What To Look For In An MSP? Mention Some Qualities

The managed service provider business has risen rapidly in recent years, but what do you look for in an MSP partner?

The market has nearly doubled in value in the last five years, rising from $107 billion in 2014 to $193 billion today. By 2023, the market is estimated to reach $296 billion.

To address their IT demands, businesses increasingly turn to managed services partnerships.

This massive global expansion is an enormous surge in demand for outsourced IT services.

• 75% of SMBs outsource at least a portion of their IT to a managed service provider (MSP).

SMBs, in particular, are finding managed services to be an appealing option to the more traditional in-house IT departments to which they have become accustomed.

Simple economics is the reason behind this. Simply put, hiring an MSP partner is substantially less expensive than hiring a whole internal IT workforce.

Here are some qualities to look for in a managed service provider.

• Take a shared approach to managed services
• Provide a flexible service model
• Offer advanced services
• Offer round-the-clock support
• Support multiple time zones
• Solid strategic relationship with your cloud provider
• Leverage remote monitoring for proactive maintenance
• Robust backup and disaster recovery plan
• A dedicated, reliable, and single point of contact for your business
• Work with your legal team to address compliance issues

How do I choose a managed service provider?

What should you look for in a Managed IT Services provider? This is a severe technology investment. Many fly-by-night companies offer managed IT that don’t have the track record, experience, or capacity to adequately serve your organization’s needs. To ensure you make a wise choice, review each vendor you consider with the following criteria.

Flexible, Scalable Plans:

What type of plan does the service provider offer? If they are complicated and have a lot of fine print, chances are you’ll be getting charged for a lot of stuff you don’t need, or else you’ll find yourself in crisis only to learn that certain services aren’t included in your service plan.

Look for a simple, easy-to-understand billing agreement with transparency around what is and isn’t included. If you’re unclear about anything in the contract, seek expert advice before signing. Avoid companies that want to lock you into a multi-year agreement but are reluctant to convey their responsibilities. Are they playing a leading role in continuous improvement and staying up to date with changing technology and data compliance regulations, are they playing a leading role?

Robust Customer Support:

It would help if you usually had it right away when you needed customer support. You don’t have time to wait until business hours begin in a different part of the world or try and explain a complex problem to a chatbot that can only deliver answers from a preprogrammed FAQ. Ask what kind of support is promised, when and how it will be given, and what your options are in an emergency.

Service Level Agreements:

Uptime is critical to your company. You aren’t making money if your organization isn’t accessible to your customer base. A service level agreement (SLA) will promise a certain level of uptime, typically well over 99%, and a response time during outages within a specific time frame. Suppose the Managed Services provider fails to meet these obligations. In that case, they will typically be subject to a penalty (often a free service period to compensate for their breach of service.)

Technical assistance and installation on-site

Engineers are trained subject-matter specialists who respond as a backup when a company needs maintenance or repairs.

They are in charge of designing and installing IT projects on-site and performing periodic check-up trips to ensure everything is functioning smoothly.

Remote monitoring and troubleshooting

Support groups capable of proactively monitoring the network functions of the company.

If a client has a problem requiring quick attention, a help desk should be available, or an engineer should be ready to solve the problem remotely without the client’s involvement.

This help should be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Extensive support for cloud-based operations

Revenue from public cloud services was $182 billion in 2019; this year, it will reach $250 billion.

Cloud services quickly become the focal point for many small and midsize businesses as executives gain trust and recognize the benefits.

They are more secure than ever and offer various options for storing firm data and licensing software.

Your MSP partner should be able to demonstrate substantial cloud service provider partnerships.

Final Words

It may seem counterintuitive, but having your personnel manage every part of your IT infrastructure can hinder them from concentrating on duties that directly impact your bottom line. Hiring an MSP to supplement your IT team will allow your personnel to focus on enhancing your company’s efficiency, productivity, and creativity. Furthermore, the correct MSP will be there for you in the long run, allowing your company to grow to new heights.

Protected Harbor is not your typical MSP. We assist you in maximizing the benefits of current and emerging IT solutions so your business thrives. If you want to learn more about how outsourcing your IT can enhance your business’s productivity, contact us today for a FREE technology assessment, or read our FREE eBook.

Guide to Managed Service Providers

What is a Managed Service Provider?

A Managed Service Provider maintains and manages your IT systems, including virus protection and control, day-to-day hardware and software administration, disaster recovery, operational efficiency, and end-user support.

MSP can provide the necessary technology to take your company to the next level. They assist your organization in transitioning to the digital age with optimum stability and control, allowing you to scale your business without incurring increased IT costs.

Managed Service Providers (MSPs) are responsible for providing their clients a wide range of IT services and support. The specific responsibilities of an MSP can vary depending on the needs of the client, but here are some of the primary responsibilities that an MSP may undertake:

• Handling the management of IT infrastructure
• Adding cybersecurity measures to IT
• Providing technical support to staff
• Managing user account access
• Offering risk and compliance management
• Handling contract management
• Providing payroll services

How do MSPs work?

Managed service providers (MSPs) function as crucial partners in achieving organizational goals, offering tailored managed IT services for small businesses. As a leading managed IT services company, an MSP assesses a company’s current technical landscape, identifies areas for improvement, and seizes opportunities for enhancement.

Under a Service Level Agreement, an MSP delivers comprehensive IT-managed services, including help desk support, monitoring, security training, ongoing maintenance, and reporting. This agreement sets clear parameters for performance targets, response times, security assurances, and cost-effectiveness, ensuring a balanced approach to meeting the organization’s needs within its budget. With managed IT solutions from a trusted managed IT service provider, businesses can streamline operations, enhance security, and optimize their IT infrastructure for sustainable growth.

What does a managed service provider do?

Managed Service Providers (MSPs) work by providing a range of IT services to businesses, typically on a subscription or contractual basis. MSPs take care of the day-to-day IT needs of their clients, allowing them to focus on their core business operations.

A managed service provider augments your IT department to maintain, service, and support everything internet-related for your business, from configuring new devices to maintaining connectivity and supporting your infrastructure. On a high level, MSPs:

• Offer 24/7 remote system monitoring
• Provide End User Computing Support (desktop PCs, laptops, mobile devices)
• Support your IT infrastructure, including servers (physical and virtual)
• Monitor, update and maintain IT systems security
• Fix network or internet problems
• Accountable for data security, backups, and data recovery
• Office 365 setup, hosting, and management
• Mitigate risks related to data security, and cyberattacks
• Report a monthly summary of your issues, preventive/restorative steps taken, and advice for future planning.
• Create a Disaster Recovery Plan as part of your Business Continuity Strategy.

An MSP guarantees that you and your employees can access the internet, communicate with each other, manage data transfers, and maintain one or more websites. An MSP keeps your IT up-to-date, essential to the processes of marketing your products or services, driving sales and support for your customers, and completing all of the back-end administrative tasks related to inventory, data analysis, and more. Partnering with the right MSP means more security, service, productivity, and love from your user community.

