All posts by SystemsNet Administrator

Is Intronis Online Backup the Right Choice for Your Company?

Data Backup, ,
20160811

Itronis’ cloud-based data backup makes it easy to manage, store, access, and secure your data online.

Failing to back up your data leaves your company vulnerable to severe financial losses. Should you lose your data permanently, or fail to restore it at an acceptable speed, your employees will become less productive, your business operations will get derailed, and your customers will lose trust in you.

It’s important to choose the right backup solutions, as they don’t all perform equally well. One strong option comes from Intronis and their cloud-based data backup. There are a number of compelling reasons to go with Intronis for your company.

 

What are some of the benefits of using Intronis Online Backup?

  • Flexibility. You can adjust your Intronis Online Backup plan to fit your business needs, including the types of data you want to back up, where you want them backed up, and your data recovery goals. You have options for backing up your data both on the cloud and locally.
  • Security. Intronis Online Backup has powerful security features, including 256-bit encryption and highly protected facilities when you back up your data on the cloud. State-of-the-art security is critical for protecting your data from theft, tampering, and unauthorized exposure. If your organization works in any way with medical patient data, know that Intronis is compliant with HIPAA regulations.
  • Dependability. When businesses discover that their data backup measures have failed, it’s a horrifying experience. It often occurs in the aftermath of an IT disaster, when they seek to recover and restore lost data, only to find that their backups are corrupted or otherwise useless. Intronis backs up your data reliably in more than one location, so that even if one of their facilities gets disabled by some kind of outage, your data remains available elsewhere.
  • Reduced downtime. Being able to recover your data quickly is key to minimizing losses after an IT disaster. Earlier this year, an article from Information Week Network Computing estimated the costs that downtime extracts from businesses; companies in North America collectively lose hundreds of billions of dollars each year due to downtime. It’s important to note that smaller businesses are especially vulnerable, and can’t always recover from prolonged downtime and permanent loss of data. Whatever backup measures you use, you need to ensure that you can recover your data quickly, with a priority on the data that’s more critical for your business operations.
  • Useful for different environments. For example, Intronis supports Hyper-V and VMWare, making their backups applicable to virtual machines.
  • High-quality tech support. Their tech support is free and based in the US. They respond quickly and offer clear, effective guidance for any problems you may encounter.

What about alternatives to Intronis? A look at Carbonite

When choosing an online backup solution for their company, Carbonite comes up as an alternative to Intronis. But is it the better choice?

It’s generally better to choose Intronis over Carbonite. With Intronis, it’s easier to manage backups and restoration; centralized management gives you more control and a better idea of what’s going on. Backups tend to be slower on Carbonite, and in some circumstances they’re prone to data loss. Carbonite also doesn’t support network drives, and its sharing features are limited.

Intronis is a popular choice for managed service providers (MSPs) because of its reliability, high-quality security, ease of management, strong performance, and responsive tech support. For companies with a variety of data and high volumes of data, Intronis is the more suitable choice.

What will ultimately work best for you? Don’t hesitate to contact us for specific advice tailored to your company and its needs. Whatever backup solution you ultimately choose, it’s important that you have the option of backing up your data securely on the cloud. High-quality cloud-based backups ensure that you have off-site copies of your data that can get quickly restored should you suffer an IT disaster.

Backup Disaster Recovery: Types of Disasters in the Workplace

Data Backup, ,
20160804

Losing your data can easily become a disaster in the workplace if proper precautions aren’t taken.

When you’re working in a business, one of the most important things to remember is managing your data. Whether you’re trying to keep it organized, or are deciding which files to delete, keeping your info secure is important. After all, you never know what could happen in the workplace. If anything, some of the most common disasters are completely unpredictable.

With that said, having a disaster recovery plan for your data is important. However, you need to be aware of some of the common disasters that can happen in a workplace as well. Sometimes these incidents are beyond your control, but other times, it’s entirely your fault. Overall, here are some of the causes for disasters that can happen in the workplace.

#1. Natural Disasters

One of the most common reasons businesses experience tragedy, is because of natural disasters. Sometimes, it’s a relatively small incident such as power outage. Occasionally, though, it’s downright devastating, such as a tornado or a hurricane. Not only do you experience a loss of data, but the workplace is destroyed as well. However, the worst part about the latter, is that essentially, it’s beyond your control. That’s not to say you can’t backup your information and prevent a loss of data, but the weather event itself can’t be avoided. With that said, you need to make sure you have a disaster recovery plan for any instance, big or small.

