Backups

When Nature Strikes Part 2 – Fire In The Sky

November 30, 2014

Scott Blake is a Senior Network Engineer with Tech Experts.

Fires in or around server rooms and data centers can ruin your data and put your business at risk. It’s a must to set up fire protocols when you build your room or building.

As I mentioned in Part One of “When Nature Strikes,” the two most important protocols to have in place for any “in case of…” are 1) Have a Plan and 2) Secure Your Data. When dealing with the possibility of fire destroying your server room or data center, you’ll want to make sure you also have Suppression, Containment and Insurance protocols in place as well.

Have a Plan
Disaster recovery plans are now becoming a requirement for many industries. To be prepared, businesses need to locate and define the regulatory requirements of their individual industry, which will also help avoid fines, penalties or negative press associated with noncompliance.

Trying to implement or even design a plan while in the middle of a disaster will only lead to a less than successful recovery. Make sure your team is ready for action and everyone knows what to do. It’s better to be overprepared than have a plan that goes up in flames.

Secure Your Data
Back up your data regularly. Manage a duplicate copy of all data, programming, and company processes at a different physical location or in the cloud. That way, you can continue working at a secondary location if your system crashes. One way to do that is to keep copies of all your data, programs, bare metal backups and virtual machines in data centers in other states.

If you maintain data backups and business software on location, make sure you store them in a fire rated safe. Fire safes can be purchased anywhere from $100 to thousands of dollars for a fully-loaded safe.

Suppression
Fire suppression systems for server rooms and data centers are essential to the server room itself. A fire suppression system will automatically extinguish a fire without the need of human intervention.

Design standards for fire suppression systems for server rooms and data centers are carried out with strict guidelines as the fire suppression agents used can be dangerous if not designed correctly. Fires within these types of environments are suppressed in two different ways.

Reduce Oxygen – This method uses argon, nitrogen and sometimes carbon monoxide to displace the oxygen in the room. The objective of this method is to reduce the oxygen level to below 15% in the room. By reducing oxygen to this level, it will suppress the fire.

Chemical and Synthetic – Most chemical and synthetic fire suppression agents have some form of a cooling mechanism. These systems use less gas and maintain a higher level of oxygen. However, high doses of any synthetic or chemical agent can be toxic, so making sure your design is correct is absolutely necessary. Synthetic fire suppression systems will deliver its payload within ten seconds.

Containment
A fire doesn’t have to be inside your data center to jeopardize IT equipment. Because radiant heat and smoke from fire in an adjacent room can be enough to damage sensitive network hardware, creating a protective barrier between your server room and the potential fire not only blocks indirect damage, but prevents flame spread as well.

Lightweight, flame-resistant ceramic panels can be used to build fire-safe archive rooms and data centers within larger, standard-construction buildings.

Insurance
Recovering from fire damage is expensive. Business insurance is crucial and it’s not only for physical property. The right kind of insurance will replace lost income as well. Make sure your business insurance policy is up to date and has the correct coverage to support your business in crisis mode.

Make sure you have all of your suppression and containment systems built and installed by certified professionals. Insurance companies will require this in order for you to acquire the policy and even collect on it.

No one wants to get burned after a fire. Again, make sure your company insurance is up to date and has the appropriate coverage needed to rebuild your business.

If you have questions or you’re looking for suggestions on prepping your business for recovery, not disaster, call Tech Experts at (734) 457-5000.

(Image Source: iCLIPART)

When Nature Strikes – Is Your Ark Ready to Float Your Business to Dry Land?

October 31, 2014

Flooding can strain the resources of even the most well-equipped organizations. Natural disasters give little warning to companies, so preparing for the disaster is the only way to reduce the high cost of rebuilding.

Have a plan ready and in place
Disaster recovery plans are now becoming a requirement for many industries. To be prepared, businesses need to locate and define the regulatory requirements of their individual industry. In addition to reducing hardware damage and data loss, this will help avoid fines, penalties or negative press associated with noncompliance.

