One of the main reasons that business continuity might be neglected is because your business has more ?pressing? matters to tend to. Small issues that pile up over time can eventually outweigh the importance of large problems, like implementing preventative measures to stop the loss of data. As IT professionals, we adhere to Murphy?s Law when handling technology: ?Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.? All the same, your business needs to make sure it has what it takes to endure, even under the worst circumstances. Natural DisastersSometimes it feels like the world is out to get you, especially if you?re suffering from a natural disaster. Nature has the overwhelming power to topple businesses with a single blow. Floods, fires, and electrical storms can cause damage to both your physical and virtual infrastructure. Tornadoes can send your business skyward, literally. Bad storms can bring down power lines and cause power outages. No matter where you are in the world, there?s a chance that a natural disaster can occur. Plus, natural disasters don?t even have to physically destroy your office to ruin your plans for success; all they have to do is make it virtually impossible for you to continue normal operations. You can make dealing with natural disasters less daunting by looking into some relatively common technology solutions. For the normal thunderstorm, you can use an Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS), which allows your technology to shut down safely in the event of a power outage. Once all work and applications are properly saved and closed, the UPS sends a signal to the server, which informs it that it?s safe to shut down. Succession PlanningThis is one part of business continuity that might not seem immediately apparent. All organizations have important staff members that are crucial to the success and forward momentum of the business. If certain staff members suddenly aren?t available to work anymore, it could have devastating side-effects, assuming that you don?t have a contingency plan to replace them. This includes making sure that you?re prepared for situations like an employee quitting, falling severely ill, or simply being absent for an extended period of time; and, in the worst case scenario, if the employee unexpectedly dies. We don?t want to sound negative or macabre, but you hear about car accidents, health problems, and other calamities that strike businesses when you least expect them to. Establishing clear succession guidelines can help to make this process easier. Even some simple cross-training can go a long way toward making it easier to deal with the void left by an experienced employee. Data Loss and Disaster RecoveryThe inability to recover lost data following a disaster is one of the top reasons that an organization goes out of business. Most businesses that fail to restore their data following a data loss disaster are likely to go out of business within a year following the incident. This is why data backup and disaster recovery are critical components of a business continuity plan. Thankfully, White Mountain IT Services is great at helping small and medium-sized businesses plan for data backup and disaster recovery. Our BDR service is built specifically for the SMB, helping them avoid unnecessary downtime at an affordable monthly rate. Data backups are sent to a secure, off-site data center, where they can quickly be restored […]

Question #1: How often do you use the machine? The workload of a PC varies by the user, but for the sake of this blog article, we?re going to address the typical computing needs of the normal office worker; PCs that are used Monday through Friday, 40 hours a week. Reality check: believe it or not, some people are under the assumption that turning a computer on and off can damage the equipment. As it turns out, this is no longer the case. Early PCs caused power surges upon powering on, which was bad for the components. However, it?s perfectly safe to shut down your computer and turn it back on when you need to use it. Power consumption is another factor that needs to be considered. If you?re keen on saving as much energy as possible to lower your electric bill, then it?s a pretty good idea to power down your PC when you?re finished with it for the night. However, if you want to use your PC bright and early in the morning after, you can put it into sleep mode (akin to Standby or Hibernate modes) before leaving the office. Doing this instead of turning your PC off uses a miniscule amount of energy, less than the traditional light bulb. Another factor that needs to be considered is your geographical location. Is your location prone to experiencing natural disasters that lead to blackouts? If so, you should power down your machine at the end of the day. Power inconsistencies can mess with your IT infrastructure. This is why many businesses use what?s called an Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS), which is designed to safely power down equipment without data loss or hardware failure, in the event a sudden loss of power. As explained by ComputerHope, turning off a PC is a good way to protect your PC from a sudden power-down, but it does nothing to prevent damage from a potential power surge. A power surge destroys electrical devices regardless if it is on or off. Therefore, turning the computer off does not prevent this from occurring. The only way to prevent power surges is to unplug all power cables, phone cables, and network cables. It?s also important that you consider your computer?s maintenance schedules. If your techs run a daily virus scan at night, then you won?t have to worry about the scan interfering with work that’s performed during the day. If you?re currently taking advantage of managed IT services, like those offered by White Mountain IT Services, you?ll want to leave your desktop powered on so that we can remotely administer maintenance and patches, run scans, and so on. Powering down the machine prevents us from doing our job, so do us a favor and leave it powered on, but in sleep mode. Only after considering all of these factors can you answer the question, ?Should I turn my PC off, or leave it on?? Whatever you decide to do, we?ll be there to back you up. Your IT infrastructure has nothing to fear with White Mountain IT Services on duty. To learn more, give us a call at (603) 889-0800.

