Most business owners are familiar with the concept of IT Disaster Recovery (DR). Simply put, DR is the practice of creating redundant IT systems in geographically disparate locations, so that in the event of a disaster, those systems can still perform their key roles. This concept is not new and there are many options for businesses to implement a DR system.

Unfortunately, many companies are still without a system for DR. Organizations often treat the idea of DR as something that they will worry about when and if they are faced with a disaster. According to the Institute for Business and Home Safety, an estimated 25% of small businesses never re-open their doors after a disaster*. Lack of IT Disaster Recovery plays no small part in this statistic.

Larger businesses also lack adequate DR plans and systems. They choose to rely on a backup and recovery system that is often under-tested and requires a time-consuming restore process.

So why are businesses putting themselves at risk in this way? Oftentimes, it has to do with the way in which businesses view IT. Many business owners and decision makers see IT as a necessary evil that they have to deal with to run their business. They fear that vendors and consultants are trying to sell them more IT hardware and infrastructure than they really need. As a result, they approach purchasing new hardware and systems with a high degree of suspicion.

Disaster Recovery is NOT an insurance policy!

When it comes to Disaster Recovery systems, many businesses view it as a high tech insurance policy that will only be useful if an unlikely catastrophic event occurs. There are two problems with this analogy:

1. Viewing DR as the answer in case of an extreme event (i.e. hurricane, tornado, fire, etc.) ignores more common incidents that cause IT outages such as loss of power, loss of Internet connectivity and hardware failures. These events are not uncommon at all, but still have the effect of causing downtime and interruption in business.
2. Viewing DR as an insurance policy is problematic. Fire insurance, for example, will provide money to rebuild an office space after a fire, but it does not prevent interruption of day-to-day business operations. However, a quality DR Solution will keep the IT infrastructure running while the disaster is happening and as steps are being taken to recover.

It’s time for business owners to look at IT in a new way.

The reality is that a great many businesses are run on their IT infrastructure. They rely on email to communicate with vendors and customers; their accounting is all done on applications that reside on a server; and they often run on a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool or some other line of business application. Therefore, the question that business owners need to ask themselves is how integral are those applications to the running of their organization.

Determine the ROI of a Disaster Recovery Solution.

By understanding the value that business applications have to operations, the return on investment (ROI) of a Disaster Recovery solution can be determined.

Here’s how to do this:

1. Identify each critical process that the applications and services power (i.e. can transactions be processed without the line of business application?).
2. Understand the time and monetary impact that performing functions manually will have (i.e. what is the cost of running transactions manually for a week?).
3. Add the cost of lost opportunities if the applications are inoperable (i.e. how much will you lose if a customer can’t reach you by email?).

Once a company understands the value of IT services to their business, informed decisions about IT infrastructure can be made. In the case of Disaster Recovery, business owners and key stakeholders need to identify the cost of losing these services and invest in the correct infrastructure to avoid or minimize downtime. The value of any given system should determine how much we spend to ensure its availability or up-time.

As businesses refine how they look at IT Disaster Recovery, they will be able to make decisions to protect the investments they have made in their business by ensuring that critical systems remain available no matter what events may occur.

JEFFERSON ECKLES is the Business Process Manager at DP Solutions where he works to align DP Solutions’ operational procedures and technical competencies with client requirements and satisfaction. To learn more about IT Disaster Recovery click here or email sales@dpsolutions.com.

Sources:

*https://www.sba.gov/content/disaster-planning

Managed service providers (MSPs) are being leveraged as partners that can bridge the gap for complex integrations or end-to-end infrastructure management. As CRN recently revealed in their “Top Five Trends for Managed Services in 2014” article¹, companies are progressively turning to their providers to manage everything—from services, hardware, and everything else in-between.

The 24×7 Workplace and Downtime are at Odds

Coinciding with the big SMB managed services push is the evolution of the 24×7 business. Even if 9-5 is the standard allotted hours that most businesses abide by, work is being completed before and after those hours, and on weekends too. Commerce is constantly running around-the-clock.

From a competitive standpoint, if a business is unable to support operations at all hours,its chances for sustainability will take a hit. What’s the biggest threat standing in the way of continuous operations? Downtime.

The impact of downtime can lead to²:

• Revenue losses
• Impact to cash flow
• Productivity losses
• Compliance and/or reporting penalties
• Penalties and loss of discounts
• Impact to customers and strategic partners
• Employee morale and employee confidence in IT
• Damage to reputation and goodwill

For growing SMB organizations, the ability to prevent downtime is even more critical. They don’t have the resources or reputation of their enterprise counterparts to endure productivity setbacks. Their margin of error is razor thin. There are also service level agreements (SLAs) that many organizations have to adhere to in order to honor their agreements. Therefore, the services they choose to keep their data and network upright need to be comprehensive, resilient, and dependable.

