MSPNetworks Blog

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that a lot can go wrong with business just about every day. If something were to go horribly wrong and you lost access to your data infrastructure, what would you do? Let’s take a look at some of these disaster scenarios and how much data backup and disaster recovery can make a difference for your organization.

Hardware Failure

Technology does not last forever, and you cannot expect it to either. Your components will fail eventually, so do your part now to prepare for such an event before it occurs. Monitoring solutions these days are excellent at predicting hardware failures and other such events, so consider implementing a solution like this to keep hardware failure from becoming a problem for your business.

Natural Disasters

If your business is not in a disaster zone, it can be easy to think that your organization won’t suffer from one. Unfortunately, even disasters are not limited by geographic locations; certain disasters are more prevalent in disaster zones, but others aren’t exclusive. Businesses are susceptible to hurricanes, tornadoes, structural fires, power surges, earthquakes, and so on, so you’ll need to have a strategy in place to address them from both data and human resource aspects.

Hacking Attacks and Security Breaches

It’s hard to tell when your business will be struck by threats, especially those infiltrating through the Internet. Regular backups can keep threats from derailing your organization’s operations by giving you an out in the event you need to “go nuclear” on any threats that breach your infrastructure.

User Error

People make mistakes, so you need to be ready for the fallout of these mistakes, too. Sometimes they can be so bad that you don’t have any other choice but to use a data backup to resolve the issue. User error can be avoided through adequate training as well as access control for critical systems and important data.

The biggest way to keep disasters from becoming issues for your business is to take proactive measures now and be ready for just about anything. One such way you can do so is by implementing data backup and disaster recovery of your own by working with MSPNetworks. Our solutions are designed to be automated and hands-off on your part, meaning you don’t have to risk things going even more wrong in the face of issues. To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

Modern businesses rely on a lot of technology to stay operational, much of which can be considered hardware, or the physical computing systems that contribute to your infrastructure, like workstations, routers, switches, and servers. Unfortunately, no technology lasts forever, and this is true for hardware as well. One of the most devastating problems that a business can face is hardware failure, and no matter how well you maintain your technology, you must be ready to face down this threat at any given moment.

Imagine going about your day-to-day business when your computer starts making some new noises. You think nothing of it, and it eventually goes away or fades into the background. It becomes the new normal for you to work with a fan buzzing incessantly in your ear. Several months go by and your computer is still working just fine… until one day, it isn’t.

PCMag defines hardware failure as the following: “A malfunction within the electronic circuits or electromechanical components (disks, tapes) of a computer system. Recovery from a hardware failure requires repair or replacement of the offending part.” In other words, hardware failure happens when something within your computer is not working the way it is supposed to. Hardware failure is something that occurs naturally over time. Due to the nature of technology, the components might start to erode or degrade with repeated heavy use, like in an office environment. It is an inevitable byproduct of running a business, and one that must be planned for, even under the best circumstances.

Thankfully, there is one thing that you can do about hardware failure that we have not mentioned yet, and that is to use proactive monitoring and maintenance to stave it off for as long as possible. Hardware failure comes with warning signs that should be acted on prior to its eventual failure. Doing so can prolong the life of your technology and give you time to respond before the failure actually occurs.

The biggest benefit to this is that it reduces downtime and costs associated with it, as well as the costs associated with hardware replacement. While you might have to find an alternative to your current hardware eventually, as nothing lasts forever, remotely monitoring your systems for signs of hardware failure and addressing them as they occur will put the power back in your hands, right where it belongs.

All that said, it is critical that you also regularly back up and save any data on your infrastructure. Imagine what could happen if a server were to crash or experience a critical failure. What would you do if that data were lost completely? The thought should make you nervous.

MSPNetworks can help your business remotely monitor and maintain its infrastructure to prevent hardware failure from throwing a wrench in your plans. Furthermore, we can help you implement and deploy a data backup and disaster recovery plan—yes, hardware failures count as disasters—to ensure that even if something does go wrong, your organization will experience minimal downtime. To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

Data backup can be the difference between a business that fails and a business that succeeds. After all, if an organization suffers from a data loss incident so bad that it has to deploy its data backup, it wouldn’t be able to survive without it. With a data backup and disaster solution, you can ensure business continuity. But what does this kind of system need in order to succeed, and how can you make sure your organization benefits from a data backup system in place?

