Cloud migration can often be a touchy situation. We’ll take a look at some problems you may face, and how to make sure they don’t weigh down your next cloud migration.
Continue readingMigrating to the Cloud? Avoid These Problems
Tip of the Week: Outlook 2016 Can Do More than You Think
Email is one of the most common productivity tools in any office. It can also be one of the easiest to become disorganized. However, users of Microsoft Outlook 2016 will find that the program provides plenty of useful tools to ensure that your communications don’t get out of hand.
For this week’s tip, we’ll explore some of them.
Search Folders
Many of us get a veritable ton of emails, and we just can’t get to all of our messages at once. That being said, there are likely many that we also just can’t miss. Outlook 2016 offers a way to help make sure that emails that you don’t have time for at the moment aren’t forgotten later in its Search Folder function.
These Search Folders are effectively an easy way to automate the organization of your inbox. You can have your conversations with specific people, or mail that you’ve flagged to follow up on, or even messages that contain specific words filtered out automatically into its own folder.
There are also options to customize your search folder even more, by customizing the criteria on an even more specific level. All you have to do is right-click on Search Folders in the side pane, and select New Search Folder. Then you just select the options you want, and any message that meets that criteria will automatically appear in the folder, ready to be attended to and removed.
Peeks
In the bottom-left corner of your Outlook window, you should see five small icons. These icons are called Peeks, and prevent you from having to flip between applications to keep yourself managed.
The first is your mailbox, the place you’re used to seeing when you open Outlook. The others allow you to give your incoming messages more utility. For instance, the rest connect your mail to your Microsoft Calendar, your Contacts, and a To-Do List of your Tasks.
These functions would be greatly useful on their own, but Outlook takes them one step further. Let’s say you’ve received an email from a new sender. By dragging an email over to the People icon, you can generate most of a contact, complete with the message they sent you for reference. By dragging an actionable email to your Task button, you can create an event, and even set a date by typing something like, “17 days from next Monday,” and it will calculate it for you.
These new tasks can all be seen in the View tab, and by clicking Daily Task List and selecting Normal, you can see them as part of your calendar, and adjust them as needed.
Delete Unneeded Addresses from Auto-Complete
Auto-Complete is a great way to save time…until, that is, the email address you’re actually looking for is buried underneath a ton that you just don’t need anymore. Deleting names from this list is easy: just start typing a nameto pull the list up, and click the ‘X’ on the right to remove the name.
If you should ever reach the point where you want to be rid of Auto-Complete, you have a few options. By navigating to File > Options > Mail and the Send messages section, you can either wipe the list by clicking Empty Auto-Complete, or simply disable it by un-checking Use Auto-Complete.
Email has always been a great business productivity tool, and it only gets better as technology improves.
Are there any ways that you use Outlook’s capabilities to keep yourself organized? Share them in the comments, and make sure you subscribe to our blog!
Cloud Resources: Stop Wasting Your Resources in the Cloud
The cloud is perhaps one of the single most important developments to happen to the modern workforce, changing the way that many organizations function and access resources.
Some use it for access to crucial applications that are needed to keep their businesses running, while others might use it to host critical parts of their IT infrastructures, such as desktops or server hardware. Unfortunately, some organizations use too much of the cloud, leading to wasted costs on their part. We’re here to help you keep the cloud from turning into an asset sink for your organization.
Cloud Use and Waste
Cloud computing is an industry that rakes in almost $130 billion annually, and it’s expected that this will increase to as much as $411 billion by the end of 4Q 2020. With so much investment happening in this field, there is always going to be at least some waste.
Approximately one-third of cloud computing resources are actually wasted, which should prompt at least a little concern from your business. It should be enough to ask yourself, “What am I wasting on the cloud?”
How Do Businesses Waste Their Cloud Resources?
The first thing you need to do if you want to cut down on cloud waste for your business is determine how much you actually spend on the cloud in terms of operation. Many organizations that don’t have a plan to keep track of their cloud resources ultimately wind up losing revenue in the long run.
They might be paying for services that are no longer used by their staff, or they might be paying for two services that accomplish similar tasks. Even something simple like this can contribute to big costs on your end. Overall, this becomes a problem, as any money that you’re spending on services that you don’t need could be money that’s put to better use elsewhere in your budget.
Paying for cloud-based tools that you barely ever use is another way your organization could be wasting assets in the cloud. For example, you may have needed a specific software for a single project, but now that it’s over, you don’t need the software anymore. Yet, why are you still paying for the licenses?
