Risk is inherent in any undertaking and the risk of IT failure in business is a threat organisations need to take seriously. There are dire consequences for not having some form of risk mitigation in place for IT failures.

Data Protection + High Availability = Business Survival

IT failures are unpredictable and could originate from anywhere

There are many potential failures which could affect an IT environment. These failures could be as a result of local failure incidents such as user errors, hardware component or full system failures. Failures could also result from full environment-wide disasters which could range from a full data centre or site failure to a catastrophe negatively impacting an entire city or region.

Backups first

Data and System backups are the bare minima an organisation needs when implementing a risk mitigation strategy for IT failures and disasters. However, in a world where uptime is directly related to profit and reputation, legacy backups will no longer suffice.

Disaster Recovery next

Businesses today at very least need an enterprise-grade disaster recovery solution. However, to ensure maximum uptime and true resilience in the face of a disaster, businesses should augment their disaster recovery solution with a robust and resilient business continuity service enabled and delivered through high availability.

Ultimately you need Business Continuity

True disaster recovery business continuity solutions must mitigate all downtime risks and ensure systems remain available. Each risk, no matter its size, origin or impact affects the availability of online systems.

Failures which impact the availability of online systems have a real business impact and could affect the viability of a going concern due to the negative effect system down time has on revenue and brand reputation.

Cloud Disaster Recovery is resilient and affordable

Cloud service providers like Zettagrid offer industry leading cloud-based disaster recovery business continuity solutions at a cost affordable to most organisations.

Service providers must ensure they build redundancy into their platform

True enterprise cloud disaster recovery business continuity service providers need to have their own built-in redundancy to ensure they can offer their customers true high-availability.

Zettagrid meets these criteria and guarantees its service through its multiple availability zones.

Service providers also need to have geo-redundancy

Enterprise disaster recovery solutions commit to high levels of redundancy and availability to mitigate against predictable downtime risks such as user error or hardware failure.

However, it is often large-scale unpredictable disasters such as floods, earthquakes, tsunamis etc. which could have the largest negative impact on most businesses. To mitigate this risk, cloud service providers need to ensure they have a geographically dispersed redundant platform.

Zettagrid leads the way with geo-redundant availability zones

Zettagrid runs multiple availability zones, located in Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Jakarta and Cibitung with each running separate isolated instances of their infrastructure to mitigate the risk of a large-scale disaster affecting an entire city or region.

These multiple availability zones not only protect the Zettagrid cloud but also contain key benefits for Zettagrid customers.

*This article originally taken from blog.zettagrid.com

Proactive IT environment monitoring is essential in an online world where business success is equal to system uptime. Proactive monitoring means improved availability.

Organisations need to monitor their IT environments to ensure they are running optimally and identify any issues which could cause a failure down the line. In addition, IT environment health monitoring gives organisations the peace of mind they are providing an efficient and consistent service to their end users.

Total visibility of all interdependent systems is vital

In any IT environment problems which may cause service interruption are not immediately visible and tend to build up over a period of time.

Having total visibility of IT infrastructure services and their interdependencies is paramount in preventing issues and helps organisations make informed decisions about their IT environment.

Monitoring helps gather data and set performance benchmarks

IT infrastructure monitoring is not the only key to ensuring proactive alerting of negative incidents. Monitoring and gathering performance data over time is a key input into shaping IT strategy. As technology changes and business needs evolve monitoring IT infrastructure enables organisations to benchmark their IT systems performance and then use this information to plan for upgrades, enhancements and migrations.

Proactive analysis of IT system means organisations have a better chance of preventing major disruptions. Regular health checks on infrastructure and alerts which indicate where certain measurements are deviating from historical benchmarks can identify any discrepancies within systems and assist in proactively rectifying issues before they negatively impact business operations. The key outcome of proactive monitoring is the focus and effort of IT operations have shifted from fighting fires to preventing outages.

IT monitoring can also aid organisations in fine-tuning their infrastructure to ensure peak performance and efficiency is achieved. Close monitoring can highlight how systems interact and proactively identify any areas that are vulnerable or underperforming. By identifying bottlenecks and potential areas of danger, organisations can then use this information to enhance their services and prevent any system outages.

Monitoring is not an IT activity, it’s a business tool

Effective IT infrastructure monitoring enables data driven decision making, identifies issues early, improves the productivity and performance of IT systems, helps organisations plan for growth and ultimately helps prevent or reduce the negative effects of system downtime.

Zettagrid monitoring delivers insights

Zettagrid gives customers access to real-time monitoring of their entire environment through their status page. This service also gives customers the option to subscribe to updates which proactively alerts them should any incident occur which may have an impact on their environment.

