IT Trends & Technology

In today’s 24/7 business environment, having a disaster recovery plan is essential to guarantee critical data, software and applications are replicated and available in the cloud in the event of a planned or unplanned IT outage. Costly outages happen more often than one may think; one in three companies has declared a disaster in the past five years, according to research from Forrester.

In today’s threat landscape, experts say it’s no longer a matter of if a cyberattack will affect an organization, but when. Something as simple as a link click in a phishing email can compromise an entire network.

FNTS’ steady growth stems from guiding our valued clients through the fast-paced, ever-changing technology and services landscape. Founded as a managed service company, FNTS has evolved its service delivery, tools, processes, governance and capabilities to meet the changing needs of the organizations we serve. While FNTS remains a managed service company at its core, the expansion of our service offerings with different technologies has built a solid foundation for the future. The team at FNTS is eager to build upon this foundation in 2020 through enhanced service delivery with increased consultative services. Additionally, FNTS has refined its focus on service offerings and strategic partners to amplify efforts and excel with outstanding delivery.

Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system and Windows Server 2008/2008 R2 are among the products that will reach the end of support on January 14, 2020. Microsoft Office 2010 will meet the same fate later in 2020, along with several other products. These end of support deadlines highlight the need for organizations to migrate to Windows 10, Office 365 and Windows Server 2019 to avoid technical and security disruptions.

“A data center migration is just like any other IT implementation project.” 

Technology is evolving quickly, and organizations' ability to adapt and integrate new technology with their legacy systems is increasingly becoming a problem for IT leaders. According to the 2018 Opsview State of IT Infrastructure Survey, less than 50 percent of respondents believe they are seeing progress toward transforming their legacy infrastructure and are able to embrace digital transformation.

According to Juniper Research, 146 billion records are expected to be exposed in data breaches between 2018 and 2023. IBM and the Ponemon Institute estimate the global average cost of a data breach is $3.6 million. In addition to high risk and the costly damages faced by all organizations, financial institutions face stringent regulatory and compliance standards.

Many leaders across the finance industry find themselves needing increased information security but having to fulfill that need within budget constraints. Additionally, cloud computing and digital transformation add layers to the need for a more sophisticated and integrated information security strategy.

When a large healthcare provider saw the writing on the wall that their existing IT infrastructure, data center, and systems were not enough to keep pace with their projected growth and compliance requirements, they knew something had to change. With the help of FNTS, they successfully moved their legacy data center to the cloud and laid the technical foundation for responsive operations for decades to come. 

At the end of the day, every CIO and IT professional is there to enable the business to run at its highest potential. And the last thing a CIO wants to be thinking about is if their infrastructure can handle the business’s demand for responsive and innovative technology. This is why partnering with a service provider for infrastructure as a service is a popular solution to these challenges in many different ways.

Instant Data with Fog and Edge Computing Complements Cloud Storage
From: Fog and Edge Computing Complement Cloud Storage, Building Operating Management

The rise of IoT devices is challenging IT networks and cloud providers to provide enough data storage. As a result, there’s an increased need to compute data closer to where it originates to provide real-time insights and create efficiencies in the workplace.

As digital transformation strategies drive more customer initiatives, banks and credit unions are changing their views of cloud usage.  Financial institutions are becoming more pragmatic in their approach to gaining operational efficiencies, improving the customer experience, and move beyond their traditional core banking platforms.  Off to a slow, fragmented start, expect to see cloud adoption accelerate.  Gartner expects the cloud computing services market to grow 17.3 percent in 2019 alone, topping $200 billion worldwide.

Small and medium-sized businesses often have laser-like focus on aggressive growth targets and maximizing customers’ positive experiences with their brand. With these pressures and the push to do more with limited budgets and less staff than their larger competitors, these organizations often have little time left over to focus on the IT services that make their business hum. 

On August 24, 2005, when the storm that would become Hurricane Katrina was several days out from landfall along the Gulf Coast, Walmart’s director of business continuity activated the company’s emergency operations center, recalled key staff, and set years’ worth of plans into motion. In the days that followed the devastation of Katrina, Walmart was able to deliver 100,000 free meals and 1,900 truckloads of supplies to survivors and to provide emergency workers with supplies and protective gear. 

It’s easy for an organization to find itself struggling to understand what cloud computing is and how it can translate the technology into tangible operational improvements. Without this foundation, it can be difficult for an organization to ensure that it is taking full advantage of the cloud’s potential. Nowhere, though, is this challenge more prevalent than in the healthcare industry—in addition to transforming their operating models with the rise of digitization, these organizations must also juggle stringent compliance requirements and ongoing concerns about security and data privacy.

From June 2014 to May 2017—a period of just three years—almost 250 million financial records were breached, including JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Experian, and Equifax. Although sophisticated hackers were involved, each breach actually was initiated by known security vulnerabilities in computer programs or networking hardware that could have been overcome with strong internal controls and routine security reviews.