Posted on Fri, Sep 03, 2010 @ 03:16 PM
Since small businesses joined large conglomerates in relegating their mission critical processes to data infrastructures, IT companies are always faced with the dangers that come with a network-based working environment. And that’s on a daily basis.
Disasters in the data center or in the physical server room are not unheard of, turning the IT support leg of any company into tireless workhorses which could have been prevented had there been proper data security policies or sturdy data backup and recovery solutions in place. And this is where IT consultants and their expertise are pulling in the muscle, by leveraging on data disaster plans that will definitely secure the continuous flow of productivity in the office.
As the risks grow exponentially, developing a
remote offsite data backup plan has become crucial and a necessary investment. It will prevent downtimes, the loss of vital data and revenues and, eventually, potential damage to the overall business.
Assessing Your NeedsWhen creating a data disaster prevention plan, there are several factors the IT support department should consider and most of them depend on your business’ needs and overall data infrastructure. These include your nature of business and the risks and potential benefits you will have to face once a backup solution is in place, among others.
There are some companies that only use small-scale backup solutions like the use of external hard disk drives on USB hookups or maybe even decent PC-based backup applications and server storage; and these are enough for them. Others, on the other hand, require larger solutions that include third party data software suites and even remote data data center mirroring. Service oriented companies and businesses dealing with eCommerce fall bluntly in this category.
Remote BackupsInvesting in
data backup solutions are one of the best contingency plans your business can get on board with. In the data center, the word “redundancy” is one word that often gets bounced around and it should be part of your data disaster plan’s prevention checklists.
This means that while your gigabytes (or most likely, terabytes) of data are stored and backed up locally, it’s important to have another copy mirrored remotely on a data center on a different location. This is one backup solution many large entities, especially IT companies and Web services, are utilizing to ensure their data’s constant availability. You can also use IT outsourcing services for your data to be safely backed up in a disaster-proof data center with an accompanying backup solution that can be accessed locally. This will save you from the potential headache should you encounter some unfortunate data loss later on.
Backup Frequency
An important question to ask when setting up your data disaster plan in place is “how often should I backup?” As a general rule, backups are usually performed during weekends as they usually take up several hours to an afternoon or even an entire day to accomplish depending on the size of your library of data and your network connection’s speed. A day’s worth of backup time would ideally be the extent for IT companies running a 24/7 operation, on the other hand. The succeeding data backups will most probably take far lesser time to complete.
As a side note, while a backup is in the works, many IT service teams take the opportunity to do hardware refreshes and perform routine diagnostics. And it is recommended that you do to make sure there really is no downtime even from the technical aspect.
Data backup and recovery is crucial element in any given business to ensure both the productivity and the security of a company’s data infrastructure. Contact
TMS to learn more about it to help you find the perfect solution for your company. Just call us at 800-519-1872 our IT experts are always at the ready to help you with your IT consulting needs.
Posted on Tue, Jan 26, 2010 @ 04:30 PM
- All threats in a disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity (BC) plan should be highlighted as part of the risk assessment phase of the BC plan. The risk assessment should incorporate all sites, which includes the disaster recovery site. And if the risk assessment is completed correctly, and an objective view of all threats are identified, there should not be any hidden threats in an organization. However, unanticipated threats can still occur, which are issues that can come up during or part of an unforeseen incident. For example, damage to the infrastructure (road closures) can cause delays in reaching your disaster recovery site, which will affect the recovery time.
Also, if the BC plan is not reviewed properly it may contain incorrect information which can threaten the disaster recovery process. If the business focus has been modified since the BC plan was compiled and these changes have not been incorporated within the BC plan, the recovery process will not go smoothly. Similarly, if hardware in your company has been modified and you have not updated your DR plan, you may have issues with the recovery. Both the disaster recovery and business continuity plans need to be current to reduce unanticipated surprises.
Lastly, hidden threats may exist if the business continuity plan does not reflect reality. That is, if the business impact analysis (BIA) does not reflect the true impact on the organization, issues may arise. For this reason it is important to be accurate in the BIA looking at dependencies up and down the line to ensure the recovery time objectives (RTOs) are correct.
Written by Harvey Betan
Posted on Fri, Sep 25, 2009 @ 12:01 PM
Convincing management that something's needed to mitigate business risks and prevent potential disasters can be like telling our government leaders to stop spending our money -- it's next to impossible. However, even if management doesn't initially listen to you, this doesn't mean you can't make an impact. A lot of disaster recovery (DR) procedures and information security is handled the wrong way by cramming fear, uncertainty, and doubt down managements' throats. That doesn't work long-term.
In order to convince management of the necessity of a disaster recovery plan in your company, you need to do three things:
- Establish your credibility to get them on your side.
- Get (and stay) involved with the business to show that you understand where they're coming from and what they're up against.
- Show that your effort and their money are adding ongoing value to the business. Building relationships and learning to communicate effectively will do wonders for getting management on your side with disaster recovery.
Also, keep in mind that not everything related to DR is expensive. Once you gain the trust and assurance of the management team, everything else should eventually fall into place.
