As the new year kicks off, many business owners and entrepreneurs are making their New Year’s resolutions. Most of these business owners will be focused on increasing profits or expanding growth, but it would be wise to focus on some IT- or tech-related resolutions as well.
Making sure that you are up-to-date on the most recent tech and security measures can go a long way toward growing and protecting your business.
While many companies make goals or resolutions that they hope to achieve in the new year, plenty of businesses fail to meet these goals because they do not take the steps necessary to achieve them. It often takes time and determination to make these resolutions a reality, and business owners should not quit when the situations become stale or difficult.
"MSPs allow for predictable monthly costs and better security, but they truly have a plethora of benefits"
Here are our three best IT and tech resolutions for business owners to make for the new year, and how to make sure you achieve them. These resolutions will support business’ growth goals and will help business owners achieve them.
Employee Security Training And Creating A Security Safe Culture
If your employees have not had any security awareness training, you should make it your focus to ensure that everyone is informed about potential information security breaches.
Research suggests that human error is involved in over 90% of security breaches
By providing security awareness training to your employees, you will teach them how to avoid mistakes that could leave the business at risk. Not only will this help your employees be more aware of security, but it will make your customers feel more comfortable and confident when working with your company.
There are other benefits to holding security awareness training for your team, and one of the best is that you will be taking your first steps in creating a culture based around tech security. You will be introducing your team to the importance of information security, which they will effectively use to fortify your cyber-defenses.
When new employees are brought in, set aside some time for them to have security awareness training so they are enveloped in the culture from day one.
By putting together a plan where every employee is introduced to information security awareness, your company will be less at risk for breaches and threats made possible by human error.
We at QWERTY take care of security proactively by setting up a continuous training program for employees. It will teach them how to prevent falling victims to hackers with interactive videos and scoring so you can also keep track on their progress. For more information of our cyber security training program go to our Cybersecurity section
Utilize A Managed Services Provider
The MSP industry has seen immense growth over the past five years. The market was valued at over $152 billion in 2017 and is expected to rise to $257 billion by the end of 2022.
MSPs allow for predictable monthly costs and better security practices, but they truly have a plethora of benefits.
If your computer breaks or shuts down, MSPs have the ability to not only fix it but also go above and beyond the usual tech support. Some MSPs will work with your business to understand your goals and find better ways to achieve them.
MSPs are also raising their tech game. Yes, they can help with problems related to e-mail, web and file searching, but they are also available for more advanced needs, like cloud infrastructure management.
If you’re still working with a basic IT service, look into using an MSP instead. They will help with your usual tech problems while also providing you with the resources needed to achieve your goals.
For more information on how we, as an MSP, can help your business achieve its goals by supporting its technology needs, take a look at our services in the top menu of this webpage or go to our plans section.
Back Up Your Data
Data is an essential part of any business, and it’s imperative that every business owner makes an effort to back up their data. If important files are damaged or deleted or a disaster causes your business to lose important data, data backups can prevent business interruptions.
It becomes even more important when dealing with clients’ information.
Imagine that you’re a customer who has been making transactions with a business for years. They may have your address, phone number, e-mail address and sometimes even your Social Security number, but one day, you call and they no longer have your information on file. You probably wouldn’t feel too secure giving this company that information again if they already lost it the first time. This is how your clients will feel if they have to provide their information again after data loss that could have been prevented by backing up your data.
Your business should have a data backup and disaster recovery plan set up so your business avoid downtime and keep running. For more information on how to back up your data and set up a robust plan, visit our cloud backup and disaster recovery section.
As you plan out your goals and resolutions to incorporate in 2022, don’t forget to include IT and tech goals as well. Not only will they save you money in the long run, but they will also grant you peace of mind. Make a plan, overcome any obstacles and don’t lose hope if it looks like you need more than a year to accomplish your goals.
Did you know that 68% of businesses in the United States don't have a disaster recovery plan in place? This is an alarming figure, considering that 93% of those will go out of business within a year of experiencing a data disaster.
A data disaster is an event that renders your business unavailable to access its data, affecting its operation. It can be originated by a natural event like a hurricane or a tornado, or it could be a manmade event like a cyberattack.
Losing access to your business's data in this day and age could very well mean losing everything. That means that data becomes an increasingly important commodity to businesses of all types and sizes. It also becomes relevant to have a plan for if or when your business experiences a data disaster.
You may feel lost when thinking about protecting your business against a data disaster might be daunting. Don't worry. By following the steps listed below in this article, you can make sure that your business is ready to take on the challenge.
