The Business of Business Continuity
Protecting critical information and decreasing risk of downtime is a concern for all businesses. Business disruptions due to downtime cost companies an average of $201,550, with additional big losses in revenue ($197,500) and IT productivity ($56,789). An additional 35 percent of organizations lost at least one mission-critical application, 11.7 percent for hours at a time. Although there’s greater awareness in the business continuity community, downtime costs continue to rise. This is partly why the market for business continuity and disaster recovery products was projected to reach $61.7 billion by this year.
Inadequate business continuity planning is contagious. In a StorageCraft poll, 32 percent of IT administrators stated that everyday backups are not an efficient use of their time because there’s “too much data.” How hackers rely on advancements in technology to create their next scheme is also how most people get complacent with cybersecurity and fail. How can anything go wrong when everything is going absolutely right? The job of business continuity plans is not only to be working when things go awry, but when all is calm to prevent destructive threats on the horizon.
So what is the solution? Education – with the right tools. As the saying goes: give a man a fish, and he eats for a day; teach him how to fish, and he eats for a lifetime. OSG is committed to providing not only the products but also problem-solving techniques your employees will use to be the best defense against the enemy. Coming as close to indestructible as possible means having the right materials at hand. StorageCraft is the premier provider of backup and disaster recovery software that can be integrated into larger MSP (managed service provider) and VAR (value-added reseller) solutions.
StorageCraft is Office 365’s Best Asset
In the case of Office 365, implementing StorageCraft is (and should be) the new normal. Office 365 is a game-changer in many ways, but mainly due to its cloud-based format. With its newer capabilities, users have:
- Complete sync of Outlook between multiple devices
- Web access to Microsoft Office Documents
- Mobile access on all major smartphones and tablets
- File sharing for the corporate environment
- IM, voice, phone, and real time video conferencing tools
It’s no surprise that Office 365 is drawing businesses with increased efficiency, revenue, and productivity potential. StorageCraft is a near-perfect complement to Office 365 because of its array of products that optimize the abilities of the MS software.
ShadowCraft SPX
The primary StorageCraft product OSG recommends is the ShadowCraft SPX system. ShadowCraft is all-encompassing because it operates on the premise that no IT environment is standard. The beauty of ShadowCraft SPX is the ability for mixed work environments to function on one backup and recovery software solution.
ShadowCraft is adaptable for both Windows and Linux systems. It is so robust, files can be recovered in seconds and an entire system within minutes. This in and of itself solves a multitude of data loss issues companies face with malware, server failures, and system errors. Backups can be scheduled as often as every 15 minutes, optimizing your business’s disaster recovery plan. Because of this, ShadowCraft is significantly more apt to handle whole data volumes and migrate information to a new hardware or virtual environment. This is in addition to the included scheduling, monitoring, management, and testing tools that come with every StorageCraft product.
Cloud Recovery Solutions
Cloud-based applications are arguably the way to go, and the direction most technology is going nowadays. Cloud computing allows access to the same kinds of applications through the internet; nothing is ever truly lost, just stored away. The cloud effectively takes into account the most common reason important files are deleted or lost: human error. No matter how hard you try, people WILL delete important files, overwrite documents, and accidentally open viruses. The recent outbreak of WannaCry ransomware and other email phishing tactics are evidence of the harmful effects of human-assisted malware.
Other SaaS vendors may have solutions for you, but there’s no guarantee they’ll be as easy to integrate. StorageCraft’s cloud backup provides granular protection of your business’s Microsoft Office 365 data. The cloud is ideal for dealing with sync issues, accessing data when the host is down, supporting investigations and electronic recovery, aiding in regulatory compliance by having archived data, and adding overall value to your managed services without having to exert a lot of effort.
File Backup and Recovery Analyzer
Not all data is created equal. One of the issues businesses face is uncontrolled digital expansion – meaning, there are so many mediums that hold data that there is no possible way to manage them all at once. This results in all different types of data that are not relevant to your business stored on your company systems. BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policies, video and image files from mobile devices, and large files stored on company computers create a muddled mess of data. Navigating through this jumbled heap requires a superior tool, because normal backup options cannot discern between valuable data and irrelevant data.
StorageCraft’s File Backup and Recovery Analyzer technology only protects important data. It is a web-based data analyzer with built-in intelligence that crawls all data and communicates back to the computer on exactly what to backup and what to exclude. This provides a clear and transparent view of company statistics. Reporting, version retention (so clients can access older versions), and file-watch warning capabilities by the tool help the client organization by gaining intelligence about the data that you’re saving. Additional uses are for protecting data of employees that travel, work remotely, or don’t connect to the client server.
