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3 tips for increased BYOD security

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The benefits of allowing employees to bring their own devices to work are pretty clear. A study conducted by Pew Research Center earlier this year found that 64 percent of American adults own a smartphone, which means a vast majority of the workforce already has the hardware your company needs to conduct business. This means less of a financial burden on you company for hardware procurement, while also allowing employees to use the devices they know and love.

But there is a dark side to BYOD.

The reason many workplaces are hesitant to fall in line with the BYOD revolution is the security risks it typically entails. Allowing people to blend their home life and work life in a single device can be dangerous. However, by following basic security protocols, BYOD can be a viable option. 

To that end, we've compiled this list of three security tips to make sure your company benefits from all BYOD has to offer without falling victim to the security risks:

1. Have a well-defined list of do's and don'ts: Any company even remotely considering enacting a BYOD policy needs to sit down and have a long discussion about the definition of acceptable behavior on a personal device used for work purposes. Employees will be used to doing as they please on their own devices, which is perfectly fine when these devices don't have company data on them.

The problems begin to arise when employees forget the importance of the work information stored on their devices. If given the opportunity to work from their own devices, employees will invariably make some bad decisions in terms of data security. All it takes is a worker clicking one wrong link to put all of your company's data at risk. It's vital that employees recognize the importance of proper device usage, and it's why they should also be included in the creation of this list of rules. 

2. Mandate proper device security: This tip sounds like it should just be a part of the first, or even something that should be left to common sense. Sadly, quite a lot of Americans simply don't value the security of their devices. A study conducted by Consumer Reports last year found that around 34 percent of Americans take no security measures whatsoever to keep their phone safe.

This means that more than a third of your employees don't even use a password to protect their own data, a troubling statistic if you're attempting to implement a BYOD policy. When sitting down with employees to talk about the list of do's and don'ts, you'll need to have a separate discussion concerning safety practices such as setting up a complex password to gain access to the device. 

3. Prepare for the eventuality of lost device: Notice that this tip doesn't say "Prepare for the possibility of a lost device." This is because if you intend to cash in on all of the benefits of a BYOD policy, you're going to have to accept the risk that one of your employees will eventually lose a device with work information on it. The same Consumer Reports study found that in 2013 alone, 4.5 million devices were either lost or stolen.

But don't let this statistic get you down about the advantages of BYOD. Your company can absolutely benefit from not having to constantly upgrade hardware, as long as you take the necessary precautions. This is why anyone wishing to implement a BYOD policy should contact the experts at ISG Technology. Not only can they help you set up your list of do's and don'ts, they can also help protect your company data through device encryption, taking the headache out of employees losing hardware or not taking the proper precautions. 

IT restructuring reduces governmental spending

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A few years ago, the federal government realized that there was a lot of inefficiency within agencies in terms of their IT infrastructure. So, in 2010, the Office of Management and Budget began an effort to restructure the IT needs of governmental workplaces to try to cut down on redundancies and unnecessary IT spending.

After years of working on the problem, the OMB has made some sizeable cost reductions. The Government Accountability Office, charged with creating a report on the OMB's IT restructure, found that this effort resulted in $3.6 billion in cost savings and avoidances between 2011 and 2014. 

A closer look
Although 22 out of the 27 agencies that the OMB gave restructuring requirements to did not fully meet those benchmarks, overall, quite a lot of money was saved through IT reform. In terms of newer technology being implemented within the OMB's restructuring plans, perhaps the most interesting of these savings came from virtualization. 

Specifically, the Department of Defense saved $260.35 million between the fiscal years of 2011 and 2014 by operating system reductions and virtualization, thereby cutting down on staff and facilities needed to run their operation. Virtualization has been known to allow for these kinds of savings, as it gives organizations the unique opportunity to consolidate their hardware needs without dramatically affecting workloads and end-user functionality. 

The DoD was not the only agency to see savings through virtualization, either. The Department of Commerce also reported that since it had moved its IT infrastructure to a virtualized space, it had seen a combined cost avoidance of around $11.8 million. 

