How to Improve Efficiency with a New ERP Solution

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A modern ERP system can help businesses to better communicate goals, objectives, and strategies.

Today, there is technology available that offers a multitude of opportunities to increase the efficiency of business operations, along with the effectiveness of the company’s workforce. When operating at maximum potential, an organization will have more time to invest in marketing the company, which in turn increases profitability.

ERP systems provide business owners and leaders with peace of mind in knowing they have the tools to overcome day-to-day challenges, such as executing business strategy. These tools empower companies by giving them what they need to prosper and grow.

By automating processes that come with the use of business productivity software, all areas of the business experience are smoother and benefit from more timely execution — this allows employees to spend more time on key priorities!

There are other significant benefits that arise due to the implementation of ERP software, including:

Employee Productivity

With modern ERP solutions, leadership can more easily monitor and track the progress of staff, as well as every phase of a project to ensure benchmarks are being met. Tracking step-by-step progress keeps everyone in the know before critical issues can offset progress.

Managers are better able to realize when an employee needs assistance to meet goals; they can offer additional coaching or mentoring as needed to ensure that the project the employee is working on does not derail, but instead stays on-track and is delivered on time.

Team Collaboration

Team sites and employee portals help project teams unite across the organization, regardless of where employees are stationed or located. Even different departments of an organization can be better connected to achieve success on a particular project. It helps to eliminate obstacles that can hinder communications by ensuring team members are on the same page.

ERP software creates the opportunity for project team members to reach out to others within the organization and to provide additional assistance or insight, as well as to tap into other “experts” within the organization, who can provide answers to the issues the project team faces.

Improved Communications and Problem Solving

Putting company information in one easy-to-access place helps leadership to better circulate that information across the organization. Managers are better able to express the company’s business strategy with ease, which can prove helpful when handling performance appraisals. An online system can help communicate consistently around measurement and goals, ensuring the company’s overall objectives are addressed to all team members.

With greater visibility into leaderships’ expectations for the workforce, there is a greater likelihood that a more open environment will be created and nurtured. Employees will benefit from being a part of the larger vision and having a greater understanding of how the goals of an individual employee or team fit into the wider-ranging overall business objective of the company.

Analyze Business Performance More Easily

Advanced reporting options and business analysis capabilities are available in today’s ERP software solutions. This helps business owners and the C-Suite gain a better understanding of how the business is performing, key market trends to be aware of, and customer preferences.

Accessing analytical reports and performance metrics give both employees and management the insights they need to work together and tweak strategies that are underperforming, and to find solutions that bring promise for future growth. The ERP system can also play a vital role in refining inventory management, working to tie together key metrics across the organization.

Finding the Best Solution

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to ERP systems. There are a variety of solution types that can be tailored to satisfy individual needs for certain functions or to meet the requirements of a particular industry. Whether a company is looking for software to address accounting and customer relationship management (CRM) needs, or the nuances of industries like manufacturing or healthcare, it’s quite likely modern software can address a company’s unique challenges.

In essence, the term enterprise planning software was introduced to describe a broader system that integrated a variety of applications, many of those are mentioned above. Decision makers should be thorough as they research the options — identifying a handful of top performers — before deciding what software to invest in.  

Getting Started

Business leaders that are ready to improve efficiency and boost their bottom line should consider implementing a cloud-based ERP solution. Acumatica offers a Modern CFO ERP Buyer’s Guide to assist leaders in their search for the best possible ERP solution.

CCS Technology delivers IT support that is responsive, effective, and convenient. Technology should bring with it a sense of freedom; this means it should make working easier and more efficient! Read customer testimonials to learn how our services helped clients grow their businesses, and contact us to learn more or to request a complimentary consultation.

Additional ERP Resources

How to Manage Your Business Processes in One Solution

How CFOs Can Utilize Modern Technology to Their Advantage

5 Things to Look for in an ERP Software

Are You Fully Committed to Using Cloud?

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What does it take to make a full commitment to the cloud? Some might say it means moving all your applications to the cloud and eliminating your on-premises data center. But there’s another step to making a complete transition to the cloud: using cloud native applications.