The health care industry has begun to require that hospitals have a recovery plan in place. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) sets standards for operating a health care organization and evaluates the industry to ensure that these standards are met. Documented and field-tested recovery plans for theft, vandalism, loss of critical data, provision of emergency power, and file and flood recovery are now required.

Your data: Make sure you have it
Back up your data regularly. Manage a duplicate copy of all data, programming, and company processes at a different physical location or in the cloud. That way, you can continue working at a secondary location if your system crashes.

One way to do this is to keep copies of all your data, programs, bare metal backups and virtual machines in data centers in other states or in some cases different countries.

Tech Experts offers encrypted, HIPAA-approved, online backup of your files, documents, folders and data bases. If you require bare metal backups or the ability to convert your server into a virtual machine to keep afloat until replacement hardware is in place and running, Tech Experts also offers devices that can fulfill that requirement as well.

Treat your data like your money
Keep it safe and keep a lot of it.

Power: Must have it
An uninterruptable power supply (UPS) and a generator provide consistent backup power for your business if power lines go down. Make sure you routinely test and service them to ensure they’re working correctly.

Electrical components, including service panels, meters, switches, and outlets, are easily damaged by flood water. If they are underwater or come in contact with water for even short periods, they will probably have to be replaced. Make sure all of your computer systems — from servers, workstations, backup devices, and UPS’s — are up off the floor. Servers, backup components and UPS’s should be at least four feet off the floor.

Another problem is fires caused by short circuits in flooded areas. Raising electrical system components helps you avoid those problems. Having an undamaged, operating electrical system after a flood will help you clean up, make repairs, and return to your property with fewer delays.

Good relationships with vendors, customers and partners
Create strong relationships with your partners, vendors and customer base. In good times, they will give you access to new ideas, technologies, and business opportunities. During a crisis, they’re a security blanket with teams of people who know your business model and have resources to help you rebuild.

Insurance: Business is life
Floods and water damage are expensive. Business insurance is crucial and it’s not only for physical property. The right kind of insurance will replace lost income as well. Make sure your business insurance policy is up to date and has the correct coverage to support your business in crisis mode.

If you have questions or you’re looking for suggestions on prepping your business for recovery, call Tech Experts at 734-457-5000.

(Image Source: iCLIPART)

Spring Cleaning Tips for Your Home and Office Computers

May 30, 2014

Spring is a good time to get some cleaning done in your home as well as your office. Here are few tasks and tips you should check off your list, if you own a small business or if you simply are a computer user:

Back up your files
You should make it a routine and regularly back up your important files to the cloud or into an external hard drive. Delete old unnecessary emails and archive important ones. This will make it easier to locate specific email chains and will open up the storage space in your computer.

Update your security settings
You may assume that your home or small business or PC is too small a target for hackers, but that is simply not the case.
Internet security statistics show that hackers are targeting businesses with fewer than 250 employees due to the fact that it’s generally easier to hack into small businesses and home users.

As a rule, assume that any valuable information you have is at risk, and ensure you install the latest security patches and updates whenever they become available.

Take advantage of mobile technology
Research indicates that small businesses that do not accept mobile payments could be losing up to 1 trillion dollars annually. Many small business owners realize the potential of mobile technology, but 91% of them still don’t have mobile-optimized websites. If your business is not yet mobile friendly, it is important to start thinking about upgrading your services.

Go paperless
Going paperless will significantly reduce paper clutter and will minimize the time needed for spring cleaning. There are many affordable solutions you could adopt which allow you to maintain and organize critical business documents.

Manual clean-up
Your hardware and peripherals also need to be cleaned, so take some time to clean your keyboards, screen monitors and to check the batteries in your mouse or wireless keyboards. Also, remember to clean your printer and check whether or not you have installed all the required updates from the manufacturer and that all its parts work seamlessly.

(Image Source: iCLIPART)

Severe Weather Is Just Around The Corner… Be Prepared

March 18, 2014

tlfheadshot_web — Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.

March is National Severe Weather Preparedness month, and we’re still shaking off severe winter storms.Tornado season is right around the corner, so it’s important to assess your company’s backup systems.

Disasters put all business data at risk and that’s why so many businesses take steps to protect their systems. But there are still risks that they may miss.

