Creating a disaster plan is essential for all businesses, but those in the South should make sure to also have a hurricane preparedness plan in place—especially for their IT systems and data. This straightforward blog post answers common questions about formulating and updating an appropriate plan to protect your digital assets in the unique context of a hurricane.

For this topic, we spoke to Charles “Andy” Andrews, our Senior Technical Consultant. Having lived in Louisiana his entire life, he’s as well-versed in hurricane preparation as he is in IT. Check out his expert insights below.

What to Know About Creating a Hurricane Preparedness Plan

1. What Is a BCDR?

A BCDR, or Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan, involves knowing exactly what you have and how it needs to be protected, Andy explains. It allows your business to stay active regardless of a variety of issues, ranging from a hurricane to a ransomware attack.

In New Orleans, Guardian Computer’s headquarters, you not only have to deal with the wind and rain, but because of the landscape, the city is also prone to serious flooding.

“Hurricanes specifically have been a threat that I’ve had to deal with all my life,” Andy says. “Living in New Orleans has given me certain insights into how they need to be dealt with.”

2. When Should You Make a BCDR, or Hurricane Preparedness Plan?

You should make a BCDR as soon as possible and be sure to update your hurricane preparedness plan every year.

As Andy points out, you cannot prepare for a disaster while the disaster is happening. The most common mistake he sees in organizations is having a plan that hasn’t been updated or tested since its creation and has become obsolete.

“I’ve seen instances where they pulled out a printed copy that literally had dust on it,” he says. 

When it comes to hurricanes, you can see them coming and have time to prepare. We recommend including special triggered events as part of your hurricane emergency plan, such as:

• Making additional data backups 24 to 36 hours before expected landfall.
• Moving computers away from the windows and doors, as well as off the floors, the last day before work is closed for the storm.
• Unplugging power cables and power strips, as well as getting them off the floor the last day before work is closed.
• Making sure the windows are boarded up the last day before work is closed.
• Ensuring your team brings any essential computers with them when they evacuate, especially computers with business-critical applications that are installed locally, such as QuickBooks, AutoCAD, or custom applications.

3. How Can You Keep Your Team and Plan Up to Date?

Part of regularly updating your hurricane disaster recovery plan also includes making sure everyone knows what role they are going to play in the continuity of the business.

For managers, that includes keeping a real-time inventory of software and hardware, knowing where employees are going, and having up-to-date contact information. You will also have to decide who is responsible for updating clients on how to contact the business during this time, who will come back post-storm to assess the damages, and more, depending on the severity of the storm. 

You should also test your BCDR each year before hurricane season begins to make sure the plan runs smoothly. To do this, you can try to restore the backup and make sure it boots up correctly, or simply do a file restoration. Double-check that everything is there and opens properly, and time how long it takes for the restoration to be complete.

If disaster does strike, you should only have to worry about your safety. Not updating your hurricane disaster recovery plan regularly only makes it that much more difficult for your organization in the long run.

4. What Does a Hurricane Disaster Recovery Plan Include for IT, Specifically?

Regardless of hurricane season, you should be regularly creating digital backups of all critical information. Daily backups are standard for most companies, though depending on the company and its needs, you may be able to go weekly. But for mission-critical servers, consider switching up to hourly backups.

Ideally, you should also have a backlog ranging from six months to a year so that you can go back in time if needed. This data should be stored in three different locations: onsite, offsite, and replicated elsewhere. With that, alerts can be configured so that any missed backups, errors, or low storage space issues are being sent to the proper channels. 

“You don’t want to find yourself needing a backup only to find out they failed three weeks ago and somehow nobody knew,” Andy points out.  This is one of the benefits of having your IT managed by a company like Guardian Computer. “It’s a lot easier when you have more than one pair of eyes, and people are actually going through and making sure the backups are done.”

In a worst-case scenario, your place of business could be destroyed by a hurricane. Before that can happen, Andy recommends that businesses start pivoting to cloud migration for any business-critical applications. The good news is that most tech is already moving in this direction, and Guardian’s experts are well-equipped to help our clients with cloud migration and management.

5. What Is Guardian Computer’s Process for Clients’ Hurricane Preparedness Plans?

With Guardian Computer, each client gets their own personally tailored emergency plan. This is done by taking into account the line-of-business applications and determining which software is necessary to keep the business running, along with other factors.

