Server virtualization is one of the most disruptive innovations of the last twenty years, serving as a key technology for companies of all sizes, both in on-premise data centers and in the public cloud. Today, virtual machines host virtually any workload, from mission-critical applications to dev/test environments that support DevOps pipelines.
On one hand, the adoption of hybrid cloud and multicloud provides companies with significant advantages, including workload mobility, the ability to scale resource consumption, and quick access to advanced technological innovations.
Companies are increasingly relying on Microsoft 365 to enhance collaboration and productivity, but contrary to initial beliefs, the data present in the suite’s applications, such as Teams and SharePoint, is subject to loss due to cyber threats, human errors, and gaps in retention policies.
Companies today have a wide range of options for executing workloads that best align with their strategic objectives. Traditional on-premises infrastructures, hyperscaler public clouds, SaaS platforms, and hybrid environments exponentially fuel cyber threats, forcing companies to rethink their data protection and recovery strategies to ensure operational resilience.
Today’s market demands high-availability and always-on IT environments, where services and applications must remain active 24/7/365 because any downtime can bring negative consequences on revenue, image and reputation. This need consequently drives companies of different industries and sizes to entrust their data and business continuity to modern, established backup solutions.
Needless to say, data is now the lifeblood of every business.
Whether it is analytics to make strategic decisions or business know-how, data play such a central role in daily operations that it is no wonder that their protection is a hot topic for many c-levels.
Every company faced with the exponential growth of data and regulatory requirements needs a protection strategy, having the confidence that the choice made will enable fast and complete recovery in the event of a disaster. Durability, efficiency, and cost optimization have become the imperatives to which every IT department must respond.
The now well-known dependence of companies on technology makes them the perfect target for cybercriminals, who, well aware of the heavy repercussions caused by a total shutdown, systematically threaten and attack their mission-critical operations. As usual, the learning curve of these cybercriminals keeps pace with the defensive actions taken by companies, learning as they go around them.
The steady increase in digitization and the related shift to the cloud due to diverse development opportunities, increased flexibility and business agility has also indirectly caused an increase in cyber attacks in the public and private sector worldwide.
Estimating that about every 39 seconds a cyber attack occurs, one would think that it is no longer a matter of “if” but rather “when” it will be one’s turn to face an attack on one’s company. Therefore, it becomes critical to identify critical data and applications that, in the event of an attack, enable normal business operations to be resumed quickly.
In a work environment where employees need to be able to work remotely by having an average of 2 or more devices, companies are challenged in trying to ensure total accessibility to them without security repercussions.
How then to keep all devices safe? How to protect data if employees check emails from their mobile apps?
These questions, and many others, are answered by InTune, Microsoft’s mobile device management (MDM) service that creates the foundation for secure enterprise mobility.
In fact, by using Intune-managed certificates and standard VPN gateways or proxies, it is possible to allow mobile apps to access on-premises data, ensuring that employees can access it from virtually anywhere and on almost any device, while providing maximum security.
The experience of computer data loss is always a traumatic event, both in the private sphere and, even more so, in the business context. In the latter case, in fact, the event can constitute a major damage and even a not inconsiderable danger, both to the organization and to its customers and suppliers. To prevent it, there are best practices that, however, need the right ways to apply them in order to be reliable.
Ransomware is one of the biggest cybersecurity threats a company can face. Its operation is as simple as it is deadly: through encryption it makes it impossible for users to access stored files and content. In order to gain access again, the company is asked to pay a ransom, and throughout the downtime, the organization suffers damage in terms of turnover, operations, and image.
This is why it is critical for any organization to equip itself with an effective backup system for corporate data with which to ensure real-time restoration of functionality in the event of a ransomware attack, thus avoiding having to give in to blackmail and losing valuable time on the business front.
But there is an additional problem: hacking is constantly evolving, and today cybercriminals are able to encrypt even backups. To try to counter this critical issue and provide better protection from ransomware, a special category of backups has been developed, in which information referred to as “immutable data” is stored.