DefensoremIT: May 2020

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Satya Nadella On Microsoft's New Age Of Intelligence

"Microsoft was born to do a certain set of things. We're about empowering people in organizations all over the world to achieve more. In today's world, we want to use AI to achieve that." That's Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, crisply explaining the company's artificial-intelligence vision in an interview with Fast Company. Read the article for a look at how Microsoft aims to tie everything from Cortana to HoloLens to Office to Azure into one amazing AI experience.

Security Is Not Privacy

Do you know the difference between security and privacy? Although these terms are often used interchangeably, they are quite different. And both are crucial to business longevity. Check out this thought leadership article to help you get started.

The Importance of Teamwork and Collaboration

We live in a world of constant disruption where business models are undergoing constant change. This article explores the impact of these trends on collaboration and teamwork and the most important skills for the 2020 workplace.

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

The Network in 2020: Faster, Closer, Smarter

It's no secret that more people, more than ever, are more digitally connected. The underlying network needed to support this connectivity must be faster, closer, and smarter, according to Forbes contributor Steve Alexander. "On-demand content, bandwidth-hungry mobile apps, IoT devices, and new cloud-based applications are driving the need for more bandwidth and network capacity," Alexander writes. He reminds us that "fast ethernet" used to be the descriptive phrase for the network edge, and that over time we have quickly increased connectivity times—because users' needs demand it. This is no exception. "Since its inception, the internet has a been a catalyst for service providers to facilitate faster connectivity, an imperative that will increase over time," states Alexander. Read the entire article, "The Network in 2020: Faster, Closer, Smarter" for valuable insight on why network requirements will continue to align with the need for cloud services.

A Day in the Life - Compliance

Meet Diego, a Compliance Officer who works closely with his company's IT team to ensure employees abide by internal policies and regulations set by regulatory bodies. Check out this infographic to see how Diego uses productivity and collaboration tools in Teams across his devices throughout the day to review, define, enforce and report on compliance policies to prevent unethical, illegal, improper and under-use of resources.

View: A Day in the Life - Compliance

How Modern BI Delivers Insights to Anyone, Anywhere, At Any Time.

By the 2020s, only 25% of companies on the S&P 500 will be ones that exist today. An astounding 75% will be companies not on the index today. Check out this infographic to for an overview of how Power BI helps organizations thrive in a world of change by delivering insights to anyone, anywhere at any time.

View: How Modern BI Delivers Insights to Anyone, Anywhere, At Any Time.

Customer story: Presentation Studio

Sydney-based company Presentation Studio specializes in writing and designing sleek, professional presentations across the Asia-Pacific region. As the company expanded in proportion to the demand for its product, company leaders at Presentation Studio knew they needed to upgrade to a secure, cloud-based platform, so they partnered with Microsoft 365. They are using productivity and collaboration tools that allow employees to work remotely and work together across a multitude of apps and devices, plus enterprise-grade security features keep sensitive data safe from cyberattacks.

Customer story: Presentation Studio

MS Azure IaaS TEI Infographic

Curious about the ROI of Microsoft Azure Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)? Have a look at this infographic that shows Forrester's conclusions after six customer interviews and data aggregation for a five-year financial impact. Businesses experienced reduced data center and outsourcing costs, website scale and performance improvements, ease of experimentation through virtualized environments, and developer and testers enhancements. Want to learn more about the potential ROI that could be realized by shifting some or all of your management and operations to Azure? Contact us today.

View: MS Azure IaaS TEI Infographic

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Open up a new line of communication. Subscribe now.

Teamwork is more important than ever for today's businesses--and Microsoft Teams makes it easier than ever for your business to begin realizing the promise of a digital workspace. Subscribe now to stay informed on how Teams, as the hub in Office 365, can elevate and transform communication, collaboration, and teamwork throughout your entire organization.

View: Open up a new line of communication. Subscribe now.

The Total Economic Impact™ of Microsoft Azure SQL Database Managed Instance

According to Forrester, Microsoft Azure SQL Database Managed Instance has the best ROI, with a migration payback in six months or less and a potential 212% ROI over three years. Additionally, Azure's intelligent database offers dynamic scalability that enables your database to transparently respond to rapidly changing requirements, and you pay only for the resources you need, when you need them. Azure works with your on-premises investments so that customers use their same skills when they migrate, using familiar tools and features. All of this, along with easy and free migration tools, makes Azure the best fit option for your cloud needs.

Empower your business with Power BI! Subscribe now and never miss a post.

Business data is multiplying exponentially. To put this data to work for your business and gain a competitive advantage, you need an end-to-end analytics solution that's not only fast, secure, and easy to use, but more important, also places this data at the fingertips of everyone in your organization, enabling anyone to transform business data into actionable insights. Microsoft Power BI and Azure offer an unbeatable combination for analytics that enables your business to maximize the potential of its data by performing real-time analytics, visualizing the results, and leveraging insights to improve business processes, increase productivity, and ultimately gain a more competitive footing. Subscribe now to learn how Power BI and Azure, and other Microsoft solutions, can help your business excel.

