Offsite, online, cloud backup for your business

Homeland Secure IT encourages the use of backup solutions to complete your disaster readiness plan. One of our recommendations is to implement remote, cloud based backup. Even if you have existing onsite backup, it gives you an extra layer of protection.

We partner with some of the biggest and most trusted names in offsite, cloud based backup providers such as (locally owned) Servosity, Mozy Pro and of course, Symantec.

Below, Symantec.cloud counters some of the most common objections to backing up your data offsite:

“My data won’t be secure”

• With Symantec Backup Exec.cloud, your data is secured during transit using 128 bit SSL encryption and stored using 256 bit AES encryption when at rest in Symantec’s highly secure, enterprise-class facilities.

“Online Backup will drain my bandwidth”

• After your initial backup, Symantec Backup Exec.cloud uses block level, incremental backup and performs backup of file changes only.
• Symantec Backup Exec.cloud uses bandwidth throttling to minimize impacts to your business productivity.

“It will be too difficult to manage”

• Automate backups to run on a schedule, or to backup when file modifications occur.
• Let us manage your backups for you!
• It’s easy to administer yourself – hassle free set up in just three steps.

“Backup is too expensive”

• BE.cloud offers usage-based pricing with no per-user licensing fees
• Subscription fee includes support, maintenance, and enhancements.
• With this solution there is no need to pay for resources to manage and maintain the backup system or for off-site tape storage.

“We don’t really need backup, we use removable drives and discs”

• What happens if the drive/disc is damaged, fails, is lost or stolen?
• How often are you performing backup? – Using removable drives and discs is a manual process that requires time – your time – to manage them. What could you be doing if this process was automated? Would your backup happen more regularly than it does now?
• Are there PCs or laptops that aren’t protected by using this method?
• What would happen to your productivity if one of these machines suffered a disaster/hardware failure? Would your workers lose data they need to do their jobs effectively? Would you lose any customer records, business or financial information?

“We want to manage our backup onsite”

• On-premise backup solutions can be expensive and require someone (perhaps you) to maintain them.
• On-premise backup solutions place the burden of security, storage and tape/disc vaulting on you. They also expose you to the risk of losing equipment and data in the event of a local natural disaster. - Use online backup with your existing on-premise solution to address off-site protection!
• Online backup replaces large upfront investments with predictable subscription based pricing. Managed virtually onsite using a web browser, you can not only manage and monitor the backup of machines at your location, but also at remote offices and on the machines of your mobile workers.

If you would like to know more about backing up to the cloud, or would like to discuss your backup / disaster recovery plan, please call 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com today.  We provide complete service and sales of physical, onsite backup systems, from tape to disk in addition to cloud solutions.

Cloud Computing

With more and more cloud computing / SaaS offerings becoming available to us, just who is promoting them?

Hunter Richards, a Market Analyst in the field of accounting has a poll on the SoftwareAdvice.com site asking “Are accountants recommending the cloud yet?” That is a great question, unfortunately there was only a “Yes” or “No” answer. If there had been a “Sometimes” option, I would have selected it.

In our experience we have seen a couple clients move to cloud based solutions based on suggestions from their accountants. One of them seems to be happy, and another is currently not happy, but mainly due to a bandwidth issue which may be cleared up soon for them. We have another one that it has been suggested to, however they have not made the move.

What holds accountants in particular back from suggesting cloud solutions to their clients I can’t tell you, but here are some reasons I have heard from our own clients for not accepting the technology:

• Fear of the unknown (Fear of change)
• Potential for internet outage and data being unreachable
• The recurring financial burden
• Possible requirement to increase their bandwidth (and in turn recurring costs)
• Loss of control of  data (applies mainly to system admins)
• Security concerns (compliance, breaches, etc)
• No urgency to make a change (what they use works fine)
• Don’t wish to learn how to use a new system
• Fear that the online provider could fold
• Fear that once using the online system, rates may not remain stable
• Nobody they know is using online solutions
• Waiting for cloud computing to become more mature

While some of these reasons may seem minor, the one that comes up more than any other is not about expense, but concern that an internet outage would put them out of business. With the turmoil in the Middle East and Egypt effectively shutting down the internet for several DAYS, this may be of even more concern to certain industries, even though we are told to rest assured that the Internet Kill Switch would never be used here in the US.

