Coleman Technologies Blog

When you suffer a data breach, you might wonder how you can possibly come back from such an event, especially if it leads to a network compromise. Can your business rebound effectively, and if so, what do you need to do to make sure that it doesn’t happen again? It all starts with understanding how much data you need to function, as well as how much downtime you can afford to suffer from.

With all this in mind, you need to have a business continuity plan to prepare for the worst. Your business cannot afford to not be prepared for downtime-causing incidents. You can have the strongest security system in existence and still suffer from a data breach; therefore, you need to have contingencies in place that can help you navigate these unfortunate and unlikely scenarios in an effective way.

You should be backing up your data for multiple reasons beyond cybersecurity. You also must prepare for damages to your physical infrastructure that could affect your data, like natural disasters and user error. Let’s go over what business continuity and disaster recovery mean for modern businesses.

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Are Two Different Things

Business continuity and disaster recovery are often mistaken to be the same thing, but the fact is that disaster recovery is part of the greater business continuity effort. Business continuity includes far more than just data recovery; it also includes administrative aspects of running your business, including other events that could derail operations. Disaster recovery, in essence, is one part of an effective business continuity plan.

Disaster recovery starts with data backup, and if you think your business can run without it, you’ve never tried to run it without data or applications. Some businesses can suffer from downtime for longer than others without serious ramifications—this much is true—but enough downtime can cripple any business. This is why it’s important to know what standards you are working toward regarding disaster recovery.

What You Must Consider

Proper backup protocols include far more than storing copies of your company files in a safe location. It also means making sure they are accessible when you need them most. Not all disasters are going to hit you hard enough to knock you out of commission permanently, but you should treat each of them as seriously as they could. Even something as simple as a malware attack or a user error could make more work than necessary for your company if you’re not prepared to deal with it.

We want you to take this major point away from this blog. You should store multiple copies of your data in various locations, both on-site and in a secure, off-site data center (or the cloud). With these contingencies in place, you should be prepared for any situation that could derail your operations, whether it’s hardware failure or a hacking attack. A BDR solution from Coleman Technologies can prepare you to restore your data as quickly as possible following a disaster through a temporary server which can keep operations moving while IT repairs or orders a replacement server. On top of that, our BDR solution is much faster at restoring a backup onto a new server compared to traditional backup methods, saving you a ton of time and labor.

To learn more about how a BDR system can be just the right proactive solution for your business, contact us today at (604) 513-9428.

In the wake of Hurricane Beryl, businesses have another reason to reflect on data backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity. Since the hurricane made landfall in Texas, despite being downgraded to a tropical storm, it still caused over $5 million in damage to islands across middle America.

Hurricanes can cause significant damage and loss of life, and we would like to express our deepest best wishes to anyone who may have been impacted by the situation. While we hope that you made it out of Beryl unscathed, the same might not be said for your business’ technology and data systems.

We can learn about data backup and business continuity from this situation, specifically what it is, and reflect on why it’s required.

Understanding Business Continuity

In its most basic terms, business continuity is ensuring that you can maintain a certain level of operations, even under the worst possible conditions.

The idea of business “disasters” doesn’t amount to natural ones like a hurricane. It includes so much more that you don’t have much control over. You need to be ready to respond to these situations that might prevent your business from functioning as it needs to. Three-quarters of companies without a business continuity plan fail within three years of suffering from a disaster.

If this isn’t sobering enough, I don’t know what is.

Data backup is only one part of your business continuity strategy. We’ll go over some of the specifics of what you should aim for today.

How to Build Your Business Backup Strategy

To prepare your business’ backup plan, consider the following questions:

How many backups will you maintain?
You should have several backups in place that you can restore from, as you can never rely on one singular copy. You never know if it will be available, reliable, or configured appropriately. Maintain multiple backups so you have a dependable backup at all times.

Where are your backups stored?
You should store your backups in multiple locations, including at least one copy on-site and one off-site, preferably in the cloud. This ensures that your data will always be protected, even if one of your backups is destroyed by a disaster.

How often are backups taken?
You should take full advantage of backup tools that allow for incremental data backup. This will allow you to rewrite data that has changed since the last scan rather than rewriting the entire backup. These smaller-scale backups can occur as often as every 15 minutes, making them more reliable and less prone to data loss than the large, end-of-day backups that have traditionally been done in the past.

Implement Business Continuity and Data Backup Today

Your business shouldn’t have to suffer from a disaster, natural or otherwise. Business continuity and data backup address this pain point. Learn more about what we can do to preserve your business by calling us today at (604) 513-9428.

