For the first time in history, working remotely became mandatory (if possible to do so) during the first lockdown restrictions of 2020, due to Covid-19. It is certain that many businesses are now thinking of allowing flexible working after the restrictions will finally be lifted.

Although the rollout rhythm of vaccinations is stepping up the pace, a better work-life balance for employees and savings on costs for businesses are the main motivators for this new strategy approach. Not fully coming back to the office as we used to do before and adopting this new hybrid working environment, though, will come with additional challenges - one of them being how to improve employees' equipment where productivity is affected by IT hardware at the end of its lifespan.

With businesses now trying to 'do more with less' and with their overall budgets reduced, they need to think of another approach regarding how to face it and the decision may come to upgrade, rather than replace, some or all affected hardware. By doing so, they are also embedding circular economy value principals by optimising the assets they already have and getting more out of their existing technology infrastructure.

STEPPING UP LAPTOP AND PC PERFORMANCE
Memory and SSD upgrades offer cost-effective means to significantly increase laptop and PC performance. Just to give a couple of examples, a memory improvement could help the system operate much faster and define the quality of video calls, as well as supporting the ability to multi-task with slides and sharing screens and media when presenting, all of them critical when working from home.

Likewise, replacing a traditional hard disk with an SSD results in much quicker boot and application load times, which can again improve responsiveness considerably. This can go a long way to solving frustration with older computers, so team members will be able to get on with their jobs easier.

What's more, compared to their hard disc counterparts, SSDs offer better reliability, cooler and quieter running, all while consuming less power. Kingston's entry-level SSDs are 10x faster than a spinning hard drive. We are now seeing the next SSD evolution from SATA to NVMe. With this approach, businesses can enable cost-optimised incremental innovation that grows when they do.

The other challenge is to improve data security while working from home. It is not the same to be connected to the internet at home as when doing that in the office's premises. The first group is exposed to major security risks. So, the first thing would be to ensure that the employees are connected through a VPN, and verify the IT equipment they use has the latest operating system and an updated antivirus software.

TWO-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION AND HARDWARE ENCRYPTION
Business computers should have minimum security levels implemented by IT specialists, like, for example, a two-factor authentication to the system. They should be equipped with encrypted SSDs, and the use of encrypted USB drives for transferring data should be mandatory. These two solutions would allow a safety storage for employees while working remotely and the data they are handling would be secure whilst having immediate access to it.

Especially with a hybrid work environment in mind as a feasible setting for the future, where the work will be carried out combining both at home and back to the office premises, the human factor still plays a singular role, and it could be even easier to accidentally mishandle customer data while commuting between one place and the other.

Encryption could be built into the operating system, but software encryption incurs a processing performance hit that can slow down a computer, particularly when used on external storage devices.

Robert Allen, Director of Marketing & Technical Services at Kingston Technology Europe.

Alternatively, hardware encryption built directly into a storage device shifts the load away from the computer and keeps data secure in the background. Neil Cattermull, CEO at The Future as a Service and key security influencer, agrees - "hardware encryption built into the drive itself offers better overall performance and more robust security".

Hardware encryption offers more robust security measures than software encryption alone, since the encryption and authentication process stay within the device itself, rather than separating it from the rest of the system. The time it takes to encrypt/decrypt the information is far shorter when using a hardware-based encrypted device than when using software encryption. This means that the encryption process is not taking valuable bandwidth away, which gives a further performance boost for other applications with less time to encrypt and decrypt the data.

FUTURE-PROOFING THE IT ESTATE
The perfect solution then would be to replace older equipment with encrypted SSDs, which would boost performance of older devices, while protecting the corporate data at the same time - a cost-effective way of futureproofing the IT estate, as well as offering performance benefits while also providing a further tool to enhance the business security policy. If the use of encrypted USBs were also added as an additional layer of security to mobile data, businesses would be able to ensure their corporate data are protected in the shift from home working to even more mobile working.

Also, in the event of lost or stolen devices, confidential data would remain safe. Encrypted devices wouldn't be accessed by unauthorised people and enterprise set-up would allow IT admins to remotely wipe the data on the encrypted USB or encrypted SSDs.

In the process of implementing an asset refresh, though, it is key to ensure the process is handled through a trusted partnership. Having the right technology in place matters, but it matters most to receive the right advice from experts with more than 30 years' experience in the field. Our 'Ask An Expert' approach is focused on facilitation, guiding businesses through the choices available, given their specific technology infrastructure context.

SECURE WORKING
With the storage market, choosing the right solution for a given problem may not be straightforward, considering the technical requirements involved. Kingston is with you to secure your data, no matter what your specific storage environment might be, to ensure your business is working securely both remotely and on the go. This is a philosophy that applies to the company's full portfolio to communicate the advice, support and high quality our products offer, highlighting the pre-sales advice service and the after-sales support customers can expect.

The gradual shift to WFH that we will see coming to stay in the future is a good time to consider simultaneous improvements to data security and better storage performance. Choosing to upgrade is a way to roll out encryption across an organisation, without the need to invest in an entirely new computer, and we will continue supporting businesses, whatever their security and storage needs are.