The Zettagrid real-time status reports give customers a view of the current state of the primary Zettagrid services such as the operations centre, internet transit and DNS status. In addition, this dashboard also monitors the principal services at each of the Zettagrid locations in Australia and Jakarta.

Scheduled maintenance notices give customers prior notice to any maintenance being done on the Zettagrid platform which may affect their running services and real-time system metrics provide insight into the current bandwidth network utilisation.

Zettagrid also posts past incidents on their status page which give details into incidents which have affected the Zettagrid platform and how these were resolved, giving their customers full transparency into the environment running their critical IT services.

Real-time monitoring and historical metrics, 24/7

Customers are also able to monitor the real-time metrics of their Zettagrid services via the Zettagrid self-service portal.

Real-time and historical metrics are available at any time, so customers can monitor the performance of their virtual machines.

Ready to get your finger on the pulse with real-time monitoring?

Contact us to discuss how real-time monitoring metrics can improve your business decision making.

We’re happy to help.

*This article originally taken from blog.zettagrid.com

As mobile technologies advance in the workplace, how will the employee experience evolve—and IT along with it?

Noah Wasmer, Senior Vice President and Co-General Manager, VMware End-User Computing

For years, I’ve said the future of mobility will be the reason people love their work again.

There are parts of work people love—and parts of our work they hate. I believe technology advances will dramatically simplify processes and streamline day-to-day tasks—the dull work. These innovations will help eliminate mundane tasks, such as expense reports and meeting invites. This will enable employees to fast-forward to more important, challenging and rewarding work—the deep work.

I also see technology enriching the work employees love. Work apps are becoming more like their personal apps with intuitive, ergonomic experiences. As companies adopt modern app experiences, employees can work anytime, anywhere and on any device—taking advantage of their most productive, creative moments.

This is our mission at VMware. We focus on helping employees connect and share information in more efficient and intelligent ways, such as:

• A car insurance adjuster who instantly uploads photos with an easy-to-use mobile app, instead of filling out paperwork on a laptop.
• A doctor who immediately accesses patient data by securely accessing a virtual workstation on any computer or mobile device.
• A saleswoman who receives a client email and automatically receives insights from her customer relationship management (CRM) software.
• A manufacturing employee who works hands-free using augmented reality (AR), instead of stopping work to review how-to instructions.

These positive employee experiences result in major benefits to customers, as well. Consider:

• The driver from that accident can repair their car faster because the insurance company provided near-instant mobile coverage details.
• The patient feels less rushed and more cared for by their doctor, who spends less time behind a computer screen.
• The prospective customer receives a prompt, personalized reply about the right solution for their needs.
• The consumer purchases a well-made product from the manufacturer at a more competitive price, because of the more efficient AR-enabled production workflow.

As employees enjoy new and more meaningful work, customers also enjoy new and more meaningful experiences with businesses. Just look at what’s happening at ANZ Bank, Mercy and Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Evolving to a Culture of Trust and Empowerment

For some organizations, the company-wide commitment to putting employees first begins with onboarding and continues all the way through retirement. These initiatives force IT to evolve from a culture of command and control to a culture of employee trust and empowerment.

For example, we’re seeing the importance of choice in attracting and retaining top employee talent. Increasingly, before a new hire even steps foot in the office, businesses ask employees which tools and apps they want and need to be most successful. Some new employee agreements now include device and app preferences. These tools are delivered to their homes, helping employees be productive on day one.

This is tremendous progress for organizations. Yet, it’s more than just automating paper-based processes or streamlining onboarding. Building a culture of trust and empowerment changes the way everyone works. It connects people to the right apps, backend systems and digital resources when needed the most. Ultimately, this helps employees focus on what they do best—and the work they love the most.

What’s Next for Mobility and the Employee Experience

The race to gain and maintain a competitive edge drives some companies to evolve faster than others in the name of innovation. However, organizations that ignore employee preferences will fall behind those that listen to and empower their employees.

Work seems, well, less like work without all the friction. Mobility helps employees work smarter with access to the tools and data they need, when and where they need it. That’s both personally and professionally fulfilling. When everyday tasks get done faster, there’s time to work on solving harder, more complex problems. That truly helps employees enjoy what they do.

As a result, companies reach new levels of success, as my colleague Shankar Iyer explains here. Shankar and I talked more about delivering what employees want and need during VMworld. Watch our on-demand showcase keynote now, and follow the #VMworld conversation online, to hear about our platform approach to employee empowerment, along with human-centered design.

Sources: VMware/Radius

Need Cloud Computing? Do not hesitate to contact us at sales@zettagrid.id or call to +62 811 28 38 78