MSPNetworks Blog

A disaster can take many forms, from a raging snowstorm to deleting the wrong file. Regardless of what kind of disaster you face, you can know that it doesn’t take much to impact a business, especially if the business doesn’t have a business continuity plan in place. How does your business recover from such a devastating scenario? How can it get its data back and in proper working order? That’s what we want to tell you about today.

The Value of Infonomics

There is value in your business’ data, whether you realize it or not. The value itself depends on what you collect and who it’s from, whether it’s from vendors, clients, employees, or otherwise, but there is always value in what you store. Infonomics is the process of assigning a monetary value to the data so you have a better understanding of how much you lose when you suffer a data loss incident. Ask yourself these questions to determine the value of your data:

• How much capital would replacing the data cost? 
• How much and what percentage is your organization’s data?
• What kind of revenue could your organization see if it were to buy and sell it? 
• What will it cost to completely protect the data?

With these questions in mind, you should be able to determine the true loss you can associate with data disasters. To help you further gauge the impact of your data loss, let’s look at some deeper concepts you should know regarding your data loss scenario.

Data Backup

Obviously you need data backup in order to get back to work following a data loss incident. Many companies utilize comprehensive data backup systems that take snapshots of their data throughout the workday. This provides you with a tool to revert back to your infrastructure at any pivotal moments when data would be damaged or corrupted so you can hopefully dodge the ramifications of it.

MSPNetworks is of the mind that backup and disaster recovery systems should take incremental backups throughout the day and deploy to both a local network-attached device and secure, remote data center. This allows for total data redundancy that will ensure your data loss is minimal.

Disaster Recovery

The actual act of recovering data comes down to disaster recovery, which is a bit different compared to data backup. Data recovery is when you have a plan to deploy your backup in the hopes that you never have to actually use it. Here are some of the factors that contribute to a disaster recovery platform:

• Recovery Point Objective (RPO) - The amount of time that your core business processes can be interrupted before your business begins to fail.
• Recovery Time Objective (RTO) - The amount of time your business can withstand interruption before it can be considered a complete break in continuity. 

You’ll want to ensure that you reach for specific metrics for both according to your business’ operations. The closer you can get these metrics, the better, as you don’t want to take any chances with your disaster recovery or business continuity. After all, each moment spent wasted during this process is a moment that could send your business hurtling toward destruction.

MSPNetworks can help your business implement the smartest data backup and disaster recovery solutions on the market. To learn more, call us today at (516) 403-9001.

Running a business is stressful, but so is thinking about a future where that business (and its data) no longer exists. If you’re not careful with your preparedness, you could stare down a disaster with no hopes of recovery. This is why we urge you to take proactive action now—so you can prevent these kinds of scenarios from taking your business off the market for good.

Let’s go over four scenarios where you’ll be glad you have implemented a comprehensive data backup and disaster recovery solution. Goodness knows your business and bottom line will thank you, too.

Natural Disasters

Threats like tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and so on can all impact your ability to access important data. We acknowledge that not every business is in a region where extreme weather conditions can threaten them, but you should be prepared for any type of natural disaster, just in case something were to happen. There are some natural disasters that can harm a business no matter where it’s located, like electrical fires, power surges, and so on.

Data Breaches

Ah, yes, the dreaded data breach. It doesn’t matter if you are a small business or a major enterprise; your organization has data that hackers would love to get their grimy hands on. Personal data, financial records, and other types of sensitive information can all fetch a handsome price on the black market, and in some cases, your data could be held for ransom or even destroyed by malware. It’s always a good idea to prioritize not just cybersecurity but also data backup.

Hardware Failure

Technology cannot be expected to last forever, and a server unit crashing can be a devastating blow to your business if you are unprepared to handle it. You should have a data backup plan in place that is capable of restoring your infrastructure in the event you experience such a hardware failure.

User Error

People make mistakes, and you should not only expect them to, but be prepared for them to do so. Implementing a data backup and disaster recovery solution can help you recover files in the event your employees accidentally delete them or harm your technology in some way.

