CloudAtWork makes teleworking accessible for every company

Teleworking has become the new normal. But working with and from the cloud is not always an easy task. CloudAtWork provides the bridge between Combell's cloud infrastructure and the customer's working environment.

All you need to work from home is a screen, a keyboard and a mouse

Although companies are increasingly turning to telework, the coronavirus crisis has greatly accelerated this trend. Under normal circumstances, the benefits of teleworking for employees had already become clear: they can save an enormous amount of time due to the fact that they no longer have to waste their time in traffic to get to work, they are often more productive because they can work undisturbed, and above all, they can work on their own time schedule, which makes it easier for them to combine work and family life.

Employers, however, still had to be persuaded – but the coronavirus crisis presented them with an accomplished fact: teleworking had become compulsory. Even organisations that have had little or no opportunity to telework in the past started experimenting with this new way of working. And teleworking (from home, satellite offices or coworking facilities) will undoubtedly continue to be the new normal in the future.

But this means that companies must provide the necessary IT and telecom infrastructure or hire a partner to take care of this. When it comes to equipment, things are quite simple. In a report aired on Kanaal Z, CloudAtWork manager Tim Van haudt explained: "All you need to work from home is a screen, a keyboard and a mouse. And the screen can also be that of a mobile phone, but then you are obviously limited by the screen size."

The infrastructure should be managed by experts in the field. As a company, you surely would not want confidential information to be available on the Internet via unsecured connections or to be stored online using unprotected cloud storage. And your employees should be able to work just as quickly as if they were at their normal workplace in your company's premises. "When choosing the right cloud services, it is extremely important that you go for data security and flexibility. After all, you are entrusting your data to an external IT partner who must also take care of them. In addition, your environment must also be very flexible in order to accommodate the necessary growth in the future", said Tim Van haudt.

"The first step towards working with and from the cloud may not always seem easy, but it is actually not that difficult. Companies often get the wrong idea about the cloud." - Tim Van haudt, CloudAtWork

Transitioning to the cloud is often considered a challenging task

The transition to a cloud-based working environment may seem like a very time-consuming and challenging process. That is why many companies have decided to postpone it before the coronavirus crisis happened. But if you choose a partner who has already converted 'the cloud' into ready-to-use products, there is really no need to wait any longer. CloudAtWork, for example, is a company from Rumst that provides integrated cloud solutions, tailored to the needs of each individual organisation.

A solution that includes a virtual desktop (Vdesk), a cloud e-mail service (via Microsoft 365 mail) and a cloud VoIP solution (Vphone). The third is a cloud-based telephone switchboard, which means you no longer need to spend a fortune on a physical switchboard, with the (expensive) maintenance contract that comes with it. The switchboard just runs in the cloud, and you can even deploy this solution across multiple locations.

CloudAtWork fully sets up the environment for these solutions, and provides ongoing support and optimisation. "When users log in to our web portal, they can access it via a secure connection. This can be done with or without two-factor authentication, according to the customer's choice. And from there, users can access their work environment, which is actually a replica of their local computer. There, they will find all the features and software that are also available on their local machine. The only difference is that the data are not stored locally on their personal computer, but in our secure data centre."

Combell itself is also offering some of these services directly to companies. Still, the role that CloudAtWork plays as an intermediary between the cloud and the organisation is crucial for many companies, as Tim Van haudt stresses. "Nowadays, companies actually have a very distorted image of what the cloud really is. We actually provide the bridge to Combell's IT platform, which we bring to the customer in a very user-friendly way. This means that it no longer really matters whether an employee is working from home, using his own device, or simply at the office. Together with Combell, we ensure a very smooth and safe transition to the cloud."

Together with Combell, we ensure a very smooth and safe transition to the cloud.

Combell is ready to accommodate growth in teleworking

Ensuring that employees who are working from home can access their data and work with cloud-based tools as quickly as if they were working in their normal workplace is no mean feat. It requires a robust infrastructure that can cope with the sudden peak caused by the massive number of people teleworking during the coronavirus crisis. And that increase was no easy task, as Wesley Hof from Combell explains: "Since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, we have actually seen that the number of home users on the CloudAtWork platform has quadrupled. For us, it is important to make sure that those home workers can always work efficiently, as quickly as if they were working at the office."

Thanks to its high-performance infrastructure and state-of-the-art data centres, Combell can guarantee that speed. All the data are protected in highly secure data centres, on our own servers, which also enable us to guarantee a high level of privacy and to comply with the GDPR.

Combell's hosting is also fully scalable, which means that the necessary CPU, RAM or storage space can be upgraded in the blink of an eye. Wesley Hof confirms: "It is our responsibility to ensure that the cloud services we provide are always flexible and scalable. We believe that, even once the coronavirus crisis is over, a large number of employees will continue to work from home. So we are simply making sure that we are ready to deal with that forthcoming peak."

Would you like to learn more about our solutions for working online? Or any other solution we provide? Feel free to browse our customer testimonials.

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