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.

How to Save your Business Through Backup and Disaster Recovery

The world is increasingly evolving and becoming connected globally. Ever since the inception of the internet, people and businesses have shared and stored their data online. This only means one thing, we have more to lose than ever before. It does not matter what type of business you operate, but your data and protection are vital for your business operations. Before you think that you do not need a data backup or a recovery plan, we would like to clarify a few points that are essential for your business survival:

1. People make mistakes
2. Software or hardware failure may result in the failure of primary data.
3. accidental deletion of data and malicious ransomware attacks may halt your business.

Hence several things are out of our control, and it is essential to have a recovery plan to avoid losing critical business data.

What You Can Do to Save Your Business from Losing Critical Data

1. Have a Disaster Recovery Plan (DR)

A disaster recovery plan is a set of rules and SOPs (standard operating procedure) on a formal document created by the organization. It entails all the details on tackling situations like cyber-attacks, power outages, any act of God, and other disruptive and unexpected events. Having a DR is vital for your business as it ensures that your business operations resume back to normal after an accident has caused an interruption. Without a DR, your company can suffer heavy financial losses, loss of reputation, and unhappy customers. A DR can help in the following ways.

• Control damage and financial loss
• Your employees become trained to tackle unexpected cyber security situations.
• There is a streamlined restoration process and the guidelines to restore and bring business on track.

2. Backup Validation

Backup validation is an integral part of the Disaster Recovery Plan, which allows you to test your backup protocols’ consistency and recoverability. Every data block retrieved from the backup is given a checksum via validation. The sole exception is file-level backups stored in cloud storage, which must be validated. The consistency of the metadata recorded in the backup is checked to ensure validity.

Validation is a time-consuming procedure, even for a tiny incremental or differential backup. This is because the operation verifies the data physically present in the backup and all of the information that can be recovered by selecting the backup. This necessitates access to backups that have already been produced. While successful validation indicates a high likelihood of recovery, it does not examine all elements that affect the recovery process.

It is vital to test backups and restore processes to check if they work. There is a chance that some backup archives are corrupt or damaged, which will hamper the restoration process. You must test the restore process; it helps learn about data recovery from backups should there be a disaster. The testing can also help you learn about real-life risks without losing the actual data.

3. Use Air-Gapped Backups to Isolate the data

An air gapping technique is one of the most popular backup strategies. At any given time, all your business’ critical data shall have a copy stored offline, which will be disconnected and inaccessible via the internet. Air gapping isolates data from unsecured networks or production environments, and they can be stored off-site.

4. In-house Data Recovery Solutions

Your business will greatly benefit from a data backup solution all in-house. It can be a physical server on or off-site. If data backups are on the cloud (online backup), they will take an ample amount of time to get restored, costing you time and money. Some IT companies deploy 10Gb pipe to hosts allowing them great flexibility, and they are never limited to their network. They are cost-effective for small size businesses. The data is also accessible without the internet, which is excellent as it allows access to data 24/7.

Choose your IT management partner carefully.

You must have an excellent IT management partner who can be available for your business 24/7. These IT partners must have the proper skill set, which is an essential first step to ensure your data remains safe and uncompromised. The responsibility to protect crucial business data is vast, and you must work with companies that provide you with excellent customer support. You never know when your data is attacked or compromised.

If you want to ensure your company has the necessary IT infrastructure in place to continue operating during and after a disaster, it’s crucial to partner with a reputable and reliable IT provider. Protected Harbor ensures your data is backed up and is continuously being monitored to ensure its integrity so that we’d be able to restore your data should it ever get lost or corrupted. By working with Protected Harbor, you can have peace of mind knowing that your business is protected, no matter what happens.

Above all, it is vital to have a backup plan. The strategies outlined in this article will help you to achieve that. Armed with the knowledge of how to recover your business after a disaster, you can be confident that your investors and employees will thank you. With Protected Harbor by your side, you will be better prepared for any eventuality, and in this case, that’s going to count for a lot. Contact us now.

