MSPNetworks Blog

The tech we have at our fingertips has the potential to dramatically enhance our productivity, support a great deal of creativity, and improve a person’s overall quality of life. What happens when you don't use this technology to its full potential? The answer is simple: you lose out. Let’s take a look at some of the negative effects of not using tech to its fullest.

Staying optimistic can be challenging, not just in business but in life. Here’s a few ways to give your business a little more confidence in your ability to support your business.

A digital twin could arguably be seen as a somewhat niche technological innovation. Regardless, they are an invaluable resource to quite a few industries that help the businesses that use them optimize their processes. Let’s go over what a digital twin is, and how it helps a few different business types meet their needs.

Your business’ data holds incredible potential for helping you improve operations, but only when it is leveraged properly. To this end, you have to identify specific metrics that you are working toward and establish how these metrics are helping you make strides forward. IT offers plenty of metrics to help you make better decisions about operational efficiency.

Change is inevitable, especially in the dynamic world of business, where it is the driving force behind growth and innovation. Yet managing change can be a daunting task. It requires strategic planning, effective communication, and strong leadership.

This is where change management optimization comes into play. It's about refining your approach to change, making it more efficient and successful… particularly when it involves your IT and related processes.

Augmented reality is one of the more intriguing technologies that have come along in recent years, and businesses have begun to use it in pretty interesting ways. In today’s blog, we thought we’d go through three of the most popular and effective use cases of AR and the effect it can have on your business. 

Nowadays, finding a business that does not use technology in its everyday processes would be extremely challenging. That’s just how things are today. This technology also typically sees advances in capabilities and accessibility, particularly for the small and medium-sized business sectors. This year, 2024, seems poised to be no exception.

Happy New Year! It’s officially that time when we all make resolutions meant to help improve ourselves, so why not include your business? Better yet, why not make business resolutions that you’re more likely to keep?

Let’s explore some of the ways that you can design your business’ resolutions to maximize the likelihood that you’ll keep them and benefit from them in the long term.

Design Your Goals Intelligently

“Work smarter, not harder.” It’s solid advice, and especially could show its utility as you try to make changes in the new calendar year. Are your processes clear, and crucially, are the outcomes they are designed to reach optimized for success?

This is where something known as SMART goals are useful. The SMART goals framework is a formula by which the most effective goals can be created, because these goals are designed to be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. What is it that you intend to accomplish, by exact guidelines, and is possible to accomplish in a set time that will ultimately benefit your business?

By framing all of your goals in this way, you can prime yourself and your team to accomplish them more effectively.

Involve Your Team

Speaking of your team, you may want to commit some focus to bringing your team more into the fold as you strategize your goals. This will help you create goals that ensure that they remain engaged and comfortable while they work.

One way to do this is to promote the idea of shared responsibility in the workplace. Try to create resolutions that everyone can take part in, working together to collaboratively accomplish a goal. For your part, you should also resolve to readily provide employees with opportunities for professional growth and development. The more your team is able to do, the more your business can do… and the more engaged your team members will be, especially when there’s a clear path for them to improve.

It also benefits you and your business to provide your team with various wellness benefits and work/life balance-based perks. Providing opportunities to your team will make them more likely to stick around and enjoy them.

Break Down Your Goals into Steps

So, you’ve figured out a goal.

Now what?

While having a goal is an important part of improving your business, it’s only going to get you so far without a strategy that helps you progress toward that goal. Analyzing your objectives and determining how to accomplish them will make it easier to do so.

Try subdividing some of these larger tasks into their smaller parts, making an overwhelming prospect much more manageable and approachable. This also makes it easier to adjust different parts of your plan to improve the outcome that results from it.

Keep Track of Your Progress

On the topic of adjusting your strategies over time, it is much easier to do so when you have historical data to rely on. Make sure that you are keeping records that describe the progress you’ve made and the challenges you’ve encountered. Having this information will put you in a better position to improve your overall performance. Plus, it enables you to keep up your team’s motivation by celebrating the successes this data brings to light.

It also helps to seek out feedback from various parties in order to get the benefit of numerous perspectives. One person’s role—for instance, your own—may not give you a critical insight that strongly impacts the end result of your efforts. Crowdsourcing viewpoints from your team can give you a fuller, more accurate picture of whatever it is you are trying to accomplish, allowing you to more effectively make any changes or improvements.

