Information Technology | It Strategy | Dashboards

5 Reasons Your Organization Should Move To The Cloud

June 20, 2019November 12, 2019 by Oakwood Marketing Comment Closed

How many reasons do you need to transition to cloud-based IT infrastructure? For most companies, it's more than just one. At Oakwood Systems Group, Inc., we know the benefits of the cloud outweigh any of the hassle. Microsoft cloud services offer with increased scalability and security, not to mention flexibility and ease of use. You'll also save your business time and money by reducing maintenance of on-premises IT infrastructure. Here are 5 reasons your organization should consider adopting the cloud. 1. Cloud Based Applications Are Here To Stay The value of the cloud - The cloud market is expected to pass $500 billion by 2020.Adoption is growing - 72% of organizations had at least one application in the cloud in 2015, a 15% increase from 2012. 2. Security Comes Standard As cloud technology improves, security fears lessen. In a survey of enterprise IT managers, security is no longer ranked as the #1 concern when it comes to cloud computing. One of the biggest advantages of moving to...

3 Reasons To Modernize Your Data Estate

May 29, 2019May 29, 2019 by Oakwood Marketing Comment Closed

There are major benefits awaiting organizations that modernize their data estate, including enhanced security and compliance, significant cost savings, and the ability to empower employees with business insights and advanced analytics capabilities. With an out-of-date data platform, you could be... Missing out on game changing cost benefits Opening your business to potential vulnerabilities Falling behind without modern analytics capabilities What does it mean to 'modernize'? Modernization means taking advantage of the latest technologies to create transformational business benefits. With Microsoft, you have the flexibility to modernize your data estate in the way that’s right for your business: Upgrade to SQL Server 2017: Move to a database with industry-leading performance and security—now on Windows, Linux, and Docker containers. Modernize in the cloud: Move to Azure to get greater cost efficiencies, state-of-the-art security, and powerful data and analytics services - with fully-managed database-as-a-service (DBaaS) solutions.Take a hybrid approach: Deploy across on-premises and the cloud to extend your infrastructure and improve business continuity. Why modernize now? Reduce...

Interested in a 212% ROI?

April 16, 2019November 12, 2019 by Oakwood Marketing Comment Closed

When you think about switching from running and housing your SQL Server on-premises to Azure, the first thing that comes to mind is probably the infrastructure maintenance savings. But what about hidden savings? Like efficiency savings for your IT team and database admins? Or the freedom to expand your capacity as soon as you need it? Just last week we detailed that SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 will no longer be supported by Microsoft starting in July 2019. Outside of the reasons stated above, here's a few more on why this is an issue to be addressed sooner than later. Mitigate risks with platform security and compliance: There will be no access to critical security updates, opening the potential for business interruptions and loss of data. Upgrade to better cost efficiency: Maintaining legacy servers, firewalls, intrusion systems, and other tools can get expensive quickly. Modernize to innovate: Grow your environments with data, analytics and the cloud. In...

Move Forward Securely with Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery

April 9, 2019May 13, 2019 by Oakwood Marketing Comment Closed

When thousands of hospitals, health systems, community practices, and pharmaceutical companies rely on your software to deliver smarter, more effective patient care, you had better make sure it’s secure and reliable. That’s why Allscripts, a leading healthcare software manufacturer, uses Microsoft Azure. Having a reliable and secure IT service provider was more than acquiring 1,000 VMs needed to run the show. Allscripts, a leading healthcare software manufacturer, acquired two companies in 2017. To ensure their new datacenter assets had a home fast, they brought on Microsoft Azure. The reliability of built-in disaster recovery protections means Allscripts doesn't have to worry about losing their data. You can do the same. Using Azure Site Recovery, Allscripts was able to easily move 500 development VMs running critical healthcare applications to Azure. In just three weeks, the company lifted and shifted dozens of acquired applications running on 1,000 virtual machines, ensuring they met & Allscripts’ governance policies and security requirements. Running your business on the...

80/20 Spending Rule – Get Better 1% at a Time

September 7, 2017August 7, 2019 by Oakwood Marketing Comment Closed

80/20. What exactly are we talking about? As humans, sometimes we make projects so huge that there's no way to get them done. "We must reduce our IT maintenance budget by 10% so we have more money to spend on innovation" isn't that much different from the conversation I had with my young neighbor over the weekend. "We desperately need new windows, but we just can't afford them," she said with a sigh. "Well," I asked, "Can you afford one window?" "Well.... yes..." she said, confused. "Then replace one window each month or every other month, and before you know it, they will all be done," I suggested. "Just make a plan and stick to it as best you can." Her face brightened considerably. "We can do that."The 80/20 Spending RuleThe same thing happens in business, and especially in IT. To break the 80/20 spending rule - typically 80% of IT budgets go to just "keeping the lights on" and...

Mapping the Customer Engagement – Where Does IT Touch? Where Can IT Touch?

September 7, 2017August 7, 2019 by Oakwood Marketing Comment Closed

Hey IT Teams. Got an idea. Grab a piece of paper and draw a circle in the middle of it. Label it "Customer." Now draw lines out from the circle, each line representing the way that a customer can interact with the business.Customer EngagementNow recolor the boxes to represent all of the places where IT intersects, or where IT can intersect, with those interactions. How many of these boxes do you have in a different color? Think about pulling together a meeting of your peers who head different groups, and collaborate on the mapping and re-coloring project. Get their thoughts about how IT can strategically enable their customer engagement.You might look at these boxes and think "what the heck is that doing there?"What We See With IT TeamsWe have seen IT have a profound effect on the execution of the process in nearly every one of these boxes (recognizing that of course IT cannot control personalities - like salespeople and service technicians, but...

We Solve The IT Talent Pool Issue

September 1, 2017August 7, 2019 by Oakwood Marketing Comment Closed

What's going on with the IT talent pool? How fierce is the competition for tech talent? Software developers right out of college can demand starting salaries of up to $90,000. Once in their jobs, they get as many as 20 recruiting calls a day trying to convince them to leave for another company. And when they do, a pay increase of 20 to 25 percent is not unusual. Many employers cannot compete when it comes to paying, benefits, and recruitment tactics.IT Talent Pool | We Save You MoneyOakwood solves this challenge for our clients by bringing to the table a deep talent network. As our client, you can tap into this network anytime. In the same way, you might engage with a traditional staffing firm. The difference with Oakwood is that we offer both transactional and consultative engagement models. Unlike traditional staffing firms, our talent network includes highly skilled senior-level professionals who work as consultants in a number of critical roles, including business intelligence, software architecture, and strategic operational planning.IT Talent Pool...