How Would A Server Crash Effect Your Business?

Could your company carry on doing business if your server failed and you were unable to recover your data? If your answer is that “It’s not going to happen!” because you know that you have got that one covered, then great. If on the other hand you have just felt a chill run down your spine at the very thought of your server failing, then don’t put it off any longer. If your data is that important to you, then for heaven’s sake do something about it. 

Uninterruptible Power Supplies

If your server sits in your office, you should protect it using an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS). A UPS does 2 jobs. Its primary job is to provide you with time to shut your machines down properly in the event of loss of power. It does this by providing you with power from its batteries. Servers don’t like losing power unexpectedly. It can cause corruption on the hard drive and in extreme cases can make it impossible to read data from it. The second job that a UPS will do for you is to smooth out the power and protect you against temporary power surges which could damage your server as well as momentary loss of power which could cause the system to shut down unnecessarily.

When looking at a UPS, there are two things that you need to know:

• The amount of power that you want to pass through it.
• The amount of time that you need protection for. 

For most small businesses, you just need a few minutes as a grace period to allow you to shut your servers down safely. 

When you buy a UPS, don't forget that you will need to replace the batteries every couple of years. 

Online Backup

Most companies take some form of backup of their servers, but I am always surprised by the number of companies that still rely on tape and disk backup backup. It’s not that I dispute whether tape backups work or not. It’s rather that the only truly reliable solution for business continuity is to have offsite backup, and to automate that process rather than relying on the office manager remembering to insert the tape and take it home with them at night. The time when you will need that backup most is in the event that you are unlucky enough to suffer a fire or a flood, and the best way to ensure that you get access to your data after a fire is to use online backup. Admittedly, you need to have a high speed internet connection to use online backup reliably, but they are more widely available now. If you haven’t already made the investment in online backup, now is a good time to do so.

You can of course spend much more on business continuity than simply investing in online backup and provision of a decent UPS system, but this is sufficient for most small businesses. It’s a small price to pay for peace of mind that your business can recover as quickly as possible when bad things happen. 

Why Good IT Security Is Important For Small Businesses.

Why do small businesses need to worry about IT security? We all understand why banks need to have good security … they’ve got our money, and if they get hacked they are probably out of business. What’s the worst that can happen if you don’t have good security as a small business?

The truth is that the damage caused to a small business by poor security may not be as catastrophic as a bank getting hacked, but the consequences of poor security are still painful .. and costly. 

The first thing you’ve got to realise is that security isn’t just about getting your web site hacked. In fact, a good proportion of what we do in managing IT support for our customers involves managing network security. 

How does IT Security impact small businesses?

The problem for small businesses is internet malware. Malware is “bad” software that is unintentionally downloaded from hacked web sites that seeks out bugs in software that is installed on your PC. Unless your PC is kept updated with the latest security updates, malware can use these bugs to upload malicious software which can turn your PC into a spam sender or steal your internet passwords. The first you are likely to know that you have malware on your PC is when things start to grind to a halt, and this is the point at which bad security starts to cost you money. 

Few things are more frustrating than a PC on a go-slow because of a malware infection. It gets in the way of doing your work and causes frustration. You can try running applications such as Malwarebytes to lean it up, but you then lose your PC for the best part of a day while it runs a full scan of your system. Critically all of this is taking place when you want to be getting on dealing with your clients, costing you money with every minute that goes by … and you haven’t even called your IT support company yet!

How to keep internet malware at bay.

The answer is to make sure that your PC’s and servers are kept updated and maintained on a regular basis. If you’re a small business without a dedicated IT Manager that can be a tall order. In reality you are better off outsourcing to a managed service provide who will use automation software to run manage and update your systems remotely. Using automation cuts the cost of keeping your PC’s properly updated and in good working order. More importantly, it’s not your problem!

So don’t discount security just because you’re a small business. It’s just as important to you as it is to bigger businesses. You just see the benefits a different way. For you, IT security translates into reliability of your PC’s and servers.

Planning For Cloud Computing Success

There is much to be said in favour of cloud computing, especially if you are a small business without the in-house skills to manage your IT systems properly. Irrespective of all of the arguments on how cloud computing saves you money, many companies who adopt cloud systems do so because they buy in to the idea that they will no longer have to worry about buying hardware, upgrading it, and making sure that their business information is properly backed up. However it is implemented,  outsourcing IT is increasingly seen as an easy win for businesses.

Furthermore, in these days of flexible working, your office becomes wherever you want it to be, since you can access your company information from a café or airport lounge equally as well as you can from your own desk.  

Nonetheless, if you decide that cloud computing is right for your business, you shouldn’t rush headlong into it. Change can be a painful process, and your implementation needs to be planned to make sure that you set off on the right foot and avoid push-back from your staff. Involoving your employees from day 1 is hugely important. They are after all the people who earn money for your company, and they may have genuine concerns that you will need to address prior to implementation. 

Plan For Change

When you move your business applications to the cloud you may well find that it requires minor changes to working practices for your staff. You may for instance be moving to a newer version of your business software, or the cloud version may work slightly differently to the way that your staff have been used to working previously. Alternatively, if you are looking to move to a cloud CRM system, you may be making changes to streamline your business processes. In any event, your new cloud based system should be installed as a pilot in parallel to your current systems for sufficient time to allow training and acceptance testing to take place.   

Security

If you are moving to the cloud, you have to consider the security of your data. Under the data Protection Act, you should not take your clients’ personal information outside the EU, so make sure that you know where your information is being stored. You also need to take into account that your data is now being stored on another company’s systems, so should you be taking additional security measures such as encrypting your information, or protecting access to your cloud systems using strong authentication?

One size certainly doesn’t fit all companies when it comes to cloud migration, but you need to make sure that you get the process right for your business. As with any IT project, planning for success will pay dividends.