The Evolution of Proactive Managed Services

To combat downtime, organizations are looking at ways to enhance their resiliency and improve recovery capability. Proactive managed services play a big role in this process. The idea behind proactive management of an IT environment is to quickly identify and remediate potential problems before they spiral out of control. These services are also a big aid to businesses that simply don’t have the manpower to monitor their IT networks at the same rate of consistency as a dedicated MSP.

In a proactive setting, organizations are not calling their service providers after an incident occurs. Instead, performance and capacity issues are handled upon detection as part of a systematic maintenance function. In some case, this could actually result in the service provider calling the SMB to inform them of a detected issue before an incident can occur.

This is a big development in the business world. Less time and money is being spent on rework. And ultimately, downtime can be largely controlled under the right IT management approach.

How Proactive Managed Services Support the 24×7 Business

For SMBs, the need for continuous up-time cannot be overstated. The stakes are even higher, as these businesses are expected to deliver services to their customers without any glitches. They are also competing with other organizations for power positioning in their respective markets.

Proactive managed services offer several valuable IT management advantages:

• Reduces the time that an IT staff spends fixing problems
• Problems are anticipated as opposed to reacted upon
• Automates labor-intensive processes and frees additional resources
• Mitigates downtime and ensures better SLA compliance
• Operating expenses (OpEx) can be decreased
• End users’ productivity is protected
• Cultivates a more strategic environment for broader business impact
• Increases confidence in IT Systems

Managed services can be a key differentiator to run a business with confidence. With a proactive approach to IT, potential issues can be resolved before they become disruptive. And by alleviating the routine checks, maintenance, and break-fixes, business personnel can actually innovate and advance their long-term goals.

REFERENCES:

¹CRN: http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/managed-services/300071926/top-five-trends-for-managed-services-in-2014.htm

²ZDNet: http://www.zdnet.com/quantifying-the-impact-of-downtime-7000019595/

By Jefferson Eckles, Data Center Engineer at DP Solutions

High Availability

The term High Availability has become popular with regard to information systems over the last few years. Simply put, High Availability (or HA) refers to systems that are designed to provide services that are accessible by their users without interruption.

Identifying Single Points of Failure and eliminating these failures by providing redundancies can be a challenge when designing an HA system. To account for maximum availability and uptime, it is necessary to automate the transfer of services from a failed resource to a redundant resource.

A Single Point of Failure can exist at many levels in a complex system; ranging from hardware failure, loss of network from a service provider or a software failure on a server. Redundancies must be addressed at each level to ensure High Availability. Hardware redundancies are a common best practice today and are already implemented by many organizations. However, many of these same organizations have not yet implemented solutions for Application Level availability.

Designing a High Available Environment

High Availability starts with a solid foundation: the infrastructure. Multiple redundancies for power, cooling and network connectivity need to be in place. A simple way to accomplish this is to host the environment in a datacenter that already has these provisions. Server hardware also needs multiple redundancies. To mitigate hardware as a single point of failure, a virtualization solution (VMware, for example) can be implemented. This will distribute the logical servers across several host servers and leverage a redundant Storage Area Network (SAN.)

Even with a robust and highly available infrastructure, downtime can occur for software and services within the environment. A well designed and healthy server still requires regular maintenance for security patching, updates to functionality and software upgrades. Since downtime and the possibility of software failure will always exist, it is necessary to implement High Availability at the Application Level for critical systems.

Exchange High Availability

Most organizations view email as a critical application. Fortunately, Microsoft Exchange 2010 has robust High Availability features built in. This technology is known as a Database Availability Group (DAG.) The DAG allows each mailbox database to operate independently of an individual server by replicating changes in near real time to a database copy on another server. Exchange’s Active Manager Technology monitors each server and determines, based on performance counters, the most desirable location for the active database. In the case of a server failure, Exchange leverages Microsoft’s Failover Clustering technology to ensure that the database copies are activated on the redundant server. Creating a single namespace for client access using a Client Access Server Array Object (CAS Array) will further improve availability. To protect against a complete site loss, a server can be placed in a geographically divergent datacenter and the DAG can be extended to that site.

Summary

High Availability requires careful planning and redundancies at many levels. As a trusted IT partner, DP Solutions can assist with planning, architecting and implementing a robust High Availability Solution for your organization. This includes a complete discovery of existing technologies, business processes and interdependence of services in order to design the correct solution. Implementation includes testing of systems to ensure a robust and highly available environment. Additionally, failover scenarios are documented to ensure minimal disruption to business continuity in the case of systems or infrastructure failure. To learn more about our High Availability solutions, contact your DP Solutions’ representative at 800.679.4377 or sales@dpsolutions.com.

