Does Your Backup Plan Stand Up To A Disaster?

March 8, 2016

Michael Menor is Vice President of Support Services for Tech Experts.

Technology, while a great asset that can be leveraged for your benefit, can also frighten businesses due to how unpredictable it can be at times. The constant threat of data loss, identity theft, and hardware failure can cripple your business’s ability to retain operations.

Specifically, businesses can learn about risk management by analyzing the processes used by an industry where risk management is absolutely critical: nuclear power plants.

In the wake of two of the most destructive and violent nuclear disasters, nuclear power plants have begun to crack down on how they approach risk management. The Chernobyl incident of 1986, as well as the tsunami-induced disaster at Fukushima in 2011, are the only nuclear disasters to reach the peak of the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) at a rating of 7.

This means that they had an immense impact on the immediate vicinity, as well as the environment on a worldwide scale.

The meltdown at Chernobyl was the result of an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction, ending in an enormous explosion that resulted in fire raining from the sky and radioactive core material being ejected into the vicinity. A closer inspection of the incident revealed that the explosion could have been prevented, had the plant practiced better safety measures and risk management, like having a containment system put in place for the worst-case scenario.

In comparison, the Fukushima plant was prepared to deal with a failure of operations.

The problem that led to a disaster was one which couldn’t possibly have been prevented: the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and the resulting tsunami. The Fukushima plant had a contingency plan to shut down the plant in the event of a disaster, but tsunami prevented this from happening properly by flooding damaged power lines and backup generators, leading to heat decay, meltdowns, and major reactor damage.

Disasters like these lead to professionals searching for ways to prevent emergency situations in the future. For example, the Fukushima incident kickstarted conversations on how to prevent problems caused by the unexpected issues.

In response to emergency power generators being flooded or destroyed, off-site power generation will be implemented as soon as November 2016.

One other way that nuclear plants have chosen to approach these new risks is by outsourcing this responsibility to third-party investigators, whose sole responsibility is to manage the reliability of backup solutions. In a way, these investigators function similar to a business’s outsourced IT management, limiting risk and ensuring that all operations are functioning as smoothly as possible.

What we want to emphasize to you is that businesses in industries of all kinds expect the worst to happen to them, and your business can’t afford to be any different.

Taking a proactive stance on your technology maintenance is of critical importance. While your server that suffers from hardware failure might not explode and rain impending doom from the sky or expel dangerous particulates into the atmosphere, it will lead to significant downtime and increased costs.

In order to ensure that your business continues to function in the future, Tech Experts suggests that you utilize a comprehensive backup and disaster recovery (BDR) solution that minimizes downtime and data loss risk.

BDR is capable of taking several backups a day of your business’s data, and sending the backups to both the cloud and a secure off-site data center for easy access.

In the event of a hardware failure or other disaster, the BDR device can act as a temporary replacement for your server. This lets your business continue to function while you implement a suitable replacement.

Filed Under: Backups, Cloud, Data Management, Disaster Recovery, Offsite Backup Tagged With: ,

For Pete’s Sake, Back Up Your Data Folks!

July 27, 2015

Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.

I’ve been supporting small business computers and network systems for more than 25 years, and believe me when I say, the number one thing that still boggles my mind is the lack of sound backup systems and procedures.

It is a topic we cover a lot in our newsletters, and for good reason: Not a month goes by where we aren’t witness to some sort of catastrophic file loss or system/server failure.

If you’ve ever lost an hour of work on your PC because it locked up in the middle of writing a proposal, you know the grief it causes. Now imagine if you lost days or weeks of work – or imagine losing your client database, financial records, and all of the work files your company has ever produced or compiled.

Or what if a major storm, flood, or fire destroyed your office and all of your files? It’s raining as I write this, perhaps the twentieth day of rain in the last 30, and we’re under a flood watch yet again. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Backups, Data Management, Offsite Backup, Planning Tagged With: ,

Don’t Forget Your End-of-Year Data Backup

December 12, 2014

In a ritual akin to spring cleaning, computer users far and wide are backing up their data en masse. Although backing up your vital data is a wise idea to prevent the loss of important documents during crashes or even computer theft, it often goes undone.

