As the spread of Covid-19 changes working practices for businesses all over the world, the requirement for staff to be able to work from home effectively is in the spotlight more than ever before. It has been predicted that at its peak, 20% of the UK could be off work.
There can be no doubt that instructing employees in high-risk areas to work from home can be an effective strategy for stopping the spread of the virus, but how can you manage the potential implications for business productivity?
CNN has called the outbreak the ‘biggest work from home experiment in history’ and the changes bought about from it have the potential to permanently change the way that many businesses work in the long term if they prove to be successful.
Microsoft has released some guidance on the issue, and staff at leading companies across the world have already been advised to work from home wherever they can.
Many organisations are facing the prospect of making the transition to a work from home culture almost overnight, with little time to prepare or implement new tools or policies.
At Cloud Direct we already have a distributed workforce, with staff working from home and our offices in various locations.
Our remote working policy is well established and has been refined over time, so what are some of the key factors we have learnt that you could learn from?
Make use of the tools available for working from home
Many businesses already have access to unified communication tools that are not being used to their full potential. One of the most common and effective of these applications is Microsoft Teams. The full Teams solution is included in all Office 365 subscriptions of Business Premium or above, and there are even free tiers you can use to get started with connecting your users.
Microsoft Teams includes a range of features to keep your organisation productive whilst everyone works from home, including:
- Live chat and collaboration features to keep communication lines open
- Video call capabilities built in to keep meetings going ahead
- Connected apps for collaborative work on files
- 3rd party integration for a wide range of apps and plugins
At Cloud Direct, Teams is central to our business, with the majority of meetings both internal and external set up through the application and all files accessible through integration with Sharepoint. Our team members communicate and collaborate easily wherever they happen to be located all through the single application view that Teams provides.
Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
Having staff working remotely makes communication crucial. Even more so than before. It’s easy for team members to quickly feel isolated when they are used to the natural conversations that occur throughout a working day in an office.
Combat this by setting regular catch up calls during the working from home period. Have a set time each day where all members of a team can ‘huddle’ and share their task list, any planned meetings and cover any recent updates or achievements can make a big difference to the morale and spirit of a remote team.
At Cloud Direct each manager runs these regular huddles, ensuring all team members are included and contributing to the shared goals of the business. Supplemented by the chat feature in teams, this regular communication means one of the key blockers to remote and home working is overcome.
Consider how teams work differently
Using technology to work remotely may come as second nature to many, with some of the more tech-savvy departments and staff in businesses potentially already using applications such as Slack or Microsoft Teams to collaborate on tasks and communicate wherever they are.
Others may need a period of adjustment to make working from home effective for them and may require additional support and training to allow them to be productive. It’s important for team members must be provided with the tools they need to feel comfortable in their newly adapted roles, even if the working from home period is a short term enforced one.
Enabling these workers in the short term to adapt to the current situation will pay off further in the long term when they are enabled to work and collaborate in new ways. From any location
Make security your #1 priority
When staff start working remotely, they will be connecting from networks that are not provided or controlled by the company. This can increase the risks associated with their work and you should have the tools and policies in place to guard against this.
Before moving to a work from home policy ensure you’ve got all grounds covered. Make sure you’ve taken the simple steps such as enabling Multi-Factor Authentication for all users. If you are providing laptops and other equipment to staff, ensure that they have up to date firewalls, device encryption, web filtering and other security measures applied. Set clear policies for working on public Wi-Fi networks and add encrypted VPNs where possible so that sensitive information is not being accessed on open networks. Providing a secure workplace, in and out of the office, should be a priority for your business.
These steps should be supported by regular training and security awareness updates for staff. In the case that working from home needs to be enforced at short notice, create a clear one-page document that aligns the key security policies and expectations for your organisation that is accepted by all team members before they start remote working.
