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4 Questions to Ask When Choosing Public, Private or Hybrid Cloud

Posted on June 30, 2020November 19, 2024 by Bluewave

Companies need to ask themselves some questions before deciding on a cloud solutions model.

If you’re considering cloud solutions for your business, you’ve likely explored both public and private cloud options or even discovered the hybrid cloud, a blend of both cloud environments. Moreover, there’s an overwhelming amount of information online, leaving you puzzled over determining which model is right for you. The cloud model you choose depends on which features you find most important and how much you’re willing to invest.

While the more cost-effective public cloud is easy to manage and offers increased scalability, a private cloud provides greater control and heightened security for mission-critical data and applications. Hybrid cloud brings the best of both worlds, merging public and private cloud for lower total cost of ownership (TCO) with enhanced security, scalability and management features.

Ask yourself these questions to determine which solution will best serve your business needs:

Do you need full control over your data processing flow and privacy?
Do you have a need for specific regulatory or compliance requirements?
Do you have dedicated network engineers on staff?
Do you have the resources to invest in server infrastructure and data center management?

If you answered yes to all these questions, a fully private cloud suits your needs; it’s perfect for midsize or larger companies and enterprises with the resources to invest in server infrastructure and data center management, as well as dedicated IT personnel to manage it all. This comes with a higher initial cost, but benefits businesses with highly sensitive information or executives hoping to retain full control over their organization’s data.

Alternatively, if you answered no, a fully public cloud offers you an affordable solution that scales up or down as needed, leaving room for growth for your small or midsize company. With no server or infrastructure investment, a public cloud cuts costs associated with initial deployment, software licensing fees, and dedicated IT personnel.

Somewhere in between? Hybrid can provide a low-cost transition strategy for more cloud-based operations later, or act as a long-term solution that guarantees sensitive data stays on your premises while separately creating a resilient, scalable solution, giving your organization room to grow. Choosing a hybrid model allows you to benefit from lower TCO and quicker results, without compromising sensitive data availability or compliance needs.

Designing your hybrid cloud

Many organizations will decide a hybrid cloud is right for them, but that opens a more difficult question: Which applications should be hosted publicly vs. privately?

The questions above can help determine which applications to host where. The scale of your internal resources for management from both a staff and investment perspective will determine how many applications can be hosted privately or publicly.

From there, examine the needs for each application you’d like to host in the cloud. If you need more control over the data the application contains, a private cloud may work well. If you think a particular application is going to need to grow (or shrink) anytime in the future, the scalability of the public cloud meets these needs.

You’ll also want to consider your availability needs. Many public cloud providers offer service-level agreements that guarantee certain levels of uptime. A private, self-managed cloud may not ensure the same. If downtime for an application is problematic, public may be most suitable. While this leaves you entirely reliant on the provider to fix problems should services go down, a private cloud’s downtime would be your internal responsibility. Be sure to consider whether you have the resources to address downtime issues if you opt for the private option for crucial applications.

Security Needs in Your Cloud Solutions

Finally, be sure you understand each application’s security needs. Based on your risk of an attack, you must determine how the data you plan to store will be secured. Some applications may need to remain on-premises or in a private cloud due to security and regulatory requirements, while other data can be more easily stored in the cloud.

As you evaluate the options for your next deployment, make sure to take both your business’ continued evolution and overall readiness into consideration. Hybrid will make it easy to test the waters without fully migrating over, which makes it just as important to find a vendor that allows you to move freely between private, public and hybrid deployment models. Depending on your business requirements and goals, make sure you carefully weigh this decision with a well-established vendor capable of creating a solution tailored to your business.

Bluewave has the public, private and hybrid solutions available to fit any size business in any industry. We will work with you to create a truly customized solution, ensuring it grows and changes along with your business.

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A Winning IT Leader’s Digital Transformation Strategy: Compliance & Security in Managed Cloud

Posted on June 13, 2020May 2, 2024 by Bluewave

CIOs today are striving to modernize their IT environments and achieve seamless digital transformation while simultaneously executing on core business needs and meeting strict compliance requirements. At the same time, IT professionals must ensure that technology streamlines internal operations effectively and optimizes strategic benefits for their companies. Read about a winning IT strategy: compliance & security.