However, before we get into those steps, there is one distinction you should understand: the difference between a business continuity plan and a disaster recovery plan.
A business continuity plan is a strategy by which a business can continue to operate no matter what kind of disaster or setback befalls it. It is, in essence, proactive.
A disaster recovery plan is primarily reactive. It has to do with how a business acts immediately following a disaster of some sort – in this case, a data disaster. It is a plan set up for the what if cases.
Now that we're clear on what a disaster recovery plan is, here are the steps your business can take to create one that works for you and your business.
Step 1: Rally The Troops And Assess Your Equipment
In the fight against data disasters, everyone has to be on board. Otherwise, there will always be holes in your defense plan. That's why executive buy-in – getting everyone in the company, from the CEO to the entry-level employees – is crucial. You need everyone to collaborate cross-functionally to protect your business entirely.
From there, you need to thoroughly analyze each of your business's systems, applications, and data sets, as well as how they are physically accessed. This will help you identify and map any potential vulnerabilities.
Then you should determine which systems are absolutely critical to the operation of your business and for getting products and services to your customers. These are the functions that will need to stay up and running, even after a data disaster.
"68% of businesses in the United States don't have a disaster recovery plan in place."
Step 2: Create Your Disaster Recovery Strategy
Once you have everyone on board and an understanding of your equipment and assets (as well as their vulnerabilities), it's time to formulate your disaster recovery plan. To do this, you should confirm your budget, resources, tools, and partners in this endeavor. When you understand how long it takes your business to get back online and the cost of doing so, you will have a good idea of how to move forward.
Step 3: Test Your Strategy
No great plan is complete without first testing it to see if it will work. Put your disaster recovery plan through a trial run to see how quickly your team responds to solve the problem.
Also, look for any improvements that need to be made to the process.
By the time an actual data disaster occurs, your business will know how to take care of it and keep running with no problem at all, or at least minor inconvenience.
While the steps themselves aren't difficult to understand, preparing your business to combat data disasters takes a lot of work. In the end, though, the work is worth it if it means protecting your data and your business along with it.
As a recap, here are the four main action steps that you need to take in formulating a disaster recovery plan:
1. Get executive buy-in for creating a disaster recovery plan.
2. Analyze and evaluate your business's systems, applications, and data to understand how a data disaster could impact them.
3. Find out which systems you need to keep running and prioritize them during the fallout of the data disaster.
4. Test your disaster recovery plan before you actually need to put it into action.
We hope that these steps can help you prepare for a data disaster so your business's data is safe from any threat that comes your way.
Also, we can accompany you each step of the road of setting a complete disaster recovery plan for your business (or even do it for you); contact us.
Want to know more about how managed IT services can help you keep your business protected with a disaster recovery plan? Check our cloud backup and disaster recovery services here.
The dog days of summer are here, and it’s hot out!
Homeowners and business owners alike are bracing for their upcoming power bills as they run their air conditioners around the clock trying to keep cool.
But for many business owners, it’s not just about keeping your team cool – it’s also about keeping your technology cool.
Every piece of technology you use is susceptible to heat damage.
Sometimes they overheat due to internal issues. Maybe they’re processing a lot of data. Or maybe the internal cooling system isn’t enough.
But they can also overheat due to external issues, such as high summer temperatures and inadequate air conditioning.
If heat overwhelms your systems, it has the potential to knock out your business.
If computers go down or servers can’t run efficiently due to heat, it can be a costly disaster. The average computer is built to work in external temperatures of 50 to 82 degrees Fahrenheit.
Laptops and tablets can handle 50 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit.
Every business should be aware of just how much damage heat can cause.
For example, heat can damage individual components in your devices. There are records of graphic cards bursting into flame as a result of overheating and heat-related electrical issues.
These components are designed to withstand high heat, but they can only take so much.
Heat can also disrupt productivity.
It’s one thing if your business is warmer than usual and you have fans running. It can make work harder. But heat slows down devices. They cannot run as efficiently and, as a result, programs and apps will struggle to run.
In some cases, they might not be able to run at all because they require a certain amount of data processing that is negatively impacted by too much heat.
If your systems are disrupted or damaged, you can also lose critical data.
Heat can damage hard drives and solid-state disk drives, leaving you without access to your data. Sometimes, with proper cooling, this data can be recovered, but if the heat and damage persist, the data may be unrecoverable if you don’t have a backup.
What’s the next step?
