Informative

Are You Really Protected from Cyber Threats?

Cyber threats. Are you really protected? Numerous reports from companies like Verizon and even Symantec show that small businesses are the targets of nearly half of all cyber attacks, but at the same time, more than half of all small business owners believe that their companies are too small to be victims. With this information in mind, it’s crucial for businesses of all sizes to ensure they are safe, and there are several ways to determine whether your company might be at risk. What is a Cyber Threat? A cyber or cybersecurity threat is a malicious act that seeks to damage data, steal data, or disrupt digital life in general. Cyber threats include computer viruses, data breaches, Denial of Service (DoS) attacks and other attack vectors. Cyber threats also refer to the possibility of a successful cyber attack that aims to gain unauthorized access, damage, disrupt, or steal an information technology asset, computer network, intellectual property or any other form of sensitive data. Cyber threats can come from within an organization by trusted users or from remote locations by unknown parties. What is Cybersecurity? Cybersecurity is the protection of computer networks from attack and damage. It’s basically keeping your data safe online. Hackers are always looking for ways into your network and if they find a way in, then they can steal your information and ruin your business. If you do not take cybersecurity seriously, it could cost you millions of dollars in lost revenue. And what’s worse is that hackers don’t care about your company. They just want to make a quick buck. Therefore, when choosing a cybersecurity solution, ensure you choose one with a proven track record and with excellent customer service. The last thing you need is to spend time troubleshooting an issue, only to find out the next day that someone hacked into your system again. What are the Most Significant Cyber Threats? One of the most important parts of protecting your business from cyber attacks involves understanding the most common kinds of threats and what they could mean for your business. The three most common are: Viruses: Viruses spread from one PC to another – or from one network to another – replicating itself and spreading just like the flu. They can have all kinds of detrimental effects, including stealing data, shutting down networks, or rendering every computer in your business completely unusable. Phishing: Phishing scams occur when cyber criminals send emails purporting to be from reputable companies to entice users to provide their personal (or in this case, confidential business) information, which may include passwords, credit card numbers, and more. Ransomware: Ransomware is exactly what its name implies – software that holds data on your network hostage until you pay a ransom. It is devastating for many businesses, and it has been responsible for the closure of thousands over the last two decades. How to Protect Against Cyber Threats Cybersecurity is a big issue today. Hackers have become more sophisticated with their attacks over the years, and now target businesses of all sizes. If you want to keep yourself safe from cyber threats, then you need to know how to prevent them. Cybersecurity is a multi-pronged strategy that involves layers of defense to help protect your business. Keep Your Employees Informed If you don’t regularly take the time to talk to your employees about network and email security, there’s a good chance your business is not as protected as it should be. Once a week during your employee meetings, make sure that you are reminding everyone with access to your network about the dangers of ransomware, phishing, viruses, malware, and more. In fact, you can even phish test your employees with fake phishing emails that will help you discover how diligent your employees really are. Use Endpoint Detection and Response Tools Endpoint detection and response (EDR), also referred to as endpoint detection and threat response (EDTR), is an integrated endpoint security solution that combines real-time continuous monitoring and collection of endpoint data with rules-based automated response and analysis capabilities. You can think of it as the next generation of antivirus. It continuously monitors network devices to detect and respond to cyber threats like ransomware and malware. Regularly Assess Your Network for Security Holes Finally, one of the absolute best things you can do to protect your data and network is to have regular security assessments conducted by professionals. These rigorous and in-depth assessments go through your entire network looking for potential issues. Things like your firewall, server, password vault, and more can all provide hackers and cyber criminals with the entry point they need to place viruses or ransomware in the system, and while the best way to prevent this is to reinforce the areas where criminals are most likely to enter, it’s impossible to do this if you don’t know which areas need reinforcement. That’s exactly what network assessments do. Cyber threats can have a tremendous impact on your business. In fact, with roughly 83% of small businesses lacking the funds to deal with the repercussions of a cyber-attack – which has an average price tag of about $3 million – it becomes clear that the best course of action is prevention, and thanks to today’s advanced technologies, there are plenty of ways to secure your network – and keep it secure. Cyber Threats Conclusion Cyber threats are not going away anytime soon. These are just a few ways to help secure your business against attacks. If your business needs help securing your network against cyber threats, then contact Pennyrile Technologies for a free cybersecurity consultation.