When it comes to increasing security in Microsoft, Cloud Direct can support with a range of solutions including
Getting started with working from home
Whether widespread working from home will be enforced in the UK over the coming months remains to be seen. However, by implementing effective tools and creating robust policies, you can put your business in a strong position for building a flexible and adaptable modern workforce enabled by technology.
The threat landscape is ever changing, meaning protecting email for your business can be an intimidating task.
Whilst unsophisticated brute force attacks remain common and building a strong gateway defense against these is vital, threats are increasingly coming from attackers that are using a variety of smart techniques to avoid detection.
This is illustrated by the fact that only 7% of spear phishing attacks come as a result of direct business email compromise. The rest take advantage of techniques that are much harder to detect, such as domain impersonation and conversation hijacking amongst others.
Many of these attacks rely on social engineering and human vulnerability rather than technical means, meaning most email threat protection solutions and strategies are unable to detect them.
The costs to businesses from these types of attack can be very high.
So what forms can these attacks take?
Account Takeover
Account takeover is where a hacker is able to gain access to an account using legitimate log in credentials (often taken from some of the large scale leaks that have been widely reported) which are then repurposed and used for malicious means.
Stealing of credentials in this way takes advantage of the fact that many people re-use the same passwords for different log ins. In this form of attack criminals can impersonate the true owner of the account and for example ask for money to be transferred into an account that appears legitimate.
Spear Phishing & Social Engineering
Spear phishing is an attempt to gain access to unauthorised information by targeting a specific individual. Emails are spoofed to appear as if they come from a trusted source, often with an urgent request for an action. Once a user clicks, they are then taken to a page that installs malware or captures important details that the hacker can use.
Spear phishing differs from phishing in that it is aimed at specific individuals (for example a company CFO) with the intention of getting them to complete a specific action and these attacks are often engineered over time.
Domain Spoofing & Impersonation
This is a variation of phishing where communications are designed to impersonate legitimate domains or sources. For example, an email address may be misspelt by one letter with the intention that the recipient will not notice such a minor difference. These email addresses are then used to send communications that appear to be genuine, with the aim of instigating money transfers and compromising other information through forms and malware.
So how can you protect yourself against them?
Luckily there are some key steps you can take to protect your business.
- Educate employees — Teach your employees how to recognise email attacks such as phishing, business email compromise, and conversation hijacking, as well has how to report suspicious messages. Use phishing simulation such as Barracuda Phishline to train users to identify cyberattacks, test the effectiveness of your training, and evaluate the users most vulnerable to attacks
- Add account-takeover protection — Make sure you have technology in place that can detect and block business email compromise and other impersonation attacks. Barracuda Sentinel is available from Cloud Direct and uses AI based behavioral analysis and awareness of the latest threats to intelligently protect your business.
- Watch for unusual logins or IP addresses — Use an email security solution to identify suspicious activity, including logins from unusual locations and IP addresses, a potential sign of a compromised account.
- Establish policies to confirm transactions — Help employees avoid falling for this type of attack by putting procedures in place to confirm email requests for wire transfers, for example two step sign offs and secure password policies.
- Enforce business wide security policies – Features such as multi-factor authentication are built into Office 365 and will immediately make your business more secure. Ensure all staff are aware of the policy and make usage an essential for access to the system.
How can Cloud Direct help to keep you secure?
Our Modern Workplace Experts build security into every project and integrate solutions such as Microsoft ATP and Barracuda Total Email Protection to ensure customers are protected as best they can be.
We were the first Microsoft partner in the UK to roll out Microsoft 365 for one of our customers, and we closely monitor the Secure Score for each business we work with so that we can make recommendations that will help them stay protected. Our modern workplace experts have put together a number of resources on this subject, showing how you can make use of the secure score for your business.
To find out more about our security services including our modern workplace security kickstart get in contact with a member of our team today.
The retail and hospitality industry has completely transformed in the past decade thanks to the technology that’s become available. Businesses that are not keeping up with these changes are quickly falling behind.