Cloud Native Is Built to Leverage Cloud’s Advantages

It’s entirely possible to move one of your virtual machines off a physical server in your data center and drop it onto a physical server in the cloud. That’s the “lift and shift” model of cloud migration. It’s quick and simple, but applications designed to run in the data center can have limitations that don’t let them take advantage of cloud capabilities like automatic scaling.

Cloud native applications are designed and built in ways that let them get the maximum use of the cloud’s flexibility and availability. They’re typically built as containers, which allows them to be easily deployed on any available instance. That’s often combined with microservices, which allows them to easily scale. An agile, DevOps development approach makes it possible to rapidly deploy new builds.

Advantages of Going Cloud Native

Building applications using the cloud native approach offers several advantages. It’s agile, allowing businesses to rapidly respond to change. It can be heavily automated, allowing changes to be make quickly without the time and risk of manual intervention. Scaling can happen automatically. The microservices approach provides great flexibility and allows services to be used to meet needs the original developers didn’t foresee.

Those are beneficial characteristics on their own, but for smart companies, those benefits combine to create an even bigger benefit: competitive advantage. The ability to respond faster gives businesses a leg up against their competition. You can rapidly make major changes in technology to respond to new opportunities or changes in the business environment.

Disadvantages of Going Cloud Native

Given those benefits, why would you not go cloud native? The biggest reason is that it’s highly disruptive. Migrating to cloud is always a disruptive process, even if you lift-and-shift. If you choose to go cloud native, the disruption increases exponentially. Developers need to learn a new way of thinking about the applications they build, and operations needs to adapt to new ways of deploying, monitoring, and supporting them.

In addition, going cloud native means a slower transition to the cloud. Cloud migration planning always requires assessing whether workloads should be moved to the cloud at all; choosing to go cloud native requires a second level of analysis to decide whether each individual workload should be moved as is or rebuilt as a cloud native application. Once you decide to remake an application, you need additional analysis to identify the tools and design the technical architecture. Then executing the work of making an application cloud native can mean the cloud migration timeline stretches out much longer than the lift and shift approach.

Finally, if you have concerns about vendor lock-in, those issues are even more significant when you go cloud native. If you build a cloud by lifting and shifting virtual machines (VMs), it’s relatively straightforward to lift and shift those VMs over to another cloud provider. But when you go cloud native, you completely tie your application to your cloud provider’s available tools and API. Those won’t be the same over at another cloud provider, so moving to a different cloud is a bigger project.

There are many important decisions to make as you transition to cloud. CCS Technology Services can help you think through them to design and implement a cloud strategy that meets your business needs. Contact us to learn about our cloud services.

Additional Cloud Resources

Choose the Right Approach for Moving Applications to the Cloud

Advantages of a True Cloud Management Software

Why SMBs Should Upgrade to the Cloud

Choose the Right Managed Services Provider for Your Business

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Once you consider the big benefits of using managed services and understand how they’ll help your business, you can confidently make the decision to use a managed services provider to handle your information technology. Next you need to select the right managed services provider to get the best results.

There are many factors you’ll want to consider, including:

  • Cost. There’s no denying that opting for managed services is often driven by cost considerations, so you’ll definitely need to understand how much you’ll pay for managed services. Don’t simply compare the numbers you’re quoted, though. Different providers have different pricing models, and their quotes may include different levels of service and support. Look for a package that offers the services you need at a price you can afford, while providing flexibility to add additional services if you need them.
  • Expertise. Technical expertise is the second most important factor to consider; there’s no point in paying for outside help if they aren’t as competent as your own internal team. Your managed services provider should hold current certifications in the technologies you use in your data center.
  • Experience. The expertise referred to above can come from book learning. Another aspect of expertise is learned through the experience of applying that knowledge in real-world situations. Your managed services provider should have a track record you can evaluate; this track record shouldn’t be reflected simply in the company’s longevity but also in the experience of the specific staff who will provide your support.
  • Industry knowledge. Every industry has its own specific challenges, and understanding how to use technology most effectively in your business requires understanding your industry. Look for a managed services provider who has previous experience delivering IT solutions in your industry.
  • Good references. Don’t rely on a company’s word that they deliver excellent services; make sure you get the names of some other clients and talk to their references to learn about their experience with the provider.
  • On-site services. Remote services are a good solution for addressing many problems; however, there are some issues can’t be resolved without a hands-on presence. Make sure your provider can deliver services on-site when required.
  • Creativity. Standard solutions solve standard problems. Look for a provider with creativity that can develop innovative solutions designed to meet your specific needs.

