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Disaster Recovery Plans: All Your IT Questions Answered

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Your company’s time and resources are limited. When you spend time planning for the future, it likely centers around a plan for a project, expansion or improvement. The last thing you want to spend precious time and resources on is planning for everything to go wrong.

However, if you don’t plan for disaster recovery, all your hard work for future growth can disappear, leaving you rebuilding your business from scratch and losing potential revenue and precious data.

What is a disaster recovery plan?

It’s a plan to get back to business as usual. Disasters can range from damage done to hardware by a natural disaster, user error or cyberattacks. A thorough disaster recovery plan is detailed and delegates tasks to a team of information technology professionals and internal employees who can restore your business’ data as quickly as possible. It allows the organization to recover data, gain access to networking technology, reconnect power and repair software or hardware.

When should planning begin?

The good news is that cloud computing and managed IT services makes disaster recovery much less difficult. Your managed services team — a third-party team of IT professionals — can assist your organization in transitioning to a cloud computing system.

The cloud — represented as multiple, secure data centers across the country — ensures that your sensitive and important information is secure. Data is backed up continuously so loss in the event of a disaster is miniscule. Your managed services team will use the latest data backup to restore your systems.

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a disaster recovery plan. Your IT provider can work with your organization to determine steps to cover everything from what happens if your data is compromised to finding temporary hardware and software that allows your team to get back to work even as recovery begins. 

What should be in a disaster recovery plan?

Businesses often believe their disaster recovery plan should focus only on the worst-case scenario. However, consider what you need from your IT services and equipment to carry out daily operations. While the ultimate disaster could occur, daily mishaps are more likely, such as a corrupted software program or finnicky phone systems. 

Additionally, it’s important to not only have the guidelines for restoration, your IT team must have comprehensive access to your applications so they can get to work as soon as a disaster strikes. Both IT professionals and internal employees should understand the tasks they may need to carry out if IT systems go awry.

How do I create a disaster recovery plan?

As your organization and its processes evolve, your IT plan should be updated. To create a plan with your IT provider, consider these steps:

  • Establish the scope of the organization’s daily work
  • Gather network infrastructure and access documents
  • Identify threats
  • Review past actions during outages or disasters
  • Build an emergency response team
  • Review the plan with IT professionals and management
  • Test disaster recovery plan
  • Update the plan

Infomax can help create a disaster recovery plan for your team. For more information, call 515-244-5203. 

Why you should back up your data today

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No one wants to have a Plan B. Most people spend so much time and energy on the original plan that they don’t consider a backup. However, your business’ sensitive information is too important not to back up in advance. Most businesses have years’ worth of sensitive data, including business, employee, client, financial and tax information, that they can’t afford to have compromised.

The good news is that if you spend a bit of time safeguarding and archiving your company’s data, you’ll spend much less time scrambling for a plan and trying recover your information if the unthinkable does occur. The solution is to schedule regular backups for your company’s important data and documents.

Organizations that still store many of their important files on paper — without a digital archive — clearly face the most risk if natural disaster strikes. However, storm damage can still wipe out digital files, especially if they are stored in the same facility. Findings from FEMA and the United States Small Business Administration indicate that the vast majority of businesses that suffer from a natural disaster fail within the first year or two following the damage. A survey of more than 500 IT professionals by cloud-based backup company Carbonite found that 40 percent of respondents believed their small business would go under permanently if they lost all its files. Worse yet, 58 percent of IT professionals believed they couldn’t handle the loss of any of important data. 

While Mother Nature is unpredictable, cyberattacks can be just as difficult to guard against. About 43 percent of cyberattacks are targeted at small businesses, according to Small Business Trends. The networks that house your company’s information could be compromised through malware. Worse yet, your business could fall prey to ransomware malware, which locks users out of a network until they pay a ransom to hackers. Ransomware attack frequency is growing at about 350 percent annually, according to Cisco. Safeguard your data before an attack occurs.

Even if businesses are lucky enough to escape natural disaster damage and cyberattacks, data files can become corrupted through user or program error. Regularly backing up data ensures that data can easily be restored in the event of data corruption, much the same way as edit history on a document can restore the file.