View: Empower your business with Power BI! Subscribe now and never miss a post.

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

The state of security for small and mid-size businesses

Investing in a cybersecurity program is no longer optional, no matter the size of your business. #Microsoft recommends that all businesses be prepared to contend with a security threat, regardless of the size or scope of the company. Check out this infographic to learn more about how you can provide comprehensive security solutions for your company. Contact our team at Defensorem IT to learn more.

View: The state of security for small and mid-size businesses

Digital Transformation in the Oil & Gas Industry: Combining Azure Cloud-Based Services

Our third Lizo video shows how utilizing Cosmos DB, SQL Database and Cache for Redis is advantageous for a company managing large volumes of data. The outcome: increased operational efficiencies and improved visibility in predictive maintenance. Watch this video for another quick look at how Azure drives business results!

A new generation of communication tools for a new generation of Alcoa workers

At the Alcoa plant in the distant coastal town of Fjardaal, Iceland, employees relied on a magnetic board to assign and trade shifts, while standard email was used to communicate critical information from one shift to the next--both of which required people to be physically present to retrieve messages or confirm changes in shift assignments. The adoption of Microsoft Teams transformed these otherwise manual tasks into a workflow better suited to a new generation of digitally savvy Alcoa employees who all carry smartphones. With Teams, company-wide announcements are now made with the confidence that everyone will see them via their devices, regardless of location, while operational information is quickly disseminated and passed along from one shift to the next to improve processes, safety, and efficiency. Watch the video to see how Teams is delivering the future of communication to a new generation of Alcoa plant personnel.

Japanese waitress and self-taught Power BI and Azure developer digitally transforms her restaurant--and the industry

For Akiyoshi Shinobu, a waitress at Ebiya restaurant in Ise, Japan, creating superb dining experience for customers and a great place to work for colleagues has always been a passion. To accomplish both, she enrolled in a nearby computer school, and on her own time, taught herself Microsoft Power BI and Azure, and also became proficient in machine learning and A.I. Her immediate goal was to visualize the data generated by customer visits in order to improve the dining experience, deliver better service, and reduce food waste by the restaurant. Today, the applications that she developed for Ebiya have been so effective, and become so well respected, that other restaurants and larger enterprises in the food service industry are calling upon Akiyoshi to help solve their problems. Watch the video to learn more about her incredible story.

Safeguard company data across apps and devices with Microsoft 365

View: Safeguard company data across apps and devices with Microsoft 365

Safeguard company data across apps and devices with Microsoft 365

View: Safeguard company data across apps and devices with Microsoft 365

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

How Confident Is Your Business In Recovering From A Breach?

Did you know that 90% of small businesses ignore data protection? Does this shock you as much as it shocks us? But implementing a proper security system is easier than you think. Check out this article to learn more about how you can build a strong defense against cyberattacks. And contact our team to help you level up your cyberattack defense.

Microsoft a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise BI Platforms

In a crowded field of BI solutions providers, how can customers reliably identify an industry leader? By what criteria should they make such a judgment? In this Power BI blog entry, we address both questions by citing and linking to The Forrester Wave report for Q3 2019 that recognizes Microsoft as a leader in enterprise BI platforms, where we receive the highest score in the two categories of strategy and market presence. From the blog, customers can download the full Forrester report and see how Microsoft Power BI stacks up against competing solutions, as well as explore the differentiated features in the current enterprise BI market.

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

It's 2020. Do You Know Where Your Digital Future Is?

In most of our homes, we utilize and depend on the cloud in multiple ways every single day—think online banking and shopping, social media, email and doorbell video cameras. "It might be the first time in history that our habits at home have outpaced how we function at work," writes Tyler Bowman in his Forbes article, "It's 2020. Do You Know Where Your Digital Future Is?" Bowman addresses three main lingering concerns in the corporate world, including generational divide. "Millennials are driving a market disruption that many CEOs are grappling to embrace," Bowman adds, however, that this difference does not need to result in irreconcilable work practices and values. His suggestions for embracing the disruption support his main point, which is it's just a matter of time before our cloud utilization at work catches up to our already existing cloud dependency at home. Read this article for interesting perspective on the corporate cloud in 2020 and beyond.

Bringing remote patient care to remote patients with Microsoft Power BI and Azure

How do you deliver expert healthcare to the most remote towns and villages in South Africa, to the people who need it most? Dr. Raymond Campbell, founder of Phulukisa (which means "to heal" in the local language), turned to Microsoft for the answer. His solution: a cloud-enabled backpack that field doctors can take into remote areas across South Africa and use to screen patients for common diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV, diabetes, and heart disease. The data is then collected and uploaded to MySQL database in Azure, and the results are pushed back into Microsoft Power BI and delivered to doctors on the ground--all within a matter of minutes. Presented by Satya Nadella at the 2019 Inspire event, this short video illustrates how Microsoft solutions are enabling ordinary people with a vision to accomplish extraordinary things--and help save lives in the process.