Today, companies are experiencing a paradigm shift in the IT landscape with more security threats than ever before. Compliance and security are influencing the way IT leaders make business decisions, and these market drivers are moving IT professionals to innovate their technology strategies for a more efficient, flexible, scalable and secure environment. If IT executives are not complying with internal and government regulations or staying ahead of potential security threats, they could be jeopardizing the company.

What Does Compliance Mean for Businesses?

For years, national legislation such as HIPPA, SOX, and others drove data security regulations. It motivated IT leaders to address security concerns around hardware and software according to these compliance policies. Today, there is a new wave of laws affecting businesses on a global level. One of those regulations is GDPR, General Data Protection Regulation, which require companies to govern and manage compliance for the data they produce, increasing the need for data protection and personal privacy.

Consumers must individually “opt-in” or consent to having their personal information ethically used by the company. Therefore, businesses need enterprise-wide data mapping, data inventory, management of vendors, regular auditing, and privacy compliance programs to ensure that they are respecting consumer privacy. Companies that are subject to this law must maintain a record of data processing activities to monitor their compliance. If the regulation is not abided by, GDPR fines can exceed up to 4% of annual company revenue.

Is Security Being Effectively Managed?

While IT leaders aim to meet complex regulatory or internal requirements, they also need to stay ahead of security threats. IT professionals need to keep up with today’s mobile workforce in today’s BYOD-enabled work environment. Effective monitoring is essential, as lost or stolen employee devices must be handled quickly and efficiently.

Also, IT administrators need to keep up with updates, patches, and troubleshooting. Without centralized management, break-fix problems can pile up and prevent IT leaders from focusing on more significant issues.

BYOD Concerns

A BYOD-enabled workplace is also susceptible to internal security vulnerabilities. Research shows that 90%+ of security breaches involve human error, which is why many companies are moving to awareness training or managed cloud partnerships. Employees are jeopardizing company information by just writing their login credentials on sticky notes. While security officers are looking externally for attacks, a company’s most significant security risk could come from internal forces as well.

IT leaders need an Identity Management solution to help properly permit or revoke access to the correct employees. In addition, IT professionals are now including multi-factor authentication (MFA) as a standard practice for security strategy to provide a higher degree of assurance. MFA generates a multi-layered technology that an unauthorized user would have to combat to gain access to a computing device, network, or database. An individual needs to have a minimum of two separate forms of authentication to grant access. This is especially crucial for PCI compliance as organizations are now evaluating to make MFA implementations a new standard for conformance.

Managed IT Cloud Solutions for Digital Transformation

Working with a managed cloud computing provider can deliver secure and reliable solutions to IT challenges that are keeping IT executives up at night. We partner with leading providers that offer a global cloud platform, a team of IT experts for both advanced engineering needs and basic IT support needs, project managers, and a dedicated account management team. Focused on delivering an exceptional client experience either as a standalone offering or partnered with an IT team.

Securing the IT perimeter and delivering a desktop-as-a-service strategy for security and compliance is gaining momentum in the IT space. Solutions are available that enable organizations to move all their applications to a more centralized and secure environment. Through a seamless desktop user experience accompanied with enterprise-grade security, employees can securely access their desktops from any device. A managed cloud desktop will keep your environment compliant and secure with the option to have third-party experts support it.

With a more secure and compliant IT environment, IT leaders won’t need to worry about manually placing policies in place, and they can focus more on initiatives and strategies that drive revenue.

Managed Cloud Providers for Security and Compliance

A top-tier managed cloud provider offers industry-leading network and host-based security tools that meet major government regulations. It addresses business vulnerabilities to mitigate risk, prevents data loss, and protects against attacks. Web-based administration, unified security management, and compliance reporting deliver clear visibility for effective monitoring of all the activities in an IT environment.

Email security, archiving, and automatically updated threat signatures protect against phishing attacks and security breaches. In addition, the network-based inspection firewall, anti-virus software, and anti-malware applications continue to defend the IT environment against malware and other security threats. It’s possible for IT executives to align their technology strategies with their organization’s business objectives. IT leaders don’t just need a managed cloud provider. They need a strategic partner to help them meet the needs and expectations of their businesses. True technology-driven companies are powering their organizations forward and leaving their competitors behind.

