3 Ways to Make Remote Working Seamless

As COVID-19 continues to cause widespread disruption, the HKSAR Government has asked civil servants to work from home. Private corporations across the board followed suit with more companies adopting flexible working and remote working practices to counter disruptions such as bad traffic and weather.

Cloud is a critical enabler and success factor for effective remote working as it enables employees to collaborate, share and access any files and documents anywhere, anytime. According to Gartner, by 2022, up to 60% of organizations will use an external service provider’s cloud managed service offering.

Veeam sees three key areas that will ensure businesses can operate confidently through remote working and with zero-disruption to mission-critical data and services:

1. The Growth of CDM

Easy access of data is the key to remote working, and cloud management supports just that. Data protection is also of importance, especially as we witness multiple data breaches in recent years. 

Beyond 2020, we are looking at an increase in mobility and portability with cloud data management (CDM), while deploying additional security measures, as companies look to increase data accessibility within their workplace. CDM’s importance will only grow over the next year as easy, available and secure data becomes vital for businesses.

2. Continuous backup can spur transformation

Businesses must be conscious of how they are handling data across clouds and leverage better tools to back them up. According to Veeam 2019 Cloud Data Management report, almost a third of businesses now continuously backup and replicate high-priority applications. This number will increase as more businesses see the importance in easily recovering their critical data.

This decade, we will also see an increase in the number of platforms and tools for businesses to continuously backup their data across multiple platforms and perform full recovery within minutes. The same tools can also provide businesses with insights, helping them to make informed decisions in digital transformation and business acceleration strategies through research, development and testing purposes.

3. Adoption of different automation

As the world continues to ask for more efficiency at work, we will see increased automation in the areas of tasks and processes across organizations, supporting the replication of human work. One important example of automation Infrastructure as Code (IaC). Infrastructure automation, like IaC, allows organizations to configure and set up a complete infrastructure using a script while removing manual components. 

While automation is not something that is inherently new, we will see those who have embraced it shifting toward combinations of different types of automation, including IaC. Through this, businesses can focus on more important projects.

We can never predict global crises, natural disasters, and world emergencies. However, the right technology can help. 

Companies’ response to COVID-19 offers a perfect example on how businesses can maintain business continuity with technological innovations. Besides, by enabling employees to work remotely, they are also minimizing health risks and freeing them from the restrictions of locations and time.

This article is by Veeam’s senior global technologist for product strategy, Anthony Spiteri, and senior regional director for Hong Kong, Macau & Taiwan, Joseph Chan wrote this article. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CDOTrends. Photo credit: iStockphoto/Zentangle