IT Trends & Technology

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. 

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 smart grids to smart meters, technology is transforming the way the utility industry does business. IT is being used to enhance operational processes and customer experience in a digital age where information security is trying to keep up with big data. To get an idea of the scope of data being collected, one only needs to look as far as the smart meters utilized by households. A single household smart meter can generate 400 megabytes per year. If you multiply that by 135 million smart meters in the United States, it equates to 54 petabytes, or a little more than half of the data uploaded to YouTube in a year. This data must be stored somewhere that is secure, so that if and when disaster strikes, it is protected.

Today’s Chief Information Security Officer, or CISO, is having a stronger and more strategic role in organizations due to more cyber threats, compliance standards, connected devices and stored data than ever before. However, according to a study done earlier this year by PricewaterhouseCoopers, almost half of average companies today don’t have a C-level security executive in place. Now is the time for organizations to evaluate their risk posture and invest in an information security team that can adopt a strong cybersecurity culture that aligns with their strategic business goals.

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Company leaders worldwide are taking measures to ensure they will be in compliance with a new and far-reaching law aimed at protecting European citizens from privacy and data breaches. General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR), a data privacy law adopted by the European Union taking effect May 25, 2018, is one of the largest changes in data protection and privacy regulations. GDPR builds upon existing principals set forth in the Data Protection Act and puts tighter obligations and restrictions on data controllers and data processors.