Let?s talk about some of the things that should be included in your backup and disaster recovery (BDR) preparations. What Should Be Involved in Your Business? BDR? We always recommend that your backup strategy follow what is commonly known as the 3-2-1 Backup rule. This rule can be summed up as follows: You maintain at least three copies of your data This data should be stored in at least two different storage media One of these copies should be maintained offsite, ideally, in the cloud These are the basics. However, for some additional value, we can go a bit deeper into the weeds and describe what a good backup will need. Optimal Elements of a BDR that?s Designed for Success Include: Image-Based Backups Which sounds quicker to you: recreating each file that was lost individually, or dropping in a complete copy of your data storage all at once? This is the ?magic,? of sorts, that image-based backups provide. Time is of the essence in a data loss situation, so the faster data can be restored, the better. Redundant Elements While redundancy isn?t often a good thing, backups are a shining exception. The more redundant your data is, the better, because you?ll know that you have a spare if something happens to one copy. However, your redundancy doesn?t have to stop there (and really shouldn?t). You need to make sure that your backups have guaranteed power, for instance, making redundant power supplies a necessity. The same goes for Internet connectivity?running multiple connections helps ensure you?ll retain access. Protections and Defenses Finally, you need to be sure that your backups aren’t going to suffer from various security issues. It wouldn?t be good if your backups were infected by ransomware, for instance, or if someone managed to steal the data as you were backing it up. Therefore, you should have all of the protections you would have at your place of business also implemented where your backups are, and always make sure your transmitted data is appropriately encrypted. White Mountain IT Services is here to help you make the most of your backup and disaster recovery planning. Learn more by reaching out at (603) 889-0800.

Infonomics and Your Data?s Value Your business? data has a certain value to you, and depending on whose data it is, to your clients, vendors, employees, and whomever else trusts you enough to share their personal data with you. At any rate, any data loss is a big deal; and nowadays it has become a large field of study called infonomics. Infonomics can put an actual dollar value on the data your organization has on hand and uses some very poignant questions to do so. These questions include: How much capital would replacing the data cost?  How much and what percentage is your organization?s data? What kind of revenue could your organization see if it were to buy and sell it?  What will it cost to completely protect the data?  These questions will go a long way toward making you understand exactly what kind of data you need to protect in order to keep your business from suffering some of the negative circumstances brought on by data loss. Let?s take a look at some concepts you need to understand if you are going to successfully protect your organization’s data. Data Backup The first is one of the most obvious. In order to keep data from being lost, many organizations roll out comprehensive data backup systems that take snapshots of data as it changes. This provides an extraordinarily useful tool for network administrators to have if the data is corrupted or has been lost or damaged somehow. At White Mountain IT Services, we offer a backup and disaster recovery service that features incremental backups that are stored both locally in a network-attached device, and offsite in a secure data center. The total data redundancy ensures that you will always have access to the data you need, when you need it.  Disaster Recovery The disaster recovery part of the BDR is not to be taken lightly. For data recovery, you make contingencies for situations and hope that you never have to use them. The two main factors in a disaster recovery platform are: Recovery Point Objective (RPO) – The amount of time that your core business processes can be interrupted before your business begins to fail. Recovery Time Objective (RTO) – The amount of time your business can withstand interruption before it can be considered a complete break in continuity.  The shorter the duration of RPO and RTO, the more diligent you have to be in keeping data ready for recovery. In managing your organizational expectations in regard to business continuity, it is essential that any strategy has succinctly taken into account the disaster recovery metrics. These will always dictate how you need to approach data recovery.  At White Mountain IT Services, we take data redundancy extremely seriously, and would like to help your organization set up a backup and disaster recovery platform that works to protect your business? most important asset: its data. For more information call the IT professionals at (603) 889-0800 today.

Turn on Notification History The first thing you need to do to turn on your notification history is to open your Settings app and navigate to the Notifications option. Opening this menu, you should see an option for Notifications History. It should be turned off by default so you will want to toggle that on. Access Your Notification History Once that is enabled, you can then access your notifications history. To view it, you will need to swipe down like you would to view your notifications and at the bottom of the pane you should see the new option for History.  You will now be able to see the notifications for your apps for the previous 24 hours. Unfortunately, keeping notifications for longer would use up a lot of available space on the handset. 24 hours should be enough for you to retrieve any notification you may need but impulsively deleted.  For more tips and tricks, be sure to subscribe to our monthly newsletter and check out our blog for more articles on Android and other business technologies.