One of the best ways to make sure your network is properly protected is to learn from the mistakes other companies. Here are four key things that virtually guarantee it will be impossible for your business to recover from a catastrophic hardware failure or natural disaster.

Not backing up data
It may seem like common sense when preparing for a disaster or developing a continuity plan that you should back up your data. However, a study from Symantec found that only half of businesses back up more than 60% of their data.

Other businesses don’t back up data or only back up certain systems. This means that if these businesses are faced with a disaster, they could lose up to 40% of their data. Some businesses could lose all of it.

Many experts suggest that businesses not only back up their data, but take more of an all-or-nothing approach. All data should be backed up so that should a disaster happen you can guarantee that nothing will be lost.

Failing to protect off site data
Business is becoming increasingly spread out, with many employees working from outside of the office, or on their own systems. People who telecommute or use their own systems usually store important data on their local machines.

When a company goes to protect or back up their data, some may forget to back up data on machines outside of the company premises.

What’s more, some industries have regulations stating that you must back up data from all end-points (e.g., computers and devices) regardless of their location. So, when you are backing up data, be sure that you also back up data on systems that aren’t in the office.

Not backing up data consistently
The data in your business is always evolving and growing. Therefore, you need to ensure that it is backed up regularly. Because backups take time, there is a higher chance for them to fail. If you only back up once a year without checking, and disaster strikes, you could find that your data is incomplete, inaccessible or out of date. This may make any recovered data essentially useless.

The question is, how often should you back up your data? For most small businesses, a full backup at least once a week is suggested. If you work with client data on a regular basis or in a regulated industry, daily backups would likely be the best plan.

Using outdated backup methods
Just because you back up your data doesn’t mean it will always be available, especially if you use older backup methods such as data tapes or disks. These physical backups can be lost or even destroyed in a disaster and possibly even stolen. You may want to employ a more modern data backup solution that is more reliable, such as our Experts Total Backup cloud backup system.

That being said, you don’t have to give up older methods as these can come in handy, especially if you are going to be operating without the Internet for an extended period of time. By employing more than one solution, you can cover all bases while ensuring that data is largely backed up and available.

If you are looking to learn more about how you can protect your data, please contact us today to see how our systems and solutions can help.

(Image Source: iCLIPART)

One Last Time… How Important Are Small Business Backups?

December 30, 2013

Last month, I shared with you my personal experience with local search and how it impacted the surgery my dog Daisy needed. This month, I’m going to share with you my personal experience with the importance of offsite backups.

Earlier this month, we had a pretty bad fire at the house. Everyone got out ok, including Daisy and Bailey, but the damage is incredible. We’re living in a condo for the next six to nine months while the house is repaired.

The fire started in the center of the house, where all of my networking equipment is located, including my Fortinet router and my Western Digital network attached storage (NAS) device.

I use the NAS primarily to store old tax information, backups of my Quickbooks files, backups of my extremely important pictures from Michigan Football games, and other personal information.

The Fortinet, NAS and everything else that was in that room are completely destroyed – all that remains is a charred mess of plastic connected together by the thin copper wire that used to be Ethernet cable.

As is always the case, the fire was completely unexpected. And, it happened so fast that we had just enough time to get ourselves and the dogs out. There was no time to save network equipment, much less anything else.

And that’s the important thing to take from this. No matter how convinced we are that “it could never happen to me,” it’s our responsibility as business owners to be prepared for any eventuality.

Fortunately, all of my personal data is protected by the same industrial strength backup solution we use for our business clients – our Experts Total Backup service.

All of my files and documents were backed up to the Tech Experts cloud servers, and nothing was lost. Our Experts Total Backup service works quietly in the background, compressing and encrypting your files before sending a copy of them to the backup server in the cloud.

A few days after the fire, once things settled down, it took just a few hours to copy everything down from the cloud and onto a new NAS unit.

So, what’s the take away from all of this? Expect and prepare for the unexpected. If I didn’t have an offsite backup for my data, I would have lost a ton of information, but none of it mission critical (except, perhaps, my U of M football pictures).