Nostalgia is a powerful force. It can drive us to look to the past for things we once loved, such as the music we listened to over the years. However, what if the music you loved was lost forever?

This could be the case for many, as older hard drives that archive this music have been discovered to have failed. Let’s examine the situation to see what lessons any small-to-medium-sized business can learn.

Meet Iron Mountain Media and Archive Services

Iron Mountain specializes in data management and storage services. It works with various industries to fulfill their document management and digital transformation needs, including the music industry. Iron Mountain provides archived storage for media assets for this particular client base. As a result, they store thousands upon thousands of hard disk drives that their clients asked them to use in the 1990s.

During a routine survey of its storage vaults a few years ago, the provider discovered that of these thousands upon thousands of HDDs, approximately a fifth—yes, 20% of them—were unreadable.

A Brief History of Why HDDs are the Standard Format

Ironically, the migration to HDD as the standard storage format was originally due to a similar problem. Masters, once converted to the preferred commercial format of the time, were put into storage as tape. Believe it or not, the tape degradation these masters suffered was discovered thanks to the Guitar Hero video game franchise and 5.1 surround sound. Artists wanted to make sure their work was compatible with these new platforms, but they found that their tapes weren’t all in working condition. Some had degraded, storage space conditions damaged some, and some were obsolete, having been produced for certain technologies in formats that were not easily played. Some were just missing.

We’d be the first to say that tape is far from the ideal storage medium, and we’re willing to guess that anyone who lost their masters in this way would easily agree.

As a result, the industry quickly shifted to HDD-based masters… but even this has its issues, as Iron Mountain discovered and has been trying to spread the word about.

What’s the Problem with HDDs?

Let’s say there was a nu metal band called Letters From Charlie of the Bears that had its heyday in the ‘90s, and their masters were saved via HDD. Letters From Charlie of the Bears ends up breaking up as the demand for nu metal wanes in the ‘aughts, unlike their many contemporaries that adjusted their music to match demand. However, with nu metal returning to fashion nowadays, Letters From Charlie of the Bears gets back together. They decide to remaster some of their old albums to capitalize on the renewed interest and go back on tour… only to find that the hard drives that once contained their work have gone kaput.

A few issues with HDD archival storage could lead to this scenario. First and foremost, these hard drives were never really designed with long-term archival storage in mind. Plus, the whole thing is rendered inoperational if any moving parts inside the drive fail. Older file formats have also made these master files difficult—if not impossible—to access.

What Does This Mean for Your Business?

There are two key lessons to be learned by the average business in British Columbia from this situation.

First, the importance of backup. As lovely as it would be to have technology that can inherently be trusted, and as hard as IT providers like Coleman Technologies work to keep business technology functional, the hard truth is that you can never fully trust your data storage. As a result, you must have a backup strategy that ensures you always have access to the most up-to-date version of your data and that features data redundancy to ensure that—even if something happens to one of your backup copies—you always have a working set of data to utilize.

Of course, having a backup is one thing. Knowing you can rely on it is quite another. We recommend that you occasionally test your backups by trying to operate solely from what you have stored in them. This is the second lesson to be learned.

We’re Here to Help

As part of our IT services, we offer comprehensive backup preparations and management, helping to protect your business against disasters of all kinds through adherence to key best practices. Find out how you can benefit from this by giving us a call at (604) 513-9428.

To keep your business running smoothly, even if something goes wrong—like a power outage, cyberattack, or other disaster—you need a reliable way to protect your data. That’s where data backup comes in. It’s important to make sure your backup is thorough and trustworthy so you can recover if things go south.

Here are a few key parts of a good backup system:

A Good Backup Has Extra Copies

Usually, having something "redundant" means it’s not needed, but in the world of data, redundancy is a good thing. A backup is just an emergency copy of your data in case the original gets damaged or lost. But one backup copy isn’t enough. You should have several copies so that you have more to fall back on if one gets ruined.

The 3-2-1 Backup Rule

The 3-2-1 Backup Rule is a smart way to ensure your data backup is safe and reliable. It goes like this:

• Always keep at least three copies of your data.
• Store these copies in at least two different places.
• Make sure at least one copy is kept offsite, like in the cloud.

By following this rule, your data is much safer no matter what happens.

A Good Backup is Automatic

People make mistakes—forgetting to do something is normal. But you can’t afford to forget about your backup. Luckily, modern technology can automate your backups. This means the backups will happen on their own, without someone having to start them. As a result, your data is always up-to-date, and you don’t have to worry about missing a backup.