Every business needs to fully understand its cooling needs. It’s one thing to cool people working in an office. It’s something else entirely to cool a server room.
Ask yourself questions like:
Does your business have adequate and efficient air conditioning?
Does your technology (such as a computer or server room) have adequate air conditioning?
Do individual devices have adequate cooling (have employees complained about weird app slowdowns)?
On top of this, it’s critical to ask questions about your data security needs:
Do you keep all of your data on-site?
Is your data protected from natural disaster or outside intrusion (have you invested in cyber security)?
Do you have a plan if your data is damaged or lost?
Do you routinely back up your data to the cloud or another off-site solution?
You never have to compromise your data or your business. There are countless solutions on the market today to help you protect your most valuable assets – and to help with your technology cooling needs.
As you navigate the dog days of summer, remember you have options. A managed services provider (MSP) or an experienced IT services firm can help you determine if your tech is as cool as it should be.
They can help you ensure the longevity of your technology and keep your data safe.
Depending where your business is located, the risk attached natural disasters can vary. To help, here is a survival reference guide to ensure your business can weather any storm. Since it is hurricane season, let's use hurricanes as a point of reference for this guide. Hurricanes and tropical storms wreak havoc through a combination of heavy wind and rain. They may also be accompanied by surging tides that flood that affected area.
The impact
Hurricanes and tropical storms impact businesses in the following 3 ways:
Damage to the facility due to high winds, flooding, and objects that become high-speed projectiles capable of smashing through windows, roofs and other structures.
Extended power outages, road closures, and other lasting damages can put a facility out of reach for at least a week.
Regional impact can affect customers, supplies, and business partners - as well as the homes of employees.
The risks
On average, a dozen named storms occur along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts each year. Major disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy, illustrate the potential damage that can result when these events strike heavy populated areas.
Preparation
Approaching storms usually have an advance warning as they approach. However, because the paths of the storm are difficult to predict, these warnings can often be false alarms. THis si the reason why some businesses fail to respond to storm warning due to the "Cry Wolf" syndrome.
Technology Continuity
Hurricanes and tropical storms can put a data center out of commission for a day or longer. All businesses, especially those operating in hurricane-prone areas, should be prepared. Preparation should include the following:
Continuous off-site backup of data and applications.
The ability to restore IT operations in the cloud and/or site in an area less likely to be affected by the storm. This can be areas that are more inland from the coast.
Website posting that alerts customers and partners about storm preparation-along with frequent post-storm updates to track the progress of recovery.
Personnel Continuity
Major storms can affect regions for an extended period of time. Business continuity plans need to include the following:
Availability of a sufficient facility, away from the affected area.
Temporary housing necessary for key employees whose homes are also in the path of the storm.
Internal communications for keeping employees updated on resource availability and recovery status.
Any required third-party contracting for key services, such as shipping & receiving, mail processing, etc.
Process Continuity
Aside from making sure their own operations continue uninterrupted in the event of a regional disaster, businesses should be prepared to help their nearby customers and partners to get through the crisis. Planning should include:
Communications with local/regional customers and suppliers who may also be impacted by the storm in advance.
Pre-determined policies regarding turnaround times, invoice processing, scheduled service visits, and other activities affected by the storm.
Direct servicing of customers by supply chain partners, where feasible.
Ten years after Katrina devastated New Orleans, IT pros say being less dependent on physical locations is just one of the keys to ensuring your company doesn’t go out of business when disaster strikes.
It’s hard to be truly prepared to take the full impact of a Category 5 hurricane. Ten years ago, in the case of Hurricane Katrina and the city of New Orleans, there was the added devastation of flooding caused by failed levees. It will hopefully be a very long time before another disaster of that magnitude strikes New Orleans, or any other city for that matter, but organizations still need to be prepared for such an event. As it turns out, the cloud is an ideal tool for managing the risks associated with a hurricane or other natural disaster.
Even prior to Hurricane Katrina it was a security mantra and data protection best practice to ensure at least one backup of crucial data was maintained offsite. The logic being simply that you don’t want your primary data storage and all of your backups to be destroyed in the same hurricane, fire, flood or earthquake.
Offsite backups solve only part of the problem, though, if your servers and data are maintained locally. When disaster strikes and wipes out your primary data, you’ll have to acquire the backup data, deploy and configure new hardware at some secondary location, and restore the data. You’re still looking at days of downtime in a best-case scenario.
Embracing the cloud to reduce risk
The city of New Orleans and businesses like Entergy and DirectNIC that struggled to survive the devastation of Hurricane Katrina learned some valuable lessons. One of the primary caveats when it comes to business continuity is to mitigate risk by embracing the cloud.