What this means for your company
Even though government agencies are different in a lot of way from the average private sector business, the fact still remains that IT restructuring is a great way to cut both inefficiency and spending in the workplace.

Basically, what the GAO's report showed is that many organizations are not as efficient as they could be with their IT needs. It also argued for the importance of virtualization as a tool to reduce hardware and facility needs, as shown through the massive savings garnered by both the DoD and DoC. 

For this reason, every company that wants to cut down its current IT expenses should absolutely consider virtualization through ISG Technology. Not only do we provide server virtualization, a great way to cut down on hardware spending, ISG Technology also works with companies to implement desktop virtualization plans. With ISG Tech and virtualization, expect to see costs go down and efficiency go up.

What are some top benefits of hybrid cloud computing?

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As the technology industry continues to advance and new capabilities are discovered every day, one of the biggest improvements on traditional IT infrastructure comes in the form of the hybrid cloud. Where private and public architectures offer distinct advantages depending on what the computing needs of a company may be, hybrid strategies can bring together the best of both worlds.

"The hybrid cloud market is expected to be worth an astounding $84.6 billion in 2019."

The hybrid cloud market is growing at a rapid pace. Earlier this year, RightScale's State of the Cloud 2015 survey indicated that 82 percent of enterprise respondents had deployed a hybrid strategy within their companies – an 8 percent increase over 2014. In addition, the hybrid cloud market is expected to be worth an astounding $84.6 billion in 2019, according to research published by MarketsandMarkets. This growth will come at a compound annual rate of 27.3 percent from 2014 to 2019.

What do these numbers mean? Among other things, they are an indication of the growing popularity of hybrid cloud migrations. As businesses consistently turn to some form of cloud computing to provide them with the right data analytics tools and storage solutions, the fact that the overwhelming majority are using hybrid infrastructure points to the versatility and possible cost-savings associated with these kinds of environments.

But why is the hybrid cloud so popular? Let's take a look at a few reasons enterprises and small businesses continue to choose an integrated solution over the alternative:

1. Gives companies a choice
Hybrid cloud computing brings together all the good parts about public and private offerings and integrates them into one well-managed solution. In this way, companies can run applications that require capabilities only offered by the public cloud while simultaneously storing their more confidential data on private cloud servers.

The federal government is one high-profile organization with an eye on the cloud. According to CloudTech, the IDG indicated that in 2014, the feds spent $1.7 billion on private cloud and $118.3 million on public. The combination of both platforms has allowed for greater flexibility within IT infrastructure.

Integrating private and public cloud offerings can make a difference in IT flexibility and efficiency.Integrating private and public cloud offerings can make a difference in IT flexibility and efficiency.

2. Cost savings and efficiency
With hybrid strategies, companies can pick what they want to store in different cloud environments. This leads to distinct benefits, including cost-reducing advantages. Research firm Gartner revealed that one of the biggest benefits of hybrid cloud is the impact it can ultimately have on a company's pocketbook. In particular, capital expenditures can decrease dramatically over traditional IT systems, since investment in and maintenance of physical machines is no longer necessary.

In addition, according to Network​ World contributor Robert J. Gibbons, Jr., the inherent financial advantage that comes from investing in these kinds of IT solutions can be augmented by creating data backups and utilizing cloud storage services. Disaster recovery strategies are crucial for any business, and hybrid IT allows managers to determine where mission-critical data needs to be stored in case of an emergency.

The bottom line is that companies can save money and strengthen their IT infrastructure by investing in hybrid cloud. Not to mention maintaining your environments doesn't have to be a hassle. When you partner with a certified managed services provider, IT management can be simplified and you can cut down on complexities that might slow down your operations.

Top 3 strategies to strengthen cybersecurity

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Cybersecurity is a hot-button issue within the technology industry lately – and it should be a crucial topic of conversation in every sector. With the rising number of data breaches and the continual increase in costs incurred when a breach does occur, it's becoming ever more important to make sure systems are protected and that measures are taken to bolster data security.

