Cloud Technology Articles

It’s Very Easy To Assume All Cloud Providers Are Fully Compliant. But, Upon Closer Inspection Unless You Request Full Disclosure, You May Discover Their Compliance May Not Meet All PCI DSS 12 Requirements… Along with protecting clients, an MSP must take necessary steps to protect their organization when choosing a Certified Cloud provider, like Cloud Services For MSPs. Should that provider not meet the 12 requirements for PCI DSS compliance, it could spell trouble for the MSP wanting to offer cloud services. As an MSP, you need to do your due diligence when inspecting your cloud provider’s compliance. If you haven’t discovered it yet, not every provider stating they are certified can meet the PCI DSS security standards.

Do you believe the cloud is actually secure? Or is the concept of “cloud security” just a marketing ploy to get you to sign on with a cloud service provider? If there’s one thing we hear a lot of concerns about when it comes to the cloud it’s cybersecurity — hands down. Businesses know and understand the benefits of moving from on-premises to the cloud. They can appreciate paying a flat-rate monthly fee for what they use, accessing the latest and greatest technologies, and above all, enhancing productivity amongst their team. However, is cybersecurity in the cloud a reality or an old fable?

Business continuity planning is essential to running a company that can withstand the unexpected — whether that be a natural disaster, power outage, or pandemic. If the coronavirus has shown us anything, it’s that businesses can never be too prepared in the face of unprecedented events. This year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency reported that 40% of businesses don’t reopen after a disaster. The best way to protect yourself and your clients when the unexpected strikes are to prepare business continuity planning carefully. Modern tools like the cloud take your business continuity planning to the next level and keep operations running smoothly amid a crisis.

Your clients believe Microsoft 365 backs up everything, indefinitely. Am I right? You, as a savvy MSP, know it’s the farthest thing from the truth. A cloud backup service does that. So, we’ll explore how MSPs can offer both, without selling. If we sat down and had a meeting, and I asked you, “have you heard clients say, Microsoft already backs everything up!” More than likely, you would agree and reply, “too many!” You and I know the truth. OneDrive and SharePoint data is only retained for 30 days, while emails are only held for 93 days. Plus, we also know that Microsoft 365 doesn’t backup everything.

In the information technology industry, customer service is a vital part of gathering and keeping your clients. If you’re not taking great care of your clients, you’re bound to be at risk of losing them to another MSP. But don’t fall into the mindset that being personable and responsive is enough. It’s about more than great customer service nowadays. What do we mean? Well, many industry experts are noticing a major shift in spending from on-premises infrastructure to cloud-based infrastructure. Just take a look at these interesting statistics:

When an MSP grows, they face an important choice… Should you continue to handle sales on your own, as the owner of the business, or should you hire a salesperson or team to handle them for you? Although hiring salespeople is a risky investment, many MSPs find it’s a crucial investment because the owner simply can’t handle it on their own anymore. Therefore, it’s a necessary step to achieving long-term growth and success in the marketplace. On the bridge side, there is value and insight to be found in the challenges you, as an MSP, face when it comes to hiring and maintaining a sales team. As you’re already aware, there’s actually a lot more work than simply selling a product or service in the sales world. Your sales team does a lot more than that. They spend time prospecting, driving from appointment to appointment, updating records with relevant information, and much more.

It’s that time of year again… Storms, tornados, flooding, hurricanes, and all sorts of severe weather conditions that can easily bring your clients technology down, and in turn, bring productivity to a grinding halt – if they’re not prepared. So what are you doing to prepare your clients for the severe weather that comes around this time of year? MSPs must act as the trusted advisor their clients need – helping them plan to continue operations, no matter what comes their way.

Every industry has felt the drastic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Naturally, businesses, schools, and daycares were forced to shut down to minimize the spread. In turn, many MSPs experienced greater demands than ever before with an uptick of support requests as businesses rushed to transition to remote work. For many MSPs, this meant following an ad-hoc approach to simply get all of their clients back to being operational from home. Going forward, remote work is here to stay. Most businesses have decided to continue embracing remote work – at least to some degree – because it allows for social distancing while keeping costs low, productivity high, and overall, more efficiency throughout the workforce. So what’s next for MSPs who followed an ad-hoc approach to helping their clients transition to remote work?

The cloud is gaining in popularity with users all over. Is your staff capable of addressing all the issues that your clients may have? If you’re like most Managed Service Providers, you have about 10 to 20 clients. And you service between 200-300 endpoints. And again, if you’re like many, you only have one tech to handle all of this. You’re already stretched to the max. If you want to grow, you can’t unless you step up and increase your pool of technicians. And, with clients becoming more dependent on the Cloud, you’ll need IT professionals with this expertise. The problem is that this is easier said than done.

We’ve seen the coronavirus pandemic drastically change the way we live, work, and connect with one another over the course of a short few months. So what’s next? Now that we’re all working remotely, how will our day-to-day operations change when lockdowns are lifted across the states? Well, from what we’ve seen, most businesses plan to continue with remote work – at least to some degree. Why?