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Run your Business, not an IT Company

Informative / Pennyrile Technologies

You went into business because you have an interest and expertise in some particular product or service. You began the firm to offer that product or service, but a dirty little problem came along with that new company. IT requirements. You need equipment, and you need networks, printers, and data storage to keep the company up and running. As a consequence, you’ve become responsible for managing something you probably don’t care very much about or even understand especially well. Managed Service Providers can be a solution. A small business can off load a variety of IT tasks that are becoming a distraction to everyday business operations and strategy.Here are just two examples. Software updates and security audits: Your present in-house staff may be spending most of its time fixing everyday problems. As a result, they may have to delay vital security measures, such as applying tested security patches or updating virus software programs. Working with an MSP will eliminate much of the work overload that leads to system or security vulnerabilities. An end user help desk: If you have any in-house staff, they are probably well-trained and very qualified. Are their skills being wasted on all the little daily issues of cranky printers and broken keyboards? MSPs can offer an end user help desk that can handle all those calls that pull your own staff away from larger efforts that can enhance productivity and move the business forward.

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What is the Cloud: A Simple Analogy

Informative / Pennyrile Technologies

You use the cloud and don’t even know it. Do you go to Amazon and create a wish list? Do you have an email account on Yahoo? That is cloud computing. All your emails are stored on Yahoo servers somewhere. They are on physical servers, of course, but they aren’t on your laptop. The advantage is that when you spill your coffee onto the laptop keyboard, you haven’t lost all your emails even if you never backed up your hard drive. ( If you haven’t, shame on you, by the way.) Here is a simple analogy to explain how the cloud works and why it might be a very useful part of your business model. Picture the small, very cramped office space of a little start-up. You and a few coworkers sit in tight quarters with messy desktops buried in mounds of papers, files, and pizza boxes. There is absolutely no room for storage. (Throw the boxes out yourself. There are limits even to cloud technology) It will be a long time until you can afford a larger office space. Your building manager offers to rent you an empty file cabinet in the basement. Although the basement space is shared with other tenants, only you and your team have keys to this locked cabinet where you will store all those piles of paper. Your rent is relatively cheap compared to other tenants since you’re only paying for the cabinet and not the larger lockers they have leased. Suddenly, those once covered desktops are clean, leaving space to work. More importantly, the papers are all nearby, each of you has a key, but they are safe from everyone else in the building or outside. They are also safe from spilled coffee and pizza crumbs. You’ve avoided the dramatic jump in fixed costs required to find bigger office space when all you needed were several feet of filing cabinets. Even better, the money saved is put back into the core goal of providing a product or service to a customer. The cloud does the same thing. You rent only the space you need, it is safer from hackers than your on-site server will ever be, secure from thieves, and protected from accident-prone employees. Unlike the rest of us, cloud service providers don’t have coffee cups near their keyboards or forget to do monthly backups. In short, the cloud provides scalable storage without large incremental leaps in fixed costs you really can’t afford. Email us at sales@pennyriletech.com or use our contact form to see how Pennyrile Technologies can help your business today.

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Loss of Data: Causes and Prevention

