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Data Management: From Storage To Security

One of the most important aspects of maintaining a smooth running safe and secure network comes down to data management.

How you or your company manages its data is important because if managed improperly, or not managed at all, you risk losing years of important confidential data due to failed hardware or even worse, theft.

Data management needs to begin with an audit of your various assets and how they should be managed properly.

This is the first step because you need to know what you have to manage and more importantly how it needs to be managed (can you use a simple flash drive backup, do you need a NAS, how secure does the data needs to be, should data be encrypted, etc.)

An audit should take place at the beginning of your data management plan as well as at the end which will be touched on later.

During your data management audit you need to first lay out what data is being used, when it is in use, when your slow periods are, and how securely you need to store this data.

For example client credit card data requires much more security than say your pictures from the company party.

After establishing what data you have as stated above you need to separate it into its various classes.

Generally people will store all of their data together so if that is your plan, you need to plan your security based on your most important and confidential data sets.

Some people may have a very large amount of data and smaller data sets that need more extreme security.

In these cases backup sets can be separated to allow less confidential data to be backed up to a less secure and much cheaper backup device while you could have a more secure setup for your confidential data.

One major consideration when it comes to backing up your  data is encryption.

The stronger the encryption on data the longer it will take to recover in the event of a data loss.

Encryption is one of the best methods to store data, determined by level of security – it can be high or low.

Again the amount of encryption contributes greatly to recovery time. Data can be managed and stored in many different manners.

Some of the various storage solutions are; a network drive to another computer, a NAS, a flash drive, an external hard drive, data drives and tapes, offsite backups, etc.

Depending on your needs and the amount of recovery time needed, your choices can vary.

For instance, if you have 1 TB of data you are backing up chances are you would be doing an onsite backup rather than offsite to decrease down time in the event of a crash.

A terabyte of data in an offsite backup is going to take a very long period of time to download to your server if your only recover option is to download from the Internet.

A much better solution for this amount of data would be a data drive like a “REV” drive. A REV drive in combination with good backup software offers plenty of space to backup and encrypt your data.

Backups via tapes or data drives should have at least the previous night’s copy taken offsite each night to ensure that you keep one data set safe at all times. It is a horrible idea to store all data onsite.

After you have a plan in place, run through the audit again once things seem to be running smooth to see what is in place, how its running, how secure it is in the event that a data set is stolen, and is the backup time/recovery time acceptable.

If the answer to any of these questions makes you feel your backup solution may be inadequate, it may be a good idea to try something different.

Even though it would cost more money to change data management solutions, it will save you money and hassle in the long run if you find it does not meet your company’s needs.

For a full data management audit give us a call today and we can happily sit down and discuss with you possibilities for your backups and data management as this only touch on a very small portion of data management.

Your data is very important and generally people do not realize just how important it is until they’ve either lost it or had it stolen due to poor management practices.

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Tech Experts

How Strategic Business Continuity Planning Can Prevent Losing Money And Customers

The concept of business continuity planning is nothing new to conscientious business owners.

Without a doubt, the ability of an enterprise, large or small, to recover from catastrophic events and continue to provide an acceptable level of service to its customers  while maintaining a satisfactory level of profits is a basic requirement of good business practice.

Although such awareness has always been a feature of good management, the startling events of September 11 2001 has brought the world into a heightened state of preparedness for disaster.

Why the need for continuity and disaster planning?

Increasingly, natural disasters continue to surface in one place after another.

Consider recent major floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, corporate crimes and malicious attacks upon computer systems in nation after nation and you will sense the pressing need for sound business continuity planning to avoid disruptions due to technology and other failure.

Another factor which contributes to this need is the changing business climate in view of the expansion and increasing accessibility of the Internet over the past decade.

So organizations which formerly rendered services to their customers during fixed hours of business, now find themselves offering their services on an extended schedule, even 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

This means that customers have grown accustomed to this ready access to their suppliers and vendors. And now the reality is that consumers have become less and less tolerant of interruptions in a company’s service and availability.

Business continuity planning – is it just for big business?

Business continuity planning now takes on an increasingly important role, not just for larger enterprises, but for small businesses alike.

In fact for small businesses it is even more critical to be ready to respond to the needs of its customers.