A similar disaster at a small business would be catastrophic in the best instance, and deadly if the company didn’t have offsite backups.

And as I’ve written many times before, your business’s backup is only as good as the last time you tested it.

Whether your backup is onsite using tape or other removable media, or offsite using a service like Experts Total Backup, you must routinely test and verify your backups.

Thanks!
Everyone around me has pitched in to help, but a few folks have gone above and beyond.

Leski Insurance Agency and MEEMIC Insurance Company (734-242-6759) have been incredible.

The Frenchtown Fire Department was on-scene in minutes.

Annette Perna-Taormina from Gerweck Real Estate took literally one day to find us a temporary place to live. Call her for your real estate needs at (734) 243-4200.

Finally, friends Michele Paled, Marlene Messina, Tammi VanAken, Candie Mulligan, Kim Harper, and my mother Carol have been incredibly helpful and supportive.

It’s A Scary Time For Your Company’s Systems And Data

October 18, 2013

We sent out an email a few days ago alerting folks to a new and particularly nasty virus that’s making the rounds. It’s called CryptoLocker and, if your systems get infected with this particular kind of “ransomware,” it is, frankly, a nightmare.

CryptoLocker scans your system and looks for all of your file storage locations – your local C: drive, any USB thumb or external drives, and even network shares (if you save files on your S: drive, for example).

It then encrypts every file it finds using a sophisticated, spy-level type of encryption. Your files – Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. – all become unusable.

Pay up, or else
You’ll then get a pop up on your system, letting you know that your personal files are encrypted, and if you want the key to unlock them, you’ll need to pay the cyber crooks to get it. The ransom (thus, the term “ransomware”) is anywhere from $300 on up. And, there’s a deadline – 72 to 100 hours – after which, the key to your files is destroyed, and you’re simply out of luck.

Prevention
This nasty virus is spread by opening email attachments or through other “social engineering” means.

Spam/virus filtering are generally aware of the threat and actively block emails that contain elements of this and other malware.

We suggest notifying your employees immediately of this new virus and making sure everyone is following some basic preventive measures:

Do not click on attachments in emails from someone you don’t know or companies from which you haven’t expressed interest in receiving information.
Do not click on links, advertisements or pictures that pop up on your screen when visiting other websites.
Do not engage in social media games or click on links that appear on social media platforms.

The virus emails come in the form of a shipping notice from UPS or FedEx. It is obviously fake, but the scammers make it look very real.

Why aren’t you backing up your data?
I’ve been in the IT business for nearly 27 years and I can say I’ve pretty much seen it all. But I’m still astounded when we run across a business owner who isn’t backing up their data.

Studies show that only six out of every 10 people back up their computer files. The 40% that don’t said that it was because they didn’t think they needed to.

According to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, 70% of small businesses that suffer a significant data loss go out of business within a year.

These ransomware and other destructive viruses are becoming more and more prevalent. We work hard to keep your systems safe and protected, but no antivirus software catches 100% of everything.

More than ever, it is vitally important that your business have a solid backup system that is managed, monitored and tested. Too many times we’ve gone in to help a new client who is in the middle of a disaster, only to find out they were religiously changing tapes in a system that hadn’t successfully ran a backup in months – or years.

Choosing The Best Option To Back Up Your Data

September 25, 2013

by Michael Menor, Network Technician
We highly recommend that all computer users regularly back up their data in order to prevent losing information in the case of a disk failure.

We recommend at the very least backing up files that are frequently changed. A basic backup strategy involves copying important files to a location separate from your hard drive.

Having more than one copy of important data is insurance against the loss of that data in an event such as a hard drive or system failure.

To make your backup strategy more complete, you should try a trial restore of your backup so you will be comfortable enough with the process to use it before you experience the loss of data.

Flash drives that plug into a USB port are a convenient technology for backups. They do not generally require any extra software and are very portable and they can be reused many times.

Flash Drive
A flash drive can serve as an external repository for important data as a protection against an event such as the failure of your hard disk.

However, a single flash drive does not have the storage capacity to backup an entire hard disk or file system, and they tend be more expensive than other storage methods for the same amount of data.

