data backups Archives | Anderson Technologies

Mark Anderson and Libby Powers discuss the importance of backups. Mark shares the story of a new client who’s server crashed on day three of our managed IT services agreement. Because Anderson Technologies had implemented backups on a Business Continuity Disaster Recovery Device, most employees at the client couldn’t even tell that the server had failed!

Transcript

Libby Powers: Hi, everybody, welcome to another episode of Byte-Size Tech. I’m here again with Mark Anderson, one of the founding principals of Anderson Technologies. Today we’re going to be talking about the importance of backups. It’s really important to have backups in place. Think of all of your employees and what they do over the course of the day, and losing all of that information just because you didn’t have a proper backup in place.

Mark Anderson: Or failure occurred, right.

Libby Powers: Yeah, we actually have a client that we work with now, it’s a law firm, and their server essentially kicked the bucket.

Mark Anderson: That’s right.

Libby Powers: So what happened to that law firm?

Mark Anderson: It was an interesting story, Libby, thank you. We had just done our IT infrastructure audit, which we do for all new potential customers, and had identified their primary server was well over five years old. We said, “This thing really needs to be addressed. Essentially, it’s on fire. It’s like a bonfire sitting over there.” And they agreed. We were within probably the third day of our new arrangement with them and, wouldn’t you know, the server failed.

Libby Powers: Oh, of course, I think that’s what karma is, or Murphy’s Law or something crazy like that.

Mark Anderson: Yes, exactly. The good news, though, was that we had the ability to fail the server over or virtualize the server on what is known as a business continuity disaster recovery device.

Libby Powers: Hold on. That’s a really big word for this.

Mark Anderson: This is the smallest model. But yes, that’s it.

Libby Powers: The law firm essentially had all of their data protected.

Mark Anderson: Right, that’s right. This thing that Libby was holding up allows us to do two things. We’re able to back up data onto itself locally, but it also then has a cloud subscription and it shunts all of the data to two separate geographically disparate data centers, one on the East Coast and then one in Utah. So that if there was an event, you know, tornado or whatever going on in one area, it wouldn’t be in the other, etc. So at any rate, we were able to use this device and fail the server over to it, which meant this took over the role that the server used to play.

Libby Powers: That’s pretty incredible, I’m not going to lie. Just thinking of all the data that’s available at a law firm, your client data. Gosh, I can’t imagine what attorneys have to deal with courts.

Mark Anderson: Me either.

Libby Powers: Over my head, once again, but it’s pretty incredible to understand that this little device here was the Hail Mary, right?

Mark Anderson: The fun thing was, after we had failed over the server and got everyone back up and running very, very quickly, we took one of the principals back to the server room. Normally when you open the door, very loud fan noise and all the rest of it, and it was almost deathly silent in there. And you could tell that they got a rather quizzical look on their face, because they knew, “Hmm, this is a little different.” I pointed out the lights on the server, which obviously were completely dark, and said…Well, let me let me back up. They felt like, “Wait a minute, what do you mean our server failed? It didn’t fail, we’re completely up.” And I said, “Come on back. Let’s go see for ourselves.” I pointed out that the server was indeed completely dark, and they were absolutely amazed and very grateful, honestly, that the investment in that technology paid off so handsomely for them, and they didn’t miss a beat.

Libby Powers: So one more quick question. How often should you be doing a backup?

Mark Anderson: That’s a great question, Libby. I hate saying that it depends, but depending on your particular business, the frequency of backup could vary. We would recommend for most normal businesses, doing an hourly backup is the recommended frequency because it allows you to roll back to just one hour before and get everything back. You know, nightly is kind of almost too long these days. Sometimes years and years ago, it was even less frequent than that.

Libby Powers: I can’t imagine losing even what I do, which isn’t that important compared to that.

Mark Anderson: That’s not true.

Libby Powers: Well, Mark, I really appreciate you joining me today and giving us a little bit of information regarding backups. If you have any questions, please reach out to a managed IT firm to learn more, or you can reach out to us. We’re always happy to help. Thanks.

Mark Anderson: Thanks, guys. Bye.

The true cost of ransomware.

Ransomware is a major threat right now. According to Datto, experts in data backup and recovery, 80% of managed services providers (MSP) report ransomware attacks in 2018, and 35% report that some of their clients experienced multiple attacks per day. Clearly, ransomware is nothing to sneeze about.

Surprisingly, though, it’s not the ransomware attack, but the downtime afterward that accumulates the greatest cost to your company. Time, manpower, customer and vendor trust are all affected. This increases the importance of defending your company against this threat.