Customers expect this and have no problem locating alternate suppliers who stand ready to take your place in the market!

This is true whether you are in the manufacturing or service business, marketing and sales or any other facet of business.

Your network – a key  component in business continuity 

Nowadays a company’s IT System with its network of computers has become the backbone of many businesses.

Vital functions such as Data Processing, inventory and  payroll management, Internet based operations including online sales, human resource and training systems, project management and an almost endless variety of other business functions are critically dependent on the efficacy of your computer system.

Clearly then, any technology disruption can have disastrous consequences.

Therefore business continuity planning often deals  extensively with maintaining a dependable IT system.

This brings into focus not only the hardware components of the system and its application programs, but also the data contained in the system.

Ways to ensure continuity

Some of the key components that determine system reliability include Data Storage Devices, UPS systems, power generator systems and so on.

And nowadays, Cloud Computing is being relied upon to extend the reliability of Computer Systems and ensure business  continuity in the event of major failure.

There seems to be a tendency to use the expressions ‘business disaster recovery’, and ‘business continuity’ interchangeably.

However upon closer examination it becomes clear that the two concepts are quite distinct.

Continuity of service is the desired state we want to maintain while recovering from any unexpected calamity whether an extended power outage, Computer System failure or other problem.

Such continued operation calls for a comprehensive plan that covers the most probable occurrences.

From this information it can be seen that ensuring business continuity calls for a strategy regardless of the size of the business.

As disasters continue to increase in frequency and magnitude, more and more careful thought must be given to your company’s preparedness to respond in the event of any business threat.

The increasingly prominent role of computers in business calls for highly reliable data backups, hardware redundancy, and keen, effective planning as a way to ensure business continuity in the event of any catastrophe.

Backing Up And Restoring Files With Windows 7

In the business world it’s critical for end users to have a backup solution available in case of data loss or system failure.

System Restore is one of the easiest ways to restore files and settings. If you can’t find a file on your computer or you accidentally modified or deleted a file, you can restore it from a backup if you’re using Windows backup in Windows 7, or you can try to restore it from a previous version.

Previous versions
Previous versions are copies of files and folders that Windows automatically saves as part of a restore point. Previous versions are sometimes referred to as shadow copies.

System Restore is a component of Microsoft’s Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating systems that allows for the rolling back of system files, registry keys, installed programs, etc., to a previous state in the event of system malfunction or failure. Using System Restore to restore previous versions is simple.

Simply open up any Explorer window, right-click on a file or folder you wish to restore, and select “Restore Previous Versions.”

For instance, if you accidentally deleted a file from a folder in My Documents, browse to a file you would like to restore from an earlier point (all of the contents may have been over written mistakenly.)

Likewise if you have accidently deleted a few documents from a folder within your My Documents folder titled “Easter Pictures,” simply right-click on the folder and select properties, then select the previews versions tab, then open previous versions from it.

Please note that this will only appear on files and folders, not drives or Libraries in Windows 7.

The dialog will show all of the previous copies of this folder that are available.  Click on the time you wish to restore from.

You can choose to either Open, Copy, or Restore the folder.  If you click Restore, you can restore the full contents of the folder as it appeared at some time in the past.

Choose “copy” to copy the entire contents of the folder as it appeared at that time to another location.  For instance, you could copy it to a flash drive for safe keeping, which also previews overwriting the current file.

Lastly you can choose “open” to browse the contents of the folder as it appeared at that time.

You can open, copy, or do anything you choose with the file from here.  For instance, if you deleted a folder named emails accidentally today, you could click copy, and then paste it into the location of your choice.

When in this mode, you are directly browsing the shadow copy of your hard drive.  The path to the folder shows the date and time of the copy.

And, the great thing is, this feature is available in all editions of Windows 7, including the low-cost Starter edition often preinstalled in netbooks.

System Restore is a great way to back up your files in case of accidental deletion, or unwanted changes, but should not be used for your disaster-recovery plan.

In cases of disaster-recovery, you will want to make sure you have a proper backup set to automatically backup your systems, System Restore should only be used as an addition to the backups you currently have setup with your IT professional.

Staying Safe: How To Back Up Your Outlook Email Data

Your Outlook data file, also called a PST file, contains all of the data that is created and received in Outlook such as emails, contacts, notes, your to-do list, calendars and other Outlook data.

