The Cloud is one of the most powerful tools for businesses today, and can save you thousands in lost data and IT workload. But how best to utilize this tool? Below are 5 of the most valuable Cloud services that can save you time, money, and headaches in both the long and short term.
1: Panda
While there are many options for an antivirus, Panda has been the most reliable in my experience. With it’s ironclad defenses and regular updates, any malware that somehow makes it through Panda’s walls is swiftly quarantined by its virus scan. Updates run in the background and will never interrupt your work, nor will it slow down your network while running. Installation is easy and doesn’t require major interruptions – simply start the installation running in the background and return to your regular work.
2: eFolder
eFolder provides a general-use backup solution via a server-sync system. Essentially, a set of designated files and folders will be regularly backed up and synchronized with the cloud server, ensuring that they match at all times. If something goes wrong and files are lost, eFolders will sync with the server, restoring them to the backup version without the need for IT intervention. This is especially useful for file collaboration and sharing, as anyone with access can add a file to the eFolder that will be added to everyone else’s computer during sync.
3: Microsoft Office 365
While functionally similar to traditional versions of Microsoft Office, Office 365 provides a slew of new features as well as providing an affordable way to get Microsoft Office for all of your employees. Instead of using a single software purchase, Office 365 manages your software keys under a login and password. So long as you have that login, you can distribute office to your employees as needed. 365 also offers the ability to share documents between other office users so that multiple users can edit and review a document without wasting time emailing the document back and forth or printing it out. Office 365 includes all Microsoft Office software, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and OneDrive.
4: Private Internet Access VPN
This is an excellent security tool that helps to keep your network access safe. Most private wireless networks, like those at home or in your office, will be encrypted for added security and to prevent someone from using that network to spy on your network traffic or gain access to your PC. However, public networks like those you might use at a coffee shop or hotel do not have this encryption. This VPN will get around this by connecting to a server elsewhere and directing your internet access from there instead of the local network server. If someone were to try and snoop on your network traffic while you’re using this method, all they would see is gibberish as your computer is only using the network to access the remote server. To make things even better, you won’t notice any performance problems while browsing this way.
5: Datto
Datto has numerous solutions to choose from, and aims to be your one-stop shop for cloud solutions. They offer protection against Ransomware, managed networking, disaster recovery, and my personal favorite: business continuity. The business continuity solution works similarly to eFolder, but on a much larger scale. It will keep track of your entire IT infrastructure, including desktops, applications, files, and local backups. In the event of a catastrophic failure, Datto Business Continuity is capable of backing up your entire business to a previous version in minutes! This will effectively make your business immune to ransomware and physical disasters by keeping everything backed up externally, ready to redeploy at a moment’s notice.