So, let?s start from the beginning and explore the concept of a Power Hour, as proposed by Adrienne Herbert in her book Power Hour: How to Focus on Your Goals and Create a Life You Love. So, What?s a ?Power Hour?? A Power Hour is the brief period of time that a person devotes their full attention to a specific task?typically, an hour?to really optimize the time spent on that task. Herbert describes it in the terms of using it on a personal intention, but it could just as easily be applied to a challenging work project or interesting process. The idea is that it?s a means of boosting productivity, but it can also have benefits in energizing you and helping you really embrace the day. While Herbert posits that the Power Hour is a first-thing-in-the-morning experience, you can certainly try to identify a different time that seems to work copacetically with your brain and schedule. Basically, you eliminate the time that you have other responsibilities in the way?you can?t really tune out the world and work when you need to be participating in a meeting?and try to lock down on the times you feel most engaged. Once you identify yours, you can then do a few things to make the most of it. How to Make the Most of Your Power Hour Pick Your Task In order to make the most of the time you?re establishing as your Power Hour, you should pick a single task to devote all of your attention to. Try focusing on the kind of task you would generally try to put off?completing it might give you a bit of extra motivation to tackle your other tasks with renewed vigor.  Cut Out Distractions Put your phone on silent, turn off your notifications, and set yourself as unavailable on your calendar. The concept of a Power Hour only works if interruptions aren?t an issue. Focus Up On a related note, do everything you are able to do to prepare yourself mentally for this extended focus session. Run through a quick mindfulness exercise, find a quiet corner if it?s open to you, and take a few deep breaths. There will be time enough to deal with other things on the other end of your Power Hour. Hopefully, trying this strategy or some of its elements will help you get more done. We?re always here to ensure that your technology is prepared to support you during these times, too. Find out more about our managed IT services and support options by giving us a call at (603) 889-0800.

Managed IT services from White Mountain IT Services can be a great investment for any small business looking to get ahead of the competition. Here are four reasons why you should consider managed IT for your company. You?ll Save Money Look, we won?t beat around the bush here; if you implement managed IT services through us, you will save money, period. It costs a lot to hire internal IT workers, and it costs even more to keep them around when they are stressed out of their minds all the time with endless tasks and burnout. Furthermore, the cost of maintaining IT as well can be difficult, particularly if you currently subscribe to the break-fix mentality (it breaks, you fix or replace it). Managed IT makes technology maintenance accessible and, crucially, more affordable.  Your IT Will Run Better Operational issues will arise as your technology ages alongside your business. Thankfully, there are ways you can mitigate these challenges. Through proactive maintenance from a managed IT provider, you can stay on the lookout for issues and address them before they evolve into bigger and more complex problems. You can also address patches and updates manually without the need for an on-site visit, making your operations run smoother and better as a whole. You?ll Be Much More Secure Network security is not a simple feat, and there are countless variables to consider. You?ll need to keep your systems updated and maintained while also keeping an eye on traffic traveling to and from your network. Furthermore, you have your employees and their actions to worry about. For this reason alone, we recommend both taking preventative measures with comprehensive security solutions, and training your staff on security best practices to ensure they are not gateways into your organization?s network. You can combine all of this with remote monitoring and management tools to keep an eye out for any suspicious activity. A managed service provider can handle all of this for your business so you can focus on being productive. You Will Always Have Access to IT Professionals So much goes into managing an IT infrastructure that you might have internal IT staff who are simply too busy to address some of the smaller, everyday inconveniences that drive you nuts. Similarly, you might also encounter issues where your everyday challenges keep your IT staff from implementing new and innovative solutions designed to improve operations. In any case, you can make less work for everyone involved by outsourcing some aspects of your IT operations to a third party provider. White Mountain IT Services can provide the outsourced IT services your company needs to succeed. To learn more about all of the many services we can offer for your business, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.