When we are consulting with our Greenville and Upstate SC based small and medium business clients regarding a move to a cloud based solution, we have to offer the good, the bad and the ugly sides of the technology to them as we do not wish to leave any stone unturned. We are striving to provide a reliable network and have the “big picture” in mind. On the other hand, an accountant could find that suggesting SaaS results in recurring revenue for them, but if the service is not up to their clients expectations, they could ultimately lose a client. So that may be why more accountants are not actually steering their clients towards cloud computing.

It is my suggestion that a business contemplating the switch to a cloud based solution as recommended by their accountant also get their IT service professionals involved during the planning stages in order to avoid any pitfalls.

Should you wish to discuss a similar move for your business, or if you are an accountant that is interested in discovering more about cloud computing or want to team with a local IT provider, please call 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com

Today you can hardly have a conversation with IT professionals without the buzz words, “cloud computing”, “in the cloud”, “cloud solutions”, etc popping up.

What do these terms mean? To over-simplify the definition, it means that something is not stored at your location. It is stored “in the cloud”, or on a remote server, and accessed via the internet. The “it” could be data, as in your databases, email, files, or it could be programs / applications, such as web based suites of software like Microsoft Office suite, including Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word or custom applications.

All this talk about moving to “the cloud”, a term which is generically used for the internet, has people thinking about how it can be used for their business. Let’s take our own small business and use it as an example.

Currently, we use a large server which has Microsoft Server 2008 loaded on it and functions as our domain controller, DNS, DHCP, and other standard server tasks… It also serves as our file server, and it hosts Microsoft Exchange for our in-house email. Other tasks this one piece of hardware is responsible for are: TFTPd for management of our VoIP phone system’s configuration files, backup of data (Using multiple backup systems such as Servosity Online Backup Solution, an “in the cloud” product, and MozyPro) and Trend Micro Worry Free Business Security Advanced for anti-virus and anti-spam.

We have a second server which hosts additional files, Blackberry Enterprise Server (not currently in use due to the switch to Android phones), and is a test bed for us. Then we have two other servers, a Voice over IP server based on Linux OS which is in control of our phone system & voice mail, and a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) for storage of video from our CCTV cameras.

In order to reduce some overhead, we could potentially maintain a smaller main server with only Windows 2008 R2 running on it as a domain controller, then utilize Microsoft Aurora, or even Microsoft BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite), allowing mail storage and transport to take place outside our building.

We could then switch from Trend Micro Worry Free Business Security Advanced to the Trend Hosted solution, relieving our server from those duties.

Since we are already using a remote backup solution, we would not have to worry about that, and our backup requirements would actually drop since we would no longer need to backup the Microsoft Exchange Store (Microsoft would handle that for us with the BPOS solution).

As you can see, eliminating the main server entirely from the equation here is not going to be possible, however a considerable amount of storage, backup, and resources could be moved elsewhere.

One thing to take into consideration before moving to these hosted solutions is, what if our internet is down? That is a good question which still has many people concerned about these technologies. In the case of online file storage, if you do not have cached storage at your location, you simply have no access to it. In the case of mail, if you are caching the information locally, you CAN see your old/existing email, but you cannot send or receive new mail until the connection is reestablished. It is important to note that cloud based email will still RECEIVE email when your business is without an internet connection and you will get it as soon as the connection is reestablished, something that doesn’t happen now if you use an onsite Exchange Server, unless you are using a mail hold & forward (spool) system at your ISP or other provider.

Should you desire to discuss your needs and how products like Microsoft Aurora, BPOS, Google Apps, Servosity and other cloud services can fit into your infrastructure, please call us at 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com for a free consultation!  We are partners with Microsoft, Google, Servosity, MozyPro and other cloud providers. We also offer a full line of computer, server & network service, support, sales and consultation here in Greenville & Upstate SC!

Microsoft is offering a free 30 day trial of their Business Productivity Online Suite if you would like to see it in action.

Just saw where another computer user in Greenville could have avoided a nightmare. They posted their computer was toast. Bad hard drive according to some geeky type people that looked at it. The computer is back to running, but their data is GONE.

Homeland Secure IT offers many backup solutions that can protect you from this scenario, but our favorite is Servosity Online Backup, which runs on your computer, regardless of the operating system of that computer (Server, Workstation, Notebook, etc) and quietly backs up your data to a secure server located “in the cloud”.

It is affordable, it is reliable, and the president of Servosity is an Upstate SC native. What more could you ask for?

If you would like to try this awesome online backup service, we offer a FREE trial, just call 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com for additional details or get setup for a trial.

Please do it before it is too late. Losing your pictures, music, documents, etc is a painful experience, and potentially devastating. The cost of recovering hard drives can be in the thousands!