Use Technology that Supports Your Goals

When you consider that MSPNetworks is one of the most dedicated managed service providers in New York, it was only a matter of time before we referred to your business’ IT. However, that doesn’t make it any less true that utilizing the right technology makes it far easier to accomplish your objectives, including those related to your New Year’s resolution.

You wouldn’t use a hammer to measure how big a piece of furniture was any more than you would use a tape measure to set some nails. The same goes for the information technology that your business puts to use—matching its purpose to the objective you’re trying to meet will make your job (and by extension, your life) much simpler.

We Can Empower Your Business Resolutions with Our IT Services

Let’s face it: New Year’s resolutions are hard to stick to. Fortunately, you don’t have to commit to your business’ new strategies without help. MSPNetworks can be there to provide the IT services and solutions that can help with all of the steps we mentioned here, as well as any others your business may require. Give us a call at (516) 403-9001 to learn more.

In mobile operating systems, each fresh iteration tends to bring forth marginal improvements and refinements to enhance the user experience. Apple's newest mobile operating system, iOS 17, follows suit in this tradition. Let's take a brief look at some of its noteworthy additions.

Streamlining Verification Code Messages

Basic multi-factor authentication is commonly employed for secure account access, with codes sent via email and text messages. Dealing with a barrage of these codes piling up in your inboxes is a familiar scenario. iOS 17 introduces a feature allowing automatic deletion of these messages once codes are entered through AutoFill. Navigate to Settings, then Passwords > Password Options, and you'll find the option to Clean Up Automatically under Verification Codes. This ensures that codes inserted via AutoFill are promptly removed from the Messages or Mail applications after use.

Elevated AirPod Capabilities

We've all witnessed or experienced the awkward fumbling with AirPods as a conversation kicks off. Thankfully, users with the second-generation AirPods Pro and iOS 17 can enjoy new features, such as Conversation Awareness. This feature enables AirPods to sense when the wearer speaks, reducing media and background noise volume while enhancing voices in front of you. Combined with Adaptive Audio and Personalized Volume, iOS 17 significantly enhances the capabilities of AirPods.

Siri Receives a Boost

"Hey, Siri." Repeat it three times, right? Not anymore. iOS 17 eliminates the need to say "hey" before Siri's wake word. Moreover, users can seamlessly string together a series of queries without repeating "Hey, Siri" or even "Siri" before each one.

Effortless Message Retrieval

If you're like most people, your Messages application likely harbors hundreds, if not thousands, of accumulated messages. Locating a specific message amid this digital haystack was a daunting task—until iOS 17. The updated system introduces a Search function in Messages, allowing users to pinpoint messages based on the sender's contact, the presence of a link, the inclusion of a photo, and more.

This is just a glimpse into the array of offerings in the latest iOS version. While we advocate for regular software updates for security, the added features are a delightful bonus. May your device find renewed utility with these enhancements.

The workplace has undergone a dramatic shift over the past several years in favor of remote work, due in no small part to worldwide circumstances. In fact, many workers who would prefer to work in-office found themselves unable to, pushing the button on the topic of remote work even more. While there are some outspoken companies that want to see the return of in-office work, experts in the industry seem to be of the opposite opinion.

The numbers suggest that a hybrid workplace environment is the growing norm, and companies are adopting policies and procedures to put these accommodations in place.

Really, Not That Many Companies Are Pushing for In-Office Work

The news might report that various companies like Goldman Sachs or Tesla have labeled these efforts as a way to force out “uncommitted” employees; after all, if they can’t come work in-house, they shouldn’t be working here at all, right?

This isn’t really the case; it’s quite rare to see this happen.

In fact, the exact opposite is happening. More companies than ever are willing to accept a hybrid workspace. According to data cited by Prithwiraj Choudhury, one of the associate professors at Harvard Business School, approximately 30% of United States workdays are completed remotely and office occupancy has hovered at around 50%. The numbers don’t exactly represent mandating a return to in-office work.

Hybrid Efforts Can Be Designed for Specific Organizational Needs

You don’t have to stretch too far to see the benefits of a hybrid approach for business, particularly for its employees. The flexibility is helpful and can be a great boon for recruitment purposes. Granted, this is assuming that you can find a way to make hybrid work for your workflows. Your departments might need different things, and you might have to work with your staff to create in-house schedules for various purposes.