Here’s a quick recap of what happens in a ransomware attack. First, your network or computer is compromised. Next, an intruder plants an infection that encrypts your data files, until, theoretically, you pay the “ransom.” Until then, you are stuck. You can’t use your hardware, applications, or access any of your data. Any employees who connect to your network for their job can’t work. Even if the ransom is paid, the likelihood of getting your data back as it was is fairly small. During this attack, your network is fair game to the cyber criminals, and you’ll have no idea which files they will exploit. In all reality, you might be starting from scratch to get your company up and running again. And that takes time. If you aren’t protected and prepared, you could suffer weeks of lost revenue with a high cost to recover.

The best solution for defending your company against ransomware is a multi-layer approach. To keep your network safe, you must have the following:

A properly configured hardware firewall
An internet content filter
Email scanning prior to delivery
Antimalware/antivirus software on each workstation
Current operating system and third-party application updates
Consistent, reliable, and tested backups

Whether it’s a cyber attack, human error, or hardware failure, a multi-layer approach is a safeguard for when one layer is compromised.

Read more about ransomware!

Backups are one of the most important aspects. They are your insurance policy to eliminate a huge amount of downtime. If ransomware infects your network despite all of the safeguards in place, your current backups will ensure your data is retrievable. Consulting with your IT department or MSP to ensure your backups are properly configured will keep the ransomware from infecting the backups as well.

Unfortunately, many companies don’t have all of these measures in place, and when ransomware hits, things get chaotic. Downtime can turn a disaster into a catastrophe.

Studies show that downtime has twelve times the cost of the actual ransomware attack. To calculate downtime, you must take into consideration direct employee costs, productivity losses, halted company production, and even more importantly, how your clients are affected. Are they getting the products and services they paid for? How does that affect their trust in you?

To counteract these detrimental costs to your company, it is important to focus on prevention and prepare for the worst, so when something does happen, your downtime is minimal. Backup services provide disaster recovery as a service to ensure your peace of mind no matter what.

Downtime Contributors

Ransomware isn’t the only cause of downtime, though. There are other things potentially sapping your company’s productivity every day. Poor performance due to outdated hardware, slow internet speeds, and hardware failure. How much are these often-overlooked daily experiences costing your business?

Old Hardware – New Software

Continually spending money on hardware can be frustrating. Unfortunately, that is the reality in the tech world. One year, the latest technology comes out with a wow and a bang, and by the next year, that amazing equipment is already out of date. Within a few years, it’s obsolete and can no longer handle even the most basic software updates.

Older hardware simply wasn’t designed to handle the latest resource-intensive apps.

Because technology changes so quickly, Anderson Technologies recommends replacing computers every three to five years, depending on your specific requirements. Replacing 20% of your machines per year keeps all equipment on a five-year rotation and your budget reasonable.

How can this plan save your company from downtime?

By upgrading your hardware regularly, your systems stay efficient and fast. You won’t have to wait those 30 seconds for an app to load when it should load in a fraction of that time.

Thirty seconds of downtime doesn’t seem like much until you calculate the cost of those accumulated seconds lost every week.

Hardware Failure

Hardware failure, be it a laptop or server, will happen, and inevitably it will occur at the worst possible moment, like during your busiest time of year. Because of this, it’s best to be proactive. If you’re continually refreshing hardware, not just computers, at the rate of 20% per year, everything will be less likely to experience failure due to age.

Just like with ransomware, the best insurance policy against hardware failure is having up-to-date backups. Failed hardware can easily be replaced, but the information stored on it may be lost unless it’s backed up regularly. Your MSP can help you determine the frequency of backups and provide backup options to ensure that your company can get up and running as quickly as possible.

Slow Internet

This is probably the most common downtime-inducing culprit. There are several factors that may contribute to slow internet. The first step is to double check what speed you pay for with your internet provider and make sure it matches the speed you observe on your network. If the two speeds match, then you may need to invest in more speed.

If you’re paying for a higher grade of internet, but still experiencing slow speeds, there may be something misconfigured in your firewall or switch. If the firewall or switch are over five years old, they might need to be replaced. Older firewalls or switches are just like the old hardware we mentioned earlier – they can’t keep up with the traffic going through them and act like a bottle neck. For instance, your LAN switch may be running at 100 Mbps, but you’re paying the ISP for a 400 Mbps internet connection! Upgrading to a gigabit switch in this example is a simple, cost-effective solution. A properly configured and updated firewall and network switch will give each user the full speed the internet allows instead of bogging it down.

Would you like more information about saving your company from the threat of ransomware and downtime? Contact Anderson Technologies at 314.394.3001 or email us at info@andersontech.com.

Posts

Byte-Size Tech: Server Failure Doesn’t Mean Business Failure if You Have Backups

Related Reading

Transcript

Tired of Waiting to Work?