What are DaaS providers?

DaaS is short for Desktop as a Service. It’s a cloud-based computing solution that gives you access to your desktop and remote working via the internet, regardless of where you are. As a result, third-party hosts provide one sort of desktop virtualization. A virtual desktop or hosted desktop service is another name for DaaS.

DaaS Providers

If you’re diving into cloud services to deliver your applications, a growing proportion of these apps may be hosted in the cloud. When your application needs storage, networking, and computing resources, you can host it yourself or with a service provider. But you might want to consider a third option: a DaaS provider.

DaaS providers allow on-demand access to infrastructure and app environments from a single provider, with lower costs than buying your own servers. They also provide services like load balancing, high availability, and disaster recovery if needed. In basic terms, DaaS service providers are organizations that provide desktop virtualization services as per your needs.

Why should you consider using a DaaS provider?

Data centers are a necessity in today’s digital world. But, with so many options and daas offerings, and different features, choosing the right one can be overwhelming. However, it is not hard to find the right one once you know what you want.

It can offer increased security for your managed desktop, servers and ensure your business continuity is never compromised. They can provide you with multi-factor authentication, 24/7 support, and the facilities to install a disaster recovery plan on-site. Many data centers have built-in backup power systems to keep your network running smoothly at any time of day.

Desktop as a service (DaaS) providers offer a wide range of hosted desktop solutions. Many can provide turnkey virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) implementations that support multiple users, but some also offer single-user desktops. Some providers offer additional services and management options, while others provide only essential software.

There are many reasons to consider using a DaaS provider:

• They can allow IT to focus on more strategic projects by taking over day-to-day tasks such as application and OS updates and patches.
• They can simplify the deployment of new desktops by reducing the need for manual configuration.
• They can reduce hardware costs through thin clients or zero clients.
• They can enable BYOD policies by allowing users to access their desktops from any device with an internet connection.

What are some of the benefits of using a DaaS provider?

There are numerous benefits of daas, making it an ideal solution for businesses. By adopting DaaS offerings and cloud desktop services, companies can enjoy improved scalability, enhanced data security, and simplified IT management. With DaaS solutions, businesses can seamlessly provide their workforce with flexible and secure desktop environments, reducing operational overhead and ensuring remote accessibility across various devices.

The most obvious benefit of a DaaS provider is the flexibility it allows your business. This can be particularly advantageous if you need to hire new staff quickly. You can add more desktops and operating systems whenever needed and remove them at short notice.

When you use a DaaS solution, you only pay for what you use, so there’s no need to worry about capital expenditure or over-provisioning.

The fact that desktops and operating systems are hosted offsite and accessed over the internet makes it easy for employees to work from anywhere — a definite plus in an era when remote working and cloud computing is becoming increasingly common.

Another benefit of DaaS solutions such as citrix virtual apps is that they’re easy for IT teams to manage, as the provider does all the work. The only maintenance required on your part is to keep client machines up to date and running smoothly.

Setting up a desktop virtualization solution using traditional methods can be expensive, so you may save money by using a service DaaS provider instead.

Who are the big players in the market?

Stability, security, mobility, and multi-factor authentication are all features to look for in a DaaS service provider. The following is a list of the Top Desktop as a Service (DaaS) providers in 2021:

• Amazon Web Services – workspaces
• Microsoft Azure – Windows Virtual Desktop
• Protected Harbor Desktop
• Citrix Managed Desktops
• VMware Horizon Cloud
• Cloudalize- DaaS

How to choose the best desktop as a service solution

Choosing the right managed desktop solution can be difficult. First, you should assess your business needs when deciding on the right DaaS platform. Consider whether you’re looking for a secure virtual desktop infrastructure vdi solution or need help with end-user support and remote working. Second, look into the solution’s scalability and ensure it fits your current and future IT requirements.