Ultimately, however, the flexibility offered to employees through hybrid work arrangements is such a value to them that they could truly thrive in these types of environments when given the chance to do so. Flexibility is sure to be one of the biggest requirements on the radars of highly qualified candidates in the near future.

Work with Us to Improve Your Hybrid Workplace Technology

If your business is ready to consider hybrid technology a priority, we’re ready to help! To learn more, call us today at (516) 403-9001.

When it comes to security, it can be challenging to keep up with shifting best practices. For instance, the use of a virtual private network has long been a staple to secure remote operations, and any decent IT service provider would recommend its use. However, this advice is changing with the growth of zero-trust access protocols.

Let’s compare these two security options to consider why this is.

Defining Virtual Private Networking and Zero-Trust Access

In order to properly compare these two security tools, it is important that we establish what each of them is meant to accomplish.

Virtual Private Networking, or the use of a VPN, creates a protected connection between two network endpoints via encryption. Let’s say you were stuck in an airport during a layover, but you had your work laptop with you. By using the VPN, you could connect back to your business’ infrastructure in order to access the data you need, without your activity being visible to others who may be snooping on the airport’s wireless network.

Zero-Trust Access is a strategy in and of itself that turns the principle of least privilege into an actionable approach, requiring comprehensive verification at each and every step of any business process. Fundamentally, the thesis of zero-trust is that everything and everyone is a threat until they are confirmed not to be—with this confirmation regularly verified throughout the user’s processes.

These two methods take very different approaches to securing your business. With the VPN, the focus is on keeping threats out, without particularly restricting the activities of those who have been authenticated. Zero-trust access, on the other hand, provides access to only what an authenticated user requires to fulfill their responsibilities.

What Does a VPN Do Compared to Zero-Trust Access?

Let’s break down different aspects that you need to keep in mind in terms of what each option provides.

Breach Containment

Should a breach occur, a VPN may help prevent the attacker from accessing more than what the VPN itself was directing toward, whereas a properly-configured zero-trust implementation will limit the breach specifically to the device, service, or application.

Cloud Support

Generally speaking, a VPN is hosted on-premise, although cloud options do exist. Zero-trust is typically hosted in the cloud, meaning that it works well in cloud-hosted applications.

Functionality

This is the crux of our discussion. All a VPN does is create a secure means of accessing different networks. Comparatively, zero-trust access does the same, but also restricts access within these networks based on predetermined policies.

Remote Support

With remote work being more prevalent than it has been in the past, ensuring a means of accessing the workplace securely is a more pressing need. A VPN enables remote workers to do so, while a zero-trust network does the same, but does so on a more granular level.

Security Strength

While the VPN does a great job of protecting data while it is being sent between two separate networks, that protection stops once each network is reached. The zero-trust network provides excellent security at every point, for every resource.

These comparisons make it pretty clear that both offer sincere benefits to a business’ security, and that both should have a welcome place in your business security infrastructure. That being said, it is also understandable why today’s security experts are predicting that zero-trust will ultimately take precedence.

In the meantime, MSPNetworks is here to help you ensure that your business’ technology and cybersecurity are maintained and ready for you to use it. Learn more about our managed services and how they can benefit you by giving us a call at (516) 403-9001.

With things like cryptocurrencies and NFTs flooding the public awareness, the term “blockchain” has been brought up more than a few times. However, this association hardly covers what the blockchain is or what it is capable of.

Let’s briefly review what the blockchain really is, and what the technology can do.

The Blockchain is Nothing More Than a Distributed, Immutable Ledger

So, what does this mean?

In other words, the blockchain is a means of recording information in such a way that it is effectively impossible to manipulate, as this record is replicated across the network of devices that create the blockchain. Every transaction made (a block) is recorded in this network (the chain), which means that any attempt to edit information results in a new block being created.

The only way that this information can be changed is if every single block in the chain is simultaneously altered—requiring anyone trying to change that record to infiltrate each and every device in the chain simultaneously, which potentially means hacking dozens or even hundreds of endpoints all at the same time.

This Gives the Blockchain Assorted Advantages

For example…

The Blockchain is Very Secure

The distributed nature of the blockchain, and the fact that it relies on digital signatures, makes the prospect of fraud nearly impossible due to the scale of the network and the need for the digital signatures in order to change data as well.

The Blockchain Enables Automation

Transactions can be set up to be completed when different triggers are fulfilled, allowing you to focus on other matters with the confidence that the blockchain will attend to what you have previously instructed it to do.