The term for this is shadow IT. Shadow IT generally consists of IT solutions that are integrated without oversight on the matter. For example, having an employee set up a free antivirus on his workstation, while better than no antivirus at all, isn?t the ideal solution to your business?s security problems. Going behind the backs of your trusted technology professionals isn?t the right way to approach business technology solutions. In this case, the employee might have had the best interests of the organization in mind, but they went about the implementation of new tech in the wrong way. Instead of doing it themselves, they should have asked for permission, or contacted the staff member in charge of making the business?s IT decisions. What would happen if the solution weren?t set up properly? The blame would fall on the employee, even though all they wanted to do was make their job easier. Another reason why shadow IT might resurface is if there?s an immediate issue that needs to be resolved, but your IT staff doesn?t have the time or money to implement it right away. This could prompt a frustrated employee to resort to ?home-grown? solutions that may (or may not) be similar to other tools on the market. Again, the problem here is that there are untrained employees implementing solutions that aren?t enterprise-level. This should never happen; you only want those who have the expertise, knowledge, and relevant training to implement new technology solutions. So, in theory, we can explain the implementation of shadow IT with two reasons: 1) The absence of a dedicated in-house IT department, which forces employees to perform maintenance themselves, and 2) An overloaded IT department that?s too busy to deal with spontaneous or recurrent issues. Either employees are given complete and total jurisdiction for performing system maintenance on their workstations, or IT is too busy with their day-to-day routines to aid in the implementation of both new and previously existing IT. What?s the busy business owner to do? In this case, the ideal solution is to contact White Mountain IT Services and ask about our managed IT services. Our offerings are ideal for SMBs because they fulfill two critical functions for small business management: 1) We provide enterprise-level solutions at a reasonable monthly price, and 2) We free your staff from the burden of regular IT maintenance and implementation of new solutions. We aren?t out to necessarily replace your in-house team (if you have one, that is), but what we can say with certainty is that they?ll have more time to innovate without dealing with regular tech hiccups. Regardless of whether or not you have dedicated in-house IT support, we can provide your business with the flexibility needed to fully leverage your technology. For more information about our managed IT service offering, give White Mountain IT Services a call at (603) 889-0800.

You don?t need us to tell you that hacking into hospital technology is bad, especially considering the possibilities for loss of life. The point we?re trying to make here is that everyone is vulnerable to hacking attacks, even your business. Hackers have such a powerful influence over technology that they can directly affect physical objects, provided they?re connected to the Internet. If there?s a technology a hacker can compromise, they most likely will try, and maybe even succeed. It?s called innovation. Businesses take advantage of it in order to gain ground in their chosen industry, and hackers will innovate to take away everything you hold dear. Data breaches can result in stolen files, including private employee records like Social Security numbers and dates of birth, or even client payment information like credit card numbers. Even if hackers don?t have a specific agenda, viruses and malware can cause data loss, leading to expensive downtime and pricey compliance fines. Therefore, the most effective way to limit how much damage hacking attacks can do is to limit your network?s exposure to threats in the first place. Taking a proactive stance against online threats is a great way to approach cyber security. This includes integrating comprehensive security protocol and best practices that are designed to minimize your infrastructure?s risk of compromisation, as well as eliminating any current threats to your network. A great way to achieve both goals is to use a Unified Threat Management (UTM) solution. The UTM takes all of the best aspects of cyber security and uses them to keep potential threats out, and limit the damage done by existing threats. A firewall keeps threats out while an antivirus can cleanse your systems of any potential problems. Additional security features, like spam blocking and content filtering, are available to limit your staff?s exposure to threats; spam protection keeps threatening emails out of your inbox while web content filtering blocks content that might cause infections while surfing the Internet. Your business?s network security might not pose a threat for your employees? physical well-being, but a data hack can cause more damage than you might initially realize. To ensure that your network is working at maximum capacity to handle hacking attacks, give White Mountain IT Services a call at (603) 889-0800.