If you rely on email for your day to day work, keeping your Outlook data backed up frequently could save you hours of frustration and potentially lost data.

Over time, your email data file grows and shrinks as you receive and delete email. While not extremely common, the data file is prone to corruption – which is the most common way Outlook users can lose data.

To prevent corruption and possible data loss, always keep in mind:

Close Outlook properly – shutting down your email without going through the “File, exit” dialogue can cause file corruption.

Watch your file size – A PST file that exceeds 3gb can be problematic. Although Microsoft says newer versions of Outlook (2003 and newer) will support PST files up to 20gb, in our experience, Outlook operates best if you keep the file below 3gb.

To manually back up your Outlook data file in Windows Vista and Windows 7, follow the steps below.

1. Open “My Computer” and browse to your C:/drive.

2. Click on tools. Once the drop down menu is displayed, choose Folder Options. If the tools menu is hidden press alt on your keyboard to display it.

3. In Folder Options, click on the view tab.

4. In the middle of the window there will be a list. Under Hidden Files and Folders, check show hidden files and click ok.

5. On your C:/drive browse to the users folder, and select the user account you are using.

6. Select App Data, then Local.

7. Scroll down to the Microsoft Folder and open.

8. Select your Outlook data file. It is usually named Outlook.pst. Right click the file and select copy.

9. Open the destination of your choice, such a flash drive, or a different folder on your hard drive.

10. Right click and select paste.

11. You have successfully created a backup of your Outlook Data File.

To manually back up your Outlook data file in Windows 2000/Windows XP follow the directions listed below.

1. Open Computer and browse to your C:/drive.

2. Click on tools once the drop down menu is displayed click Folder Options.

3. In Folder Options click on the view tab.

4. In the middle of the window there will be a list.

5. Under Hidden Files and Folders check show hidden files, click ok.

6. On your C:/drive browse to Documents and Settings and select the user account that you use.

7. Select Local Settings then Application Data, and then scroll down to the Microsoft folder and open it.

8. Select your Outlook data file. It is usually named Outlook.pst. Right click the file and select copy.

9. Open the destination of your choice, such a flash drive, or a different folder on your hard drive. Then, right click and paste.

We recommend backing up your Outlook PST file at least once a week for normal users, and if you’re an email power user, daily backups make sense.

Protect Your Network From Dangerous Spring Thunderstorms

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

What’s the best way to keep your computer safe during a thunderstorm? Crawl under your desk and unplug it.

While not a particularly practical suggestion, unplugging your PC from AC power, a telephone line if you use a modem, and your network will protect it from surges and power problems.

A more practical solution would be to use a power protection device, such as a true surge protector, or a business-grade battery backup system.

Computer damage from severe weather conditions is surprisingly a very common problem, despite warnings to install power protection.

When power problems strike, they can cause permanent damage, to your computer, your data, or both. To minimize the possibility of damage, install a true surge protector – not just a power strip. A true power strip will cost you in the neighborhood of $20 to $40, and most offer specific guarantees if your equipment is damaged after you properly install the power protection device.

Get a surge protector that also protects your network, phone lines, or DSL connection. Some even offer a connection to provide surge protection on the cable line that services your cable modem. Remember, the more protection, the better.

Check your protection devices regularly. If you use battery backup systems, use the testing feature at least quarterly to make sure your unit still functions properly. Batteries in backup systems will typically last two or three years, unless your power environment is particularly troublesome.

Remember, too, that not all power problems result from electrical storms. The every day variances in power quality – from smaller surges, sags, drops and brownouts – will also, over time, cause damage to your electronic equipment.

When you invest in a high-quality surge protector, many of them will also compensate for these minor electrical fluctuations, protecting your equipment at its own expense. These are called line conditioning surge protectors.

Higher end line conditioning surge protectors will wear out and lose effectiveness after a few years, and should be replaced. We always recommend using APC Power Protection equipment because it comes with an equipment insurance policy.

Throughout the month of April, Tech Experts is offering a free power protection audit. To reserve your audit, call the office at 734-457-5000, or sign up at: www.computerbatterybackups.com.

Data Loss Prevention And Recovery Tips

With every business relying heavily on their computers and network, it is a huge risk to not properly care for your important data.