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Do Your Employees Know What to Do in a Disaster?

Posted on June 5, 2020November 19, 2024 by Bluewave

When an emergency or disaster strikes a business, employees have to recover operations quickly and get back to full productivity if the business wants to avoid becoming one of the nearly 40% who never reopen their doors after a disruption. With statistics like this, your company should have a business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) plan in place, with specific consideration to the people on the front lines tasked with keeping everything up and running—your employees. See how you can ensure the right disaster preparedness strategies are in place.

Here are some of the key features of a BCDR plan necessary to help your employees do their jobs:

Offsite work capabilities

Many companies these days allow employees to work remotely. But when a disaster occurs, additional employees may need to work off-site, especially if the safety of the office is compromised or if employees aren’t able to physically get to the facility. A unified communications-as-a-service (UCaaS) system can help keep everyone connected, as this disaster recovery (DR) solutions will enable organizations of all sizes to continue business as usual by automatically rerouting calls to any location and any device–landline phones, mobile devices, and PC-based softphones—to maintain telephone service. In this instance, a hosted PBX solution is an ideal option for supporting working remotely in case of an emergency or interruption, as the core communications infrastructure is housed elsewhere.

Succession plan

Disaster is a case of “all hands on deck,” but there may be situations when key employees are unable to work or are not available. If that happens, you’ll need to fall back on a succession plan, which replaces those key individuals with other employees who have been trained to step in and assume leadership positions or other roles on short notice to execute the…. IT checklist. A BCDR plan is not complete without identifying an IT team responsible for overseeing and implementing the technical portion of the plan which helps your employees access their online work environments and data.

This team needs to be responsible for creating and managing an IT checklist, which should include:

Mapping application dependencies Today’s business environments comprise a vast network of interdependent components–many of which are essential to their operations. Before disaster strikes, it’s imperative to understand the relationships among them and then map dependencies to inform an overall strategy for maintaining (or restoring in some cases) normal operation.
When you understand application dependencies for data migration to a cloud platform, you can create: A formal DR policy. Disaster Recovery policies are living documents that guide you through all possible scenarios and contingencies in case disaster strikes.
Plans should specify designated hot and cold sites in case the primary facility is uninhabitable, consistent objectives or timeframes for getting back online, and data backup protocols such as a 3-2-1 plan (in which at least 3 copies of mission-critical data are kept, stored on 2 different devices, and 1 copy physically kept offsite).

Get help with disaster preparedness

While it’s impossible to plan for everything, continuously poking around for weak spots through periodically or regularly scheduled practice drills will help to ensure maximum coverage. Downtime and outages are a fact of life in today’s digital, data-driven environment. Having well thought out plans and the right systems in place may not be able to fully prevent disasters but can help to ensure that you’ll at least have a business to come back to after the problem has been fixed. Get help with disaster preparedness.

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Productivity Showdown: Microsoft Office 365 vs Google G-Suite

Posted on May 8, 2020May 2, 2024 by Bluewave

When it comes to business productivity, Microsoft Office 365 and Google’s G-Suite stand head and shoulders above the other software options. But even with the choices seemingly narrowed down to just two, it can still be a challenge to decide which is right for your business. This guide will help highlight some differences between the two popular platforms and make selecting the right productivity suite for your business a bit easier.

Subscriptions and plans

Delivered as services, both Office 365 and G-Suite offer a variety of subscription options for access to productivity tools without downloads or additional purchases. G-Suites plans are slightly more limited, with three options—Basic, Business, and Enterprise—but offer increasingly more tools and features at each level.

By contrast, Microsoft Office 365 has compiled a list of options that includes one more package option than G-Suite for a more comprehensive selection. You should note, however, that Microsoft does not present its plan options in order of increased pricing; the lowest cost option is listed second, which might cause some confusion among visitors comparing the service with other options.

File Storage

One of the most convenient aspects of productivity services is the cloud storage availability. Both G-Suite and Office 365 offer storage options that eliminate the need for storing data and files at your office. At the entry level, Microsoft appears to have an advantage, providing 1TB of storage per user with their Business Essentials plan, which is significantly more room than Google’s 30GB offering on its Basic plan. Also, note that Google counts emails as storage space within the 30 GB limit.

