IT Trends & Technology

On Aug. 25, FNTS will celebrate 25 years of helping organizations expedite and achieve digital transformation to improve business processes and productivity. In celebration, the State of Nebraska proclaimed Aug. 25 as Cloud Technology Day.

Over the past few months, IT professionals have made working from home possible with remote capabilities; however, the industry has not been spared from the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the IT profession has been hit hard – more than 110,000 layoffs were reported in April. With IT playing such a critical role in business, there is an increased need for managed services as a cost-effective means of keeping operations up and running during these uncertain financial times.

According to a recent report by Forrester Research, the strength of organizational enterprise technology will play a critical role in providing a smooth transition back to work as organizations that employ millions of Americans consider reopening their doors. Many businesses were thrust into a remote work environment without warning, and FNTS tech leaders said the next challenge will be migrating employees into a new hybrid work environment in which some on-site employees return while others remain in newly remote roles.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When your organization makes the decision to migrate your legacy systems to the cloud, completing the move in itself isn’t the goal. Instead, the end goal is for your organization to reach a more reliable, responsive, and flexible state through the IT backbone that enables your business.

It’s a phrase that you can’t help but hear in technology circles: cloud computing. From virtualizing computing resources to managing applications to storing data to hosting web services, cloud computing seems to have something to offer every organization. In fact, Gartner expects the cloud computing services market to grow 17.3 percent in 2019 alone, topping $200 billion worldwide.

A few years ago, the idea of moving all of your IT infrastructure to the cloud was dismissed as just a trend that would soon fade away. The reality, however, is that cloud computing—when planned effectively, implemented properly, and managed with the right vendor—can offer huge financial and operational advantages over traditional data centers.

The digital transformation is underway in the utilities industry, with many public and private service providers modernizing grids and replacing aging infrastructure and assets with more efficient technology.

Moving your enterprise data to the cloud can bring with it a number of benefits to your operational costs and the management of your information technology footprint. In fact, 83 percent of enterprise workloads will be facilitated via the cloud in 2020, according to a LogicMonitor study. However, with this growth in cloud services can come substantial risk.

Fortunately, by following some key best practices, such as those laid out in this article, you can help your organization take the necessary steps to strengthen your data security and mitigate the potential vulnerabilities of operating in the cloud.

U.S. business productivity has been trending up lately, according to recent government figures. Some of that has to do with the labor force working longer hours and upticks in requests. However, another factor that directly contributes to business productivity is efficiency, brought about by leaner organizational processes and better management.

One way enterprise is achieving efficiency is by leveraging the benefits of hybrid cloud solutions and migrating certain key elements of their IT infrastructure off-premises.

Merriam-Webster has several definitions for the word myth. One of them is “a person or thing having only imaginary or unverifiable existence.”

Not surprisingly, there are many misconceptions and outright myths circulating about the cloud and cloud management that are just that—myths. In order to debunk these myths, one must come prepared with cold, hard facts that speak truth to fable.