When dealing with a power outage, for example, make sure to have your information stored on a flash drive. That way, you still have all your data accessible even if an incident were to occur. Unlike weather related incidents, which you may know about even days ahead of time, power outages can happen in the blink of an eye. As for natural disasters, not only should your data be stored as well, but you should also have numerous buildings set up as part of your company. That way, it’s easy to transfer your data and continue on with your work.

#2. Careless Mistakes

As I had mentioned earlier, some incidents are beyond your control, while others are entirely your fault. It’s funny how many disasters in the workplace could be avoided if people just used some common sense (myself included). Sometimes, a disaster might befall your business because of the employees. For example, they may be uneducated on the importance of keeping your business data secure. Not to mention they might be unaware of the tips and tricks hackers use to compromise sensitive information. With that said, it would be easy for them to fall into a cybercriminal’s trap.

Let’s say one of your unsuspecting employees visited a website, and entered some personal information. Next thing you know, their business computer is infected, and they are unable to access their files. Other times, though, a disaster may be due to carelessly deleting files. You may end up discarding sensitive data that you thought wasn’t needed anymore. Always double-check to see if what you’re about to delete, will have any value in the future.

#3. Outdated Hardware

Another common disaster in the workplace, relates to outdated hardware. This is especially true if you own a personal laptop. Some business owners are relatively laid back about storing their data, as they feel their personal computer has a relatively long lifespan. However, that’s what many developers want you to think. Nowadays, to reduce the costs of developing a product, many devices are built with cheap hardware, laptops included. Not only does this shorten the lifespan of your computer, but it’s no coincidence that many laptops start experiencing problems shortly after the warranty expires. With that said, you want to have your data backed up at all times. There’s nothing more devastating than an unexpected crash causing you to lose all your data. Especially when you know you could have done something to prevent it.

For more information about backup disaster recovery, as well as common disasters that can befall a business, contact us today at SystemsNet. We look forward to hearing from you.

Five Major Benefits of a Live Answer Help Desk

Manage Service, ,

 

20160729

A live answer IT help desk is a very valuable resource for your staff, allowing them to troubleshoot issues quickly and efficiently.

In the course of their work, your employees encounter a variety of IT problems. Some of them are easy to resolve, while others emerge as part of a deeper, more complicated issue.

To significantly improve the quality and speed with which your IT problems get resolved, it’s worth investing in a live answer help desk. A help desk is an invaluable resource for resolving IT problems. With a ‘live answer’ set-up that puts your employees directly in touch with IT professionals, your company can experience the following benefits:

1) Assurance that someone is working on the problem

Employees contact a help desk in situations where they’re confused, frustrated, and potentially facing a serious problem that’s hindering or damaging their work. When they request help and don’t receive a timely response, they’re more likely to feel ignored and anxious. Even if there isn’t a quick fix to their problem, they should receive the reassurance of a quick response from IT professionals. They should know that they’re communicating with people, and not dropping their requests into a void.

2) Quicker turnaround and less downtime

Because a live answer help desk ensures a more prompt response, your company will usually benefit from a quicker turnaround for IT problems. The help desk can resolve many problems on the spot. If the issue is more complicated, the help desk can immediately set to work investigating it further and consulting with other IT professionals as needed.

You avoid protracted email exchanges, which often result in miscommunication and delays. The help desk remains more in sync with employees and is able to interact with them. Clarification can be obtained on the spot. The help desk can give employees clear instructions and walk them through the necessary steps towards a solution. As a result, your company experiences less downtime. Downtime lowers morale and weakens your business by draining it financially.

3) New issues coming to light

In the course of interacting with a live answer help desk professional, your employees may inadvertently reveal another IT problem currently afflicting your company. This problem may have gone unrecognized or undetected. It isn’t something employees would know to request help for. It’s possible that it isn’t even a full-blown problem, but has the potential to develop into one. An IT professional can catch these stray revealing comments. They can start working on the unforeseen problem immediately or make a note to return to it in the future.