Lamar Gardere, director of information technology and innovation for the City of New Orleans, admits that things were still in disarray when the current administration took office in 2010. The IT infrastructure was aging and many of the city’s critical applications were still being run on physical servers.
One of Gardere’s first tasks was to modernize onto a highly virtualized infrastructure to allow for servers to be quickly created, resized and moved from one site to another in the case of a major disaster. “We created a private cloud with the ability to leverage all the same capabilities as you might imagine are available if you were using Amazon’s cloud, for example. This flexibility is at the heart of our disaster recovery capabilities and allows us to quickly transfer/failover services to remote locations,” Gardere says. “During normal times, it also allows us to maximize our infrastructure investment, consolidate IT resources across areas of government, better manage resources remotely and respond more quickly to our customers.”
DirectNIC is one of a few businesses that managed to stay up and running during Katrina – partly a result of being prepared and partly a function of being safely on the 11th floor well above any flood damage. Even DirectNIC learned a thing or two from Hurricane Katrina, though. Vernon Decossas, CEO of DirectNIC explains, “We host our own operations, however, we also have the ability to move our operations onto cloud providers within the span of hours. It’s provided a peace of mind that we can keep our operations going regardless of external issues.”
Gardere also elaborates on the decision to implement a private cloud rather than simply provisioning services from one of the public cloud providers. He notes there are pros and cons to public cloud for any organization and that the city weighed those on a per-application basis to determine the best solution. “The City uses the cloud strategically and where appropriate to take advantage of its convenience while avoiding some of its problems. Perhaps most notably, the City has moved its payroll system to the cloud using ADP, ensuring that this critical but low bandwidth application is available regardless of the state of the City’s IT environment.”
Moving beyond the cloud
Leveraging the cloud and moving critical servers and data to a cloud-based infrastructure will help organizations in New Orleans mitigate risk and maintain business continuity the next time a major natural disaster occurs, but it’s not enough by itself. Beyond the cloud, organizations also must have a clearly defined business continuity and disaster recovery plan in place and have staff that are properly trained to execute it when the time comes.
“Entergy holds yearly storm drills to prepare all of our employees for what may come. We use that time to talk about ‘what ifs’ and come up with solutions to questions posed during the drills,” says Kay Jones, a spokesperson for Entergy. “We use this time to get better at responding and be prepared for any situation that can arise when a storm hits our service territory.”
Gardere stresses the importance of performing regular maintenance on backup equipment that rarely sees use and talked about how the City of New Orleans continues to strive toward more complete testing and monitoring procedures. “We perform semi-annual tests of basic back up functions and hold an annual table-top exercise simulating a hurricane to test strategy execution. We refresh documentation and review roles and responsibilities on an annual basis.”
Live to fight another day
For some companies even the best business continuity and disaster recovery plan won’t help. A local restaurant or the corner gas station can’t just continue operating from the cloud or move to an alternate location. No amount of practicing or preparing will enable such a business to remain operational while it’s literally under water.
Those businesses can still benefit from using cloud-based applications and data storage to ensure those things survive the catastrophe, though, and thankfully most businesses are not that dependent on the specific physical location. By moving critical systems and data to the cloud and practicing to smoothly implement business continuity and disaster recovery procedures organizations can mitigate the risk of the next Katrina-like event and be prepared to continue operations.
Data protection is highly relevant among businesses, especially in the growing digital marketplace. Data protection is viewed to include data privacy and security. It involves the collection and use of data and its accessibility for various users within the organizational network. Data protection systems are applied in every data storage infrastructure of organizations to ensure that data can be retrieved without the risk of losing them when the system crashes occur. There are different aspects of your data storage that need protection and small businesses need to identify the loopholes in their data safety and privacy protection system. This data protection guide can help businesses secure their data, whether they are stored within their internal data storage network or in the cloud.
Access controls on your network
Data are stored in different locations. Some businesses use laptops, computers and their own data storage center for keeping business information. Controlling who can access them is a basic security measure that business owners can do in order to protect their data. Once you know which data resides where, you can determine the extent of accessibility to be available within your system. The data may take different forms. It may be private company information, sensitive data involving trade secrets, customer profiles and other data collected needed for business operations. Each of them requires a different level of data protection and access. To limit data security breach within your internal structure, it is prudent to limit its access to authorized personnel only.
