Not only can Microsoft Dynamics GP be deployed in the cloud, but so can Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and both can be readily integrated with each other and with Microsoft Office 365 to form one super-solution. Indeed, these separate Microsoft solutions integrate more tightly with each other than they do with other solutions, so that they can seem less like “separate” solutions at all, and more like parts of a tremendous whole. By now, everyone knows the advantages of the cloud, and the only real objection left is concerns over security. Are these concerns legitimate?
Skyhigh Networks, maker of a third party security solution, has recently released “Cloud Adoption & Risk Report Q4 2015.” According to Skyhigh, studies have shown that businesses taking advantage of productivity-enhancing cloud services grow 19.6% faster than their counterparts that don’t. That’s a big reason to consider the cloud right there. The report finds that Microsoft Office 365 is the top enterprise cloud service, as well as the most popular collaboration service.
On the issue of security, the report is full of worrisome findings, such as this tidbit: 76.3% of all organizations have at least 1 incidence of a compromised account per month. And the average organization experiences 9.3 incidences of insider threat per month. 15.8% of all documents uploaded to cloud-based file sharing services contained sensitive information, and the majority of these files are Microsoft Office documents.
Of course, the fact that so much sensitive data is being uploaded to the cloud via Microsoft Office 365 is itself a testament to the strength of Microsoft’s security. Security concerns here originate with users, the most serious concern being account compromise. One major tool to combat this problem is multi-factor authentication, and Office 365 is one of the 18% of cloud services that offers it. When multi-factor authentication is enabled in Office 365, users are required to use their phones as further authentication. This way, data infiltrators cannot access an account by simply getting a user’s password: they would need to get that user’s phone as well.
