Last week the unthinkable happened: Gmail crashed. Countless corporations that use Google for Work were affected.  

According to CNET, the outage — which occurred around 12 p.m. EST – lasted for more than one hour. Millions of users were impacted. The U.S. and the U.K. were the hardest-hit regions.  

It’s still unclear what caused the global Gmail outage. What is clear is that the outage led to a massive lapse in productivity across many different organizations. Users were unable to access critical business communications tools, and were locked out until service was restored around 1 p.m.

This, unfortunately, is the risk you take by working directly with a cloud communications provider. Most of the time, cloud-based applications will work flawlessly (assumiing you have a robust network in place). At the end of the day, however, it involves relying on a third party provider for your communications needs. When services suddenly stop working, it can be a nerve-wracking experience if you lack visibility into the issue at hand.

Sometimes, outages can last for an hour. Sometimes, they can last much longer.

You can reduce risk and increase peace of mind by partnering with a managed services provider (MSP) such as Apex Technology Services. Apex, for instance, offers hosted email services for managing Google Docs, Microsoft Office 365 and other leading cloud-based communications platforms.

An MSP can’t control network conditions for third party cloud providers. However, an MSP can help prevent your own network from causing unplanned outages in your organization. Your email servers will be fully managed and maintained by a team of certified experts.

A new breed of hacktrepeneurs has awoken and they have little to fear and everything to gain by infecting as many companies as possible and extorting money from them. Apex Technology Services stands ready to protect your company regardless of whether it’s located in New York City; White Plains, New York; Connecticut; Australia; Europe; or anywhere else. Our full suite of cybersecurity and IT support services is at your disposal, enabling you to spend less time worrying about and more time growing your business.

In addition, our new Cybersecurity Compliance Certification for law firms will help keep your legal practice from becoming the next Panama Papers victim. This baseline cybersecurity audit for the legal industry should be considered seriously by all law firms.