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Cloud Solutions – Fort Wayne, IN

With ease of use, lower costs and increased flexibility as a few of the many benefits, it’s no surprise small and large businesses are getting on board with business cloud solutions.

Discover how today’s cloud solutions can help your business drive growth, improve productivity, scale operations, and enhance security.

DWD offers the following cloud solutions:

Microsoft 365

Microsoft OneDrive

Microsoft SharePoint

Microsoft Azure

Benefits Cloud Solutions Offer Your Business

Flexibility and Scalability

Eliminate guessing on your infrastructure capacity needs. With cloud computing, these problems go away. You can access as much or as little capacity as you need, and scale up and down as required with only a few minutes’ notice.

Cost Savings

Although an initial financial investment is required to implement a cloud strategy, organizations save substantial amounts in the long run because they don’t have to maintain expensive hardware or local data centers.

Improved Data Security

Cloud solutions offer many advanced security features that securely store and handle data. Features like granular permissions and access management restrict access to sensitive data only to the employees that need it there by reducing the attack surface for malicious actors.

Business Continuity

While there’s no way for you to prevent or even anticipate the disasters that could potentially harm your business, there is something you can do to help speed your recovery. Cloud-based solutions provide quick data recovery for all kinds of emergency scenarios.

Microsoft 365

Since 2010, Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) has been a welcome addition to today’s business technology environment. Its subscription based model makes financial sense for many businesses and its cloud based platform is a welcome update. Built-in security, plus compliance and privacy controls help keep your data safe.

Benefits of Microsoft 365:

Work anywhere, anytime – one of the biggest benefits of Microsoft 365 is its flexibility. Access your email, files and essentials programs from anywhere on any device.
Enjoy the latest version – download upgrades and updates as long as you subscribe.
Secure cloud storage – Microsoft 365 is a secure environment with robust security measures in place.
Predictable Expense – Microsoft 365 is paid for on a per user, per month basis, like a subscription.

Microsoft OneDrive

Securely save and share what’s important.

Designed for business – OneDrive is a cloud storage solution that not only securely stores your important files and documents, but allows you to access them from anywhere, anytime.

OneDrive for Business is a key part of Microsoft 365. It’s smoothly integrated with other Microsoft 365 services like Teams, SharePoint, and Office applications. This means all files are readily accessible and editable right where you need them, simplifying your workflow.

Seamless collaboration– work faster and smarter with anyone inside or outside your organization. Securely share files and work together in real time using Word, Excel, and PowerPoint across web, mobile, and desktop.
Unrestricted Mobility – create, view, edit, and share files on the go with OneDrive mobile app.
Security Controls – Back up and protect your files with OneDrive. Easily recover deleted files. Security policies keep your information safe.

Frequently Asked Questions About DWD’s
Cloud Solutions

What are the benefits of Cloud Solutions?

Flexibility and Scalability
Eliminate guessing on your infrastructure capacity needs. With cloud computing, these problems go away. You can access as much or as little capacity as you need, and scale up and down as required with only a few minutes’ notice.

Improved Data Security
Cloud solutions offer many advanced security features that securely store and handle data. Features like granular permissions and access management restrict access to sensitive data only to the employees that need it there by reducing the attack surface for malicious actors.

Cost Savings
Although an initial financial investment is required to implement a cloud strategy, organizations save substantial amounts in the long run because they don’t have to maintain expensive hardware or local data centers.

Business Continuity
While there’s no way for you to prevent or even anticipate the disasters that could potentially harm your business, there is something you can do to help speed your recovery. Cloud-based solutions provide quick data recovery for all kinds of emergency scenarios.

What things do I need to consider when I look at Cloud Solutions?

1. What are your business objectives for migrating to the cloud? There are many reasons businesses move to the cloud from cost savings and reduced risk of data loss, to increased employee collaboration and anytime, anywhere access.

2. What applications can be moved to the cloud? It’s important to begin by taking an inventory of the number of applications run by your business. You’ll find there is a number that can quickly be migrated to the cloud such as email and file sharing.

3. How old are your hardware and on-prem applications? If you’ve recently invested in new hardware or applications running internally, it may not be the best time to move your IT infrastructure to the cloud. The best time to consider a move is when your hardware is more than 3 years old.