The Blockchain Saves Time

Finally, while many traditional transactions need to go through numerous, time-consuming steps, the blockchain can reduce the time you need to spend on these processes from days to mere minutes.

How Can Your Business Put Blockchain to Use?

There are actually quite a few ways that the blockchain can be used by businesses of all sizes, from supply chain management, smart contracts, and others. Reach out to us to learn more about how you can use various technologies with our help to benefit your business. Give us a call at (516) 403-9001.

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is just one way of describing the concept of machine learning technologies. AI has grown considerably over the past couple of years, so much that automation as we know it today wouldn’t exist without it. Throw in some data-driven insights and you have a technology that has cemented itself for use in a business environment, but there are some concerns with how fast it is growing and evolving.

Defining Artificial Intelligence

If you’ve seen the AI on display in movies and on television, the kind that quickly becomes so advanced that it threatens all sentient life, you’ve seen a science-fiction depiction of AI that is not necessarily grounded in reality. AI is often characterized as a technology that grows too fast and spirals out of control, eventually overthrowing humanity and acting of its own volition. One recent leak from the US Air Force in which the AI system saw the human operator as an enemy is one such instance that has been, at this time, denied by the U.S. Department of Defense. Whether or not this is a true story, however, is not why we are here today.

The kind of AI used by businesses is built around automation. Many tools use machine learning as a way of automating specific tasks that would typically slow down processes and systems. This is the type of AI we are examining today.

Let’s look at some ways that businesses use AI and automation to improve their processes and productivity.

Better Customer Experiences

A business cannot last long if they don’t have a consumer base, especially in today’s competitive business environment. The biggest use of AI in business is perhaps the use of AI chatbots on the support side of the house to help consumers get the help they need, when they need it. This means that the human typically responsible for such work can instead focus their efforts elsewhere, or help consumers with more complicated requests.

Improved Business Knowledge

AI and automation can be used to help improve countless processes within your organization, and it’s all thanks to AI and automation allowing for data insights and analytics. Collecting all of the data is one thing, but sifting through it and gleaning insights from it is another story altogether. AI can handle it faster and more efficiently than any human resource could, allowing businesses to both learn and act much faster than they typically would be able to.

But How Fast is it Advancing?

Some industry leaders believe that these technologies are growing too fast for comfort, depending on who you ask. As demand for these solutions increases, people feel like they are losing control over their technology, and since AI tools are growing so fast, humans often feel like they have to slow the technology down to keep it from going too wild with the data at hand.

Here are some of the major concerns people have with AI:

• AI-fueled automation creates problems for organizations to keep workers.
• Making workers depend too much on technology and are less productive.
• Information that is unreliable is being shared because of its prevalence of it.
• A complete lack of oversight.
• The creation of dangerous malware.

Are you considering implementing artificial intelligence systems for your business? MSPNetworks can help you make the most of them. To learn more, call us today at (516) 403-9001.

Small manufacturers and distributors operate under a whole separate set of conditions than their larger competitors. This is because they don’t have the available capital to have any noticeable inefficiencies, and if they do have some, they are going to definitely affect their ability to compete. One solution that these organizations can lean on is a logistics platform. 

What Is Logistics Technology?

Logistics is the act of using information and technology to improve the efficiency of your business’ supply chain, procurement, and overall operational efficiency. With so much depending on a business’ ability to deliver products and services in real-time, having the data needed to make that a reality is important.

How do you go about doing this if you don’t have the massive capital to spend on a large logistics platform? It can be difficult to get started, but as the business world has shifted away from the station-to-station model and embraced a more mobile-centric model, logistics not only is extremely important, it is easier to come by than it once was. Let’s take a look at some of the options SMBs have when it comes to integrating logistics platforms into their business. 

Work with Logistic Vendors

One of the best ways to get a logistics platform for a small business is to partner with like-minded companies. Many businesses have the budget restrictions your small business has and since most logistics companies set rates based on volume, you may be priced out if you are only doing a small amount of business with them. Teaming up with another company could deliver the cost-effective price point that will allow you (and your partners) to meet both of your logistics needs. 

Try Logistics Services from Major Providers

Another great option for smaller businesses is to use a small business logistics service that is run by an enterprise logistics company. Nearly every single one of these companies offers solutions for small businesses. This includes UPS, FedEx, DSL, and more. You may end up paying less than you would if you choose to implement a standalone logistics service and you’ll have some of the best companies in the business backing you up.