Why Should you hire an MSP?

Traditionally, MSPs gained acceptance as companies tried cutting IT support and maintenance costs. Managing IT for a decent size business will need varying skill sets, in-house technical staff costs, hiring costs, tools/training costs, and other benefits for any permanent employees like insurance. An MSP, on the other hand, is cost-effective and efficient.

Plus, their cost is predictable. High-quality Managed IT Service Providers charge a flat monthly rate for proactive monitoring and maintenance of your workstations, servers, and IT infrastructure. Moreover, a proper IT-managed service provider aims to minimize IT downtime by preventing issues before they happen.

An IT service provider can also help you determine where you’re wasting money in “Nice-To-Haves or outdated systems” For example, perhaps you’re using an outdated Wi-Fi router, and maybe increasing your network’s bandwidth won’t provide you the expected result. Remember, working with an IT service provider will equip you with the latest trends and tech expertise. You can make well-informed decisions and find ways to cut costs and boost your team’s productivity

Some common signs you should hire a managed service provider.

• IT cost is skyrocketing
• Extra support for remote employees
• Limited IT staff
• Need help migrating
• Facing excessive downtime
• Want to grow strategically
• Lack of system monitoring
• Lack of compliance

Finally, with managed services, you’ll never have to worry about falling behind regarding your regulatory or legislative compliance. MSPs keep you updated with compliance laws, regulations, and procedures and thus avoid potential fines.

How much do managed service providers charge?

Prices for managed IT services can vary from company to company, and many factors can influence how much you’ll be invoiced. For example, the more users you have, the more devices (like desktops, laptops, tablets, printers, etc.) and licenses you must manage. Your MSP can define the cost model per user by knowing what you want to be addressed. Here are the most common cost models.

1. Fixed Price or Flat Rate
2. Per-User
3. Per Device
4. Metal Grading or Tiered
5. Customized

Understanding that the best offering from an MSP will include a service that provides a high level of business availability paired with strategic thinking and advice is vital. And this will be at a cost that is considered less than the cost of downtime and consulting packages.

Even better, if your MSP charges you a fixed price, irrespective of downtime episodes or maintenance calls. Many MSPs charge or include X hours per month; if the client goes beyond, they pay extra. Actual MSPs always charge a flat rate.

Affordable Managed IT Services for Small Businesses

Small businesses in New York can benefit significantly from affordable managed IT services. By partnering with the best managed IT service providers, businesses can access top-notch IT support in New York without the high costs of in-house teams. Managed IT support services in New York offer 24/7 monitoring, proactive maintenance, and tailored solutions to fit specific business needs. A managed service provider NYC ensures your systems run smoothly, providing essential services like network security, data backup, and cloud management. Investing in affordable managed IT services for small businesses not only reduces operational costs but also enhances productivity and security, allowing businesses to focus on growth and success.

Final Thoughts

A Managed IT Service delivers outsourced support, maintenance, and monitoring of your critical infrastructure and end-users. They augment you with the right expertise, including proactive device management to minimize future issues and reactive support when needed most. MSP supports your staff wherever using your technology, whether a more significant server or minor user issue. Also, MSPs can facilitate shifts and thrive in the post-COVID world by embracing innovation, flexibility, and agility.

And, like all relationships, you need to review your engagement to critically guarantee value for your money. Modern businesses leverage technology to stay competitive. So, your MSP must remain at the top of its game to keep your technology reliable. And we often hear from businesses working with their current provider for years but are too nervous about finding an alternative partner.

Changing providers comes with a perception of a complicated process that involves days of IT downtime and business disruption. Surprisingly or not, switching your MSP can be a cakewalk when you find the right partner.

If you are unsure of your MSP, we will audit and discover your potential areas of improvement.

We start every engagement with a discovery process to identify your business goals, risk areas, and technological priorities. We then create a strategic plan mapped to your business goals and provide ongoing monitoring and measurement to track the success of our solution.

Protected Harbor’s team of engineers, consultants, and certified technicians work with you to implement the best-fit technology to meet your organizational goals. You benefit from working with one trusted partner who understands your unique organizational goals.

Protected Harbor manages your IT infrastructure from soup to nuts. We’ve covered everything from email to teleconferencing, website hosting, cloud storage, and computer repair. We stay on top of your technological demands daily, keeping the lights on and providing strategic guidance to higher-ups.

If you’re looking for hudson valley new york manage service provider, or in rockland county, then you are at the right place. Protected Harbor offers customized IT solutions to businesses looking to scale their technology, and we’re on a mission to give you the best customer service possible. To do that, we are constantly innovating to make sure you have the best experience with our products.

As one of our customers, you can expect excellent service, quick response times, and an eager team to help. We are not your average MSP. We are engineers, software developers, analysts, designers, and lifelong learners. We offer a tailored approach to managed services that meet each client’s unique needs. Contact us today for a free IT Audit.

What are the types of clouds? Which one’s best for your business?

When you think of cloud technology, the first thing that comes to mind is big companies like Google and Amazon using it to run their massive online operations. But the truth is, this type of software has many small-time entrepreneurs using it to run their businesses. And if you’re not sure which kind of cloud computing service is right for your business, here’s a brief explanation about the different types of clouds and why you should choose one over the other.

What is a Hybrid Cloud?

The hybrid cloud integrates private cloud services, public cloud services, and on-premises infrastructure. It provides management, orchestration, and application portability over all three cloud services. As a result, a unified, single, and flexible distributed computing environment is formed. An organization can deploy and scale its cloud-native or traditional workloads on the appropriate cloud model.

The hybrid cloud includes the public cloud services from multiple cloud service providers. It enables organizations to

• Choose the optimized cloud environment for each workload
• Combine the best cloud services and functionality from multiple cloud vendors.
• Move workloads between private and public cloud as circumstances change.

A hybrid cloud helps organizations achieve their business and technical objectives cost-efficiently and more effectively than the private or public cloud alone.

Hybrid Cloud Architecture

Hybrid cloud architecture focuses on transforming the mechanics of an organization’s on-premises data center into the private cloud infrastructure and then connecting it to the public cloud environments hosted by a public cloud provider. Uniform management of private and public cloud resources is preferable to managing cloud environments individually because it minimizes the risk of process redundancies.

The hybrid cloud architecture has the following characteristics.

1. Scalability and resilience

Use public cloud resources to scale up and down automatically, quickly, and inexpensively to increase traffic spikes without affecting private cloud workloads.

2. Security and regulatory compliance

Use private cloud resources for highly regulated workloads and sensitive data, and use economic public cloud resources for less-sensitive data and workloads.

3. Enhancing legacy application

Use public cloud resources to improve the user experience of existing applications and extend them to new devices.

4. The rapid adoption of advanced technology

You can switch to cutting-edge solutions and integrate them into existing apps without provisioning new on-premises infrastructure.