4) A boost in business

When a live answer help desk leads to effective solutions more quickly, it isn’t only your employees who benefit. Your customers also enjoy a more positive experience doing business with you.

IT problems affect your customers either directly or indirectly. For example, if your website is down, your customers can’t access information about you, buy your products online, or log on to their accounts. If there’s a problem affecting your customer relationship management software, your employees struggle to stay productive. They wind up devoting less of their time to cultivating a relationship with customers and clients.

The benefits of a live answer help desk spread to your customers, who enjoy greater trust in your services and more satisfaction when they work with you.

5) Less of a burden on other IT staff

Even if you already have in-house IT staff, a live answer help desk will ease their responsibilities. It frees up some of their time, so that they can shift more of their efforts towards important projects that will further your business growth. Your live answer help desk also provides another resource in case your IT staff encounters problems that don’t have a straightforward solution. The help desk can assist them with reaching the best possible solution. Or it can handle more routine issues as they devote their attention to the more thorny problem.

Please contact us for further information about our live answer help desk services. Whether your business is small, medium-sized or large, a help desk plays an indispensable role in resolving your IT problems and ensuring that your company doesn’t lose significant amounts of money through preventable downtime.

Why should you install Webroot Antivirus?

Anti-virus, Security, ,
20160722

Webroot Antivirus is an award-winning antivirus software that is effective and affordable.

Antivirus programs are a critical cyber security defense. A high-quality program will have the capacity to block a wide variety of attacks launched from different sources.

Cyber criminals are constantly coming up with malware to infect your computing devices. Depending on the kind of malware they use, your device may stop working. You could get locked out of programs and files. Your personal information, including passwords, could end up exposed and stolen, resulting in potential financial losses and identity theft. Cyber criminals can also turn your computing devices into bots that launch attacks on other computers, even without you knowing it.

Your antivirus software is a critical line of defense against cyber attacks. Although you can’t rely on an antivirus program alone to combat cyber crime, you need a high-quality program installed on your devices.

Why choose Webroot?

As with any other software, antivirus programs vary in quality. It’s important to buy a program that meets high performance standards and offers you efficient, cost-effective service.

Webroot Antivirus, which works for PCs and Macs, is a highly rated, award-winning program. The following are several reasons you should look into Webroot for your cyber security needs:

  • Real-time, cloud-based protection. Antivirus programs generally maintain a database containing known malware and rely on it to identify and block attacks. Instead of storing their database on your local devices, and requiring you to update it periodically, Webroot maintains its database in the cloud. The database gets updated in real-time and contains a gigantic list of all known malicious programs. When new threats come along, Webroot immediately performs sophisticated analyses on them. If the program is unknown, Webroot takes steps to find out more about it before allowing it to do certain things on your computing device.
  • Less interference with your device. You can successfully install Webroot in less than a minute. The program takes up very little space on your device, leaving much more computer memory at your disposal. Furthermore, it usually performs scans in only a few minutes at most. Other antivirus programs typically take at least 10 times longer to complete a scan of your device. Even though Webroot’s scan is significantly shorter, the program is still thorough. Once it detects and deals with a virus, it performs additional scans until the results come up clean.
  • A plethora of services. You can choose among different Webroot plans, and even the most basic one contains a variety of important services. These include a firewall, ransomware protection, and the detection of fake or malicious websites that trick people into disclosing personal information or downloading infected files. Webroot also offers enhanced identity protection, keeping your passwords and other user information more secure as you browse the Internet.
  • Available for multiple devices. These days, you need antivirus programs for phones and tablets, and not just for desktop computers or laptops. Many people use their smartphones for both personal reasons and work-related tasks. Their phones are full of sensitive information. With phones, people are also more likely to use public Wi-Fi, which remains unprotected and exposes their device to unauthorized users. Webroot offers versions of its program for multiple devices, including tablets and phones. For basic protection, there are free apps available for both iPhone and Android devices.

Please contact us to further discuss picking the best antivirus program for your computing devices. We recommend Webroot for its high standards, powerful performance, and ease of use. If you’re having difficulty deciding which Webroot plan to pick, we can review them with you and make sure you’re getting the most out of whatever plan you invest in. A high-quality antivirus program is essential for keeping your computing devices and online identity safe against cyber attacks.