Customers have more choice and convenience than ever thanks to the power of the internet, which is why high-quality service is one of the most valuable assets for retailers in 2020.
- 61% of retailers believe that efficient customer service is the most important factor in providing their customers with the best experience possible.
- Customers are willing to spend up to 16% more on products and services with companies that offer a better experience.
Microsoft has been building on the capabilities of Skype for Business within Microsoft Teams since September 2017. Now Teams has been developed into Microsoft’s one-stop-shop for chats, meetings, calling, collaboration, app integration and file storage. Your employees will have the ability to utilise these tools to provide the first-class customer service your customers deserve.
Here are three ways you can improve your customer service by using Microsoft Teams.
1. Provide staff with the tools they need to sell
It’s normal to see everyone equipped with a smart device, and this is starting to apply to employees on the shop floor too. It’s now becoming the norm for employees to have a mobile device with them whilst at work. Whether this is for taking orders, communicating with others or checking stock levels to avoid running back and forth to the stock room. Being mobile is the nature of the job within the retail sector – you need to share information with employees in different locations. Microsoft Teams allows employees to collaborate and communicate securely, from any location.
And why’s that? Employees will have instant access to all the information they need, can pass on urgent information as a private or group message and communicate with the people they need in seconds. Microsoft Teams allows you to do all of this and more. It’s a centralised hub for you to store and share knowledge with other employees, whether they’re on the shop floor or head office.
79% of customers say being able to engage with knowledgeable store assistants is important.
Customers are now expecting staff to know the answers to all their questions when they are shopping. Microsoft Teams can be used to store and share all sorts of information on products and stock, employee training, in-store promotions and more.
2. Effective workforce management
Managing your team’s time can get complicated, and the challenge many managers face is staying on top of this. It’s important that you effectively manage and organise your team as it will allow you to save time and focus on what really matters. The first step to achieving this is having the right tools in place.
Organising your team’s time has never been easier with Microsoft Teams. A recently added feature in Teams is the schedule management tool, Shifts. It allows you to plan shifts that employees can review and make changes to within their mobile device, all in real-time.
Employees will have the ability to view their upcoming shifts, view who they will be working with, put in a request to swap or pick up extra shifts and request time off. They will be able to manage all of this within Microsoft Teams and managers will be able to add specific activities to a specific shift, allowing employees to ensure tasks get done.
Your team will be able to clock in and out of a shift with one tap on their mobile device, making it easier for both employees and managers to view timesheets at the end of the month.
The Microsoft Teams, Shifts feature provides managers with a holistic view of their team’s tasks and time. Allowing employees to be more efficient during their shifts.
3. Keep employees engaged and motivated
Shop floor workers play a key role in representing your brand. They’re the ones that interact with your customers daily, yet they typically have the highest turnover rate.
Microsoft Teams has a tool called Praise. Praise allows you to recognise your co-worker’s achievements and efforts and share them with the wider business. This feature will not only help motivate employees but keep them engaged when they’re on the shop floor interacting with your customer, helping strengthen and improve your brand.
Companies with highly engaged employees outperform their competitors by 147%.
Engaged employees are more likely to stay in the job for longer. By utilising this tool, you could see your high turnover decrease, giving you more time to train and invest in creating your next dream team.
Want to transform your customer service with Microsoft Teams?
If you’d like to find out more about how your retail or hospitality business can adopt Microsoft Teams, watch our webinar. Our Modern Workplace experts discuss the importance of customer service and how Teams can support this change.
What Is Microsoft Teams?
Teams is Microsoft’s ‘one-stop-shop’ for the communication and collaboration needs of your organisation. Designed as a unified communications (UC) platform, it efficiently combines your workplace chat, video meetings, file storage and application integration.
Back in September 2017, Microsoft announced that Teams would build on the capabilities of Skype for Business. With Skype for Business reaching End of Life on 31st July 2021 and with Teams regularly adding features to its already impressive capabilities, making the upgrade to Microsoft Teams has never been more appealing.