We’ll discuss some of the most important parts of a data backup solution and how you can keep track of whether or not it will work to keep your business safe in the long run.

The Key Parts of Data Backup
The best kinds of backup solutions have three major aspects to them. They are all important to making sure that the solution can benefit your organization. Here they are:

• Snapshot-based backups: Your backups should be taken periodically throughout the workday so that you can keep data loss to a minimum on the off-chance that you ever encounter a disaster. Snapshot-based backups can be taken as often as every fifteen minutes to minimize data loss.
• Quick data recovery: You need to have a solution in place that can plan for rapid data recovery. Minimizing costs associated with downtime is critical to the success of any business continuity plan.
• Testing to ensure proper backups: How do you know your data backups work if you never test them? You should be testing your backups to make sure that they will work as intended when you need them most.

Why Testing Your Backups Is Important
Imagine that you’re in a situation where your business is having an ordinary workday, only to experience a sudden disaster scenario. It doesn’t really matter which scenario it is, whether it’s a power surge, tropical storm, or hacking incident--the point is that it’s a situation where you won’t last long without data backup of some sort. You try to deploy your data backup, but the files are corrupted or you don’t have an infrastructure to back up to. Now what? You’re stuck in a situation where your organization needs to recover, but it can’t.

If you fail to test your backups regularly, your business--and, by extension, the futures of both yourself and your employees--is at risk. Therefore, testing is something that you absolutely cannot ignore.

What You Should Do
If working with your business’ technology isn’t what you would call your strongest skill, working with a managed service provider can help you make the right calls concerning your organization’s future. To learn more about data backup and disaster recovery, reach out to MSPNetworks at (516) 403-9001.

Data recovery can make your break your business’ continuity plan, and you absolutely cannot underestimate how important this is for the future of your organization. There are countless ways your business could lose data, and if you encounter even a single one of them, your organization could be put at serious risk. We’ll take a look at operational data loss and how your organization needs to strategize data recovery.

Data Value in Business
First, you need to realize just how important your data is to your business. There is a field of study called infonomics that can place a dollar value on your business’ data, but there is a surprising number of businesses that don’t place tangible value on their digital assets. As time passes, however, it’s becoming more apparent that organizations need to find the value in their data if they want to be prepared for the future. In particular, they are paying attention to this for the purposes of insurance and accounting, assigning monetary value to their data so they can judge their losses more effectively.

Since analyzing your data can make for more efficient and profitable business practices, being able to evaluate the value of your data in the event of a disaster is incredibly valuable. Basically, it’s all about guaranteeing your organization’s future and improving redundancy in the face of impossible odds. Here are some questions to ask yourself when thinking about the value of your data:

• How much capital would it cost to replace lost data?
• How much revenue is dependent on that data?
• How much money could you make by selling or renting the data you have?
• How much capital will you have to spend to protect this data?

Data is the life’s blood of your business. Without it, whether it’s destroyed in a natural disaster or stolen during a hacking attack, you face certain demise. Therefore, you need a way to restore it.

Data Backup
The best way to make sure data restoration happens is with a data backup solution. MSPNetworks can equip your business with a strategy that promotes redundancy. We do this by helping you implement a strategy that involves data backups being stored both locally and off-site, giving you more options and more copies of your data in the event anything goes wrong. BDR initially backs up the entire network, and it takes incremental backups following this throughout the workday, minimizing downtime in the long run and keeping data loss at an all-time low.

Disaster Recovery
The best data recovery strategy is one that never has to be used, but it still presents value as a contingency plan in the event that something does go wrong. The best way to pull this off is by having a dedicated recovery platform in place that takes advantage of these two factors:

• Recovery Point Objective (RPO) - The interval of time that might pass during a disruption before the amount of data lost exceeds the maximum threshold that your business can weather.
• Recovery Time Objective (RTO) - The duration of time within which data or business process must be restored after a disruption before it can be considered a complete break in continuity.

With a thorough disaster recovery strategy, you’ll minimize the chances of your business suffering needlessly from future disasters. To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.