They might renew automatically, but you’re spending money on software that you no longer use. Plus, keeping cloud-based infrastructures or development platforms operational long after they’re being used could cost your organization countless amounts of capital–especially since these old infrastructures are doing nothing to create a profit for your business.
WheelHouse IT can help your business keep an eye on its computing budget to make sure it’s not becoming too large for its own good. We can provide a full audit to look for redundant or unused cloud platforms. These resources could also hold onto important information, so our technicians can help you migrate any data from these systems to your infrastructure, freeing up resources for other purposes.
To get started, reach out to us at (877) 771-2384.
How Does the Cloud Help Businesses?
Cloud computing has revolutionized the way that businesses approach operations, which brings about the question of how your organization can utilize it to further your earning potential and operational efficiency. That being said, how does the cloud help businesses?
For businesses that are still not sure about implementing a cloud solution, it’s quite difficult to get around the fact that it is a great asset for just about any company in some way, shape or form.
The cloud can provide countless benefits for your business, but how can you use it? We’ll talk about some of the basic ways that your organization can implement cloud computing, as well as how much value it can offer you in terms of user productivity and efficiency.
Asset Virtualization
Depending on your organization’s specific needs, you can virtualize certain assets for access or storage in the cloud. In this particular case, we want to talk about virtualization software or hardware. When you virtualize anything for the cloud, you can think of it as storing your assets on somebody else’s computer, then accessing them through your own devices. In this sense, you are effectively eliminating the need to install them on every single one of your workstations, as anyone with an account can simply access them through their web browser.
Software solutions that are stored in the cloud are a great way to improve accessibility for your assets. In this case, you’re utilizing virtualization software so that it can be accessed on any device, be it a smartphone or a laptop. Some examples of cloud-based software solutions are email applications like Gmail or Microsoft Office 365. Hardware virtualization is also an option which can allow your business to streamline its network by consolidating it into a hosted server environment.
Data Access and Storage
Data storage is also an important part of cloud functionality, as without cloud storage, you cannot use it for any other functions. Cloud-based data storage allows for higher accessibility of your data on a number of levels, as any connected devices can access this data and open it with whatever native apps are on it. This is particularly useful for when you’re on the road and need access to important information or documents. Cloud-based data storage is also an imperative part of the data backup and disaster recovery process.
What are some ways that your organization could leverage the cloud? Let us know in the comments.
The Cloud Firewall: An Important Defense Against the Experienced Hacker
Cyber criminals use a variety of techniques and tools to perform their “trade”, but the cloud firewall can stop them in their tracks.
Successful hackers follow a well developed organized process that usually consists of these five steps:
This process parallels that used by a thief who is after valuable items such as art or jewels that are kept in a secured building with multiple security systems in place.
The hacker too, is after valuable items in the form of data such as user names and passwords that might provide access to more sensitive data.
Reconnaissance
In the reconnaissance step, the hacker cases the target by gathering information in order to put together a plan of attack. This might include the target IP address range, domain name, network, DNS records, and mail server. The attacker might also visit the target’s website and use search engines to extract more information that might prove useful.
Scanning
Information gathered during the reconnaissance step is used to direct the hacker’s scanning efforts, which employ various tools such as port scanners, vulnerability scanners, and network mappers. The information gained in this step is more narrow in scope (focused) than that acquired during reconnaissance. The probing is more concerned with the target’s systems.
Gaining Access
When the information gathering reveals a vulnerability, the hacker exploits it and gains access. Perhaps an SQL injection is performed if the information revealed such a vulnerability. Or a phishing campaign is conducted after learning about multiple new employees of the company who would likely be unfamiliar with security protocols.
Maintaining Access
In this step, the hacker secures the accessed environment against detection by the security staff. She might do this by acquiring high level privileges or setting up her own user account complete with credentials. Once secured, the hacker then steals data or perhaps uses various devices in the business to launch other attacks.
Covering Tracks
In the last stage, the hacker removes all evidence of his presence or makes it appear as though the hack never took place. This causes the company to continue with business as usual (and doesn’t strengthen defenses), which allows the hacker easy future access by exploiting the same weaknesses or using a backdoor.
Preventing this from happening to your business starts with using an “industrial strength” cloud firewall.
Firewall as a Service allows increased visibility into applications, users, and content and helps determine which applications are traversing the network, who is using them, and the associated security risk.
To learn more about our cloud firewall options, please contact us.