5 Quick New Year’s Tech Resolutions You Can Keep!

1. Maintenance Plan: Implement a maintenance plan for your computers to ensure they are updated regularly and receive security patches
2. Backup/Disaster Recovery: Make sure you have a good backup system in place that makes sense for your business.  Whatever solution you choose should create off site backups as well as imaged based backups to provide you with faster restore times.
3. Hardware Upgrade Plan: Create an upgrade plan for your older machines.  It’s much better to replace technology on your terms rather than when a disaster strikes due to hardware failure.  Planning your technology upgrades not only helps you reduce downtime and lost productivity, but you can also stagger the upgrades which makes it easier to budget.
4. Antivirus Software: Get a good antivirus program and install it on all of the computers and servers on your network.  Protecting your client and corporate data is not something that you should skimp on.
5. Enterprise Firewall:  Don’t have a good firewall? Get one.  Have an old firewall? Replace it. Just bought a firewall last year, make sure you have purchased any advanced security licenses for the firewall to ensure you are the best protection it can provide. 

What Are IT Managed Services?

There are 2 main ways you can receive IT support from an IT service provider. The first model is called the Break/Fix Model. When you use this type of model your only costs are when your technology breaks you pay a technician to come fix it.  The second model is the Managed Services Model. With this model you pay a technician a fixed monthly price to provide you with the services you need.  Most companies are moving to the Managed Services Model because the benefits are much greater than those with the Break/Fix Model.

 

When you select the Break/Fix Model the only benefit is that your initial costs are lower.  With this model the only services you receive are repairs on your systems when they break.  This can leave you and your technology very vulnerable as no one is watching over your systems to make sure they are secure and running at optimal performance.  While your initial technology spending might be less with this model, your costs are unpredictable and if a disaster strikes it will not only be extremely expensive to fix, but the lost productivity and revenue to your firm can be crippling.

With the Managed Services Model you not only get repairs to your equipment, should something happen, but you also have someone monitoring your infrastructure 24x7x365 ensuring things are running properly. In addition, you are protected from cyber threats and problems can be eliminated before they cause significant down time.  Just like you need to perform maintenance on your car, there are many preventive maintenance items that need to be done on your systems to maintain proper operation, including: 

• Installing Windows updates, security patches, and third party software updates
• Updating and monitoring AV software to ensure you are constantly protected
• Reviewing backups daily to confirm data has been backed up successfully and is available for restoration if needed
• Monitoring your network and firewall for any threats and updating firmware to ensure you have the best protection.  

Technology plays such a critical role in running your business that it’s best to think of it as an investment rather than an expense.  Make sure you select the Managed Services Model for your technology support and make that investment in your technology.  Not only will you be better protected from the myriad of threats out there, but you will also be able to leverage your technology more completely which will increase your productivity and help drive business growth.

Contact Us Today to learn more about the Managed Services Model and how it can help your business.

Are you feeling lucky?

Do you perform daily backups of your data?  Do you check your backup system to make sure it's actually backing up the data?  Do you practice restoring data from your backup system to make sure you can actually recover your data?

If you answered "No" to any of these questions you must be one lucky person. What happens when your luck runs out?  How will you continue to run your business without any of your critical data on customers and business operations? Implementing a backup solution can be a fairly simple process.  There are so many options available that provide you an easy way to schedule routine backups both onsite and offsite.  With storage costs so low it's easy to backup all of your data or create a system image of your entire system.  A system image is a backup file that allows you to restore not only your data but your entire computer operating system, settings, and applications at once.  They are extremely handy when your hard drive fails and you need to replace it.  

When determining the type of backup system you need, you must consider off site backups.  Creating a backup off site gives you business continuity.  If you only store backups in your office and the building burns down you still lose everything.  Utilizing cloud backup solutions provide companies with off site protection for relatively low costs. 

Getting your backup system in place is only the first step...once it's up and running you need to make sure you have a maintenance plan in place to ensure it's functioning properly and you can actually recover your data when you need it. If you have been relying on luck as your backup system, call us today and we'll make sure your data and your business are protected before your luck runs out.

Show Some Love This February

February is here, which means Valentine's Day is coming up.  While you are thinking about things to do for the person you love make sure you are thinking about loving your computers and network too.  Your computers and network need love all year long to make sure they are running properly and are protected from viruses and security threats.

Here are some things you can do to show the love:

• Check for any Windows security patches and critical updates that need to be installed
• Check for any third party software updates that need to be installed such as java & adobe
• Check your network devices for firmware updates 
• Check your antivirus software for program updates and to make sure virus definitions are updated regularly

These checks will help make sure you are not leaving any open doors that hackers can use to gain access to your systems and data.

It's important to have a system maintenance plan in place to ensure these updates are applied on a regular basis. It can be very time consuming just maintaining your systems, however, we have a service that can take that burden off your plate.  Our Core Security service provides you with antivirus and patch management protection for all of your workstations and servers.  We take care of monitoring and updating your systems to ensure the latest antivirus definitions have been applied, Windows updates and patches are installed, and third party software is updated so your systems are secured.

Make sure you take some time this month to put a plan in place for keeping your systems updated or reach out to us so you can take of our Core Security Services and we'll take care of your systems for you.  Showing your computers and networks the the love they deserve means your systems will keep you happy by running smoothly and protecting your corporate data.