5. VMware migration

Shift existing on-premises infrastructure and workloads to virtual public cloud infrastructure to reduce on-premises data center footprint and scale according to requirements without additional cost.

6. Resource optimization and cost savings

Execute workloads with predictable capacity on the private cloud and move variable workloads to the public cloud.

Hybrid cloud advantages

The main advantages of a hybrid cloud include the following.

• Cost management_ Organizations operate the data center infrastructure with a private cloud. It requires a significant expense and fixed cost. However, a public cloud provides services and resources accounted for as operational and variable expenses.
• Flexibility_ An organization can build a hybrid cloud environment that works for its requirements using traditional systems and the latest cloud technology. A hybrid setup allows organizations to migrate their workloads to and from the traditional infrastructure to the vendor’s public cloud.
• Agility and scalability_ Hybrid cloud provides more resources than a public cloud provider. This makes it easier to create, deploy, manage, and scale resources to meet demand spikes. Organizations can burst the application to a public cloud when demand exceeds the capacity of a local data center to access extra power and scale.
• Interoperability and resilience_ A business can run workloads in public and private environments to increase resiliency. Components of one workload can run in both environments and interoperate.

Reference Link

https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/hybrid-cloud

What is a Public Cloud?

A public cloud is a computing service provided by third-party service providers across the public Internet. It is available to anyone who wants to use these services or purchase them. These services may be free or sold on-demand, allowing users to pay per usage for the storage, bandwidth, or CPU cycles they consume. Public clouds can save organizations from the cost of buying, maintaining, and managing on-premises infrastructure.

The public cloud can be deployed faster than on-premises and is an infinitely scalable platform. Each employee of an organization can use the same application from any branch through their device of choice using the Internet. Moreover, they run in multi-tenant environments where customers share a pool of resources provisioned automatically and allocated to individual users via a self-service interface. Each user’s data is isolated from others.

Public cloud architecture

A public cloud is a completely virtualized environment that relies on a high-bandwidth network to transmit data. Its multi-tenant architecture lets users run the workload on shared infrastructure. Cloud resources can be duplicated over multiple availability zones for protection against outages and redundancy.

Cloud service models categorize public cloud architecture. Here are the three most common service models.

• Infrastructure-as-a-Service_ in which third-party providers host infrastructure resources, such as storage and servers, and virtualization layer. They offer virtualized computing resources, such as virtual machines, over the Internet.
• Software-as-a-Service_ in which third-party service providers host applications and software and make them available to customers across the Internet.
• Platform-as-a-Service_ in which third-party service providers deliver software and hardware tools for application development, such as operating systems.

Advantages of Public Cloud

The public cloud has the following advantages

1. Scalability

Cloud resources can be expanded rapidly to meet traffic spikes and user demand. Public cloud users can gain high availability and greater redundancy in separated cloud locations. Apart from the availability and redundancy, public cloud customers get faster connectivity between the end-users and cloud services using the network interfaces. However, latency and bandwidth issues are still common.

2. Access to advanced technologies

Organizations using cloud service providers can get instant access to the latest technologies, ranging from automatic updates to AI and machine learning.

3. Analytics

Organizations should collect useful data metrics they store and the resources they use. Public cloud services perform analytics on high-volume data and accommodate several data types to give business insights.

4. Flexibility

The scalable and flexible nature of the public cloud allows customers to store high-volume data. Many organizations depend on the cloud for disaster recovery to back up applications and data during an outage or in an emergency. However, it’s tempting to store all data, but users must set up a data retention policy to delete data from storage to reduce the storage cost and maintain privacy.

Limitations or challenges of Public cloud

• Runway costs_ Increasingly complex pricing models and cloud costs make it difficult for companies to track IT spending. It is cheaper than on-premises infrastructure, but sometimes organizations pay more for the cloud.
• Limited controls_ Public cloud customers face the tradeoff of restricted control over the IT stack. Moreover, data separation problems arise due to multi-tenancy and latency issues for remote end-users.
• Scarce cloud expertise_ The skill gap among IT experts in the cloud is another challenge. Without expertise, companies can’t handle the complexities of advanced IT demands.

What is a Private Cloud?

A private cloud is defined as computing services provided over a private internal network or the Internet, only to specific users rather than the general public. It is also known as a corporate or internal cloud. The private cloud provides many benefits to businesses, such as scalability, self-service, and elasticity to a public cloud. In addition, it gives extended, virtualized computing resources through physical components stored at a vendor’s data center or on-premises.

One of the main advantages of the private cloud is that it provides an enhanced degree of control to organizations. As it is accessible to a single organization, it enables them to configure the environment and manage it in a unique way tailored to the particular computing needs of a company.

A private cloud can deliver two models for cloud services. Infrastructure-as-a-Service enables a company to use resources, such as network, storage, and computing resources. And platform as a service that allows a company to deliver everything from cloud-based applications to sophisticated enterprise applications.

Private Cloud Architecture

A private cloud with a single-tenant design is based on the same technologies as other clouds. Technologies that allow customers to configure computing resources and virtual servers on demand. These technologies include

1. Management software

It provides administrators with centralized control over the applications running on it, making it possible to optimize availability, resource utilization, and security in the private cloud environment.

2. Automation

It automates the tasks, such as server integrations and provisioning, which must be performed repeatedly and manually. Automation minimizes the need for human intervention and gives self-service resources.

3. Virtualization

It provides an abstraction to IT resources from their underlying infrastructure and then pooled into the unbounded resource pools of storage, computing, networking, and memory capacity divided across multiple virtual machines. Virtualization allows maximum hardware utilization by removing the physical hardware constraints and sharing it across various applications and users.

Moreover, private cloud customers can leverage cloud-native application practices and architecture, such as containers, DevOps, and microservices, to bring greater flexibility and efficiency.

Benefits of private cloud

Advantages of private cloud include

• Freedom to customize software and hardware_ Private cloud users can customize software as needed with add-ons via custom development. They can also customize servers in any way they want.
• Full control over software and hardware choices_ Private cloud users are free to buy the software and hardware they prefer or services provided by the cloud service providers.
• Fully enforced compliance_ Private cloud users are not forced to rely on the regulatory compliance provided by the service providers.
• Greater visibility and insights into access control and security because all workloads execute behind the user’s firewalls.

Challenges or Limitations of private cloud

Here are some considerations that IT stakeholders must review before using the private cloud.

• Capacity utilization_ Organizations are fully responsible for enhancing capacity utilization under the private cloud. An under-utilized deployment can cost significantly to a business.
• Up-front costs_ The cost of required hardware to run a private cloud can be high, and it will need an expert to set up, maintain and handle the environment.
• Scalability_It may take extra cost and time to scale up the resources if a business needs additional computing power from a private cloud.

Is hybrid cloud the best option for you?

Because not everything belongs in the public cloud, many forward-thinking businesses opt for a hybrid cloud solution. Hybrid clouds combine the advantages of both public and private clouds while utilizing existing data center infrastructure.