The 1TB limit is standard to all Office 365 plans and if you’re just using conventional Office applications such as Outlook, Word, or Excel, the 1TB storage limit per user should be adequate for SMBs.

With the exception of Office 365’s entry-level storage plan, G-Suite boasts a significant storage advantage. Starting with the Business Plan ($10 per month, per user), Google offers unlimited storage, a huge benefit to any business that produces large volumes of data, uses large multimedia files, or doesn’t want the hassle of having to delete files to clear additional room. Another side note: the G-Suite Business Plan only provides unlimited file storage for purchases of more than 5 user accounts; otherwise each user is restricted 1TB of data like Office 365.

Applications and Services

Microsoft is a pioneer of productivity apps, so it’s no surprise that Office 365 offers both local and cloud-based versions of its apps, while G-Suite emphasizes cloud-based access only.

With the exception of its Enterprise E1 plan, Office 365 offers a desktop version of apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, which also includes cloud access. Each tier provides access to OneDrive and Skype for Business, including HD video conferencing and 50GB user email boxes starting with the Enterprise E1 tier.

Where Office 365 really shines is in its Enterprise E5 service tier, which offers a comprehensive unified communications solution including all the productivity apps your business could need, along with SharePoint, cloud-based call and conferencing management, and advanced threat controls for increased security.

Meanwhile, G-Suite was specifically built for the cloud and is better suited to businesses simply wanting to streamline sharing and enhance document-specific collaboration. G-Suite offers essential tools such as word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation software that mirrors Microsoft’s Office point products for creating files, automatically saving them, and one-click sharing capabilities for effortless collaboration. The solution also integrates natively with the ubiquitous Gmail platform, as well as Google Hangouts for video collaboration, and offers enterprise-grade security and data loss prevention controls at the top end of its offering.

Though G-Suite does allow users to open and save Microsoft Office documents, you should be aware that the formatting may be affected, which can impact some collaborative efforts, particularly when users are working offline. Learn more about working offline here.

User Interface

Usability is a key component to adoption and getting the best return on your investment, so a solution’s user interface is an essential consideration prior to purchasing. Most companies and users likely have had prior experience with Microsoft Office products, so the learning curve for adoption should be pretty short, as Office 365 will have a consistent and familiar user experience such as a classic folder structure for users to categorize their emails and up to 50GB of dedicated storage for their inbox.

However, for some users or businesses, Office 365’s interface may be a bit too busy or overwhelming. G-Suite provides a fresher, cleaner, and simpler interface with a consolidated apps menu offering one-click access to each productivity tool. The interface is intuitive and easy to navigate, as apps tend not to get lost in the shuffle. G-Suite also employs many of the organizing features like email filters and labels Gmail users are familiar with, making it easy to get up and running with little need for instruction or training.

Security

Few topics are as important or prevalent in today’s digital landscape as network and data security. Both Microsoft and Google are at the forefront of integrating protection into their productivity platforms, albeit in slightly different ways. Office 365 provides an array of security features including email filtering, rights management, and compliance solutions for standardizing archiving, auditing, and data storage. You can get a full list of security features for Office 365 here.

Meanwhile, as a service born in the cloud, G-Suite prides itself on providing an easily managed, secure infrastructure for its productivity solution that includes data loss prevention (DLP), access controls with security key enforcement, 2-step verification, and user audit reports to track suspicious activity. Learn more about G-Suite’s security features here.

Microsoft Office 365 and Google’s G-Suite have dominated the work productivity landscape. While many of the features and functions are similar in design and intent, each comes with its unique twist on the user experience and standard features list. Please reach out to Bluewave so our team can assist in determining which will work best for your team and identify the best partner to help with migration, implementation, licensing and support.

Need help with Microsoft Office 365 and Google’s G-Suite decisions? Bluewave can help.

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Things to Consider Before Switching to SD-WAN

Posted on April 10, 2020May 2, 2024 by Bluewave

The expectation of anytime anywhere access to bandwidth-intensive enterprise applications, including the growth of cloud services, has put a tremendous strain on traditional WAN infrastructures. Not only that, but as remote offices have also become the norm and mobile devices, video, and real-time applications continue to increase, many believe legacy enterprise WAN has reached its breaking point. Let’s take a look at SD-WAN.

