Are Your Backup and Recovery Methods Effective?

are your backup and recovery methods effective
backup and recovery

Businesses that suffer a loss of data often make use of backup and recovery measures. Unfortunately, their backup methods may fail completely or otherwise not work well for their data needs.

A survey recently reported in Business Cloud News showed that 86% of businesses that had lost important data used backup solutions, and 48% performed daily backups. However, they still couldn’t fully rely on their backup methods. Maybe they’d forgotten to back up all their devices, or their backup measures failed at critical points. Their costly losses underscore the need for reliable data backup solutions.

Do Your Data Backup Methods Work?

You need to know if the measures you’re using are effective. This involves testing them regularly to check if they would actually help you should you suffer an IT disaster.

There are several issues you should look into, including the following:

  • How frequently do you back up your data? For critical data, continuous backups are advisable.
  • How long does it take you to back up your data? If it’s a protracted process, you leave your business more vulnerable to data loss.
  • When you back up your data, are you including all of your devices?
  • Do you have high-quality backups? Check the rate of failure for your backup method. You should have ways of finding out when a backup didn’t complete successfully. You don’t want to discover during an IT emergency that a backup you were counting on doesn’t exist.
  • How easily can you perform data restoration? Even if you have the data backed up, your business may experience damaging amounts of downtime if you can’t restore the data quickly.

Please contact us to discuss the best backup and recovery measures for your company. We’ll help you choose and set up reliable backup procedures. Furthermore, we’ll assist you with running tests to check that your backups are truly effective, making you better prepared to respond successfully to IT disasters.

Computer Tip Of The Day (MS Excel)

Computer Tip Of The Day (MS Excel) Microsoft Excel is a cornerstone of the business office. From salaries to sales and everything in between, its’ uses almost defy belief. But there are so many of us that don’t, won’t or can’t leverage it to its’ fullest potential because we don’t know all the little ins and outs that the experts know. No more!

Your computer tip of the day is for Microsoft Excel, and it’s really simple. Learn the keyboard shortcuts you need to make things go faster. Here are a few examples:

  • Formulas in cells feature relative computational links. When they fill down or right or are copied from one location to another, the formulas contained therein update automatically based on the new cells’ positions. So, if I have a cell in C1 that adds A1 to B1 and I copy to C2, it will now add A2 and B2, instead.
  • Use Ctrl-C to copy a cell’s or range’s contents
  • Use Ctrl-V to paste the clipboard contents. If you need to copy one cell or range to multiple, contiguous locations, you can highlight the starting cells first and then use Ctrl-V to paste into all of those locations.
  • Ctrl-Z will undo your mistakes, and can go backwards up to 25 entries or more, depending on your version of Office.
  • Ctrl-Y will redo your undone mistakes, but only up to the point that you make a new change.
  • Ctrl-X cuts the contents of a cell.
  • Ctrl-R copies the contents of a cell to a highlighted range to the right
  • Ctrl-D copies the contents of a cell to a highlighted range down.

Contact us and sign up today for more creative insights into making Microsoft Office work better, easier and faster for you.

IT Support for Medical Practices: Are You Prepared for Data Breaches?

it support for medical practices are you prepared for data breaches

it support for medical practices When you’re faced with the ever-increasing threat of cyber attacks, the only way to protect your medical practice is to develop a comprehensive data security program.

Along with the sensitive data collected by most businesses, such as names, addresses and bank account information, medical practices are also responsible for safeguarding a wide variety of private patient data, ranging from current medications to history of illnesses.

Medical practices must at the very least meet HIPAA guidelines for protecting patient information and complying with certain standards for electronic data security.

As discussed in a recent article from Diagnostic Imaging, part of your cyber security program should also include a response plan to a data breach. If your system experiences an unauthorized intrusion, how would you react? Do you have strategies in place for containing the damage from the intrusion? Do you have reliable ways of detecting a breach, along with employees who have the expertise to respond effectively? Who would you notify?

