Is Your Business Ready for an Internet Outage?

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Cloud computing has given us greater mobility than ever before. We can sign in to video conferences on our phones, collaborate on presentations from a laptop, or edit a file on a tablet on the sidelines of a kids’ soccer match. Yet the one thing we need still is a reliable internet connection.

Think about the country of Canada. Earlier this year, business ground to a halt in an instant. A botched maintenance update by a large internet service provider (ISP) hobbled more than 10 million customers.

Yes, there are many advantages to cloud computing, including:

  • enhanced productivity;
  • scalability;
  • pay-as-you-go price structures;
  • greater flexibility
  • avoiding having to pay for and manage on-premises IT infrastructure.

Yet when you rely on a single internet provider, you could be left high and dry if something goes wrong.

Building a backup plan for lost internet

About one-quarter of Canada’s internet capacity was offline. The downtime lasted only 12 hours for some, days for others. The list of outage impacts is long. The problem halted some point-of-sale payments, some nonprofits lost the ability to serve vulnerable populations, Rogers mobile phone users couldn’t call for emergency assistance, and cellular-dependent traffic signals in Toronto were out of whack.

What can we learn from this? Businesses should prepare a backup.

Backing up your internet

Setting up a secondary internet connection can help your business remain online. You’ll be ready if there are system issues, intrusions, or power a failure. For this to work, you’ll need to partner with a different provider than you do for your primary internet. This cuts the odds that both your main and backup internet will go down at once.

If your primary internet connection is wired, consider a cellular backup. For example, a router with 4G backup would switch you to that network if the main connection failed.

The very nature of redundancy is that it repeats what you already have. That can make some businesses balk: Why pay twice? Yet internet redundancy can help you avoid lost business, productivity, and brand reputation, not to mention the stress of having to try to do business in this digital age without being able to get online.

Maybe you can’t reinforce your IT infrastructure with a second provider. At least reach out to your current ISP to learn their backup plans. Ensure they have failovers established to back up their systems.

The Canadian outage saw many businesses floundering. With the ubiquity of technology today, it’s not unlikely that more ISP outages will happen. Be ready for the worst with plans for redundancy and contingency plans. Our experts can help you cut the risks of inevitable communications failures. Contact us today at (515)422-1995.

What’s the Difference Between Archiving and Backing Up Your Data, and Do You Need Both?

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It goes without saying that your data is vitally important to your business. Lose data, and you could be out of business for a while, or maybe for good.

But many business owners don’t completely understand how to protect their data. It’s not complicated, but you need to understand the two most basic data protection methods.

In this article, we’ll explain the differences between backing up and archiving data, and why each is important.

What Is a Data Backup?

A data backup protects the data you work with every day by keeping a copy in a secure location so you can restore it quickly if it’s lost or damaged.

You need to consider three key things when you design your backup strategy. First, the changes you’ve made to your data since your last backup are at risk because they aren’t yet backed up. So, you need to think about how much data you can afford to lose when you create your backup schedule. You might decide to back up daily, hourly, or even more frequently. It’s a tradeoff between your needs and the cost.

Second, you need to keep your backup in a secure location away from your data to protect it from theft, vandalism, fire, or water damage. Don’t keep it on the premises; that’s not going to help you if the building burns down.

Third, you need to be able to quickly restore your data from the backup. Time is money, especially when your systems are down, and the longer it takes to bring your systems back up, the more business you stand to lose.

What Is a Data Archive?

A data archive stores data that you don’t need every day but might need in the future. It’s like putting your old files in boxes and storing them in the attic while you keep your active files within reach. Some examples could be tax data, bank transactions, medical records, and any records required for regulatory compliance.

Archiving pulls this data out of your daily work data and stores it offline so it can’t be modified intentionally or accidentally. Just like a backup, it needs to be in a secure location away from your data.

Do You Need Both a Backup and an Archive?

Residential users might be able to get away without an archive because they usually have much less data than a business. That means you can keep your archived data and work data together in a backup.