A Good Backup Keeps Old Versions

Sometimes, mistakes happen, or a virus messes up your files. You don’t want to lose everything if your backup occurs right after these events. That’s why it’s wise to have a backup that keeps old versions of your files, so you can go back in time to a clean version if needed.

We can help you set up a strong, reliable backup system to keep your business running, no matter what. Call us at (604) 513-9428 to learn more.

Other than the innovative jump from tape, data backup hasn’t seen too many great leaps forward, so to speak. Sure, businesses don’t have to worry about resource-intensive manual backups anymore, but the standard approach is so rock-solid that innovation isn’t necessarily needed at this point. Today, we are exploring the backup and disaster recovery process and how modern-day solutions have made an effective tool even better.

How BDR (Backup and Disaster Recovery) Devices Work

Did you know that nearly two out of five small and medium-sized businesses don’t have a backup solution in place?

This might surprise businesses that fully use their Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) platform. Despite our industry’s best efforts to educate and inform business owners of the importance of such a solution, what do these businesses do when they face a disaster or data loss incident?

Thankfully, most businesses with a system in place use BDR, and not tape.

BDR works by taking incremental backups. The solution then pushes a copy to an off-site location, typically a data center or the cloud. With BDR, you can rest easy knowing that your data is fully redundant. You’ll have a copy of your data in the cloud, on-site, and secure in an off-site location for whenever you need to deploy it.

BDR embraces the redundancy expected in today’s world of cyberattacks, user error, and natural disasters, and your business needs to do the same.

How Innovation Has Influenced Backup

Certain technologies, such as artificial intelligence and blockchain, can make data backup more efficient and reliable.

AI for Data Backup

Efficiency is the name of the game with artificial intelligence.

Through automation, AI can eliminate human error from your data backup solution. This makes your data backup system significantly more reliable and efficient. With data protection, you can’t take any risks, so this is an important trait to have.

AI can also help your data solutions integrate with your other business IT systems to improve redundancy further.

Blockchain for Backup

You might know the blockchain from its integration with cryptocurrency, but it’s also helpful for various parts of the backup process.

The blockchain is an immutable ledger distributed over various systems to ensure the reliability of its data. The data on the blockchain cannot be altered without creating a new node. In essence, this means that the blockchain is a powerful solution for security.

It’s not a perfect solution for data backup, but it can ensure that your backups are stored securely and reliably.

For assistance with setting up a secure BDR solution, contact Coleman Technologies at (604) 513-9428 today.

1. Compliance Concerns
First, you need to be sure that your data is not only stored securely but is also sent back and forth to your backup solution properly. This is especially true if your industry is subject to any government mandates concerning how data must be handled, as the penalties for non-compliance can be just as severe as the influence of data loss would be.

Whether you manage your own solution or leverage a vendor to keep your data securely backed-up, the same severity applies. The size of your business has no influence, either, despite many smaller organizations having a difficult time keeping up with these regulations. These businesses are especially benefited by the availability of outsourced IT resources, as these providers are better prepared to see to these compliances and minimize any risk.

2. Costs and Scalability
It is also important to recognize your needs, including the costs that fulfilling those needs may incur (like how much a cloud provider charges for you to download your backed-up data). Before you select a particular cloud provider, make sure that you have considered all of these charges.

Furthermore, a backup solution that can only keep you safe from major disasters is one that overlooks a huge percentage of the actual issues you are apt to face. Sure, ransomware attacks and fires happen, but so do hard drive failures and other causes of small-scale data loss. Every strategy you enact needs to be documented properly, with useful information shared clearly, succinctly, and actionably.

3. Lack of Management or Testing
If your company is ever in the position that it needs to lean on a data backup, they’re going to need to lean on a leader to ensure that this process goes without a hitch. In many cases, this role would fall on your shoulders - but what if something goes down while you (or whoever is in charge of managing the recovery process) aren’t there?

This is why you need to keep a comprehensive, up-to-date plan prepared for just this occasion, a hard copy ready to be referenced on-site as well as one digitally stored in your backup files.

In addition to this preparation, you also need to make sure that the backups you’ve prepared actually work in the first place. A backup will do you no good if you can’t recover the data from it, after all. Make sure that, just as you would a fire drill, you practice utilizing the backup on occasion.

How Coleman Technologies Can Help
We have the expertise and capability to put together just this kind of strategy for you and your employees to leverage. That way, you can be confident that your disaster recovery won’t just be a new disaster to deal with. Reach out to us at (604) 513-9428 to learn more today.

