At AdvancedIT one of the most asked questions is around "the cloud" and "what is it?"
The short answer is "Anything on the Internet". If you have used internet banking, a hosted payroll or accounting system or even a humble Gmail account, then you are using "Cloud Services".
It is nearly always subscription based, i.e. based on a monthly subscription charge. The benefits often outweigh the costs with features like only paying for what you use (think staff downsizing or people on extended leave pausing their subscriptions).
One of the other benefits is automatic updates to the software. Tax changes for Payroll systems and updates to the latest versions of Word and Excel for example.
Nearly all systems today are either fully cloud or hybrid systems (hybrid is where the email and payroll may be cloud based but the accounting system may be hosted on a local / physical server).
At AdvancedIT we can work with you to see what systems and mix of cloud or physical implementations would suit your needs.
We are experts at secure remote access and solutions for staff working from home.
Please check some of the links above to get some more in depth offering of our services.
Microsoft Office 365
Microsoft Office 365 is a suite of cloud-based productivity and collaboration applications that integrates all Microsoft’s existing online applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, Sway, and Access) into a cloud service, adding Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams as the main communication and collaboration applications. Enterprises of all sizes are finding Office 365 collaboration to be increasingly popular due to its ability to drive productivity, ROI and corporate success.
The top 10 features and benefits of Office 365 are:
1. Explore and Integrate: Office 365 Integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Office and other Microsoft programs. It takes just a few minutes to create a trial account that users can test and integrate with the cloud.
2. Collaborate Anywhere Anytime: With Office 365, users get web-enabled access to email, documents, contacts, and calendars regardless of whichever device or browser they use. This accessibility enables unified collaboration among employees.
3. Stay Up and Running ALWAYS: By running your applications in the cloud and storing your data there, too, you’ll ensure all your business documents and applications, such as email, will always be available – even if your company experiences a disaster such as a fire or a flood.
4. Flexibility: With multiple options in the Office 365 suite, enterprises buy only the office solutions they need and convert CAPEX into OPEX.
5. Single Sign-on (SSO) – Users can store their password in the system tray of their machine to avoid having to repeatedly sign in.
6. Support: Users receive business-class service including IT admin phone support, a financially-backed 99.9% uptime guarantee, geo-redundant data centers, disaster recovery, robust security, privacy controls, and standards.
7. Security: Office 365 has built-in security and continuous compliance. You always know where your data is and who has access to it. You can also remotely wipe all data from your mobile device if it’s lost or stolen.
8. No Licensing Issues: Office 365 includes all licensing and it can be deployed company-wide. This means everyone has the same version of Microsoft Office, and all users receive upgrades at the same time.
9. Get Organized: When you use Office 365, email, calendar and contacts are all synchronized. Update a contact on your mobile
phone and it will be automatically updated across all your devices. You can also access the same data from any device or save a document on your PC and continue working on it on your smartphone or tablet.
10. Real-time Collaboration: Teams can collaborate with Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Users can see real-time edits or additions their colleagues are making to a document. It also saves each version automatically, so you can revert to older versions easily. This ensures a quicker and simpler collaboration between employees and departments, resulting in improved productivity.
AITFUSION
AITFusion is a bundle of products that integrate into your existing Microsoft Office 365 tenant and include Anti-Virus protection of the local device and the back end data in the Cloud, Cloud backups of the Cloud data including Emails, SharePoint and One Drive, old school Drive mapping of SharePoint. (folders in SharePoint are searchable like any windows shared drive.)
Native SharePoint can be a bit daunting for users coming from a physical server environment. Our solution offers them the mapped drive they are used to working with in native Windows.
AITFusion is a monthly subscription that protect your company data at the same time as providing a user friendly experience that any computer user used to a server or shared NAS drive can easily use.
Data protection (virus and backups) and ease of use in cheap monthly subscription.
Backups
AdvancedIT Offers a range of backup options from Onsite NAS Backup solutions to Cloud / Offsite offerings.
Talk to us about backing up your existing cloud services such as office 365 and SharePoint. There is a misconception that these are backed up by the providers, however this is not fully the case. The providers may guarantee up time and loss of data due to hardware failure, but do not backup your data in the event of a Crypto Virus attack or User deletion.
Some of our backup solutions offer business continuity options as well for minimal downtime in the event of hardware failure.
Backups can either be full system or file and database only type.
WIFI Solutions
AdvancedIT Offers robust business WIFI solutions tailored to your needs.
Business, Guest Access, Metered Guest Access or custom landing pages. AdvancedIT can work with you to build a WIFI system specifically for your business.
We use industry standard equipment that has been proven to perform.
Physical Hardware and Computers
AdvancedIT can offer Server Hardware, Workstations for CAD and high end processing, Computers, Monitors and Laptops.
We only supply the best proven brands to our customers and the products we sell are the ones we use ourselves.
We also provide network equipment and computer peripherals such as switches, stands, tablets.
Call us for any queries and if we cant supply it, we will put you in touch with someone who can.
Firewalls
A good firewall is key to securing your business from attacks. Users often want to dial into their work PC's from home or offsite.
The basic routers / firewalls that most ISP's provide do not not often have the ability to "whitelist" a static IP address or offer the ability to create a secure VPN connection back to your business.
Talk to AdvancedIT to see how we can provide your business with secure and safe remote access.
AZURE
Microsoft Azure, formerly known as Windows Azure, is Microsoft's public cloud computing platform. It provides a range of cloud services, including compute, analytics, storage and networking. Users can pick and choose from these services to develop and scale new applications, or run existing applications in the public cloud.
The Azure platform aims to help businesses manage challenges and meet their organizational goals. It offers tools that support all industries -- including e-commerce, finance and a variety of Fortune 500 companies -- and is compatible with open source technologies. This provides users with the flexibility to use their preferred tools and technologies. In addition, Azure offers 4 different forms of cloud computing: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS) and serverless.
Pre-Paid Service Agreements
AdvancedIT - Offer Service Level Agreements. These pre-paid agreements come with a cheaper hourly rate for pre-purchased hours. If the hours are not consumed in that month they roll over to the next months usage. The standard hourly rate is applied when hours are used up. These agreements can also include server and pc monitoring software and offline backups. Call AdvancedIT to discuss these savings.
Anti Virus
One of the biggest mistakes that companies can make is not to "manage" their Anti Virus software. AdvancedIT recommends working with us to properly secure your company devices.
The standard "out of the box" settings can leave companies vulnerable to today's hacking and phishing attempts. At AdvancedIT we lock down the Anti Virus from the end user and potential threats.
