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Category Archive for ‘CDO’

July 11, 2016

Beyond Business Continuity: How Backup and Disaster Recovery Benefits Your Business

by Jason Kallevig / Posted in CDO, Cloud Services, Security, Tech Management

Introduction

As small- and medium-sized businesses store more data on servers, business owners need to consider how they respond to everyday disruptions, such as hardware failures and server outages, as well as site-wide disasters such as fires, floods, earthquakes, and tornadoes.

These disruptions and disasters occur more often than many businesses might think. For example, even though many companies may not consider power outages to be serious concerns, a recent survey by power management fi m Eaton Electrical revealed that 37% of IT professionals “have suffered unplanned downtime due to power-related issues in the last 24 months,” with 32% of outages lasting longer than four hours.1 The downtime caused by these kinds of disasters can be devastating for organizations; a May 2013 study by the Aberdeen Group reported that the average cost to a business per hour of downtime is a whopping $8,580.2

Businesses that have a backup and disaster recovery solution in place are able to respond to disruptions within minutes or hours of an outage or disaster taking place. These businesses have a number of quick recovery options available to them to guard against the risks and costs associated with periods of downtime. However, beyond giving business owners a solution to outages and disasters, backup and disaster recovery services provide many more benefits to organizations.

This white paper explains how a backup and disaster recovery solution can help organizations avoid the high costs of downtime and preserve the bottom line.

Backup and Disaster Recovery Benefits

When downtime occurs the effects can be severe as companies lose access to important data, such as customer information, financial    data, and emails, for an extended period of time. With a backup and disaster recovery solution deployed, businesses can ensure they remain productive, maintain their clients’ trust, keep their commitments to customers and partners, keep up with the competition, and stay compliant with important regulations. Here are the key benefits that businesses gain from adopting a backup and disaster recovery solution:

Maintain employee productivity and the ability to generate revenue: Simply put, when organizations cannot conduct business as usual, they lose money. Taking orders, receiving and replying to important emails, and accessing important data are all activities that downtime can disrupt, leading to a financial drain on the firm. Backup and disaster recovery lets businesses remain productive by ensuring they can serve their customers and generate revenue, even after a major disruption or disaster.

Preserve reputation with customers and partners: Downtime can also have a severe effect on organizations when it comes to their reputation in the eyes of customers and partners. These reputational costs vary among different organizations, but in all cases they could be significant. For example, a critical hardware failure that leads to a day of downtime at a dentist’s office could lead to a loss of clients’ trust. Backup and disaster recovery ensures a business’ clients do not lose faith in the organization due to long periods of downtime.

Meet obligations with clients: Downtime could lead to the inability for businesses to meet certain contractual agreements or deadlines. For instance, if a CPA firm experiences downtime during tax season and cannot recover this data before the tax submission deadline, the client could sue the CPA firm for failing to render services. Backup and disaster recovery lets businesses meet critical deadlines, even if disaster strikes, so clients remain happy.

Prevent losing business to competition: Businesses that jeopardize their reputation due to downtime are likely to see customers take flight to competitors. As an example, if a law office experiences downtime or loses important documents, clients may question the fi m’s credibility and take their business elsewhere. The costs of acquiring new customers are astronomically high compared to the cost of merely retaining existing customers, so it is important that organizations do everything they can to reduce customer churn. Backup and disaster recovery ensures businesses do not lose business to a competitor due to downtime.

Ensure compliance with industry regulations: Aside from the long- term cost advantages of adopting a business continuity solution, backup and disaster recovery also helps SMBs remain compliant with important industry regulations and other legal requirements. Three of the most important laws governing the protection of digital data are the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX), and the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLBA). Though these laws apply to different industries, all of them require businesses to closely safeguard and retain sensitive digital information, a requirement that backup and disaster recovery is designed for. Backup and disaster recovery ensures organizations do not have to worry about compliance violations and legal issues related to data preservation, so businesses can focus on generating revenue and making clients happy.

Conclusion

Businesses that need to recover their data quickly and reduce the high costs of downtime need a backup and disaster recovery solution. But the benefits of backup and disaster recovery extend beyond rapid data recovery. Organizations with a backup and disaster recovery solution are in the position to withstand everyday disruptions and catastrophic disasters and eliminate the harms that result from extended periods of downtime.

No matter how large or small an organization is, who its customers are, or which industries and sectors it participates in, backup and disaster recovery is an invaluable asset for any business owner. Call us today to learn how backup and disaster recovery can help your business succeed.

