There are many good reasons to switch your ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) solutions to the cloud: cost, convenience, versatility, security, etc. But one especially good reason is the amount and types of risk that can be mitigated with Cloud ERP.
What Risks are On-Premise Systems Vulnerable to?
One of the major risks that organizations face today is the threat of ransomware. Even clients that diligently back up their ERP systems can be affected. When your system is compromised, backups may also be destroyed at the same time. At Crestwood Associates, we have been able to mitigate this risk by helping clients move workloads to the cloud, and in doing so, leverage backup technologies that are separate from the servers and platforms they are protecting.
By protecting these backup faults with two-factor authentication and delayed delete protection, we can significantly mitigate the risk of a ransomware attack. Also, many cloud technologies support native file journaling at the platform level, so rolling back an entire library of files to a previous version is a simple task that can be completed in a few clicks. Attackers know this, and so they focus their efforts on legacy technologies that are susceptible to ransomware attack.
An On-Premise Horror Story
Here’s a scary, true story from our archives. One night, a Crestwood client was the victim of an attack. Their on-premise servers got rooted badly, and the crooks even encrypted all the backups. The attackers were demanding over $100,000 for our client to get back their information. What would you do?
Our client decided not to pay the money. Instead, they found a backup, not encrypted by the ransomware attack, from approximately a year ago. So, they restored from that but then had to reconstruct a year’s worth of data from invoices, emails, and other paper receipts. It was a huge job!
After that, they decided to safeguard for the future. For a fraction of the price of the attack, or the amount spent in reconstructing data, Crestwood moved their data and backups to the cloud. All the backups are now stored in the Recovery Services Vault. The Recovery Services Vault was designed with these sorts of attacks in mind.
A Cloud Success Story
Another one of our clients had recently set up this service, and two days later they were victims of a ransomware attack. They called Crestwood, and within 15 minutes all their data was restored and they were back up and running. No downtime and no loss of business.
Ransomware is just one of the risks that can be eliminated with cloud ERP. There are even more. Crestwood Associates recently participated in the production of a whitepaper: 7 Serious Business Risks Eliminated By Cloud ERP. Download the eBook to learn how your business can also eliminate risk in areas such as data protection, decision making, mobility, human resources, and more.
The biggest benefit we’ve seen our clients gain from cloud ERP is the agility afforded by the cloud solutions. Capacity is elastic, which allows businesses to move quickly in response to changing market conditions. Servers and platforms can be provisioned or expanded in minutes instead of weeks. And shifting to an opex model allows costs to scale with revenue instead of being front-loaded.
By engaging a professional partner such as Crestwood Associates, you’re tapping into a wealth of experience solving common (and not-so-common) business problems. We have thoroughly vetted the technologies you are considering and can help you weigh the pros and cons of competing technologies to make the best business decision.
If you’d like to know more about mitigating risk by switching to cloud ERP, contact our experts at Crestwood Associates.