Some see the introduction of Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) as the answer to this increased strain on Wide Area Networks (WAN). Software-defined WAN is an extension of Software Defined Networking (SDN) because it uses software and virtual network overlays to take advantage of available WAN connections. It also centralizes control of and visibility into the entire WAN fabric and thus lowers the cost and complexity of WAN management. SD-WAN technology applies policy-based routing of traffic across multiple WAN connections. It essentially pushes data on the most optimal route across the network. Packets travel the network to and from different branch locations, taking the best route, to avoid latency issues and network slowdowns. SD-WAN offers many significant benefits:

Lower costs– enterprises can rely more on lower cost, public broadband and less on MPLS networks.
Flexible management and reduced complexity– SD-WAN routes and reroutes traffic based on the current state of the network, as configured by policies.
Greater redundancy options– Predetermined routes are created and data is automatically re-routed from primary to a secondary Internet connection.

Although SD-WAN offers more agile internet connections at a lower price point, it’s important to remember that not all SD-WAN solutions or service providers that offer it, are created equal. If your organization is considering moving away from a traditional WAN, it’s important to consider possible limitations of the technology and how it may impact your business.

Bandwidth lock-in

Calculating the potential return on investment of adopting an SD-WAN seems relatively straightforward at first. Because software-defined WAN uses public internet broadband and minimizes the need for private circuits, most companies report significant cost savings. Companies surveyed by IDC estimate a 20% cost savings with SD-WAN, compared to traditional WAN deployments. (Source: IDC July 2016).

However, consider the fact that your organization may be locked into a multi-year deal on private circuits. Downsizing could trigger severe penalties or fines for early termination. This and other service-level changes could further impact ROI, meaning it will take longer for your SD-WAN technology to pay for itself.

Challenging transitions

Just like any changes involving the enterprise network, transitions can create complications very quickly−especially when manual processes are involved. Configuration mistakes will happen and, unfortunately, they’ll probably happen at severely inopportune times. Consider network automation tools and testing tools that help you maintain a logical IP network and the capabilities to manage the underlying infrastructure of the network. There are generally three types of software-defined WAN solutions and each has its advantages: Controller-based solutions auto-discover and configure network devices and can help in this transition period. Second, appliance-based overlay solutions create a virtual IP network between the vendor’s appliances across any network, combined with management tools. Last, advanced automation and change control solutions enable and manage SD-WAN and the underlying infrastructure through existing hardware.

If you’re evaluating software-defined WAN solutions, look for one that gives you centralized control of your networking environment. With a central point of control, you’ll have simplified access to management, policy setting, analytics and reporting of the SD-WAN fabric, which will be critical during the transition and once the SD-WAN is fully deployed.

Models for growth?

Another factor when evaluating SD-WAN technology is how the architecture will scale with your business over time. For instance, what options are there for adding remote offices or changing your network? Also, consider where your controller software will run. In the cloud, as a virtual machine in the local network or in the datacenter? There are several SD-WAN products on the market and many are incompatible, so it’s important that part of your evaluation process includes looking at the potential long-term commitment to the vendor or service provider.

Many software-defined WANs give enterprises the ability to deploy a wide area network on-premise or cloud. Before selecting a vendor, ask the provider if they offer a pay-as-you-grow subscription model for cloud-based management.

Also, consider your organization’s long-term needs in terms of overall network efficiency. Some software-defined WAN solutions have analytics capabilities and allow administrators to analyze enterprise network traffic. Some also provide real-time and historical performance data to identify and address service issues. While network analytics may be too advanced during your initial SD-WAN deployment, don’t get stuck with a solution that has limited capabilities because of a shortsighted evaluation process.

If your organization is looking to improve the performance of applications and services in the cloud, as well as improve connectivity and reduced complexity of remote office networks, an SD-WAN architecture offers many benefits for forward-thinking enterprises.

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Best Practices for Global Enterprises Moving to Multi-Cloud Environments: How SD-WAN Can Help

Posted on April 5, 2020November 19, 2024 by Bluewave

You Have a Multi-Cloud Environment – Now What?

