From Challenges to Improvements

As the saying goes April Showers Bring May Flowers.  Better yet, the IT hurdles of 2020 brought much needed improvements in technology today.

As we all know, the dark days of 2020 caused much chaos and angst across the world. It affected industries and people in a myriad of ways. The IT industry was, of course, not omitted from the all-of-the-sudden-problems. Leaders in the industry scrambled for answers and resolutions to issues that seemed to arise overnight.

The beauty of hardships, however, is that they create resiliency. The silver lining from 2020 is that issues of yesterday bring knowledge and technological enhancements of today. Namely, we are dealing with improved security, flexibility of remote working, and the much-anticipated receipt of previously purchased goods.

 

Ransomware boom of yesterday creates new and improved security features of today

In the world of IT, if we are not growing and changing, we are dying. Evolving is a major part of the industry. This is partly due to the nature of the beast. In this case, it is also due to the people and crisis that threaten company and individual livelihood – otherwise known as ransomware attacks and cyber hackers.

A few (of many) advances in technology that have taken off over the past few years are:

End users:

• Multi factor authentication
• Fingerprint scanners to unlock devices
• VPN’s

Companies:

• Single Sign On for apps/devices
• Trusted platform module
• Infosight style management platforms (more streamlined and easier to use alerts and logging, automatic updates, proactive alerts and patching)

Randomized MAC addresses:

• Originally introduced by Apple, this new feature randomizes your MAC address when connecting to wireless connections.

Now, of course, much of the above was around prior to 2020, but the focus on making these things higher quality with increased functionality has taken off.

 

Chaos of enabling a remote work environment creates flexibility and improvements to company policy

Creating a remote work environment is not easy. It’s not easy when you have the time and resources on your side to do-so, but without thorough planning to execute, it seems almost impossible. Aside from lacking time and resources, we can’t forget about the difficulties in getting our hands on the needed technologies to make this happen too.

As companies struggled to work through the difficulties of enabling a remote work environment in 2020/2021, we are now able to reap the benefits of IT’s hard work.

Positives that have come from a rushed remote set-up include:

• Flexibility that has come from the ability to work remote if need be
• Change in (some) corporate policy – leaders identifying that often times, employees are more productive at home
• Knowledge of a remote set-up – Now that, for the most part, companies have learned how to create a remote work environment. They have already either completed the procedure on how to do this, or at least gotten a taste of what needs to be done. The learning curve is less steep.

 

Supply chain issues – your patience of yesterday is being rewarded with the goods of today:

In 2021, depending on the product and the manufacturer, some customers were waiting in line for goods to arrive anywhere from 3-12 months out from the purchase date. Some of the many challenges with this, include :

• Public Sector entities that, due to rules and regulations, require product onsite before fiscal year-end
• The need for product to arrive immediately in order to enable a remote working environment
• Technology refresh cycles being pushed out, which of course causes security issues and can threaten support needed on any given product

In 2022, we have slowly started closing the gap between purchase date and arrival of product. Though we are not to the finish line quite yet. Again, depending on product and manufacturer, we are seeing ship dates creep back down. The most exciting thing about shipment of product that you bought 12 months ago? You likely finally have that in your hands, and that’s a great feeling! Companies are becoming more familiar with how to handle this (Purchasing further in advance, changing the way we timeline future projects, and understanding the right questions to ask when it comes to support on product).

The silver lining is alive and well and the hope is that we only continue to grow past the hardships of yesteryear! Reach out to Zunesis today to find solutions to help your organization bloom.

 

 

Healthcare and Education

The world is experiencing hardships across different industries. Two industries that are top of mind for everyone right now are education and healthcare. Both industries have immediate needs.   Classes need to be available for children of all ages including higher education. Healthcare institutions need to stay operational.

Beyond the classroom, this also impacts parents. They want the assurance that their children can receive a valid education (from home or in the classroom). They need to have access to the right tools to make this work. For full-time workers, they need to balance work and education for their child(ren).

Quick access to a healthcare provider (telehealth or otherwise) is a desire for all. Healthcare professionals need to keep things running efficiently wherever they are practicing.

 

Funding Available

Many organizations in education and healthcare are in need of various solutions to help accommodate these unusual times.  The biggest issue is that many may not have the budget available.

There is Federal funding available. Many have acted on this and have already received their allotted amount. There’s also the possibility that many (including institutions) aren’t knowledgeable about who and what qualifies for the CARES Act.

 

CARES Act

On March 27^th, the CARES Act was signed into law. The United States Treasury set aside $150 billion. Through the Coronavirus Relief Fund, the CARES Act provides for payments to State, Local, and Tribal governments navigating the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.

The CARES Act requires that the payments from the Coronavirus Relief Fund only be used to cover expenses that—

1. are necessary expenditures incurred due to the public health emergency with respect to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID–19);
2. were not accounted for in the budget most recently approved as of March 27, 2020 (the date of enactment of the CARES Act) for the State or government; and
3. were incurred during the period that begins on March 1, 2020 and ends on December 30, 2020.

This funding can include Technology infrastructure maintenance, laptops for children for in-home education, telehealth and improved bandwidth capacity.  There is a significant demand for institutions to keep up with the necessary technology and bandwidth as remote working and schooling continue.

 

Examples of How the Funding Can Be Used

This funding covers K-12, higher education, Telehealth and Healthcare providers at the state and local levels. Many organizations may ask how can this funding be used.

In healthcare, there is the need for never-ending storage for electronic versions of X-rays. These are typically very large files and will take up a significant amount of space in one’s current storage environment. This is one example in healthcare where funding is needed.

Another case is schools who store online educational software, student’s online reports, projects, etc. More and more file space is a need.  Data centers will need to expand and costs for storage will increase. These type of funds can help education and healthcare institutions expand their storage to accommodate the forthcoming Terabyte avalanche.  There are cases where these funds could pay for the entire storage upgrade.

Providing children with the necessary equipment to learn as much at home as they are in the classroom is expensive. However, like the potential storage costs being covered under the CARES Act, State or local funding, the same could be said for laptops. Below is an example of funding available from a fund titled, “Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER).”

 

 

Items to Be Aware Of

However, much like annual budgets prior to COVID-19, if funds are not used, then the next round results in a smaller financial injection. There are also local and state funds available for educators and healthcare providers. These have their own deadlines for application and expenditures. Below is a timeline of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) ($13.2 billion). This is just an example of what to be aware of when researching and applying for funds. There’s a ‘shot clock’ for obtaining these funds.

 

 

Recipients of the CARES Act, State and local funding must all meet the requirements. At Zunesis, we can help identify funds and grants which would be applicable to an education or healthcare institution. We have done this for several of our SLED and Healthcare customers. It can be overwhelming, but we’re very good at identifying these opportunities.

Being an IT Solutions provider, we can identify the optimal infrastructure for your Education or Healthcare organization. And once the funding is available, we will make the applicable hardware order, track it, install it and provide documentation for reference.

We are all in this fight together. Let’s work together to help one another out during these times of need.