How often should data be backed up? A proper backup solution program should archive your information multiple times a day. Luckily, Infomax’s iGuard solutions automatically backup your data every 15 minutes, ensuring that your business can recover from almost any emergency situation. Our automatic solution works for your IT professionals. It secures your data to guard against cyberattacks. Additionally, we help your company stay compliant with legal requirements, such as HIPAA, SOX and GLBA. If your data is not breached or lost, you don’t lose yours or clients’ valuable and sensitive information.

To learn more about our backup solutions, contact us at 1-800-727-4629. 

Why Your Business Needs a Disaster Recovery Strategy

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Due to the multitude of cyberthreats we face today, businesses need to be ready for anything when it comes to data security. Whether it’s a natural disaster, a cyberattack, or just human error, there’s always the looming threat of a potential data disaster that could strike your company at anytime. This is why it is so important to have a disaster recovery strategy in place to avoid downtime—or worse, a complete shutdown.

Some eye-popping stats regarding data disasters
If you’re a small business, the following numbers are extremely unsettling. Again, this is a testament to the importance of a disaster recovery strategy. According to the Colorado Springs Gazette:
• Nearly 40 percent of small businesses close after a disaster—and only 25 percent of that group ever reopen
• 52 percent of small businesses say it would take at least three months to recover from a disaster
• 75 percent of small businesses do not have a disaster recovery plan in place

Mobile devices exacerbate the data security problem
Most likely, your employees utilize mobile devices to conduct business on a daily basis. Unfortunately, these devices increase your risk of a potential data breach. If a phone is left behind at a meeting or in a public space, it can easily fall into the wrong hands. A disaster recovery strategy will counter this issue by enabling remote lockdowns and device wipes on all authorized mobile devices in the event that one goes missing or stolen.

Your reputation is on the line
We know the kind of damage a disaster can cause your business when it comes to downtime and shutdowns—but don’t ignore the damage it will do to your reputation. It takes years of hard work to build trustworthy reputations amongst your clients. A data breach with no recovery plan in place will surely sour your relationships in no time. Potential clients will also be wary about going into business with your company after a data disaster.

A little preparation goes a long way
It’s essential for businesses to not downplay the seriousness of a disaster recovery strategy. Even with a temporary solution in place, you can keep your operations afloat following an emergency. Regular cloud backups and off-site backups are essential pieces to a disaster recovery strategy that require regular maintenance and management. This kind of diligence will show your clients just how much you value the vital data that makes up your company, and foster trust.

To learn more about data recovery strategies and how they can help your business in the event of a disaster, contact us today.

Why Your Business Needs a Disaster Recovery Strategy

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Is your business ready if the unthinkable happens?  The statistics suggest that the likelihood that your business could survive a disaster is slim. In fact, 58% of small businesses don’t have a disaster recovery plan in place to protect their data if a disaster strikes or if their information is breached. This lack of planning can be catastrophic to businesses of all sizes, affecting credibility and even the longevity of the company.

Here are five reasons your business needs a disaster recovery strategy.

  1. Stuff happens
    Tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters can damage your physical office location and wipe out your data. Computers crash. Hackers can infiltrate your system. Software gets corrupted.The biggest threat to your data, however, is the carefully cultivated team of professionals you hired to make your business great. Your team edits, deletes, and overwrites files every time they are on their computers, and IBM reports that more than half of all data loss comes from human error. Even if you emphasize being diligent about data protection to your team, people make mistakes and your business needs to be prepared for the worst.
  2. Compliance regulations
    Having credit card information, certain customer data, HIPAA-protected medical information, or other personally identifiable information in your system makes you liable to protect such confidential data. You are responsible to protect that data to the point that you may have a legal obligation to do so. Forrester’s Disaster Recovery Preparedness Benchmark Survey reports that 65% of all businesses have compliance requirements, and a disaster recovery plan can help you abide by such regulations.
  3. Downtime costs you money
    Losing important data equals lost productivity. No business wants to pay their team to recreate documents that already exist – it’s like paying them twice for the same outcome. But that’s if they are capable of reproducing them. For some industries, lost documents simply can’t be replaced without starting over completely. Not only will your employees not be able to access the information they need to do their jobs, your customers may not be able to either. If your clients can’t wait for you to get things back up to speed, you may lose their business.
  4. You may not be able to recover everything
    Sometimes, you can get your systems up and working again in a way that makes things appear that you’re back to normal. However, even if you can get your systems back up and running, you may not get all your data back. Can you afford to lose all the information you’ve spent years collecting?
  5. It can cost you everything
    If the first four reasons haven’t convinced you, here are two scary statistics that should concern every business:

