It’s not uncommon for many small and medium-sized companies to use file sharing and peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms as a means to share information and data – especially when it comes to larger files that are difficult and sometimes impossible to attach to emails.

And why not? File sharing and P2P is easy to use, simple, and inexpensive. And never mind if some employees download some personal files on the side – a song or a movie here and there never hurt anyone. Right?

Wrong.

The big catch when using P2P programs and common file sharing platforms is that it compromises your company’s security. Exposing your computers and your system to such a mode is filled with all sorts of risks.

First, people can accidentally share files that aren’t supposed to be for public consumption. They may also inadvertently download viruses and Trojans that infiltrate your system, steal sensitive information, and cause untold damage. If you are on a network, even if just one computer becomes infected, it can spread to all other workstations on the network. Some unscrupulous P2P abusers even use other people’s computers to remotely store illegal data, such as child pornography.

It’s very important that you have a secure system in place to handle large file transfers that cannot be shared through email. Guarding your network from outside infiltration is a must, but you don’t have to sacrifice efficiency and ease of use. So if you’d like to explore your options for secure file sharing, we’d be happy to lay out a plan that will fit your specific needs.

Business impact analysis is an often misunderstood component of your business continuity plan—but it doesn’t have to be.

First, let’s review business continuity planning, which is simply the creation and validation of a plan for how your business will recover critical activities after an extended disruption, such as a disaster.

Business impact analysis is one of the first steps in creating a business continuity plan in that it simply seeks to identify your business’s exposure to a sudden disruption of critical activities.

How do you conduct a business impact analysis? Many resources, including templates, are available. Let’s review the basic steps.

First, when looking at your firm’s activities and the cost of their loss during a business disruption, you’ll want to be sure you consider both financial costs and non-financial costs (such as customer service, supplier confidence, and market perception). Be sure to consider a number of possible scenarios. For example, what if your building is completely destroyed? What if some key personnel are not available? What if the disruption occurs during a peak period for your business?

Second, you’ll decide what’s critical and what’s not. An activity is probably critical if (a) its functionality is required by law, or (b) you consider its disruption unacceptable.

Third, for each critical activity, you’ll then assign two values: a recovery point objective, which is the acceptable amount of data that will be recovered, and a recovery time objective, which is the acceptable amount of time to restore the activity.

You may want to perform a business impact analysis before you create a business continuity plan—and your IT infrastructure will play a big role in both. Is your data backed up? How often? Give us a call and let us help guide you through answering these questions and developing a plan for your critical business needs.

Industry analyst IDC predicts that the global economic recession will have a dramatic impact on small and mid-sized companies. But that doesn’t means these companies will stop spending on information technology (IT).

“Small and mid-sized businesses…will be increasingly interested in the productivity gains made possible by advanced technology,” said Raymond Boggs, vice president of SMB research at IDC. “New mobile communications solutions, videoconferencing, and online resources will be especially attractive, as will alternative approaches to technology acquisition and deployment.”

The reason, says IDC, is that these advanced technologies can help reduce costs and provide growing businesses with an important competitive edge.

One way to gain access to these advanced IT technologies is through Managed Services, which offers smaller companies access to and quick deployment of affordable best-of-breed technologies. Managed Services is cost-effective because it offers companies a way to make use of precious capital by fulfilling their IT needs on a pay-per-use basis.

Who can benefit from Managed Services?

• Smaller companies that don’t employ dedicated IT staff but want to take advantage of the latest developments in security, backups, messaging, and business communications.

• Mid-size companies with some in-house IT staff that want to see productivity gains among by eliminating problems and downtime.

Contact us for more information about how our Managed Services can increase your productivity while saving your money.

As networks and devices become increasingly complex, more and more things can go wrong. As a result, disaster recovery plans have also become more complex.

Is yours good enough?

According to Jon William Toigo, the author of Disaster Recovery Planning, 15 or 20 years ago a disaster recovery plan might consist of powering down a mainframe and other computers, disassembling components, and drying circuit boards in the parking lot with a hair dryer. That’s because a disaster, in those days, was usually a fire that set off a company’s sprinklers.

Today, there are many more threats, including sabotage. Moreover, most companies’ IT systems are too large to be recovered using such a simple hands-on approach. Even if you could recover from a disaster in the manner Toigo recalls, you probably wouldn’t want to due to the downtime it would require—downtime that could have a significant financial impact.

Consider the case of Hurricane Katrina. When it slammed the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005, it wiped out the communications infrastructure of a whole region, uprooting 1,000 wireless towers and knocking down 11,000 utility poles. Many businesses were forced to shut down entirely—even critical ones, including 25 hospitals and 100 broadcast stations. But clients of such company did stay in business—by relocating to off-site facilities equipped with the computing power and backed-up data to keep systems and services online. Some even utilized 18-wheelers with servers and other office equipment inside.

Disaster recovery in the modern age is a detailed, step-by-step course of action for quickly getting back on your feet after a natural or manmade disaster. The details may vary depending on your business needs, and can be developed in-house or purchased as a service.