Implement Data Backup and Disaster Recovery Today

Just because you don’t foresee a situation where you’ll have to use it doesn’t mean that you don’t need data backup or a disaster recovery solution in place. A major part of business continuity is ensuring that you have access to your data at all times, and with MSPNetworks, you don’t have to worry about this ever becoming an issue. We’ll work with you to ensure that you are prepared for even the worst situations possible.

To learn more, call us at (516) 403-9001.

We often think about disasters in the context that they completely destroy the office, rendering your business incapable of operations. However, this is only part of what is encompassed by the term “disaster,” and the whole picture is far more terrifying. Any disruption to your operations can be considered a disaster in its own right, so we wanted to take some time to go over what you should look out for with your disaster planning.

Sure, there are disasters that threaten your physical infrastructure, but the types of disasters that most organizations will suffer from are something quite different.

Disasters are Common Occurrences

Natural disasters might be the first thing that comes to mind, and depending on where your office is located, you might experience various different types of them, whether they are structural fires, electrical storms, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, or others. They can inflict serious damage to your office and potentially make it impossible to conduct business from that site. There are other types of disasters that aren’t so in-your-face, though, and these are the ones we want to talk about today.

The disasters that don’t destroy your office are the ones that can impact your operations in serious ways, like data breaches, hardware failure, or user error. If you’re not careful, these disasters can bring your productivity to a sudden end. Hardware failure in particular can lead to data loss and downtime, both of which can be devastating for your bottom line.

Data breaches can be a serious problem, especially when they can impact operations. An active data breach makes your infrastructure inaccessible while the threat is mitigated, and in some cases, data can be locked down by ransomware. User error can also create situations where data is misplaced or lost. All it takes is poor security practices or a network misconfiguration.

Get Ready to Handle All Types of Disasters

If you want to keep your business from suffering due to unpredictable disasters, you need to 1) implement a data backup and disaster recovery solution, and 2) consider all aspects of business continuity.

With comprehensive data backup and disaster recovery solutions, you can follow through on the 3-2-1 data backup rule with three copies of your data in two locations, one of those located in the cloud for accessibility purposes. Business continuity includes much more than your data backup, though, and it includes aspects of running your business such as your workforce, your place of operations, and chain of command.

Let Us Help You Out!

To take some of the stress out of your disaster preparedness, give MSPNetworks a call at (516) 403-9001. Our trusted technicians can work with your team to implement the best solutions on the planet. We can even help you develop a business continuity plan. Don’t delay; call us today!

For modern organizations that depend highly on their technology, nothing is quite so scary as an event that can completely marginalize its ability to operate. This doesn’t need to be a fire, flood, or some other major cataclysm; it could be something as simple as some of your old IT fails and you’re not ready for it. This week, we thought we’d briefly go through what a catastrophic failure looks like and some steps you can take to keep your business from experiencing one.

What Does a Catastrophic Failure Entail?

Since all of our lives are increasingly digital, it stands to reason that our businesses and organizations are. This means that your business absolutely depends on the technology you’ve chosen and when it fails, your endeavors tied to it likely do too. Today’s business uses digital systems for all of their productivity and storage needs, but also their communications, collaboration, customer interaction, and even their administrative management. This is why, when situations arise that put these systems in peril, your whole organization is as well. 

You do so much to combat downtime; so when a situation comes along that threatens the very integrity of the systems your business depends on, it can be really frightening. But today we aren’t talking about threats, we are talking about catastrophe. Honestly, failures happen in the best-designed, expertly-implemented, and constantly-supported IT infrastructures. How your business is able to rebound after that failure, and what you do to help avoid others, are controllable. 

When you have a catastrophic failure of your IT infrastructure, it means that the systems are not working and are inaccessible to the people who use them every day to make your business run. This typically means that they have been taken offline by some event that is bigger than the risk mitigation efforts you’ve put in place. Some events like a housing failure only happen in the case of major weather disasters, power surges that destroy internal components, and utilities that aren’t available to run the underlying infrastructure. There are steps you can take to help mitigate the long-term effects these types of failures have on your business. They include:

• Deploying two separate sources of power
• Deploying uninterruptible power supplies 
• Choosing vendors with high availability systems in place
• Undertaking routine building maintenance

These are basically common sense variables that can help your business in innumerable ways. The problem becomes when you do all these things and your business is presented with a situation where nothing you could have done to protect these systems happens. You’d think that this makes a compelling argument to virtualize your whole business computing infrastructure, but in many of the situations where you wouldn’t be able to run onsite hardware, you won’t have access to electricity or the bandwidth you need to access these servers anyway. That’s not to say that cloud computing isn’t a good contingency for catastrophic hardware failure, especially if your team can work remotely.