The federal government is making strides to step up its cybersecurity game of late. In fact, according to Greg Otto of FedScoop, the federal government has increased spending on cybersecurity strategies by over 500 percent over a three-year period. From 2011 to 2014, federal cybersecurity spending rose from $6 billion to $31 billion. This marked increase is a definitive indication that the feds are taking cybersecurity more seriously than ever – an outlook that every industry could benefit from.

Businesses should follow the government's lead when it comes to cybersecurity. Here are a few tips on how to best protect your systems from physical and network-based harm:

1. Invest in malware removal services

Managed services experts can help your company stay on top of malware that may infiltrate your systems. By closely monitoring systems and making sure they are free of any viruses or malicious programs, managed security professionals can pinpoint exactly where the vulnerabilities are in your computing network and help you expunge any potential threats. Careful management of employee workstations can make a difference when trying to protect against hackers.

"Virtual networking can provide an enhanced level of security for computer systems."

2. Virtualization

There are multiple kinds of virtualization solutions, and they all have characteristics that go a long way toward helping companies remain secure. At the September 2015 VMworld conference in San Francisco, VMware announced that virtual networking can provide an enhanced level of security for computer systems. It does this by providing a base for defining application security requirements, according to Computerworld. With this kind of virtualization, IT managers have more control over traffic flow along the network and facilitate the movement of virtualized servers, which in turn enhances dynamic protection, according to SecurityWeek contributor Danelle Au.

3. Physical security

You can have the most secure network in the world, but if you leave your computer systems open to attack from the inside or don't physically protect your workspace, people could potentially gain access to information that you don't want to be out there in the wrong hands. Investing in stronger physical security can give your company a head start when it comes to comprehensive data protection. TechTarget noted that physical security can get pushed to the side "in favor of more technical and dramatic issues" like hacking and malware – but you don't want to overlook this crucial aspect of system protection.

How secure are your computer systems?How secure are your computer systems?

No matter which security solution you choose – or all three! – it helps to partner with experts who know how to navigate the ever-changing cybersecurity landscape. Contact ISG Technology today to see how we can pair you up with the right protection solution for your company's systems.

Top 2 ways desktop virtualization can impact your company

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Computing infrastructure seems to become more complicated with each new innovation or machine to connect to the network. With each advance in technology comes more challenges, often resulting in IT complexity, which can be bad news for small businesses and enterprises alike. One way to reduce this kind of complexity is by employing a desktop virtualization solution.

Desktop virtualization employs the same concept as server virtualization, except with individual computers on a network instead of servers. Administrators create virtual machines that make it possible to deploy operating systems, programs and software present on computers in the network.

Let's take a look at the top two ways desktop virtualization can positively impact organizations looking to streamline their computing infrastructure:

"By creating a handful of VMs or VM templates across a company's network, IT staff can more easily manage individual computers."

1. Enhanced security
Businesses can more easily protect endpoints and enhance network security when utilizing virtual infrastructure. TechTarget contributor Yuval Shavit noted that desktop virtualization strengthens cybersecurity efforts by allowing IT managers to have an eye on each machine on the network. In this way, they can keep track of what's happening on these computers and be alerted if something goes awry, such as malware infiltration.

"Because the VM is abstracted and separate from the computer's hardware and other VMs, security is one of the major benefits of desktop virtualization," Shavit wrote.

By creating a handful of VMs or VM templates across a company's network, IT staff can more easily manage individual computers. This strengthens endpoint security.

2. Immediately deploy updates across computing fleet
One of the biggest ways virtualization is useful is in the way companies can install updates across all of the computers on a certain network. With VDI, security patches and general software upgrades are simple to implement.

For instance, when the U.S. Air Force switched to a virtualized desktop infrastructure, updating software was easily accomplished. Gregory Garcia, the director of the U.S. Army Information Technology Agency, told Federal Times that the virtualization solution utilized by his organization allowed managers to easily deploy desktop applications across a fleet of 20,000 to 30,000 computers at once.

