Remote work was not a popular subject until the COVID-19 pandemic. To keep operating while protecting employees and customers, companies were forced to adopt remote work. A year in, the global economy seems to have settled into remote work. However, this comes with a bag of challenges. Many companies struggle to optimize IT infrastructure for remote work while also lacking critical infrastructure monitoring tools.

Companies are forced to implement remote work policies to help employees strike a healthy work-life balance while optimizing productivity. Additionally, they need robust IT infrastructure for remote work to ensure seamless workflow and guard their systems against cyber threats. From cloud computing to communication, data backup and recovery tools, and network security solutions, organizations need to beef up their infrastructure to guarantee successful remote working.

Cyber threats remain one of the biggest risks even in ordinary office work setups. With employees working from different stations, the risk of exposure to cyber attacks increases. As such, remote work is bound to keep IT specialists on their toes to ensure businesses run smoothly and safely.

In this article, we discuss some best practices for optimizing IT infrastructure for remote work. Let’s dive in.

Train the Workers
The effectiveness of any IT infrastructure for remote work depends on the competence of its users. Whether it’s knowing how to use communication apps, observing basic online safety best practices, or identifying threats, a well-informed system user is a crucial part of the infrastructure’s success.

Ensure you develop processes and provide adequate training for all users. Then, create a portal where they can easily access the training resources for future reference. This way, you can guarantee consistent workflow while empowering staff to seal any loopholes that may expose the system to attacks.

Tighten Security Using Two-Factor Authentication
Ensuring all system log-ins have strong passwords is one step to seal the system’s security. However, this doesn’t eliminate the risk of unauthorized access by a sophisticated hacker. To keep company data safe from unauthorized users, ensure you implement and recommend the use of two-factor authentication. With the staff working away from the office, company data is under threat from online and offline sources. Since you cannot control the employees’ remote environments, implementing the two-factor authentication ensures only the account holder can log in to the system.

Implement Secure Connectivity
The more users connect to your system from different locations, the more you are exposed to attacks. As such, connections must be made through a virtual private network (VPN) to encrypt communications to the company’s server. Either a secure sockets layer (SSL) or internet protocol security can help safeguard the system.

Step-Up Your Cyber Security
Cyber attacks pose a threat to even the most robust IT infrastructure for remote work. As we have already noted, remote work increases a company’s exposure to attacks. Therefore, it’s essential to stay on top of your system’s safety by implementing cybersecurity best practices at all levels. Ensure all work devices are protected with reliable firewalls and antivirus software.

Provide the Right Tools
Providing remote workers with tools that boost productivity is essential in achieving optimal infrastructure output. For instance, ensuring they have the right tools for communication and collaboration can go a long way in fostering smooth workflows.

It’s also crucial to make sure the tools in use are from reputable providers with tight security protocols. Additionally, you should always keep apps and software up-to-date to minimize the risk of security attacks.

Invest in Comprehensive IT Solutions
Every IT solution seeks to increase efficiency and help businesses attain higher levels of productivity. As much as having many applications may improve business processes, managing all of them can be overwhelming. This can even derail progress when it comes to remote work. For this reason, it would help to invest in a single, comprehensive IT solution that allows for monitoring of the entire IT infrastructure, such as DX Infrastructure Manager by Broadcom.

Use Advanced Infrastructure Monitoring Tools
Constant monitoring of IT infrastructure is vital in guaranteeing the system’s security and smooth operations, especially for remote working. That’s why companies need a single, analytics-driven infrastructure monitoring tool like DX Infrastructure Manager. This highly-advanced infrastructure monitoring solution helps manage traditional data center and hybrid cloud environments across the IT stack. It helps teams spot developing issues, detect anomalies, and improve triage time.

Investing in infrastructure monitoring tools like DX Infrastructure Manager can give companies the full stack observability needed to ensure operations are in tact at all times and all situations, helping to optimize IT infrastructure for remote work and beyond.

Next Steps
Need to optimize your IT infrastructure and boost work productivity? Learn how DX Infrastructure Manager can help! Contact us for more information or to request a demo.