With more people working remotely, end users must have faster access to critical information. Edge environments move that critical information closer to the end user, thus making them more efficient. This is the same concept streaming services use to distribute content to their users.

Imagine watching a movie in New York, but its content sits in California. That movie would freeze and pause so many times during the viewing that you would probably turn it off. By moving that content to New York, your movie would play seamlessly and you would be more inclined to watch additional content from that streaming service.

These edge environments are important to your business today because they keep your coworkers productive and your customers coming back. I’m going to provide some guidance on the questions that need to be asked (and answered) when setting up your edge environments.

North American weather is impacted by what is known as “storm season.” This aligns with hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. These weather patterns can affect the entire country and they touch our commercial customers in many ways. Power can be disrupted by sudden severe weather conditions that can affect the power grid and produce downtime for your organization.

How can organizations prepare for storm season? Data centers and edge networks need enough capacity and secure endpoints for workers to access their files and applications from anywhere. Employees need access to cloud applications to take full advantage of collaboration tools available to them, and organizations need to protect their power. What follows are some key areas to focus on with storm season preparedness (and a solid work from home strategy), so your users will be able to stay productive and your organization stays functional.

Once upon a time — and not all that long ago — the data center was the only place for IT workloads to run. If an organization needed to process large amounts of data, that’s where it happened. But the emergence of the cloud, coupled with the rise of digital transformation and the Internet of…