Informative / Pennyrile Technologies

The adoption of technology from the simplest of matters to the most complex problems has rendered us heavily dependent on it. We love paying our bills minutes before they are due. We enjoy seeing loved ones face-to-face on our computer screens. We can access and print our extremely sensitive records from government and financial websites in a matter of minutes instead of waiting for the mail for days. The time and resources that technology saves are invaluable, but this convenience has a very ugly side. This convenience brings costs, which could include irreparable financial, professional, and social damage. The technology that is designed to make life easier can also wreak havoc when criminals use it to breach secured, personal information. So how do we tame this beast called ‘breach of data security’? Background: The gravity of the problem: To look for a solution, we first need to understand how serious this problem is. Breaches in data security and loss of data could spell imminent demise for many small companies. According to the National Archives & Records Administration in Washington, 93% of companies that have experienced data loss resulting in ten or more days of downtime have filed for bankruptcy within a year. 50% wasted no time and filed for bankruptcy immediately and 43% that have no data recovery and business continuity plan go out of business following a major data loss. In the past, small- to medium-businesses (SMBs) thought that data security problems were reserved for large corporations, but cyber criminals are finding out that SMBs are more complacent in securing their data thus making themselves easier targets. More importantly, the lightly guarded SMBs can provide backdoor access to the large entities hackers really want to hit. Fewer than half of the SMBs surveyed said they back up their data every week. Only 23% have a plan for data backup and business continuity. That is why the number of cyber attacks on SMBs has doubled in the recent past. Causes of lost data: Loss of data can be attributed to two factors. Breach of data security: As we discussed above, theft is the main reason for loss of data. Hackers can get into networks by installing their own software hidden inside emails and other Web content. They take over PCs and networks and then access files containing personal information. They can then use that information to empty people’s bank accounts and exploit data for other purposes. Human error and employee negligence: Humans still have to instruct technology to perform as desired. Examples of negligence include unattended computer systems, weak passwords, opening email attachments or clicking the hyperlinks in spam and visiting restricted websites. Fortunately, this type of loss of data is easily preventable, but it is just as detrimental and can bring your business to a halt. Downtimes can be very harmful to your business continuity and revenue. Five ways to minimize data loss Enforce data security: More than technology, this is the management of human behavior. SMB management must communicate data protection policy to the entire staff and see to it that the policy is adhered to. Rules and policy must be enforced very strictly regarding the use of personal devices. Tell employees to create passwords that are hard to crack and change them frequently. Stress the consequences: Rules are only good if there are consequences for not following them. Define what those consequences mean for the both the individual and the organization. Mobile device management: Mobile devices may be the weakest link in data security. “Mobile device management” refers to processes that are designed for the control of mobile devices used within the company. Devices tapping into company systems are identified and monitored 24/7. They are proactively secured via specified password policies, encryption settings, etc. Lost or stolen devices can be located and either locked or stripped of all data. Snapshots: Fully backing up large amounts of data can be a lengthy process. The data being backed up is also vulnerable to file corruption from read errors. This means sizeable chunks of data may not be stored in the backup and be unavailable in the event of a full restoration. This can be avoided by backing up critical data as snapshots. Cloud replication and disaster recovery services: For SMBs who consider data backup to be too costly, time-consuming and complex there is an answer. The Cloud provides a cost-effective, automated off-site data replication process that provides continuous availability to business-critical data and applications. Cloud replication can often get systems back online in under an hour following a data loss. To conclude our conversation, it is very important to understand the causes and consequences of data loss. Be proactive and minimize the likelihood of a data breach and data loss, so you can stay in business without interruption. Make sure you have a solid data recovery and business continuity plan so you don’t become another statistic about small firms who didn’t make it. Email us at sales@pennyriletech.com or use our contact form to see how Pennyrile Technologies can help your business today.

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Be Proactive: How to Avoid Potential Network Failures

