“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgiving.”
William Arthur Ward

 

Things to Be Grateful for This Year

Maybe Thanksgiving isn’t on your radar yet. Or maybe you skipped right over it and are already draping your dog in tinsel. (No judgment here; it’s been a weird year, and we could all use the holiday cheer.) But you’ve got just over a week to plan the perfect Thanksgiving meal. You need to figure out how a table of buttery biscuits and creamy casseroles and socially distanced house guests are going to work.

The stress of the season is upon us just as we have just packed the anxiety away. You’d think we’d be used to the holiday shuffle by now as this happens year after year.  The circus juggling act that includes holiday planning, work, kids, and making it look somewhat effortless. Imagine if your job was that of a Systems Administrator on top of everything else life demands of us!

 

System Admins – Kudos!

I wanted to give thanks to all our dedicated Sys Admins of the IT industry. A system administrator’s job is to ensure computer systems are in good working condition. The job includes software and hardware installations, data recovery, troubleshooting, and software and hardware maintenance.

For example, a hospital has its own software that produces data daily to run their operations. A system administrator is responsible for its installation and maintenance. He or she also ensures that the software is correctly configured. So, a system admin typically deals with the computing resources in the infrastructure, hardware inventories, software license, and capacity planning. WOW, and they probably already have their holiday shopping done!

If you are a small business and blessed to have a systems admin on your team, thank them for keeping the daily operations flowing. If your sysadmin needs some time off, an extra hand on a special project or the business is growing, and the thought of hiring another admin is on your mind, check out what we here at Zunesis can do to offer additional support for them.

 

Zunesis IT Assessment Services 

Zunesis helps provides your organization with the information you need to understand your environment, make informed decisions, and set strategies through our assessment services.

They include the following: 

Data Management Assessment – Can be used to focus separately on Production Data, Archive Data, Backup/Recovery, or it can encompass all three.

Recurring Data Center Advisory Services – RDCAS is designed to help clients maintain their HPE infrastructure.

VMware Assessment – Operational Analysis can provide you with the information needed to improve your virtual environment or fast track your IT project.

Wireless Site Survey – Whether you are looking to upgrade your wireless network or validate a recent installation, a professional site survey will give your engineers the data they need to minimize the support calls.

Ransomware Recovery Preparedness Assessment – This IT Risk Assessment, a Zunesis engineer will review and analyze your site to provide observations and recommendations to better prepare your organization for future data attacks.

Firewall Assessment – We will discover the overall utilization of an organization’s current firewall and their adherence to industry’s best standards through a Network Vulnerability Assessment.

 

When gratitude is elusive and anxiety and stress are taking center stage, I offer more wisdom by one my favorite writers and inspirational maxims.

“Before you act, listen.

Before you react, think.

Before you spend, earn.

Before you criticize, wait.

Before you pray, forgive.

Before you quit, try.”

~ William Arthur Ward

2021- The Sequel

If you have ever read my blogs (or know me at all) then it will be no secret, to you, that I enjoy movies. I also like to use things I enjoy in an analogous way to help me better explain or convey things. For this reason, I will be hypothesizing the years 2020 and 2021 as entries in a 2-part film franchise. Where 2020 is the nail-biting first act filled with plot-twists, red herrings and maybe even a cliffhanger ending (sorry you’ll find no spoilers below, you’re just going to have to stick around until the end credits). This inevitably sets up the much-anticipated sequel: 2021. Where high stakes, big reveals, and even bigger emotional payoffs are to be expected (maybe even a massive deus ex machina will come into play? You never know!).

Keep in mind that all of the events laid out below are ones that were a direct result of the Covid-19 pandemic. If we are comparing 2020 to a movie, it is pretty clear that the coronavirus would be the primary villain. I realize other notable events occurred in the last year, but I think it is safe to assume that we all know the key storyline as well as the chief antagonist.

Note: The forecast of 2021 events are merely conjecture and should be viewed as the expected outcomes based on the current information we have. As much as I would love to give a concrete story summary, we should always be prepared for unexpected plot twists.

 

What Happened and What This Means

What Happened in 2020: Capacity Restrictions and Curfews- For the majority of 2020, many restaurants, bars, gyms, and other communal locations were put on stringent capacity reductions or required to close completely.

What This Means for 2021: Many of these restrictions have already been dialed back or lifted entirely. In 2021, we can expect to not only get closer to “the old normal” but also see a big increase in traffic in all previously affected social locations.

What Happened in 2020: Remote and Hybrid Learning- Most schools across the country had to adopt a new E-learning model, with some schools still able to provide an in-person or hybrid model.

What This Means for 2021: This necessary alteration to educational institutions has brought a rise to methodologies and new solutions to make this transition possible and much easier. It is expected that students will return to physical classrooms in 2021, but now they will have a foundation to fall back on for unexpected remote necessities. Find out More Here

What Happened in 2020: Movie and Concert Reschedules – Seemingly common occurrences like going to the movie theater or attending a concert venue were completely derailed in 2020 and forced to be postponed.

What This Means for 2021: Good things come to those who wait. If these fun events can’t take place now…. But they have to happen sometime. And that time is pointing towards being 2021. Artists have pushed most shows off to a date and time where it will be safe for them to perform, again, in front of crowds. And as far as the 2021 movie schedule? It is now going to be STACKED.