Cloud computing is becoming more and more popular, but many businesses are still unsure which type of cloud is right for them. This article explored the pros and cons of hybrid, public, and private clouds and provided advice on which type of cloud is best for your organization. Protected Harbor offers a wide range of cloud computing services to help businesses reduce costs and increase efficiency by outsourcing data storage or remote office functions. It can host a wide range of applications, including e-mail, video conferencing, online training, backups, software development, and much more. Protected Harbor is the right choice for businesses of all sizes. We are providing a free IT Audit for a limited time. Get a free IT consultation for your business today.

Network Penetration Testing 101

In an ever-changing cybersecurity landscape, new threats develop regularly. Regular network penetration testing is the most effective technique to prevent thieves from accessing your mission-critical data and systems. Protected Harbor’s penetration testing services simulate a cyber attack on your current infrastructure, identifying vulnerabilities and revealing holes or entry points that hackers could exploit during a cyber attack.

Our network penetration testing services don’t only tell you where and how cybercriminals might get into your network; it also tells you how they might act or behave once they are in. Penetration testing is necessary to ensure that you are on the same page as malicious actors. Condition Zebra’s network penetration testing services put you inside the heads of cybercriminals, so you are one step ahead of them. Let’s first discuss network penetration testing.

What is network penetration testing?

Network penetration testing is a way to stimulate the processes cybercriminals use to attack your business network, network applications, and attached devices. This simulation is used to identify security issues before attackers can find and exploit them. Penetration tests go beyond stopping malicious actors from unlawful access to an organization’s data and network. It helps create real-world scenarios to show organizations how efficiently their current security defenses would face cyber-attacks. Read why cybersecurity awareness for employees is important.

Network penetration testing is generally used to:

• understand the network baseline
• prevent network and data breaches
• test your security controls and postures
• ensure system and network security

A network penetration test is generally performed when an organization has a mature security posture or effective security measures.

Three steps of a network penetration testing

Planning or Pre-attack phase

• Define the intruder model (internal or external), enabled rights, and privileges.
• Determine the scope of the targeted environment.
• Define the goals, scope of work, source data, and testing targets.
• Define interaction and communication procedures.
• Develop the testing methodology.

Testing or attack phase

• Fieldwork and service identification.
• Intrusion tools and custom scanning are developed if required.
• Vulnerabilities scanning and detection, and elimination of false positives.
• Utilization of compromised systems as a starting line for further intrusions.
• Exploit vulnerabilities and gain unauthorized access.

Reporting or post-attack phase

• Result analysis and reporting with the recommendations to reduce risks.
• Visual demonstration of damage an intruder can inflict on the system.

Types of network penetration testing

Network penetration testing can be performed from two perspectives, inside and outside your company’s network perimeter/

Internal network penetration testing

An internal network penetration testing is performed to help simulate what a hacker could get with the initial access to a network. It can mirror inside threats, such as workers intentionally or unintentionally performing malicious actions. Internal pen testing is an authorized hacking attempt used to identify and exploit vulnerabilities within an organization’s perimeter defenses. Onsite access is given to testers via an ethernet cable. They then gain access to critical information.

Benefits of internal penetration testing

• Minimize risks to business continuity and the cost of being non-compliant.
• Harden the network against information leakage using current or terminated employees or online data.
• Ensure compliance with PCI DSS and other security standards.
• Provide management with exploit proof outlining the assets that an attack can compromise.
• Detects installations that are non-compliant with an organization’s internal policies. It may act as a pivot for external attackers.
• Do not add unnecessary security layers before getting an independent attestation on the effectiveness of current systems.
• Audit security monitoring processes and test your incident response tactics.
• Detects vulnerabilities that may be exploited to access privileged information.

External network penetration testing

An external penetration testing is performed to test the effectiveness of the perimeter security controls to detect and prevent attacks and identify the weaknesses in the Internet-facing assets, such as mail, web, and FTP servers. It’s an authorized hacking attempt that aims at hardening the external-facing network against hackers attempting to compromise the vulnerable hosts from outside the company’s perimeter.

Benefits of external penetration testing

• Reduce the risk to business continuity and non-compliant costs.
• Avoid the cost of adding extra security layers before getting an independent attestation of current systems.
• Provide management with exploitation proof that outlines the assets compromised by an attack.
• Detects vulnerabilities that can be exploited to access privileged information.
• Detects installations that are non-compliant with your internal policy.
• Audit external security monitoring procedures and test incident response tactics.
• Get independent security verification of your company’s internet-facing presence.
• Harden network and systems against host compromise.

Penetration testing methods

1. Black box testing_ We work in life-like scenarios having limited knowledge of your network and no information on the network structure, security policies, and network protection.
2. Gray box testing_ We analyze your system with some knowledge of your networks, such as architecture diagrams, user login details, or the network overview.
3. White box testing_ We detect the potential points of weakness by leveraging admin rights and access to database encryption principles, server configuration files, architecture documentation, or architecture documentation.

Final words

Cybercriminals can target your internal and external network through various sites, ranging from systems and hosts to multiple networking devices. Protected Harbor’s audits identify your current network architecture’s noticeable strengths and weaknesses. Our penetration testing report explains how your security mechanisms respond to various cyberattacks.

We develop a comprehensive and tailored remediation strategy to mitigate cyber threats using these findings. Our skilled staff is ready to execute a network penetration test for your firm, whether you wish to optimize your security processes following a data breach or structural changes or fulfill tight information security compliance standards. Contact us today for a free IT Audit.

The Rapid Adoption of Native Enterprise Application Development

In today’s modern era, enterprises need to optimize the application cycle. It helps them keep up with consumer expectations, speed the pace of innovation, and keep business operations agile. Cloud-native application development enables organizations to take advantage of the cloud by delivering faster time to market, improved flexibility, increased scalability, and better consumer experience while reducing cost.

With hybrid app development, developers can promptly augment applications without disrupting functionality or delaying delivery by leveraging independent components, known as microservices, that break down large monolithic apps into smaller ones. However, getting started with cloud-native applications requires a few strategies. We’ll discuss those strategies in this article, but let’s first learn about enterprise app development.

Enterprise app development

Enterprise app development is defined as a complex procedure of creating business applications. These procedures are customized for crucial business requirements. Enterprise applications can be deployed on the cloud on different platforms across the intranet and corporate networks. These applications make employees more productive by streamlining or automating low-level manual tasks. It will allow your staff to focus on higher value and more fulfilling work.

Cloud-native enterprise application development

Cloud-native applications are deployed and hosted in the cloud and are designed to take advantage of the inherent characteristics of the cloud computing software delivery model. A native application is a software developed to be used on a particular platform or device. Native enterprise applications use a microservice architecture. This architecture efficiently allocates resources to all services used by the application, making it adaptable and flexible to a cloud architecture.

Strategies for application development

While creating a cloud-native application, developers should follow these strategies.