In general, Guardian’s process starts with hurricane monitoring. (For New Orleans clients, Andy recommends everyone keep an eye on Weather Underground the entire season.) If the city is in a 50% cone of error for a category two or below at landfall, our team makes sure that backups are up to date and verified 2–3 days before the hurricane is expected to hit. We also send out an email to warn clients who may be impacted and give them last-minute reminders.

“We have alerts that we constantly monitor, but we still want to make extra sure before a storm,” Andy says. But at a category two, he explains, “There is a good chance that no one is evacuating and most people will be riding out the storm except those directly under the path.”

If New Orleans is in the 50% cone of error for a category three or greater hurricane, Guardian takes additional steps to ensure everyone is on the same page with evacuation and communication plans. 

“Some clients will make local backups to external drives and carry those offsite as an added precaution,” Andy says. “If your servers are backed up and your plan is thought through, you should be able to focus on your people and their safety.”

What Does It Mean to Be Cloud-Enabled?

“It means having your servers and applications running on a cloud service provider like Azure or Amazon Web Services,” Andy says. “This way, the data can be backed up and replicated across data centers as well as widely available to end-users, no matter the location or size.”

Many organizations are already moving in the direction of either being hybrid cloud or full cloud, and some Guardian clients are already serverless, completely operating in the cloud. This is especially helpful in the case of a disaster such as a hurricane. Without the cloud, if something does happen, the amount of time it takes to get new servers and hardware is longer than most businesses can afford to be out of service.

Need a Hurricane Preparedness Plan?

If you’re working on creating or updating a hurricane preparedness for your business and need assistance with the IT aspects of your plan, Guardian Computer can help. We offer comprehensive IT management services, including remote support, monitoring, scheduled maintenance, disaster recovery, and much more.

Don’t wait until it’s too late. Contact Guardian Computer today.

There’s a reason why you haven’t gotten started with cloud storage at your organization yet. Maybe you still have questions about how it would fit into your current infrastructure or security measures. Maybe you’re not convinced it will be worth the time and effort to set up, teach your employees, and maintain. Maybe you just have bigger fish to fry at the moment. But there’s still a nagging feeling that you should figure it out.

No matter what your reason is, the idea of migrating to cloud storage can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be! Now is the perfect time to finally make the change and reap the benefits in an increasingly digital world. Every client migrated from local server storage to cloud storage was skeptical and did not like it initially. Then the benefits become glaringly obvious.

Learn how to migrate to cloud storage today in just 4 steps:

1. Create a plan
2. Decide what will be stored
3. Transfer your data
4. Train your employees

We’ll take you through each step, as well as how to avoid some common pitfalls.

Migrating to Cloud Storage in 4 Steps

1. Create a Plan

The first step to adopting cloud storage is creating a plan. The more information, existing data storage, employees, and security requirements you have, the more complicated the process becomes.

Having a plan can help keep you on track, establish deadlines, maintain your normal business operations, and make sure nothing falls through the cracks. It also ensures you prepare for any costs, such as the cloud itself and any IT services required to set up, manage, or secure your cloud.

If you are lucky enough to have all data in a single location, your plan will be much easier. Collecting data from multiple servers, workstations, or cloud accounts requires much more planning. No matter what your situation, use this time to define structure and permissions that are easy to navigate and maintain.

2. Decide What Will Be Stored

Your next step is to decide what information will be going into the cloud. Do you want to store customer information? Company logins or financials? Business intelligence?

It may be tempting to skip this step and say you’ll just store everything on the cloud. Especially with remote work on the rise, it seems like it wouldn’t hurt to have everything accessible remotely. While we do not disagree with having all information available, files that are no longer needed or relevant should be deleted. Adding garbage could increase storage costs and will cause unnecessary clutter.

As you compile the list of information to store on the cloud, note who needs access to it. Some information can be available to everyone in your organization. Sensitive information should only be made available to those who need it—and only for as long as they need it. Establish policies for granting, removing, and periodically reviewing who has access to the information in your cloud.

3. Transfer Your Data

Actually transferring your data is going to be the most significant step of this process. We have found that setting up a data sync is the best option, if possible. This gives you the ability to migrate users in phases as opposed to all at one time. A sync allows users to modify files in the original location and the cloud location without risk of losing data.