By the end of the year, however, an amazing amount of data would have been stored which may slow computers’ performance. This is a silent reminder to clean out the cobwebs and back up the files you want to keep.

There are various ways to back up your data, and one is readily available right on your PC. Windows users can access backup tools by pressing the Start button, typing “backup” in the search area, then clicking “Backup and Restore.”

This allows users to back up files instantly. Similarly, Mac users can open the System Preferences menu and select Time Machine. It will promptly perform backup tasks with the selection of the appropriate disk to store the files.

However, the aforementioned tools on your PC or Mac, don’t address more complex situations where your computer may be completely damaged or lost.

Therefore, it is also advisable to back up important documents, such as financial records or critical documents or emails, on a separate device.

If you depend solely on your computer’s backup system, your backed up data is vulnerable to the same threats that can damage the whole computer.

There are various data storage solutions on the market. The more expensive ones offer extra features, but the main factor to consider is the data storage size that you will need to have on the device.

Alternatively, simply upload your most important data to cloud storage, which can also be automated for future backups.

Other computer users prefer to back up data on an external USB device and keep it in a safe place.

It would also be best to automate your backups based on a recurring schedule that takes into consideration the particular files/folders that change often and/or are the most critical and include them in the backup set.

If you require assistance in figuring out the most appropriate automated backup solution for your home or business, give us a call at (734) 457-5000 and one of our technicians will be glad to help.

Filed Under: Backups, Maintenance, Offsite Backup, Planning, Tips Tagged With: ,

When Nature Strikes Part 2 – Fire In The Sky

November 30, 2014

Scott Blake is a Senior Network Engineer with Tech Experts.

Fires in or around server rooms and data centers can ruin your data and put your business at risk. It’s a must to set up fire protocols when you build your room or building.

As I mentioned in Part One of “When Nature Strikes,” the two most important protocols to have in place for any “in case of…” are 1) Have a Plan and 2) Secure Your Data. When dealing with the possibility of fire destroying your server room or data center, you’ll want to make sure you also have Suppression, Containment and Insurance protocols in place as well.

Have a Plan
Disaster recovery plans are now becoming a requirement for many industries. To be prepared, businesses need to locate and define the regulatory requirements of their individual industry, which will also help avoid fines, penalties or negative press associated with noncompliance.

Trying to implement or even design a plan while in the middle of a disaster will only lead to a less than successful recovery. Make sure your team is ready for action and everyone knows what to do. It’s better to be overprepared than have a plan that goes up in flames.

Secure Your Data
Back up your data regularly. Manage a duplicate copy of all data, programming, and company processes at a different physical location or in the cloud. That way, you can continue working at a secondary location if your system crashes. One way to do that is to keep copies of all your data, programs, bare metal backups and virtual machines in data centers in other states.

If you maintain data backups and business software on location, make sure you store them in a fire rated safe. Fire safes can be purchased anywhere from $100 to thousands of dollars for a fully-loaded safe.

SuppressionПечать
Fire suppression systems for server rooms and data centers are essential to the server room itself. A fire suppression system will automatically extinguish a fire without the need of human intervention.

Design standards for fire suppression systems for server rooms and data centers are carried out with strict guidelines as the fire suppression agents used can be dangerous if not designed correctly. Fires within these types of environments are suppressed in two different ways.

Reduce Oxygen – This method uses argon, nitrogen and sometimes carbon monoxide to displace the oxygen in the room. The objective of this method is to reduce the oxygen level to below 15% in the room. By reducing oxygen to this level, it will suppress the fire.

Chemical and Synthetic – Most chemical and synthetic fire suppression agents have some form of a cooling mechanism. These systems use less gas and maintain a higher level of oxygen. However, high doses of any synthetic or chemical agent can be toxic, so making sure your design is correct is absolutely necessary. Synthetic fire suppression systems will deliver its payload within ten seconds.