Data backup is essential for any business, yet many employees might not fully understand how it works or what gets backed up. Today, let's clarify the basics of data backup and its importance.

What Gets Backed Up on Your Computer?

Many employees assume their entire computer is backed up, but this is often not the case. Typically, the main component backed up is the server, which varies by organization. This could be a network drive or another shared location.

However, documents not stored on the server may not be backed up if the system isn't configured accordingly. Files saved on desktops, in My Documents, or in Downloads are usually not backed up. It's a common misconception that these areas are backed up, but they usually aren't—especially the Desktop, where files shouldn't be stored long-term anyway.

When in doubt about your company's backup policies, consult your IT administrator or your service provider for clarification.

Consider Your Business Apps and Their Data

Ensure you understand how your business applications are backed up, especially if they are hosted in-house. Sometimes, employees use applications—known colloquially as shadow IT—without the IT department's knowledge. Applications don’t tend to ever get backed up on a corporate backup device, but if the data those applications use is stored in a central location (like on your server) then it should be backed up.

To avoid issues, confirm how and where your business app data is backed up. This awareness will prevent data loss and ensure business continuity.

Expand Your Knowledge of Data Backup Solutions

Understanding your data backup system encourages proper file storage practices and enhances business management. Don't wait—contact us for an IT consultation to discuss your backup systems. It’s a good idea to test a data loss situation at least once a year to see how your business can operate off of its backed up data. Get started today by calling (604) 513-9428.

Lock. Everything. Down.

Did you know there are entire websites out there, devoted to providing the default factory passwords for different devices? They aren’t on the Dark Web, either - this is on the visible, indexed Internet. Imagine if I were to come in with some idea of what brand of routers you had… if I had the right default credentials with me, I could easily access your router and wreak havoc in your business.

You need to consider every potential access point into your business and ensure it is properly secured. The same goes for any online accounts associated with your business, like cloud storage. Take the time to make sure that everything is secured with a password that meets best practices, and if memories are an issue, use a reputable password manager to simplify the task for your employees.

This also goes for your physical location. Many access control solutions exist that enable you to keep track of who accesses a certain area, and when, with the added benefit of keeping those without authorization out.

Keep Your Antivirus Updated

Many people may assume that, once they’ve installed an antivirus/antimalware solution, they are all set. The trouble is, more malware is being developed all the time, and there’s a good chance it is being developed to help the malicious software get past your antivirus. As it happens, the developers of the antivirus are aware of this, and frequently add new threat definitions to the software to make it more effective.

However, all the threat definitions in the world will do diddly-squat if your antivirus solution isn’t updated to include them. This is why it is important to keep an eye on your network’s health and take the time to check that you have the latest definitions included.

Keep a Backup

Finally, you have the nuclear option against malware… mutually assured destruction, that only you can recover from. That is, as long as you’ve been maintaining a proper backup.

If you should fall victim to a malware infection, completely wiping your devices and quite literally starting from scratch with them is your best hope of getting rid of it. However, in order to keep yourself from crippling your own business while doing so, you need to maintain an ace in the hole. By keeping a backup that passes best practices, you can be sure to have your data if you have to sacrifice your original copy.

Coleman Technologies can help you do all of this, and more. Reach out to us at (604) 513-9428 to learn more.

As we have done throughout this series, we will compare the experience that a managed service provider is able to deliver, compared to the alternative.

Cloud Services

Brennan’s business gathers and stores a substantial amount of data, as most businesses do. His business relies heavily on this data, as he runs an organization which depends on client contacts. To store all of this data, Brennan decides to do some research and build his own server. He understands the basics, and begins work. Not only does this take up a large amount of space, it also requires an absurd amount of power to operate. This makes the office unbearably hot. Furthermore, Brennan hooks up connections incorrectly causing equipment failure. This is not covered under warranty, and the initial cost of setting up a server is astronomical. 

On the other side of the town, Dale works in the music industry. His business decides to go with managed services. Dale is quickly connected with a trustworthy, dependable cloud service. He is then able to store all of his data and applications in the space provided by this service. It only costs a minimal monthly fee in comparison to the initial cost a server build would require. 

Backup and Disaster Recovery

Let’s assume both Brennan and Dale are given the same set of circumstances. A flood causes both businesses to be completely under water. How differently will these two business owners handle this disaster?

Brennan, panic stricken, attempts to grab whatever equipment he can salvage. His business relies entirely on the information stored within his computers. He is only able to get a small number of computers operating again, and since all of his data was in-house, nearly all of it is destroyed. Brennan’s business is in some truly dire straits. 