But for a large business, it’s best to use both a backup and an archive. A backup is much faster and easier to restore than an archive because it uses high-speed storage devices such as fast hard disks or flash disks. This keeps your downtime after a data loss to a minimum.

On its own, an archive won’t do the job for either a business or an individual. An archive contains only the part of your work data that you need to keep long-term. Plus, it isn’t performed often enough, so too much of your work data is at risk of being lost. Finally, it’s too slow to restore, so your systems might be down too long.

Creating a Strong Data Backup and Archiving Strategy

A lot goes into a good backup and archive strategy, and it’s critical that you get it right. You don’t want to discover that you’re missing data after a data loss or when you need records for regulatory or legal compliance.

We can provide you with a tailored backup and archive solution for the best protection you can have against data loss. Give us a call today at (515)422-1995 to learn more.

Is It Worth Waiting for Something Bad to Happen?

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It’s estimated that 46% of users lose data each year. Yet businesses may not invest in proactive data backup. They think data loss won’t impact them or don’t know how to back up in the first place.

Still, backup is more affordable and accessible than data recovery after the fact.

Any business in any industry is at risk of a data breach. It can come from an unintentional human error on the inside. Maybe someone means to send a sensitive spreadsheet to a colleague and sends it “reply all.” Oh no! Members of the press and the public were on that email thread!

Then, there are cybercriminals working diligently to attack vulnerable organizations. Sometimes they do it to obtain data they can sell, or they might install ransomware to charge you money to regain access to your data. They could also hack you to try to get to a bigger target in your supply chain.

Bad guys’ motivation aside, a data breach will hurt your business. Suffering a data breach can lead to:

  • extensive interruption of business operations;
  • financial losses;
  • damaged business reputation;
  • compliance and regulatory issues and fines.

In short, it’s not worth the risk of paying for data recovery, data breaches or ransomware. You can invest a lot less upfront to protect your data.

Prevent the Worst from Happening

Keeping your business safe from cyberscams and other risks is essential. Do it in advance. Take preventative measures to avoid the larger cost of cleaning up a cyber mess after it happens.

Invest in a solution that will manage all your software and system updates. Keep your system up to date with patch management to close weaknesses criminals might exploit.

You’ll also want to install a firewall to block any brute-force attacks made on your network. Secure any endpoints connecting to your network from outside the firewall, as well. If employees connect remotely using mobile devices, tablets, and laptops, this means you.

Also, invest in data backup. Having your data backed up can help you avoid serious downtime and give you more control in a ransomware situation.

Staying current on all the ways to protect your business from cybercrime can be overwhelming, but don’t deny the problem. Yes, a data breach could happen to you, and it costs so much more to deal with after the fact.

Be proactive by partnering with a managed service provider (MSP). For a fixed monthly cost, an MSP can take on your patch management and ensure data backups. We can help you maintain a high level of protection against threats. Contact us today at (515)422-1995.

Automated Data Backups Still Need Management

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Your business is backing up its data in case of a cyberattack or other disastrous disruption. Yes, you can pat yourself on the back for that, but don’t get too complacent with backing up. Automated backup still needs monitoring and management.

Having decided to back up data, you may feel confident you can withstand an attack or recover from unexpected downtime. But if you simply trust the backup to run at a certain time, you might be surprised. Automated backups can make the job easier. Still, you should be monitoring these backups and checking them, too. There’s nothing worse than finding out months later that something went wrong with your automated backup.

Why you need to monitor backup

A technician can set an automated backup to run on a set schedule. They select a time that causes the least interruption while ensuring up-to-date data. Yet this is too important a process to leave unattended.

Things change. The automated backup is set up for the technology configuration when originally installed. A lot can happen in the meantime as the IT environment evolves.

Blindly trusting automated backup could leave you unaware of problems such as:

  • an unplugged backup device;
  • an altered device letter, which means it isn’t found;
  • moved folders;
  • software updates that might have changed what needs to be done and how;
  • the original plan not accounting for new servers or migration from on-premises to the cloud;
  • insufficient capacity for the backup.