"[W]hen I was in the Air Force, we were able to go from 27 days to patch to three days by doing it on the network," Garcia said. "What you can do with [virtual desktop infrastructure] is to go to minutes and seconds. And that's a huge benefit in terms of labor and cybersecurity."

In addition, Garcia noted, technology refreshes were made easier by this technology. Instead of having to go to individual machines on a network and install new tech, IT managers had the capability at their fingertips to accomplish this with the touch of a button.

Implementing a virtual desktop solution can help boost security and streamline IT processes.Implementing a virtual desktop solution can help boost security and streamline IT processes.

Is VDI the right solution for you?
Partnering with a managed services provider that has experience with desktop virtualization can save your company both time and money in the long run. MSPs can determine your particular technology needs and then pair you with a virtualization solution that will improve your IT dexterity and cut down on costly complexities. Contact ISG Technology today.

3 reasons your company needs a disaster recovery plan right now

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Disaster recovery is one of those uncomfortable topics that people generally don't like to talk about. Discussing the possibility of a catastrophic event knocking out business is stressful, and it can seem a lot easier to just put the conversation off for later.

But disasters don't wait for you to be prepared. They hit companies whenever and however they want, and if you aren't ready for them you could end up losing quite a lot of business.

To stress the importance of being prepared as soon as possible, let's take a look at the top three reasons you need a disaster recovery plan right now:

1. Disaster recovery plans help you reassess the importance of your data
Whether you know it or not, your company creates a lot of data simply by conducting business as usual. This data could be as vital as information needed to complete a big project, or it could be as inconsequential as a list of office birthdays that someone in HR created.

Obviously, this first dataset is more important than the second, and as such needs to be accessible during a disaster. When creating a disaster recovery plan, you'll have to sit down and parse through a lot of the data your company has created to separate the mission-critical information from the materials you don't absolutely need. 

Not only will this give you a deeper look into what your company needs in order to function properly, it will also help you cull the information that is no longer necessary but has simply been forgotten or pushed to the side. Efficiency is key, and this is especially true when creating a disaster recovery solution.

2. It's not about if, but when
Regardless of your industry, the size of your company and whatever your current business model, only one thing is certain: Disaster is coming. It may not be today or tomorrow or anytime soon, but it's coming. According to a survey commissioned by EMC Corporation and conducted by Vanson Bourne, 64 percent of the participating enterprises reported experiencing downtime or data loss within the last 12 months.

The fact that this survey questioned 3,300 IT decision-makers from 24 countries shows this isn't a problem contained in a single country or industry. Rather, unexpected downtime can and does affect a vast majority of businesses. This is especially true for the 51 percent of those surveyed who said their organizations lacked a disaster recovery plan for emerging workloads. These companies simply weren't prepared for when the worst happens. 

Having a disaster recovery plan in place is a lot like having an umbrella. You don't need it until it starts raining, and then you really need it. 

Unlike an umbrella, however, failing to have a disaster recovery plan in place won't end with your new haircut getting a little wet. In fact, being unprepared for a disastrous event that knocks out your ability to conduct business could end up costing your company a lot of time, frustration and money. 

3. Downtime is extremely expensive
Not being able to go about business as usual can have multiple negative effects on your company. That being said, the easiest problem to quantify is the money lost during downtime. The EMC survey found that data loss and unexpected downtime costs businesses $1.7 trillion every year.

To put that into perspective, the gross domestic product of the United Kingdom was $2.94 trillion dollars in 2014. Unexpected downtime is costing enterprises across the globe more than half of the entire GDP of a first-world nation. This isn't some small problem to be dealt with later; this is a massive epidemic that must be addressed now. 

If your company doesn't currently have a disaster recovery plan in place, make sure to contact ISG Technology. With more than 30 years of disaster recovery experience, ISG Technology can help you make sure your business stays afloat when disaster comes. 