There are many reasons why your Not For Profit should harness the power of Microsoft Teams. We’ve taken the time to explain five reasons why you should consider Teams.
1. Access Whenever, Wherever
Flexible and remote working is nothing new for those in the charity sector, but what is new is the rate in which it is becoming the new norm, with as many as 87% of businesses dependent on their employees’ ability to access mobile business apps from their smartphone. Whether you’re working from the office, at home or even your local coffee shop, you’ll need the ability to access your business-critical applications.
The Microsoft Teams mobile app will keep you connected from anywhere. You’ll have the ability to communicate, share and collaborate on files and join conference calls. All from your smartphone. No matter where you are. Helping you stay connected with your team on the go.
2. Organise and Plan Around Your Team
When files, emails and calls are all happening on different platforms and being saved in different places, things can quickly become unmanageable, greatly effecting team members ability to deliver to your service users.
Microsoft Teams can be used as a centralised hub for all project information. Simply create a channel as part of the project kick-off, and your team will have the latest updates, messages, files, calls and tasks in one centralised location.
3. Collaborate In Real Time
Thanks to cloud technology, the days of sending document edits back and forth over email are gone. Microsoft Teams provides your business with the opportunity to share your documents and collaborate live with colleagues, seeing the changes in real time as you work together.
With charity workers often working together in the office or in the field and across the world, this level of collaboration can drive true transformation in productivity and efficiency.
4. Information Recall – On Demand
Charity teams and volunteers often find themselves needing specific information to hand in remote locations, often at short notice to support service users.
Teams allows you to not only store all your data in a concise and logical way, but also allows you to search for specific items with ease. No more scrolling through email chains to find a conversation you had 7 weeks ago!
5. Maximise Your O365 Licenses
Microsoft Teams is included in all O365 licenses on the not for profit tier – even the donated ones! So, no matter if the license for your organisation is E1, E3, E5 or a combination of all three, you can use teams to transform how you work.
Our Kickstart package is the perfect way to ensure you are making the most of the productivity tools available to you in O365, and you can contact our team today to hear how this can work for you.
All sounds great, doesn’t it? You can learn more and see a live Teams demo from our Modern Workplace experts in our webinar on the 26th March! Register your place today.
High-profile data breaches are making the headlines seemingly every day. Even a passing look at the news in 2019 would have shown breaches at Travelex, Equifax and Capital One, to name just a few. What is clear is that it has never been more important to ensure that you are guarding against potential threats.
Email is still the most popular threat vector. According to a SANS Institute report, 74 percent of cyber attacks originate with an email containing a malicious link or attachment, and attacks are getting more sophisticated as cyber criminals try to bypass security measures by using social engineering tactics that rely on emails that don’t have a malicious payload.
When it comes to email protection, how do you decide which solutions you need and be sure you are protecting against the range of threats you may be exposed to?
You need Total Email Protection
Now available from Cloud Direct, Barracuda Total Email Protection ensures that your organisation is secured against email-borne threats of all types. Its multi-layered approach combines the most advanced protection available with the radical simplicity and ease of use that Barracuda is known for.
What is included in the Total Email Protection Bundle?
- Essentials – Award winning email filtering, spam blocking and more!
- Sentinel – Protection against spear phishing with intelligent AI detection.
- Phishline – Spear Phishing simulation tool to create a human layer of defence.
- Forensics and Incident Response – Automated incident response to attacks.
Our team of modern workplace experts are on hand to discuss all things security with you, whether you are just beginning with O365 and looking for a kickstart or are an experienced M365 user looking for the next layer of security to protect your users.
Sounds good, right?
Use the form below to download the Complete Email Protection Whitepaper from Barracuda to learn more.
You may have already heard the term Azure Lighthouse but what does it mean? And why is it important? We sat down with our Cloud Practice Manager, John Riseam, to find out more about Azure Lighthouse and discuss how Cloud Direct is utilising this recently released Microsoft technology to centralise and optimise our Azure operations.