Informative / Pennyrile Technologies

Network failures for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) can be devastating because they don’t have the resources of large corporations to bounce back from such disasters. Preparation against such devastation may be the only course for them to avoid failure and survive with the least damage if failure occurs. SMBs must be proactive in recognizing the eventuality of a cyber attack or human error that can cause data loss and disrupt business continuity. This is what needs to be done to help prevent a potential failure. Be prepared for network failures Being proactive is an essential step for preparation against a disaster. There are two ways to determine how to best prepare to prevent potential failure of your infrastructure. First, you need to identify the weaknesses throughout your systems, and second, determine how you are going to eliminate those weaknesses and protect your network. Identify the weaknesses that cause network failures Determine how and why your system could fail. Examine all aspects of your hardware and software. Assess all the internal and external factors that could contribute to failure of your networks. Here are some questions you need to know the answers to. Does customer access and/or employee productivity often stall because of downed systems? In these situations, how quickly is your IT support able to minimize the damage? Can you say with certainty that your business will be back on line and be able to access lost data with minimal disruption in case of failure? Your critical data should be backed up frequently. The data on personal laptops, iPads and other mobile devices should also be backed up. Are all these steps being taken, and how often? Are all backups stored in a location off-site and are they quickly accessible in the event of corruption, fire or flood? Are you using any custom made software? Can it be reinstalled and updated when needed? Are your systems truly protected from hackers and viruses? Do you change passwords when employees leave the company? How often do you test your backup processes? The answers to all these questions should give you a clear picture of your network’s ability to survive in case of a catastrophe. Five steps to help protect or shield your business against network failures Backup files every day: There are a large number of businesses that never backup data. Only 23% of SMBs are backing up their data daily, and only 50% are doing it weekly. A number of issues can result in loss of data. You should backup data every day. Check backup procedures regularly: Don’t find out accidently that your backup system is not working properly. By then it could be too late. Make sure to have a backup procedure in place. Also, it may seem like your data is being backed up normally, but check frequently if it is backing up the way it should be. In this age of BYOD make sure all employees are also following procedures to backup data on their laptops, iPads, etc. Make sure virus protection and firewalls are always enabled: Many companies either don’t have virus protection installed or it is disabled. That renders their networks vulnerable to virus attacks from emails, spam and data downloads. Corrupted files will not only bring your systems down but they can spread to your customers and email contacts. That will spell disaster for your reputation. Hackers are always looking for unprotected and open ports online that they can attack with malicious code or files. That can cause permanent data loss. Monitor server drives: Dangerously full server drives can cause many problems, ranging from program crashes to sluggish email delivery. Servers should be monitored and maintained regularly to avoid these problems. Check built-in logs: Frequent reviews of built-in logs can reveal small issues. You will have a chance to prevent them from becoming bigger, harder-to- manage problems that can bring your systems down. Network Failures Summary We now know IT system and network failures have very serious consequences for SMBs. We also know that they can avoid such failures by being proactive. Many SMBs are now turning to cloud-based services and virtualized backup solutions to mitigate downtime and network failures. Virtualization and cloud computing have enabled cost-efficient business continuity by allowing entire servers to be grouped into one software bundle or virtual server – this includes all data, operating systems, applications, and patches. This simplifies the backup process and allows for quick data restoration when needed. See how our backup and disaster recovery solution can help you. Email us at sales@pennyriletech.com or use our contact form to see how Pennyrile Technologies can help your business today.

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Protecting Against DNS Attacks

Informative / Pennyrile Technologies

Not too long ago, the New York Times’ website experienced a well-publicized attack, which raises the question – how can this happen to such a world-renowned corporation? If this can happen to the New York Times, what does this bode for the security of a small company’s website? What’s to stop someone from sending visitors of your site to an adult site or something equally offensive? The short answer to that question is nothing. In the New York Times’ attack, the attackers changed the newspapers’ Domain Name System (DNS) records to send visitors to a Syrian website. The same type of thing can very well happen to your business website. For a clearer perspective, let’s get into the specifics of the attack and explain what DNS is. DNS Targeted Attack The perpetrators of the New York Times’ attack targeted the site’s Internet DNS records. To better understand this, know that computers communicate in numbers, whereas we speak in letters. In order for us to have an easy-to-remember destination like nytimes.com, the IP address must be converted to that particular URL through DNS. Therefore, no matter how big or small a company’s online presence is, every website is vulnerable to the same DNS hacking as the New York Times’ site. The good news is the websites of smaller companies or organizations fly under the radar and rarely targeted. Larger targets like the New York Times, or LinkedIn, which was recently redirected to a domain sales page, are more likely targets. For now… There is no reason to panic and prioritize securing DNS over other things right now. But there is a belief that DNS vulnerability will be something cybercriminals pick on more often down the road. Here are a few ways to stay safe Select a Registrar with a Solid Reputation for Security Chances are, you purchased your domain name through a reputable registrar like GoDaddy, Bluehost, 1&1, or Dreamhost. Obviously, you need to create a strong password for when you log into the registrar to manage your site’s files. Nonetheless, recent DNS attacks are concerning because they’re far more than the average password hack. It was actually the security of the registrars themselves that was compromised in recent attacks. The attackers were basically able to change any DNS record in that registrar’s directory. What’s particularly frightening is the registrars attacked had solid reputations. The New York Times, along with sites like Twitter and the Huffington Post, is registered with Melbourne IT. LinkedIn, Craigslist and US Airways are registered with Network Solutions. Both had been believed to be secure. So what else can be done? Set Up a Registry Lock & Inquire About Other Optional Security A registry lock makes it difficult for anyone to make even the most mundane changes to your registrar account without manual intervention by a staff registrar. This likely comes at an additional cost and not every domain registrar has it available. Ask your registrar about registry locking and other additional security measures like two factor or multi-factor authentication, which requires another verifying factor in addition to your login and password, or IP address dependent logins, which limits access to your account from anywhere outside of one particular IP address. While adding any of these extra safeguards will limit your ability to make easy account change or access your files from remote locations, it may be a worthwhile price to pay. Email us at sales@pennyriletech.com or use our contact form to see how Pennyrile Technologies can help your business today.

