Many questions exist in the minds of busy professionals regarding their computer networks and the data being stored on them. For law firms, a big one concerns compliance laws. Another one concerns having enough data storage, and whether to subscribe to Microsoft cloud services or not. You need a company like LAN Infotech to take you through the labyrinth of IT uncertainty, and bring you the best Microsoft cloud solutions for law offices, among other IT solutions.
Other questions on the minds of attorneys and their law offices are:
Well, rest assured, LAN Infotech has all the answers to your questions regarding cloud computing for law firms.
It’s a worthwhile question to ask–especially considering the unclear definition of cloud computing.
Microsoft Office 365 is essentially a group of traditional Microsoft desktop Office software (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, Publisher, and so forth) with their hosted Exchange (email service) and OneDrive (cloud file storage service). Nothing more, nothing less.
If your law firm requires nothing more than Microsoft Office, email, and a place to store documents, Office 365 might suffice (variables, such as what countries your data will be stored in and subsequent data sovereignty issues notwithstanding.)
But we rarely see a law firm that only needs file storage and email – you’re likely going to need much more in the way of data file storage in the cloud.
A private cloud solution like Microsoft Azure is a complete platform that will host your entire law firm–not just your documents and email. A private Microsoft cloud solution for legal professionals is typically a complete virtual server that will host your:
A Microsoft cloud hosting service is usually delivered as a virtual desktop experience–a working environment each user can access from anywhere, on any device.
As the term suggests, having a private cloud means your firm’s workspace and data is segregated from other clients hosted by the cloud provider—which ensures that security and compliance guidelines and regulations are met.
Some private cloud services include support and endpoint security (antivirus) for your local computers, along with unlimited IT support for your local network, including computers, printers, scanners, network devices, and generally the day-to-day IT support we all need.
Most businesses and law firms won’t need more than that, and if/when you do, we’ll establish your new service needs in a scalable, economical way.
So, no worries – LAN Infotech is a Microsoft Partner and can take care of all your Microsoft cloud services hosting and remote IT support together.
They key difference, really, is the private cloud’s ability to host your software applications such as PCLaw, Time Matters, ProLaw, Worldox, Tabs3, Needles, and so forth. Office 365–being just email and file storage–can’t do this on its own, nor is it meant to.
Add to that: Private cloud solutions often include the licensing and hosting of SQL server–the database engine used and required by many modern legal software applications (like Time Matters, ProLaw, and Worldox, just to name a few).
Virtually all enterprises today have a messaging infrastructure to connect workers and enable business processes. In the arena of law, staff may require access to email for discovery, research, and other purposes. These staff members, or partners, plus others in the law firm, may choose to keep their emails indefinitely, but some organizations may mandate that emails more than 90 days old be deleted.
Setting these kinds of retention policies deserves careful consideration, as a single email could help a law firm win a lawsuit or avoid litigation altogether.
As part of a comprehensive disaster recovery plan, an email archive can be instrumental in an organization’s effort to stay in business and recover key data blocks or files.
An offsite, online archive means that secondary facilities can spin up messaging servers and quickly get access to the last mails sent/received as well as all historical messaging data.
Offsite archives can take the form of disk farms (SANs) in distant DR facilities or email archives stored in public/private cloud environments. It should be noted that while email archiving products do capture and copy all messages, they are not mirrored copies of the messaging server itself, and therefore cannot help recreate user accounts/groups in the event of a disaster.
You’re a legal eagle, busy with cases, discovery, proceedings, even trials for some of you. The last thing you need on your plate is a data breach or cyberattack.
You also don’t need to see the notification that your data files, hard drives, or external drives are full to capacity.
That’s why you need to know that LAN Infotech & Microsoft Office 365 will provide all the advanced security and storage you’ll need.
To wit:
Give LAN Infotech a call at (954) 717-1990 or send us an email at sales@laninfotech.com to get started with and our nationwide Microsoft cloud solutions for law offices, independent attorneys, and others in the legal profession!