First off, can you explain what Azure Lighthouse is?
Azure Lighthouse has been designed by Microsoft for service providers, like Cloud Direct, as a single dashboard to view and manage Azure subscriptions centrally and securely. Before Microsoft developed this tech there was a huge administrative overhead required to connect MSP’s with their customer tenants and challenging security access. But now Azure Lighthouse is an Azure Resource Manager (ARM) that lets customers delegate permissions to their MSP to perform management operations on their behalf.
So, how is Cloud Direct using this new technology?
Azure Lighthouse lets us securely and seamlessly access our customer environments and is now our default management plane for all our customers, whether they’re using CSP, EA or PAYG Azure subscriptions. The key benefit to us is the visibility of all our customer tenants in one central portal with the increased management tools which allow our teams to simultaneously monitor and optimise our customers Azure networks more efficiently.
What’s the benefit for Cloud Direct’s customers?
We’re able to further enhance the security we offer customers using technologies such as Microsoft 2 factor authentication, Conditional Access and Advanced Threat protection. Azure Lighthouse also allows us to have a centralised set of security policies that we can apply to all our customers at the same time. So, any patches or new best practice policies can be quickly and efficiently applied.
In addition to these optimisation and security benefits, Azure Lighthouse has also enabled us to develop new managed service offerings, to give our customers even more opportunities to optimise and scale their Azure environments.
Where can people find out more about this and other Azure technologies?
As an Azure Expert MSP, we have an extremely close relationship with Microsoft and pride ourselves on being at the forefront of new Azure technologies and management best practice. All of which we share with our customers to develop and optimise the managed services. Just ask your account manager or take a look at the resources available on our website.
My team of Azure Experts also host regular workshops and events for our current and prospective customers, where they share their best practice top tips and delve into the latest Azure tech. This month we have our Azure landing zone webinar on 30th January, then on the 12th March, we’ll be at Microsoft London Paddington for our thirteenth Azure Roadshow workshop.
Find out more about all our upcoming events here.
91% of the Fortune 100 use Microsoft Teams to get more done during the 9 to 5. We decided to look at the top reasons why!
But first a quick introduction for those of you who aren’t familiar with Teams. It’s Microsoft’s ‘one-stop-shop’ for your business’ communication and collaboration needs. It’s a unified communications (UC) platform that efficiently combines your workplace chat, video meetings, file storage and application integration.
1. Organise your team
Every project and sub-groups can instantly breed another email chain, call notes and host of meetings, which can get messy fast. When files, emails and calls are all happening on different platforms and being saved in different places, things can quickly become unmanageable.
Microsoft Teams can be used as a centralised hub for all project information. You can simply incorporate creating a Microsoft Teams channel as part of the project kick-off, allowing your team to have the latest updates, messages, files, calls and tasks on one centralised location.
2. Access whenever, wherever
As flexible and remote working becomes the new norm, 87% of businesses are dependent on their employees’ ability to access mobile business apps from their smartphone. Whether you’re working from the office, at home or even your local coffee shop, you’ll need the ability to access your business-critical applications.
Microsoft Teams has a mobile app that will keep you connected from anywhere. You’ll have the ability to communicate, share and collaborate on files and join conference calls. All from your smartphone. No matter where you are. Helping you stay connected with your team on the go.
3. Stay in the know
Gone are the days where you sat next to the same people 9 to 5, 7 days a week. With 50% of the UK workforce to be working remotely in 2020, it can be challenging for employees to still communicate effectively.
But Teams can help you keep communication and collaboration channels clear. Whether you’re wanting to call someone, set up a video conference with your team or send a quick instant message, you’ll have clear visibility to see who’s online and available for a chat. Microsoft Teams provides you with the communication tools you need all in one place.
