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Azure Disaster Recovery and Backup

Did you take a wrong turn on the road to disaster?

Can you find your way back if you take a wrong turn on the road to disaster? If disaster strikes, recovering from it could cost you thousands of dollars, plus lose your customer’s good faith.

Having a IT Security plan and using a bay area Azure cloud services provider can save your business from bad things will help you get back on track.

Most businesses rely on technology to run their day-to-day processes. Think email, Word docs, customer information and ordering systems, inventory, accounting. Other companies are all about the tech. Think Uber, Airbnb, Constant Contact and many others.

So, if something disastrous happens, your business could grind to a halt, whether tech is your main business or ‘just’ how you get your work done every day.

What could go wrong? Well, there’s floods. Plus, electrical storms, hurricanes, fire and people who leave with your passwords or source code. Without Azure cloud services and a backup plan, your business could be in trouble.

What’s included in a plan?

Azure Disaster Recovery and backup plans can cover everything from how to get out of your store or office during a fire drill, to how to get back up and running if your servers are underwater.

Then, you can take it a step further. If you think about staying in business during a disaster, as well as recovery, you’ll be in the best shape you could be.

While it’s important to customize a plan for your business, every plan should include:

Technology asset inventory that names mission critical processes and data

Schedule for updating and testing any disaster recovery plans

Clear understanding of the trade-offs between cost and complexity

Murphy’s Law

Murphy’s Law says that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. That’s why it’s important to understand how your plan works. If you are a business decision maker, you might hand this over to your IT Security team. But it’s important to ask some questions to make sure you have full coverage for your business. A few questions:

Does your plan include an inventory of mission critical business processes and data?

When was the last time anyone reviewed your plan? Tested your plan?

Is cyberattack preparedness included in your current plan?

How much depends upon human intervention?

Evaluate Cloud Solutions

During a disaster, humans have other priorities than failing over their virtual machines. Automating your solution is key to ensuring success.

A cloud solution can help you recover quickly. And it’s less expensive than having your own datacenter to support and protect. It’s a practical solution for a business, whether it’s large or small. But it makes especially good financial sense for a smaller organization.

Not all cloud providers are equal, so you’ll need to do some research to compare. A few considerations:

Do they offer a hybrid solution, so that you can keep some data on premise as well as in the cloud?

Do they offer metered service so that you can save even more money by ‘turning off’ services when you don’t need them?

Is the service easy to use, with good support for your team?

Do they offer geo-redundancy?

Are they compliant with your industry?

Is the cloud safe?

But wait a minute, you might say. I’ve read about companies, even big companies, losing data in the cloud during a disaster.

It’s true, there have been times when the cloud failed companies. When this happened, it was because the data was only stored in one location. And it was based in the same region as the company. That’s an obvious mistake.

With the Microsoft Azure cloud services, you can get ‘geo-redundancy.’ This means that your data is in more than one location. So, if your area is hit with a hurricane, along with floods and electrical storms, your data would be safe in a datacenter across the country.

That also means that your company data is available even during the storm.

Next steps to take

We’d love to meet you and discuss your plans for keeping your business running. If you’re ready right now, call us or send an email. We’re happy to set up a free consultation to review your plan.

To know more about it solutions bay area and it support bay area please visit the website.

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Managed IT Services in Oakland

What is Managed IT Services and How it can benefit your Business.

In business, Time is of the Essence, and you cannot wait for technology to break or not work as required. A proactive approach to maintaining IT infrastructure and systems is the optimal way to maximize up-time for your business. Fortunately for businesses, Managed IT Services, has evolved and provides the levels of support, to provide IT related resources, as a utility to your end users. Managed IT Services are tailored to meet the individual needs of each client. Whether that be full Managed IT Services or co-Managed IT Services, a customized program will provide the appropriate levels of support with a predictive, monthly cost.

In many cases, Managed IT Services are leveraged to assist clients with IT related services to address: IT items that they do not have time to do; that they do not have the appropriate skills to do; or simply items they do not want to do. These services present the opportunity to run a high-level IT department without having to hire staff with various skill sets and overhead costs to perform some frequent and infrequent service activities. The costs of employing a certified Microsoft system administrator or a Cisco network administrator are high. By partnering with the right company on Managed IT Services, you can have these skills available and provided on demand when needed. There are tangible, realized savings of 40-60% of overhead costs when partnering with the right Managed IT Services company.