Working with IT Professionals

IT professionals with experience assisting medical providers and healthcare companies can help your medical practice develop a powerful cyber security program.

This program would include technological safeguards against data breaches and reliable IT support for system monitoring and maintenance; the IT support personnel you work with would also respond quickly and effectively should a breach occur. Furthermore, your cyber security program would involve training your employees in safe practices to better protect your patients’ data.

Medical providers remain an attractive target for cyber criminals. When working with IT experts, you reduce the chances of experiencing an embarrassing, damaging data breach and violating HIPAA standards.

If you’re looking for powerful and trustworthy IT support for medical practices, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Top 3 Features a Managed Service Provider Should Provide to Your Business

top 3 features a managed service provider should provide to your business

A managed service provider manages all or part of your IT infrastructure. It is becoming quite popular among businesses in all types of industries to outsource technology management to a managed service provider.

Managed services can provide your business with access to enterprise-level technology, expert IT knowledge and support at a huge cost savings. Did you know that outsourcing converts fixed IT costs into variable costs and allows you budget effectively? In other words, only pay for what you use when you need it.

With the variety of managed service providers to choose from, it is difficult to decide who will be the best fit for your business. The biggest question being what will you get for your money?

There are a few key elements every managed service provider should offer. Keep the following in mind to help ensure your business receives the best of what managed IT services has to offer.

24/7 Monitoring

You can expect all managed server providers to offer some form of network monitoring. However, your service provider should monitor more than your servers and workstations. They should also monitor networked devices like firewalls, routers, and other important infrastructure.

Data Backup and Recovery Plan

When disaster strikes, your business could suffer significant data loss. Without a proper data backup and recovery plan, it is difficult and sometimes impossible to recover from major data loss. Your managed services provider should offer a solution that is best suited to your business.

They should backup your data on a regular basis and test your recovery plan often in order to make any necessary adjustments.

On-site Support

Although many managed service providers can handle most IT support issues remotely, there are some instances when an on-site IT technician can offer the best support. Having a managed service provider that is local is ideal for providing on-site support.

A technician can provide training on new software or troubleshoot issues on workstations. Your managed services provider should have enough staff to ensure you have on-site support when you need it.

When it comes to protecting your network, you want the best features at an affordable price. Our managed service provider agreement includes IT support and management for businesses of all sizes. 

Contact us today to schedule a free consultation.

Why Network Audits Should Be a Regular Part of Your Network Support

why network audits should be a regular part of your network support

According to this recent article, network auditing is the collective measures done to analyze, study and gather data about a network with the purpose of ascertaining its health in accordance with the network/organization requirements.

In order to maintain the safety and security of your network, it is important to have regular network audits included as part of your network support plan.

What is Network Auditing?

Network auditing allows IT technicians to study and analyze all of the information on your network. They can test the effectiveness of your network and identify any potential security issues that could damage your system. Once these details are found, any necessary changes are immediately made and your network is continuously monitored.

What Does Network Auditing Involve?

The network auditing process involves a network administrator mapping all computers on the network, including all of the software on each computer. The administrator inventories the software and checks for any delays or malfunctions.

After auditing of all computers and software, the network administrator can then move on to auditing all other network devices. These devices can include items such as routers, mobile devices, fax machines, and any other devices connected to the network.

The network auditing process is usually completed after auditing the network devices. All data is then analyzed by an administrator.

How a Network Audit Keeps Your Network Safe

A network audit can alert a network administrator to any changes on the network. For example, if a staff member installs unauthorized software that could cause harm to the network, the change is immediately reported.

Network audits also help with personal devices your staff may use in the workplace. Often times, staff do not take proper security measures with their own devices. The lack of security on personal devices could negatively impact your network.

Network auditing is an important part of network support. It is natural for changes to occur as new users and devices are constantly added to the network. Regular network auditing helps to ensure any potential security threats are quickly resolved before they can escalate into major problems.

Contact us today to schedule a free consultation. Our team of qualified computer and network engineers develop preventative, proactive, and reactive solutions for any IT environment.