1. Follow the microservices architecture method

Break down your application into microservices allowing automated, incremental, and continuous improvement without causing any downtime.

2. Rely on containers for maximum scalability and flexibility

Containers package software with all the dependencies and code in one place, allowing software to run anywhere. It enables maximum portability and flexibility in a hybrid-multi cloud environment. Containers enable fast scaling with the Kubernetes container defined by the user.

3. Adopt an agile methodology

The agile approach speeds up the creation and optimization process. Developers can instantly iterate updates depending on the user feedback, enabling the working application version to match users’ expectations.

Best practices to implement cloud-native application development

Enterprises can reap the full advantage of cloud-native application development by executing the following best practices.

1. Achieve workflow and infrastructure automation
2. Segregate monolithic apps into loosely coupled microservices
3. Store infrastructure as a code in an efficient version control system
4. Implement efficient CI/CD pipelines
5. Implement DevOps approaches and processes.

Challenges with the rapid adoption of cloud-native application development

Where cloud technology has a lot of benefits, it also comes with some challenges. Here are some of the challenges enterprises can face while rapidly adopting cloud-native application development.

• Due to the intense competition and market pressure, enterprises may face significant challenges in adopting new initiatives while achieving incredible business velocity.
• Most open-source technologies are not built to ensure interoperability right from the beginning, and efforts to bring together various disparate solutions from the cloud-native environment can be complex and full of challenges.
• Most open-source technologies don’t have well-defined architecture standards or best practices. Therefore, implementing these solutions and technologies for enterprise application development can be a considerable business risk. Cloud cost optimization is also a challenge for small to medium-scale companies.
• These technologies may have a minimal pool of resources, while organizations require the right technical services and support to operate effectively. However, with limited options, the complexities of long-term success can become a huge barrier.

Final words

Cloud-native enterprise application development is essential for digital transformation and innovation. Companies adopting cloud-native application development observe a remarkable increase in scalability, productivity, and efficiency while improving user experience.

Native enterprise application development is quickly becoming the go-to solution for businesses. By developing applications in-house, companies can ensure that they meet all of their specific needs. However, businesses need a reliable and scalable cloud infrastructure to develop applications in-house. The top cloud service providers can only offer enterprises a fraction of what they need. Compromise on nothing, partner with Protected Harbor today, ensuring 99.99% uptime, remote monitoring, 24×7 tech support, data backup, recovery, etc.

Office 365 Backup – Does Office 365 backup your data?

If you think that Microsoft Office 365 backs up your data, it is not more than a misconception. It is a secure platform but does not provide backup. Microsoft has built-in backup features and redundancy, but that is only within their internal data centers for recovery, not for the customers to back up their data.

If you read their service agreement, they mentioned storing your data using third-party services. You can keep the files somewhere else on your system following the cardinal 3-2-1 backup rule. Office 365 does not meet the backup criteria.

Office 365 redundancy VS Backup

Backup of data means duplicating the files and storing them in different locations. If a disaster happens and your data gets lost, a copy of the missing or lost file is available in another place. For example, if you delete a file intentionally or unintentionally and want it back, you should have the option to back up and restore it.

Although Microsoft offers the security of your data, there are several cases when critical data can be compromised. It is crucial to have a backup from a third party in such cases.

Microsoft offers redundancy, which means if a disaster happens to one data center and fails to manage the data, another data center is located in other geographical regions to back up your data. They can execute such redirects without realizing the end-users. But if you or someone in your organization deletes a file or an email intentionally or accidentally, office 365 will simultaneously delete the data from all the regions and data centers.

So, that’s why one should regularly back up their data as Microsoft recommends to its users. It is a shared responsibility to secure and protect the data because it’s your data, and you should take steps to protect it.

Reasons for the Data Loss in Office 365

As businesses increasingly rely on Office 365 to manage their data, it’s essential to understand the risks of data loss and how to prevent it. One of the most significant factors contributing to data loss is the sheer amount of data that companies generate. Without proper backup options, losing important information during a system failure or data corruption is easy.

Ransomware infections are also a major threat. They can encrypt files and demand payment to release them, leaving businesses with few options but to pay the ransom or suffer significant data loss. Incremental and differential backups are crucial for ensuring business continuity, as they allow companies to quickly recover data from a backup without restoring an entire system.

Using backup software and external hard drives for backup storage can provide an extra layer of protection against data loss. Storing backups in a remote location can help protect against physical disasters like fires or floods.

A reliable backup service can provide 24-hour protection and ensure that backups are always up-to-date. It’s also important to have a disaster recovery plan in place to minimize the impact of data loss on business operations and ensure that full backups and disaster recovery (DR) solutions are available when needed.

There are rare chances that Microsoft loses the data, but data loss from the end-user is widespread. Microsoft tries its best to protect the user’s data, but the most common reason is human error. Data loss has become a new normal, whether an email or a company document.

From human error to malicious attacks, there could be a lot of reasons that can result in data loss. Here, we will discuss them in detail and illustrate the benefit of backing up data using a third-party service.

Human Error

Accidental deletion is the primary human error due to which data can get lost. One can accidentally delete important emails, files, documents, or any critical data in office 365. Human error falls into two categories, one is accidental, and the other is intentional.

Sometimes, people delete the file or data by thinking that there is no need for it anymore, but after some time, they are suddenly in need of it. In most cases, the platforms have a retention policy through which you can restore the files from the trash. But for some of them, like contact entries and calendar events, there is no option of recovery from the recycle bin.

In such a situation, Microsoft does not provide you the facility to recover the lost files as they delete them for their data centers. They have no authority to protect you from yourself. If you want to overcome such difficult situations, you must have a backup at your side.

Malware or Software Corruption

Malware and virus attacks affect the organization globally, and office 365 is also susceptible to malicious attacks. The primary cause behind such attacks is opening or downloading the infected files. Ransomware attacks are the reason for data loss, office 365 has protection features against these attacks, but there is no guarantee that it will detect the infections every time.

Moreover, software corruption is another reason for data loss. For example, a user wants to update or install office 365, and then suddenly, a problem arises that can also cause damage.

Internal and External Security Threats

Organizations face many security threats that can either be internal or external. Internal security threats mean that sometimes a terminated employee knowing the company’s assets, threatens the organization or deletes the data. It can bring a lot of harm to an organization, and Microsoft, without knowing the reason, deletes the file from their data centers.

And by external security threats, we mean malicious and ransomware attacks through which companies and organizations suffer colossal damage. It damages the reputation of the company and breaks the customer’s trust.

Do you need an Office 365 backup solution?

As discussed in this article, Microsoft does not provide a backup for deleted data. However, if data loss occurs at their end, they offer redundancy by keeping the data in multiple regions. Third-party backup is necessary to protect the data against accidental or intentional loss and malicious attacks.

You can back up the data by placing it independently from your system and Microsoft servers. Since we are talking about Microsoft products here are some common vulnerabilities of Microsoft’s products.