Download our guide to managed services to learn more about how managed services can help your business. Then contact us to learn why you should choose CCS Technology Group for your managed services provider.

How to Manage Your Business Processes in One Solution

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Implementation of ERP software will drive review of business processes — it goes hand in hand with preparing the install and configuration of the software to suit a company’s needs. Review and adjustment of the way a business operates will dictate how the ERP solution is rolled out for a unique client.

Business process management is like creating a roadmap. After all, it is very unlikely to undertake a long journey without first procuring a map and planning a route. Being able to visualize a destination can reveal pitfalls, as well as various avenues before untraveled.

Reviewing what is working for a company and what is not will help to identify what is needed in the ERP system. Modern ERP systems should deliver adaptable cloud and mobile technology, ideally with an all-inclusive user licensing model. When moving to the cloud, a company should benefit from real-time visibility of the business anytime, anywhere, and on any device.

A full suite of integrated business management applications — including financials, distribution, project accounting, and CRM, as well as separate editions for field service, commerce, manufacturing, and construction — offer one solution that has the ability to bring together the entire organization. A solid ERP vendor will also have established partnerships to integrate just about any application a company could use.

There are various levels of business process management to consider when designing and implementing a new ERP solution:

Business Process Management (BPM) — This is a holistic approach used to evaluate, improve, and align business processes to meet the overall goals and strategy of the organization; it can enable a business to be more efficient and flexible to change.

Business Process Improvement (BPI) — Examining key processes within an organization helps to determine competitive differentiators. Initially, a business will identify the current state and primary key performance indicators to measure success; then, a company needs to determine a root cause, validate it, and improve processes to optimize ultimate efficiency; and finally, a control plan is put in place to monitor the ongoing process and ensure checks are put in place that trigger appropriate responses if key metrics fall short.

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) — Sometimes more radical change is in order. This is typically the case when current processes are unable to be improved with minor changes, and, instead, require redesigning from scratch, creating a new process from start to completion.

Business Process Optimization (BPO) — Existing processes within the business are assessed and methods are sought to improve them — all with the intention of reducing the company’s overall cost to produce.

Acumatica addresses the process of identifying and updating the business process to ensure a successful ERP implementation. Read the blog for further insight from this award-winning vendor.

Our goal at CCS Technology is to deliver responsive, effective, and convenient IT support to make companies run more efficiently. Read customer testimonials or contact us to learn more about partnering with us to meet your business goals!

Don’t Lose Your Files to Ransomware

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Think about that panicky feeling you get when you lose one file. Now scale that feeling up and imagine the panic after losing all your files. That’s how you’ll feel if a ransomware attack makes it impossible for you to access any of your data.

Ransomware is a kind of malware that holds your data hostage. When you’re attacked by malware, it encrypts all your data. Since you don’t have the key, you aren’t able to read it. Typically you’re asked to make a payment in cryptocurrency in exchange for the key. If you don’t pay up by the deadline, the key is discarded and your data is lost for good.

Ransomware can be difficult and time-consuming to recover from; one town had to rely on typewriters when their computers were down after an incident. If you don’t have typewriters tucked away in a closet, here are some options to help prevent and respond to ransomware incidents.

Prevent Ransomware Attacks

It’s impossible to completely protect yourself from a ransomware attack; like any other malware, they spread through phishing and social engineering methods that trick your employees into opening dangerous attachments. Training employees is important but not foolproof.

Keeping up with your operating system patches is an important measure, as it reduces the number of vulnerabilities for hackers to exploit. You should also use antivirus software and whitelisting software to block malware and prevent unapproved applications from executing.