Dale immediately begins his backup and disaster recovery plan. His plan has been tested recently, so he is confident that his entire business can operate off-site. All of his data is stored in the cloud, which means it is all accessible anywhere there is internet. Dale’s cloud service also goes the additional mile of storing his data in an additional place. This ensures that there truly is a backup, and the same disaster that causes a backup plan to be utilized does not destroy the backup data. 

Data Warehousing

The process of combining seeming less unrelated data into a singular platform is data warehousing. This process helps businesses fuel their analytics as well as their business intelligence platforms. These platforms are turning into some of the most important tools a business owner can utilize, as they provide immense value by providing decision makers a thorough knowledge base.

This processing requires a bit of computing power. In fact, it requires more computing power than Brennan’s entire home-made system is able to muster up. Since Dale utilizes managed services, he has no issues accomplishing his goals. His provider’s flexibility ensures he is able to adjust his infrastructure as needed. 

Managed IT Value - Up Next 

In the next part of our series, we will be discussing how a managed service provider can assist with IT procurement. Coleman Technologies is always available to answer any questions you may have, so give us a call at (604) 513-9428 today!

Data Is a Big Deal

Your company’s data is one of its major assets, and you take quite a bit of effort to protect it. You deploy antivirus, firewalls, intrusion detection, and other security tools designed to mitigate exposure to malware, hackers, and other deplorable situations like:

• Human error (negligence and mistakes)
• Sabotage and theft
• Hardware malfunction
• Power surges
• Software corruption

The minute something gets through your network’s defenses, you are in deep trouble. If disaster hits your business and you don’t have a reliable backup, you could not only lose continuity, you could lose it all. This wouldn’t be so dire if you have a comprehensive business continuity strategy in place. Business continuity plans are just potential solutions to problems that threaten to take the business down. 

There are hundreds of different situations that could result in substantial data loss, but irregardless of the situation your business is in, having a strong backup and recovery plan lets you be prepared for any eventuality. 

Today, there are a lot of different ways that you can back up your data and applications, but there really is only one that offers onsite and offsite backup, incremental backups, and the ability to recover data on demand. This solution is what we call a BDR. Short for backup and disaster recovery, our backup service allows you to configure the backup solution to fit your company’s demands, while also providing all the high-end redundancy features that any business could need. 

If your business is looking to protect its data from the litany of ways it can be corrupted or lost, the BDR is right for you. Call Coleman Technologies today at (604) 513-9428 for more information.

Business can get messy, particularly when variables outside your control are involved, which could spell doom for your organization. We’re talking, of course, about instances where your organization might be under a particularly large threat—instances where your data is at risk, which could jeopardize your future. Thankfully, there are options to mitigate this risk.

You Cannot Control Natural Disasters, but You Can Control These Factors

The big consideration for protecting against data loss in an uncontrollable disaster is to think ahead. You must implement proactive measures if you want to protect your data as it needs to be. First, let’s cover what constitutes a data loss incident and what some of the most popular reasons for experiencing them are. Then, we’ll dive into the popular ways you can mitigate the risk.

Common Data Loss Incident Occurrences

Here are some of the common situations that could lead to data loss for your typical business:

• Natural disasters, which include hurricanes, electrical storms, tornadoes, winter weather, floods, and fires.
• Data loss caused by user error, such as improper configuration of systems or a failure to perform duties as needed.
• Cybersecurity incidents that lead to data compromisation, corruption, or theft.

Implementing Backup and Disaster Recovery

The one big thing that the above have in common is that they immediately threaten your data infrastructure. When your data is unavailable due to any of the above, you need to have data backup and disaster recovery systems in place to keep downtime and data loss to a minimum. Typically, a BDR solution will work by backing up your data to multiple secure locations off-site if your infrastructure is damaged. It can then restore your data to any device designated to get operations back in order.

Securing Your Infrastructure

Of course, natural disasters are far from the only danger to your business’ data infrastructure. Cyberthreats and hackers exclusively target your technological assets in hopes of either disrupting your business operations or profiting from your data. One of the most dangerous threats out there, ransomware, is so wicked in its deployment that often the only feasible way to get your data back is to restore a recent backup.

We always recommend that businesses protect their infrastructures with both comprehensive security measures and adequate data backup and disaster recovery methods. Coleman Technologies can help your organization overcome the many challenges of data loss prevention, backup, and disaster recovery. To learn more about our solutions, call us at (604) 513-9428 today.