Containment
A fire doesn’t have to be inside your data center to jeopardize IT equipment. Because radiant heat and smoke from fire in an adjacent room can be enough to damage sensitive network hardware, creating a protective barrier between your server room and the potential fire not only blocks indirect damage, but prevents flame spread as well.

Lightweight, flame-resistant ceramic panels can be used to build fire-safe archive rooms and data centers within larger, standard-construction buildings.

Insurance
Recovering from fire damage is expensive. Business insurance is crucial and it’s not only for physical property. The right kind of insurance will replace lost income as well. Make sure your business insurance policy is up to date and has the correct coverage to support your business in crisis mode.

Make sure you have all of your suppression and containment systems built and installed by certified professionals. Insurance companies will require this in order for you to acquire the policy and even collect on it.

No one wants to get burned after a fire. Again, make sure your company insurance is up to date and has the appropriate coverage needed to rebuild your business.

If you have questions or you’re looking for suggestions on prepping your business for recovery, not disaster, call Tech Experts at (734) 457-5000.

(Image Source: iCLIPART)

Filed Under: Backups, Data Management, Offsite Backup, Planning, Tips, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,

When Nature Strikes – Is Your Ark Ready to Float Your Business to Dry Land?

October 31, 2014

Scott Blake is a Senior Network Engineer with Tech Experts.

Flooding can strain the resources of even the most well-equipped organizations. Natural disasters give little warning to companies, so preparing for the disaster is the only way to reduce the high cost of rebuilding.

Have a plan ready and in place
Disaster recovery plans are now becoming a requirement for many industries. To be prepared, businesses need to locate and define the regulatory requirements of their individual industry. In addition to reducing hardware damage and data loss, this will help avoid fines, penalties or negative press associated with noncompliance.

The health care industry has begun to require that hospitals have a recovery plan in place. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) sets standards for operating a health care organization and evaluates the industry to ensure that these standards are met. Documented and field-tested recovery plans for theft, vandalism, loss of critical data, provision of emergency power, and file and flood recovery are now required.

Trying to implement or even design a plan while in the middle of a disaster will only lead to a less than successful recovery. Make sure your team is ready for action and everyone knows what to do. It’s better to be overprepared than have a plan with holes that will sink your business.

Your data: Make sure you have it
Back up your data regularly. Manage a duplicate copy of all data, programming, and company processes at a different physical location or in the cloud. That way, you can continue working at a secondary location if your system crashes.

One way to do this is to keep copies of all your data, programs, bare metal backups and virtual machines in data centers in other states or in some cases different countries.

Tech Experts offers encrypted, HIPAA-approved, online c414084_mbackup of your files, documents, folders and data bases. If you require bare metal backups or the ability to convert your server into a virtual machine to keep afloat until replacement hardware is in place and running, Tech Experts also offers devices that can fulfill that requirement as well.

Treat your data like your money
Keep it safe and keep a lot of it.

Power: Must have it
An uninterruptable power supply (UPS) and a generator provide consistent backup power for your business if power lines go down. Make sure you routinely test and service them to ensure they’re working correctly.

Electrical components, including service panels, meters, switches, and outlets, are easily damaged by flood water. If they are underwater or come in contact with water for even short periods, they will probably have to be replaced. Make sure all of your computer systems — from servers, workstations, backup devices, and UPS’s — are up off the floor. Servers, backup components and UPS’s should be at least four feet off the floor.

Another problem is fires caused by short circuits in flooded areas. Raising electrical system components helps you avoid those problems. Having an undamaged, operating electrical system after a flood will help you clean up, make repairs, and return to your property with fewer delays.

Good relationships with vendors, customers and partners
Create strong relationships with your partners, vendors and customer base. In good times, they will give you access to new ideas, technologies, and business opportunities. During a crisis, they’re a security blanket with teams of people who know your business model and have resources to help you rebuild.

