Archives for August 2016

Are you a business manager scrambling to support your growth and the demand on your IT infrastructure? Are you a family business where employees don’t have the expertise to test the security of your mobile applications? There are many reasons for small and medium businesses to reach out for IT support. Here are four great reasons to check in with your workforce capabilities and determine if you could hire a little extra help!

1. Customers demand 24/7 access: Today’s business environment is global and always-on. Through the growth and accessibility of the internet across the world, customers and stakeholders expect doing business at any time. In order to support this, a business’s IT must be running at peak performance with few or no downtimes. Many businesses look to the cloud to provide this ability, but transition to this environment isn’t easy.
2. Customers want mobile and cloud: Can your network services provide peak performance and adjust for mobile and cloud-based applications? Did you know that Google has changed its search algorithm to rank websites that are mobile-friendly with a higher SEO rank?
3. Security Security Security: As businesses move towards the cloud, providing better access 24/7 and supporting mobile workforces, security must be a top priority because every single business is a possible target of hackers. Do you have the technical know-how to protect your data, recover from a breach and test your backup and retention plans?
4. Support BYOD: Employees are more productive, work longer hours and prefer working for companies that provide the ability to access their work via smartphones and tablets. Do you know how to provide this benefit to your workforce? Once access to corporate resources is granted, how will you ensure that corporate data is protected and you are in compliance with your industry regulations?

Are you wondering or perhaps even concerned about any of these four areas for your business? Guess what? We’re happy to help! In fact, we love it because, well, we are experts in these areas. Give us the chance to serve you and your business.

One of the most important assets for your business is data. Depending on your industry, your most important data can range from financial records to sales records, customer files to compliance documentation.

Could you recover if your business suffered from major data loss?

Disasters, hardware failure, backup problems and human error are some of the biggest causes of data loss.

Did you know that a study done by Swiss Re found that in 2015, there were “198 natural catastrophes, the highest ever recorded in one year,” and an additional 155 global disaster events that were caused by humans?

Prevention is your best bet to protect against loss due to major disasters. The same goes for loss caused by hardware failure, backup problems or human error.

Let these statistics, from the 2014 State of the Global Disaster Recovery Preparedness report, serve as your warning:

• 1 in 4 businesses have lost all or most of a datacenter for hours or even days
• Nearly 20% reported the cost of losses totalling over $50,000 and up to $5 million
• 60% do not have a disaster recovery (DR) plan documented, with 40% stating that their plan was insufficient when having to refer to it in the event of a disaster
• 23% have never tested their DR plan
• 65% of those that DO test their DR plans report that they fail the test

What can you do to prevent data loss for your business? How do you protect your SMB from costly losses?

Based on the report, the following are recommendations your SMB should implement to ensure data and business continuity.

1. Define everything that you would need to recover: applications, databases, networks, websites, order processing systems, etc.
2. Define critical applications.
3. Define the recovery time for critical applications: What amount of downtime is tolerable?
4. Define a recovery point for critical applications: What amount of data can you risk losing in a disaster or outage?
5. Use these metrics (recovery times and points) for testing your DR plan.

Don’t wait until your IT infrastructure crashes to find out how prepared or unprepared you are. ORAM Corporate Advisors can help you with business continuity planning, disaster recovery services and securing peace of mind in regards to protecting your business’s vital data.