The fact is a computer’s hard drive becoming damaged, corrupt, or even completely unusable is not an issue of whether or not it will happen to you, but rather an issue of when.

If you do not properly care for your data you may wind up in the unfortunate situation of having to recover your lost data.

Backup Your Data
First of all, the most important step in preventing lost or corrupt data due to a faulty hard drive is to back up your data. This may sound silly, but there are many people that simply do not have a good backup strategy in place to protect them from the inevitable hard drive failure.

You see hard drives are much like your car; they have moving parts that function nonstop as your computer works and processes data.

These moving parts eventually will wear out and when they do if you did not back up your data you will have to recover it. Backing up your data is the best solution; it will save you a huge headache when your hard drive fails.

If you have a backup, the recovery process is as simple as buying a new hard drive, reinstalling Windows and your applications, and then transferring backed up data over.

Backups can be in many different forms from CD’s, DVD’s, Flash Drives, External Hard Drives, Online backup, etc. Whatever your choice, it is good practice to not only back up your data, but make sure you can recover it from the backup as well.

Unfortunately, many times we see business owners backing up their data, but never taking the time to do a test restore. It’s only when disaster strikes that they find out the backups had errors.

In the event that you did not have a good backup solution or it was not working/tested properly there is the option to try and recover the “lost” data.

If Your Hard Drive Crashes
In order to have the highest success rate recovering your old data make sure to follow the following procedures:

Upon realizing you have lost data make sure that you immediately stop using your computer.

The reason you want to make sure that you stop using your computerimmediately is that when data is lost as long as it is still on the hard drive and has not been over written on the actual hard drive disks it can be recovered.

When you use your computer data is randomly placed on your hard drive disks so using your computer after data loss greatly increases the chances of losing the data you wanted to recover because it was overwritten from the computer being used.

Avoid System Utilities
Do not run any system tasks such as a Disk Cleanup or Disk Defragmenter.

Running Disk Cleanup or Disk Defragmenter both can cause you to permanently lose data that you need to be recovered.

These system processes move data around and in doing so could overwrite your lost data.

As long as you follow the steps listed above you can bring your computer to Tech Experts, and we can run various programs that allow us to recover lost files that have not been overwritten by other files.

This is the reason it is so important to stop using your computer as soon as you realize the data loss.

Data Recovery Firms
If in the case your hard drive is damaged mechanically there are companies you can send your hard drive away to and have them manually open the hard drive and recover that data in a “Clean Room.” Just a side note, never ever open a hard drive.

When these other data recovery companies open your hard drive they use a clean room that exceeds the cleanliness of a surgical room.

They do this because even the smallest amount of dust or dirt in the hard drive will ruin it in a very short period of time.

This is the reason it is so expensive to have data recovered in this fashion, usually in the $1700+ range depending on the company you use.

Long story short, always make sure to have a good backup.

Having a good backup can save you a lot of headaches in the future.

Feature article By Tech Experts Staff for Tech Experts

 

The Three Scariest Threats To Small Business Networks

Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.
While spam, pop-ups, and hackers are a real threat to any small business network, there are three security measures that you should be focusing on first before you do anything else.

Worry About E-mail Attachments, Not Spam
Sure, spam is annoying and wastes your time, but the real danger with spam is in the attachments.

Viruses and worms spread primarily through cleverly disguised attachments to messages that trick you or your employees into opening them.

Another threat is phishing e-mails that trick you by appearing to be legitimate e-mails from your bank, eBay, or other financial accounts.

Here are three things you must have in place to avoid this nightmare. First, keep your anti-virus up to date and enabled. This sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s not uncommon for an employee to disable their antivirus software “because it bothers them.”

Second, educate your employees on what is and isn’t allowed on company computers, e-mail, Internet access, etc. One thing that should be on the list is that they should never open suspicious attachments or respond to phishing e-mails. We highly recommend creating an acceptable use policy (AUP) to teach your staff what NOT to do.

Third, put monitoring software in place to maintain the health of employees’ desktops and automatically “police” employees from accidentally visiting a phishing website, downloading a virus, or visiting questionable web sites.

Fear Downloads Before Pop-Ups
Did you know that most computers and networks get infected with viruses because the user actually invited the threat in by downloading a file (screen saver, music file, PDF document, pictures, etc.)?