If you have not yet thought of partnering with a Managed IT Services company, the time to do that is now. As we approach budget season, it is an appropriate time to review forecasted costs for IT services and take a deeper look on ways to maximize system up time while increasing end user satisfaction. The right managed IT Services partner will provide you SLA (service level agreement) based services which afford 1 hour or less, remote end user service response and the ability to have certified IT engineers on site either same or next business day.

When leveraged properly, Managed IT Services will increase your ability to respond to your end users, maintain your systems at an industry standard level, and save costs by providing a predictive monthly support program.

To know more about managed it services oakland and managed it services bay area please visit the website.

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NETWORK SECURITY : The Impact of Poor Network Documentation

Tell me if you have heard this story before: The long time IT administrator for your company just gave you notice they are leaving. After the shock subsides, then the fun begins with you having to identify and hire a replacement IT Administrator or an IT company. If you are lucky, there is a transition period and some sort of supporting documentation to help you during this process.

Unfortunately for many companies this is often not the case and you are left to pick up the pieces while asking yourself, how could this happen?

Most businesses executives will tell you that having strong documentation of their network and IT assets would be considered important to them. Likewise, most IT Consultants and Engineers will tell you that having reliable and up to date documentation is critical for them to be able to effectively support your network. In reality, spending time on network documentation too often falls at the bottom of your IT Administrators priority list. Day to day administration, troubleshooting issues and projects are all key to maintaining your network during normal functionality, but typically take 100% percent of your IT resources time. Meanwhile, the speed in which you can get a new person trained, or worse, being able to recover from a network disaster like a ransomware infection is severely compromised because of a lack of planning and documentation.

So now you ask yourself. How do I know if my network is exposed? What are the next steps I need to take to make sure my IT Infrastructure is well documented? The following steps can help you get to your goal and to gain piece of mind:

Make network documentation a priority. If you do not have the internal resources, partner with a trusted IT company with experience in network documentation and network security planning to assist. The extra money spent now will be save you later when disaster strikes.

Identify to what level your network security and IT resources are currently documented. Never assume that your IT consultant  has it covered. Ask to see all network documentation and plans.

Create or update your documentation to include the following:

Daily weekly, monthly, yearly procedure and checklists to maintain the health  of your network. This should include such things as a fully diagramed visualization of your network on boarding and off boarding of new and ex-employees.

Important policies like company email/internet use and social engineering policies to help protect against malware and phishing threats

Develop a verifiable Disaster Recovery plan. This plan needs to include complete steps on how to recover from any disaster, including which IT services to restore first, vendor contacts and an escalation matrix. The plan should be tested once a year to make sure it is still viable.

Leverage the use of a network documentation/planning software. There many software solutions available, including some free that can help you keep your network documentation organized. Ideally this software should also include hardware and software asset management.

Keep it up to date. Network Security documentation and a Disaster Recovery Plan is only useful if it is up to date and accurate. Plan quarterly checks to make sure you are protected.

Even though it may seem like a low priority at the time, remember that by being proactive with your network documentation ultimately leads to higher productivity. Especially when that next disaster hits or your IT admin decides to walk and take their knowledge of your IT Infrastructure with them.

Written by,

Matt Powers, Vice President of Sales

Serive Level Agreements (SLA)

Managed IT Service Projects

To know more about it network security bay area and it consulting bay area please visit the website.

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Why IT Consultants must develop a comprehensive plan relying on a vCIO

The role of the Chief Informational Officer (CIO) at any company has changed, especially at a small business. Most small businesses are overwhelmed with requirements for implementing new technology, protecting critical data systems, identifying and closing security risks, working with management to keep up with company initiatives and educating staff on the proper use of the IT solutions currently implemented. As a result, most small businesses tend to outsource the job of the CIO to a Managed IT services provider. Most outsource companies now identify this function and the title this job as Virtual Chief Informational Officer (vCIO)

To be successful, the vCIO must understand the importance of developing a partnership approach customized for each small business they support. The partnerships which need to be established include critical application vendors, internet service providers, email hosting IT companies, senior management, HR departments, phone vendors, firewall manufacturers, onsite IT support staff, remote support staff, video conference supplier, disaster planner and accounting departments to name a few. These partnerships need to be established so that all parties understand their role in supporting the organization. Support agreements numbers, contact phone numbers and established service Level Agreements need to be documented with all IT support vendors so when a problem occurs it can be escalated and resolved quickly.

