While businesses across the U.S. are shifting to virtual workplaces due to the COVID-19 pandemic, working from home was already becoming the norm for more and more employees. It’s no secret that employers are turning to a remote work model to help boost productivity and efficiency — according to a 2019 survey by Owl Labs, 91% of workers chose to work remotely for better work-life balance and 79% for increased productivity and better focus. But what happens when, instead of having one or two remote workers on your team, your entire operation has to move online?
This is now the reality of millions of businesses. With cities and states increasingly placing stay-at-home orders for non-essential workers to help stop the spread of COVID-19, ensuring your IT can support an online workforce is paramount.
Redefining Boundaries
First, it is important to prioritize boundaries — maintaining a secure environment by configuring things like multifactor authentication for all employees can help ensure security without the same physical boundaries that are set up in your office.
If you are a large organization, you could set up a large virtual desktop infrastructure in the public cloud or establish a VPN connection. According to IBM, “a cloud server is a powerful physical or virtual infrastructure that performs application- and information-processing storage.” Typically, businesses use an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) model for workloads and store information.
They can access virtual server functions remotely through an online interface. One of the main differences between a desktop infrastructure and a VPN is that with a VPN, your team will be reliant on the bandwidth of your VPN device, whereas, with a remote desktop infrastructure, each user must supply their own bandwidth. If you are using a VPN, it is important to ensure that you have adequate bandwidth, both on your appliance and via your network provider, to support moving your operation online.
Scaling network capacity needs to meet bandwidth needs is a vital aspect of the remote work atmosphere and is something that businesses will need to prioritize and familiarize themselves with during this time — and we’re here to help.
Staying Secure Online
While it is uncertain how long the majority of your employee base will need to be remote, cloud-based servers have the potential to run into capacity constraints over time. Create an emergency system for whatever digital issues you may run into while working remotely, for example, if your storage system crashes or your servers are attacked by ransomware. No matter the issue, having a well-defined plan can save both time and manpower in the long run.
The implications of the COVID-19 pandemic go far beyond mundane IT issues, but staying prepared for both long and short-term remote work models can help your business stay running smoothly.
How We Can Help
At MDL Technology, your company’s security is our number one concern. By offering services such as 24/7 support, network monitoring, offsite data backups, auditing and compliance and more, we help ensure that you don’t need to stress about your team’s private information becoming public — especially when you’ve moved all operations online for the time being.
Now more than ever, securing and delivering business data is critical. Our high-capacity transport solutions ensure constant connectivity and seamless business operations so you can send data with ease and confidence.
Learn more about the services we offer by visiting our website.
