disaster recovery | Small Business Tech Tips

In today’s world, technology is a key aspect to all parts of your business. From accounting and management to day-to-day communication, more and more parts of your business are performed solely on computers. Companies must take advantage of today’s technology to stay competitive.

Email is the preferred method of communication and computers are integral for executing transactions and storing valuable data. With the importance of computers and technology, it is critical that every organization has a complete solution to deal with the threat of data loss. In the past, companies have backed up their data using magnetic tapes, which were then typically stored offsite. While a usable method for incrementally backing up data offsite, this process is tedious and timeconsuming. For small businesses without a dedicated IT staff, maintaining an up-to-date tape library can be easily overlooked and can result in permanent data loss.

Small to medium businesses can suffer severe repercussions if their critical data is not securely backed up at an off-site location. A fire, power surge, hardware failure, or even basic operator error can wipe out years of data. According to IDC (a leading market research firm), less than 40% of all small to medium size businesses properly and regularly back up their data. These businesses cannot afford to lose time attempting to rebuild their lost, vital information. In order to prevent such a situation from happening, it is imperative that an off-site storage system be used, providing secure copies of all data.

Off-site backup devices ensure that if physical disaster (fire, flood, theft, etc.) were to strike your data center and/or office, all lost information could be retrieved from the off-site location. Most off-site backup options use the Internet to transfer data back to the business location. It can take weeks, or even months, to download all of a company’s data from the web. With Total Data Protection™ from Everon, we can get you running virtually from the cloud while a new device is shipped out, already loaded with your otherwise-lost data. This allows businesses to recover multiple terabytes of information in a matter of a day or two, which would be nearly impossible through Internet transfer.

To quickly recover from hardware failures, viruses, or accidental deletion, it is important to have an on-site backup in addition to the off-site copy. This backup allows businesses to quickly recover from data loss due to common causes. When creating a business continuity plan, it’s important to take both on-site and off-site backup into consideration. When it comes to keeping your information backed up, Total Data Protection™ Backup offers an affordable and easy total solution.

Total Data Protection™ provides a simple, secure, and automatic method for both on-site and off-site data storage in one simple and easy to use device. Each Total Data Protection™ solution is a specifically designed Network Attached Storage (NAS) device operating as a secure location to backup files. The device creates an encrypted copy of all files stored at the on-site location at dual secure data centers located on the east and west US coasts. In the event of accidental deletion, files can quickly be restored to the device. If the Total Data Protection™ device is ever damaged or destroyed, a new device with all data and settings from the original unit is overnight shipped to your location, providing rapid recovery.

Everon’s Total Data Protection™ solution ensures your vital information is always safe and secure, making the once painful chore of on and offsite data backup easy and reliable.

To request FREE information about Everon’s Total Data Protection, or to request a FREE assessment of what TDP would cost for your company, contact us at [email protected] and put “Free TDP Info” in the subject line. Or call us at 888-244-1748.

We’re here for you.

September 4, 2012 Austin Leach

It’s time to throw a retirement party for Exchange 2003!

Standard

Exchange Server 2003 came into this world on September 28, 2003. It brought with it a host of new features, including improved migration tools to ease the transition from older versions of Exchange, enhanced heuristic message filtering to help direct spam into the Junk folder, and, if you had Service Pack 2 installed, a database size limit of 75 gigabytes. This was unimaginably large for the time.

That was eight years and eleven months ago. In that time, we have also seen Exchange Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2010 come into the mix as well. If your organization is still running Exchange Server 2003, here are some reasons why it is time to upgrade.

Microsoft created a handy chart to break down the differences between Exchange Server versions.
Modern desktop mail clients like Outlook 2010, Outlook for Mac 2011, and Apple Mail all require Exchange Server 2007 or later, and they won’t talk to Exchange Server 2003 at all. So if you get a new Windows machine with the latest version of Office or one of those shiny new Macs, those users will be stuck using Outlook Web Access webmail to access email, calendars, and contacts.
Outlook Web Access on Exchange Server 2003 forces browsers other than Internet Explorer to use “Light” mode, which just means that many of the features and options beyond simple sending and receiving email are disabled or invisible to anyone running a different browser (such as Firefox, Chrome, or anyone on a shiny new Mac).
The 75 gigabyte size limit I mentioned before applies only to Exchange Server 2003 Standard, but there is a lot more email being sent today than there was 9 years ago. It does not take very many users with large mailboxes to hit that size limit, and when you do Exchange Server 2003 will shut itself off to prevent database corruption or data loss. That means no more email until the size of the database is reduced. The newer versions of Exchange Server do not have this limitation.
If the software package is nearly 9 years old, chances are that the hardware running it is on its last legs too. While it might be running just fine, it is most likely out of warranty and may even be in End Of Life status, making replacement parts hard to find, making disaster recover more difficult, and increasing costs and downtime.
The prospect of replacing an Exchange server can be a daunting one, costing many thousands of dollars. One way to avoid this expense and to simplify your office network is migrating to a hosted Exchange system in the cloud instead. By getting rid of your old office server, your business can keep running if there is an internet service failure or power outage in your building. Take a look at Everon’s own cloud email and business continuity solutions.