If no one is monitoring that backup, your business could assume it went smoothly. Then, when you need that backup, you could find out the hard way it didn’t go as planned.

Keeping an eye on automated backup

It’s not that you can’t automate backup, and there is convenience in doing so. Automating the backup of a computer, network, or IT environment can save time and money.

Yet you need someone to pay attention. Monitoring backups ensures that the process is running smoothly.

A managed service provider (MSP) will take a hands-on approach to your automated backups. If there is a failure, they have the skills to address the issue quickly and alert you of any bigger issues. Plus, with an MSP in your corner, you gain IT experts skilled at data recovery, too.

The MSP’s techs can even run data-restore drills, helping you to prepare for challenges such as ransomware attacks or accidental data deletion.

Process automation helps businesses, but don’t rely on it unattended. Optimize data backup by adding a human element. An MSP can ensure quality and fully protect your business. Contact us today at (515)422-1995.

How to Safely Retire Old Devices

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It’s inevitable that we’ll retire old devices to upgrade to the latest and greatest. A new laptop, desktop, or phone is exciting. Yet, before you get too distracted by your shiny, new device, take the time to safely retire the old one.

When buying the new device you may take trade-in value. Otherwise, you may let that old iPad sit in your drawer for another couple of years. Either way, it’s important to take some key steps to protect the data on that old device before moving on.

Backup the old device

Most devices today have a backup feature installed. Be sure to use it before you retire an old smartphone or tablet. This ensures you’ll have continued access to your photos, texts, and contacts. Settings and apps are typically automatically backed up for download to a new device.

When retiring a computer or storage device, backups protect against critical information loss. You may also need evidence of device decommissioning to meet regulatory requirements.

Reconfigure your 2FA

Two-factor authentication (2FA) protects you in case someone gains access to your password. Typically, this is an email or text notification sent to your phone. You might also have a 2FA code generator on your phone to strengthen your security. Either way, you’ll need to set up a fresh 2FA app on the new device or you risk getting locked out of all your accounts.

Wipe the old device

Whether you decide to sell the device or not, you still want to secure your data by wiping that device clean. Deleting a file is not enough. Even if you go to the recycling or trash bin of the device and delete the item “permanently,” that’s not enough. Reinstalling the operating system is not enough either.

You need to actually overwrite the data so that it cannot be recovered. Otherwise, hackers with use software to search the drive for sensitive information.

Know where your old devices are

Don’t get sloppy with your old devices. You could leave a treasure trove of data available if that device gets lost or stolen. You’re less likely to notice the device is gone if you put it up on that shelf in the office supply closet. So, be sure to put any old devices, already wiped, in a safe place.

Consider destroying your hard drives

When it comes to securing old hard drives, many businesses will actually destroy them. This means literally breaking them down so that data is almost impossible to recover. Destroying the hard drive renders the hardware completely unusable or repairable.

Let a pro help

When you’re upgrading to new devices, get an IT expert to help. We can migrate all your necessary information to the new device and securely destroy data on the old one. Contact us today at (515)422-1995!

Secure Your Remote Work with the Right Backups

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Working from home is no longer only for a few employees in special circumstances. The pandemic pushed many businesses to enable remote work. The priority was getting it working and securing access. Now that it’s routine, it’s also time to consider how you back up work from home.

Data backup creates a reliable copy of business data. An accessible, accurate backup prepares you for system failures, data corruption or deletion, natural disaster, or a security breach.

Regular readers of our articles know that we’re in favour of the 3-2-1 approach to data backup. You have three separate backups on at least two different mediums, and one is always off-site.

Yet even those with best practices in place may not have thought about work-from-home backups. Still, with so many people using remote networking, you need to take a fresh look at backup systems.

The IT team should have already set up automated backup systems for the on-site work environment, but what procedures are in place to protect data generated remotely?

Remote Work Backup Risks

Backup puts important business data in a protected place to ensure a quick emergency response. Without a backup, it will take a lot longer for your business to bounce back from an IT disruption.