Use an automated backup system
Most small businesses manage their data backup center manually. However, higher volume of data floods their storage center and this will entail more backup efforts and time in performing backing up data centers. It is wise to automate the process to ensure that all data stored are protected, especially when disasters occur, such as system crashes and downtime issues. Cloud backups are getting more popular these days which help business owners eliminate the redundancy of performing manual backups of data. This is most useful to small businesses without enough cash flows to buy their own IT data infrastructure to collect, store and protect data.
Arm your data storage center with a protective suit
Backing up data is not sufficient to keep data safe. Business owners understand the risks of cyber breach and it is the most prudent step to insulate their data server against cyber attack, malware and viruses. Safeguarding data with reliable antivirus programs provides another security layer to all of your incoming and outgoing data. Establish a strong firewall between your internet and data storage center in order to block potential intrusions within the data network.
Identify the potential risk of data breach from bring-your-own-device (BYOD)
The integration of BYOD as part of an organization’s IT initiative to promote business productivity and cost efficiency may be beneficial but may also be a source of data security breach. Identifying the BYOD risks will help you address potential sources of data breach to help enforce more specific security measures. The use of BYOD can increase data security issue when it involves a geographic deployment of data access to mobile devices outside your internal organizational environment. Among the security measures that organizations can take to protect data include the following:
Invest in mobile device management (MDM) system that will allow the enforcement of data protection policy for employees’ mobile device with the ability to monitor data access from it.Evaluate the risks by investigating on the current data access system using devices within your organization and take measures to mitigate the risk based on the potential breach scenario.Use a data encryption process and industry standard data protection system, such as using PIN code access, remotely wiping data in case of intrusions, and data protection measure against a number of failed log in attemptsSet up a security baseline to limit data access of employees.Identify between secured and unsecured mobile devices before grant of data access.Implement a stringent authentication process, especially in accessing critical business applications.Use a mobile anti-virus program to counteract malware prone BYOD mobile operating systems data breach.
Employ reliable IT support
As your business begins to grow, you should expect a more data influx that makes the manual data protection processes and monitoring no longer viable. Hiring reliable IT professionals can help you expedite the implementation of your data protection and security policy. This will help you to focus on your business data value and translating them productively to your business operation with less worry on data security breach. However, make sure to hire reliable IT personnel because in-house data theft remains to be a big issue in most companies.
Consider the implications for cloud computing security
Cloud computing offers marketers a more cost efficient data storage option and it helps promote organizational efficiency with the ability to access data remotely in the cloud. However, this innovative technology comes with some security risk issues that businesses need to recognize and address. Among the concerns of transitioning from an in-house data storage center to the cloud is the major decision of transferring data security and protection responsibility to a third party – the cloud data storage provider. Among the considerations you need to take prior to embracing the cloud computing technology for data storage include weighing privacy issues, data access and control and security features of third party providers.
To secure data within the cloud environment, businesses can take the following measures to protect data privacy and security:
1. Implement governance and compliance processes against risks
The security environment in the cloud is similar to an in-house IT infrastructure, however, the potential risk on data privacy and security is far reaching because the storage center is moved to an external environment, the internet. A viable solution is to ensure that your cloud hosted applications and data are secured in accordance with your security agreement and verify compliance of the cloud data center provider.
2. Employee management on data access
Cloud computing provides an avenue for a more efficient collaboration of employees in sharing and accessing company data. Bigger companies probably have more than a dozen employees accessing their data center in the cloud. To prevent unnecessary access to data, implement a secure provisioning of identifying devices and employees that access to your data center and limit the extent of the accessibility of data only pertinent to their job functions.
3. Observe regular audit trails on data security compliance
This is a protective measure that you can implement regularly to monitor the high standard of IT security systems that operate within your company. This provides managers the ability to control and monitor the cloud environment that setups their data storage center and identify security agreement breach at the earliest stage.
Every business owner understands the importance of planning and the proper implementation of said plans. However, after everything is set up, it's easy to overlook the testing of one's plans, which can really come back to hurt you when all of your careful planning falls apart. Nowhere is this more true than with data recovery.
Data backup and recovery is a major part of your business continuity plan. When your business is faced with a disastrous event causing downtime due to data loss, the recovery of your lost data is crucial to getting your business up and running again--and the faster the better. In a dreaded scenario such as this, your next step is to put your data recovery solution into place and hope for the best. How confident are you that when you restore your backup, everything will work as it should? This is where testing comes into the picture.