Look for Industry-Specific Options

Depending on what your business does and what market you do business in, you may find hiring a logistic provider that dedicated themselves to your market to be the best option. Logistics providers that do business in a specific vertical will know the ins and outs of how to handle procurement, distribution, and all the other parts of logistics that can be difficult for a small business. 

Managing Your Supply Chain Doesn’t Need to Be Difficult

Regardless of what you choose to do about your supply chain management and logistics platform, there are many different solutions that cater to the small business. If you would like to have a conversation about getting a logistics platform for your business and what you need to do to operate more efficiently in the changing business world, give the IT professionals at MSPNetworks a call at (516) 403-9001.

Artificial intelligence is a hot-button issue in today’s business technology landscape, and for good reason. It’s being implemented in various software tools and platforms with mixed results. There are some concerns over it, particularly in regard to intellectual property, but there are also major issues with it related to “the profound risks to society and humanity,” according to an open letter.

An Open Letter Calls for a Pause on AI Development

With tens of thousands of signatures, the short letter cautioned against the unfettered growth of AI without a greater appreciation of the potential outcomes.

There are many reasons why people are concerned, including present, short-term, and long-term ramifications of the continued development of AI programs.

Misinformation is a Short-Term Issue

Generative AI uses already existing content in its creation, meaning that it can also call upon information that is blatantly false, leading to the perpetuation of it. Considering how many people rely on the Internet for answers to their important questions, well, AI could only make it worse by showing the wrong answers. These falsehoods can even be made more convincing by the use of AI.

Developers could even use AI to spread misinformation intentionally, which is a serious problem that has many concerned.

Job Loss Could Become a Problem, Too

Some technology experts also believe that AI could lead to many employees losing their jobs due to their work becoming obsolete. Knowledge-based careers require more practical skills than AI can replicate, but other roles could be entirely eliminated as a result of advancing AI.

Long-Term AI Could Pose an “Existential Risk” to Humanity

While this might sound like an extreme stance, it’s one that is becoming more popular thanks to the Future of Life Institute, an organization that tries to predict “existential risks to humanity.” AI could disrupt the future if it can learn to write its own code, and the Future of Life Institute outlines how this could be problematic in its open letter.

Likewise, the Center for AI Safety has collected signatures in support of their own brief statement:

"Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war."

There are Only Predictions at the Moment, but AI is a Challenge to Address

AI certainly seems to be a controversial technological advancement, but this is usually what happens when new and exciting things are developed. Only time will tell if AI becomes truly problematic for the business world or if it will just become another tool in our toolboxes.

To learn more about other technology and how it can improve your operations, be sure to contact MSPNetworks at (516) 403-9001.

Smartphones are everywhere. Nearly everyone has one either in their pocket or in their hand and that fact would make you think that the underlying smartphone market is one that is remarkably strong. This really isn’t the case. Today, we’ll take a brief look at the smartphone market and how a lack of true innovation is one of the reasons the industry has seen large decreases in sales. 

The Smartphone Market is Shrinking

It wasn’t too long ago that the smartphone market was filled with companies looking to gain a significant market share in the industry. Since then some of the largest companies in the world have ceased their smartphone divisions. LG, Microsoft, and Amazon have stopped making smartphones altogether, while once industry leaders like Motorola have been bought and sold numerous times. 

2022, in particular, was not kind to smartphone manufacturers. In fact, the whole market saw an incredible twelve percent decline. You may be thinking, “How can that be, with so many people using smartphones?” The answer comes from the fact that lots of people aren’t buying new phones every 18 months or two years like they have been for the past decade. Much of this has to do with a lack of innovation.

“Innovation”

Smartphone manufacturers dispute that they aren’t at the forefront of innovation. Today’s budget smartphones are as good as flagships were only five short years ago. The problem is that flagships aren’t moving the needle each year with new features and form factors. Consider for a minute that for years the chipsets, the displays, the user interfaces and cameras on new flagship smartphones were greatly improved in some manner each year. For the past few years, however, there are slight improvements, but a major rise in costs. Even real innovations, such as the foldable smartphone market, haven't taken off because of the cost of the devices vs. the practical need for them. 

The point is that when innovation slows, people aren’t going to jump at the chance to buy a new phone for twice as much money than they paid for a device that works well enough and has relatively the same general makeup. This is why only a handful of companies are actually turning a profit in the smartphone space. In their marketing material they speak about innovation, without proving to customers that they are pushing the space forward. 