Ensure you have a reliable backup and disaster recovery process. This won’t prevent you from becoming a ransomware victim but will reduce the panic if you do.

Recover from a Ransomware Attack

The first thing to know about recovering from a ransomware attack is that you should never ever pay the ransom! For one thing, there’s no guarantee that you’ll receive the decryption key. Plus, once you pay ransom, you’ve shown that you’ll pay ransom, and you make yourself a target for additional ransomware attacks with bigger and bigger ransom demands.

Identify the ransomware that attacked you and see whether there’s a decryptor. This will let you recover your locked files without paying the ransom.

If there isn’t a decryptor (and it’s really not that likely you’ll find one for the exact version of the attack that victimized you), you’ll need to do a scan to remove the malware from your system and then restore files from a clean backup. Unfortunately you’ll lose any new files or modifications made between the time the backup was created and the time you were encrypted—good motivation for doing backups at least nightly. You’ll need to make sure the backup isn’t infected with the malware as well, as some ransomware can attack shared drives.

Then protect yourself from future attacks by hardening your cybersecurity strategy and making sure your backups aren’t vulnerable, perhaps by storing them in the cloud. CCS Technology Group information security services help you develop and implement an approach that protects you against ransomware and the many other common malware threats that target your systems. Contact us to learn more.

How CFOs Can Utilize Modern Technology to Their Advantage

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Today’s CFOs are improving ERP systems, implementing cyber security, and automating basic tasks that are crucial for modern businesses. Financial leaders have access to all the information within a company and are in the privileged position to recommend the best ways to carry out tasks around the most modern of technologies.

Business is changing and CFOs are charged with making critical decisions — in turn, they’re welcoming modern technology to help their organizations adapt as quickly as possible. There’s a push to accomplish more on modest budgets, and putting transformative initiatives into action under pressing timelines weighs on finance leaders. The best of the crop are boosting efficiency through digital technologies.

Business changes means that roles must shift accordingly. CFOs now must focus on growing business, and according to a 2017 survey conducted by PwC, a top concern for CFOs is Growth Strategy in a four-year forecast. With the growth of cloud computing and financial management software that features built-in data analytics, process automation, and artificial intelligence, there are new tools to help drive the change necessary to affect top-line and bottom-line growth.

Data-driven Insights

Delivering data-driven insights can help inform decision-making, manage risks, and plan for the future. A lot of data can bring challenges; many companies struggle to understand the information and don’t yet realize how to use it effectively. Quite often the issue lies in being able to trust the data.

Challenges surrounding data have much to do with the actual collection. Teams are spending the bulk of their time collecting the data, which is spread across disparate systems and reconciling it. They then face the next hurdle: formatting it into a layout that others within the company can consume. Understandably, this process takes time and deliverables often are brought to the table too late to make a real difference.

Modern tools are able to save valuable time, leaving financial teams to focus on bigger pressing issues. When a company is utilizing cloud-based systems, finance is connected to operations and other business units — this increases the collaboration and the ability to incorporate new data sources. With this technology, work processes evolve with more emphasis on analytics and analysis.

Innovative Business Software

CFOs are turning to new software options to help the organizations they work for to operate more efficiently and effectively. There are solutions that can handle just about any business need, including those that are unique to an operation. Financial leaders are employing:

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software:

Excel-spreadsheets and outdated legacy ERP software are passé, as better, more up-to-date technology is now available for company financials, operational metrics, and even customer data. Cloud-based ERP software is now often deployed early with online accounting, financial management tools — all of which can be expanded to include other focuses of the business. The software can be expanded to include manufacturing, ecommerce, and customer management tools; these applications can greatly improve customer relations through data-driven insights. Cloud-based apps easily integrate to connect and benefit the organization as a whole. Data points are collected, stored, and made accessible to users in real-time from one easy-to-read dashboard.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software:

A Modern CRM can store customer information to aid sales and marketing teams, as well as track opportunities and interactions. Working with the ERP system and other business systems, a CRM can connect the dots. As CFOs are able to gain visibility into customer profiles and the sales process, they’re able to provide better management into relationships, satisfying customer needs for effectivity. Pain points are available at a glance, which can help the finance leader to develop solutions and fixes that can benefit the business model of the company.