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Stay Secure My Friend… More Hackers Targeting SMBs

Informative / Pennyrile Technologies

Many SMBs don’t realize it, but the path to some grand cyber crime score of a lifetime may go right through their backdoor. SMBs are commonly vendors, suppliers, or service providers who work with much larger enterprises. Unfortunately, they may be unaware that this makes them a prime target for hackers. Worse yet, this may be costing them new business. Larger companies likely have their security game in check, making it difficult for hackers to crack their data. They have both the financial resources and staffing power to stay on top of security practices. But smaller firms continue to lag when it comes to security. In many cases, the gateway to accessing a large company’s info and data is through the smaller company working with them. Exposed vulnerabilities in security can lead cyber criminals right to the larger corporation they’ve been after. Cyber Criminals Target Companies with 250 or Fewer Employees Research is continuing to show that cyber criminals are increasingly targeting smaller businesses with 250 or fewer employees. Attacks aimed at this demographic practically doubled from the previous year. This news has made larger enterprises particularly careful about whom they do business with. This means that any SMB targeting high-end B2B clientele, or those seeking partnerships with large public or government entities, must be prepared to accurately answer questions pertaining to security. This requires an honest assessment of the processes taken to limit security risks. View Security Measures as Investments CEOs must start viewing any extra investment to enhance security as a competitive differentiator in attracting new business. Adopting the kind of security measures that large enterprises seek from third-party partners they agree to work with will inevitably pay off. The payoff will come by way of new revenue-generating business contracts that will likely surpass whatever was spent to improve security. Would-be business partners have likely already asked for specifics about protecting the integrity of their data. Some larger entities require that SMBs complete a questionnaire addressing their security concerns. This kind of documentation can be legally binding so it’s important that answers aren’t fudged just to land new business. If you can’t answer “yes” to any question about security, find out what it takes to address that particular security concern. Where a Managed Service Provider Comes In Anyone who isn’t yet working with a Managed Service Provider (MSP) should consider it. First, a manual network and security assessment offers a third-party perspective that will uncover any potential business-killing security risks. A good MSP will produce a branded risk report to help you gain the confidence of prospects to win new business. An MSP can properly manage key elements of a small company’s security plan. This includes administrative controls like documentation, security awareness training, and audits as well as technical controls like antivirus software, firewalls, patches, and intrusion prevention. Good management alone can eliminate most security vulnerabilities and improve security. Email us at sales@pennyriletech.com or use our contact form to see how Pennyrile Technologies can help your business today.

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Cloud & Remote Monitoring Can Be the Difference Maker for SMBs