GETTING MORE FROM REMOTE MANAGEMENT

When the continuous availability of your business workstations is a must-have, it’s not enough to merely fix problems as they present themselves. Even a few minutes of downtime can mean a costly loss of productivity. And what if a non-responsive workstation requires travel time for your IT service provider to make onsite repairs?

DP Solutions has introduced a more proactive approach to remote managed IT services that leverages the power of Intel vPro technology to connect with customers in real time and resolve issues immediately–sometimes before they even know a problem exists.

“With LabTech, we can perform proactive monitoring that makes us aware of problems before they become disruptive,” said Dave Nowicki, Technology Director at DP Solutions. “This enables us to proactively call a client to say we see log entries on their server that indicate there’s a problem and corrective action needs to be taken.”

DP Solutions uses customized remote monitoring and management (RMM) technology from LabTech Software. “The LabTech tool, integrated with Intel vPro technology, lets us manipulate workstations–especially when they’re not accessible through other means,” said Jefferson Eckles, Business Process Manager at DP Solutions. “LabTech in general adds to our ability to remotely monitor and manage, and Intel vPro technology extends that capability.”

A key feature of the LabTech/Intel vPro technology integration is its KVM Remote Control capability, enabling DP Solutions to assume remote control of an ailing workstation’s keyboard, video monitor, and mouse. “Other RMM systems can offer KVM capabilities as well,” said Eckles. “However, Intel vPro technology provides an important advantage: it can do so even when the workstation is powered down or totally inoperative, even providing remote boot capability. This is because Intel vPro technology runs below the OS at the hardware layer.”

KVM is especially valuable for typical service issues: customers who worry they have a virus, their program won’t launch properly, or they can’t get into file sharing.

“We’re able to connect remotely to them and see what they see,” said Eckles. “It’s as good as standing next to them and spotting the problem for ourselves.”

Automation is another important aspect of managed network services. LabTech allows configuration changes and software installs to be pushed out automatically and easily using powerful scripting technology. A new setting or configuration change can be written into a script and then pushed out to hundreds of workstations with the click of a button. Automation allows tasks to be
done quickly and effectively, ultimately saving clients time and money.

Intel’s integration with the LabTech product, as well as having greater control over the tool for its own service suite, persuaded DP Solutions to choose this management tool.

“With LabTech, we own the solution and can configure and customize it to exactly what our customers need,” said Eckles. “We are able to offer people what best fits their requirements.”

 

Download the full whitepaper

When your business is off the clock, are they really… off the clock? The reality is that today’s workforce is working around-the-clock. Organizations like DP Solutions need reliable IT management at all hours. Whether they have the internal resources to keep track of their business and IT environment is another story.

DP Solutions recently took a deeper dive into the subject of proactive managed services and how it can support the 24×7 business. Discover how managed services can help improve productivity and business sustainability in our latest whitepaper, Proactive Managed Services Elevate the 24×7 Business.

Proactive management enables businesses to:

• Minimize downtime
• Stay on top of emerging technology needs
• Tackle IT problems (big or small) before they start

Click here to download our white paper, Proactive Managed Services Elevate the 24×7 Business.

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In today’s world of computing power, end users are barraged by options. CRN, the leading media outlet for vendors and solution providers attempting to understand sales and service channels, selected the top MSPs in order to bring clarity to the decision-making process.

This year, CRN’s MSP500 is broken down into three groups highlighting the MSP Elite 150, who are large data center-focused solution providers with a strong mix of on-premise professional services as well as  off-premise services; the MSP Pioneer 250, who have a business model heavily weighted toward managed services focused on the small- and midsize-business market; and the MSP Hosting Service Provider 100, who own and operate their own data centers, providing a wide array of subscription-based outsourced services.

DP Solutions’ managed IT services offering, Confidence Plus, provides 24×7 network monitoring and management, as well as implementation and support to ensure clients’ networks run fast, efficient and remain up-to-date with the latest technologies to improve workforce productivity and minimize downtime. With data centers located throughout the United States, DP Solutions also offers cloud business services, managed backup & IT disaster recovery, mobile device management, and virtual CIO services.
“The managed services landscape continues to evolve rapidly as organizations are discovering they can impact both bottom-line and top-line growth,” said Robert Faletra, CEO, The Channel Company. “When it comes to strong managed services and off-premise solutions, these companies are the industry’s proven leaders, showing just how they can change the game for their customers and we congratulate them on their success.”