4. Vital information recall
It can be difficult to recall what you discussed in a meeting a few days ago – let alone weeks ago. As a project progresses, you’ll have more files, conversations and meetings building up in your Teams channel. Making it difficult for you to find the information you need from last month’s call. But fear not. Teams allows you to not only store all your data but also search for it with ease. Meaning no more scrolling through email chains to find a conversation you had 7 weeks ago.
5. Collaborate in real-time
Thanks to cloud technology, the days of sending document edits back and forth over email are gone. Microsoft Teams provides your business with the opportunity to share your documents and collaborate live with colleagues. Allowing you to edit, review and comment any document in real-time. Anyone that has access to the document will be able to watch you make changes as you work together. Meaning you’ll be able to collaborate in real-time. No matter where you are.
6. Focus on what matters
If you’re creating a channel for every project you’re working on, then Teams can get busy quite quickly. Which is why it’s important you can focus on what truly matters.
Not every message or file that gets sent in your channel will be relevant for you. And Microsoft Teams allows you to filter out that noise. You can simply filter by personal mentions or responses to your message in the activity feed.
Talk to an expert
Whether you’re looking to find out more about Teams or are ready to start a full Teams migration, our Modern Workplace experts are here to help. So, what are you waiting for? Get in contact to discover how you can harness the power of Microsoft Teams.
Plus, if you’re on Skype for Business Online, please be aware that it goes End of Life 31st July 2021. Which means you’ll no longer be able to use it. We’ve put together a step-by-step guide for a smooth Skype for Business to Teams upgrade to help you prepare your business for the employees. If you would need some help moving from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams, then please get in contact with our experts today.
Our Azure Expert, Jeff Field, took the stage at Future Decoded 2019 to talk around Securing your Azure Environment. With security at the forefront of everyone’s minds, we thought we’d share a rundown of what Jeff covered.
Microsoft invests over $1 Billion per year in cybersecurity and has a global team of over 3,500 cybersecurity experts working to protect and secure the physical data centres and Microsoft Cloud environments. The Microsoft cloud is built on a secure foundation which consists of; Physical security, Operational security and Global cloud infrastructure that runs the Microsoft Cloud Services.
Microsoft has some of the world’s best physical security to provide secured data centre building environments and within those buildings, secure server environments which run the cloud systems. All-access to buildings and systems is fully audited and logged and operates with the most restrictive access.
Operational security is continually tested by Microsoft to make sure that any new vulnerabilities are found before exploited. You may have heard of the red and blue Microsoft security teams? The red teams are tasked with attacking Microsoft production resources and the blue team are tasked with detecting and preventing the attacks. This is ongoing work to constantly secure the environment you are working in.
Microsoft also analyses billions of data points every month from things such as cloud authentications, scanned emails and web pages. The output of all of this is used for Microsoft’s Intelligent Security Graph which is then utilized across the environment to add additional protection to cloud services
So Microsoft has a massive ongoing security investment, but it is down to you, the customer, to secure the resources you deploy on the platform. Let’s have a look at some of the options we have to do this…
Identity, Access and Governance
Jeff then went on to discuss the best practices for Identity, Access and Governance:
- It is generally best practice to sync on-prem Active Directory to Azure Active Directory using AAD Connect. You can then use Azure Active Directory as a single identity source across your Azure subscriptions.
- It may sound obvious but, only allow access to the Azure portal for specific users that need it. If they don’t need access for their role, don’t give it to them.
- Enable MFA for users that have access to the portal for an additional level of security and configure conditional access policies as required.
- Privileged Identity Management (PIM) is also available which requires users to request Just-In-Time (JIT) access for privileged permissions for Azure Active Directory and Azure roles. To access this, you require Azure AD P2, EMS or Microsoft 365 M5.
- Identify different user groups and duties within teams such as support and then use security groups to apply permissions for these specific roles at Management Group or Resource Group levels. This will allow you to effectively manage who has access to what.