4. How much are you currently spending to keep your on-prem systems running? Organizations calculate costs of migrating to the cloud in different ways. Some look deep into energy consumption and cost per square foot of their storage room, while others look more generally at monthly costs for services. It’s been proven that the savings come to around 15% on all IT spending.

5. Where are your employees working from? Are you simply in one office, or do you have multiple offices? With those offices, are you reliant on a VPN or a way to keep all the data flowing between multiple locations? These are things that would be easier with a move to the cloud.

6. Where are files being stored? File storage is one of the biggest factors that cause people to consider moving to the cloud.

7. How will data security change and do we have compliance requirements? Cloud computing presents many unique security issues and challenges. In the cloud, data is stored with a third-party provider and accessed over the Internet. This means visibility and control over that data is limited. Oftentimes, data security and risks are a shared responsibility between the vendor and the customer. You must understand what role you’re taking on. If your industry requires special regulations such as HIPAA or PCI compliance, you’ll need to make sure the cloud platform provider has that specific certification.

8. Will moving to the cloud change our Disaster Recovery Plan? If your cloud computing system experiences downtime or is faced with a disaster, what is your backup strategy and how is your Cloud Service Provider going to get you out of the crisis?

9. Will the cloud be able to grow with our company? When you need to increase server capacity, add users or manage an increase in demand, are you able to instantly add more capacity in the cloud?

10. How reliable is the cloud solution? Should I expect much downtime? It is important to determine a cloud vendor’s margin of error, frequency of power outages, and security issues. To combat downtime, it’s important to have applications with offline syncing.

Is the Cloud Secure?

For many, the concept of the cloud is a hands-off, invisible solution: Software or data can live on practically any device on the planet and provide instantaneous access to anybody with the proper credentials. But just because cloud solutions are convenient and ubiquitous, doesn’t mean that they’re perpetually secure. As with any IT solution, even the most security-focused cloud software is only as strong as its weakest link.

Learn more by reading our blog article – Cloud Security: How Secure is Your Data in the Cloud?

What are Cloud-based Business Solutions?

A cloud-based solution refers to applications, storage, on-demand services, computer networks, or other resources that are accessed with an internet connection through another provider’s shared cloud computing framework.

Types of Cloud Solutions for Business
- Web-based services
- Software as a Service (SaaS)
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
- Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Do Small Businesses Use the Cloud?

Cloud computing stores data online rather than on your computer or a server in your office. It is one of the primary cloud computing benefits for small businesses. With the right cloud computing solution, small business owners can securely store and access data, software and applications from any device, anywhere in the world. Popular small business cloud solutions include Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Microsoft SharePoint, and OneDrive.

Microsoft SharePoint – Collaboration Software

SharePoint is a highly customizable cloud-based content collaboration and management platform that can empower your team to work remotely, collaborate effortlessly, and enhance productivity. Cloud-based intranets create a hub where everyone can come together to get work done, making SharePoint Online an ideal solution for team or project collaboration.

As part of the Microsoft 365 suite, SharePoint Online integrates with other Microsoft 365 apps, making it easy to store shared documents and collaborate with team members from anywhere—in the office, at home or on the go.

Microsoft Azure – Cloud Computing Platform

A cloud platform of more than 200 products and services, Microsoft Azure offers computing power, storage options, databases, networking and analytics.

It offers businesses flexibility, scalability and cost-effectiveness, when leveraging advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, blockchain, and edge computing.

Azure can be used for data backup & disaster recovery, advanced data analytics & business intelligence, remote monitoring, serverless computing and more.

SaaS Backup for Your Cloud Solutions

Protection of your cloud data is essential.

Protection of your cloud data is an essential part of every IT strategy. It minimizes the risk of downtime and data loss as well as the risk of a compliance breach. DWD can provide cutting-edge Software as a Service (SaaS) backup and recovery solutions for your data in the cloud.

SaaS backup is critical as it involves the backup and recovery of your company’s critical data generated from cloud solutions. If you’re running CRM, ERP, E-commerce, or any of the many communications, collaboration or productivity solutions, a SaaS backup solution is needed.

There are misconceptions that the vendor-provided backup included with the cloud software will always fully protect and restore your critical data. In fact, IT-managed services, enterprises, cloud software and service providers, and cloud computing organizations like the Cloud Security Alliance specify that cloud security is a shared responsibility.