Hardware aside, catastrophic failure can be brought on by other means as well. Hacking, malware, and user error can bring productivity to a grinding halt and present your business with major challenges. That is why it is important to make sure to do all the right things to protect these systems from breach. You will need a comprehensive training regimen for your staff to ensure they understand how to spot phishing attacks, how to protect your business through the use of password best practices, and what to do if they come across situations that can ruin your business’ continuity. 

Unfortunately, the most exposed part of your business may be your most important. Your data can be corrupted from hardware or software failure, interception in transit, and several other means. Since it is such a big part of your business’ success, it stands to reason that it would be a big part of your business’ failure if it were corrupted, lost, or stolen. 

At MSPNetworks, we like to see businesses thriving because of their technology, not ruined because it doesn’t work. Our knowledgeable technicians can do a lot for a business: We can monitor and manage network-attached resources and infrastructure. We can help you put in policies and procedures, train your staff, and consult you on new purchases. We can also help you put together a comprehensive business continuity plan that will get your business back on its feet fast no matter what happens to the underlying infrastructure and resources. Give us a call today for more information at (516) 403-9001.  

There are countless ways your organization could face down a disaster, whether it’s a high-profile natural disaster, a physical disaster, or a technology-related disaster. If you aren’t prepared to face the consequences, your business could falter in the face of such incidents. How can your business best prepare itself for all manners of disasters?

Disaster Recovery Is a Big Issue

There are two ways to approach a disaster: reactive and proactive. The reactive approach involves the mindset that you cannot prevent the disaster; therefore, there is no reason to try, as you will experience the consequences anyway. The other mindset, proactive, subscribes to the idea that you can be ready for a disaster and can mitigate the damages ahead of time with the right amount of preparation.

In just about all situations, it’s better to be proactive than reactive, especially in the case of disaster recovery. Due to the nature of the situations, you never know if and when they will strike, so you had best be prepared to handle natural disasters, physical disasters, and technology disasters. Let’s go over them.

Natural Disasters

A natural disaster is usually what people think of when they think of disasters, and they include situations like fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, and so on. You could even put a pandemic in this category. While the severity might vary, there can be no denying that these situations can impact operations. You need to have a plan to address unexpected weather and illness for your business; the continuity of operations hangs precariously in the balance.

Physical Disasters

A physical disaster has to do with the physical infrastructure of your company, which might include your building, its utilities, physical security breaches, or theft. Examples include burst pipes, HVAC system errors, and power failures. While it might not seem like a massive loss, you can be sure that the accumulated downtime will be costly enough to make you wish you had a contingency plan in place.

Technology Disasters

Technology disasters are the result of technology failures, including the components of systems, as well as cybersecurity breaches. These are the most likely issues you will deal with regarding your hardware, and it will inevitably fail with enough wear and tear. Furthermore, they require a very specific skill set and expertise to maintain. Technology-related disasters like data loss and cyberattacks can both be prepared for, so it’s your responsibility to do so.

How to Go About Planning for the Worst

The general goal of a disaster recovery plan is to reduce downtime and get back to business as usual as quickly as possible. The devil is in the details, here; you need to know exactly what must be done, including metrics and benchmarks you want to hit, in order to successfully prepare for a disaster incident. There are certain things you’ll need regardless of the situation, though, such as data backed up both on and off-site. With the appropriate preparation, you can ensure that these situations don’t derail your operations.

MSPNetworks can help you build out a disaster recovery plan and test it periodically to ensure your business can recover without a hitch. To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

How often do you find yourself stressing out about who has access to which data or internal resources on your company network? What about who has access to open the front door of your office or who has access to important physical resources within your building? Ensuring the security of your business’ assets is critical, and access control tools can help your company ensure that only authorized individuals have access to specific parts of your organization’s infrastructure, be it physical or digital.

