Keeping our community of clients and business partners healthy and safe while maintaining business continuity is our top priority. We want to do our part to help you stay connected and productive.
I want to share these IT best practices on COVID-19 preparedness as it’s great information and also a helpful resource to pass along to your own customers. It includes suggestions on mitigating risks to employees, as well as mitigating risks to IT tools, resources and capacity.
Many of you are probably working from home (WFH) and staying updated with the latest information from the NHS and WHO. We are firm believers that every cloud has a silver lining. The way we work may be transforming, but it’s also an opportunity for us to transform together.
Our previous experience in the corporate world has taught us to operate a resilient business, which we do ourselves and strive to emphasise to our clients and partners. Our primary job is to ensure that our customer websites in Care Plans are always up and protected, so that you can focus on running your business while we handle the technical stuff:
- All websites are automatically monitored 24/7, as well as our dedicated server (if hosted there).
- All websites are automatically backed up daily, in some cases multiple times daily (e.g. eCommerce sites), to multiple different offsite locations.
- All websites are automatically secured from attack by firewall and intrusion detection systems.
- All website software is updated constantly to ensure maximum operational readiness.
- Our SEO team is WFH and able to continue to provide the same level of service as before.
- All websites under development continue to be worked on as before with no anticipated interruption to project timelines.
In addition, as Google Cloud users ourselves, we felt it worth sharing some things that Google is doing to assist its own community:
- Offering free access to advanced Hangouts Meet video-conferencing capabilities to all G Suite and G Suite for Education customers globally.
- Continuing to scale infrastructure to support greater demand, ensuring streamlined, reliable access to services throughout this period.
- Providing SOS Alerts in Google Search to connect people with the latest news and authoritative organisations, preventative tips from health authorities to help inform people on how to stay safe, and Search trends to track top queries and concerns about the virus.
- Helping educators with dedicated distance learning tools and step-by-step tutorials for those affected by school closures.
We are all in this together and will continue to support you during this time.
Edward Solomon has over 30 years’ experience in project management, technical education, computer networking, web design and development and is a Digital Business Consultant for PENNInk Productions Ltd.
