because of the number of data centers it has around the globe, providing business leaders with a sense of security and availability of company data and systems. As companies expect to expand and grow their business, moving infrastructure to AWS can result in time and cost savings.

However, businesses looking to move to the cloud need to evaluate how to minimize the costs of running applications and workloads in the cloud. Although there are numerous ways to accomplish this goal, here are five helpful tips for AWS cost optimization for your business, whether you’re in Boston, Worcester, Manchester, or elsewhere.

Organizations often turn to cloud solutions because of the flexibility that “as a service” offerings provide. If you need more computing power, storage space, bandwidth, licenses, etc., those resources are rapidly at your disposal. There is no need to buy new hardware, install software, or upgrade your infrastructure to handle it, because your cloud service provider has it ready for you to meet any growth. Unfortunately, when these resources are so easy and quick to spin up, costs start to rise proportionately.

According to the Salesforce 2016 Connected Small Business Report, more than 80 percent of small businesses do not have an IT staff, and 72 percent of small business owners are responsible for purchasing technology for their businesses. It is the combination of these two statistics that are of concern to Boston SMBs. To develop a sound IT strategy, Boston SMBs should consider these essential questions.

Ask any business in any industry: If your network infrastructure goes down, business comes to a halt. It is the lifeblood of all communications, data transmission, storage, and even application services that your business relies on daily. That is why Phil Murphy of Forrester Research claims that IT spends 80 percent of its budget to keep the lights on. That high cost comes from companies throwing money at the most expensive hardware, the newest box with lots of blinking lights, and a high-priced staff that needs to be specially trained in the various components that keep the network infrastructure chugging along.

According to the IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Digital Transformation 2016 Predictions report, IT leadership will center on business needs, capabilities, and availability related to digital transformation. While this comes as little surprise to any CIO, the challenges still persist in quickly advancing a digital transformation strategy that encompasses the entire enterprise.

According to Symantec’s 2016 Internet Security Threat Report , 43 percent of cyber attacks target small businesses. That increasing percentage is due to the fact that so many small businesses are easy targets, as they lack the necessary tools and policies, as well as the comprehensive security roadmap, to guide them.

For business owners and the workforce, IT is generally something they prefer not to think about unless something goes wrong. While the ideal scenario is to ensure that they can put all their concentration into running the business, a lack of IT awareness can lead to telltale signs that something is wrong. Here are six warning signs that indicate it’s time to update your business IT solutions.

As an entrepreneur, you are always on the lookout for ways to do things that can help streamline your business and quickly expand your infrastructure in order to meet your growth needs. Many businesses turn to a network solutions provider in order to assist them in this area, because this type of partner can provide guidance and expertise when it comes to virtualization and storage solutions—two technologies that have the potential to save a business a great deal of money if done right.

 Budget constraints, disparate or aging technology, integration with legacy systems, risk mitigation, and increased productivity expectations are just some of the big issues that today’s CIOs must grapple with. Fortunately, there are a significant number of network and infrastructure solutions that can help them address a majority of these challenges and even impact all of them to a significant degree. Here are just three of them that they may be aware of, but should be viewed in a different light to enable the support they need to take action.

In 2013, the US Government spent more than 500 billion dollars in outsourcing contracts. State and local government entities have also embraced outsourcing, especially when it comes to information technology services, because no matter the size of the organization, they are able to see the benefits almost immediately.