    • 60% of small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that suffer a disaster shut down within half a year
    • 93% of business that lose their data storage for two weeks file for bankruptcy within the next year

If your business does not have a disaster recovery plan, you are putting yourself at risk.  Contact us today to learn more about disaster recovery options for your business. We will conduct a risk assessment and give you specific recommendations to help you protect your data and your business.

Is Your Business at Risk?

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If you pay attention to the news, chances are you’ve heard about some of the major cyberattacks crippling organizations across the world. For example, cybercriminals recently targeted the United Kingdom’s National Health Service through ransomware, which resulted in hospitals having to postpone surgeries and divert ambulances to other facilities. Some patients weren’t able to receive vital care because of this attack. Organizations in all industries and vertical markets are susceptible to cyber attacks and IT failure, which is why threat management and business continuity is even more important than ever in the Digital Age.

Is Your Business at Risk?

IT failure comes in many different forms. Cyberattacks are simply one example of what IT failure can look like for a business. Another common example of IT failure is a natural disaster or emergency, which can put network servers out of commission. No matter which form IT failure takes, it is essential that all companies have a plan in place to ensure they will be able to operate and access corporate and client information even in the event of a failure.

Business continuity refers to the ability of a company to continue providing customers with products and services even after a disruptive incident. For example, you may have employees relocate to another site after a natural disaster to get back to work. Resilience is the name of the game when it comes to business continuity. Threat management refers to network security approaches that focus on identifying and eliminating threats before they have the chance to infiltrate the system. Usually, such network security approaches have multiple layers that interact with each other to make it more difficult for threats to go undetected.

If a company fails to take threat management and business continuity seriously and an IT failure ends up occurring, this scenario can have a disastrous impact on a company. Unmanaged IT failure can have major financial implications. This is particularly true if your business is unable to operate at all after an IT failure, as your company will lose sales revenue until the issue is resolved. IT failure can also damage the reputation of your organization among customers. Many companies have had customers abandon them and switch to their competitors after a major IT failure due to a lack of trust.

As you can probably tell, IT failure has become one of the greatest threats for companies in this day and age. Therefore, it is essential that you refuse to be complacent when it comes to business continuity and threat management for your company. If you’d like to learn more about the solutions available to protect your organization, contact Infomax Office Systems today.

Maintain Business Continuity with Digital Archiving

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Whether it’s an angry hurricane or a destructive fire, disasters can and will happen. Sadly, most businesses that suffer through a disaster will fail within two years. Digital archiving is one effective tool you can use to help protect your organization’s long-term health against the threat of a disaster.

What are digital archives?
Digital archives are electronic versions of your company’s historical assets. Archive content is fixed and not needed for current operations; its main purpose is long-term storage and retrieval. Archives can provide an automated mechanism for regulation-mandated records retention, and typically have extensive metadata attached to allow for search and retrieval of even the oldest records.

How are archives different from backup?
Contents in your digital archives don’t change to reflect your daily operations. Archived data is not in current use and will be kept essentially as-is over the long term. Backup for disaster recovery, however, generally involves up-to-date copies of operational information that can be restored quickly. In fact, you’ll even want to back up your archives to protect yourself in the event something should happen to the original files (a safety net not available with paper-based archives). Remember this rule for backing up: three copies, on two types of media, in one additional location.