Office 365 backup is a great way to ensure that your data is safe in the event of a disaster. However, many small to medium-sized companies don’t have the resources or infrastructure to back up their data independently.

That’s when Protected Harbor comes in; we are the experts in the industry, creating flexible solutions for your needs, including data backup and disaster recovery, remote monitoring, cybersecurity, etc. The top brands are serving customers with one-size-fits-all solutions; we don’t. Contact us today to make your data safer.

What’s a fully managed backup and data recovery service

Data backups are the core of the online business. Through data backup and recovery, you can create and store copies of your business data that you can use to protect your organization against data loss. Data backup aims to recover the lost data due to a primary data failure caused by a malicious attack, hardware or software failure, data corruption, or accidental deletion of data.

You often hear about major data breaches and incidents that render your data unusable and inaccessible. These can cause downtime to your business and other critical issues. Whether you lose data due to a malicious attack, an human error, or a system failure, you should have a data recovery plan.

Protected Harbor data backup and recovery is a fully managed service and a comprehensive solution to restore and backup data. We help you face your security challenges by providing a secure backup solution to recover data loss, whether on-premise, cloud, or hybrid. Our on-premise services save data directly to your BDR appliance, and we use additional offsite backups for protecting cloud services.

Our services not only recover your business from downtime but also keep it running continuously through every disaster, from human errors to malicious attacks. Protected Harbor’s fully managed services will combine data backup and recovery into a single comprehensive plan if you want to cover all of your bases.

On-premise backup and disaster recovery solution

It is essential to understand that backup and disaster recovery are crucial to minimizing the outcomes of unexpected downtime on your business. Organizations can lose revenue due to data loss caused by natural disasters, security breaches, human error, and ransomware attacks. Any rest in the industry can hinder customer interaction, reduce employee productivity, halt business processes, and destroy data.

There is a need to understand the importance of backup and disaster recovery. For this, you have to differentiate between both. Backup is a process of creating extra copies of data, while disaster recovery refers to the quick restore access to IT resources, applications, and data after an outage.

On-premise backup and disaster recovery processes can help you restore data rapidly. Keeping sensitive data on-premise may seem appealing while complying with strict privacy and data regulations. Disaster recovery from an on-premise environment can be challenging because your entire data center would be impacted if a power outage or natural disaster hit.

Protected Harbor backup and disaster recovery services offer a comprehensive, fully managed solution to handle on-premise backup. BDR framework is a dynamic process that helps organizations prepare for uncontrollable events. Our IT professionals make strategic plans to store and backup data securely and eliminate risks.

Cloud-based BDR service

There is no way to analyze and predict the future. Due to the rise in cyber-attacks, hardware and software malfunction, natural disasters, and data breaches have become essential to back up and recover data to prevent downtime in your business. Gone are the days when companies used manual recovery methods. Now, BDR solutions provide fast, secure, monitored, and rapid data backup and recovery through a cloud-based architecture.

Protected Harbor guarantees you can access applications and data anywhere, even during a major disaster. Today’s businesses need to be always available. That’s why acquainted BDR solutions are not enough to meet their needs. We offer backup and disaster recovery solutions for all platforms.

Cybercrimes are more common these days. Our backup encryption can help you protect your data from malicious and ransomware attacks. Protected Harbor backup and disaster recovery services avoid the fear of ransom scenarios and data loss. Our application-level monitoring helps you prevent unauthorized software and applications from corrupting backups.

Cloud-based BDR solution provides data protection reliability, speed, and continuous uptime. Not all businesses have the exact requirements for saving and restoring corporate data. Cloud-based backup and disaster recovery solutions provide scalable, flexible, and budget-friendly data protection services.

Data backup and recovery plan testing

Data recovery plans are designed to protect organizations against disasters, but sometimes it’s not enough. You can’t determine that a running process or disaster recovery plan will never fail after a disaster. Many incidents occur when organizations discover that nothing was backed up after and while data gets lost.

The purpose of disaster recovery testing is to find the flaws in your recovery plan. So you can solve the issue before any permanent damage. For managed service providers, it’s essential to provide disaster recovery testing.  Perform regular testing to ensure that your data recovery system is restoring data efficiently.

Protected Harbor performs disaster recovery testing by following compliance standards. We do regular testing because scarcely backup testing can put your organization at data failure risk during breaches and disasters. Putting off testing can prove devastating, especially if your company is going through a major disaster.

Protecting Your Data

Companies are increasingly relying on technology to manage their day-to-day operations. As a result, data loss prevention has become a top priority for businesses of all sizes. One effective way to ensure business continuity and protect against data loss is to use cloud backups.

Cloud backups provide a secure, reliable, and cost-effective way to store business data, and they can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection. This makes them an ideal solution for businesses with remote or mobile workforces.

In addition to cloud backups, businesses should also consider using data recovery software or data recovery companies to help them recover lost data in case of a system failure or data corruption. These services can help businesses minimize downtime and return to normal operations quickly.

When choosing a cloud backup or data recovery service, it’s important to consider factors such as service level agreements, pricing models, and the level of support provided. For example, some services offer 24/7 support and guaranteed response times, while others may only offer support during regular business hours.

Another important consideration is the type of storage media used for backups. While SD cards and other physical storage devices can be useful for some applications, they are not always the most reliable or secure option. Cloud backups offer a more secure and scalable solution and can be easily integrated into existing IT infrastructure.

Final words

Off-site storage and backup processing are only part of disaster recovery planning. Organizations should also create written, comprehensive disaster recovery plans that encompass all of the company’s core activities and functions. The plan should include processes that have been recorded and tested and that, if implemented, will assure the continuous availability of vital resources and the continuity of operations.

We provide backup and disaster recovery services by simplifying the process and storing all your data in cloud storage and secure remote servers. Protected Harbor maintains your backup schedule and provides 24/7 monitoring and expert-level support. Avoid operational and financial impacts of data loss by having a strategic plan for data recovery.

5 Benefits from a Professional IT Partner

Having a business partner brings a lot of benefits. Companies can work better by finding someone with the same visions and goals. Starting a business and running it is never an easy task. Small business owners across all industries, including the IT field, know the importance of partnership. They have to manage everything from setting up infrastructure, maintenance to customer services and security.

A technology partner can assist you across various issues, including IT support and managed services. Unmanaged and unreliable services might stifle a business’s expansion. Because IT has become the backbone of every industry, companies can benefit from partnering with managed IT service providers.

Having an MSP can bring value to a business by optimizing the technology. Almost every company uses the latest technology, and a managed IT provider can ensure reliable network, security, and customer support.

Benefits of Managed Services Providers

Keeping your organization at its peak is not easy. Many things can hinder the company’s growth, establishment, and security. Small businesses can’t stand alone and decide what is better for them. They should get managed services from IT partners that can give benefits to them.

There is a list of benefits that a company can get while having a professional IT partner. Here are some of them.