Cloud Storage
You can access your data from any computer or mobile device with an Internet connection and you don’t have to keep track of any extra hardware or external storage media.

There are many providers that offer free online storage. A few popular ones are Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft SkyDrive.

Many of these are cross-platform applications that enable you to access whatever data you have stored as though it were stored in a folder on your computer’s hard drive.

CDs/DVDs/Blu-ray discs
CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs are also an option for backing up data if you have an internal or external drive that can write to one or all formats:

CDs: 750 MB
DVDs: 4.5 GB (single layer) or 8.7 GB (double layer)
Blu-ray: 25-100 GB

CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs are among your cheapest backup options (per gigabyte), and they are also among the most durable (no moving parts to wear out or metal parts to rust).

However, while it is technically possible to back up your entire system to CDs, DVDs, or Blu-ray discs by spanning multiple discs, it would be a time-consuming process that would require many discs.

External Hard Drives
An external hard drive is often the same type of hard drive as found inside most computers, only in a stand-alone enclosure with a USB or other data port that is powered by your computer or a separate wall adaptor.

As such, it is possible to purchase an external hard drive that is as large or larger than your computer’s internal hard drive, allowing you to backup your entire system to a drive that you can separate from your computer, carry with you to transfer your files, or set aside as a backup.

Most external hard drives have moving parts, however, making them more prone to wear and damage due to drops or vibration than some other backup options.

Also, some external hard drives do not operate cross-platform, which means that if your drive is formatted for use with Mac OS X, it may not be recognized by a Windows computer (or vice-versa).

External hard drives are available in sizes ranging from 100 gigabytes to many terabytes, and some are small enough to carry in a purse.

However, in whatever size you choose, external hard drives are the fastest and most versatile way to back up large amounts of data.

Backup And Disaster Recovery For Small Businesses

April 25, 2013

by Jeremy Miller, Technician
It is that time of year again; “Storm Season”, and computers and other electronics can be damaged.

We see at least a few computers each year come in from damage caused by a storm. This can vary from a failed power supply to computers that cannot be repaired due to the damage done by the storm.

This is one reason why it is important to have a disaster recovery plan. A good disaster recovery plan starts with backing up vital information regularly.

It is best to have at least two forms of backups as well. You need on-site and off-site backups.

On-site backups are stored on some media like a hard drive or a flash drive that is not permanently attached to the computer. This is a removable storage device that can be transferred to a different computer, or even a network resource like a server.

We can also offer a device that will take a complete system image of your computer at regular intervals. If your computer or server fails, this device can actually boot up as a temporary copy of your computer or server, within minutes. This will keep your downtime to a minimum in the event of a disaster.

Off-site backups are the most important. There are instances of when the on-site backups become unusable. This can happen in the event of natural disasters like fires, floods, and electrical damage from lightning, or even something simple such as a system failure or even a virus.

It is a good idea to have your data backed up securely over the Internet to a different location that has many redundancies in place.

You need to decide what the best options will be for you and make sure that they are cost-effective. Backup and disaster recovery is something we take very seriously here. We have had clients accidently delete their entire QuickBooks databases, they called us, and we were able to restore the databases in minutes.

This client was proactive and worked with us to setup the best backup solution for them and it paid off. Being proactive and setting up a disaster recovery plan is the only way to help prevent data loss.

The most important part of backing up your data is testing your backups.

You have to test your backups to make sure everything will be able to be restored in the event of an emergency.

You do not want to spend a lot of money on backup software only to have your data become corrupt and unusable. Our backups are regularly tested to verify integrity.

We have helped many people implement backup and disaster recovery solutions. The backups that we setup off-site are tested regularly. We have had 100% success rate in restoring backups that we have setup and monitored.

If you are interested in having your current backup solution audited, or would like consulting on a new backup solution we will be happy to help. Please contact us with any questions or concerns you may have.

Ghosts, Goblins And Failed Backups… Oh, My!

October 8, 2012

Welcome to October, fourth quarter, and Halloween!

The season of ghosts, ghouls and other scary creatures is the perfect time to talk about another frightening subject: The state of your backups!