What is Access Control?

Access control is, at its core, a way to restrict access to specific resources within your company based on user or role. It generally involves authorization of some sort and demands that the user verify their identity before being granted access to said resources. Think about it like asking the network for permission before being allowed onto it; once the network or infrastructure has confirmed the identity of the individual, they will have access to the resources.

Access control can be broken up into two groups: digital or cyber access control and physical access control. We’ll go over some of the benefits for both types of access control and how they can help your business keep itself safe.

Cyber Access Control

Your business undoubtedly has data on its infrastructure that should only be accessed by specific individuals and no one else. This might include sensitive employee data, applications or resources, financial records, and so on. You should be limiting access to important information like this specifically because the fewer people who have access to it, the less likely it will be compromised. Through access control tools, you can control which employees have access to specific data, applications, or resources on your network, based on their role within your organization.

Physical Access Control

Sometimes you want to keep certain users out of specific parts of your office. This is where physical access control comes into play. Physical access control might involve key cards, code-guarded doors, and even biometric scanners, with the intention of securing various parts of your office. One example of how you might use it is if you have sensitive records stored in a specific part of your office. You might keep that door locked, only accessible to specific individuals within your organization. Another example might be an access gate open only to employees of your business.

Get Started Today

MSPNetworks knows how complex it can be to implement new security solutions, especially if they require a certain level of management and maintenance, like access control systems do. We want to help your business take advantage of these solutions in a way that minimizes the additional duties and responsibilities of your organization. Through MSPNetworks, you can implement, manage, and maintain these systems without dedicating your internal resources to them; instead, you can outsource the responsibility to us! Our technicians are more than happy to assist you each step of the way.

To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

A good business owner envisions the future and what it could bring about. You may have already devoted a considerable amount of time to the good things that could happen, but how often do you picture the bad? If you don’t imagine the worst-case scenario, you could be putting your business’ life on the line. Are you prepared to deal with a data loss incident?

You might think we are being a bit dramatic, and maybe we are, but a business that doesn’t focus on longevity is one that will ultimately fail in the face of adversity. You need to consider what a worst-case scenario could mean for your business.

Data backup and disaster recovery are critical components of any successful business. Most companies rely on data in at least some capacity, so without it, operations can be stymied significantly. This data might include client information, metrics, corporate data, important files, and so on. If you lose this data, how do you plan on keeping your business running?

The process of disaster recovery is just as important, as without it, you cannot get back in business following critical data loss. Disaster recovery is what enables your business to maintain operations even in the face of severe disasters, like a hacking incident or a natural disaster. While having data backup is helpful, you still need a method to restore it as quickly as possible so as to avoid downtime. You might consider concepts like data backup, operations, workforce longevity, and alternative working conditions when putting together your disaster recovery plan, whether the disaster is from nature or your fellow humankind.

Your business should implement a cloud-based data backup system and disaster recovery tool that takes periodic snapshots of your data. This will allow you to accomplish the following:

• Backups can be taken throughout the workday rather than only once at the end of the day.
• Your backups will be accessible at a moment’s notice, something which is incredibly valuable when recovering from a disaster. 

When your company is under pressure from a disaster, time is of the essence. You don’t want to be worrying about how and when to restore your data. It helps to just have the cloud take care of these processes for you.

Start taking your data backup and disaster recovery seriously before you suffer from a situation that could easily have been prevented. To learn more about how you can take advantage of enterprise-level data backup and disaster recovery solutions, reach out to MSPNetworks at (516) 403-9001.

Business can be difficult when everything goes right, but when disaster strikes, serious issues arise that need to be answered fast and if you don’t have a business continuity plan in place, your business will be in peril. It doesn’t matter what you do, if circumstances decide that your business needs to shut down, having a disaster recovery policy in place as a part of a larger continuity plan, will do more than you think to save your business. 

Consider the Risks

Having a business continuity plan is to consider the risks your business is likely to face. Some of them have to do with your geographical location and the types of disasters that you could legitimately face, some have to do with operational downtime and the causes of that, but regardless of what risks your company could potentially face, having a plan to circumvent those potential risks is at the core of your continuity strategy. 