Business Intelligence (BI) solutions:

Workflows can be managed with dashboards that offer a one-stop-shop for reporting and data visualizations — these can be life-changing for decision-makers and the overall C-Suite. Data collected in the ERP, CRM, and various business systems connect in a clear visual, allowing users across the company to dig deeply for insightful information. Decisions shouldn’t be guesswork; with modern technology at hand, CFOs are able to make integral decisions and find answers to critical questions in no time, from anywhere and at any time.

Acumatica’s Cloud-based ERP

Even though it’s a challenging time to be a CFO, it’s also an exciting time — optimism is high with new advances in technology. A skilled executive who is willing to adapt the role, push for innovation, and drive growth offers great gains for a business. Finding the right solutions and knowing how to implement them is key!

Acumatica’s Cloud ERP gives financial leaders the tools they need to succeed. CCS Technology Group is a proud partner with experience delivering Acumatica ERP solutions for finance leads. Learn more about Acumatica, read our testimonials, and contact us for a free consultation.

5 Changes to Make When You Switch to Disaster Recovery in the Cloud

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Disaster recovery (DR) is one of the most important uses of cloud. For companies that are just making the switch to cloud computing, it’s a good first step. Since you don’t execute your disaster recovery plan every day, DR in the cloud lets you get familiar with the cloud without disrupting routine operations or putting critical production applications at risk.

It’s important to recognize that cloud DR doesn’t mean migrating your existing DR process to the cloud. You’ll want to rethink your strategy and make changes to optimize your new disaster recovery process. Here are some of the changes to make.

1. Change Your Recovery Time Objective

The goal of disaster recovery is to get applications back online as rapidly as possible with minimal data loss. There isn’t one number that applies to all workloads, as less important applications can tolerate longer outages. Whatever your existing recovery time objectives (RTOs) are, you should revisit them if you plan a switch to DR in the cloud. Depending on how you set up your cloud DR, recovery times can be dramatically reduced, particularly if you keep redundant virtual machines (VMs) in the cloud online and ready to go.

2. Change Your Backup Procedures

Recovery in the cloud necessarily requires backing up to the cloud. Your existing backup tools may be able to integrate with your cloud provider, or the cloud provider may offer tools to support backup as a service.

3. Change Your Recovery Procedures

Recovery procedures typically require restoring the latest data from tape to servers. If you’ve set your cloud DR up to be online, your servers will already be up and running with the latest replicated data. If not, your recovery process will need to define how to activate and load data on your cloud VMs. If you use Disaster Recovery as a Service, the recovery process will largely be automated but you’ll need to spend time beforehand to make sure the configurations are complete and capture all startup dependencies.

4. Change Your Disaster Recovery Spending

Disaster recovery expenses in the data center are largely hardware-related, with duplicate servers and storage purchased and set aside for DR purposes; you may also need duplicate software licenses. In the cloud, your DR spending becomes a monthly fee based on the amount of storage and how many virtual machines you use. There may also be a fee for transferring data into the cloud; there will almost certainly be a fee for transferring data out of the cloud, which you’ll need to do to resume your on-site operations after the disaster is resolved.

5. Change Your Disaster Recovery Testing

Many companies fail to test their traditional disaster recovery procedures because testing is time consuming and can be risky for the production environment. With cloud-based disaster recovery, the risks to production are greatly reduced. Tests can be done more easily, often during normal business hours, and so companies can have reassurance that their disaster recovery process will really work when they need it.

Start Changing Your Disaster Recovery Process to Cloud

How do you change from a data center-based DR process to DR in the cloud? As with every cloud project, start with planning. You’ll need to work through a variety of issues, including how data will get from premises to the cloud. Because of the criticality of disaster recovery, it’s helpful to work with a partner with experience in both cloud technology and disaster recovery. CCS Technology Group’s business continuity services will help you respond to any type of disaster. Contact us to learn more.