Allowing users to use the data from both locations helps to identify your power users. Power users can assist with user training and become cheerleaders for the change.

4. Train Your Employees

The last major step is to train your employees. Although it is often overlooked, this step is critical to implement cloud storage successfully in the long term.

Your employees are what keep your business running. If they are failing to save information, saving it incorrectly, or not following security procedures, it can cause big problems for your business.

Train employees on all cloud procedures, including:

• What information should be stored in the cloud
• How to save information to the cloud
• How to make sure information is synced and backed up
• How to search for information in the cloud
• Who should have access to what information
• How to request or grant access to information
• What security measures they should take

Don’t rush this step! Cloud storage can increase your organization’s efficiency, but only if employees actually understand how to leverage the cloud. Schedule periodic refreshers to make sure everyone is following protocol and use the opportunity to share new tips and tricks for greater productivity.

The Risks of Cloud Storage

As with any technology, there are risks associated with cloud storage. Some of the risks include:

• Information previously stored offline faces new cyber risks.
• If you don’t monitor access and enforce policies for granting access, employees may gain access to information without permission.
• With data backed up and synced across multiple devices, it can be harder to make sure something is truly deleted from the cloud.
• At the same time, employees still might accidentally delete or alter information, spreading these faulty changes across all synced devices.

However, these issues don’t have to keep you from taking advantage of cloud storage. Fortunately, there are many ways to reduce these risks:

• Keep any information that is too sensitive off the cloud, and implement cybersecurity measures to protect data stored on the cloud.
• Establish policies for access to data and regular reviews of employee access. Keep track of who has access to what as well as who granted access, creating more accountability.
• Choose cloud services that allow you to completely delete information when needed and train employees how to properly delete information.
• Choose cloud services that track changes to your information and allow you to easily restore previous versions.

By learning how to implement cloud storage with these risks in mind, you can be sure to guard against these issues from the very start. If there is anything you’re still concerned about or that your team needs help with, you can also outsource your cloud storage needs to a trusted IT provider!

Get Expert Help to Implement Cloud Storage Now

Having access to your information from anywhere is valuable, especially when employees are working remotely. Our expert staff can help execute this transition efficiently and seamlessly, so your organization can rest easy and simply reap the benefits.

Our team will set up and closely monitor your cloud, run regular performance checks, and apply updates as they become available. If you have specific requirements for keeping your data storage compliant with federal regulations, such as HIPAA, HITECH, the U.S. Patriot Act, CCAR, FINRA, CFPB, OCC, and more, talk to our team about incorporating this into your cloud setup, monitoring, and maintenance as relevant.

If you ever have a question about your cloud or run into an issue, our experts are available to provide direct support over the phone, online, or in person as needed.

Ready to take advantage of cloud storage? Give us a call at 866-488-4726 or contact us online today!

Backing up your data is an essential business practice that should involve multiple backups stored in multiple places. This strategy allows you to store your data more efficiently and keep your information safe.

“With viruses, hackers, and phishing in today’s world, everyone should be using some type of backup solution,” says David Neil, one of our IT Support Specialists who specializes in backup solutions. 

Keep reading to learn more about why your business needs multiple backups, mistakes to avoid, and how the experts at Guardian Computer can help you establish an effective backup solution.

Why You Need Multiple Backups

According to David, cyberattacks pose the greatest threat to company data. In particular, phishing emails and malware have been growing in popularity and sophistication, and many businesses today remain unprepared.

“There are so many ways that hackers can get you nowadays,” David says. “They can spoof websites, emails, ads you can click on—there are just so many ways they can get in.”

Small businesses may think that hackers won’t bother targeting them, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, cybercriminals are counting on these smaller organizations to have fewer resources and less preparation, training, and security, making them enticing targets.

This brings up a critical concern for many companies: cost. It’s a common misconception that backing up your data will come with a hefty price. Most services charge by the gigabyte, and it may only cost a few extra dollars to get the multiple backups you need.

Not only that, but the potential costs associated with data loss and recovery, network downtime, and compliance issues are far greater than the costs of investing in security and backups. Having multiple backups gives you a safety net in case something goes wrong with any of your data backups or storage, whether it’s phishing attacks, malware, or even natural disasters. 

Phishing Attacks

As technology advances and hackers get smarter, businesses have to work harder to protect their data. David highlights phishing emails as a type of cyberattack that is especially effective against employees.