While the smartphone market is struggling to capture the imagination of its users, it’s still an extremely important part of today’s society and therefore will be invested in. So, while you may not see marked enhancements in display clarity, device speed, or security features, there are still benefits from getting a new phone every couple of years or so.  

If you are looking to use mobile to your business’ advantage, you’ll need help managing all the new endpoints on your network. Our technicians can help you develop a mobile policy, a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy, and help your organization make mobile productivity a feature of your business. Give us a call today at (516) 403-9001 to learn more.

Do you ever think about how incredible technology is? In a world where it’s easy to take advantage of technology and devices that were practically inconceivable just a few short decades ago, it’s really amazing to just look at how far we’ve come, and how something so small can fit so much information.

Breaking Down What Data Actually Is

Let’s go back to before there were modern computers and smartphones. The prominent form of data storage throughout the centuries has been the book.

A typical novel has somewhere between 60,000 and 110,000 words (unless you are reading something by Brandon Sanderson—his novels tend to be three or four times that). 

How much data is that though? If you want to parse this down into smaller numbers, we can look at one of the most common forms of bite-sized information on the planet, the text message.

A text message has a maximum length of 160 characters. You can usually squeeze 1-3 sentences into that on average. Characters in the English language are 7-bits. A bit is represented by a 1 or a 0. The letter “A” is translated to 01000001, and “B” is 01000010. We’ll get back to this shortly.

A text message can contain a maximum of 160 characters, or 1120 bits (1120 ones and zeroes). There are 8 bits in a byte, which means a text message is 140 bytes.

There are 1,000,000 bytes in 1 Megabyte. Figure that the average word is around five characters, so a novel could have somewhere between 300,000 and 550,000 characters

Take 550,000 characters and multiply that by 7 (the number of bits in a character) and then divide the result by 8 (the number of bits in a byte) and you’ll get 481,250 bytes, or 0.48125 Megabytes.

That means a book on the larger side of things is technically around half a Megabyte of information. Once you add some of the hidden meta information, the cover, and some other data, a typical ebook sits around 1 Megabyte. If there are illustrations or images, then there is a lot more to calculate, so we’ll just assume that we are dealing with text for this thought experiment. 

How Much Data Does a Library Hold?

Many books are much larger than the average novel, considering that there are textbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, massive reference books, and a lot of other larger format texts out there. Plus, it’s easier to work with round numbers, so let’s just assume that on average, a book rounds out to about 1 Megabyte.

A typical library tends to hold somewhere between 5,000 and 500,000 books. The world’s biggest libraries tend to put their book counts in the millions. The US Library of Congress holds more than 51 million books, and 75 million manuscripts, plus millions and millions of other items.

Let’s assume those 51 million books are all text. How much data would that actually be?

51 million Megabytes is 51 thousand Gigabytes, which translates to 51 Terabytes. It’s pretty common to buy 1 or 2 Terabyte drives for a home PC, so if you were conservative about your data, you could easily fit the entire Library of Congress book library in a pretty small office with 25 or so computers. Of course, you could just put multiple 2 TB drives into your workstations and store the entire Library of Congress on fewer machines too, or build a media server with an array of high-capacity drives… you get the idea.

We’re not quite to the point where a mobile device can hold that much information, but we’re getting there.

Keep in mind, this is just assuming we are taking the text. If instead, you wanted to scan every single page as a grey-scale image, you would be looking at an average size of around 8 Megabytes per book, so it would take about 408 Terabytes to store the Library of Congress. At that point, you’d be looking at a large rack-mounted device or a very small section of a data center.

How Much Data Does Your Organization Produce?

We’re going to make this a two-part blog since there is still a lot more to talk about! Next time, we’ll break down how much data human beings have ever produced, how much data you can fit into the palm of your hand, and more! Be sure to subscribe and bookmark our blog and keep coming back for more!

Last time, we broke down how much data is stored in a typical book, and how much data every book in the Library of Congress contains. This time, let’s really show you what that data consists of, and some other really neat comparisons to put things into perspective. Buckle up!

A Piece of Data is a Bit, but What Is a Bit, Really?

Last time, we mentioned that data is composed of ones and zeroes, called bits. There are 7 bits in an English character, and 8 bits in a byte. Why do we break down bits by simple ones and zeroes? 