If you are considering retiring your old server hardware running Exchange Server 2003, there has never been a better time. And Everon can help you do it. Call us at 888-244-1748 if you have questions about server migrations or our cloud email solutions.

January 11, 2012 Everon TechTips 0

What is disaster recovery

Standard

From Wikipedia:

“Disaster recovery is the process, policies and procedures related to preparing for recovery or continuation of technology infrastructure critical to an organization after a natural or human-induced disaster. Disaster recovery is a subset of business continuity.“

This is all well and good. But what does it mean for you and your business?

Well let’s first discuss disasters. Disasters recovery can mean any of the following for a business:

The restoration of a file from simple accidental corruption or deletion by a well meaning employee;
It can mean the replacement of data on an entire drive that has given up the ghost;
It could mean replacing a broken server;
It could mean replacing all of the computers and data destroyed in a fire, earthquake, flood or other disaster.

As you can see there are many layers of disaster recovery- each carrying with it, its own level of concern for the business. For instance, in the first example above, depending on the file deleted, you may or may not want an immediate solution (i.e. the bookeeper has deleted your only Quickbooks file) or you may care less if the file is ever recovered (i.e. an employee deleted their desktop background image).

Disasters can have dire affects on businesses. A recent study revealed that of companies experiencing a “major loss” of data, 43% never reopened, 51% closed within 2 years of the loss and a mere 6% survived over the long term.

Disaster recovery is simply what do you do to deal with a disaster. How do you recover from one?

Well disaster planning and prevention is really the other side of the disaster recovery coin. You can’t recover, from what you don’t plan. Disaster planning, from an IT perspective, provides for :

Data backup
Geographic diversity in the storage of your data
Hardware failure recovery planning
Complete loss planning

Online backup services provide for #1 & #2 above. They can also help with #3 & #4 but because of your need for quick access to your data in both of these circumctances, online backup only solutions will be limited by the speed of your internet connection and it can take days to copy all your data back.

At Everon we offer a product called a TDP (Total Disaster Protection). Our TDP, provides you a plan in all four scenarios. Not only can it back your data up and send it offsite for storage and protection, but it can get you back up and running in 24 hours should you lose everything (scenario #4).

So what is disaster recovery? Disaster recovery is the ability to get back to work with the data you need, when you need it. Anything short of that, is not disaster recovery.

Call us today and see how we can help you protect your business. 1-888-244-1748.

November 29, 2007 Everon TechTips 1

What is Virtualization?

Standard

by Stephanie Spino | www.everonit.com

In the early 90’s, virtualization emerged as a term known only to the most advanced tech professionals. Virtualization has been gaining popularity, recently becoming an everyday buzzword to even the “not-so-tech-savvy” - namely you and me. I must admit I have heard the term on more than one occasion and was unclear of its meaning until conducting research for this article. Although this piece will only scratch the surface on this complex subject, it’s a good introduction to a topic that will most likely be resurfacing in your future conversations.

Virtualization in lay terms

Wikipedia defines virtualization as the abstraction of computer resources. In basic terms, it creates a virtual version of a device or resource. Virtualization makes it feasible for hardware to be converted into software; when managed properly, it can introduce more efficient ways for users to manage technology.

Are there different types?

Three common categories of virtualization are: Network, Server, and Storage. All of these types can offer ways to improve upon the functionalities of your technology. From increasing the amount of available data space, to expanding memory and enhancing backups, the various types of virtualization have much to offer those who sensibly implement it into their businesses operation.

An example of virtualization that most of us can relate to: Multiple user profiles on a single operating system (when you log into a computer with your user name, the unit loads all of your personal settings while “hiding” the settings of its other users.) On a higher technological level, virtualization allows multiple operating systems to run on a single machine (just as Mac’s do.)

What are businesses doing with it?

I would like to pinpoint a few reasons that certain businesses have turned to virtualization: Disaster recovery – In the event that one system goes down, the back up will be ready to start running applications virtually; Desktop virtualization – Enables you to run two operations systems on one unit; and Application virtualization – Allows you to effectively minimize, isolate, or even eliminate conflicts related to your operating system.

A number of businesses that are already using virtualization to some capacity have expressed certain benefits. For starters, virtual memory is complex, allowing computer software access to more memory than is actually physically installed. Virtualization makes it possible for users to “fool” their operating systems into believing that a group of servers is a single pool of computing resources. Most businesses implement virtualization with hopes of achieving new ways of managing/storing certain data, etc. For these benefits and others, we suspect more businesses will begin turning to virtualization in the future.

Where do I go from here?

As businesses continue exploring the possibilities and various applications of virtualization, it’s very likely that new ways of increasing productivity and efficiency levels in the workplace will continue surfacing. Only time will tell what significant changes virtualization may hold for businesses. If you have any questions concerning this article, please contact [email protected].