In the home office, or when people are working remotely elsewhere, there are new risks. Saving files locally on a home computer may mean that data is not available to others who need it. Plus, the laptop could be lost or stolen (or broken when a furry colleague at the home office knocks it from the table). The business could also be disrupted if a remote worker’s system goes down due to power outage, fire, or an extreme weather event.

Businesses in regulated industries must also store data safely on- or off-site. Medical, financial, or legal industry businesses face data storage, protection, and audit regulations. The fact that people are working from home doesn’t mean they get a pass from compliance concerns.

Backup Best Practices for Work from Home

If your teams use MS 365, that can help with business collaboration. No matter where employees are, they can edit and share documents and other files. Tracking version history from any device also helps with data currency.

Yet this is not the same as a data backup. Set up an automatic backup of all files created on remote laptops and computers. Ask employees to back up to the cloud using Microsoft’s OneDrive, Google Drive, or another alternative.

We recommend setting up backups to upload every night in the wee hours. Backing up takes a lot of internet bandwidth, and scheduling for 2 a.m. is less likely to interfere with someone else’s Netflix binge-watching or video game play.

It’s also a good idea to get an outsider’s perspective on remote backups. You may need to manually save files to appropriate locations or to set up policies to safeguard off-site files in case of hardware, software, or security issues.

You could take advantage of remote monitoring and management, and you can test backups remotely. This also improves recovery time, as IT can restore data without physical access.

Need help backing up work from home? We can help. Contact us today at (515)422-1995.

Business Continuity vs. Disaster Recovery: What’s the Difference?

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The risk of cyberattack is still growing globally, and no business is too small to hack or breach. It’s important to plan for business continuity and disaster recovery, and to do so in advance so you’re prepared for the worst. But first, you’ll need to understand the difference between the two.

Some use business continuity and disaster recovery interchangeably, yet there are differences between these two areas focused on safeguarding your business.

Business continuity planning ensures operations continue in the event of disruption. Whether it’s a natural or man-made disaster, national emergency, sabotage, theft, or utility failure, your business needs to prepare. Business continuity anticipates what you’ll do about physical premises, staffing, and IT.

A business continuity (BC) plan:

  • identifies business processes;
  • assesses risk;
  • weighs costs versus benefits;
  • establishes priorities;
  • earmarks resources;
  • designates responsibilities.

BC planning will outline the procedures to follow and who is in charge of which processes. Think of it like a checklist to continue operations as close to normal as possible despite a crisis.

How is BC different from Disaster Recovery?

Disaster recovery focuses on providing a backup when unforeseen interruptions hit: actions needed to restore IT assets, communications, and essential hardware systems.

Disaster recovery (DR) plans aim to reduce downtime and restore vital systems as soon as possible. After all, statistics around small businesses suffering IT disruptions are not encouraging. Depending on where you look:

  • 93% of companies suffering an IT disaster file for bankruptcy within one year.
  • 40% of businesses don’t bounce back from a disaster.
  • 60% of breached small businesses can expect to shut down within six months.

While there is no consensus, the takeaway remains the same: downtime = business disaster.

The best way to reduce risk is BC and DR planning.

Still, how is disaster recovery different from continuity efforts? Business continuity tackles all operations. Yet in many environments, disaster recovery is a subset of business continuity. That’s because disaster management hones IT infrastructure. DR gets IT back up and restores data access after a disaster.

Disaster planning establishes procedures for restoring critical applications. You establish where and how you’ll backup important data, you make decisions about what to repair and restore first, and you decide on your restore-point tolerance. This is the acceptable amount of time between your last backup and when the system went down. This will vary among businesses. A business conducting hundreds of online transactions daily has different needs than one with less data.

Planning ahead is essential for both

Although disaster recovery and business continuity have different timelines, both prepare in advance. Business continuity plans are set in motion as soon as operations are threatened. For instance, in the event of a hurricane, the BC plan would alert stakeholders, tell emergency procedures, and transition to alternate operations. Yet the DR team won’t do anything until the storm actually affects the business.

Your business may be able to ride out a short, planned downtime, but disruptions from weather events, power failure, or malevolent attack can be crushing. Take the time, when not in crisis, to plan your business continuity and disaster recovery.

