business continuity

Ransomware Reinforces Importance of Disaster Recovery

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We’ve written multiple blog posts about the importance of having disaster recovery and business continuity plans. Outages – whether caused by severe weather, a power outage, or some other unforeseen event – are common, and a disaster recovery plan is essential to ensure that business operations continue as usual and data is not lost. In the last few years, ransomware has become more common, and is causing more disruption than ever before. So how can companies guard their business systems?

Ransomware is a software that uses encryption in an effort to lock up a computer or company’s database and upload files into the hard drive. A ransom note will be sent, demanding money (usually in the form of Bitcoins) in exchange for the private decryption key.

Below, we’ll share a few tips for protecting your business from ransomware. Above all, it’s important to have a solid disaster recovery plan in place. Contact Vaultas to learn how we can help.

Be aware

Because ransomware can attack an IT system from a seemingly-innocent email, link or file, it’s important to educate all employees on possible sources and origins. It is, of course, important to invest in data protection technology, but it’s also necessary to create and enforce policies around prevention.

Know how to spot ransomware

Ransomware is sinister because, at first glance, it looks relatively normal. It is generally transmitted in .png or .txt files buried in an email or link. It will work fast, encrypting and locking up files within a few minutes. Know and educate employees on what ransomware looks like and what to do if they suspect they have clicked on a corrupt file.

Make a contingency plan

Even with the best protection plans in place, ransomware can easily still strike. If and when that happens, make sure your company has a detailed disaster recovery plan.

With the current increase in events occurring in Minnesota and across the country, industry experts predict that ransomware is no longer an “if” situation, but a “when.” When ransomware attacks, will your business be ready with a disaster recovery plan? The cost of most disaster recovery solutions is far less than the cost of a single attack, so it’s in your company’s best financial interest to invest in DR today.

If you want to learn more about creating an IT disaster recovery plan for your business, get in touch today. Vaultas’ business continuity service streamlines disaster recovery, keeping your business operating through any disaster or disruption.

When Should Hosting Be Outsourced?

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If you’re in need of a hosting solution for your business, you may find the options and process confusing. What’s the difference between website and storage hosting? Can we manage our hosting in-house, or should we outsource some of it to a third-party provider? Does it make sense to let someone else manage it all?

When determining what and how much to host, the first and best advice we’ll give is to get in touch with a reliable company and ask a few questions. At Vaultas, we’re happy to talk businesses through the details of our hosting solutions, and to help determine what exactly they need.

On the question of outsourcing some or all of the hosting services, what you choose will largely depend on: 1) your company’s personnel resources, 2) your company’s financial resources, and 3) the type of business you conduct. Managing your IT infrastructure in-house can save money, but it will also require an investment in the personnel and technology required to manage it.

One option is to choose an IaaS, or Infrastructure-as-a-Service, provider to manage select hosting needs, while managing others in-house. This allows companies to save money while outsourcing some of the more complicated aspects.

For companies without the personnel or IT resources to manage any part of the infrastructure, fully managed services may be the way to go. A service provider should function as a partner – fully knowledgeable about the company and its needs, and ready to step in whenever assistance is needed. This is a more costly option, but it allows for smoother day-to-day operations.

An important note: if a company does business in healthcare, banking, insurance or financial services, there are federal regulations on security and compliance that can make it more difficult to manage in-house.

Vaultas offers a wide variety of hosting options, including website, application and storage hosting solutions. If your business needs a more custom solution, we can tailor any of our services to meet your needs, providing nonstop, comprehensive support to ensure that there are no interruptions.

To learn more about hosting, cloud storage, data storage or any of our other hybrid IT solutions, visit our website and get in touch for more information and a free quote.

Should You Move Your Business To The Cloud?

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Cloud solutions have grown increasingly popular in recent years, and for good reason. By placing all of your company’s computing services – including software, programs and data – in the cloud, employees can access everything they need to do their job with just an Internet connection. As the workforce becomes more mobile, moving to the cloud just makes sense.

Need a few more reasons to move your business to the cloud? We’ll list a few below. To learn more about the cloud solutions offered by Vaultas, visit our website or get in touch today!

Cloud solutions are scalable

Only pay for what you need, when you need it. If your business grows in size or offerings, simply add more cloud compute power or storage capacity to meet your new business demand and needs.

Easier collaboration

By moving all of your documents and programs to the cloud, employees can collaborate more easily and with fewer errors. This is especially helpful if some or all of your workforce is remote or telecommutes.

Greater security

What if a laptop with sensitive company information was lost or stolen? If your business is in the cloud, using VDI or RDP, you can simply block their log in and/or remove their access to any information altogether. None of your company data needs to be at risk. The cloud also inherently provides solutions for your disaster recovery and business continuity requirements.