Insurance: Business is life
Floods and water damage are expensive. Business insurance is crucial and it’s not only for physical property. The right kind of insurance will replace lost income as well. Make sure your business insurance policy is up to date and has the correct coverage to support your business in crisis mode.

If you have questions or you’re looking for suggestions on prepping your business for recovery, call Tech Experts at 734-457-5000.

(Image Source: iCLIPART)

Filed Under: Backups, Data Management, Network, Offsite Backup, Planning, Power Protection, Servers, Tips Tagged With: , ,

Local, Offsite Or Disaster Recovery: Backup Options Explained

October 8, 2012

By Tech Experts Staff
Many businesses have a lot of highly important data. A sudden, catastrophic loss of data has proven to put many businesses out of business within months of the data loss.

The extreme costs of both getting data back, if it’s even possible, and the expense of down time and lost business is an insurmountable obstacle to business continuity.

Thankfully, we have many options to proactively prevent data loss and in some cases, keep your business up and running when your original source of data is no longer accessible. With our Experts Total Backup service we’ve got your data covered.

Choosing the right backup option depends on the type of data your organization has, the amount of time that is acceptable to be without access to your data, and the amount of time you need to retain backups of your data.

For small to medium sized businesses, we offer a file based backup system that comes in several tiers.

The various tiers are based on not only the amount of data you have to backup but also on the type of data you need backed up.

For instance, if a business runs around the clock or routinely has files open at all hours, has SQL or other databases running, or the high likelihood of having files open during the backup jobs, we have a backup system that can backup these files, even though they are open, offsite to our secure offsite backup server.

So, what if your business can’t be down for any period of time, even if your building were to burn down?

For situations like this, we offer Backup and Disaster Recovery options.

A Backup and Disaster Recovery machine or BDR, is designed to take continuous snapshots or your server as well as upload this data to a cloud based server.

There are many benefits of having a BDR in place versus just having a standard backup job in place.
The first major advantage is that in the event of something catastrophic like a business being demolished (fire, flood, tornado) access to the server can be quickly restored via the images the BDR uploaded to the offsite server.

What this means is that even servers running applications, databases, etc. can still be completely accessible even if the original equipment was destroyed.

After the equipment has been replaced this image of the server that you have been using via our secure cloud environment can then be transferred to the new server.

This allows you to continue to function as a business, using your original data, while we work to setup a new server onsite for your business.

Planning on replacing an old server soon? We have backup solutions that can be included for onsite backups as well when a server is purchased through us.

Using Windows Server 2008, we can configure onsite image based backups that allow your servers image to be restored to another server in the event your server fails and cannot be used again.

If you need help sorting out the options, give us a call and we can go over your current backup solution to make sure you’re protected.

We’ll help you develop an appropriate backup solution to protect your data and ease your mind. Remember: Neglecting your backups is extremely risky!

Filed Under: Backups, Offsite Backup Tagged With: ,

Reality Check: Tape Backup Units Are Dangerous!

June 23, 2010

Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.

Tape backup units are dangerous. We’ve seen far too many business owners put blind faith in their tape backup, only to discover the tapes were never changed by their staff or the drive failed months (or years) ago and no one noticed.

Frankly, tape backups are garbage, too. The technology is 50 years old. The process is nearly all manual and subject to human error. The drives’ innumerable moving parts make it prone to malfunction. And, the media – the tapes themselves – are fragile and unreliable.

So here’s the question: If you don’t store your music on a cassette tape any more, why are you trusting your invaluable business data to one?

The tornados that struck our community earlier this month really have me thinking about backup and disaster recovery solutions.

Having a data backup merely means that you have a copy of your company’s data stored somewhere; it doesn’t mean you have a way to instantly restore your network back to normal.

Tape Backup Risks
The principle behind tape backup is simple, and everyone understands it. When you backup your data, you’re making a copy of it onto removable media (most times, a tape) and putting the tape somewhere safe.

