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Nearly everyone backs up their data. While a backup process can seem simple, more often than not, the recovery of data can be extremely challenging.

In an economic climate where workforce changes are inevitable, organizations need to ensure that their data can be accessed and recovered in an instant. Lost or sabotaged laptops, servers and files can result in a massive loss of productivity and as a consequence, the inability to remain competitive.

5 Everyday Things Your Data Backup System Should Do.

1. People Delete Good Files Sometimes- We’ve all done it. We delete a file, then empty the trash only to realize a minute, hour
or day later we REALLY need that file. Reluctantly, we contact the administrator to help recover the file from backup. They can do it, but it will be tomorrow, now what?

Challenge-Restore your deleted file in less than 1 day

We recently had an employee delete a file containing our marketing matrix for the past year and forward 3 months. I went to look at it and it was GONE. I called my data guy and within 2 minutes he had recovered the file and then protected it from being deleted again by that employee. Simple!

FACT: 97% of all restores are single files (Microsoft)

2. “Save” can be just like Delete-You need to prepare a sales quote for “Louis” and open the “Quote – Anderson” spreadsheet to use as a template. When you’re done you hit “Ctrl S” (save) and you have the Louis quote saved. A millisecond later you realize you’ve saved the Louis quote over the Anderson quote. You need both and it will take 30 minutes to recreate the Anderson quote.

Challenge: Restore the good “Quote – Anderson” file in less than 30 minutes

FACT : Up to 40% of all data loss is caused by Human Error (Microsoft)
3. System crash, is today lost?

Good News: Your hard drive has stopped whining
Bad News: Your hard drive has stopped turning
Really Bad News: This happened at 5:30 pm and the Board presentation you’ve been working on all day is…

Challenge: Determine which version of the “Board presentation” you can recover
A. The 8:00 am version from yesterday’s backup tape
(You did remember to do the backup?)
B. The last saved version using disk recovery utilities
(Crossing your fingers helps here!)
C. The 11:00 am version from your bosses’ e-mail
(“Boss, my computer crashed and there’s no backup, so…”)
D. The last version you saved

4. The Inbox is gone but not forgotten- Bill left the company a year ago. About 6 months ago, your predecessor deleted Bill’s e-mail inbox from the mail server to save space. Today, your company received a subpoena to produce the last 2 years of Bill’s e-mail in relation to an Intellectual Property dispute.

Challenge: Product Bill’s old email inbox- If Bill’s e-mail box was automatically backup up each day you can easily restore his inbox, because Bill’s e-mail remained on the backup system even after his e-mail box was removed from the mail server.

5. “I think everyone is backed up”- The boss asked a simple question, “Is everyone’s data backed up?”. Your answer “I think everyone is backed up” did not inspire confidence, so the next question is more precise, “Is everyone’s data backed up everyday?”. You now have a new number one project.

Challenge: Prove to the boss that “everyone’s data is backed up everyday”. With SonicWall CDP (Continuous Data Protection) we can receive an automatically genterated e-mail Activity Report showing exactly what was backed up.

If you’ve ever gotten the “blue screen of death” you know the feeling…that you’ve lost everything. I know my business would be in seriously bad sharp if I were to loss all of my companies data. We use the technology we sell, SonicWall CDP- it’s foolproof, intuitive, automatic and continuous so that we always have the latest version of any file, program or document anyone is working on. It provides flexible recovery options and more importantly…THE RESTORE WORKS!!!

As a business owner you should test not only your backup strategy but also your restore procedure to make sure it works.

To learn more…give us a call 203-649-6405 and ask to speak with a SonicWall Certified Engineer.

I read a blog today about how plant seed sales are expected to grow by 25% this year because of the economy and people’s desire to get back to basics. Small business too has the opportunity to do the same-get back to the basics.  I attended a seminar of about 35 small business owners last week and the issues are the same across many different businesses.

One resounding theme was that there is tremendous opportunity as well.

Opportunity for available talent, that a year ago was unheard of,

Opportunity for acquisitions,

Opportunity to get back to the basics of good business practices.

Now is a time to look at our businesses to cut waste, NOT to stop spending, because as one of the business owners pointed out that will only perpetuate the problem, but an opportunity to run a leaner organization.  One of the speakers said, “Sales hide all sins.”  That’s very true, when sales are up you can overlook a lot of things. Now is a time to take a deeper look at your business so that it is lean and mean for when the economy turns. It’s a great opportunity to take time to prepare your business, get your systems in place, fine tune your  processes so you are ready, so that you are still standing when others may have fallen.

Another recurring theme of the day was that when business is good, people tend to be isolated and don’t need anyone (except their customers of course) but when times get tougher people tend to need each other more and we are seeing a surge in good old fashion networking. Competitors are even helping each other out -as good will lives in a down economy- that to me was nice to hear- human nature of the small business owner-to help each other.

The small business community will get us out of the mess that the corporate giants have gotten us into. We spent the entire day sharing our pains, strategies, challenges and successes and I came away from the day with a renewed sense of hope in the knowledge that we are not alone in our challenges and that through positive support of each other and a vision to see the opportunities and not just the pains, we will not only survive but will thrive through this.

If anyone is interested in a community of small business owners preparing to thrive- click here to learn about the next session and fuel the small business movement to turn the economy around.

We work daily with our customers to help them utilize technology and strive to be not their vendor but their trusted business communications partner- all of our customers are small businesses we want to help thrive. If you think we can help you- give us a call 203-649-6405 we are all in this together and will need to work together to get out of it.

With the downturn in the economy we are getting more and more requests for video surveillance systems.   People are concerned about theft, both by employees and outsiders and well as wanting to protect the safety and security of their employees and tenants.

When looking for a video surveillance system for your business you need to know what  your objective is for purchasing a video surveillance system?

Are you interested in a crime deterant? Do you need to see fine detail for facial recognition should you need to ID a theif or vandal?  Do you need to see if an employee is putting something in their pocket? Do you need to see in the dark? Do you need to see outside or inside?

There are a wide range of systems out there today from the Do-It-Yourself  kits you can purchase at your local warehouse or office supply store to professionally installed high -quality solutions from respected manufactures like Panasonic and others. Although with that is a wide range of prices for these solutions.

So if you are hoping to just deter crime from happening and don’t care if actually capture a usable image the Do-It-Yourself kits are probably fine and will be the cheapest way to go, but remember you always get what you pay for.

We had a client that needed to see the details of employees taking product off of a 150′ long warehouse isle -obviously a Costco kit isn’t going to accomplish that, but a quality Panasonic iPro solution with PTZ capability and long-term storage if that bill.  You should ask yourself  “What is the cost of the loss I am looking to prevent?”

Professional installation is key to correct placement, recording options and focus so that if and when you need to retrieve an image it’s there.

If you are in the market for a video surveillance solution that can meet the range of needs or aren’t sure what your objective is but know you need a video surveillance system, click here for more information or give us a call 866-887-5792.