Increased mobility

We live in an increasingly mobile society – and that extends to the business world. Even if your employees don’t work from home full-time, having cloud solutions empowers your company to allow employees greater flexibility to telecommute if and when they need to.

Lower cost

By not having to pay for a separate data center or unused resources your company will save significant money for your company that can be spent on additional revenue generating activities. Generally, cloud services are offered with a la carte pricing, so you’ll only pay for what your business needs – and never for more than you use.

Are you ready to move your business to the cloud? Vaultas has a variety of cloud computing solutions that can be customized to meet your business’ needs. Contact our Minneapolis cloud storage specialists today to learn more.

Disaster Recovery vs. Business Continuity

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If you’ve been tasked with writing disaster recovery and business continuity plans for your company, you may be confused. Are disaster recovery and business continuity the same thing? Can I write just one plan to cover both?

Although they seem similar, disaster recovery and business continuity are different. They play unique and important roles in a company’s contingency planning, so it’s important to write a separate plan for each.

However, the plans will be closely related, and likely written in conjunction with one another. The information gathered during the business continuity planning process helps to determine the details of the disaster recovery plan, and vice versa.

Disaster recovery plans and business continuity plans are designed to work together, and are often implemented at the same time following an outage or incident. But they cover fully different aspects of a business, as we’ll discuss in detail below.

Disaster recovery refers to the plan implemented by a company’s IT department to bring systems back online with minimal data loss following an outage. The outage can either result from a disaster or it can actually be the disaster. And the outage can be as minor as email, an online service or the phone system going offline, or the entire IT system going down.

Business continuity refers to the plan that establishes the process of continuing business operations following an outage or incident. This does not include IT systems, but refers to the departments IT supports, such as customer service, sales, HR or others. The business continuity plan will work to keep all parts of the business running when outages occur.

It’s important for all Minnesota businesses to have both IT disaster recovery and business continuity plans. Outages are common, and businesses should be prepared. At Vaultas, our experienced Minneapolis data solutions experts can help you plan for the worst.

Whether your data is in our data center, your data center or a national cloud provider’s environment, we can preconfigure a solution that keeps you operating right through any disaster or disruption to your business. Contact us for more information.

4 Reasons Why You Need DRaaS and Business Continuity

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Today, when you pay attention to the news, you hear a lot about data breeches, natural disasters and the inevitable network failure. It pays for every company to have a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity plan in place for their business. No business can sustain a network failure of any kind in today’s marketplace, no matter what size they are.

According to Cloud Strategy Magazine, here are “four reasons to put cloud-based business continuity on your short list of IT priorities:

  1. Eventually, your company will suffer a disaster.

It could be tomorrow, next week or next year, but at some point your key data will disappear. This could be from a natural disaster, hacking, hardware crash, or service outage – at some point it will happen.

According to the Disaster Recovery Preparedness Council, 75% of companies are failing in terms of disaster readiness. In the last year, one in four companies have lost most or all of their data for “hours or even days.” If it happens to you, you will want your recovery to be quick, efficient and successful.

  1. Cloud-based business continuity is ready for prime time.

Backing up important data remotely is now mainstream. But “storing data in the cloud for recovery back on-premise obviously does not equal business continuity” according to Cloud Strategy Magazine.

While it is more than just storing data in the cloud, “When DR/BC take place in the public cloud, large workloads and data sets are already stored there, meaning they can be easily and quickly brought online to help your business continue operations as soon as possible.” You will want to find a DRaaS solution that will let you test easily and frequently with both large and small tests, at varying times of the day, so you can replicate what potentially could happen in a disaster.

  1. The DR/BC trifecta finally arrives.

Affordability, automation and scalability – what IT teams need to look for in failover solutions. Now that DRaaS solutions are more available, the cost has come down to match the demand. Business continuity automation is becoming a standard offering now from major providers.

The scalability comes from the DRaaS providers who offer a multitude of services to fit the varying needs of businesses. Providing cloud computing, hybrid IT, disaster recovery and more to ensure all of your business practices are covered within the cloud.

  1. Business resiliency is now within your reach

Now through automation, or a supporting team at a qualified data center, automating the testing helps to keep the management headaches at bay. Testing your DR/BC is the fundamental practice that ensures that your plan will work when it needs to. The more automated it can be, the less time it will take your IT team to regularly test the system to make sure it’s simply working.

Business resiliency is now available to companies of every size. Finding a DRaaS partner who can understand your needs and tailor a scalable, affordable solution to your company is a must. The team at Vaultas can help you create your DR/BC plan to ensure smooth, uninterrupted business operations. They will even give you a free assessment to get you started. For more information, contact Vaultas today.