Unified Communications market expected to rise

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Staying connected has always been a huge part of conducting business. However, as technology becomes more advanced, new and more complex avenues of communication will begin to play a larger role in the average day-to-day operation of many companies. 

It is this increase in communication complexity that is giving rise to something called Unified Communications as a Service. Basically, UCaaS ties together multiple modes of conversation under a singular software umbrella to simplify a company's communication needs. Considering the wide variety of ways people talk to each other, ranging from voice calls to instant messaging systems, putting all forms under a single platform has many benefits. 

These benefits work toward cutting both cost and confusion in communication, and have a major role in Transparency Market Research finding that the global UCaaS market is expected to be worth $37.85 billion by 2022. During the forecast period of 2014 and 2022, this equals out to the market rising at a compound annual growth rate of 24.4 percent. 

Communication is vital
Considering how important passing information from one employee to the next is within a business, this massive growth within the UCaaS industry is hardly surprising. Communication is a quickly evolving field, and keeping up with it all can be quite the hassle. 

In fact, one of the main drivers behind UCaaS's projected growth comes from the Internet of Things revolution. This trend of connecting random devices, such as a refrigerator that orders food online when you're running low, poses many concerns in how communication will evolve in the coming years. 

Market research company Frost & Sullivan marked the importance of the IoT revolution in terms of the UCaaS market in a February 2015 report on the matter. The firm expects there to be as many as 80 billion connected devices by 2020. Frost & Sullivan project this will cause major problems with the average business's ability to manage its communication needs, due to the unprecedented number of devices that will be able to talk to each other very soon.

This fact, coupled with the growing BYOD trend many companies seem to find themselves a part of, shows that businesses may need to take a deeper look at their communication needs. With BYOD's popularity comes the problem of securing all the modes of communication employees bring to the office. 

And while this brave new world of treating communications as managed services may be confusing for some companies, thankfully ISG Technology is here to make things easy. ISG Technology can help make investing in UCaaS painless and cost-effective. 

How hyperconverged infrastructure can benefit remote branches

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Businesses that are experiencing a period of rapid expansion may seem like they have it made, but there is a downside to that growth. When enterprises scale up and build out their corporate footprint, they will likely be faced with numerous challenges supporting satellite offices and remote branches. Relying on legacy IT assets to provide the compute, storage and network resources required by additional company locations can be a costly decision. However, business leaders can find some relief in these situations by considering a shift to hyperconverged infrastructure and changing the way enterprise operations are scaled and expanded.

For years, IT environments have been characterized by system silos. Core assets such as storage and compute resources have traditionally been handled separately. What hyperconverged infrastructure does is condense a large percentage of these assets into a single bundle of hardware and software. As TechTarget noted, organizations can then build out these systems by integrating additional nodes when needed. With this arrangement, maintenance teams can avoid many of the everyday headaches experienced while overseeing IT infrastructure on an enterprise scale.

"Under the converged infrastructure approach, a vendor provides a pre-configured bundle of hardware and software in a single chassis with the goal of minimizing compatibility issues and simplifying management," TechTarget stated.

Scale up operations with ease
One of the main benefits here for enterprises is the ability to expand IT resource needs in a simple and efficient fashion. Hyperconverged.org cited the easy scalability of hyperconverged infrastructure as one of the approach's top selling points, comparing the addition of nodes to erecting a structure with LEGO blocks. The authors noted that this method allows businesses to easily build out their IT assets on an as-needed basis. This makes enterprise expansion a much less bitter of a pill to swallow for business leaders as scaling up to support remote branches and satellite offices is not quite as arduous a task as it was in the past.

Hyperconverged infrastructure enables IT teams to manage enterprise assets from a central location.Hyperconverged infrastructure enables IT teams to manage enterprise assets from a central location.

