Businesses can successfully power a scalable hybrid workforce with managed cloud services provider

Business and technology, and their dependence upon one another, have changed rapidly in the past few years and companies of all types and sizes have had to adapt quickly.

The trend to work remotely, that started prior to the pandemic, shifted into high gear as it became necessary for employees to be able to work from home.

Now, many businesses are trying to find a balance between accommodating their employees’ need to continue working remotely, while also striving to create a cohesive, productive, and secure business model. With that in mind, many companies are bringing employees back to the office for at least part of the week, creating a hybrid setup.

"For me, a hybrid workforce is where you’re in the office maybe three days a week, two days at home," said Louis Valentino, director of architecture at RapidScale. "And for anything outside of your regional area, you can work from home for a month and fly out for one of the weeks."

At the same time, a number of businesses have reduced or increased their workforces, often having to scale quickly in response to shifting markets and business needs. Since many mid-size businesses don’t have large IT departments, it can be difficult to meet the needs of their hybrid workforce and scale without outside support.

"That’s where we work in conjunction with them to provide their users world-class IT," said Valentino.

RapidScale is a managed cloud services provider that integrates best-of-breed technologies to provide comprehensive cloud solutions that range from virtual desktop and cloud-based infrastructure, disaster recovery and backup, to enhanced security and networking.

"They [organizations] trust us for the management and support," said Valentino. "We migrate businesses to the cloud — all of the applications, all of the users — through ‘as a service’ technologies."

Hybrid employees work most effectively when they can expect a similar experience at home and in the office. RapidScale offers Desktop as a Service, or DaaS, a cloud solution that delivers virtual desktops to end users and where their desktop environment looks the same on any device at any time.

"Our Desktop as a Service effectively streamlines business-cricital applications, even if a company needs to roll out a new application, making it easier to set up new remote workers," said Valentino. "This solution can be quick and easy to deploy so everyone has access corporate data and applications all at once."

Businesses don’t have to worry about their size when it comes to RapidScale’s cloud solutions. When a company grows, "all they have to think about is coming to us and saying, ‘we need one more license for x, y and z,’" said Cauthen.

“We can offer 200 desktops that have all the security and compliance," said Valentino.

RapidScale can lock down a virtual desktop according to a company’s policies to ensure employee access to their corporate environment is secure and protected. Furthermore, security continues to be at the forefront of RapidScale’s evolving cloud portfolio, having launched managed SASE, or Secure Access Service Edge.

"SASE allows us to secure and enforce those security policies to give the right user access to the right application at the right time, and from the right device,” said Cauthen. “If something or someone doesn’t match the security policy, then we can block that access."

RapidScale also provides backup services, a basic need for any business. If a business deals with a ransomware attack, backups are crucial to get it up and running again.

"We’re making sure you don’t run out of disc space," said Valentino. "When you’re high on memory, we let you know. A circuit went down on your network, we let you know."

"We have snapshots of customers’ environments," said Valentino. "Immutable backups: that’s really key. It locks the backup so that any ransomware that would try to go in and try to delete them once they get in, can't get to them. It’s a secure backup that can’t be attacked from the outside."

By focusing on enhanced business efficiency, productivity, security, and business continuity, RapidScale allows businesses to focus on growth. Whether an organization’s workforce is on-site, virtual or hybrid, RapidScale’s comprehensive cloud portfolio - including industry-leading IT support, co-management options, and migration services - are agile and innovative enough to meet demanding and evolving business needs.

"At the end of the day, RapidScale simplifies technology for customers with lean IT teams," said Cauthen. "That’s where we bring the value — the day-to-day IT management, quality support, access to cloud technology experts — so they can focus on the things that move the needle for the business," he said.