Going through the effort of testing will prepare your business for unforeseen problems with your backup solution. In an interview with Processor magazine, Adrian Sanabria, senior security analyst of 451 Research, gave an example of a common data recovery scenario gone wrong due to the lack of testing. "It's no good to switch over to disaster recovery (DR) and find that your Tier 0 application won't run because the DR environment is three releases behind. If DR will be expected to support a full production load, plan it as such."
Testing should be done regularly. Many IT professionals agree that a complete test of your backup systems should be done at least once per quarter, and there's no harm in testing more frequently, like monthly or even weekly.
Logistically, testing your company's backup systems may sound like a burdensome task, especially if you're a larger company with multiple departments and multiple locations. Like any project, one way that you can make backup testing easier is to spread it out. For example, a larger corporation may test out a few locations at a time instead of testing every system at once.
Another way that you can test your backup solution is to periodically run your entire business off of it. This the surest way to know that your business can withstand a disaster. Sanabria tells Processor of a major retail company that tested their data backup systems this way:
They'd actually switch production over to DR once every three months and run the DR environment as production for a full week before switching back. The first few tests were difficult, but the outcome was worth the dedication, because they never worry about whether their DR environment will work.
Any way you slice it, testing a company's backup solution is a time-consuming task that only gets done if the organization understands the value of their data as part of their business continuity plan. If regular testing of your company's backup seems like too burdensome of a task, you can outsource it to QWERTY Concepts. We offer businesses of all sizes our comprehensive Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) solution. Our BDR solution is much faster compared to the more traditional tape backup systems that some businesses still use. A tape backup could take as much as 40 hour to thoroughly test the integrity of the backed up data, while a BDR may only take an hour to restore.
BDR is the most secure way to backup and recover your company's data. Included with our BDR solution is having us monitor and oversee the entire data backup and recovery process so that you don't have to, which includes regular testing. This will give you peace of mind that if a disaster strikes your business, your data will be just fine and operations will be up and running again as soon as possible. Call us at (877) 793-7891 to learn more about backing up with the QWERTY BDR.
Finding a good Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) solution is not as easy as it seems. With so many options and providers out there - it's easy to get lost in the hussle and bustle. And though many solutions are re-branded versions of the same product, they each offer unique advantages that may seem appealing. Below are 3 common BDR misconceptions.
A new disaster recovery solution will replace my current backup solution Many business owners and managers hear backup and believe they already have a system in place, but that's usually not the case. They typically forget about the disaster recovery and business continuity aspect. In addition many customers believe a new BDR solution will simply replace their existing backup solution. The truth is, a BDR solution offers more, much more.
To properly protect a company's data, a full BDR offering includes not only backup, but disaster recovery and some form of business continuity, too. Because every company's needs vary - this cannot be done via a template. Picking the right IT solutions provider is a critical step to building a disaster recovery and business continuity plan.
Cloud-only solution Many confuse a Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) solution to be a cloud-based backup solution. Because of the hype of the cloud, many simply fail to understand the importance of local backup and disaster recovery. One thing many don't realize, is that the cloud backup is only as good as the line sending the data - and speed is not the only critical factor.
Restoring an entire server from the cloud is not as quick as snapping your fingers. We are dealing with the natural inheritance of data transfer here. Potentially hundreds or thousands of gigabytes need to be downloaded back to a new server in order to restore from a cloud-based backup. Having a BDR solution will easily provide a much faster recovery time for this very reason, in addition to being able to act as the server(s) in the event there is a failure. This now saves time waiting on a new server/hardware replacement to arrive to only begin the restoration process.
I can be up in hours, not days Many claim their existing backup solution will have them up and running quickly, within an hour or two. Most likely that is because of what has been advertised. And perhaps that can be achieved, assuming that you fit into the best case scenario. Many have not thought through the many scenarios and problems that could turn the assumption of a one or two hour restore into a day, a week, or even longer.
The truth is grim
If you Google "BDR restore success rate" you will be surprised not to find much, if any, information. That is largely because no one will advertise the failures, only the best case scenarios. Often backup restorations fail and QWERTY Concepts became a victim of this when providing a solution to clients that was over-promised. In the end, the clients were not happy because their expectations were not met, the employees were not happy because they had to work extra hours and deliver the bad news, and the management was not happy because clients and employees were leaving.
Because of this company's core values and integrity, they've changed focus to deliver on Clients' expectations and they found that challenging the industry status quo was necessary. After years of research, development, testing, and improvements the QWERTY BDR solution comes with something no one else can give, a promise. QWERTY Concepts offers a guarantee to restore your environment - locally or in the cloud - and if the restoration fails, they will dispatch all available resources and even install the required temporary hardware to ensure up-time and continuity.