Why are archives needed?
Digital archives go beyond operational recovery (disaster response) and organizational recovery (business continuity). Your company doesn’t want to lose regulatory records or long-term, institutional history. Corporate governance, litigation, and regulatory compliance all demand data be archived past three, seven, or even ten or more years. Digital archives also provide security and traceability, with audit trails recording who accessed what, when, and what they did.

What else should I consider?
Since digital archives are for the long term, don’t forget to address issues such as life expectancy (of the software required to read data and the storage technologies themselves), increasing capacity needs over time, and the eventual disposal of the data.

A disaster could strike at any time. If you want your business to be one that bounces back after the worst happens, it’s time to get started with digital archiving. Contact Infomax today to learn more.

How Safe Is Your Email System?

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Everyone thinks they understand email security—don’t open emails from unknown senders, don’t click on suspicious links, don’t open untrustworthy attachments. But email security goes beyond common sense. To protect your business, and your employee and client data, you need to ensure proper email safeguards are in place before your email system s compromised. It’s important to ask the question: “Is your email system really secure?”

Here are several ways you can protect and defend your email system.

  • Consistent email policies. There is strength in unity. Therefore, it is essential that your employees are all on the same page when it comes to email. With just one chink in the armor, your defenses are lowered. Be sure that every employee is on the same page when it comes to email protocol, and then backup your policies with automatic safeguards to ensure compliance.
  • Reliable email filtering. Email filtering is absolutely vital in protecting your company’s sensitive materials. At Infomax, our iGuard core email filtering will recognize and eliminate nearly all viruses, worms, and other intrusions before they present lasting problems.
  • Efficient archiving. If not properly regulated, email archiving can become haphazard and headache inducing. Be sure that your emails are properly archived, so that they are easily retrieved in case of an audit. This will streamline a business process that will benefit your clients, as well as your personnel.
  • Thorough message encryption. Email encryption can help protect your business from prying eyes, both inside and outside your business’ walls. Using specific policy criteria, encrypted messages are sent automatically. This way, your valuable information is kept out of the wrong hands.
  • Dependable disaster recovery. Protecting your inbox from unexpected events is essential. When disaster strikes, be sure there is a reliable recovery system in place. For example, a system that provides auto-spooling of messages will ensure that your email is not thrown to the wolves if something goes wrong.
  • Guaranteed Continuity. When it comes to email, continuity matters. Email management and monitoring ensures that if your system goes down, your email system continues without interruption through a remote, redundant server. This way, your workflows do not come to a grinding stop in the event of an unforeseen problem.

To learn more about how to properly secure your email system, contact Infomax today!

The True Value of On-Site Service

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Servicing your IT network is not a one-size-fits-all scenario. Although remote monitoring serves many valuable functions, nothing replaces the need for occasional on-site service. Ideally, servicing your IT network should be a balance between remote monitoring and on-site service. This way, your business can run as smoothly as possible.

Here are some IT functions that require on-site service, and provide innumerable benefits to your business:

  • IT Road mapping. It’s hard to get anywhere without directions, and a good technology road map will help your business get to the next step. A technology road map ensures that your business is not blindly moving forward in the digital age, but is instead adapting in ways that best suit your business needs. Technology road maps are updated quarterly, so that your business is always headed in the right direction.
  • Email security. Email correspondence is one of the most important forms of communication these days. Make sure this important facet of your business is fully protected, using encryption, filtering methods, and other security options tailored to your business needs.
  • Disaster recovery. Let’s face it. No one likes to think about disaster striking. Fortunately, Infomax takes much of the thinking out and simplifies your recovery plan. Furthermore, with effective and reliable backup plans, you will be able to access those lost or damaged files quickly.
  • The latest software. Infomax provides the most cost-efficient software solutions available. Whether it’s a firewall, filters, or application controls, Infomax will keep your business properly monitored and protected. You will never have to worry that your software is out of date.
  • Mobile security. Mobile devices help businesses function from anywhere at any time. For that reason, they should be as protected as your in-house equipment. Mobile device management will streamline your devices, be they mobile phones or tablets, so that sensitive information is fully protected across all platforms.

As you can see, on-site services are a vital part of your IT strategy. Infomax can help secure your business from the inside out. Contact us today to learn more.