Finally, research the DaaS platform provider’s pricing structure and customer service to ensure that you get the best value for your budget. With this in mind, you should have no trouble finding the perfect desktop-as-a-service solution for your business so that you can leverage all benefits of daas.

Conclusion

Any of the players named above will not let you down. All of them are excellent DaaS providers. Ultimately, it comes down to which cloud services best satisfies your needs while focusing on the cost savings.

When you’re short on time and need to enable a vast workforce, it’s challenging to examine every DaaS service provider access and make an informed decision.

We leverage a unified data center in a DaaS solution like Protected Harbor Desktop to deliver desktop virtualization services to end-users over the internet, on their preferred device, and at their preferred time, and regular snapshots and incremental backups keep your essential data safe.

Protected Desktop is a cloud-based virtual desktop that provides a wholly virtualized Windows environment. Your company will incorporate highly secure with integrated multi-factor authentication and productive applications within DaaS by utilizing one of the most recent operating systems (OS). With our on-demand recovery strategy, we monitor your applications for a warning indication that may require proactive action.

Protected Harbor alleviates the problems that come with traditional, legacy IT systems. Another significant benefit of our high-quality DaaS solution is that it allows you to extend the life of your endpoint devices that would otherwise be obsolete. Set up your desktop; click.

IT lessons learned from the Covid-19 outbreak

The Covid-19 pandemic transformed the IT industry beyond the thoughts of our economies and societies.

It’s the end of the year 2021, and the world is still recuperating from the effects of the Covid-19 crisis that significantly impacted the technology sector. The Pandemic fluctuated the supply chain technology and came as an unusual shock.

The crisis transformed the lives of people around the globe digitally. We started being more dependent on technology than exposed. Now it’s almost two years, and the technology adoption we have seen is revolutionary.

At the pandemic’s beginning, companies opted for temporary solutions for their work and operations. A few months later, it was transparent businesses would need to find new ways to adapt for the long term. This started a rise in digitizing workplace applications and operations.

A recent pandemic news report by Mckinsey concluded that the Covid-19 pandemic brought about years of technology change and innovation in just a few months. Customer relationships and supply chains have been digitized, and internal operations have been moved to the cloud three to four years early. In the last few years, companies have multiplied their digitally enabled products in their portfolio by sevenfold.

Potential long-term impact on the technology sector

• Forecasts indicate that cloud infrastructure services and specialized software will be in demand. As organizations motivate employees to work from home, the telecom services and communications equipment market is also anticipated.
• IT departments and solution providers will play a more significant role in transforming businesses to digital. The need for reliable, secure, and flexible network systems is evident.
• Demand for cybersecurity software will increase 37% as companies need to secure endpoints, particularly from employees working from home on less-than-ideally secure Wi-Fi. With the increase in report work came a massive increase in attacks. Attacks from home computers connected over VPN are difficult to stop because a VPN is a trusted connection. Still, computers at home, even company computers, are difficult to keep clean from viruses and attacks when there are no corporate firewalls or other layers of protection.
• It’s proven that most employees would continue working from home even after restrictions are lifted. During the pandemic, we saw a productivity improvement. Studies show that during COVID, people worked more hours than they previously did when they worked in the office. The organizations must see this as a long-term impact and invest in creating a digitally sustainable environment. Read more here.

Practical next steps

Organizations across the country and from every industry reported a significant increase in customers’ and employees’ needs and remote working. We also saw a rise in advanced AI technologies in operations and business decision-making. Services such as DaaS, ransomware protection, and data centers are most likely to stay in the long term. After living through the impact of Covid-19 on technology and business, CIOs will be defined by their ability to respond, recover, and thrive.

