As companies prepare their budgets for 2020, financial leaders across the world are often looking at IT as one of their biggest annual costs. Additionally, each year seems to bring on steep increases depending on the type of organization and how they invest in technology. The expense is not necessarily predictable either- the more an organization has workloads in the cloud, the more likely the final expense becomes a moving target. 

A Security Breach Can Happen To Anyone: Small or Large

Many in the cyber security industry are aware of the Equifax breach. It was one of the largest and most well- known data breaches to date, affecting 143 million personally identifiable information (PII) records of U.S. citizens. Perhaps the most alarming detail about this breach was that Equifax did indeed have a robust security program. Hackers were able to circumvent security controls by exploiting a vulnerability in the open source component, Apache Struts, which is an open source web application framework used to develop Java web applications. During that same year, WannaCry ransomware was released into the wild and there were a record breaking 14,000 vulnerabilities reported to US-CERT, according to CVE details¹. In 2018, that number jumped to over 16,000. The lesson every organization should learn from this event is that a breach can happen to any business, small or large.

Why Outsource to a Managed IT Provider

Many organizations employ the services of a Managed IT Services Provider (MSP). One reason for this may be due to the high cost of employing an IT Professional in-house. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median salary for a Network Administrator in 2018 was $82,050 (not including costs of healthcare, paid time off, and other benefits). Given that the job market has continued to be at all-time lows, companies are focusing on leveraging their capital and other resources to focus on hiring talent that contributes to their core business. Shifting funds from strategic roles to support roles may hinder a company’s ability to compete, which may be a reason why companies are moving to and continue to outsource IT functions.

Cyber Advisors has the unfair advantage of working with over 600 customers in various levels of IT modernization and transformation. We see many mistakes that are made. The most common mistake we are seeing is emersion into public cloud without the proper assessment of public cloud use.

A small silver lining in the upcoming end of life woes facing companies in 2020. The Microsoft Exchange Team announced on Monday, September 16^th that they are extending support for Exchange 2010 from January 14^th to October 13^th, 2020. This will only be a benefit for customers with Exchange 2010 running on Server 2012/R2. Microsoft is not changing the end of support date for Server 2008/R2.

Microsoft recently released some very exciting news- Microsoft Teams will be replacing Skype for Business Online and retirement is effective July 31, 2021. New tenants created now in Office 365 will be provisioned to Microsoft Teams and no longer in Skype for Business Online. Our talented engineers live and breathe in the world of Microsoft and technology every single day, and we've had a flood of excitement, along with lots of questions around this announcement… So the big question is, are you ready for Microsoft Teams?

Kevin Kelly has been an employee for over 12 years with Cyber Advisors. Specializing in SharePoint Architecture and Design, Kevin has provided clients with collaboration environments to improve business productivity and communication with colleagues. Whether it's a migration from an older version of SharePoint to a newer On-Premises version or SharePoint Online, designing a document library for moving corporate shared drives, planning a mobile business process form application with workflow, or a full-scale corporate Intranet, Kevin and his project team can provide assistance.

Outside of his passion for IT, Kevin is an avid walleye fisherman. When not working at Cyber Advisors you may run into Kevin out on Lake Mille Lacs, Lake Winnibigoshish, Leech Lake or Lake of the Woods (Rainy River). You may have even seen Kevin featured on Fox Sports North where he provides video fishing reports for Lindner Media’s Angling Buzz. Follow along with Kevin's walleye fishing adventures on Twitter and Instagram by searching @kkellywalleyes or check out his fishing reports at anglingbuzz.com.

This summer, Kevin had to opportunity to volunteer with an organization called Fish with Vets. This is a non-profit dedicated to providing veterans both active and retired, with an opportunity to fish some of the mid-west’s premier fishing destinations. The veterans are paired up with guides who are some of Midwest's best fishermen/women. The main goal of our events is to create life-long memories and friendships for our veterans.

Please feel free to visit the Fishing with Vets website at www.fishingwithvets.com to learn more about this incredible organization.

The Russian proverb, ‘Trust, but verify’ was made famous by President Ronald Reagan during the height of the US/Soviet arms race. At the time, this was meant to suggest the need for validation, even when there was trust between parties. This phrase was very appropriate as it allowed the two superpowers to become more friendly, but left room for validation that changes were truly being made. Validation begets trust and the situation improved.

In the last few months, my view of technology has changed significantly. The past has been filled with data center strategy discussions and complex cloud conversations.  We all know this is where the world is taking us from the IT Transformation strategy…but, what is your DIGITAL Transformation strategy?