Before creating a good business continuity plan, let’s outline the business continuity types, which must be considered when compiling a business continuity plan. The one thing you should really know, which your IT service provider may not clearly define, is that most backup & disaster recovery solutions are simply that – backup & disaster recovery. Though most backup and disaster recovery solutions have their flaws, we will not be discussing that in this article.
Disaster Recovery Solutions
It is probably safe to assume that you have a backup and disaster recovery solution in place. That is a great start, but have you thought about the business continuity plan of the equation? Let’s say for instance you have one server which provides your users with access to files and application(s) on the network. If this server is down due to a hardware failure, and your backup and disaster recovery solution comes through for you, your users on the network will continue to work and access to these files and applications as before the failure. This confirms that your core disaster recovery plan is in place. It should always be tested on a regular basis by your IT provider to ensure its reliability over time.
A Business Continuity Plan
Now, let’s talk about the other possibilities of failures where you will see how a business continuity plan is really different than disaster recovery. As with most companies, you probably have one or more users that really play a key role in your company. What would happen in the case their computer hardware failed? It is unlikely that you have a spare PC, but even if you do, it takes time to configure it for the user, migrate (or restore) their data, install the required applications, and get it ready for the user to get back to work as before. During this downtime, the business is suffering and many business functions may be delayed, not to mention the financial and physical burden on the business. Your backup and disaster recovery solution is unlikely to help you in this case, because the user is not a server, but the business role may be just as important.
Another scenario would be if your company’s location suffers from physical damage by flood, fire, or any other natural or artificial disaster. Again, for the sake of this example, we will assume your backup and disaster recovery is also replicating to the cloud where you can recover your server(s) and expose them to the web. Once these servers have been restored, how will your users access the data on these servers? We have to assume that the location is inaccessible and whether the users are at home, a hotel, or in a temporary location - configuring their computers to get them to a working order will be a challenge and may amount to days or weeks of downtime. We are still only discussing the data part of the business continuity plan, but wow will your users communicate with your customers, vendors, and each other? What will be the physical and financial burden of the business in these cases? These are the questions you need to be asking yourself. Though this is not a situation of data loss, being down for days or weeks can be catastrophic to the survivability of your business.
A Business Continuity Plan is nothing to mess with
Your business data is nothing to mess with - that is why a bullet-proof business continuity plan is necessary. At QWERTY Concepts, we understand the importance of up-time, and the burden downtime has on the business. With this in mind, our internal R&D department has spent years developing, testing, and improving our backup & disaster recovery solutions, cloud disaster recovery solutions, business continuity plans, and cloud computing solutions. With 75% of all businesses in the US being small businesses – QWERTY Concepts focuses on building enterprise-level technology solutions to cater to the majority of America’s businesses.
All businesses need to have an effective business continuity plan in case of some problem with their regular operations. This problem can be anything from a natural disaster to power failure or an accident which may lead to collapse of day to day routine affairs. In the present times, when so much of our work is dependent on IT infrastructure, we should plan for the situations in case this infrastructure breaks down or comes under undue stress.
This is exactly the kind of situations for which a business continuity Plan is required. This plan is prepared after an overall review of your entire operations by an expert agency. The experienced personnel who are generally the senior system engineers will evaluate the importance of various operations and data processes and then prepare an alternative strategy to be adopted in case of their failure. Such a plan is very important for the quick revival and continuity of operations which may otherwise take a lot of time to recover and come back to normal.
Apart from being an operational necessity and a good working practice, a business continuity plan may be also be required for statutory purposes. More and more insurance companies and contractors are demanding that the businesses should have an effective business continuity plan in place which takes over in case of any kind of breakdown and hence the continuation of services is maintained. There are many ways to go about preparing this plan.
However the best way would be to hire a professionally Managed IT Services NJ company who has experience and expertise to handle such projects. Select a few of such listed companies and you can then ask them to give you a quote of the estimated cost of setting up and managing such a plan. Do look at the experience of the shortlisted companies and if it is possible, you may also review some of their completed assignments to see the level of coverage that they are providing.
Once you have decided on the company to work out your effective business continuity plan for your organization, you may then focus on the various parameters that are to be included in this plan. This will depend entirely on the nature of your operations. If your company provides web based services such as website designing and management or organic search engine optimization services, then your continuity plan will need to be quite comprehensive.