KDS works with your businesses to interact with computer technology in a secure and scalable manner. We bring real world perspective and focus on security, productivity, and mobility. Our insight is based on years of experience and your business’s current adoption of technology solutions within your computer network.

 

How Backup and Disaster Recovery Works

Backup and disaster recovery solutions periodically take a carbon-copy backup of servers, store those backups on a local appliance, and send those backups off-site to the cloud. These backups can be utilized in a number of ways. If the server stops functioning (e.g. if a motherboard short- circuits), the local appliance can act as a substitute server until the server is repaired. If the server is destroyed (e.g. the building burns down), the backups that are stored off-site can be downloaded, shipped, or recovered in the cloud. In either scenario, businesses are able to get back up and running quickly and efficiently.

Common Types of Outages and Disasters Organizations of all stripes experience a number of common outages and disasters. Here are a few examples of these disruptions:

  • o Outages
    • Hardware failure
    • Software failure
    • OS corruption
    • Cyber-attacks
    • Power outages
    • Power surges
  • Disasters o
    • Floods
    • Fires
    • Earthquakes
    • Hurricanes
    • Tornadoes
    • Land Shifts
  • Accessing the cloud
  • A man accessing the cloud
September 14, 2015

Cumulus is Here! KDS upgrades cloud management system

by Jason Kallevig / Posted in CDO, Cloud Services, Tech Management

An exciting day for KDS! Our Cloud management platform is upgrading to a centralized dashboard. This means that we will be able to manage Office 365, Hosted Exchange, Online Backup, deploy Virtual Servers, and virtually every cloud service we offer from a common management system. A year ago this level of integration seemed impossible. We are extremely excited for how this will allow us to serve our customers more effectively and efficiently while continuing to grow KDS Systems.

Manage multiple cloud services from a common dashboard.

Manage multiple cloud services from a common dashboard.

March 17, 2015

Will your company have a CDO by 2017?

by Jason Kallevig / Posted in CDO, Cloud Services, Mobile, Security, Tech Management, Uncategorized

CDO is becoming a vital role in many companies.  In 2012 Harvard Business Review named Chief Data Scientist as the ‘sexiest job of the 21st Century’, and Gartner has predicted that 25% of organizations will have a Chief Digital Officer by 2017.  Are these indications that business leaders of all shapes & sizes recognize that all things connect digitally?

A CDO provides vision and strategy for all data management activities and is responsible for digital quality control and managing digital vendor relationships across an organization. Metrics of this operation are reported on and provided to CEO/CFO/CIO to summarize clearly the health and benefit of digital systems that businesses depend on. CDO provides owners with the Big Picture.

The CDO is able to maximize quality of data and digital systems through continual root cause assessment as day to day issues arise. While employees encounter system crashes, errors and nuances directly; a CDO is able to identify patterns and commonalities across isolated incidents. This enables high level decisions and changes that PREVENT OR AVOID system and/or end-user errors that would have resulted in productivity loss and potentially bad data.

Standardization. The only way to manage the fast paced evolution of technology is though standardization of systems and policies in real-time. Staying in tune with a company’s vision, constraints, and culture is critical to leveraging technology as a tool rather than a hindrance. Lest we become buried in the bureaucracy of our digital systems.

Navigate and succeed in mastering unstructured data. Social media, email, transactional records, images, video, and media are very real aspects of any businesses digital day. But they don’t necessarily compute on a one-to-one basis very well. Understanding how to implement, manage, store, and report on very different technology models is crucial to a successful CDO and ultimately a company’s digital health.

Master of all things Digital. A CDO begins to shine as the technology they manage begins to benefit people in quantifiable ways. Decision makers who have quick access to accurate information, and weary employees who begin to experience mundane, time consuming tasks becoming automated become a CDO’s greatest advocators.

January 7, 2015

Managed Risk: For those who fear the cloud

by Jason Kallevig / Posted in CDO, Cloud Services, Security, Tech Management, Uncategorized

Trusting Cloud Providers:  Trust your mother (but cut the cards)

Risk is a part of life, of business, and fundamental survival. Crossing the road, getting in a vehicle, and picking up the phone all require you to assess the rational, potential outcome, and likelihood for success behind the activity. And yet we carry on, learn, and strive to improve tomorrow. As business technology evolves, the principles underlying the foundation and operational aspects of data storage and the functionality of our tools is continually critiqued. Change is constant, truths of yesterday no longer apply, and risks we have not yet considered will undoubtedly be encountered. So what path do we choose to follow when considering overall approach to our business technology?