Taking internal communication to the next level with Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams has transformed internal communications for today's businesses, delivering features that allow companies to customize workspaces, connect team members together, provide single-point access to assets, integrate third-party solutions, and more. In this video, you'll see how advanced communications tools and the integration of disparate CRM tools into Microsoft Teams enabled Red Lion Hotels (RLH) to up its hospitality game.

Customer story: Landgren

Swedish real estate company Landgren has made a name for itself by being ahead of the technological curve and prioritizing innovation. So far, Landgren has capitalized on standing out from the crowd, but here's the catch: The company has no IT department. Using security solutions from Microsoft 365 allows Landgren to comply with strict European data privacy standards, ensuring that the company is protected against data loss and cyberattacks.

SQL Server and Azure SQL Database GDPR Guidance Paper

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a regulation in European law on data protection and privacy in the European Union and the European Economic Area. It also addresses the transfer of personal data outside of these areas. To meet General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements, Microsoft has implemented technical (tooling) and organizational measures (processes) to ensure that data processing is in accordance with GDPR privacy regulations. The actual path will be different for every organization, but general resources are available in a Service Trust Portal that Microsoft has created for customers to get started. This white paper provides a good overview of GDPR and includes many links to sites with more specific information for associated topics. Contact us if you have questions!

View: SQL Server and Azure SQL Database GDPR Guidance Paper

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Why the cloud? Why Microsoft Azure?

Is the cloud secure for my apps? Which apps make sense to run in the cloud? Can I trust my business-critical app to a cloud vendor? You want to head to the cloud, but naturally you have questions. You may also wonder why customers choose Microsoft Azure for their cloud migration. One reason is unparalleled innovation: you can maximize your productivity with fully managed services such as App Service, Azure SQL Database, and global on-demand Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Your focus should be driving your business priorities instead of worrying about running data centers. Want to know the other reasons to choose Azure? Have questions? Defensorem IT is ready to help you!

View: Why the cloud? Why Microsoft Azure?

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Digital transformation is causing a tsunami of data; and adhering to the compliance standards being put in place to protect it is complicated. Subscribe today to stay informed about the Microsoft Cloud and Microsoft 365 solutions we offer to assess and manage compliance risk, protect sensitive data and respond efficiently to data discovery requests.

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Data-Minded Or Data-Blinded?

Collaboration and networks are about people not data. In this Forbes article, the CEO of Brainpool.ai, a worldwide network of AI and Machine Learning experts, explores opportunities and concerns around the use of network data analysis to transform organizations.

Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Risk by the numbers: 15 cybersecurity stats that matter most to your business

77% of businesses report that they would benefit from knowing more about cybersecurity best practices. Check out these cybersecurity stats from Microsoft for more. And contact us to determine the best course of action to protect your business and your customers' sensitive data.

View: Risk by the numbers: 15 cybersecurity stats that matter most to your business

SQL Server 2017

SQL Server 2017 is now available on Linux and Docker! This infographic provides an overview of the SQL Server 2017 features that drive industry-leading performance and security. Check it out for an at-a-glance look at the benefits to your business.

View: SQL Server 2017

Simplify your compliance journey with Microsoft 365

We live in a time where digital technology is profoundly impacting our lives, from the way we connect with each other to how we interpret our world. To thrive in this privacy-focused era, you need a trusted partner who can help you not only overcome the challenges but make the most of the opportunities that lie ahead. The Microsoft Cloud and Microsoft 365 are uniquely positioned to help you meet your compliance obligations. It offers a rich set of integrated solutions that leverage AI to help you assess and manage compliance risk, protect sensitive and business-critical data and respond efficiently to data discovery requests.

Protect against cybersecurity threats with Microsoft 365

We get it. You're busy. You need to focus on your business and don't have time to be hindered by cybersecurity threats. Lucky for you, Microsoft 365 Business provides robust security solutions with comprehensive external threat protection and internal data leak prevention. With our Microsoft 365 Business solutions, you can make sure that nothing stands in the way of your company's safety. Check out this infographic for a quick view of industry trends, pain points, proof points, and more on why you should upgrade to Microsoft 365 Business.

View: Protect against cybersecurity threats with Microsoft 365

Digital Transformation in the Oil & Gas Industry: Collect and Monitor Sensor Data

At oil and gas facilities, data from sensors and cameras must be collected, analyzed and visualized economically in order to keep operations running smoothly. Watch this Lizo video to see how the Power BI application allows remote decision-making—significantly reducing overhead cost and achieving operational efficiency.