Lower investment, management costs
Due to this setup of adding onto existing infrastructure whenever needed, hyperconverged infrastructure allows for enterprise expansion to occur at a lower up-front cost. As Hyperconverged.org explained, this approach reduces the "step size" required to make a leap in terms of infrastructure scope and maturity.

"The bigger the step size, the longer it takes to fully utilize new resources added through the expansion," Hyperconverged.org stated. "A smaller step size results in a far more efficient use of resources. As new resources are required, it's easy to add nodes to a hyperconverged infrastructure."

This approach to IT infrastructure and management further lowers costs by enabling businesses to support critical systems with commodity hardware. Because many core processes are handled at the software level within hyperconverged infrastructure, organizations do not need to consistently upgrade their data center hardware with the most advanced equipment available. In most cases, commodity x86 hardware will be sufficient to keep everything running smoothly while also allowing for rapid enterprise expansion.

"Commodity x86 hardware will be sufficient to keep everything running smoothly."

Reduce IT challenges
It's not just the bookkeepers and executives who will see the appeal of embracing hyperconverged infrastructure. For IT members, there is a lot to like here, especially when working with multiple sites and remote offices. Because this setup condenses and centralizes IT infrastructure, teams tasked with overseeing that equipment and handling any maintenance needs will have far fewer headaches to deal with.

Jointly developed by Hyperconverged.org and ActualTech Media, the "2015 State of Hyperconverged Infrastructure Market Report" shed light on the challenges that enterprise IT staff regularly face. The mix of on-premises and off-premises assets to manage, the ever-escalating virtualization and disaster recovery needs along with the growing complexity of today's data center environments have all made IT work incredibly challenging within large businesses. Hyperconvergence addresses these difficulties by providing IT teams with a single resource pool to draw from, allowing them to easily maintain a sprawling enterprise-scale system from a central location.

Building out a business's footprint can present new opportunities for market growth and tapping into additional revenue streams. However, the hit in CAPEX and OPEX can make some enterprise leaders wary of developing remote branches. Hyperconverged infrastructure offers a way to reduce the cost and complexity of such projects, enabling organizations to take more aggressive action within their industries and stake out new territory when the moment arises.

As enterprises become larger, they will need to address the headaches that come part and parcel with any organizational growth. Hyperconvergence provides a way to reduce or eliminate those challenges, allowing for greater heights of success.

What to keep in mind when considering IT outsourcing

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Outsourcing IT needs is a good way for businesses to acquire the technical skills and resources they require without breaking the bank hiring in-house talent. Business leaders need to be mindful about how they approach this matter, however, as not all outsourcing opportunities will provide the expected value and return on investment. There are important considerations to make when viewing IT outsourcing as a potential solution to labor, budget and performance woes. If business leaders rush into an agreement with the wrong organization, they may be tied to a poor IT relationship.

When is it right to outsource IT?
Some organizations get it wrong right out of the gate by turning to a third party for their IT needs when their circumstances did not really point to outsourcing as a viable solution. So, how do businesses know when it is a good time to begin thinking about IT outsourcing? Some of the tell-tale signs include:

  • "Outsourcing can be an attractive alternative to hiring local talent."

    Technical support costs are getting out of control – Maintaining an internal IT team is rarely cheap, but in some cases those costs can threaten the profitability of an entire business. As IT World Canada contributor Robert Cordray noted, there are a lot of underlying expenses to hiring an employee beyond his or her base salary. For example, health insurance, transportation reimbursement programs and retirement programs can all add considerable costs to maintaining a team of in-house IT staff. If an organization is in an especially competitive market, being able to attract top local talent without paying top dollar can be all but impossible. As such, outsourcing can be an attractive alternative in such scenarios.

  • Many employees are working remotely – More organizations are embracing the concept of telecommuting in an attempt to improve staff satisfaction and increase productivity. According to the 2014 National Study of Employers, around 67 percent of businesses now allow full-time employees to work remotely in some capacity. The thing is, if fewer employees are actually working from the office, what sense does it make to keep a dedicated in-house IT team on staff? After all, a big chunk of the IT issues those employees will run into will be occurring at home, in a coffee shop or wherever else they may choose to work.