Additional Disaster Recovery Resources

Backups Are Not A Disaster Recovery Solution

7 Common Mistakes That Place Your Data in Danger

Why a business continuity plan is essential

What’s New in Acumatica 2019 R1

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Acumatica was built as a true cloud solution from the ground up. It is designed to meet the needs of its customers — making it easier for end users to do their jobs. But those at Acumatica know there’s no room for complacency and continual improvements are needed to stay in tune with growing needs and technological developments.

The latest update includes compliance necessities, interface improvements, or better integrations. Customer requests drive Acumatica’s twice-yearly improvements. The most recent: R1 2019 features big changes to make the product better.

The 2019 R1 Release launched after acclaim for its Beta version — read the press release to learn more!

New Features

With continued focus on its award-winning platform, usability, and customer satisfaction for the broad midmarket, Acumatica — the world’s fastest-growing ERP company — launched the first of its two annual updates.

The system’s applications continue to expand in functionality, work seamlessly together across modules, and increase overall ease of performance, as a result of Acumatica’s xRP platform. Customer experiences are at the forefront of Acumatica’s strategy, as in every release the company improves the underlying system to evolve usability and improve efficiency.

Let’s look at what enhancements were made to leading focuses:

Financial Management

The core financial management application saw some of the largest enhancements, including a thorough list of improvements:

Predefined List of Currencies: A predefined list of all currencies (included in the ISO 4217 standard) is now provided within the system.  

Different Start Periods for Companies in the Same Tenant: Companies that work in Financial Management, with multiple legal entities are now able to have different fiscal year-end dates. Organizations are able to accelerate implementation, while simplifying maintenance for businesses that share vendors/stock items/employees. They will also be able to run consolidation operational reports, and facilitate the preparation of consolidated financial statements.

Order Management and Inventory

System-wide inventory tracking can help manage distribution processes without losing track of costs. Acumatica’s newest release improves inventory tracking software; here are the latest features:

Automated Warehouse Operations (WMS): WMS provides users with the power to complete warehouse operations with inventory items, such as picking, packaging, PO receiving, putting away, transferring, and physical counting by using barcode scanners. Mobile devices are also able to be utilized.

Ship-to info

The Sales Order invoice includes multiple shipments or orders with different addresses.

Project Accounting

Acumatica’s R1 release makes it easier for businesses to maximize project profitability and visibility, including those who are focused on project accounting.

Multi-Currency Project Accounting: It’s now possible to enter project transactions in different currency. Both project managers and accountants have the ability to calculate project profitability in both the project currency and the base currency, and to present customer costs in the customer’s currency.

Project Budget Forecast by Period: Users forecast original and revised budget amounts and quantities for existing project budget lines — the financial periods are noted on the master calendar. With project budgeting by period, users can forecast original and revised budget amounts and quantities. Each project can have multiple budget revisions.

Company-Specific Financial Periods in Project Accounting: This functionality provides the opportunity for companies to use project accounting within the same tenant with different fiscal year-end dates.

Field Service Management

A wide variety of features are necessary to support customers in the Field Service companies. Here are some techniques that can work:

  • Calendar Boards: This field services management software enables customization of the calendar board by rotating the members vs time axis. Changing the time range to show schedules for one week or a month, give further insight. Users are also able to reassign an appointment from one staff member to another and change the dates — viewing the agenda for a group of staff members on a particular week or month.
  • Location Tracking: Through mobile device GPS location, each and every technician can be tracked.
  • Easily Generate Invoices: Service personnel can now directly generate an invoice from a service order appointment.

Ready to Make the Move?

CCS Technology brings the freedom to work hard and play hard. Delivering IT support that is responsive, effective, and convenient enables a company to realize a true work/life balance. Through key partnerships and with a committed staff, we’re here to ensure our customers succeed. Contact us to get started!

Get the Basics Right With Better Patch Management

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Success in any organization begins with mastering the fundamentals. In information technology, one of the most fundamental practices is patch management. Software and firmware need periodic updates to address security vulnerabilities and other issues.

Whether they’re released on a schedule or released urgently in response to a critical vulnerability, protecting systems, data, users, and customers requires applying patches in a timely manner to all affected systems. Far too many businesses fail at this basic process.