When we talk about disaster recovery, we are talking about instances that stop your business’ ability to function. Sure they could be flood, fire, or weather, but they could just as easily be computer component or utility failure. Most businesses were not ready for the COVID-19 pandemic, which turned out to be a huge disaster for a lot of businesses. The businesses that were able to quickly pivot to deal with the problems of state-sponsored quarantine or the lingering uncertainty of operations in response to the global pandemic, were the businesses that thrived over the past couple of years. 

So while you can’t rightly have a response to every problem, covering your bases to help maintain your business’ ability to operate is essential to overcoming these issues. Let’s take a look at some variables your disaster recovery strategy needs to ensure that digital assets are protected.

Data Backup and Recovery

The truth is that any business that is unable to recover data when struck by a data disaster will likely lose customers. This can happen from malware attack, component failure, or any natural disaster caused by weather. The best way to mitigate this scenario and protect your business’ data is to have a reliable, redundant backup of all files and applications. Not only should you keep an onsite backup, you need a solution to the fact that many times, that backup would be compromised due to the disaster. A cloud-hosted backup that is incrementally updated makes the most sense for almost every organization. 

Think about it, a data backup service can effectively keep your whole organization from descending into chaos. Think about all the negative circumstances there are surrounding the compromise of people’s personal and financial information, and a data backup and recovery service begins to pay for itself. Here are a few scenarios:

• Ransomware attack - Your business gets hit with one of the millions of ransomware attacks that hackers are disseminating and your files are locked down. With a timely backup, you can restore your systems rather than paying a huge ransom to get your files back. There’s no telling if you would even get them back, either, a whole other can of worms that you don’t want to face. 
• Natural disasters - Regardless of where your business is, disasters come in many forms. If you are knocked out of commission because of a natural disaster, ensuring all your operational data is safe in an offsite data center, it makes it easier to make the important moves necessary to get your business back up and running.
• Human error or sabotage - End users are the cause of 88 percent of all data breaches. With that knowledge, understanding your data is protected against employee mistakes, negligence, or sabotage makes dealing with an internal data breach that much easier. 

Those are just three examples where disaster recovery can save your bacon. Having the ability to restore your data and applications quickly in the face of a perilous situation not only provides peace of mind, it provides stability in situations that demand it. If you would like to talk to one of our security professionals at MSPNetworks about getting a backup system in place that is right for you, give us a call at (516) 403-9001 today. 

Data recovery is a major pain point for small businesses, but not all organizations have the same resources and assets that make it possible. Small businesses in particular are more prone to forego data backup and disaster recovery because it does not provide an immediate return on investment. Well, we’re here to tell you that this mindset is wrong.

In a lot of ways, having data recovery for your business is kind of like insurance; you want to have it in case an emergency strikes, as the disaster could potentially be more devastating than paying for the service itself. Think about it like this; does it actually hurt your business to have data backup and disaster recovery?

We’re here to walk you through some important information to consider for your own data backup and disaster recovery solution. You want to focus on two specific areas for your disaster recovery solution: how much data you need to restore, also known as the recovery point objective (RPO), and how long it takes to recover that data, or recovery time objective (RTO).

Recovery Point Objective (RPO)

Our earlier explanation is a bit simplistic, in all actuality. Recovery point objective is more clearly defined as the maximum age of files that need to be restored in the event of a disaster in order to resume normal operations. The RPO is expressed in days, hours, minutes, and even seconds moving into the past from the moment of the data loss incident. RPO also takes into account how often backups are taken and when.

Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

As explained earlier, RTO involves how long the process of data recovery takes to get you back to a place where normal operations can resume. You generally want to shoot for a minimum amount of downtime for something like this to reduce wasted resources. Depending on how much data you have to restore, RTO might take some time. This is why RTO is often staggered into steps starting with the most critical of data. From there, data that is less important can be restored over a longer period of time, based on how necessary it is to get back to normal operations.

Both RPO and RTO play significant roles in helping your organization determine the best path forward in the event of a disaster. If you are not sure how to approach either of these requirements, we have just the solution.

