Beyond Belief: 3 myths about the cloud that need to go away

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Why Law Practice Cloud Myths Are Not True

Technology has been advancing quite rapidly in the past few years. For a lot of businesses, it can be difficult to keep up with it all. This is especially true of the cloud, an innovation that can be confusing for many people. Due to this, quite a number of myths and misconceptions have been spread about what the cloud is and what it can do.

Most of these are flat-out wrong, and are keeping companies from making the switch to a technology that could revolutionize their operations. To help dispel these rumors, we’ve put together the top three myths about the cloud that just need to go away.

Myth #1: It’s not secure

This is by far one of the most common myths about the cloud. Somewhere along the line, somebody spread the rumor that not keeping your data in-house meant that it was up for grabs by the nearest hackers. Obviously, this isn’t the case.

“In-house operations are often anything but secure.”

To begin, in-house operations are often anything but secure. Many employees struggle with basic security concepts, such as falling for phishing scams, which can leave your entire network in a vulnerable state. Cloud providers, on the other hand, are intensely focused on security and don’t fall for these dirty tricks. The cybersecurity measures put in place by these vendors are incredibly complex, which is why it isn’t surprising that Transparency Market Research predicted the global cloud security market will increase from $4.5 billion in 2014 to $11.8 billion in 2022.

Myth #2: It’s not reliable

On a similar note, a lot of companies feel that keeping IT operations in-house means they can better mitigate the risks associated with a disaster. Again, this is far from true. Cloud providers generally have all kinds of systems in place to ensure uptime, ranging from backup generators to temperature monitoring systems to avoid overheating. In fact, a study from CloudHarmony found that the amount of downtime for all of Amazon Web Service’s cloud products during the entirety of 2015 totaled a measly two and a half hours.

What’s more, keeping your data in the cloud is kind of a disaster recovery plan in and of itself. Information stored in a cloud-based platform can be accessed anywhere at anytime, which means employees still have access to mission-critical data if the office is severely damaged.

Disaster recovery is a big part of the cloud_ image _ AfinetyA disaster is when your company needs access to important data the most.

Myth #3: It’s a fad

Another myth about the cloud is that it’s just a passing fad. Of course, a cursory look at the number of companies relying on this technology could quickly dispel this rumor, but a more interesting piece of information is the number of organizations that stick with it. According to a study conducted by 451 Research on behalf of Microsoft, a whopping 95 percent of those observed said they wanted to continue working with their hosting and cloud vendor in the future.

If the cloud was a fad or some trend that would blow over, companies wouldn’t be scrambling to continue paying for the service. Clearly, these organizations are getting something out of the deal here, which means that the cloud has some serious advantages to offer modern businesses of all sizes.

How downtime affects your firm’s bottom line

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IT services are absolutely vital to any law firm’s continued success. Legal workers need constant access to a wide variety of information, and it simply makes sense to store this data within a digital platform. However, doing so creates the the issue of downtime.

Anything from a flood to simple human error can cause your firm’s IT infrastructure to go offline, and such an event can have catastrophic effects on your bottom line.

The downtime itself is going to be expensive

Regardless of industry or business model, making money is probably the main goal of your organization. Therefore, it makes sense that your first concern is going to be with the financial impact of a downtime event.

“The average cost of downtime to be $5,600 per minute.”

That said, figuring out exactly how much a company will lose isn’t easy, especially for law firms. A good place to start is the Gartner estimate that found the average cost of downtime to be $5,600 per minute.

The major difference for those working in the legal sector is the fact that most IT services aren’t client-facing. Unlike an online vendor like Amazon, law firms can’t count the number of sales they lost due to an outage.

However, this doesn’t mean that downtime won’t cause a major financial impact. Being unable to access important client information means employees can’t complete any work, which translates to a loss of billable hours.

What about your firm’s reputation?

Although your clients won’t be able to see the effects of downtime, they’ll certainly be able to feel them. Legal issues are very often time-sensitive, and having to push back important deadlines due to an outage is going to seriously affect your firm’s reputation. Jacqueline Rupert of consulting firm Avalution spelled out the importance of protecting your company’s name in a quote published by Continuity Insights.

“For some organizations, having a billion dollar loss is a drop in the bucket but if their CEO is on the front page of The New York Times saying they did something terrible it is very impactful,” said Rupert. “You have to understand what’s important.”

Regaining client trust for law firms is hard image_ www.afinety.comAn angry client isn’t easily brought back into the fold.

While few companies truly have the ability to scoff at a billion dollar loss, Rupert raises a good point. Despite its central role in every business, money comes and goes. A reputation, on the other hand, is incredibly hard to rebuild once it’s been tarnished.

You need to work with experienced professionals

To avoid both financial and reputational damage resulting from unplanned downtime, financial firm leaders should look into partnering with Afinety. Our cloud solutions boast a 99.999 percent uptime, which means your IT solutions will be available when you need them the most. This is because we have 24/7/365 monitoring of all of our services.

Our highly trained professionals and state-of-the-art technology can help ensure that you get the IT services you so desperately need to run your business. Contact one of our representatives today and find out what an Afinety cloud-based solution can do for you and your company. Our reliance on the highly-rated Amazon Web Service’s line of products can ensure your data is stored securely and is accessible on a consistent basis.

What can the cloud do for law firms?

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The cloud has forever changed the face of modern business. Quite literally every industry has begun to see the benefits of this disruptive technology. In fact, a survey from Spiceworks found that 93 percent of companies were relying on the cloud to provide at least one service. Clearly, enterprise IT has a lot to gain from the cloud.

However, certain law firms are still hesitant about making the switch. To that end, let’s discuss some benefits these organizations can see if they move to the cloud.

Increase disaster recovery responsiveness

“Legal matters are often very time sensitive.”

Legal matters are often very time-sensitive. This means that law firm employees need to have constant access to important documents in order to ensure clients are receiving the services they’ve paid for in a timely fashion. However, the sad reality is that catastrophe lurks around every corner. Whether it’s a fire that completely destroys your office or a flood that decimates your IT infrastructure, there’s always a chance that a disaster could dramatically affect your facility.

This is why it’s so important to keep important information stored in the cloud. To begin, cloud-based documents are stored in highly protected data centers that have all kinds of measures meant to mitigate the risk of disaster. On top of that, cloud providers often help you develop a disaster recovery plan, which maps out the data and applications you need brought back online first in the event of such a catastrophe.

Bring more focus to mobile solutions

Those working in the legal sector are often out of the office. Court dates, client meetings and a whole host of other tasks simply can’t be accomplished in-house, which means these employees are often relying on their smartphones in order to receive and send information pertinent to their current case. This is yet another area where the cloud flourishes.

Legal employees need to access information on the go. Law firms can seriously benefit from cloud-based mobile solutions.

Working on a cloud-based platform allows employees the unique opportunity to access important information and applications regardless of where they are. This is good news, because many companies are deciding to use the cloud for its smartphone capabilities. In fact, Statista has predicted that cloud traffic related to mobile devices is going to take up 90 percent of worldwide mobile traffic by 2019. Clearly, those who don’t figure out a way to integrate mobile cloud solutions are going to be left behind.

You need to work with someone that knows the industry

That said, due to the unique challenges facing law firms, these institutions can’t just get into bsi old cloud provider. Those looking to see exactly what the cloud can do for their business should contact an Afinety representative today. Our years of experience can help ensure that your law firm gets the technological boost it needs.