First, the facts:

6 percent of all PCs will suffer some sort of data loss each year.
Every week, 140,000 hard drives crash.
Simple drive recovery can cost more than $7,500.
More than 600,000 laptops are lost or stolen each year.

Scary Statistics
These are pretty scary numbers, particularly if you use your laptop for business. My experience has been that, while most business owners understand the importance of backing up their server, many forget about the data stored in email, on local PCs or laptops and flash drives.
The cost to replace a laptop pales in comparison to the effects the lost data can have on your business.

Whether it’s theft, a natural disaster, fire, flood, theft, or human error, any loss of important business data can be debilitating to your business if you’re not prepared for them.

Fortunately, there are three easy steps you can take to protect your business from the downtime and data loss that can result from a disastrous event.

Choose the right backup provider
Make sure that your backup system can provide you with both offsite and onsite backup, with an option to be back up and running within 24-48 hours. This is what our Experts Total Backup service is designed to do.

Keep in mind that many low-cost solutions require days or even weeks for full recovery of your files, due to the slowness of the Internet.

Your backup solution should not only protect your data, but should also give you a backup of your programs and network settings so your business operations can return to normal as quickly as possible.

Conduct a “fire drill”
You also want to be sure that you conduct a periodic “fire-drill” with your backup. Too many times, we see clients who religiously change tapes, but never check their content. When disaster strikes, we discover the tapes are blank. That’s why we’ve gotten rid of tape based backups.

Keep your backup current
Finally, whenever you add computers, new software, or new services to your network, be sure your backup solution reflects those changes. This will ensure that you are backing up everything you need.

Free Report
Business backups are complex, and require a professional solution. I’ve put together a free, 12 page report that covers all of these items – and more – that is your’s free for the asking. Just give me a call!

Local, Offsite Or Disaster Recovery: Backup Options Explained

October 8, 2012

By Tech Experts Staff
Many businesses have a lot of highly important data. A sudden, catastrophic loss of data has proven to put many businesses out of business within months of the data loss.

The extreme costs of both getting data back, if it’s even possible, and the expense of down time and lost business is an insurmountable obstacle to business continuity.

Thankfully, we have many options to proactively prevent data loss and in some cases, keep your business up and running when your original source of data is no longer accessible. With our Experts Total Backup service we’ve got your data covered.

Choosing the right backup option depends on the type of data your organization has, the amount of time that is acceptable to be without access to your data, and the amount of time you need to retain backups of your data.

For small to medium sized businesses, we offer a file based backup system that comes in several tiers.

The various tiers are based on not only the amount of data you have to backup but also on the type of data you need backed up.

For instance, if a business runs around the clock or routinely has files open at all hours, has SQL or other databases running, or the high likelihood of having files open during the backup jobs, we have a backup system that can backup these files, even though they are open, offsite to our secure offsite backup server.

So, what if your business can’t be down for any period of time, even if your building were to burn down?

For situations like this, we offer Backup and Disaster Recovery options.

A Backup and Disaster Recovery machine or BDR, is designed to take continuous snapshots or your server as well as upload this data to a cloud based server.

There are many benefits of having a BDR in place versus just having a standard backup job in place.
The first major advantage is that in the event of something catastrophic like a business being demolished (fire, flood, tornado) access to the server can be quickly restored via the images the BDR uploaded to the offsite server.

What this means is that even servers running applications, databases, etc. can still be completely accessible even if the original equipment was destroyed.

After the equipment has been replaced this image of the server that you have been using via our secure cloud environment can then be transferred to the new server.

This allows you to continue to function as a business, using your original data, while we work to setup a new server onsite for your business.

Planning on replacing an old server soon? We have backup solutions that can be included for onsite backups as well when a server is purchased through us.

Using Windows Server 2008, we can configure onsite image based backups that allow your servers image to be restored to another server in the event your server fails and cannot be used again.

If you need help sorting out the options, give us a call and we can go over your current backup solution to make sure you’re protected.

We’ll help you develop an appropriate backup solution to protect your data and ease your mind. Remember: Neglecting your backups is extremely risky!

« Previous Page