Informative / Pennyrile Technologies

It’s a fast-paced world. Not only do people want things, they want things right now. This sometimes-unnerving need for instant satisfaction has only intensified now that we have Wi-Fi and mobile devices that keep us connected regardless of where we are, what we’re doing or the time of day. There is no longer any tolerance whatsoever for waiting. A business with a website that fails to load, or loads too slowly, will lose customers and leads to competitors. So what has your business done to address this need for constant accessibility and optimal uptime? Do you feel you’re doing enough to meet the demands and expectations of your customers, new business prospects and those who have just now found you on Google? If you’re a small-to-medium sized business owner, do you have confidence in your technology infrastructure? Can you say with certainty that your website, internal server, and mobile applications function smoothly, efficiently, and correctly? When your IT team leaves work to go live their lives, are you confident that things won’t go bump in the night? That you won’t be ringing their cell phone while they’re out having dinner with their family, or worse yet, sleeping? If you answer no to these questions, you may be one of the many small business owners who could benefit from cloud & remote monitoring. And you’ll be pleased to learn that cloud & remote monitoring can significantly improve all facets of your business – especially your service, productivity, reputation, and profitability. What is the Cloud? According to a study conducted by Wakefield Research, 54% of those questioned responded that they’ve never used cloud technology. However, the truth is that they’re in the cloud every day when they bank or shop online and send or receive email. Business owners, specifically non-tech savvy small business decision makers, are still apprehensive when it comes to moving their server and web monitoring services to the cloud. But FDR’s famous quote, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” definitely applies here. The cloud is nothing more than moving the storage and access of your data programs from a computer’s physical hard drive to another server hosted on the Internet There is nothing to fear. Benefits of Cloud & Remote Monitoring Obviously, these physical and virtual servers, their shared resources, and the applications they run on, must be monitored. This can be done from multiple remote locations and it’s called remote monitoring. Remote monitoring makes it easier to identify previously unseen patterns and potential problems within your infrastructure–issues that may be too difficult for any in-house support staff to detect. For instance, monitoring ensures that your site is delivering accurate page content and is meeting anticipated download speeds. It can detect unapproved changes, website tampering, and compromised data. Many businesses monitor their computer hardware for issues like failing hard drives, verifying their computers are up-to-date with security updates and patches, disk space, disk usage, antivirus status, and more. The continuous analyzing and testing of your network, website, and mobile applications can reduce downtime by as much as 80%. The speed and functionality of e-commerce transactions are also optimized. Additionally, cloud monitoring tests your email server at regular intervals, which minimizes failure deliveries and other issues pertaining to sending and receiving emails. Clearly, all of the above, along with the alerts that help identify and fix issues before they become catastrophes, make cloud monitoring an attractive way to gain insight into how end-users experience your site, while also enhancing their overall experience. Email us at sales@pennyriletech.com or use our contact form to see how Pennyrile Technologies can help your business today.

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How Does IT Downtime Affect Your Business

Why Hybrid Clouds are More Than Just Another Trend

Informative / Pennyrile Technologies

It should come as no surprise that many small to midsize business owners take pride in overseeing every aspect of their startup business. Naturally, many are apprehensive when it comes to surrendering control of their servers, their data, and their applications. The downside of this need for control is that operating and maintaining everything onsite can be time-consuming, super expensive, and it can make your business more vulnerable to failure related downtime and cyber threats. Hybrid Cloud Solutions Although everything can be stored in the cloud at a fraction of the cost, many aren’t responsive to the idea of sharing the infrastructure their technology runs on. The great thing about the cloud is it’s not an all or nothing thing. This is exactly why so many small to midsize businesses have turned to hybrid cloud solutions. Just as they name implies, hybrid cloud solutions are both on and off premises. It’s the best of both worlds. An entrepreneur can still control certain aspects of the business on-site, but simultaneously exploit the cloud’s cost effectiveness and overall scalability. For example, a local server can be housed and managed on-site but that server, or just specific files, can still be backed up in the cloud and stored far away off-site. This provides a partial disaster recovery solution in the event of a hurricane, flood, fire, or just a basic server crash. Here are some tips for developing your hybrid cloud strategy Honestly assess the current IT strategy – Over time, as your business grows and technology advances, your well-planned and neatly arranged IT infrastructure transforms into a disorganized mishmash of different servers and disconnected software and tools. View this almost as the spring-cleaning of a cluttered garage. What systems or applications are critical to your business right now and which ones no longer support your current or future business initiatives? Know what you want to keep close – Every business will be different in this regard. Certain companies will prefer keeping large files in-house, in a more controlled private cloud for easy access, but may be okay with having their emails out there in the cloud. See how others are leveraging a hybrid cloud environment – Services once only available to large enterprises are now available to SMBs. This presents an extraordinary opportunity to be more agile, flexible, and better suited for new business opportunities and growth. Remote monitoring, 24/7 support, and disaster recovery solutions can be easily integrated within a hybrid-computing environment – regardless of operating systems, server types or mobile devices used. Staged implementation – Be sure to plan your hybrid cloud strategy as a multi-year plan that is deployed in phases. For example, in the beginning, private controlled access to a public cloud service can be granted to internal application developers experimenting with a new business initiative. Or a new customer relations management SaaS (Software as a Service) application can be implemented. This is the year that even small or midsize enterprises are getting serious about cloud operations and a strategic mix of public cloud services and private cloud may make the transition easier. Email us at sales@pennyriletech.com or use our contact form to see how Pennyrile Technologies can help your business today.