Here are some practical next steps to make your business pandemic proof

• The rise in remote work and co-working spaces will push the need for Remote Desktops (RDP) so employees can take their desktop images of apps, documents, and folders anywhere. Therefore developing a budget for technology improvement and implementation to prepare your company for the future sounds like a plan.
• With a rise of remote workers comes a drop in in-office workers. Companies will be able to save on office space costs. The reduction in real estate also allows companies to reduce their hardware profile by switching from on-prem to off-prem servers and hosting. Besides saving physical space, off-premise servers are also secured and maintained by the provider.
• Flexibility is the key to innovation and understanding how disruptions can be minimized in future events. Because the shift will have long-term ramifications that no one can foresee, custom networking and server hosting are critical to gain the flexibility your company needs for whatever comes next.
• In the future, we will see a digitally enabled work environment and advanced tools for business processes, including back-end office functions. The Tech boom has advanced all technology integrations such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. Adapt and make use of technology for an edge over the competition.
• One of the most important steps is to make your infrastructure and technology sustainable and focus on mental health during pandemic. Because going digital is a new normal now, we are moving towards a highly technology-driven environment. Businesses have to be agile, which means understanding, changing, and adapting quickly to the environment. Consider a solution provider who spends time understanding your needs and provides customized solutions.
• If you are ready to migrate your data and applications to a protected cloud network and still own your data, you need to look past a traditional MSP and find a Managed IT infrastructure and design partner.

Take the final step

Post Covid-19 business IT priorities have changed. More than half of the business leaders say they invest in digitization and technology for competitive advantage, creating the entire business strategy. The needs of customers and your employees have become more digital, and as an organization, you must ensure the best of the services.

Remote work is no longer a culture of experimentation; it is a culture of necessity. The companies that invested in cloud technologies and figured out how to fit remote work into their processes were rewarded because the small work culture is here to stay long-term.

With businesses moving to virtual and cloud servers, it’s wise to opt for reliable, flexible, and secured data centers. And what’s even more brilliant is to take the help of one of the industry experts. Protected Harbor works with businesses to create personalized solutions. We keep your data on our internal servers with 99.99% uptime and 24×7 monitoring, ensuring you don’t crash and your team stays working. Remote work has left businesses vulnerable to malware and ransomware.

All Protected Harbor solutions employ custom-solution cyber security protocols to protect your business and your data. We made extra investments into air-gapped servers and triple-backed-up images, so your information is always on and always protected. Does your managed IT provider do that?

The importance of owning your remote servers and using a dedicated protected cloud.

If you’re a business owner, then there’s a good chance this question must have crossed your mind to own your equipment and servers. Just remember, “owning” your equipment doesn’t mean the computers and systems in your office. Likely, you are already using a hosting web service or server for your business needs. After carefully considering your unique business needs, it would be best if you decided between onsite or off-site servers. Read along, and we’ll make the decision easy for you.

Onsite servers to Off-site servers; The trend

In 2021 more than 50% of the organizations moved their workloads to off-site or cloud servers. Managed service companies (MSPs) and value-added resellers (VARs) are gaining traction with their one size fits all solutions. Keeping an onsite physical server and equipment and maintaining the infrastructure is costly. But there are other reasons motivating businesses to move to an off-site setting.

• Onsite hosting has limited connectivity and accessibility than off-site hosting, which has unlimited capabilities.
• Remote and geographic expansion are more realistic in an off-site and cloud environment.
• The physical space of onsite housing servers incurs real estate and energy charges; off-site servers do not.
• Storing your data in a colocation datacenter is cost-effective, removing the need for in-house IT costs.
• The upfront costs of the physical equipment and server are significant for most businesses.

These technology barrier costs are causing the shift to datacenter solutions or dedicated off-site servers. Put, a datacenter solution or dedicated server is an option dedicated solely to your business needs and purposes. No other individual can access the server; it’s your data in our datacenter.

A closer look at AWS servers

The most popular dedicated off-site solution is Amazon web services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platforms. But how do you choose what’s best for your business? They all follow the pay-per-user approach and additional services and products needed over time, adding to costs as you grow.

