WHY IS 99.99% UPTIME IMPORTANT?

WHY IS 99.99% UPTIME IMPORTANT

 

WHY IS 99.99% UPTIME IMPORTANT?

 

Today, businesses of all sizes have grown more reliant on their technology and no business, no matter the size wants to see their systems or site offerings offline – even for a few minutes.  This is why uptime has become vital.  For many companies, uptime is not a preference, it’s a necessity.

Uptime is important because the cost and consequences of downtime can cripple a business, however, no business in any industry can guarantee absolute perfection. Even with tremendous precautions and redundancies in place, systems can fail.  Natural disasters or other mitigating factors out of our control that may require a quick re-boot can’t always be predicted or prevented.

In order to evade debilitating periods of downtime, businesses must employ the most current technologies, designed with uptime in mind, or utilize a managed service provider well versed in the latest technology and long term solutions.

It is no secret that businesses look for 99.99% uptime.  If this percentage seems unrealistic, the additional decimals make a huge difference. The reality is that .1% of downtime is an unacceptable percentage for most companies.  When businesses encounter downtime, they cannot provide services to their customers.  Customers have short memories and as a result, may be tempted to take their dollars elsewhere if they cannot get what they want in a timely manner.

Not only is losing customers disastrous, but productivity can suffer as well.  This is never a good combination.  The average cost of downtime across businesses of all sizes and all industries is around $5,600 per minute.

When a customer selects a company, they need to trust that they are working with a professional and capable organization. Not being able to access a company’s website or employees telling customers they cannot help them at the moment they called does not ensure shopper confidence. This damage can be irreversible to a business’s reputation.

Given that the consequences of downtime are so costly, it’s easy to understand why achieving near-perfect uptime is so important. In order to completely avoid all of the costs and consequences associated with downtime, businesses need to be aiming for uptime of at least 99.99%. While these consequences may seem a bit disheartening, the good news is that there are ways to avoid them. Get connected to our data center and solve your issue.

Protected Harbor helps businesses across the US address their current IT needs by building custom, cost-effective solutions.  Our unique technology experts evaluate current systems, determine the needs then design cost-effective solutions. On average, we are able to save clients up to 30% on IT costs while increasing their security, productivity and durability.  We work with many internal IT departments, freeing them up to concentrate on daily workloads while we do the heavy lifting.  www.protectedharbor.com

Keep Your Business Running – Prepare for The Worst

Keep Your Business Running – Prepare for The Worst

Since the face of how we do business has changed because of COVID-19, businesses should think about (and hopefully prepare for) cyberattacks and security breaches. Having a disaster recovery plan in place to restore critical information is a good place to start.  However, in these times this is simply not enough.

This is why it’s important to have a 360 business continuity plan ready.

Here are some devastating facts from Bureau of Labor, PC Mag, Gartner, Unitrends and TechRadar:

  • Every year, 20% of businesses experience system loss from events such as fires, floods, outages, etc. These types of occurrences not only result in loss of data, but they displace employees and shatter operations
  • 60% of companies that lose their data will shut down within 6 months
  • Only 35% of Small Businesses have a comprehensive disaster recovery plan in place, according to Gartner
  • The cost of losing critical applications has been estimated by experts at more than $5,000 per minute
  • Network downtime costs 80% of small and medium businesses at least $20,000 per hour

If these facts are not enough to ensure a business continuity plan is in place, then you are rolling the dice in a game you will not win.  It is not a matter IF something will happen its WHEN.

A business continuity plan creates a means of keeping your business operational during a crisis. In addition, the plan should include protocols for your devices, communication channels, office setup – including employees, and more.

If you’re currently experiencing unexplained system slow-downs, unexplained outages and trying to maintain normal computer functions, then your system needs definite attention, and you probably don’t have a continuity plan in place. It’s not too late to start, but understand it’s going to take some time and effort but the end result will be invaluable.

This is where Protected Harbor can help. We deliver end to end IT solutions ranging from custom designed systems, data center management, disaster recovery, ransomware protection, cloud services and more.  On average, we save clients up to 30% on IT costs while increasing their productivity, durability and sustainability.  Let our unique technology experts evaluate your current systems and design cost-effective, secure options.

With us, you can be sure your systems will run during a crisis.  Contact us today to find out more.  www.protectedharbor.com

What Does the Average Company Pay for Downtime?

