Digital Aspirations in Business Aspire Technology Partners

A recent PWC survey revealed that 64% of CISOs and CIOs expect a jump in reportable ransomware and software supply chain incidents in the second half of 2021. It’s a problem exacerbated by the unique cyber threats that occur when entire industries shift overnight to remote or hybrid work models.

As security engineers look to protect their companies from the pandemic-induced challenges, cloud-based and zero trust solutions have emerged as practices worth implementing. We discussed the cybersecurity conundrum on a recent episode of the Digital Aspirations in Business podcast.

Here are the major topics covered in our conversation:


What are the most pertinent threats in today’s landscape?
What is zero trust, and how can mid-size companies implement zero trust principles?
What tools are needed to effectively monitor security incidents?

Security challenges can quickly become difficult to manage – especially if you direct technology for a K12 or SMB organization where you can be wearing multiple IT hats. The threat landscape is constantly evolving. And with COVID, and work from home, accelerating cloud adoption, your network has become more complex as well. What you need is a simple, straightforward way to view security threats to your network and take action to prevent, protect and remediate any damage these threats might cause.

That’s why we are discussing ways to simplify security for small and mid-sized organizations in this episode of the Digital Aspirations for Business podcast. Host Doug Stevens and his guest Michael O’Connell, Security Solutions Architect at Aspire Technology Partners, discuss security threats like ransomware, adware, phishing, and botnets and how small to mid-size organizations can prepare and defend themselves using simple cloud-based tools.

Every enterprise uses some type of firewall to protect and prevent outside threats from entering the network. But today’s network is larger and more ambiguous than it was even a few months ago. You’re supporting a hybrid workplace that can change in real time. Your enterprise requires a firewall that can adapt and integrate with your other cloud security services. A cloud-delivered firewall provides your organization with visibility and control of traffic no matter it originates – HQ, branch office, or remote location. And it provides your IT team with a single pane of glass to cloud-deliver policies and simplify management.

On this episode of The Digital Aspirations in Business Podcast, host Michael O’Connell a Security Solutions Architect at Aspire Technology Partners, discuss how Cisco Umbrella Secure Internet Gateway (SIG) Firewall can protect your enterprise via a next-gen, cloud-delivered security service.

Your enterprise is facing a dilemma right now when it comes to security. On one hand, you’re likely supporting a hybrid workplace that requires anywhere, anytime internet access. You may have employees at the office and others working remotely from homes and smaller branch offices. This can make for an ever-expanding attack surface that requires greater support and more flexible security than you can provide with point solutions. You need to protect internet access across your network devices no matter where employees are working, that includes the corporate headquarters, a branch office, or grabbing a coffee at Starbucks. And you want to do that with a single, manageable solution.

On this episode of The Digital Aspirations in Business Podcast, host Michael O’Connell a Security Solutions Architect at Aspire Technology Partners, discuss how Cisco Umbrella Secure Internet Gateway (SIG) can cut complexity, reduce risk exposure, and improve network performance with a single cloud-delivered service that deploys easily and scales according with your business.

In the first part of our podcast we discussed how the new hybrid workplace – remote and on-prem – needs a scalable and manageable VDI solution. We talked about how Aspire, along with partners Cisco and NetApp, are helping IT teams deploy and mange large numbers of virtual desktops to enable remote VDI access to corporate resources. In this episode, the second part of our series, we take a deeper dive into the types of management tools for consideration by IT teams tasked with supporting a remote + on-prem workforce.

Join us for part two of the podcast with host Chistian Chavez, Solutions Architect at Aspire Technology Partners, and his industry pro guests – Brad TerEick, Cloud Infrastructure & Software Architect at Cisco, and Chuck Foley, Senior Director at NetApp. The trio discusses VDS or Virtual Desktop Service, which is a SaaS-delivered global control solution that can deploy, manage, and optimize your VDI environment, and Intersight Workload Optimizer, a SaaS-delivered real-time decision engine that works to increase performance of both public and private cloud environments. Get your notepads handy – there’s a lot to be learned in this episode!

If there is one word to describe the state of VDI today, that word is “scale.” Many companies were using virtual desktops in some limited capacity before 2020, but today, the wide-scale adoption of remote workplaces means that IT teams are often scrambling to provide access to corporate networks, storage, and other resources. Most organizations were not prepared to have dozens, hundreds and thousands of workers now remote and requiring access to on-premise resources. Providing and managing that remote VDI access to corporate resources is the topic of our Digital Aspirations in Business two-part podcast.

Join us for part one of the podcast as host Chistian Chavez, Solutions Architect at Aspire Technology Partners, leads a far-ranging discussion with two industry pros – Brad TerEick, Cloud Infrastructure & Software Architect at Cisco, and Chuck Foley, Senior Director at NetApp. The trio discuss how the recent shift to hybrid working has made many organizations consider scaling VDI across the enterprise and how, along with workplace flexibility, this can become an IT management nightmare if not properly handled.