It is the responsibility of the vCIO to create a trusted partnership with both the vendors and the employees within the organization. Developing an alliance with IT companies is more than having a quick introductory phone call. It invoices consistent email communication, site visits and conference calls to develop a relationship that can withstand during good times and bad.   Both parties must truly understand the total environment and not just the piece that pertains to their offering. The vendor must understand what the customers is offering and what sets them apart from their competition. The vendor must feel comfortable presenting new solutions that will keep the business moving forward with the use of technology. The partners must also feel comfortable taking a step back if any IT solutions are incorrect. The vCIO must be the keeper of the process and make sure no one gets involved in the blame game. All parties needed to support the IT environment must work as a team. It is the job of the VCIO to make this happen.

The vCIO should combine site visits with remote support to make the business feel like they can receive IT support around the clock. The vCIO works for the business and must be accessible to truly manage and support the business especially in network security. No matter how many layers of IT security every companies’ IT infrastructure can be compromised. If and when this occurs the vCIO must rely on the processes developed to get the immediate response necessary to mitigate the damage. The only way for this to occur is if the vCIO has a written plan, the support structure, and open communication with all the suppliers.

Find more information on vCIO and IT Consulting here!

To know more about managed services provider bay area and it support bay area please visit the website.

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Ransomware Awareness

What is Ransomware? How to Prevent It? How do we Recover?

Ransomware, simply explained is a computer exploit where data is captured, encrypted, and held for ransom until a fee is paid. To understand the monumental threat that Ransomware presents, let’s examine the WannaCry event from May 2017. On its launch date, which was May 12, 2017 the WannaCry Ransomware variant infected nearly 250 million computers globally. This attack affected corporate giants like Federal Express, and crippled systems that power Britain’s healthcare system. Considering that recent estimates of the ransom being demanded is approaching and in some cases exceeding $1,000.00 per infected system, you can see that this has grown into a multibillion-dollar business (for lack of a better term).

The most effective strategies in preventing Ransomware are: employee education; performing regular data backups; restriction of administrative system access, updating and maintaining your systems with the latest patches and updates for the operating systems, applications and anti-virus programs. Though there is no vaccination or preventative application, it comes down to the tried and true method of using good computing common sense, to avoid being one of the millions being affected by this global threat.

In the event of a Ransomware attack the are a few courses of action to prevent a further spread of this fast moving, destructive event. The first and foremost is to isolate the attack by disconnecting your computer from the network, by unplugging your network cable or shutting down your system. Though your computer may already be infected, preventing this from spreading to your business or home network is very important. The next step would be to understand the attack vector that was used, by trying to recall a suspicious email with an attachment that you opened or a link that you may have clicked. Websites can also push Ransomware infected links to your system, but email is the most common method, by which, Ransomware is spread.

Looking ahead and at the facts, with system access and vulnerabilities more prevalent than ever, coupled with the potential for greater financial gains, criminals will continue to target major corporations, governments, education and healthcare. Unfortunately, for us as individuals we can easily be caught in this ongoing, growing wave of attacks. As we wait for governments and agencies to figure out a way to tackle this problem, we need to employ best practices and good computing common sense to protect ourselves and our companies.

To know more about it support company bay area and it services bay area please visit the website.

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PC Professional, Inc. Hosts Their Annual Client Appreciation Event

For the past 36 years, PC Professional hosts a large client event to introduce both existing clients and prospective clients to cloud based solutions. The solution will include all devices that can be used to enhance client productivity as well as meet their need for cloud access anywhere and anytime. The event was held at the Oakland Coliseum and which included the baseball game between the Oakland A’s and The San Francisco Giants. After hosting this event for the past several years, it has proven to be tremendously popular with our client base and our 2017 event was the best one yet!

We would like to thank all of our loyal clients who we able to attend this year, for giving us your trust and allowed PC Professional to support your IT environment the past 36 years.