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Posted on Fri, Jun 19, 2009 @ 02:04 PM
As regulatory compliance laws for the financial industry have steadily increased it has triggered an avalanche of email archiving products over the last 10 years. The need for businesses to retain email for legal discovery is driving a new wave of enhancements in the e-Discovery market. xur4yiczj7
regardless if it's a high-profile, high-penalty court cases involving corporate defendants, or simply the amount of data storage that email and its attachments eat up, storage managers are increasingly putting email archiving at the top of their priority lists.
Email archiving is not just for financial companies anymore we are finding companies from manufacturing, healhtcare, legal, entertainment are all wanting to archive email, for regulatory issues, disater recovery or just to cover them selves from disgruntled employees or frivolous law suites.
One challenge for companies is identifying an email archiving policy that makes sense. Saving everything does not, experts say. Having an email retention and deletion policy for email that is based on preservation dates set by state and federal regulations, for example, is a good starting point. Once a litigation hold is placed, or an e-discovery request is made, a company must often change that policy, and start retaining many more documents. But a company is not likely to be held liable for emails or attachments that were eliminated as part of a reasonable retention and deletion policy prior to the existence of a litigation hold -- as long as it was applied regularly across the board without exception.
Best practices for email archiving often start with the prickly issue of establishing retention policies for users. The shorter the retention period, the harder it will be to enforce. A 90-day retention policy, for instance, sounds good in theory, until users balk and seek out other ways to save what they consider important emails.
We at TMS have had a lot of experience it writing and implementing such policies with our clients or any other policies such as Acceptable use, Disater recovery and many more. please inquire with us if your company needs such services.
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Posted on Wed, May 20, 2009 @ 07:59 PM
A recent event in a client Server Room was a good reminder about how
important Temperature, Air Flow, and Humidity are in an environment where you
have thousands of dollars of equipment that keep a business running.
Long story short... humidity levels were constantly cycling between 45% and
85% every 20-30 min and the temp was only changing from 68-71 degrees during
that period. Luckily we had previously installed an APC Netbotz environment
sensor onsite and were immediately able to receive the alerts that something
wasn't quite right...
Got the AC guys onsite and things are better now.
Why is Humidity Such a threat?
Humidity poses two threats:
- ESD or Electrostatic buildup and discharge
- Moisture Buildup / Corrosion
With high humidity levels your environment will be very uncomfortable for
anyone to work in and your components could slowly start to show signs of
corrosion from moisture buildup eventually resulting in failed equipment
causing unplanned downtime and causing your business to come to screeching halt
(unless you have a Disaster Recovery Plan).
Low humidity levels increase the risk of ESD in your
environment. The lower the humidity the easier it is for static charges to develop
and fry your equipment. Below 20% humidity it has been observed that the mere
passage of dry air over components can cause damage from the triboelectric
effect.
What is an ideal humidity range?
Experts are divided in their opinion but the common
acceptable range is between 40 – 60%
Looking for more info on Data Center Environments? Check out
ASHRAE's
"Thermal Guidelines for Data Processing Environments
Give us a call to learn more about the APC Netbotz products and make sure your aware conditions in your environment before they become a serious problem.
Chris
Posted on Fri, Apr 10, 2009 @ 05:53 PM
Being an IT Managed Services Company (MSP) we find so many business trying to nickel and dime on their technology. For some reason most business owner's don't realize that their entire business future could potentially be gone with a disaster to their technology. When I say disaster I don't mean just natural disasters. Things like power outages, sprinkler system breaking, power surges, data backup failure, server crash and many other things can destroy your data.
When you ask a business owner why do they invest in Accountants and Attorneys? The normal response is because I need their service to run my business. But the real answer is to protect their business. So once again.... Why don't business owners invest in protecting their company's technology, the one thing that can make them more efficient, productive, and help with their bottom line? I do not know!!!
Check this statistic out.
According to research by the University of Texas, only 6 percent of companies suffering from a catastrophic data loss survive, while 43 percent never reopen and 51 percent close within two years.
Gartner estimates that only 35 percent of SMBs have a comprehensive disaster recovery plan in place.
International Data Corp. estimates that companies lose an average of $84,000 for every hour of downtime. According to Strategic Research, the cost of downtime is estimated at close to $90,000 per hour.
According to a recent NFIB National Small Business Poll, man-made disasters affect 10% of small businesses, whereas natural disasters have impacted more than 30% of all small businesses in the USA. Hurricanes are by far the most destructive force causing power failure, flooding, customer loss, and the closure of many businesses.
According to a recent Touché Ross study, the survival rate for companies without a disaster recovery plan is less than 10%!
According to analyst firm IDC, about 70% of all successful attacks on computer networks were carried out by employees and insiders.
If you are in Southern California and want a FREE Data Security and Backup Analysis click on the link below to sign up http://www.pain-free-it.com/products/disaster-recovery---business-continuity-/remote-backup/
Tom Hill
Managing Partner
Technology Management Solutions
https:twitter.com/painfreeit
www.pain-free-it.com