With Foster Care Fortnight drawing to a close it’s been great to look at the benefits and of foster care. Being organisations that handle sensitive, data it’s important that the backend IT management of fostering agencies are safe, efficient and secure. 1 in 4 companies has had data stolen so and cloud solutions could be the best way to prevent cyber attacks.
Fostering agencies have made Cloud services work for them, such as, BSN Social care who approached us about updating, supporting and future-proofing their legacy IT infrastructure across their collection of businesses. The award-winning BSN Social Care Group is a collection of Ofsted rated ‘Outstanding’ fostering agencies providing foster services across the UK from multiple office locations.
Grace Wyatt of BSN Social Care Group saw the potential benefits that “Cloud” services could bring to the BSN Group and approached Cloudserve following a recommendation by the CEO of partner business, Blue Sky Fostering.
Why Choose Cloud Solutions
1. Security
Security is the most important part of any establishment, especially when it comes to foster care. Not having secure cybersecurity and data protection measures in place could cause unchangeable damage. Stats show that while 53% of corporate data is now stored in the cloud, a great deal of information still remains in on-premises data centres. However, your data is typically safer in the public cloud than in an on-premises data centre.
Why? Cloud providers have heavily invested in cloud-based security systems and technologies such as AI. Cloud solutions can also include round the clock assistance and support for data protection and cybersecurity along with almost all cloud providers using the latest Cyber Security technologies, processes and measures designed to protect systems, networks and data from cyber crimes. In addition, having your data is stored in the cloud allows you to access it no matter what happens to your machine. If something does happen to your equipment, you can remotely wipe data so it doesn’t get into the wrong hands.
At BSN we not only provided security for external risks but we provided them with the ability to select what data staff could access. The centralised “Shared” data location is available from all Hosted Desktop with permissions set appropriately to limit staff access to data where needed.
2. Storage
When utilising what the cloud can offer, you can save virtual and physical space in the office. Working with BSN our Hosted Desktop solution minimised the need for new equipment purchases and utilised the existing PC Estate as access devices. All data business is however now stored in Cloudserve’s secure Data centres and not on any on-premise equipment. This not only reduces their IT costs but increases security and eliminates a limitation on how much storage they can have. A pay-as-you-go style package is offered by cloud solutions, allowing consumers to increase or decrease on their services such as storage – ensuring you are only paying for what you actually need.
3. Communication
We understand that being able to communicate with colleges, smoothly and efficiently is important to fostering agencies. whether staff members are working from home or are travelling to different locations for meetings, communication with colleges is still needed. Using Teams, an application included in the Microsoft 365 package, staff can quickly communicate with each other over a single platform with real-time notifications. It also allows you to share and collaborate on files stored in SharePoint enabling, live editing from multiple users. Here at Cloudserve, we developed a new SharePoint solution deployed across the BSN Social Care group, allowing users across the organisation and its partner firms to quickly and securely transfer data and information internally when needed.
4. Flexible Working
Hosted Desktops and cloud storage give users the ability to work from anywhere at any time. With your data and virtual desktop being stored in the cloud it’s easy to access it no matter what device you are on, as long as you have an internet connection. Our Hosted Desktop solution has provided all BSN Staff with a personal Remote Desktop accessed from their existing legacy Office PC device but also the flexibility to use any internet-connected device to support flexible and home working. Within the remote desktop, the Office 365 suite was provided to all staff, providing a common MS Office experience. Microsoft Office 365 provides the core capability for BSN Social Care’s Email requirements with access enabled from Outlook running on the Hosted Desktops, Outlook Web Access from any Browser and full Sync to Smartphones.
What We Can Offer You
We believe in putting our clients first and meeting their needs, whatever they are. We worked closely with the BSN management team across the group to assess the limitations of the existing solution and detail the current and future IT requirements of the organisation. Certain Key criteria were noted with regards to the functionality required of a new solution and the capabilities required from a new supplier.