Best practices in IT according to Google Cloud during a pandemic

Bearing in mind team’s safety and awareness of the threat of the spread of SARS-CoV-2 virus, we have prepared an article covering the best practices according to Google Cloud, which will ensure business continuity with care for the lives and health of employees during this time. An undeniable advantage is a work in a distributed structure – that’s how we work at LCloud. Each of our employees works remotely from home (or office if the situation allows it). 

For the sake of the good of the team, when you work in the office, you should minimize the risks associated with conducting meetings and move them, if possible, to the virtual space. It is also important to consider the possibility of the absence of employees who could potentially become infected.

In this situation, it’s worth thinking about:

• implementation of appropriate rules and policies in case of unavailability of some team members.
• analyzing the possibilities of extending working hours and planning changes in the schedule when a crisis occurs.
• communication and training of employees when the Google Cloud region becomes unavailable.
• preparing for unexpected situations, related not only to the infection but also to e.g. the necessary child care performed by team members, which can reduce the team’s productive time.
• postponing technical tasks that can be performed later.

When the work in the office is transferred to home, it is worth remembering that:

• It is possible that the business hours will change.
• Peak workloads can become sudden, more unpredictable and more significant than usual. It is worth conducting a company test, during which everyone from the team would use video conferencing tools and other tools for remote work.
• Appropriate preparation after the test will avoid major failures during real, serious problems. 
• During the mandatory evacuation of commercial buildings, it is worth taking care of the equipment. During a pandemic, repairing it can have a significant impact on your ability to do work.
• Services providing Disaster Recovery are working properly.
• Ensure that physical data centres have their Disaster Recovery in other regions. 
• After testing your remote work tools, you need to test the most difficult procedures that usually take place in the office. This will allow you to identify the resources you need to prepare to work from home. In addition, it is worth securing connections to company resources through a secure VPN connection and consider implementing the Zero Trust policy model.

It’s good to put team safety above all else. However, technical issues are equally important.

It is therefore advisable to review available remote work tools, resources and capabilities. They will allow you to plan work and ensure the possibility of supporting processes in the company.

Also, keep in mind that some behavioural patterns may change. To implement and test solutions that affect a partial decrease in quality. It is important to understand what has an impact on delays in the supply chain – whether it is a matter of delivering the product to shelves or hiring new employees.

In all the processes described, cloud computing can help in an extraordinary way and that previously impossible processes will become real.  So consider applying to your organization.