Virtually every sector has been impacted by COVID-19, but the higher and further education sector has been hit especially hard, with staff, students and administrative staff feeling its effects. Institutes of learning are still exploring the ways technology can open up new channels of learning and engagement for students. This will not only futureproof their establishments, but do so in a cost-effective way that provides them with the agility to swiftly adapt to any future economic changes, including the likes of a COVID-scale crisis.

With research from the IDC estimating that 80% of the data created by 2025 will be unstructured [1], businesses need to ensure they have an affordable storage solution for such high volumes of data. A simple, cost-effective solution that businesses can utilise to this effect is Cloud Object Storage, which stores petabytes of data in the Cloud as 'objects'.

We see over and over again how COVID-19 is transforming the way we work and connect with each other. Employees across virtually every industry are now working effectively from home, even if such an arrangement would have been unthinkable at the start of this year. It's been extremely heartening to see the range of innovations that have been embraced in response to the crisis, but it's important not to forget the foundations of your IT infrastructure as you explore these solutions. For example, consider how you are backing up and storing the lifeblood of your organisation: your data.

The level of performance and resilience organisations demand from their networks has increased several-fold in the wake of COVID-19. The rapid transition to a fully distributed workforce has not only placed considerable demands on networks in terms of raw performance, but also the resilience needed to adapt to the unexpected with minimal disruption to data security, internal processes or the customer and user experience.While we have certainly seen some considerable successes in this area, there is still work to be done if this new way of working is able to provide companies with the agility, security and scalability they need to adapt and thrive going forward.

Over the past few months, video calling has exploded in both our personal and professional lives. We not only rely on regular calls to stay connected with our loved ones during this time of lockdown, but have come to depend on it as a primary mode of communication at work, in order to maintain the same standards of collaboration and interaction that we experienced in the office. Indeed, the number of people using video calling on a regular basis has increased by 87% over the past two years[1], and shows no sign of slowing down.

Our lives are more interconnected than ever, with everything from televisions to fridges, kettles, cars and even doors and windows now able to be linked together over the internet. Having long since moved on from being just an intriguing concept, the Internet of Things (IoT) is very much here to stay, with devices like Bluetooth headphones and the Amazon Alexa now omnipresent in many people's lives. But while these 'smart' devices are often convenient and fun, they do present a number of concerns regarding security.

There's no doubt that home working is here to stay. While it may have initially been deployed at large scale out of necessity, in response to COVID-19, it is clear that we are witnessing the dawn of a fully distributed workforce. However, as organisations continue to invest in new solutions to drive this change, it's important to remember that these are still the early days. We've never seen home working at this sort of scale, which means we need to establish a new standard of best practice and - equally importantly - the technology to support this.

Throughout the past few months, we have seen organisations' internal teams forced to adapt their processes, infrastructure and strategies in ways that would previously have been inconceivable. Key to the success of this process has been the support of external service providers, who have complemented companies' internal expertise and freed IT teams to focus their attention where it is most needed. As it becomes clear that the distributed workforce is here to stay, such partnerships are going to be more important than ever moving forward.

Cloud adoption has been rising year by year for some time now, with Gartner predicting this trend to accelerate beyond 2020. It has long moved on from its earliest days, where it was largely regarded as an intriguing concept but unsuitable for enterprise-level applications. Now, with a wide range of options available - including Public, Private and Hybrid solutions - it has become a highly attractive prospect for organisations at all levels, especially against the backdrop of COVID-19 and the resulting advancement of remote working. While these trends are very much the latest stage in a long process of transformation, the pandemic has undoubtedly been the catalyst behind much recent Cloud adoption, as organisations accelerate their journeys towards a distributed workforce. So, where does that leave us in terms of the biggest question: "Is Cloud right for my organisation?"

It's been 11 weeks since the UK went into lockdown and for those of us that are lucky enough to be able to work from home, the novelty may be starting to wear off. As screen time reaches an all-time high, the reality of technology and phone calls being our only method of communication with our friends, customers, partners and colleagues can be tiresome.

The past few months have certainly been challenging for businesses all over the UK - from start-ups to established industry leaders. Organisations have found themselves adapting to the demands of a remote workforce virtually overnight, deploying communications solutions to enable their teams to engage with both each other and their customers. While it's true that this technology has been available for a while now, it has never been deployed at this scale before. This has presented a range of challenges when it comes to infrastructure, but these are only part of the picture.

"The world will never be the same after Coronavirus…"I kept hearing this phrase a few weeks ago and had no idea why people were saying it. Why would the world never be the same again? It didn't make any sense to me, surely once this is over it will all go back to the same way it was before, right? Wrong.