What Happened in 2020: New Health and Safety Precautions- Over the past several months, a plethora of new health initiatives, such as face-coverings, hand-sanitizing stations, and temperature checks, have been put into place. Both as a mandated requirement and as a necessity.

What This Means for 2021: Organizations all over the world are rising to the challenge and meeting demand to supply valuable PPE and employ other methods to monitor the population and keep people safe (including, but not limited to, temperature-screening kiosks from Meridian. The need for these precautions may minimize over time (that plotline might be saved for 2022 and we can make this a trilogy 😉). For the time being, it looks like 2021 will constantly be churning out solutions to keep folks safe.

What Happened in 2020: Commercial and Public Sector Budgets – Once the uncertainty of the pandemic began to play out, many organizations across the country, had to limit or freeze all spending.

What This Means for 2021: Help from multiple directions has come into assist in a multitude of ways. Small business loans, grants, The CARES Act, and new changes to e-rate funding, will all significantly help a wide array of companies with securing much-needed funds. Find more info here

What Happened in 2020: No Live Sporting Events- Some organizations delayed their seasons, some televised them from empty stadiums, and others cancelled their seasons entirely. Regardless of the route taken, there was no way for fans to watch “live” sports for the majority of 2020

What This Means for 2021: This one is an ever-evolving landscape. In the last portion of 2020, SOME fans have been able to attend live sporting events in a heavily social-distanced format. With these small victories, all we can hope is packing the stadiums again, in the near future, like the good ol’ days!

What Happened in 2020: Working from home- An unprecedented amount of businesses and their office workers had to quickly switch to a remote workforce.

What This Means for 2021: Like the developments brought about by the aforementioned E-learning model, the sudden shift to a remote workforce has opened up the floodgates for new solutions encompassing VDI and cloud gateways. It will also change the way that future business is conducted for merchants and customers alike.

 

2021- Road Warrior

Well, my friends, the good thing about “2020: The Movie- Part 1” is that we are in the final scenes of the third act. We won’t be able to rate this bad boy until we see the final credits on New Year’s Eve. Regardless, 2021 is shaping up to be a killer sequel. If 2020 is Mad Max, then 2021 will be Road Warrior….and I can’t wait to catch you all at the premier!

Addressing data-related challenges has been a predominant concern that will continue for the foreseeable future.  As budgets are redrawn for next year, investing in your data is a wise choice.

 

Data Trends in 2020

1. The business value of data continues to rise – Every business transformation today—be it greater customer intimacy, more optimized operations, faster innovation, and more—is fueled by data.
2. Persistent demand for self-service data is unwavering– Enabled by easier-to-use, more powerful analytic tools, business users now demand access to all data, everywhere, at any and all times.
3. Time-to-solution expectations for new data-driven solutions are even faster– With better data-driven solutions often the competitive battlefield, victory goes to the swift.
4. Data’s relentless growth accelerates – Captured from the Internet, IoT devices, consumers, vendors, data service providers, and more, these sources combine with increasingly low-cost storage to double the supply of data every 2.5 years.
5. Data distribution further widens– Beyond the computer room, data increasingly spans diverse silos on desktops, mobile devices, machines, in the cloud, at third parties, and more.
6. Real-time data’s importance soars– Real-time responses to events is increasingly the key to success when engaging with customers and optimizing operations.
7. Data quality remains elusive– Diverse and evolving data definitions, syntax, structures, sources, and uses conspire to limit data efficacy.
8. New data related regulations will surely arise– Consuming a greater share of data-related spending, compliance with new regulations is not optional as governments respond to citizens’ privacy, security, bias, and other data-related threats.
9. Data management becomes even more complex– Effective, efficient delivery of data’s value while addressing data’s myriad challenges stresses every organization’s data management strategy, infrastructure, and organization.
10. The data management skills shortage persists –From DBA to data engineer to developer, data management domain knowledge requirements are expanding faster than the complexity itself.

Developing a data management plan with a focus on the projection of expected future storage needs for data, specifications on data sources, data collection and storage, and data security should be at the forefront of the IT Planning list for 2021 for all IT organizations.

 

How Can Zunesis Help With Your Data Planning

Zunesis can schedule a data management plan “kick-off” with your organization. It is an assessment and inventory of the current state of your environment. The Zunesis Data Management Assessment Service can be used to focus separately on Production Data, Archive Data, Backup/Recovery, or it can encompass all three. The goal of the Data Management Assessment service is to help our customers develop their data management plan. We, then help implement processes that will accommodate data growth and provide data availability, security, and protection of business-critical information.

 

Zunesis Data Management Assessment Deliverables:

·         Storage Architecture Diagram

·         Observations about current data management practices

·         Recommendations for improving data management practices

·         Documentation of short-term and long-term goals and objectives

 

Zunesis Data Management Assessment Benefits:

·         Document current data management practices

·         Document strategies for aligning data management to the goals of the business

·         Develop processes for protecting data based on business needs

·         Document short-term and long-term objectives

 

Contact Zunesis today to create a data management strategy that fits your individual needs