Support for Remote Workers

MSP offers network monitoring, maintenance, and security. They provide day-to-day support to systems with managed IT services. Collaboration with the remote team is a challenging task. But they come with unified communication tools that make it easier to collaborate securely.

Protected Harbor, a professional IT services company, offers remote help to businesses of all sizes. They provide a remote IT workforce that works safely and reliably, collaborates better with the firm, and gives IT help regardless of location.

Focus on Growth

Better IT partners are those who can handle whatever a company demands. They have working experience with small and large organizations. The purpose of an MSP is to provide reliable and smooth services to the client companies. An IT partner should quickly respond to your needs.

Protected Harbor offers scalability and focuses on growth according to a company’s needs. When someone is going to start a business, the only thing they focus on is growth. The technology partners for your business should have that in mind too. We have an infrastructure that can bear expansion and be customized according to the company’s needs without any pain.

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plan

Recovery systems and data backup help in a disaster recovery plan. Having an IT partner allows you to overcome these disasters. Protected Harbor is a technology partner that offers the best backup solutions according to your business needs. They have developed a business continuity plan that ensures protection, manages risks, and backups data. They identify the risk of disasters and the areas that require improvement and then offer a mature idea to survive global disasters.

Peace of Mind

Updates are necessary to ensure efficiency and maintain security. Businesses can rely on managed services providers who guarantee proactive solutions and better IT infrastructure. IT professionals remain up to date with the latest technologies and bring advancement to your business.

Protected Harbor offers 24/7 support and proactive maintenance as a trusted managed services provider. They detect vulnerabilities and prevent your organization from malicious attacks. With the best IT experts, they integrate security, optimize performance, and give IT support.

Budgeting your IT

Technology has now become a part of every business. With the evolution in Information technology, the budget for technical maintenance has also increased. Companies rely on technology to survive and stand in the marketplace. Employees can work better, faster, and reliably by implementing the latest equipment and technology.

IT budgeting is essential and lays the foundation for the success of an organization. Consider the value that IT brings to your business. Companies are not able to do this on their own. They should hire technology experts or collaborate with IT partners for better budgeting. Protected Harbor provides its services to plan IT budgets in a better way.

Conclusion

Not all partnerships go successful. It takes a lot of effort and time to find the right partner for your business. A project will be less risky and more successful if it is under the supervision of IT experts.

Don’t let the risks prevent your business from reaching its goals. IT professionals detect technical problems that can impact growth and offer support and security. They continuously try to find ways to improve their services and maximize the client companies’ benefits.

Protected Harbor is not just a managed service provider but your partner in growth and success. We create solutions specifically for you rather than reselling you a third-party product. Our expert technical team is available 24×7, with proactive remote monitoring, 99.99% uptime, 360-degree cybersecurity, and protection from all common threats. Contact us today for an IT audit and best solutions.

Why Quality Assurance Sucks And What To Do About It?

THIS IS WHAT IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN:   Why Quality Assurance Sucks – Traditional quality assurance only covers the application layer of a business’s software stack. Your IT company cannot verify whether an application, specific functions, or the entire system will respond reliably under extreme loads or unusual circumstances. A failure at any software stack or application layer can disrupt your customer and cost you money.  If your IT company uses traditional QA testing methods, they will never catch problem conditions before they happen. At Protected Harbor, we simulate events on mirror stacks that we know have the potential to cause problems, like network latency. Our engineers proactively attack these issues by affecting how clients’ systems respond to failures in a safe and controlled environment.

Quality assurance (QA) means avoiding issues in delivering solutions or services to clients by preventing mistakes or flaws in manufactured items.

It is a significant part of setting up a network system. Its importance grows with the network-related project complexity. QA workers need to organize and plan system maintenance to avoid interruptions.

Performing network security checks for data protection and the network’s backup plan is crucial to maintaining a good quality network. Moreover, other job responsibilities should also be considered and executed efficiently, such as managing the installation, testing, and troubleshooting voice and data network systems. Negligence of these primary responsibilities can be trouble for the customers.

1. The Indefinite Vision Of Quality

The core of an operational QA program is total commitment. The problems related to quality assurance programs mainly arise from not having a distinct target or aim to achieve.

Everyone is aware of the importance of QA, but is your QA team inspired to maintain a creative perspective and ready to go out of the way to achieve their goal? If not, then let’s delve in deep and look out if they are treated as essential members of the team? We don’t think so.

Mostly QA team is hired from a pool of fresh-faced teenagers eager to get into the business in whatever way they can. Quality Assurance standards very rarely go beyond the performance benchmark.

2. Lack Of QA Guidelines

Insufficient guidelines are significant problems that arise while discussing “Why Quality Assurance Sucks.”

Most of the time, many different QA engineers are trusted with the responsibility of QA for a single network project. Since each engineer uses a different testing style, maintaining the testing framework becomes messy. No proper rule or guideline is provided to the employees for executing the

3. Lack Of Resources And Time

Indeed working with poor network performance is a challenge for network engineers. With the absence of appropriate equipment at endpoints and midpoints along the way, it’s out of the question to provide the high-speed communication needed by today’s applications.

Moreover, the QA responsibility has only been given to the QA workers, as it is believed that each department has its responsibilities. The management is not interested in demanding quality work from the whole staff. All in all, they have not felt responsible for fixing errors or flaws that challenge quality. Due to the sufficient amount of tasks and insufficient amount of time, working becomes distressing for QA workers.

4. Lack Of Technology

Technology allows firms to improve remarkably and enhances their skillsets greatly. Numerous technical tools can assist QA companies, but they are resistant to use. Moreover, negligence of the problems has also been noticed in this domain.

Although several companies spot issues and deficiencies, they are not ready to invest in quality equipment. The company needs to promptly repair and replace the equipment to flourish and be successful. It could break the rhythm of QA if it is not ensured that the same set of tools produces consistent results.

5. Reward Structure And Lack Of Motivation

Everybody who hires the network engineers objects to the QA performance. But nobody considers the reason behind it. If the maximum incentive given to a QA worker is to become a leader and then move to another department, how much can a QA care about their job? Not much, right? Moreover, several employees are hired on contract at low wages, then get let go when a project is complete.

How Can Quality Assurance Be Made More Effective?

• QA workers should be instructed not to cut corners and sacrifice their company’s long-term interests for short-term gains.
• Giving proper development guidelines will help increase the maintainability of testing automation chambers. Early implementation of these guidelines can prevent headaches while managing IT services.
• Moreover, creating specific hiring standards will help hire the right employees and know their expectations.
• QA programs should maintain consistent quality, such as evaluating the evaluators regularly and documenting all the QA definitions; this can help in Application Outage Avoidance (AOA).
• Finally and most importantly, QA engineers should be respected and rewarded for the quality of their work rather than the number of bugs they identify.

Final Thoughts

Quality assurance is an essential part of the network system. But this system faces several important issues that arise and form hindrances in progress.

