It’s still hurricane season, and as I write this, Hurricane Harvey recently swept through Texas, leaving Houston underwater, and Hurricane Irma is pounding Florida. Natural disasters cost billions of dollars, and in Connecticut, we routinely suffer from natural disasters such as winter storms and blizzards that disrupt power and shut down businesses. Then there are man-made disasters such as cyberattacks that can bring your business to its knees. No matter what the disaster, you want to restore normal operations as soon as possible, and that means understanding disaster recovery basics in order to develop a disaster recovery plan.
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By definition, a disaster is something you cannot plan for in advance, and in the case of your enterprise network, an unexpected IT disaster could cost your organization tens of thousands of dollars. So while you cannot anticipate disaster, you can be prepared for disaster recovery to minimize losses and get your business back online as quickly as possible.
Every organization needs an IT disaster recovery plan. It’s clearly much more expensive to do nothing than to have a disaster preparedness plan in place. Think of the potential losses from a network disaster in terms of a mathematical formula:
Losses = incident probability x cost of incident
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Disaster recovery for your network is one of those things that you need to prepare for. As common wisdom goes, there are only two kinds of networks: those that have failed and those that will fail. You have to have a disaster recovery plan in place because some day you will need it. Read More >
Two Data Backup Solutions Walk Into a Bar:
The first one sits down with a pile of money, and states he’s got a lot of free time on his hands and he’s going to be there all night. The second orders a soft drink, takes a few sips, and leaves.
When it comes to data backup and disaster recovery for small business - Think Quicker Recovery Time, Not Quicker Backup. While incremental backups are much faster than executing a full-backup, they also prolong recovery time. In the event of data loss, a full restore will require loading the most recent full backup and then each incremental backup tape. Having too many incremental backup tapes not only adds time to this restoration process, but it also increases the probability of not recovering all of your data. A tape could be lost, unintentionally skipped over, or contain corrupted data. Be sure to focus on optimizing the restore time to ensure faster data recovery. A quicker recovery time should be the main objective, not the need for a quicker backup process, although it is a nice benefit of moving to an image-based solution.
Recently, I spent a full day in Washington, D.C. attending the sold out inaugural 2013 Datto Partner Conference. The vibe was similar to the first VMware Partner conference I attend years ago.
A keynote from CEO Austin McChord kicked off the event; he is completely unpolished, which is refreshing, as is the obvious fact that he is totally immersed in every detail of his business. He rattles off facts, figures, and details. Technical, business, and sales related data roll off his lips at a rapid-fire pace. What did I learn? Here are some of the key things I took away from his talk:
- Datto is exploding – 200+ employees; 112 of which were hired last year
- Datto has 8000+ partners – wow! Lots more Managed Service Providers (MSP) and IT Service Providers than I thought existed
- The company is totally focused on the channel, particularly the MSP market
- New MSP User Interface has been rolled out, making it easier for us to quickly setup and troubleshoot devices for our clients
- Direct-2-Tech was introduced, this means when you escalate an issue, we go directly to the tech that can solve the problem – this is a great things for NSI, and NSI clients.
- Tech support is 24/7/365, when clients need help, help is there.
- Brand new software allows us to show our clients the incremental changes that are happening
- HIPAA compliance - Datto is compliant and enables NSI to continue offering backup in regulated environments for clients needing this
The summary from Austin’s keynote for me was this – Datto gets it. They understand what we need to be the best possible ITsupport service provider to our clients. Additionally, they enable us to offer enterprise class services to the smallest of businesses; it is as simple as that. Why that’s a big deal:
According to the U.S. Census of 2010:
Forbes.com recently published a list of Tech Solutions for 5 Common Small-Business Problems. Well, NSI is a small business, and we have problems just like anyone else. Sure, we provide IT Support to thousands of businesses throughout New England, but technology is a broad term and we are consumers of tech, just like you.
The Forbes list focuses on five areas of concern for small business owners:
Well, you probably do. Regardless of how skilled your IT Support, Network Admin or Computer Services are, if you are a business owner you will be faced with upgrades. This is the reality of what it takes to run a business in today’s competitive market. What if NSI stopped upgrading? How would we stay in business and maintain our ability to provide services like TotalCare, Data Backup and Recovery, Remote Help Desk Services, On Site Computer Maintenance and Printer Repair? We would stink, and no one would want our antiquated service offerings.
Summer is here, thunderstorms are coming, here are a couple simple tips to protect your business from a serious problem:
