Have you ever lost an hour or two of work on your computer because it crashed? Now imagine if you lost days or weeks of work – or imagine losing your client database, financial records, and all of the work files your company has ever produced or compiled. Imagine what would happen if your network went down for days where you couldn’t access e-mail or the information on your PC. How frustrating would that be?

   Most small business owners have no idea of the importance of disaster recovery planning because they are already swamped with more immediate day-to-day fires demanding their attention. If their network is working fine today, it goes to the bottom of the pile of things to worry about. In most cases, no one is watching to make sure the backups are working, the virus protection is up-to-date, or that the network is “healthy.”

   This is like saying you’re too busy driving your car on the highway to put your seatbelt on. Taking that simple preventative step doesn’t really show its true value until you get into a head-on collision; at that point you are either extremely relieved that you had it on or incredibly sorry that you didn’t.

   The same holds true with your data backup. Obviously the information on the disk is far more valuable than the disk itself. If your company depends on having access to the information stored on your server or PC, then it’s time to get serious about protecting it from damage or loss.

   I have written about this issue several times, and will keep on doing so as long as I still see companies not making absolutely sure that they can recover from a disaster. It sickens me to read the statistics the 2001 Cost of Downtime Survey Results when asked “At what point is the survival of your company at risk?” 40% said 72 hours, 21% said 48 hours, 15% said 24 hours, 8% said 8 hours, 9% said 4 hours, 3% said 1 hour, 4% said within the hour.

Here are some more numbers that will shock you…

• 6% of all PCs will suffer an episode of data loss in any given year. Given the number of PCs used in US businesses in 1998, that translates to approximately 4.6 million data loss episodes. At a conservative estimate, data loss cost US businesses $11.8 billion in 1998. (The Cost Of Lost Data, David M. Smith)
• 30% of all businesses that have a major fire go out of business within a year. 70% fail within five years. (Home Office Computing Magazine)
• 31% of PC users have lost all of their files due to events beyond their control. (Boston Computer Network)
• 34% of companies fail to test their tape backups, and of those that do, 77% have found tape back-up failures. (Boston Computer Network)
• 60% of companies that lose their data will shut down within 6 months of the disaster. (Boston Computer Network)
• American business lost more than $7.6 billion as a result of viruses during first six months of 1999. (Research by Computer Economics)

   So how do you know that your data is safe? Well, how do you know your physical health is ok? You go to a doctor and have a physical exam on a regular basis (you do, don’t you?). Your computer network health is important, and face it — you are most likely not the expert in assessing whether it’s healthy or not.

   Don’t allow your business to become a statistic! Call us today for a free consultation. We are happy to spend an hour with you to give you some council and advise, and if you want, we can assess your network top to bottom and give you a written assessment of what is wrong and what you need to do. You can call us any time at 954-920.9604.

Side by side view of a micro-USB connector and a regular USB connector

   When it’s time to upgrade your cell phone, there’s a cost you probably don’t think about until it’s time to pay the bill: the charger. Sure, your new purchase comes with a wall charger. But if you want to charge your phone in the car, that old one you have just won’t work.  

   Fortunately, all that is about to change.  Seventeen wireless handset manufacturers have agreed to make interchangeable chargers that will work for the majority of new cell phones, according to USA Today. This is expected to take place by 2012. Hurray! One less expense at the cell phone store!

   I got a Motorola Droid two months ago, and it already has the micro USB interface. So does the new HTC incredible. Looks to me like most manufactures want to get this done and out NOW. Great!

   A new breakthrough in technology may change the way you think about traditional computer networks. It’s called “Cloud Computing” and could save your business quite a bit of money on software, hardware, upgrades and services. Here’s how it works… 

   Instead of purchasing hardware and software to be hosted at your office, cloud computing puts your programs and data on a highly secure “super server” (also called a data center) online. These servers have huge amounts of storage space and power that no small business could ever fully utilize. The data center then “rents” a portion of the space, power and software licenses to multiple businesses, giving you top of the line resources at a fraction of the cost. All you need is an Internet connection and you’re in business.

   This is not a new concept and companies like SalesForce, gMail, Google Apps, Constant Contact, and many other online applications have been offering their services this way for years – and because it’s so much more economical than installing, hosting and supporting a network in-house, the concept is catching on fast. Still skeptical?

   Here are 9 reasons why this concept is catching on FAST with small to medium business owners, and why you might consider it too:

1. You have an INSTANT virtual office. Cloud computing allows you or your employees to access and work from any secure PC, laptop or device. If you have employees that travel, are in remote locations or who need or want to work from home, this is an ideal solution.
2. You’ll save hard dollars on software, hardware and support. First, you won’t have to purchase, install or maintain servers or other network equipment. You also won’t need “super computers” to run the software, allowing you to purchase lesser-expensive laptops and PCs. Second, the software will be cheaper as well because you are renting it instead of purchasing it. Finally, IT maintenance and support costs will drop because the server is being maintained by the hosting company, not you.
3. Less Downtime and Problems. Software in the cloud runs on extremely fast and reliable systems that include some form of redundancy. What that means is if one server or component stops working, another server or component will instantly take over without you even realizing something happened. Compare that to your own server going down; until you get it fixed, you’re unable to work.
4. Automatic Disaster Recovery. If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it 100 times; make sure you back up your data. But when your data is hosted in the cloud, the backup is done automatically for you. Since your software and data reside on an offsite server in a data center, you already have a way to access it even if you couldn’t get into the office.
5. Less Expensive To Scale Your Network Up Or Down. If you start to run out of space on your local office computer or server, you’ll need to purchase an additional hard drive and pay for the installation. In a cloud computing environment, you just pay for the amount you need and increase your storage plan when necessary. And if you want to scale BACK, you can do that without penalty.
6. Hassle-Free Software. If you’ve ever had to search for software disks you know what a pain it can be. With cloud computing, all your software is loaded on a server in a datacenter and then shared over the Internet. There are no software disks to manage, organize or file.
7. Environmentally Friendly. Because resources are shared, cloud computing uses significantly less power. You also won’t have to upgrade your hardware as often, which means fewer PCs, laptops and other components piling up in landfills.
8. No More Expensive Software Upgrades. Networks in the cloud benefit from automatic software upgrades; best of all, they are done FOR you. When a software upgrade is needed, only the server “in the cloud” gets loaded up with the most up-to-date software versions. Then each computer accesses this software via the Internet.
9. Reduced Maintenance. When your software is in the cloud, patches are automatically applied, meaning fewer reboots and downtime for maintenance. It’s all taken care of for you.

   As I said before, this is not a new concept, but it very well could be a new one for you. If you have a server in your office that is older then three years, then now is a great time to look at cloud computing more closely and decide if it’s benefits can add real value in your business. If you’d like to chat with one of the cloud specialists at Connections, just give us a call at 954-920-9604 or send us an email.