Security

Data breaches, extensive downtime, and lack of compliance mechanisms are issues that IT Pros fear. How can an outsourced cloud provider be trusted? These concerns must be addressed before they consider moving business critical systems to the cloud. Rather than hitting that head on, let’s circle our current state.

Internet Dependence

“If my Internet connection goes down, I can’t access my systems.” This is the common retort to avoiding cloud adoption. Let’s think through that scenario. Is that in any way the cloud provider’s issue? No. What is impacted if your office loses connection in a cloud based model? Your office. What is impacted if your office loses connection in an on-premise model? Everything. Customers, Vendors, Remote & Field staff (and your office still can’t access the Internet). The likelihood that your business will have a redundant Internet connection in the next 3 years is very high. Dependency on Internet for communication and transactional interaction will demand high-availability to internet resources in nearly every business regardless of level of cloud adoption.

Single Point of Failure

Redundantly redundant. Cloud providers stake their business on providing service in a highly competitive market. They are in the business of providing reliable systems to a broad customer base. The days of a hosting provider delivering services from a server in the lunchroom are long gone. Today’s providers deliver services from equipment, facilities, and connections far beyond what Widget Manufacturer A or Service Provider B can ever justify. Every aspect is controlled and monitored, from connection quality, power conditioning, cooling, physical access, and on and on. Consider the server you have nicely racked and locked in the back room closet. Raid5, redundant power supplies and all. Realistically considering the potential failures that could render it useless is staggering. Power outage, Fire, Water, Backplane, Internet Outage, Corrupted Raid Config, Ransomware, Smash-n-Crash burglar, IT Admins spilled Coke. Unfortunately enough time in this industry and you see many things, truth often stranger than fiction but nonetheless very real.

Staying Current

You invest, buy the biggest and the best, and… tomorrow it is obsolete. Just as scaling user counts is inherent, the burden of allocating resources is entirely upon the cloud provider. Managing the infrastructure and platform for your systems is no longer an issue. Never will the business controller be asking themselves “Why is it my problem that Microsoft is ending support for server version XX and the new server version YY isn’t compatible with my legacy software AA?” While infrastructure responsibility is eliminated, interoperability of systems will become the focus of technology development. Choosing systems that complement one another and provide solid interaction with other systems will become an opportunity for differentiation of businesses and professionals.

Full circle to Security

The simple fact is that businesses hesitating to embrace cloud technologies are very likely not accurately assessing risk to their current technology approach. The pitfalls and potential for failure for on-premise IT are many and great. In 1980 it was uncommon to wear a seatbelt, yet many survived and thrived. Today it is accepted that seatbelts are safe, pose less risk and provide greater likelihood of success to arriving safely when advancing from point A to point B. The real issue at hand is selection. Choosing providers who are reputable, with strong products. Acquisition of tech companies will continue to prevail, how does that impact the future of data and systems we rely on? Assessing and managing risk continues to be the differentiator for those who succeed, but the first step is moving onto the appropriate playing field.

Melding data between cloud delivered systems.

Melding data between cloud delivered systems.


March 31, 2014

How to choose a mobile smartphone platform for your business

by Jason Kallevig / Posted in CDO, Mobile, Tech Management, Uncategorized

I’m pretty neutral on this, our smartphones have become such a critical part of our daily lives that they have to work for our individual needs. Like a favorite pair of jeans, each is unique and we create odd connections to them. Amongst the devices themselves there is much conjecture, and it’s really just a matter of personal preference. From a company standpoint, it makes sense to standardize and use a common platform. Like anything else it will work better for some than others and we just need to decide what will work best overall. As such, I wouldn’t set expectations of any device being more reliable than another as there isn’t data supporting that.

Having mobility apps that are compatible with the corporate mobile platform is key. What is the factory software that you’ve been looking at? We can research the apps and development roadmap. Properly selected and implemented core infrastructure will support all mobile platforms equally. ActiveSync works with iPhone, Android, and Windows for email, calendar & contacts. Windows has released a free Remote Desktop App that will connect to IVDesk for the full Windows desktop. Surprisingly, Microsoft has not released that App for their own Windows mobile platform, citing that the need and usability of a Windows desktop on a phone is not that great. There are 3rd party Remote Desktop apps for Windows mobile, and Microsoft does publish an App for RT – the Surface Tablet operating system that works very well with IVDesk’s remote gateway.

For the ‘enabled road warrior’ mentality, I’ve seen good results from the Galaxy Note 3. It’s huge, 5.7” and comes with a stylus. It has a steel frame construction with a leatherish back. http://www.techradar.com/us/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/samsung-galaxy-note-3-1178226/review