How prepared are you for disaster? Call us today for a review of your plan.

It seems that even the most innocuous machines in the workplace can serve as a security threat to companies. According to this report from CBS News, many office copiers save the images they copy on a dedicated hard disk installed inside them. This means that everything from mundane memos to your most sensitive information such as financial statements and contracts are stored – and could potentially extracted.

So the next time you dispose of a copy machine, if you’re not sure what’s stored on it and how to get it off – give us a call to help out.

To see the news report, watch this video.

You can create a keyboard shortcut for your favorite websites using Internet Explorer. Read more

http://www.computerhope.com/tips/tip1.htm

Inc.com posted five business uses for your digital frame, including using it as a presentation tool at tradeshows or as an ice breaker before a meeting. Read more

http://www.inc.com/tech-blog/5-business-uses-for-a-digital-frame.html?partner=newsletter_Goods

Money is tight and hard to come by, and a lot of companies are looking to cut costs and sacrifice the non-essentials. For many, taking off a chunk out of the IT budget is one of the ways to try to save money.

However, when it comes to IT services, chances are a bit more investment may actually save money in the long run, since many technologies make operations more efficient and increase of productivity.

An article from Inc. Technology shares 10 very helpful tips on how investing in certain technologies can help your business better weather the recession. The article lists specific technology investments worth forking out money for, including Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), Web conferencing, and Virtualization Software among others. There are also many practical tips on making IT work more cost effectively.

To find out more, read the article here:

http://technology.inc.com/managing/articles/200803/moneysaving.html

Anticipation for Apple’s iPad, the company’s entry into the nascent “tablet PC” market, has been building especially since it hits retail stores this April. While early adopters such as Apple fans, tech mavens, and fashionistas are widely expected to become the first customers for the device, it seems that business users are nor that far behind. A recent business survey conducted by Information Technology Intelligence Corp. (ITIC) found that 42 percent of participants plan to purchase an iPad within the first six to nine months. Only 14 percent said “no,” leaving the remaining 44 percent as “possibly” or “undecided.” When asked how they’ll use the iPad, 64 percent of respondents said for business, 31 percent for personal use, and 86 percent for both.

The idea behind Tablet PCs is not new. The concept of carrying keyboard-less and mouse-free PCs using a stylus or touchscreen has been around since the early 90s. What the iPad has done, however, is bring back interest in the device – so much so that other manufacturers such as HP, Dell and Asus are introducing their own versions. More importantly, the iPad has increased interest in using tablets for business. Here are some reasons why:

1. Versatility and ease of use. The nice thing about tablets is their size, which is smaller than laptops, but supposedly more intuitive and easier to use than netbooks. They can be used for data entry, as a communication device, remote data access device, or presentation tool – as well as an ebook reader or a device to access documents from cloud services such as Google Apps.
2. Power and portability. Devices on the market today or coming soon also feature longer battery life, and are designed for mobility. For people in the field such as sales or support personnel, the device makes a viable alternative for all-day computing on the go.
3. Apps designed for mobility. While it’s too early to tell, the iPad could usher in new types of applications specifically designed for the tablet’s form and mobility. As an example, Apple promised to release a new set of apps specifically designed for the iPad, such as Keynote and Numbers. Even IBM is getting into the game with an announcement that it will develop apps for the platform soon. Microsoft of course has its Windows for TabletPCs.

Are you interested in tablet devices? Will you use it for your business? Want advice? Contact us – we can provide insight and advice.

You can’t have a disaster recovery plan until you first have a good backup solution. Is your backup solution good—or just good enough?

The traditional backup process is done to tape – which has a number of limitations including high cost (particularly as capacity increases), difficult upgrades, degradation over time, and slow backup and restoration.
Over the past three to five years, there has been a transition to hard-disk-based backup solutions that generally offer the ability to easily increase capacity as well as backup and restore much faster.

Whichever solution you use, there are many risks to your data.

Traditional backup processes capture only one snapshot of your information per day. So if your backup is scheduled to take place at 12 a.m., you risk losing the entire following day’s work in the case of a disaster.

The backup process traditionally involves significant manual labor. Someone has to ensure that the correct media is in the drive. Someone has to look at the results of the backup to ensure that it is complete (and ideally perform periodic data restorations). Then, when the backup is complete, someone has to take it offsite for safekeeping.

While some businesses have the capabilities to perform all of these backup-related tasks, many others don’t—and therefore have no idea if their backups will be there when needed.

How can you make your backup system better?

• First, you should be absolutely sure that every bit of your data is backed up multiple times per day.

• Second, the human element should be completely eliminated from the equation.

• Third, restoration should be quick and flexible, so you can bring back any part of your data or all of it, depending on your needs.

• Finally, the impact on your business should be minimal. In fact, you should be unaware that a backup is even in progress.

We can help you set up and maintain a backup solution perfect for your needs. Contact us for more information.