Throughout most of the last 70 years, and technically even before that, we’ve stored digital information in a very simple, easy-to-comprehend way. Imagine a row of 7 lights. Any single light can either be lit up, or dark. There is no in-between. A one, or a zero. Depending on which lights are lit and which lights are dark, gives you a different character. It could be a number, it could be a letter, or it could be a symbol. Now multiply that row of 7 lights thousands, or millions, or billions of times, and you’ll have a massive array of lights that can convey large quantities of data.

For the last 70 years, most of our data storage has used this concept, mostly by using magnets.

Inside the traditional mechanical hard drive are multiple spinning platters. To the common eye, they look sort of like CDs stacked on top of each other. They spin incredibly fast, usually at 72,000 RPM. On these platters are billions of tiny little magnets. There’s a little arm that floats just over top of the platter as it spins, and it reads and manipulates the magnets as you read and write data to the drive. 

The sensitivity of this device is absolutely incredible. Imagine taking a single human eyelash, and holding it in the palm of your hand. Your hand wouldn’t even recognize its weight, right? If we were to cut that eyelash into 100 little pieces, and place one of those pieces on the arm of a hard drive, it would dramatically bend it. This arm is designed to detect forces billions of times smaller than that.

Kinda makes you realize the importance of data backup, right?

This miraculous little marvel of engineering has been the cornerstone of data storage in every single computer over the last several decades.

More recently, modern computers have started using Solid State Drives (SSDs) which store data as an electrical charge in tiny little transistors. These drives don’t rely on mechanical movement or magnets, which is much better for mobile devices as it uses less electricity and can survive being jostled around much more in your pocket compared to a mechanical drive.

Either way, these devices contain billions or trillions of pieces of information.

How Much Data Can I Hold in My Hand?

Last time, we came up with the amount of data of all of the books in the U.S. Library of Congress. It was about 51 Terabytes based on our estimates. We said that, right now, you can’t really hold that much data in a mobile device. You could, however, hold that much data in the palm of your hand. 

Take a look at the image above for this blog post. That’s a Micro SD card. Many digital cameras, smartphones, and other mobile devices use them to store data. At the time of writing this blog, you can purchase a Micro SD card that stores 1 Terabyte of information in a form factor that is about the size of your own thumbnail. 1 Terabyte could hold just under a 50th of the entire Library of Congress.

One of these tiny little cards can hold about a million books.

Dozens of these little Micro SD cards can fit into the palm of your hand—you could easily keep hundreds of them in your pockets. 

If you weren’t the reading type, you could use your 1 Terabyte Micro SD card to hold:

• 200,000 songs
• 250 full-length movies in full HD
• 6.5 million pages of PDF documents
• 250,000 photos taken with a 12 megapixel camera
• Essentially every video game from the 80s and 90s.
• Or you could store 10,000 copies of Windows 95 and Microsoft Office 95.

How Much Data Has Humanity Produced?

As of the end of 2020, the entire digital footprint of all of humanity is 44 zettabytes. That would require 44 billion of those 1 TB Micro SD cards. By the end of this year, that number will have doubled. By 2025, it’s estimated that our digital footprint will be higher than 200 zettabytes.

We produce a massive amount of data. With more than 62 percent of the world population on social media, and 300 billion emails sent every day, information is constantly being moved around. 

Every single minute, 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube. That equates to approximately one of those 1 TB Micro SD cards every minute.

Data is Critical To Your Business

Every day, your business generates data. Your staff sends and receives emails, produces documents, updates and stores customer information, and so much more. That data is fundamental to keeping your business operating smoothly.

That’s why data backup is so important. It’s so easy to lose all of your data. Ensuring that your data is properly backed up will ensure that you can continue operations in the event of a mistake, hardware failure, or major disaster.

If you want to discuss properly backing up your organization’s data, give us a call at (516) 403-9001.

If you truly want to run your business effectively, it all starts with understanding how its costs break down. If you are armed with this knowledge, you can make better decisions about solution procurement and operations management. Let’s examine how you can cut costs without harming your business in the process.

Outsourcing Can Help

Outsourcing is often misunderstood, but it is an incredibly powerful tool to control your costs and improve operations. If you take part of your business that is costly to run normally, then outsource it to a provider, you get more stable costs and expertise that you might not normally be able to leverage.