What Does Downtime Cost the Average Business banner

 

What Does Downtime Cost the Average Business?

 

One bad experience is all it takes to rattle a business owner. Infrastructure matters and when your system or applications crash. It can have an enormous impact on your bottom line not to mention your business operations.  Monetary and data losses from unexpected crashes can even, in some cases cause a company to close its doors permanently.

According to an ITIC study this year, the average amount of a single hour of downtime is $100,000 or more.  Since 2008, ITIC has sent out independent surveys that measure downtime costs. Findings included that a single hour of downtime has risen by 25%-30%.  Here are some staggering results:

  • 98% of organizations say a single hour of downtime costs over $100,000
  • 81% of respondents indicated that 60 minutes of downtime costs their businesses over $300,000
  • 33% of those enterprises reported that one hour of downtime costs their companies between $1-5 million

The only way to mitigate risk is to be proactive by having the right technology in place to monitor, prevent, and when an attack happens (and it’s not IF but WHEN), having the right company on hand to restore, rebuild and restart. Once you understand the real-life costs of downtime it should not be hard to take proactive measures to protect your business.

Protected Harbor has a full team of technical experts and resources to maintain your system’s well-being and ensure business continuity. Contact us today for a full assessment of your applications and infrastructure.  www.protectedharbor.com

The S. Hekemian Group Success Story

The S. Hekemian Group Success Stories

Protected Harbor Helps Hekemian Group Overcome Server & ISP Challenges

Protected Harbor was hired to manage servers, ISP and more for nationwide real estate developer, The S. Hekemian Group.

PROTECTED HARBOR QUICKLY JUMPED IN TO PROVIDE 24/7 MONITORING

Protected Harbor Helps Real Estate Developer Overcome Server & ISP Challenges

Nationwide real estate developer, The S. Hekemian Group, contracted Protected Harbor to take over the management of its servers and ISP.

Sharon McGuire is an executive administrator at The S. Hekemian Group, and while she understands the company’s servers and software, she needed an IT team to help her set up and monitor both on a full-time basis. The S. Hekemian Group is one of the country’s most stable property owners and developers, with a highly selective portfolio of luxury residential, office, and mixed-use properties throughout the United States. While the real estate group has certainly built its reputation, they were lacking in their IT department.

Once McGuire contracted Protected Harbor, after being referred from another trusted vendor, she began to see the expertise of their staff with the de-installation and new installation for their main office relocation as well as the build, upgrade and maintenance of servers in other satellite offices.

Protected Harbor was also able to set-up server access for all of the S. Hekemian Group’s employees. Employees have access to servers via other means, including laptops, and if ever there is a problem, a ticket is placed to the Protected Harbor help desk and someone contacts them immediately.

McGuire also noted the ease of the Protected Harbor ticketing system for everyone in the company to use directly from their computer or laptop.

 

Another big problem identified when they began working with Protected Harbor, was the group’s lack of a reliable Internet Service Provider. Protected Harbor quickly jumped in to provide 24/7 monitoring of the fluctuating service provided by Hekemian’s ISP.

“Protected Harbor knows when I am down before I even know. I get a notification as soon as we are down, and another one as soon as they have us back up, so a lot of stuff is taken care of before we know it’s even a problem,” said McGuire.

Being a nationwide real estate developer, McGuire said the company has to keep its various software, from accounting to construction, up to date. The company relies on the expertise of Protected Harbor technicians and the company leadership to make sure they have the back-end capacity to house any new software they are considering.

“Protected Harbor handles a lot of stuff that other tech companies won’t or are not capable of,” said McGuire. “They ask all the right questions on our behalf to make sure we make the right choices when purchasing new software, which saves me an incredible amount of work and time so I can focus on other things for the company.”

Protected Harbor runs a daily back up of the company’s servers and makes sure the server is compatible with their software.

McGuire counts on Protected Harbor at all times – day or night – and remembers being in close contact with them during a major storm affecting their main office.

“If you surround yourself with good people, it makes your job a lot easier,” said McGuire. “Protected Harbor is tremendous; they really are tremendous.”

Ashar Success Story

Ashar Success Stories

PROTECTED HARBOR IMPLEMENTED BETTER TECH SECURITY & SOFTWARE
Since ASHAR started working with Protected Harbor, the school has grown from 300 to over 500 students.