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Why More SMBs are Turning to the Cloud to Reduce TCO

Informative / Pennyrile Technologies

Reducing Total Cost of Ownership with the Cloud More small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) seem to be taking the initiative to learn more about the benefits of the cloud. Determining why SMBs have this sudden keen interest in the cloud isn’t all that tricky. If you shouted, “Cost Savings!” in a room full of SMBs, you’d undoubtedly be the center of attention. And it seems as if this is also the motivating factor as to why more SMBs are looking into cloud-based solutions to reduce expenditures. Although it seems like an oxymoron to recommend investing in new technology to control costs, cloud-based solutions can be leveraged for a greater return on already inevitable operational expenses. By enhancing productivity and overall efficiency, the cloud could help spur business growth and profitability. Reasons more SMBs are Opening to Cloud-Based Solutions Here are few of the reasons more SMBs are opening up to cloud-based solutions… Containing Costs This is the big one. Every SMB wants their business to grow but that growth is accompanied by rising costs to maintain safe, reliable, and sustainable business technology.On-premise solutions are expensive. If you’re paying someone $60K a year to manage and monitor your technology, and most of their day is spent performing routine maintenance tasks or running to the aid of the intern who complains that something is running slow, are you really getting a return on that investment? You can do better and your on-site IT support can do more for you.The cost for cloud-based solutions have been found to be anywhere from 35% to 50% lower than with on-premise solutions. This is because the cloud can completely eliminate most infrastructure costs such as servers, databases, backup, operating systems, upgrades, migration, physical space, power and cooling, and associated in-house or third party staffing costs. Greater Flexibility No doubt you’ve been privy to an office Happy Hour conversation or two about Infrastructure-as-a-Service (Iaas) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). Is that crickets we hear? Okay, well since you’re in the dark, the flexibility of the cloud makes it really attractive to SMBs. IaaS and PaaS are two increasingly popular cloud technologies because of their flexibility when it comes to big data analysis.IaaS technology is flexible as it allows an as needed rapid deployment of resources. Basically, fast expansion to accommodate growth. SMBs can pay accordingly for this on-demand usage, giving them the ability to access and analyze the kind of big data seen at larger enterprises without having to pay for necessary hardware capacity.PaaS technology gives SMBs the ability to affordably increase or decrease data storage capacity as needed.Of course, there must be a need for big data analysis that justifies the use of these technologies. Many SMBs may be just fine using Microsoft Excel for data analysis. Greater Mobility Many SMBs are turning to the cloud to provide remote employees with access to communications solutions. Through the cloud, remote workers can use smartphones, laptops, and notebooks to access documents and files for internal and external collaboration. Cloud Solutions Offered Pennyrile Technologies can help your business with many different cloud solutions. Some of the most common include: Migrating to Office 365 or Google Apps Server and Workstation Hosting Custom Application Hosting Cloud Storage Solutions Secure File Sharing Website Hosting As you can see, it’s understandable why the cloud is being seen by SMBs as the “great equalizer” to take their business to the next level and stay competitive with even the big dogs despite budget and staffing limitations. It also helps that cloud-monitoring services have simplified the monitoring and management of SMB cloud deployments, alleviating a lot of the fear about migrating to the cloud. Email us at sales@pennyriletech.com or use our contact form to see how Pennyrile Technologies can help your business today.

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Are You Really Protected from Cyber Threats?

Run your Business, not an IT Company

Loss of Data: Causes and Prevention

Be Proactive: How to Avoid Potential Network Failures

Protecting Against DNS Attacks

Stay Secure My Friend… More Hackers Targeting SMBs

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