Spear phishing in particular can be very convincing and hard to identify without proper training. This type of phishing attack involves researching and targeting specific users. The emails sent to these users are tailored to them, often including their name, job title, and company. The sender of the email can also be spoofed so it looks like it’s the user’s boss or someone else they would trust.

Whether it’s from a phishing email or another attack, a data breach can impact more than just your organization. Compromised data can affect your customers as well. Cisco’s 2017 Annual Cyber Security Report showed that 49% of businesses were under scrutiny after a cyberattack and 22% of businesses lost customers due to an attack.

While it’s important to shore up your defenses against cyberattacks, it is equally important to be prepared to handle a data breach. Having multiple backups enables you to restore your data quickly and efficiently, allowing you to resume normal operations faster.

Malware

Malware can take many forms, including computer viruses, worms, ransomware, spyware, adware, Trojan horses, and more. Even if a malware program isn’t strictly intended to damage your data, the damage it causes to your machine can still harm your data.

While there are antimalware and antivirus softwares that can be installed on company devices, they can’t guarantee your protection against every malicious program. Not only is it important to have backups in place to safeguard your data, but multiple backups.

According to David, companies sometimes don’t realize a computer or network has been infected with malware right away. It could take just a few days or it could take a month, depending on the malware’s effects, your team’s knowledge, and how your IT is monitored.

With multiple backups, you have a wider range of options for restoring your data. If malware has corrupted a more recent backup, you can choose an earlier one from days, weeks, or even months ago instead.

Natural Disasters

While no one can control when a natural disaster happens, your business can ensure you never lose your data when it’s properly backed up. Some data centers even store their data in multiple locations, making them a better choice for your backups.

“We worked with a data center that had locations on the East Coast and West Coast,” David explains. “Their backups were split in two locations. This is great because if there was a huge disaster, such as  a hurricane on the East Coast, the center doesn’t lose all of their backups. They have the data center on the West Coast to house all of their data.”

Mistakes To Avoid With Multiple Backups

When establishing multiple backups, there are a few common mistakes to avoid. “Often, people adopt a set-it-and-forget-it mentality, which is not the right way to maintain multiple backups,” David warns. “You shouldn’t set up backups for your machine and think you’re good to go from there.” 

There is always the risk that your software might go awry. “It’s just how computers work,” David says. “No software is perfect.” With monitoring, alerts, and image-level backups, you can stay vigilant and prepared for the issues that might arise.

Not Monitoring Enough

The most common mistake people make with multiple backups is inconsistent monitoring. It’s important never to trust the efficiency of technology without ensuring that the output is accurate.

“Whether it’s you or some type of automated system, it’s always good to monitor your backups,” David advises. A good practice is to check daily to confirm that the previous day’s backup was completed.

Failed Backups

In addition, many people don’t create alerts for failed backups. If you are not monitoring your backups every day, then it is crucial to have these alerts so you can react when something goes wrong.

Even if you do check your backups on a daily basis, you can benefit from having alerts for failed backups. Perhaps you’ll miss something and the alert will catch it for you. Whenever you receive an alert, you can also respond immediately rather than waiting until your next daily check-in, resulting in faster response and resolution times.

Image-Level Backups

Servers house everything you need to make your network run. Just backing up the files from your server won’t give you everything you need to get your network up and running again.

That’s why we recommend implementing image-level backups. Image-based backups create a copy of the operating system and all of the data associated with it. This backup is then saved as a single file called an “image.”

With image-level backups, you can transfer the images to the cloud and access your data from anywhere. When you do this, your computers can essentially run like normal, without any data loss. Image-based backups can also help you prevent network downtime if your server goes offline. They’re a valuable part of backup solutions, especially for bigger organizations.

How Guardian Computer Manages Multiple Backups

When you work with Guardian Computer, our team monitors your backups daily, sets up and responds to alerts for failed backups, and restores your data when needed. Instead of the simpler 3-2-1 method, we provide a more comprehensive 7-day daily backup, a weekly backup for 4 weeks, and a monthly backup for 6 months.

Daily backups are incremental, weekly backups are differential, and monthly backups are full backups. This backup system allows you to store several different versions of previously backed up data. If something becomes corrupted, you would still have access to the same information before it was corrupted. 

Contact us today to learn more about how our data backup and recovery services can benefit your business.