With the Help of Protected Harbor, Private School Grows Student Base

New York K-8 private school, ASHAR, grew their student base from 300 to 500+ by implementing better tech security and easy to manage software for staff and students.

David Katznelson is the Executive Director at ASHAR, a K-8 private school in New York. The school needed to update its entire structure from their school’s WIFI network to the individual devices students were using during lessons, and Protected Harbor was the right fit.

With Protected Harbor on board, the school updated from tablets to wireless Chromebooks so students could access their work more securely and easily.

Protected Harbor integrated the new technology with the school’s system seamlessly.

“Every day, a teacher comes in, picks up a rack of Chromebooks and takes them to his or her classroom for the lesson. This would not have been possible without the help of Protected Harbor who manages all users and the Google domain,” said Katznelson. “They can turn on any features we’re are not familiar with and help us make each student’s experience the best.”

This helped the school improve engagement and scoring for their existing students and served as a perk for new student recruitment and enrollment.

“Because they work with other schools, they are able to guide us and tell us to do what’s best for the students which is invaluable.”

In just a short time after working with Protected Harbor, ASHAR’s entire IT infrastructure was updated.

Protected Harbor rebuilt the school’s subnet. The way the infrastructure was laid out prior prevented ASHAR from scaling seamlessly in line with the growth of student admission.

So Protected Harbor figured out and implemented a way to solve all these problems.

Protected Harbor reconfigured all WIFI hot spots throughout the campus and worked on all four of the school’s main servers, correcting all identified problems. Prior to this, there were lots of slowdowns and limited WIFI access in some areas of campus. Now, there are hot spots in every classroom, no dead zones or service interruption when traveling throughout the campus.

“This is a company that will do whatever it takes so your bottom line can improve,” said Katznelson. To get us up to par and to straighten out our issues, Protected Harbor technicians spent almost 72 hours here!”

Now, ASHAR’s servers are even faster and with much less downtime.

Protected Harbor updated ASHAR to virtual machines as doing so fit their model, and now with proper backups, server down time is limited.

ASHAR keeps Protected Harbor on staff 24/7 with their ongoing tech support. They have remote support available to all office and teaching staff and continue to find the best and safest technology for ASHAR’s students.

“Protected Harbor stays on top of the IT industry and remains knowledgeable as the world progresses,” said Katznelson. They have helped us function more efficiently in servicing our customers, which are students.”

HARC Success Story

HARC Success stories

PROTECTED HARBOR ENSURES HARC’S 500+ EMPLOYEES ARE ALWAYS UP & RUNNING
Protected Harbor Helps Strengthen & Grow Company that Serves Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities

Non-profit organization, HARC, Inc. contracted Protected Harbor and saw its IT challenges dwindle as Protected Harbor started taking a more proactive approach to keeping the company’s systems up to date.

Gregory is the COO at HARC, a non-profit that serves individuals with intellectual disabilities. He recently inherited the task of overseeing the company’s IT department and needed a partner like Protected Harbor to be successful.

Prior to working with Protected Harbor, HARC’s IT department was reactive in dealing with any IT issues. The company’s system was failing; with down email and Internet problems. After starting their working relationship with Protected Harbor, HARC quickly saw that having an IT service provider with a team who is constantly monitoring and available through an on-call system and call center, made their day-to-day operations much more effective.

What is a good NPS Score

What is a good NPS score?

 

Net Promoter Score
Protected Harbor Gets World Class Net Promoter Score

A recent survey completed by Protected Harbor clients yielded exceptional results in satisfaction.

The survey calculated Protected Harbor’s Net Promoter Score (NPS), which takes the percentage of promoters (good feedback) and subtracts the percentage of any detractors. Protected Harbor’s final score was 78 which is considered world class.

This is how the NPS classifies the scores. Given the NPS range of -100 to +100, a “positive” score or NPS above 0 is considered “good”, +50 is “Excellent,” and above 70 is considered “world class.”

Each customer was asked to rate the company on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the most, on how likely they are to recommend Protected Harbor to a colleague.

The survey also allowed customers to give feedback with their score, and here’s what some of them had to say about Protected Harbor’s IT services and customer service.

Protected Harbor is proud of this accomplishment and the great response and feedback received by customers. Being considered “world class” in customer satisfaction and service is what all businesses wish they could achieve.

Protected Harbor offers businesses and organizations nationwide IT services including ransomware and network security protection, network management, IT service management, 99.99% uptime and cloud computing.