Small Business Tech Tips

This year there have been several natural events that have reminded us about the fragile nature of things. Just this past weekend a powerful ‘Noreastern’ hit the New England area leaving millions without power.

These events remind us that we must be prepared. At home you pack extra water, candles, propane and stock canned food for just such an emergency. But what do you do for your business? Sure you make backups, but do you regularly store this valuable data off site? What happens to the email you depend on to communicate with clients and vendors, when your email server is down?

Here are some reminders of things you can do to help ensure that your business is well prepared:

1) Get a battery backup (UPS) capable of keeping your key equipment running for 4-8 hours. Contact your local power company and find out how long the average power outage is in your area and get double that amount of battery backup on your equipment
2) If keeping your equipment running is vital to your organization (i.e. hospital, broadcast) then put a backup diesel generator in place that will kick in when your batteries are near depletion
3) Backup your data and get that data offsite
4) Put an email continuity solution in place so you can receive and send emails in the event your email server is down.
5) Virtualize. If you have access to a big enough Internet connect, then store your servers and desktops as virtual versions “in the cloud” so that you can access them from anywhere and at any time.

Have the events this year taught you anything when it comes to your business being prepared?

What steps have you taken to keep your business up and running in the event of a disaster?

-Jim

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Read more by: Jim De Vico

Tags: Cloud, cloud computing, cloud email, email continuity, power outages, storm preparation for IT

This entry was posted on Monday, October 31st, 2011 at 10:01 am and is filed under Small Business Management Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.