Have you ever accidentally deleted a file or had your computer crash? It’s a frustrating experience, right? Now, imagine if a major disaster—like a fire or data breach—struck and wiped out all your critical data. That’s where disaster recovery steps in to save the day.
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.
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.
A popular automotive dealership software platform has recently become the target of a cyberattack, resulting in the solution going down for several days. Any business that has a solution it relies on can sympathize with the situation. After all, if you lose access to your critical business apps for several days, would your operations be able to recover?
Every organization faces operational challenges at some point. Numerous factors can lead to downtime, making a comprehensive data backup plan essential. This month's newsletter dives into the concept of business continuity and underscores the pivotal role of data backup within it.
Perhaps predictably, the word “insure” has roots that tie it closely to “ensure,” as it is meant to ensure a level of security after some form of loss. Nowadays, that loss often pertains to data, making cyber insurance an extremely valuable investment for the modern business to make.
However, in order to obtain this kind of insurance, businesses commonly need to meet some basic requirements. Let’s go over some of these requirements now.
In business, there are always issues that need to be met. Often, there are so many that finding which ones to give priority is a chore all in itself. Choosing the best path forward depends on the situation, so when you are considering your organization’s disaster recovery you have to take into account every troubling situation your business can encounter. This month let’s go through some of the most prevalent disasters that a business can face.
Tape backup has been used for a long time, and it was once the most prominent solution for data backup out there. Nowadays, it’s not used much at all, mostly in favor of better and more convenient solutions. However, there has been a slight resurgence in tape backup, so we want to look at why some companies might still use it, despite its flaws.
Cybersecurity is important. Scroll through a few pages of our blog and you’ll see article after article talking about threats and ways to make yourself and your business less vulnerable to cyberthreats. As an IT professional, however, I’d be so much happier if the state of the world didn’t require such a massive effort just to protect oneself and we could just talk about cool stuff you can do with modern technology all the time!
But alas, strong cybersecurity is crucial to virtually any organization, and it’s becoming even more important by the month.
We often discuss data backup and disaster recovery on our blog, and you may even be familiar with some of the terms and practices we throw around. Today, we want to take a closer look at the 3-2-1 rule and how it impacts your business’ ability to recover in the face of a disaster. Let’s dive in and see how the 3-2-1 rule can make or break your company’s data infrastructure.
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.
A techy colleague of mine was taking advantage of a rainy weekend to update his internal infrastructure. For the sake of our story, we’ll call him Bobby. Bobby was migrating his entire server over to brand new hardware on a new rack. Without getting too technical, his server contained several virtual servers running in tandem, controlling his overall network, storing his data, and running his line of business applications. In other words, it was critical to his business. If it were to go down, his employees would be nearly crippled.
In a crisis event, you need to have your team at your side (even if they must physically stay home) and supporting you. Here are a few ways to encourage this:
To help you out, we wanted to go over a few of an MSP’s capabilities, particularly the ones that will assist your business the most during tough times.
In this (or any) business disaster, downtime is the enemy. If there is some technical issue that is preventing work from being done efficiently, your business is going to feel the ramifications. Depending on how severe the downtime is, it could impact the likelihood of your business lasting in the long-term.
A BCP is a plan that will be enacted in any situation that causes the business’ operation to be interrupted. This could be as simple as a deleted file, but it could also be enacted in situations where the health of the business is in grave danger. Having a comprehensive BCP in place helps eliminate the confusion that could further hurt your business when the going gets rough.
First of all, it’s important not to panic. Many organizations have been offering work-from-home perks for years. Not only is it entirely possible to keep business running, but many businesses see a boost in productivity. A two-year Stanford study shows that in general, remote workers are as productive, if not more so, than those confined to an office.
As more and more people are dealing with the virus and its effects on commerce, supply chains are failing and distribution patterns are completely disrupted. This has had a devastating effect on the world economy. It isn’t like a hurricane or a flood, but an outbreak, like most other disasters, hit business’ suddenly and has led many to enact their disaster recovery strategies. Today, we are going to discuss how IT fits into disaster recovery.
The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly thrown us all for a loop, with many businesses wisely choosing to close their office doors, either scaling back their operations or choosing to utilize a more mobile workforce. While this clearly qualifies as a disaster, it isn’t one that holds too many risks against your data; at least, not when compared to some others. This gives us a chance to consider how well-prepared we are for other disasters that could pose more of a threat to the information and files your operations depend on. For instance, how would you respond if something were to happen to your actual business infrastructure (and, by association, any data you had stored there)?