Does your business need a hand with implementing a comprehensive data backup and disaster recovery plan? MSPNetworks can equip you with a BDR solution designed for maximum data restoration and minimal downtime. To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

All businesses store and transmit data on a regular basis. From financial spreadsheets to client information to employee records, there is no shortage of data required by most organizations to maintain operations. What would you do if all that data were to suddenly vanish into thin air, or worse, be stolen by hackers?

We get it--nobody likes to imagine the worst-case scenario--but if you fail to do so, you could be leading your business right into a disaster that it has no hope of recovering from. Nobody wants to be that kind of business owner. You owe it to yourself, your employees, and your clients to keep business continuity at the top of your mind. To this end, we want to share with you a solution that all organizations should implement: data backup and disaster recovery. Many people think that data backup only has value if you need to use it, but the fact of the matter is that failing to have it can have devastating consequences.

Data Backup vs Disaster Recovery

Data backups are copies of your organization’s data that can be utilized in the event that something happens to the original. They are especially helpful in case your organization suffers from a data loss incident or a security breach. Data backup has historically been done through the use of tape. The process involved setting the tape, running the backup, and storing the tapes containing these backups somewhere on or off-site in the event that they might be needed some time down the line.

 Even though tape backup was the gold standard for quite some time, there are several issues with tape backup that modern technology solutions have addressed, such as slow implementation and deployment speed, user error, and storage space. Thanks to the advent of the cloud, businesses can automate the backup process entirely, eliminating the possibility of user error, speeding up the process, and freeing up on-site storage for other purposes.

 Data backup is but one part of a successful disaster recovery scenario. You need to have data backups that are available and ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice. Many of the disasters that could disrupt your operations, such as a data breach, natural disaster, or user error, have the potential to corrupt or destroy your data, as well as the infrastructure on which it is stored. Without access to data, operations cannot return to normal, resulting in unexpected downtime that can cripple your budget and sink productivity.

 As for disaster recovery, you want to aim for a solution that minimizes downtime. Ideally, the solution should be able to deploy a cloud-based backup directly to temporary hardware that you can utilize until an adequate replacement can be implemented. A good rule to follow is that you should have three copies of your data: one located on-site or on-network in case it’s needed, one located in a secure off-site data center, and one located in the cloud for ease of restoration. This kind of redundancy can minimize data loss and downtime as a result of a disaster.

Implement BDR Today

A backup and disaster recovery solution, or BDR, is the ideal solution to all of your organization’s data backup concerns. MSPNetworks can equip your business with this powerful tool and oversee its operation so that you don’t have to worry about how your business will survive the next disaster that strikes. To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

With most businesses dipping into their disaster recovery strategies, and millions of workers either out of work or working remotely, it is honestly a great time to remind you that March 31st is World Backup Day. This is a day where we help promote the idea of taking backups of your crucial IT systems to ensure that you have access to your important information if a disaster were to strike your business.

Well, here we are...A disaster has struck millions of businesses from around the world in the form of Coronavirus. While having a dedicated backup system probably is the last of your worries at the moment, you may be surprised to learn just how important comprehensive backup strategies can be in times where you lose access to your physical infrastructure. 

Today’s redundancy best practices dictate that you keep at least one copy of your data in an offsite data center to ensure that you have access to it if something happens to your servers. We recommend skipping all of the consumer-grade backup solutions out there, and using a device called a BDR (short for backup and disaster recovery). In times like this, your BDR can be used as a temporary server, ensuring that you and your team have access to the data they need while they are being forced to work remotely.

This year’s World Backup Day may come at an inopportune time, but regardless of what is going on in the world the following practices remain important:

• The 3-2-1 Backup Method - The 3-2-1 method means that you keep at least three copies of your data. Two of these copies can be stored on central infrastructure, but one is kept in an offsite data center or other cloud storage facility.
• Backup Your Backup - You will want to check and double-check all backups to ensure they were successful. There are several reasons why a backup would fail, so you can’t just assume they are working as intended. Check them and then check them again. Your diligence will pay off when you need the data. 
• Protect Your Backup - You will want to put password protection on all devices that contain data. Today, many of these systems come with options for multi-factor authentication, which ensures that you get an extra layer of protection. You will also want to ensure that your storage is covered by an up-to-date virus and malware protection.