Businesses have all sorts of outsourcing options these days, including gig workers or managed service providers. You can outsource help desks for support, or you can outsource recruitment and payroll. The sky's the limit, so to speak; if you can imagine it, you can probably outsource it, provided you find an appropriate vendor.

Data Allows for Better Decision-Making

The more data your business has, the more tools and resources it has at its disposal to enable better decision-making. You can look at data to learn about what has worked well in the past, what could work well in the future, and what needs to be addressed immediately. Data is key to the many types of initiatives you might have planned for the future.

Data analytics can give your business key insights into how it can be more efficient with sales, marketing, operational processes, and so on. It can help you build better consumer experiences and customer relationships, something which can increase revenue and give you more resources to work with in the future.

Keep Flexibility in Mind

You can provide greater value to your employees by keeping flexibility at the top of your mind. This means giving them tools to communicate and be productive whether they are in the office or on the move, and thanks to cloud-based resources and solutions, you can do this easily and efficiently.

Another way you can innovate and keep things flexible is through the use of artificial intelligence technology. An AI chatbot, for example, can free up employees for other tasks, focusing instead on tasks that generate revenue.

MSPNetworks can help your business be more cost-effective and productive at the same time. To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

Regularly, when a business is searching for ways to move their operations forward, there is a little hand wringing on how to do so. Every decision your business has to make comes with a price tag, and the more that you can do without spending a lot of money, the more value you are going to see. For this week’s blog, we thought we’d take a look at some actions you can take with your technology to ensure that your business is going in the right direction.

Procurement and Deployment

When you are looking to upgrade your business’ technology, cost is likely the most important variable. This leads to a tendency to prioritize smaller investments that don’t necessarily cost your business a lot of money. Unfortunately, any value-creating piece of hardware or software is going to take a substantial investment for your business. Fortunately, there are options out there that give decision makers options on how these investments are made. 

Traditionally, if your business needed a new server, your company would price out how much they would have to pay to buy the hardware, migrate all the data and applications from the old hardware to the new hardware, and whatever associated costs that come with the setup and management of a new server. If the server was brought in to add more computing to your existing infrastructure, the setup and integration of the new server would come with its own associated costs. 

Today, you can add to your business’ computing infrastructure faster and with powerful technology through the integration of cloud computing. The costs associated with cloud infrastructure are comparable to the ones that you would pay over time with a hardware lease, but with it you get integrated management and maintenance of that infrastructure. Since the only real drawback is that you need an Internet connection to access those cloud-based resources it is an excellent option for companies looking to quickly add powerful new IT solutions to their current infrastructure. 

Managing Security

One of the most difficult parts of managing a robust computing infrastructure is keeping it secure. In fact, a lot of the axillary costs associated with maintaining large IT systems are tied up in security. Of course, you can decide what level of security investment is right for your situation, but you have to take into account that the less you invest in keeping your business’ IT secure, the more likely you will deal with security breaches; a potentially devastating thing for your business.  

At MSPNetworks, we provide comprehensive network and infrastructure security solutions designed to keep the near neverending myriad of threats off of your business’ IT. We also can help you create policies and procedures that work to keep your staff trained and in-the-know about all types of potential security problems. Our technicians work with New York businesses every day, and in the course of doing business see a lot of situations that provide us with real world experience in dealing with potential threats. Not only can we outfit your business with the technology you need to help mitigate ongoing threats, we also have the ability to customize a security plan specifically for your business needs, even when it includes comprehensive training.

Innovation

If you talk to any technology professional that works with businesses, they will tell you that if you can manage to integrate automated tools, you will be improving your business’ efficiency. One of the most important considerations any business owner or decision maker has to make in today’s business environment is how to streamline operations and get their revenue-generating staff to do just that. A lot of businesses have their best people working in support roles over 25 percent of the time, no doubt cutting down on the organization’s effectiveness. 

In using innovative software platforms to help your business cut out huge wastes of time and prioritize productivity, you get more out of your business. Today, you can get all types of powerful applications for human resources, security, business operations, marketing, sales, collaboration, communications, operational support, and more. Aside from improved access, there are other benefits that utilize state-of-the-art tools like artificial intelligence that can automate more processes, further improving efficiency.

Regardless of how you want to approach it, getting more from your technology is important if you want to increase productivity, improve employee satisfaction and retention, and other variables important to building a more productive and efficient business. If you would like to have a conversation about how to use technology to help you build a better business give us a call at (516) 403-9001 today.