Apr 22, 2016 | News, SMB Technology, Technology News
Most businesses need a Backup and Disaster Recovery plan. Disasters like fire, flood, earthquake, and more can bring your systems to a halt. Systems including order processing, invoicing, emails, call center, and business phone are critical for daily operations. Without a Backup and Disaster Recovery plan, organizations that encounter a disaster run the risk of going out of business. Here are some tips for getting your Backup and Disaster Recovery plan in place. Consider Risk of Downtime Understanding your business risk in the event of a disaster–and related downtime, data loss and other factors–is a good place to start. Factor in loss of productivity from your employees. This can be quantified by calculating employee salaries, wages and overhead for every hour of downtime. You can also calculate loss of revenue if you are unable to process orders, have to disrupt manufacturing, or lose the ability to fulfill customer demand. Also, add in any long-term damage from loss of reputation if you were to suffer a long-term outage. These costs easily add up to impact your company’s bottom line in the case of a disaster recovery scenario. Build Your Backup and Disaster Recovery Plan Not all data is mission critical. Some systems may be more critical than others to get your company back operationally. Determine which systems are most important to your daily operations. Decide how much risk you are willing to take in terms of hours, days or weeks of downtime. Systems that keep your employees productive and revenue flowing in your business may need to take priority. You may need redundant failover for phones, email and order processing...
Mar 23, 2016 | News, SMB Technology, Technology News
More and more, we hear of security breaches that are derailing business’s activities, whether such problems are malicious software (“malware”) designed to grab privacy information from an employee, a computer crash or even a natural disaster such as an earthquake. A data breach can put customers’ personal information in peril, thereby causing embarrassment and even costing steep fines. This is why it is important to hire a reputable IT managed service provider before you need one. Businesses rely on their IT systems to do day-to-day business, and most of the time, things go as they should. But what about when they don’t? Proactive IT Support is Worry Free Taking a proactive approach to IT assistance is key. Before you need one, find a reputable IT provider. With your IT provider, draw up a managed service agreement/service level agreement so you know what services they will take care of – remote and local backup, recovering lost and corrupted files, network security updates and even unforeseen computer repairs. Keeping systems up to date will help prevent downtime. Proactive IT support converts the unexpected costs of reactive problem-solving into the more stable, budget-friendly cost of preventive maintenance and support. With fixed-price IT support, there are no surprises that can play havoc with the company’s budget and productivity. Aligning Your IT Service Delivery Costs With Business Value By fixing IT Service costs with an IT Managed Service agreement, your service provider has incentive to proactively ensure everything is working smoothly. Instead of billing by the hour related to problems, a fixed-priced arrangement covers most incidents. It is in the best interest of your...
Jan 11, 2016 | News, SMB Technology, Technology News
Migrating to the Cloud can be bumpy if you are not prepared. Chances are you have already started migrating to the Cloud. Without realizing it, you may be accessing the Cloud by using mobile and web based applications and services that store and share your data from the Cloud. According to International Data Corporation, (IDC) public IT Cloud services (SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS) spending will reach $127 billion in 2018. The Cloud will outpace the total IT market at a rate of more than five times. With this shift, companies are migrating to the Cloud at a rapid pace, so it is important to plan your Cloud migration to avoid any unnecessary turbulence. Low Hanging Fruit for Cloud Migration Many applications lend themselves to Cloud migration. Communications and collaboration applications including Email, Voice and Web conferencing are great places to start your Cloud Migration. The Cloud can offer a secure, reliable and affordable alternative to maintaining these systems on premise. Along with providing additional capability, such as, File Sync and Sharing, previously unavailable from premise based solutions. Many companies have started their Cloud migrations with these subscription services to gain quick benefits from Cloud Computing. Planning Your Cloud Migration Moving your applications and their data to the Cloud, along with reliable data protection and online backup, should be carefully planned. First, determine which applications are candidates for Cloud Computing. When moving files, applications and back ups for data protection to the Cloud, consider your data volumes and network bandwidth. When this business infrastructure is in the Cloud you will need reliable connectivity to access critical information. Maintaining Security in...
Dec 14, 2015 | News, SMB Technology, Technology News
Are your IT Systems on the naughty or nice list? Do you proactively monitor your networks for compliance, cyberthreat and performance? Are your data back ups up to date? Have you begun your migration to the Cloud? Are you getting the most from your broadband network? Have you trained your employees on the risks of cybersecurity attacks and do they change their passwords regularly? Here is a list of things to add to your list of New Year’s resolutions for 2016. Proactive Network Monitoring Your networks shouldbe periodically monitored to ensure application and operating system (O/S) patches are up to date. In addition, you should maintain your anit-virus definitions and keep your malware threat detection up to date. By doing so, you could prevent an unwanted cybersecurity breach and data loss. Worse, loss of reputation resulting from data leaks or loss. Beyond Backup There are a variety of remote back and data protection solutions to ensure you can recover your systems to keep your business running. It is a good idea to test those backups periodically to ensure you can restore your data quickly. May older tape backup solutions can be slow and unreliable. What’s more, there are many new file sync and sharing solutions allowing your employees to securely access information anywhere. We put more and more reliance on our applications to run our daily operations, so make sure your data is protected in 2016. Lift Your Business to the Cloud Cloud Solutions offer many advantages over premise based systems. Using subscription based services help ensure you are always on the latest version, what’s more, you can shift...
Dec 8, 2015 | News, SMB Technology, Technology News
Having a Business Continuity Plan is an important way to ensure your company can operate during and after a disaster. By assessing your business risk, you are able to protect your company and minimize downtime that may occur from unplanned business interruptions. Natural disasters including fire, earthquake, flooding and snowstorms can slow or halt operations. In addition, other threats including cyber attacks and data leaks can cause unplanned disruptions to your business. The impact of prolonged unplanned downtime can be reduced and or eliminated, but at what cost? Here are three things to consider when developing your Business Continuity Plan. What is Your Cost of Downtime? To develop a Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan it is imperative to evaluate your risk of loss from downtime and business interruption. There are many factors to consider when calculating the risk of loss due to downtime. How much revenue would you lose per hour, day or week if your business was off line and you were unable to process orders? Could your inventory lose value if your factory, warehouse or retail operation were shut down? If you suffered a privacy breach what would be the impact to your company’s reputation? The risks and costs are different for each company based on industry, size and other factors. Start by assessing the risk to determine how quickly you need to react during and after a disruption. How Fast do You Need to Recover (RTO vs RPO)? The cost of downtime to your business is expensive. It is important to evaluate which applications and data are critical to your operations. During or after a...