If you would like to talk to one of our IT experts about your data storage or building a backup and disaster recovery strategy that will work to ensure that your data is always protected, call us today at (516) 403-9001.

World events have always had a big impact on the banks that one finds on Wall Street, but in many ways, the one that coronavirus (COVID-19) has demonstrated has been unprecedented. As such, it almost provides a case study of the importance that disaster recovery planning has for any business… Wall Street institutions included.

As the virus has spread across the world, markets everywhere have felt its impact. Distribution patterns have been disrupted due to assorted blocks on travel. Additionally, the meetings and conferences that this industry typically sees have been cut off. Naturally, this has led to these banks rolling out their backup strategies, the pits that are typically filled with traders abandoned… but more on that in a moment.

How Has Coronavirus Encouraged Disaster Recovery Awareness?

Getting right down to brass tacks, it is clear that COVID-19 is a disaster, albeit one that you may not have considered a “business disaster” at first. However, anything that interrupts a business’ processes is considered a disaster… and it is safe to say that COVID-19 has done just that. So how do you prepare a business for a pandemic?

Actually, it isn’t all that different than what your routine business continuity processes should consist of, specifically, the fact that--in case of a disaster--you need to be sure that your business has the mobility it will need to survive.

Coronavirus’ hallmark is the social distance that is recommended to be kept between people to prevent the spread. Therefore, it makes sense that people would want to keep as far of a distance from each other as possible.

The solutions for remote work, software-as-a-service delivery, and cloud-based disaster recovery prove very valuable both when you want to give your users the capability to work from their home, as well as when your office is the location of a disaster event.

So, in order to protect your employees from the spread of coronavirus, you only need to be protecting your business from other disasters as well. Sounds like a win-win.

For assistance in implementing the technology needed to maintain your operations through any disaster, reach out to the professionals at MSPNetworks by calling (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.

With data looked on as more of an asset than ever organizations are finding that their data backup and recovery system needs to be comprehensive. By knowing more about backup and recovery, you stand to be able to plan the solution to meet your company’s needs. Today, we will look at the different types of data backup and introduce you to four terms you need to understand.

The Types of Backup
There are various types of backup that anyone looking to come up with a backup strategy should know. They include:

• Full backup - A method of backup where all selected files are backed up in their entirety. Typically, the first backup taken for any backup solution. Since it is a comprehensive backup of all selected files, it will take more time than other types of backup. If a full backup is the method of backup your organization chooses, backups will typically be done after business hours as long wait times will likely cause downtime.
• Differential backup - A method of backup that just backs up the changes made to data. While this allows for significantly faster backups, it makes for slower restores.
• Incremental backup - A method of backup that is much like the differential backup. The main difference is that the incremental backup backs up data regardless if the previous backup was a full backup or an incremental backup.
• Mirror backup - A method of backup that is a real-time duplicate of the source being backed up. In essence, total redundancy. One problem with a mirror backup is that if material is deleted by mistake, it will be deleted on the mirror backup as well. For this reason, many professional IT technicians do not consider the mirror backup to be a viable backup solution at all.

Now that you understand the types of backup, here are some other backup-related terms that you should know:

• Business continuity - As the name suggests, it is a plan that is put together by a business that will allow them to continue effective operations if hit with any number of unfortunate situations. Normally focusing on a business’ critical business functions, business continuity should be a strategy that every business prioritizes.
• Disaster recovery - As with any other security process, disaster recovery is a dedicated plan to protect your business in case of some significant data-based disaster. Anything from cyberattacks, to sabotage, to mistakes can cause major problems for your business.
• Recovery Point Objective (RPO) - As a part of a dedicated disaster recovery system, RPO is a benchmark indicating which data must be recovered for your business to resume normal business operations.
• Recovery Time Objective (RTO) - Also as a part of a disaster recovery system, RTO is the time your business needs to have its data back before the business becomes untenable. The lower the number, the faster you will need a full restore.

At MSPNetworks, we offer a comprehensive backup and disaster recovery that can keep you in the game even after the most devastating data loss incident. For more information about disaster recovery, business continuity, and data backup call our professional technicians 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.