Since AWS dominates the field, we will focus on just Amazon’s platform. The first thing to consider is that “You want solutions, not a platform.” For example, Office365 is a solution to edit and create documents, while Microsoft Azure is the cloud platform that hosts 365 and other programs online. Thus Amazon is a platform – not a solution. Amazon gives you cloud space for rent, with unpredictable costs as your business needs rise and fall.

You will not see an automatic performance improvement when you move your company’s workflow and applications into AWS. For that, you would need a dedicated protected-cloud environment and an intelligent, distributed database. Just hosting your applications on AWS does not mean you will have the ability to use those programs and computing resources efficiently. You have to meet AWS system requirements; AWS does not have to meet yours. If you want data backups and recovery, you have to do it yourself.

With AWS, Azure, and other popular server options, you only get a Virtual Machine (VM) and a console to work from. It is your responsibility to manage, maintain, and secure that VM. For example, with AWS, someone has to customize the CPU utilization limits, check to ensure the Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volume doesn’t hit the IOPS or throughput limits, and increase your read or write performance using parallelization. It sounds like more of a problem than a solution

Also, it has been proven that AWS cloud is not as secure as your datacenter. The world JUST experienced an AWS outage, interrupting the operations for thousands of people and loss of business downright. Not only do you lose flexibility and cost-effective scalability with AWS and Azure. But you lose the reliability and stability you thought you were getting with the Amazon and Microsoft name.

The bottom line is if you work with GPU, AI, or large data sets, you need someone to manage and personalize your IT infrastructure. Moving to a dedicated protected cloud solution lets you customize the server environment to improve AWS.

What is the alternative?

With a dedicated protected cloud, someone constantly monitors your private environment to make sure everything goes smoothly and is customized to the company’s requirements. Actual IT management means knowing when to optimize the storage and network layers to support your extensive data set. Unlike AWS and Azure who will slow down your traffic moving between VM’s –unless you pay additional fees – we can help optimize applications to respond to requests made to these large data sets in a remote environment, with no extra cost.

Before anything, we always have an expert examine the applications a business uses, how exactly employees use those applications in a daily workflow and finally review the data loads involved to figure out what needs to be done to make this run properly. Having a team that understands and develops personalized Technology Improvement Plans (TIP) gets your business more bang for the buck than AWS or on-prem.

This is the gist of overall performance, Bottom line? You want to opt for a service that offers 99.99% uptime with reliable IT support. We improve the environment to give you the best performance for your workload. Not the opposite way around. For example, for a single client, we don’t have to tune the S2D. But we do because we have it and want to give them the best performance possible.

Check out our post on how dedicated servers are a safer alternative. But that doesn’t mean you are 100% safe from attackers. To ensure the safety of the data, consider providers with built-in features like Application Outage Avoidance (AOA) and complete network monitoring to handle issues before they are critical…

So, despite all of the above facts, if you’re still crazy enough to go with AWS cloud, that’s your decision. Irrespectively, if you’re not terrified by the lower and fixed price complete solution, best infrastructure setup and system monitoring, or our team doing the magic for your business, in that case, we at Protected Harbor will be more than happy to give you all the solutions you need.

Are virtual servers more secure and protected than physical ones?

In 2022, cloud data centers will process 94 percent of all workloads. It will dominate the workload processing and supersede non-cloud data centers. Thus, if you’re planning to migrate to a cloud server, this article will assist you in your decision.

Are the physical servers a thing of the past? Not long ago, people feared a future of thronging data centers covering the globe. While that sounds exaggerated, spatial concerns have always been a critical part of any information center or server room. Owing to virtualization, the development of physical infrastructure slowed within the last decade.
As more organizations benefit from virtualization, virtual servers are already becoming a vital component of the modern hybrid ecosystem.