Going forward, our plan is to continue our focus on delivering trend setting IT expertise through a value added, trusted business partnership. This will be accomplished by integrating a comprehensive range of customized IT solutions by leveraging industry leading strategic partners such as Barracuda, Lenovo, Ring Central, Comcast, Panda Security, Calligo, Storage Craft, HP, and Microsoft.

If you attended this year’s Client Appreciation Tailgate, please send us your feedback on the event! What was your favorite part? Did you enjoy our food and beverage selection at the tailgate? Did you enjoy the seats at the game?

Let us know your thoughts and Contact Us Today!

If you captured any memorable photos at the event and would like to share them with PC Professional, please feel free to tag us by using: @pcprofessional1981 or #PCProfessionalTailgate on any of our following social media pages:

To know more about it network security bay area and technical support bay area please visit the website.

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7 Questions to Ask When Creating A Disaster Recovery Plan

What is the likely cost of downtime and data loss to my company?

The cost of downtime varies per industry and the specific applications that go offline. To accurately determine cost of downtime, conduct a business impact analysis and a risk assessment for each business-critical application.

What are my recovery objectives?

Recovery Point Objective (RPO): How much time can I afford to lose?

Recovery Time Objective (RTO): How quickly do I need this application to be back up and running post the disaster?

Recovery Capacity Objective (RCO): How much computing capacity do I need to

recover and by when?

What are my application and system dependencies?

Most applications rely on many other applications and services, within and beyond IT infrastructure, and an application cannot be recovered without recovering all that it depends on.

These dependencies must be understood and included in the disaster recovery plan to know exactly what has to be recovered and in what order to meet RPOs and RTOs.

Where should my disaster recovery site be located?

Out of range of the same disaster

Within reach of recovery staff

Close enough to meet RPOs

What connection size (bandwidth) do I need between my product and disaster recovery sites?

It’s likely that connection size will need to be varied depending on what is being done:

Seeding

Transmitting/Replicating Changes

Reseeding

Failing Over

Coming Back

What compliance and security measures have to be in place at my disaster recovery site?

Disaster does not excuse from HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, or other regulatory compliance requirements. Disaster recovery sites may also  need to meet security, data privacy, or monitoring standards or requirements specific to each industry.

How often do we need to exercise our disaster recovery strategy?

Exercise twice per year at a minimum to ensure recovery strategy accounts for likely changes such as changed infrastructure or different staff.

To know more about it consultants bay area and it solutions please visit the website.

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Everything You Need to Know About Microsoft Azure

What is Microsoft Azure?

Microsoft Azure helps small and midsize businesses grow with greater efficiency and be more responsive to change. It is a flexible cloud platform that enables you to quickly build, deploy, and manage applications across a global network of Microsoft-managed data centers. You can build applications using any language, tool, or framework. You can integrate your public cloud applications with your existing IT environment. With Azure, you can be up and running fast, scale up or down as needed, and avoid high capital costs-paying only for what you use.

What are the benefits of Microsoft Azure?

win_win_checks.jpg Back up your files and data to the cloud, simply and affordably

Ensure continuous uptime with Azure’s 99.95% monthly SLA

Host apps on Azure to deploy quickly and pay only for resources you use

Scale solutions up or down as needed

Access cloud-hosted applications from anywhere

Microsoft Azure Backup

Recover data in case of disasters (server destroyed/stolen, disk crash)

Recover data in case of data loss scenarios such as data accidentally deleted, volume deleted, viruses

Simple installation and configuration

Reduced cost for backup storage and management

Ideal for small businesses, branch offices, and departmental needs

Use either the Microsoft Online Backup Service Agent or the Online Backup

Windows Powershell cmdlets

Backup your on-site SQL Server Database to the cloud

Automate database backups to minimize data loss

Encrypt your backup files for added protection

Restore to the cloud if on-site servers are down

Manual or automatic backups

Enable backup directly to Microsoft Azure storage

All you need is the URL and storage key

At an instance level with point in time restore

Measures DB usage patterns to set backup frequency

You can host apps in the cloud by moving them to a VM on Microsoft Azure.

Running VMs in Azure offer the following benefits:

On-demand laaS for any VM workload

Cost Effective Provisioning – no need to buy new hardware

Familiar Hyper-V VHD format for easy deployment

99.95% up time

No need for remote access solutions

To know more about it support company bay area and it services bay area please visit the website.