So, your company made the decision to move your system to the cloud. GREAT! That means that everything is running and there’s nothing left to maintain, right?

No. That’s not the case at all. Thankfully, we’re spared the hassle of maintaining physical equipment, software updates, disaster recovery systems, and just keeping the system running—and thank god for that, but beyond that, there’s still plenty of work to do.

In the cloud, many users will experience less issues, right?

No. Again, the thought of having no physical equipment provides a false sense of security. Just because it cannot be seen, doesn’t mean it should be assumed to be impenetrable. You may not see it, but there are hundreds of alerts coming in for cloud system. It’s a substantial amount that it cannot be left alone to collect digital dust. You MUST administer your system and maintained cloud devices.

But Wayne—we have enough employees that they can spare 5-10 minutes to google a solution for whatever issue we may have.

Sure, that may be the case, but who can really determine if the “fix” is really a fix, and if it’s even secure?

There’s no question that any employee can look up a solution and administer it just to get something working, but these “band-aid” solutions can only cloak the issues that may be occurring on the back-end. An employee who has 10 minutes to spare will not that these issues even exist. They don’t have any training or certification in this—it’s not something you pick up and complete online for a “participation” certificate. It’s a very tedious process. Anyone can get a rough idea of this knowledge, but getting it in your head and being able to administer it to this type of system maintenance? That’s an entirely different story. That’s why your employee with a spare 10 minutes wouldn’t be able to properly maintain your system—and THAT’S how you end up with a sloppy system.

Here is an example of what our Xerillion engineers (myself included) are required to complete:

1. The Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (“MCSA”): Office 365 certification

a. 2 exams, 120 hours of study.

2. Microsoft Partner University Enterprise Mobility and Security certification

a. 4 exams, 50 hours of study

3. Microsoft Partner University Azure Certification

a. 2 exams, 80 hours of study

4. Microsoft Partner University Windows Enterprise Certification

a. 1 exam, 50 hours of study.

If you’re serious about your training, all that should take approximately 9-12 months to complete.

Technology has had its major updates. Server technology had major updates every 3 years with minor upgrades every 6 months, with most businesses opting to do actual upgrades every 6 years.

Cloud services have major upgrades every 6 months with minor services upgrades happening MONTHLY!

Cloud services are not ones you can setup and forget about, which is exactly why they require a well-trained and well-experienced, certified Cloud Engineer to get them configured correctly and securely from the start, and then a Cloud services TEAM to maintain the system.

For most companies without a managed cloud system, the alerts begin to pile up without paying attention to the fact that their system is trying to be accessed by people on the other side of the world. Not knowing and not lack of action often result in sloppy systems with poor security.

The product may be of Microsoft origins, but they don’t manage your IT. If something were to happen to your account, they wouldn’t be able to remediate the way a certified Cloud Systems team would. You NEED a technology partner with the proper training, experience, and time to maintain your systems health.

You need an IT partner with a PROCESS, like the Confident Cloud Management System ™ at Xerillion.

To learn more about the Confident Cloud Management System ™, click here or give us a call at 847-995-9800.