The reason here is that any discontinuity is not going to affect only your operations but also those of your clients who have relied on your services. Thus a holistic review of your entire activities would be very crucial in determining the level of support that you would be requiring. One must follow the safest approach which is both effective and economical as the cost implication of the whole operation is also to be considered. Thus a company should prepare a business continuity plan which covers all their critical areas and is still within their budget.
As the new year kicks off, many business owners and entrepreneurs are making their New Year’s resolutions. Most of these business owners will be focused on increasing profits or expanding growth, but it would be wise to focus on some IT- or tech-related resolutions as well.
Making sure that you are up-to-date on the most recent tech and security measures can go a long way toward growing and protecting your business.
While many companies make goals or resolutions that they hope to achieve in the new year, plenty of businesses fail to meet these goals because they do not take the steps necessary to achieve them. It often takes time and determination to make these resolutions a reality, and business owners should not quit when the situations become stale or difficult.
"MSPs allow for predictable monthly costs and better security, but they truly have a plethora of benefits"
Here are our three best IT and tech resolutions for business owners to make for the new year, and how to make sure you achieve them. These resolutions will support business’ growth goals and will help business owners achieve them.
Employee Security Training And Creating A Security Safe Culture
If your employees have not had any security awareness training, you should make it your focus to ensure that everyone is informed about potential information security breaches.
Research suggests that human error is involved in over 90% of security breaches
By providing security awareness training to your employees, you will teach them how to avoid mistakes that could leave the business at risk. Not only will this help your employees be more aware of security, but it will make your customers feel more comfortable and confident when working with your company.
There are other benefits to holding security awareness training for your team, and one of the best is that you will be taking your first steps in creating a culture based around tech security. You will be introducing your team to the importance of information security, which they will effectively use to fortify your cyber-defenses.
When new employees are brought in, set aside some time for them to have security awareness training so they are enveloped in the culture from day one.
By putting together a plan where every employee is introduced to information security awareness, your company will be less at risk for breaches and threats made possible by human error.
We at QWERTY take care of security proactively by setting up a continuous training program for employees. It will teach them how to prevent falling victims to hackers with interactive videos and scoring so you can also keep track on their progress. For more information of our cyber security training program go to our Cybersecurity section
Utilize A Managed Services Provider
The MSP industry has seen immense growth over the past five years. The market was valued at over $152 billion in 2017 and is expected to rise to $257 billion by the end of 2022.
MSPs allow for predictable monthly costs and better security practices, but they truly have a plethora of benefits.
If your computer breaks or shuts down, MSPs have the ability to not only fix it but also go above and beyond the usual tech support. Some MSPs will work with your business to understand your goals and find better ways to achieve them.
MSPs are also raising their tech game. Yes, they can help with problems related to e-mail, web and file searching, but they are also available for more advanced needs, like cloud infrastructure management.
If you’re still working with a basic IT service, look into using an MSP instead. They will help with your usual tech problems while also providing you with the resources needed to achieve your goals.
For more information on how we, as an MSP, can help your business achieve its goals by supporting its technology needs, take a look at our services in the top menu of this webpage or go to our plans section.
Back Up Your Data
Data is an essential part of any business, and it’s imperative that every business owner makes an effort to back up their data. If important files are damaged or deleted or a disaster causes your business to lose important data, data backups can prevent business interruptions.
It becomes even more important when dealing with clients’ information.
Imagine that you’re a customer who has been making transactions with a business for years. They may have your address, phone number, e-mail address and sometimes even your Social Security number, but one day, you call and they no longer have your information on file. You probably wouldn’t feel too secure giving this company that information again if they already lost it the first time. This is how your clients will feel if they have to provide their information again after data loss that could have been prevented by backing up your data.
Your business should have a data backup and disaster recovery plan set up so your business avoid downtime and keep running. For more information on how to back up your data and set up a robust plan, visit our cloud backup and disaster recovery section.
As you plan out your goals and resolutions to incorporate in 2022, don’t forget to include IT and tech goals as well. Not only will they save you money in the long run, but they will also grant you peace of mind. Make a plan, overcome any obstacles and don’t lose hope if it looks like you need more than a year to accomplish your goals.
Providing professional IT services to businesses, including managed IT, cloud computing, unified communications, IT consulting, backup & disaster recovery, and internet marketing services - to help our customers operate without walls.
Providing professional IT services to businesses, including managed IT, cloud computing, unified communications, IT consulting, backup & disaster recovery, and internet marketing services - to help our customers operate without walls.
