If not, then you may want to consider making it more of a priority.  If IT issues happen to go unnoticed or are not handled properly, the consequences could potentially be pretty severe. Communications, data backup and network protection all play an integral role in a company’s efficiency and long-term success.

Establishing a jumping off point for your company’s potential success may take time. However, the following tips to reflect upon may help get you started.

Systems have the ability to crash at any point in time due to viruses, theft, hackers, etc. Data can also be misplaced or stolen, but don’t let this scare you. SonicWall CDP Solutions can help your company avoid such disasters. Backup and restoration solutions that are available include:

• Real time/Continuous Data Backup
• Tapeless, Enterprise-level Data Protection
• Offsite Protection for complete disaster protection
• Instant Recovery and File Versions
• Unlimited PC’s
• Compliance with HIPPA, Sarbanes-Oxley, Gramm-Leach-Biley

These services can assure your business that your data is safe from intruding hackers and misplaced/stolen data.

Here is something that you and your business may not think about; Firewalls. If you are a small business with a DSL/Cable internet access, you are most likely provided with a small firewall. Do you really want “small” protection for your company? These firewalls may not cut it when it comes down to quality security. Unified Threat Management (UTM) offers edge-of-your-network security features. Anti-virus, anti-spyware, intrusion prevention, enforced desktop anti-virus, content filtering and more are available to keep your security measures in check. SonicWall TZ Series Firewall/VPN/UTM uses the most up to date inspection and protection to protect your business, no matter what size.

Furthermore, OS Patching can contribute to the protection of your company. It is clear to see that unpatched PCs and Servers leave your company’s data vulnerable to intruders. For example, Microsoft releases frequent security updates to keep protection at a high level. Some updates, however, may interfere with other programs currently running on your network, so this is definitely something to consider when implementing your security overhaul.

Outdated systems may be the culprit of system crashes and lost data. It may be beneficial to take a closer look at your company’s network. We can help find what works for your business, whether we install a new security system, or assist with advanced applications to accompany your current support.

In an economic climate where workforce changes are inevitable, organizations need to ensure that their data can be accessed and recovered in an instant. Lost or sabotaged laptops, servers and files can result in a massive loss of productivity and as a consequence, the inability to remain competitive.

5 Everyday Things Your Data Backup System Should Do

1. People Delete Good Files Sometimes- We’ve all done it. We delete a file, then empty the trash only to realize a minute, hour or day later we REALLY need that file. Reluctantly, we contact the administrator to help recover the file from backup. They can do it, but it will be tomorrow, now what?

Challenge: Restore your deleted file in less than 1 day

We recently had an employee delete a file containing our marketing matrix for the past year and forward 3 months. I went to look at it and it was GONE. I called my data guy and within 2 minutes he had recovered the file and then protected it from being deleted again by that employee. Simple!

FACT: 97% of all restores are single files (Microsoft)

2. “Save” can be just like Delete-You need to prepare a sales quote for “Louis” and open the “Quote – Anderson” spreadsheet to use as a template. When you’re done you hit “Ctrl S” (save) and you have the Louis quote saved. A millisecond later you realize you’ve saved the Louis quote over the Anderson quote. You need both and it will take 30 minutes to recreate the Anderson quote.

Challenge: Restore the good “Quote – Anderson” file in less than 30 minutes

FACT : Up to 40% of all data loss is caused by Human Error (Microsoft)

3. System crash, is today totally lost? Your entire system goes down…now what?

Good News: Your hard drive has stopped whining
Bad News: Your hard drive has stopped turning
Really Bad News: This happened at 5:30 pm and the Board presentation you’ve been working on all day is…well, who knows where?

Challenge: Take a deep breath and determine which version of the “Board Presentation” you can recover:
A. The 8:00 am version from yesterday’s backup tape (You did remember to do the backup, right?)
B. The last saved version using disk recovery utilities (Crossing your fingers helps here!)
C. The 11:00 am version from your boss’ e-mail (“Boss, my computer crashed and there’s no backup, so can you                 please send me the version of the presentation that I emailed you earlier?”)
D. The last version you saved on your compute

4. The Inbox is gone but not forgotten- Bill left the company a year ago. About 6 months ago, your predecessor deleted Bill’s e-mail inbox from the mail server to save space. Today, your company received a subpoena to produce the last 2 years of Bill’s e-mail in relation to an Intellectual Property dispute….oh boy!

Challenge: Produce Bill’s old email inbox.  If Bill’s e-mail box was automatically backed up each day, you can easily restore his inbox, because Bill’s e-mail remained on the backup system even after his e-mail box was removed from the mail server.

5. “I think everyone is backed up.” The boss asked a simple question, “Is everyone’s data backed up?”. Your answer is “I’m pretty sure” did not inspire confidence, so the next question is more precise, “Is everyone’s data backed up everyday?”  You now have a new number one project.

Challenge: Prove to the boss that “everyones’ data is backed up everyday”. With SonicWall CDP (Continuous Data Protection) we can receive an automatically generated e-mail Activity Report showing exactly what was backed up.

If you’ve ever gotten the “blue screen of death” you know the feeling…that you’ve lost everything. I know my business would be in seriously bad shape if I were to loss all of my company’s data. We use the technology we sell, SonicWall CDP- it’s foolproof, intuitive, automatic and continuous so that we always have the latest version of any file, program or document anyone is working on. It provides flexible recovery options and more importantly…THE RESTORE WORKS!!!

As a business owner you should test not only your backup strategy but also your restore procedure to make sure it works.

To learn more, give us a call 203-649-6405 and ask to speak with a SonicWall Certified Engineer.

Today’s businesses need robust yet simple e-mail threat protection that takes minutes, not hours, per week to manage. Available as a hardened appliance or as Windows software, SonicWALL Email Security provides powerful protection in one simple solution that dramatically reduces the time and expense involved in e-mail security.

SonicWALL Email Security offers the highest possible level of network protection from all inbound and outbound e-mail threats by leveraging a global end-to-end attack monitoring network. Protections include:

· Anti-spam

· Anti-phishing

· Anti-virus & Time-Zero technology

· Policy management

· Connection management

· Zombie detection

· Compliance & content filtering – regulatory & corporate

We implemented this technology at Pilothouse because of the large amount of “spam” that was coming into everyone’s email inbox. It was taking so much time to go through it daily- once we implemented this it immediately stopped. Every day each user gets an easy to read report of all the spam mail that was captured, or you can log into a real-time log of captured spam and have the ability to view any email and “unjunk it” so you don’t miss those important emails that we are waiting for that may be perceived as spam.

Within this product there are many reports that show where this spam is coming from, who’s the top receiver and sender of spam- monitoring outbound spam is also very important, it could indicate someone has hacked into your system and is using your email server as an outbound spam server- you would never know. You will be amazed at the number of junk emails that come to your organization on an hourly basis. You also can see the ROI on a daily basis for your employees not having to deal with these emails.

Here is a staggering stat from our system of only 10 email users from last month: 3371 good emails and 27433 were Junk, (SPAM, Virus or Phishing)

If you are tired of wasting time and expense everyday going through your emails looking for “real” emails, call us for more information on the SonicWALL email security solution we sell. 866-887-5792