A managed service provider can help you develop the best business continuity and disaster recovery strategies. Contact us today at (515)422-1995 for a personalized approach to planning ahead for catastrophe.

Doing Business in Microsoft 365? Backup Your Data

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Many business tools are moving to the cloud. One popular option is Microsoft 365, formerly known as Office 365. This unified platform consolidates Excel, Word, and PowerPoint with collaboration and communication tools. Added apps and services help streamline operations, too. Simplifying your IT infrastructure can also cut costs and reduce duplication of effort. Still, when you’re leveraging the convenience of Microsoft 365, data backup is your job.

When all software was on-site on business servers and machines, you had complete control. The IT team kept the systems up to date, virus-free, and running smoothly. They built in redundancy to ensure data recovery. They planned for natural disaster, human error, malicious attack, ransomware, or hardware misconfiguration.

Now, though, IT doesn’t have the same control. With the transition to Microsoft 365, the job has changed. Microsoft makes sure its users can continue to access SharePoint or Teams in the event of a disaster, but this doesn’t mean they are responsible for backing up your data – that’s your responsibility.

As do many cloud-based vendors, the company says you own and control your data. They ensure service availability, but you need to set up your own data backup in case of a hack, employee error, or failing to install a security patch.

What does Microsoft 365 Backup?

Reducing downtime is a big reason to backup data. Resilience in the wake of a data breach helps establish credibility with customers, investors, and employees. You may also need backups for compliance with legal guidelines and industry standards.

Yes, you can restore some data within Microsoft 365, but only in the short term. For instance, you can recover information from your deleted-items folder. When something is deleted from that folder, an administrator can often recover it from a system-wide recycling bin.

The thing is, Microsoft 365 doesn’t hold data for that long. It can range from two weeks to a month, depending on your configuration. Plus, you’re not in control of when data is purged, from which there is no recovery.

Microsoft’s datacenter redundancy and data replication efforts support service uptime. It won’t matter if your data is breached, encrypted, or irretrievable due to a hardware failure, flood, or fire.

You need your own data backup. We recommend that you have “snapshots” of your data in three places: one is on-site on a local, protected computer or device; another would be on a remote device; and the third would be in the cloud with a reputable third-party backup provider.

Test Your Backup

Having a backup of Microsoft 365 data offers reassurance that your business can bounce back. Still, don’t get complacent just yet. Along with having a process in place to back up your data, also plan on testing backups.

Testing helps you learn how effectively you can recover following data loss. Plus, testing backups saves you from finding out in a crisis that something has been wrong all along.

Protect your business from data loss and lengthy downtime with your own data backup. We can offer you backup services and help get your company up and running again if the worst does happen. Contact us at (515)422-1995 for help today!

Facebook is for Sharing, Not Storing

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When was the last time you held an actual photo album or actual prints of photographs in your hands? Maybe you look back at older photographs only when Facebook’s TimeHop app reminds you of a pic from five years ago. If so, you may be risking your visual history.

Facebook is a great way to share photos with friends and family around the world. You get to enjoy their comments and the affirmation of their likes. But using Facebook as storage for your photos is not a good plan. Here’s why.

Some people treat Facebook as their photo album archive. They delete the originals from their devices or digital camera when they need more space. But Facebook compresses images for faster download. It satisfies impatient social media users, which means photo quality suffers. If you wanted to print those photos in the future, they wouldn’t look as good as the originals.

That’s not the only drawback. When you trust Facebook with all your photos, you’re letting a company control your visual archive. It’s hard to imagine, given Facebook’s reach today, but what happens to your photos if the company goes defunct? We don’t know. The people who were keeping their photos on Myspace in 2006 might have an idea.

The younger crowd is already moving onto other social platforms. Plus, Facebook’s growth rate in North America and Europe is slowing. Those daily active users are the primary source of revenue. So, you know Mark Zuckerberg is in some meetings about that.