Whether they set out to use multiple clouds or not, large enterprises today end up with several cloud suppliers. In fact, it’s probably hard to find a company that isn’t using some mix of Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS, IBM Cloud, Salesforce.com, Oracle, Google G-Suite, ServiceNow or Box. The list goes on and on. This is more pronounced with enterprises that have a global site footprint. Let’s take a look at multi-cloud environments.

The cloud, after all, gets you out of the business of hosting applications and worrying about upgrading hardware and software constantly. It also enables you to sidestep the capital commitments otherwise required.

However, the more clouds you use, the more complex connectivity becomes. Security concerns skyrocket as it becomes hard to figure out who is accessing what, from where and how. In addition, the network becomes central to application performance across the organization.

Forces at Work

Despite the network challenges multi-cloud creates, multi-cloud is here to stay and will become even more complex with time as:

Companies turn to even more SaaS offerings that enable them to embrace best of breed rather than multi-purpose on-premise solution bundles that have to meet various requirements of legacy environments
Technologies, such as serverless computing and other advances, that are only possible with cloud native applications attract more enterprise workloads
Adoption of Internet of Things technologies and strategies require organizations to collect and analyze data closer to scattered sensors at the edge of the network, probably in specialized cloud services
Companies try to mesh cloud tools with on-premises systems in hybrid configurations because stringent security or compliance requirements – or the tightly integrated nature of those legacy systems – prevents going all in with cloud

20-year-old legacy MPLS networks are not modern

Unfortunately, this shifting, demanding and dynamic environment is not a good fit for the 20-year-old legacy MPLS wide area networks that many organizations still rely on. Besides the fact that MPLS simply can’t provide off-ramps to many cloud tools, adding bandwidth is expensive and simple network changes can take months. It’s like trying to erect a shiny new skyscraper on a stone foundation fit for a mountain cabin. Businesses are short changed on time to market and this is a big no for CxOs driving WAN transformation initiatives.

The good news is software defined-WANs promise agility and enable enterprises to realize the full potential of what multi-cloud environments have to offer. But traditional SD-WANs don’t own the network and have to partner with telcos and service providers that do, creating a suboptimal solution. This is where a fully managed SD-WAN solution, where the provider owns both the network and the software definition provides the “best of both worlds.”

Managed SD-WAN

A fully managed SD-WAN running on a private network can connect far-flung employees to various data centre resources while also providing direct connections to public cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, Google and Oracle as well as connectivity to SaaS platforms such as Office 365, Salesforce, WebEx and Zoom, without compromising on application performance.

A managed SD-WAN allows enterprises to shift higher value human resources from the business of assessing technology, building out the network and then constantly tweaking and optimizing it as requirements change. Patching edge-routers or boxes from traditional, SD-WAN vendors is often an operational nightmare.

When managed SD-WAN is delivered as a service, it is akin to a SaaS provider, delivering connectivity as-a-service.

While SD-WAN services can help any organization deliver consistent application performance to employees around the world, the benefits for IT are magnified in multi-cloud environments because they get a unified view that is cloud provider agnostic.

However, not all managed SD-WAN services are alike. Speed of provisioning new circuits, the reliability of the backbone, the quality of the support and ease of engagement – all make a huge difference! Look for a fully managed SD-WAN that leverages a private network for the middle mile, uses built-in acceleration and optimization tools to improve application performance, and uses best of breed layered security from partners for mission-critical applications.

So, when it comes to looking for an SD-WAN delivered as a service to support growing multi-cloud needs, look for:

A simple, managed global solution for multi-cloud connectivity
End-to-end reliability SLAs guaranteeing 99.99% uptime
24x7x365 monitoring and CCIE-level support
Built-in WAN acceleration and optimization, regardless of the cloud resource targeted
Off-ramps to all the cloud providers
Deployment capabilities measured in hours at any site globally
Support for on-demand site and bandwidth changes

CIOs invest considerably in their public and multi-cloud strategy. The productivity of developers and corporate applications is compromised, if the underlying network connectivity is flaky or if it takes too long for a predictable site connection to be up and running. Digital transformation and the move to the cloud should start with the network. That is ground zero for a multi-cloud world.

Reach out to the experts at Bluewave to help your team select the best SD-WAN solution for your company’s needs.

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