Businesses and service providers are choosing virtual servers over physical ones due to several advantages, including:

• Reduced costs and overhead expenses
• Better scalability as new virtual servers can be created as per need
• Recovery and backup features for a fast and reliable restoration
• Technical support from the virtual server hosting provider for setup and maintenance.
• Ease of installing updates and software to several virtual servers

Is it true that virtual servers are less exposed to threats?

It’s not that virtual servers are less secure than the other servers. In many ways, virtual servers are more secure than physical servers because they depend upon a single-host server and are more isolated.
Each virtual server has its OS (operating system) and configuration, which may or may not be according to the benchmarks set by the parent company. Every one of these servers must be patched and maintained the same way other server does to keep up with the potential vulnerabilities.

The rise in virtualization has yielded a significant vulnerability. Gartner released a study that concluded that many servers being virtualized are less secure than their physical counterparts. So, using virtual servers has its benefits and leverages, but when security is concerned, at a minimum, organizations must have the same type of monitoring as physical systems.

Servers enable you to control and distribute the information and secure and protect the information. Servers can be distinguished into three main types:

• Physical server
• Virtual server
• Cloud server

Physical server

These are the dedicated servers that use the standard components including processor, memory, hard drive, network, and operating system (OS) for running applications and programs, also called Traditional or ‘bare-metal servers. ‘ These servers are mostly single-tenant which means a single server is dedicated to a specific user.
The pros of having a physical server are that it is dedicated, unshared, and can be customized to serve a specific purpose. The obvious disadvantage is that it’s expensive and space required to set up the infrastructure.

Virtual server

A virtual server is like renting out space on a physical server off-site, similar to AWS. They have the same efficiency as a physical server but not the fundamental biological machinery. A virtual server is cost-efficient and provides faster resource management. Multiple virtual servers can be created from a physical server with a hypervisor or container engine.
Cost reduction, less operational expense, and scalability are the most significant benefits of server virtualization. The drawback, however, is that the upfront investments might be expensive for the software licenses and servers. Also, not all applications and servers are virtualization friendly.

Cloud server

A cloud server is a centralized server resource built, hosted, and delivered through a cloud computing platform over the internet and can be accessed on demand by multiple users. It can perform all the functions of a typical server, delivering storage and applications.
A cloud server may also be referred to as a virtual server or virtual private server.
Cloud servers provide ease of accessibility, flexibility, customization and are cost-efficient. While network dependency, security, and technical issues are some of the cons that a reliable data center management company can handle.

Physical vs. Virtual vs. Cloud servers, Which is right for your business?

Each type of server serves its purpose and delivers according to the business’s needs. Still, there are several factors to consider when deciding on the exemplary service for you: budget, performance requirements, data security, space, environmental control, workload, and data type.
As the world is rapidly moving toward the cloud- lifting all applications and information, larger enterprises are quickly leading the approach and virtualizing.

The past decisions to move servers into the cloud, either in virtual servers or colocation environments, become intelligent decisions for most companies. The primary benefits of switching to cloud servers are:

• Affordability- since third-party providers manage cloud servers, it is far less expensive than owning your infrastructure.
• Scalability– cloud servers respond quickly, scaling up and down to meet demand or any data storage needs.
• Convenience– users can access the data from anywhere, anytime, and can be easily managed through a single API or control panel.
• Reliability– since the cloud runs on numerous servers in a managed environment, service continues even if one component fails. It can efficiently deliver the same performance as a dedicated server.

But the reality is, even in today’s world, there is still a use of physical servers. And the decision-making should be done by considering the factors above.

Protected Harbor among the top virtual hosting companies

As a top virtual hosting company, Protected Harbor has accomplished exceptional reliability, stability, and durability with its Datacenter management service. Eliminating the causes of failures, we have achieved 99.99% uptime for our systems. We provide an unmatched service over any other provider with features like application outage avoidance (AOA), proactive monitoring, and technology improvement plan (TIP).
To know more about switching to a cloud server and the migration process, consult our experts; click here.