Even if Facebook continues as the business behemoth it is today, we don’t know what policy changes it might make. It could change its terms of service whenever it wanted (if you even read those in the first place). Users have no guarantee for how long Facebook will store their images or any type of content.

Keep in mind also that many of the photos showing up in your timeline are actually taken by friends. Facebook provides an entire album of other people’s photos when they’ve tagged you, but if they decided to untag you or remove it, that photo would be gone.

Finally, there’s also the risk of your account getting shut down or hacked. You’ve probably had friends warn you not to accept any new friend requests from them because they’ve been compromised. You wouldn’t want a thief to steal all your photo albums. Similarly, you don’t want a cybercriminal to gain access to all your images.

Our Recommendation

Just as with data, we recommend you have a “3-2-1” backup system for your digital photographs. This means having three copies of the photos you care about. You don’t need to back up the blurry ones if you don’t want to.

You might keep one copy on the original device, but you’d have two other copies of the high-quality, uncompressed, original image as well. One might be kept on an external storage device such as a USB thumb drive, and the other you could upload to cloud storage.

The cloud backup gives you access to the photos from any device in any location. So, if a flood, hurricane, or fire devastates your home, and you lose your device and the USB thumb drive, you still have a backup. Your Facebook photos and videos are just there to be shared with friends and family.

Not sure where or how to safely store your photos and videos? We can help! Our experts may even become new Facebook friends. Then we can all like each other’s photos with the peace of mind that the original photos aren’t going anywhere.

Recovery Test Your Data Backups

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Most businesses are aware of the need for data backup. Without it they risk losing important files in the event of a hard drive failure or cyberattack. Yet having a backup in place isn’t enough: it’s important also to test that backup. Ensure that you are able to restore that essential data when you need it.

The many reasons to establish data backups include:

  • protecting against natural or man-made disasters (including hacker or insider attack);
  • ensuring compliance with tax, financial, and other industry standards;
  • preserving relationships with clients;
  • reducing downtime;
  • improving productivity;
  • establishing credibility with customers, investors, and employees.

We recommend backing up in three places. You might have one on a local, on-site computer. You’d also have a backup on a remote device and another in the cloud. The cloud option gives you the most flexibility. It can be accessed from anywhere, regardless of conditions in your particular environment.

Yet while many people know they need backups, too few do recovery tests. The worst time to find out there’s a problem with your backup solution is when you need it the most.

Testing Data Backups

Regular data backups can offer peace of mind, but you’ll really know you are ready to go if you regularly test your ability to recover your system from a backup.

Testing your backup lets you verify the necessary data is available for recovery. Plus, testing helps you learn how to actually implement recovery following a data loss. If a backup test fails, you can take the steps needed to ensure you don’t actually lose valuable information. Otherwise, you’re throwing money at storage space and backup services that are no help, and you’ll find out too late.

Regular monitoring helps you keep track of any software or hardware changes that may have an impact on data backups. Via testing, you might also learn some staff members are storing data somewhere that isn’t being backed up, and you can now intervene with those employees or extend your backup protocols to prevent that data getting lost.

Scheduling data backup tests can also help you to identify a misconfiguration in the backup software or ways in which you’re not adequately addressing your backup needs. For instance, you might not have set up a complete backup in the first place. This might mean you’re backing up the data but not the settings. Most backup software will send error messages if there was an issue backing up. Still, they’re easy for an overworked IT team to miss.

Actively testing backups allows the business to confirm fallback data accuracy and effectiveness. Additionally, you’ll be able to gauge:

  • how long it takes to perform the backup;
  • any issues that arise during recovery;
  • what steps need to be taken to address those problems.

All of this is something you want to consider proactively. Some people say they work best under pressure, but most of us think more clearly and perform better if not in the midst of a data catastrophe.

A managed service provider can help your business with data backup and recovery testing. Our IT experts can monitor for failures and make any changes needed to get the backup running properly again. You’ll be glad you did recovery testing in advance when things run smoother and quicker in the midst of your disaster recovery.

Give us a call at (515)422-1995 to correct your backups, make sure they are working the way you want to, and set up regular backup restore tests.

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