Based on what is currently known about the coronavirus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have some recommendations as to how to keep the potential impact of coronavirus to a minimum:
If you find that one of your employees is confirmed to have been infected with coronavirus, make sure that you inform their coworkers of their possible exposure while still maintaining the confidentiality that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires. These employees and those who are living with a sick family member should assess their risk of exposure using the CDC’s guidelines.
Unfortunately, coronavirus will also require you to also keep an eye on your network security, particularly if you operate within the healthcare industry. Hackers and cybercriminals have taken advantage of the widespread concern that the disease has caused. For example:
While the current climate may not make it easy, these emails and other threat vectors can be overcome through the same best practices that foil other cyberthreats. In addition to comprehensive digital protections, training your employees to spot these threats will be crucial.
Of course, you should also maintain a comprehensive backup in case you need to recover from a successful attack.
With today’s technology, sending an employee home sick doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be sacrificing that employee’s productivity. We now have many ways that your team can work effectively from home, still contributing to your organizational agenda without exposing their coworkers to their illness.
Remote access solutions, paired with virtual private networking technology, can allow your employees to securely continue their work from home, safely accessing the applications and data their tasks require through an encrypted connection. As collaboration will certainly be necessary, you will want to be sure that your employees are also equipped with the communication tools that facilitate this collaboration as well.
You will also want to thoroughly secure your network infrastructure to help prevent threats like phishing attacks and other methods from being successful… as well as preparing for a potential breach or emergency with data backups and disaster recovery policies and procedures (including contact information for your employees) to help mitigate a worst-case scenario.
Finally, make sure your employees are on the lookout for any suspicious activity that could be a cybercriminal’s attempt at using the coronavirus as a means to an end. Not only should your employees know how to spot these attempts; they should also know the proper procedures for reporting and handling them.
Is the coronavirus scary? At this point, it is safe to say that it is, but does it have to interrupt your business operations entirely? Not if you are properly prepared.
For more assistance in preparing your business for any kind of disaster, reach out to the professionals at Coleman Technologies by calling (604) 513-9428.
COVID-19, better known as coronavirus, is a respiratory illness that first appeared in Wuhan, China, and was reported in the United States on January 21st, 2020.
As of March 3rd, 12 states have reported 60 total cases of coronavirus and six confirmed deaths, with no vaccines or specific antiviral treatments for the illness. Symptoms of the virus include fever, shortness of breath, and a cough, while those with complications from the virus can experience pneumonia in both lungs, failure of multiple organs, and death.
Any time your organization isn’t operating under normal circumstances (i.e. any time it’s simply not functioning, or functioning at a loss) can be considered downtime. This takes multiple forms, including employees unable to access critical software or data, the office being shut down due to a power outage, or even technology problems that result in devices not working as intended. Whatever the reason--and data loss disasters are a big one--you can bet that downtime has a considerable impact on both your wallet and your organization’s long-term sustainability.
What a lot of businesses might not understand about data loss is that it equates to lost progress, or work that needs to be done over again. Think about it this way; your organization has to collect all the data again, assuming that there is no way to actually restore it. This is why so many businesses have a data backup and disaster recovery solution, as retracing your steps can be costly, time-consuming, and, quite frankly, a waste of time that could have been avoided with the proper foresight.
In many cases, a data disaster can involve a security breach, where personally identifiable information or sensitive corporate data can be stolen or exposed to danger. When this happens, certain industries that are supposed to adhere to various security thresholds may be subject to fines based on the specific types of data affected. It’s needless to say that this kind of disregard for security compliance can lead to crippling fines and legal repercussions.
In all of the above cases, having a data backup and disaster recovery solution from Coleman Technologies can offset the challenges and difficulties of operating at a loss. To learn more about the solutions we offer, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.
Coleman Technologies has been serving the British Columbia area since 1999, providing IT Support such as technical helpdesk support, computer support and consulting to small and medium-sized businesses. Our experience has allowed us to build and develop the infrastructure needed to keep our prices affordable and our clients up and running.
20178 96 Avenue, C400
Langley, British Columbia V1M 0B2
Mon to Fri 9:00am to 6:00pm