- Azure Policy has a large number of pre-configured policies which audit and prevent certain deployments or configuration within the Azure environment. You can prevent resources from being deployed in regions, audit storage accounts which allow access from all networks. You’ll also have the ability to create customer policies.
- Use Azure Blueprints to deploy Resource groups, RBAC roles, ARM templates and policies in a repeatable manner – allowing you to speed up processes moving forward.
Azure Network Security
Azure Network Security is the process of protecting resources from unauthorized access or attack and applying controls to network traffic. The aim of Azure Network Security is to ensure only legitimate traffic is coming through. Jeff presented some of the options available to secure your Azure network.
Storage, Data and Encryption
Storage at rest is enabled by default for Azure storage such as storage accounts and virtual machine disks using encryption keys which are managed by Microsoft.
For additional security of Azure VM disks, you can encrypt disks using Bitlocker for Windows or DM Crypt for Linux machines. You encrypt the disks using an encryption key which you then store in Azure Key Vault. These keys can then only be accessed by you and not Microsoft.
Azure SQL / Managed Instance / Data Warehouse databases encrypted with Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) by default.
With a general move towards DevOps methodologies for the deployment of application and infrastructure, it is very important to be careful with what is being put into your code.
Beware of using credentials, secrets or SAS tokens in code stored in repositories. Public code repository being trawled by bots harvesting this information!!
Instead, use Azure Key Vault to store keys, certificates and passwords and make sure it is secured appropriately. These secrets can then be referenced programmatically directly from Key Vault at deployment time.
Azure Kubernetes Service Security
Jeff introduced Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS) and the importance of keeping AKS deployments secure. More businesses are taking an interest in Azure Kubernetes Service and Container Technology and have been exploring their capabilities.
Azure Kubernetes Service is Microsoft’s fastest growing Azure technology. Ever.
It’s important to make sure that your AKS environment is secured appropriately. By default, the Kubernetes API server is published on a public IP address. The API server is the single connection point for requests to perform actions within the cluster, therefore it is important to secure access to this. Azure Active Directory authentication can be integrated with your AKS cluster to provide the same central source of identity. Role-based access control and groups can then be created to assign permissions to the AKS cluster or specific namespaces – ensuring people have the access they need.
By default, traffic can flow between pods within Kubernetes – Consider the use of network policies to restrict this traffic flow by referencing labels or namespaces. Use Kubernetes secrets to store sensitive information such as DB connection strings or passwords. Secrets can then be referenced at deployment time without having to put plain text in manifest files. Updates to Kubernetes are frequent and it is best practice to regularly update the nodes in your cluster as newer versions are released as constant improvements to security and functionality are being made.
Azure Sentinel
Azure Sentinel is a security information event management (SIEM) and security orchestration automated response (SOAR) product which is currently running in public preview. Sentinel collects data from a variety of resources in Microsoft Cloud, other Clouds and on-premises via the use of agents and data connectors.
Sentinel allows:
- The collection of security data at scale
- Detection and investigation of threats using Microsoft’s analytics and AI technologies
- Rapid response to incidents with built-in orchestration and automation
It is important to note that Sentinel is not a replacement for Security Center it is an additional product to expand the security of your cloud and on-premises environments and enables you to detect and respond to security threats and anomalies.
If you would like to find out more about how you can start utilising the tools available to Secure your Azure Environment, simply get in contact with our experts today.
By the end of 2020, an important first step in the digital evolution of the architecture, engineering and construction sector will nearly be complete. It’s at this point nine out of ten firms say they will be using Building Information Modelling (BIM) for the planning, design and construction of their projects.
Today, according to the 2019 National BIM Report, just over two thirds (69%) of firms are using BIM. And although not every firm is using it on every project right now, the government’s Digital Built Britain policy is transforming the way this sector operates.
Ultimately every firm in the construction supply chain from design to build and maintenance will work with BIM, in some way.