Acknowledging these issues as soon as possible can ensure the QA jobs’ reliability and enhance the Data Protection facility. Also, make sure that everyone is on the same page and working toward the same objective of producing error-free software.

Protected Harbor is a US-based IT firm that provides a full range of services for corporate technology issues, including malware, spyware, virus protection, cloud-based access, support, repair, and other IT help. We provide technological stability and durability to businesses, allowing computers, data centers, and apps to work smoothly.

At Protected Harbor, you’ll benefit from a solid quality assurance program. Our QA software is intended to make quality assurance as simple, accessible, and inclusive as possible in every workplace. We simulate events on mirror stacks that we know can cause problems, like network latency. Our engineers proactively attack these issues by acting on how clients’ systems respond to failures in a safe and controlled environment.

What is a Disaster Recovery Plan?

A disaster recovery plan (DRP) is also known as a disaster recovery implementation plan or an IT disaster recovery plan. It is a documented policy and process that helps an organization execute recovery processes in an unfortunate event to protect a business IT infrastructure and, more broadly, promote recovery.

DRP is crucial for any business. It identifies the purpose and objective of the plan and the people responsible for its implementation. It is essential to have a plan in case of an emergency. This article will explain the importance of having a disaster recovery system in place for your business.

Disaster Recovery Plan Goals

A disaster recovery plan’s goal is a series of steps that must be taken before, during, and after a natural or man-made disaster so that everyone on the team can follow them. A disaster recovery plan should address both purposeful and unintentional man-made disasters, such as the consequences of terrorism or hacking, as well as accidental disasters, such as equipment failure.

Your disaster recovery plan should contain goals for RTO (recovery time objective) and RPO (recovery point objective).

• RTO is the amount of time a business can be down in a disaster. It should be as short as possible – for example, four hours is the maximum acceptable downtime. The RTO is determined by how much the interruption disrupts regular operations and how much income is lost per unit hour due to the disaster. These characteristics, in turn, are dependent on the equipment and application in question (s). The length of an RTO is expressed in seconds, minutes, hours, or days. It’s crucial to include in a catastrophe recovery plan (DRP).
• The Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is the amount of time that passes during a disruption before the amount of data lost exceeds the Business Continuity Plan’s maximum permitted threshold or “tolerance. For example, if the last available good copy of data is from 18 hours ago and the RPO for this firm is 20 hours, we are still inside the maximum allowable threshold. In other words, it answers the question, “Up to what point in time might the business process be recovered given the volume of data lost during that interval?”

DR plan goal covers the procedures for contacting support and escalating issues. It should also include insurance coverage to protect you from any legal or financial problems that may arise. The disaster recovery plan should have a prioritized list of contacts within the disaster recovery team. You should hire a professional or a recovery solutions provider to help you create your plan. If you do not have a disaster recovery plan, your data will be unavailable to anyone without it.

What are the elements of a DRP?

A disaster recovery plan should have several elements:

• It must define what applications, documents, and resources are critical to the business.
• You should also identify offsite storage and backup procedures.
• A good plan will address the risks and threats associated with any emergency.
• Your DRP should also address the recovery of physical systems. If a disaster strikes, your organization will be ready to handle the crisis.
• This will ensure the continuity of your business.

Measures for Disaster Recovery Plan

Your plan will be broken down into two main parts: preventative measures and corrective measures.

Preventative measures focus on preventing disasters and restoring systems before they occur. In general, avoiding disaster is always the best option. When you’re thinking about preventative measures, you’re thinking about all of the factors that could lead to a disaster. Whether you have daisy-chained power lines or no door lock in your server room, this proactive approach to potential problems can save you a lot of time and effort in the long run.

The corrective measure focuses on repairing and restoring systems after a disaster occurs. Policies and procedures for a wide range of situations should be included in corrective actions. They should also assist you in determining recovery responsibilities for leaders and managers throughout your firm. Always see your BDR strategy as a collaborative effort inside your company.

What is a Disaster Recovery Checklist?

A disaster recovery checklist is an essential document for any organization. It helps minimize the damage caused by unplanned outages. Even a single lost file can significantly disrupt a company’s operations. Because documents are so hard to recover, companies need to ensure they’re properly backed up and stored in a remote location.

The first step in any disaster recovery plan is to identify the specific risk associated with the incident. A business may be at various risks, including natural catastrophes. While these events are rare, they can damage an organization’s reputation and profits. A disaster recovery plan will help minimize the damages while ensuring long-term business operation.

• Many studies have shown that one in four businesses will fail to recover from a disaster, and this statistic is primarily due to a lack of a DRP.
• 93 percent of organizations that lose data access for 10 days or more due to a disaster file for bankruptcy within a year, according to the National Archives & Records Administration in Washington.

A DRP is like a trekker’s contingency plan, with a comprehensive checklist that outlines the steps to take in case of a crisis.

What should be included in a Disaster Recovery Checklist

Disaster recovery plans often include a detailed checklist. Typical items on a DR checklist include recovery objectives, incident reporting, action response, and recovery procedures. The DR plan should consider your unique business needs and system vulnerabilities. It should be thorough and comprehensive to ensure your success.

As a result, you should employ a disaster recovery checklist that lays out the procedures you’ll need to do to cope with the crisis effectively.

The following items should be included in the disaster recovery plan checklist:

• Perform a risk assessment as well as a business impact analysis.
• Determine your rehabilitation goals.
• Assign roles and tasks to members of a disaster recovery team.
• Make a disaster recovery site.
• Be ready for a setback.
• Keep important documents in a secure area.
• Determine your equipment requirements.
• Make communication channels available.
• Procedures for dealing with disasters in detail
• Notify all relevant parties about the event.
• A disaster recovery plan should be tested and updated regularly.
• Choose the best disaster recovery plan depending on your requirements.

Plan your disaster recovery strategy

A successful disaster recovery plan follows a rigid procedure to rebuild systems that have experienced significant damage or are just too challenging to repair. The same strategy should be used to help define the checklists that give employees the instructions they need to rebuild critical systems in case of a catastrophe.’

You have two options: do-it-yourself disaster recovery (a less expensive but more error-prone approach) or partner with a backup and recovery service provider (reliable and effective option). To evaluate what will work best for you and your team, Protected Harbor considers every facet of your organization (e.g., the number of employees, the size of your IT infrastructure, the available budget, risk issues, and so on).

This leads right back to Protected Harbor’s four-point quick checklist. Are you experiencing slowdowns in connectivity? (If so, you may need more bandwidth.) Are you losing applications or entire systems? (If so, you may need more redundant assets.) Have you ever been breached? (If so, you probably need additional firewalls.) How often do you experience power outages? (If your answer is “too often,” you may need more backup power and generators.) These questions are just the start; Protected Harbor can help determine the answers to these and other questions –– putting you in the best possible position for avoiding disasters. Plan your disaster recovery strategy with us; contact us now.