Patch Installation Isn’t As Simple As It Sounds

Although it sounds like it should be straightforward—receive patch, apply patch—the reality is that patching is complex. There are several reasons for this:

There’s a wide variety of systems to be patched. Patches come from everywhere. Today’s organizations have multiple operating systems, multiple hypervisors, and multiple versions of the software products they own. Keeping track of all of those systems and their patch levels is difficult. In addition, companies now have to think about how to manage patches on the mobile systems their employees use.

Patches need to be tested. No matter how important the vendor says the patch is, companies can’t simply apply it to their systems. All patches need to be tested to make sure they don’t unintentionally break a critical application. Plus, even tested patches can fail when they’re installed on production servers, and businesses need to document how they’ll back out and recover if something goes wrong.

Applying patches takes time. First, unless the process is automated, applying patches to all systems can take a lot of an operations team’s workday. Maybe more important, applying patches generally causes system downtime. That impacts business operations, and with today’s 24×7 business hours, it can be hard to find an appropriate time to perform the installation.

Not all patches are equally important. If it’s difficult to get all patches installed, the situation might not be so bad if businesses were able to get the critical patches installed. But it’s hard for companies to keep track of vulnerabilities and effectively evaluate and prioritize the importance of the many patches they receive.

Get On Top of Patches With Managed Services

One of the best ways to get on top of patches is to use IT managed services. A managed services provider is experienced at overseeing the routine maintenance of all your technology resources, including tracking and applying patches. Through their broad experience with technology, managed services providers are able to evaluate patch priority and ensure the critical items are handled rapidly. They can implement technology to make the patching process easier, using tools to scan systems to identify vulnerabilities and automation to ensure the issues are addressed.

How are you keeping up with patches? Contact CCS Technology Group if you’ve fallen behind and would like to implement a process to catch you up and keep you current with critical systems patches.

Choose the Right Approach for Moving Applications to the Cloud

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If the cloud were throwing a party, it would send out two kinds of invitations: come as you are, or dress for the occasion.

Come As You Are: Lift & Shift

“Come as you are” means moving your existing applications in their current form to the cloud. You need to make sure your cloud environment parallels your existing production environment, but there’s no work (or time or money) spent to rearchitect the applications to work in the cloud.

This has the advantage of being relatively fast and low cost, but means whatever problems your applications have on site will be replicated in the cloud. It also means you may not be able to take advantage of new features and services the cloud offers, including the ability to scale automatically when demand increases.

When this approach is appropriate:

Lift and shift can be appropriate if you have to move out of your current premises quickly or if you don’t have the staff or budget to work on redesigning applications for the cloud. You may also want to keep the same architecture for external facing applications where any changes might impact customers. This is also the right approach to take if your move to the cloud is meant for disaster recovery; in that scenario, it’s necessary for your cloud environment to mirror your data center as closely as possible.

Dress for the Occasion: Go Cloud Native

Dress up your workloads when they move to the cloud by going cloud native. This requires taking time to deeply analyze your applications and their usage demands and redesigning them to best take advantage of cloud features.

Taking this approach necessarily takes longer than simply migrating “as is” to the cloud. However, the long-term advantages of the redesign can include eliminating single points of failure, increasing code reuse through a service-oriented architecture, and gaining the ability to scale the application up or down to match demand. This can result in easier management and lower cost long term.

There are some potential disadvantages of the cloud native approach, as well. Because features and APIs are unique to each cloud provider, the cloud native approach necessarily increases the risk of vendor lock-in. You may also need to change your application every time the vendor changes their API, and you’re also subject to pricing changes.

When this approach is appropriate:

If your analysis indicates you will get real advantage in terms of scalability and easier management, and you’re committed to the cloud provider for the long term, go ahead and refactor the entire application. In many cases, it may be preferable to make smaller changes, such as swapping out your database for a cloud-native database while keeping the rest of your application architecture unchanged.

Do you have the right clothes to wear to the cloud party? CCS Technology Group provides complete cloud services to ensure your applications migrate safely to the cloud and you obtain all the benefits you expect from using cloud. Contact us to learn more about how to decide which approach to take in migrating to the cloud.