Digital construction: bigger than BIM
While BIM has been a catalyst to introduce a better, more tech-enabled approach to the planning and construction lifecycle, it represents just a small part of the potential technology which will power digital construction now and in the future.
According to the Construction Industry Training Board in its 2018 research ‘Unlocking Construction’s Digital Future: A skills plan for industry’ unless the industry leaps forward in its adoption of digital technology, firms will fail to remain competitive. Leaving them ripe for disruption by businesses who can put new tools to good use.
The key technologies beyond BIM include:
- Artificial intelligence: the use of machines to interrogate data, learn and solve problems. By looking at past projects AI can help eliminate waste and reduce costs in construction.
- Augmented reality/virtual reality: allows users to simulate and interact with real-world environments. Useful for remote inspection and visualisation of building models.
- Automated vehicles, robots and drones: un-manned objects which can be deployed to do repetitive tasks or survey dangerous environments.
- Internet of things: so-called ‘smart’ devices which are connected and able to capture and share data.
- Productivity and planning apps: software which captures data that supports better project planning, risk monitoring and workflow management.
- Wearable technology: worn items which contain electronic sensor which can capture data from the building environment.
While some of these technologies may appear outlandish or even irrelevant to construction, engineering and architecture firms today, the way they are used and the data they capture will have an impact on every business.
Every business is a digital business
What this means is that in now and in the future, every firm involved in the design, planning and construction of built projects is now a digital business.
That doesn’t simply mean using technology to improve workflows but putting digital workflows at the heart of the way the firm works to:
- Better collaborate: with clients, supply chain partners and internal teams.
- Improve accuracy in planning and design: reducing waste of material optimising resources
- Introduce new ways of working: enabling mobile working so that data, designs and other information can be accessed when and where it is needed.
- Work more efficiently: reducing the time taken on individual projects, freeing up resources and capacity
- Win new business: take advantage of the emerging generation of ‘digital by default’ clients and supply chain partners who only want to work with firms who have a strong capability in digital construction.
- Harness future technology: ready to embrace and adapt emerging technology to improve the way projects are conceived, planned and managed.
- Attract talent: bring on board the right people with the right digital skills to support future business growth.
For every leader or senior manager in an engineering, architecture or construction firm, the ability understands and adopt technology for digital construction is as therefore as critical as the core professional skills which are critical to their job.
New IT for a new breed of firm
Based on our conversations with firms across the sector, many understand the opportunities around digital construction – the need to shift from ‘traditional’ ways of working to new ones which leverage technology. While there is no lack of a digital mindset, the issue which is holding back many is having the right digital tools to do the job:
- Data held on servers, which limits where and how people can work on projects, impacting productivity and the ability to work on client sites.
- Security and other technical issues mean that working outside of the business or remote working is impossible, limiting the opportunity to collaborate with partners.
- The cost of new desktop PCs and associated IT infrastructure, standing in the way of businesses who want to scale and grow.
- Legacy IT is a disconnected collection of hardware and software tools running on a combination of server, desktop and in the cloud.
The key challenge for every firm is to put the right IT platform in place which can solve these problems, providing a springboard for future growth.
Reach for the cloud
For nearly every firm in the architecture, engineering and construction sector, the only way to keep up with the working practices demanded by a digital construction sector, will be to move to cloud IT.
Cloud IT can give any business, regardless of size, the ability to store and manage limitless amounts of data, work on client sites or on the move and the capability to test new technology and applications that boost productivity. Whether your IT is managed in house, by a senior manager or an IT specialist, it’s unlikely you’ll have all the current skills and knowledge to audit and plan your IT needs for the future. Moving part or all of your business to the cloud requires knowledge of which tools are right for your business, a roadmap to get you there and technical support along the way. This is where a specialist like CloudDirect can help. Our experience of working with firms like yours means you can benefit from our experience and chart the best route to the cloud. We can also help you manage costs, performance and security, allowing you to get ahead in the race to seize the opportunities which are already available in digital construction.