    "[A]ny company that rarely has workers in the office should not go to great lengths to get a full time IT department in place," Cordray wrote. "There won't be enough work for them to do. Instead, it's better to get outsourced help that only needs to be paid when issues occur."

  • The business is in a state of flux – It can be extremely difficult for internal IT teams to keep up with a quickly changing business environment. This is especially true for organizations that are in the midst of rapid expansion. In those situations, IT needs can quickly outpace available resources, leaving staff overworked and outmatched. IT outsourcing can provide some much-needed relief and facilitate expansion without running into any significant growing pains.
IT outsourcing can help sustain business growth.IT outsourcing can help sustain business growth.

Getting started on the right foot
Once business leaders have determined that outsourcing IT makes sense for their organization, they need to consider what exactly a successful outsourcing relationship looks like for them. There are many strategies to potentially pursue here, so it is important that businesses find one that closely aligns with their own needs and goals.

For example, offshoring IT to workers located in places like India or Romania may not be suitable for every company. Time zone and language differences could prove to be rather tough obstacles to overcome. That is why nearshoring has grown in popularity in recent years, giving businesses an alternative to paying high prices for local talent or sacrificing communication and collaboration opportunities by working with offshore teams.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that cost should never be the overriding factor when deciding on an outsourcing partner. In the example above, an offshore team may come with a lower price tag, but the headaches that arise from relying on IT staff working on the other side of the globe could easily offset any cost savings. Forbes contributor Christian Burns McBeth explained that focusing too much on IT vendor invoices can blind an organization to the savings it is gaining elsewhere. 

"The alternative (and the way to avoid a royal mess) is to examine whether IT outsourcing aligns with your long-term strategic plans, goals, and objectives," McBeth wrote. He added, "As you can see, there's a lot more at stake here than just dollars and cents."

Think of it this way: How much would it cost to hire the same team in-house? This is especially important to keep in mind when looking at the ROI of managed services. Maintaining on-site IT equipment is an expensive proposition. By outsourcing IT needs through a trusted, local managed services provider, businesses can gain all the functionality they require while keeping their costs in check.

Backup's role in disaster recovery

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The easiest way to give a computer-savvy person a heart attack is to tell them you don't back up your data. Not backing up important information is a lot like driving a car without a seatbelt: You'll probably be fine 99.99 percent of the time, but that .01 percent could ruin your life.

In the same way, not investing in online backup services for important company data could be the death of a business when disaster strikes. Much like a seatbelt, you never really need your data backed up until you need it. And then you really need it. 

But despite the fact that backup is a key component to making it through a trying time, it is certainly no replacement for an actual disaster recovery plan. 

A backup horror story
Many people think that simply backing up data is the only thing necessary to deal with a troublesome event. This could not be further from the truth, and IT professionals at the Parish of Orleans Civil District Court in Louisiana can attest to this. On Oct. 25, 2010, both of the servers holing all of the conveyance and mortgage records for the courthouse crashed without any warning. Thankfully, the courthouse had paid for online backup services and had all of its data stored offsite. 

Or so it thought.

As it turns out, the company that had been handling the online backup had sent out a software update to all of its clients a little while before the crash. Although the IT department at the courthouse believed that they had installed the update, it turned out that they had not. This resulted in the courthouse losing digital mortgage records from the past year. 

Thankfully, paper copies did exist for all the lost data, but the point here is that this courthouse relied solely on data backup rather than having a good disaster recovery plan in place – and lost big because of it. Backup is a great first step toward planning for a disastrous event, but that's all it is: a first step. The next step, and perhaps the most important one, is developing a disaster recovery plan with a firm that specializes in them. 

This is why ISG Technology is such an interesting and powerful ally. Specializing in both online backup services and disaster recovery, ISG allows businesses to combine both of these services into a protective shield to fend off business continuity problems.