Again, this comes down to training your staff on what they can and cannot do with your company’s network. Again, the best way to avoid trouble is to remove temptation by installing monitoring software that will prevent employees from downloading or opening dangerous items.

We also recommend installing and maintaining a good firewall, which will block Internet traffic to and from dangerous sites.

Lose Sleep Over Backups, Not Hackers
You are more likely to lose data from hardware failure, accidental deletion, human error, flood, fire, natural disaster or software corruption than a hacker.

Sure, you should do everything to keep hackers out of your network, but not backing up your data to a remote location is incredibly dangerous. At a minimum, you should have an onsite and offsite copy of your data, and you should be testing your data backups regularly to make sure your data can be restored in the event of an emergency.

So, here’s the scary Halloween question for you: If you came into your office tomorrow morning, and your computers and server were destroyed or missing, could you recover your data, and how long would it take?

What To Do When You Drop Your Cell Phone In Water

If you’ve ever been unlucky enough to drop your cell phone into water, take some solace in knowing you’re not alone.

Dropping a cell phone into the swimming pool, bathtub or toilet is such a common occurrence that some cell phone manufacturers include a sensor that will detect if it’s been submerged in water, so users can’t return them saying they are defective.

If it happens to you, it’s important to act quickly. First, don’t turn the phone on until it has been completely dried out or you’ll probably end up shorting out some circuits. Cell phone repair services recommend taking out the battery right away and wiping it off.

Shake out any excess moisture from the phone. Unfasten the screws and open up the device. Then use an electrical-contact cleaning spray or rubbing alcohol to remove corrosive moisture. When you think it’s completely dry, wait another day before turning it on.

There are a number of recommended drying techniques, but the key to all of them is to dry the phone as soon as possible.

One proven phone-drying method is to use a hair dryer set on cool. You don’t want to use high heat – that could cause even more damage to the phone.

Another method is to seal the phone in a jar with uncooked rice. The rice absorbs the moisture, but it does take a few days.

Most important: Make sure you always back up your smart phone! Most cell phone providers offer this service, and many phones come with software you can load on your computer to perform a backup using a USB cable.

 

Fall Is The Perfect Time For An IT And Network Checkup

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

To make the most of your IT investment,  you don’t need to be a technology whiz. However, you should have a plan in place for making the most of your company’s data. As fall approaches, now is an excellent time to examine your company’s technology to determine what’s working well and what could be improved.

Is It Time To Update?
Technology changes rapidly. While your systems may appear to be working well, you may be missing out on new ways to protect your business information, help your business run more efficiently, and better serve your customers.

For example, to run some of today’s most powerful programs, you need a fast and large hard drive with significant memory capacity.

You might consider adding newer technology – such as wireless capabilities – to older equipment; but the cost of upgrading a computer is often more than the cost of a new model.

Check Your Power Protection
Loss of electrical power and power surges are the most common causes of data loss and weaken computer components. If your business depends on computers, protecting the power source is critical.

This is especially important if your area is prone to power fluctuations or electrical storms.

An Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) unit offers both superior surge protection and, depending on the model, anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes of backup power-enough time to save and copy critical files.

The idea of a UPS isn’t to continue your business dealings while the lights are out. Rather, it is to ensure that your data is available when the lights come back on.

Have You Patched Windows?
Have you installed the latest version of Windows on your computer, and do you keep it updated? Do you do this automatically?

It is incredibly important that you keep Windows and your software applications current. Updates improve performance, fix bugs, and many add new features. You should also regularly update and run anti-virus software.

How’s Your Backup?
Consider storage needs in terms of both capacity and physical location. Depending on the amount of data, you can back up to USB flash drives, CDs, DVDs, tapes, or an external drive.

You might also want to look into off-site backup. Our Experts Total Backup System is an excellent backup, disaster recovery, and offsite storage service.

Integrate Your Data
Over the years, businesses tend to produce multiple silos of data. Your inventory, sales data, and marketing information need to be linked together to better serve your customers and increase your company’s productivity and profitability.

Without this integration, you may not know who your best customers are or you could end up agreeing to provide a top customer with an item you don’t have in your inventory.

Reality Check: Tape Backup Units Are Dangerous!

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.