But, there are risks with tape backup. What if your staff doesn’t change the tape? Who is monitoring the backup software to make sure your backup runs successfully each night? How often do you do a test restore to make sure the data on the tapes is actually usable?

In general, before you can use the backup you have stored on tape, you first need to repair or replace your server, reload the operating system, reload your programs, and add in all of your users. This is several days of (expensive) work and (expensive) downtime.

Disaster Recovery
The goal of any disaster recovery solution is to mitigate the risks of the old tape backup solution, and ensure the continuity of your operations after some sort of disaster: Fire, flood, tornado, etc. Our Experts Total Backup solution eliminates human errors (forgetting to change tapes) by backing up automatically to a network based storage system. The backups are completed in real time, as your server runs, without interrupting your work.

We take “snapshots” every 15 minutes of any data that’s changed on your system, and then assemble those snapshots into a comprehensive image of your server that resides on the backup device.

Getting The Data Offsite
The next step in mitigating disaster risks is ensuring your data is stored offsite. Our backup solution encrypts your data and uses the Internet to send it to a secure data facility on the east coast. That data center’s contents are replicated in a data center in the central United States. The net effect: Your data is stored in three locations, automatically.

Notice I said earlier we take “snapshots” of your data to create an image of your server. This is an important distinction between a disaster recovery solution, and a tape backup. The image backup solution in essence takes a photocopy of your server – backing up the operating system, your programs, the data, user settings, and so on.

If you lose a single file (for example, someone deletes a spreadsheet you use every day), we can restore that file in a matter of minutes. If an entire folder is deleted or corrupted, its very simple to recover your files.

Making The Image Live
The real beauty of the image-based backup system is in its ability to “virtualize” your server. If your server failed for some reason – bad hard drives, failed motherboard, fried power supply – our technicians can use the Experts Total Backup device to run the last image.

This makes the backup device appear to your network and users as your server. It is an exact copy in every way, current as of the last snapshot. In a hardwarefailure scenario, we can have your business back up and running in a few hours.

If Disaster Strikes
Since your data images are stored in two secure, off-site data facilities, your data is always safe. If your office, server, and the backup device are all destroyed – again, by fire, flood, tornado or any other myriad of disasters – we have the image that is stored at the data center copied to a new backup device, and sent to us overnight. Your business is back up and running – even with a complete loss of equipment and onsite data storage – in 24 to 48 hours.

The entire solution is monitored and managed – you’ll never have to worry about whether or not a backup completed. If there are any issues with the backup or the backup unit, we’re automatically notified, and a ticket is generated for our technicians to review.

When you consider the risks and costs of data loss and downtime, a complete backup and disaster recovery solution becomes very affordable very quickly. Please give me a call if I can answer any questions, or if you’d like a demo of the Experts Total Backup solution.

Filed Under: Offsite Backup Tagged With: ,

How Does Offsite Backup Work?

September 15, 2009

As your storage needs increase, you’re faced with the challenge of managing and optimizing data protection processes. You may find that your data no longer fits on just one tape. On top of all of that, employees often forget to put in a new backup tape each day. That’s when having a fully automated and backup solution is essential for your business.

This is where offsite backup comes in. Secure and reliable data protection is vital to your disaster recovery plan.

Whether you’re backing up 5 GB or 500GB of data, offsite backup solutions allow you to maintain a current offsite backup at a secure remote facility.

A special software agent is loaded on your server, which compresses and encrypts your data before sending it via the Internet to the offsite backup storage facility.

Data is backed up while your servers are up and running. This reduces costs associated with server or application downtime.

In addition, application special software agents allow for real-time backup of Exchange, SQL, and other databases.

Your data is secure from the moment it’s transferred to the storage vault, and it remains encrypted until it’s restored on the client computer. Only those with a vault password can access the backup data.

Filed Under: Offsite Backup Tagged With: ,