Coverage of the MSP500 will be featured in the February/March issue of CRN, and online at www.CRN.com.

About DP Solutions

With over 40 years of experience, DP Solutions serves as a trusted IT business partner to its clients. We provide innovative cloud business services, managed IT services, and availability solutions that give our customers the peace of mind that their businesses will run efficiently, effectively and securely. We are committed to excellence in our work ethic, in the products and services we provide, and in our relationships with our clients and communities. For more information, please visit, www.dpsolutions.com.

About the Channel Company

The Channel Company is the sales channel community’s trusted authority for growth and innovation, with established brands including CRN, XChange Events, IPED and SharedVue. For more than three decades, we have leveraged our proven and leading-edge platforms to deliver prescriptive sales and marketing solutions for the technology sales channel. The Channel Company provides Communication, Recruitment, Engagement, Enablement, Demand Generation and Intelligence services to drive technology partnerships. Learn more at www.thechannelcompany.com.

As we dive into the New Year, one thing is for certain—the cloud adaption and evolution rate will continue to rise. According to Gartner, more than half of IT budgets will be spent on cloud computing in the next few years. In addition, forecasters have labeled 2014 as the year “hybrid cloud grows up.” We will see more environments that feature both private and public cloud elements.

Download DP Solutions’ Cloud Timeline Infographic, Roadmap to the Cloud, to see how the cloud got to where it is today and take a peek at where it’s going!

By offering solutions that can be the end-all, cure-all for many businesses, we at DP Solutions have developed relationships with highly satisfied clients. We have set out to explain the needs and pains that often stunt company performance and growth. Based on conversations with our clients, we have drafted a series of blogs that answer important IT questions that many companies seem to be facing now.

As the office manager at a local chiropractic and wellness center, I wear many hats. I’m often tasked with researching new concepts and technologies that will enhance our practice. However, we are only interested in implementing new products, software, or solutions if we can see the return on investment.

As a manager of two offices, I feel the pull to be in two places at once. With rumors circling of a third branch opening, I knew we had to do something to improve communications between locations. The mobility of cloud technologies caught my attention.

The idea of being able to work from any location – even the coffee shop down the street – without having to install software on my personal laptop was a huge plus. Everyone in our company could essentially access practice information from anywhere, offering remote options that were never previously available to us.

Before we invested, we wanted to see if DPS WorkSpace held up to its glowing references and it went above and beyond our original expectations. We loved the calendar syncing tool. From my work desktop, to my smartphone and the practice’s tablets, our schedules were more organized than ever. It was easier to send out updates, and the nervous feeling that stemmed from having to be at multiple offices at once eased considerably.

Our staff found DPS WorkSpace was easy to use. Our productivity and effectiveness has improved dramatically through the enhanced, unified communication structures. My email and calendar are synced on all of my devices, for instance. We found DPS WorkSpace, which is built upon IBM’s powerful line of servers and storage, to deliver a reliable solution, and we would absolutely recommend it to other practices.

Interested in finding out what DPS WorkSpace and other cloud services can improve the mobile aspect of your business? Call on our DP Solutions experts, and ask about our complimentary cloud assessment!

We at DP Solutions have set out to explain the needs and pains that often stunt company performance and growth. We offer solutions that can be the end-all, cure-all for many businesses. After having a few discussions with our clients, we have drafted a series of blogs that answer important IT questions that many companies seem to be facing now.

Last year, I was charged with an almost impossible task by the head of the mid-sized non-profit organization that I work for. Budgets were coming in tight, and I needed to reduce overhead that was burdening the IT Department. In other words, I had the ultimate, yet common, CIO dilemma: cutting costs while simultaneously improving the speed and performance of the infrastructure as a whole.

My goal was to simplify our infrastructure without sacrificing performance. I found that quite a few CIO’s and IT Directors were cutting huge chunks of their budgets by starting to outsource mundane, time-consuming tasks, as well as tasks that required expensive specialists. Then, the question became what would I choose to outsource; how would I simplify?

I knew that we needed to make some major repairs and upgrades to one of our data centers. I then made the decision to outsource the data center’s work, eliminating the need to undergo an expensive and risky project while simultaneously saving our non-profit’s budget from additional cooling and power costs. This move also saved weeks – if not months – of planning, research, and design work. In the end, we were no longer supporting an inefficient and repair-consumed data center that suffered from constant downtime; instead, we were utilizing a faster, more synchronized system through cloud services.

By eliminating the need to perform the most basic and tedious tasks, we were able to reduce the strain on our already overburdened staff and focus on our mission statement. I discovered that we could outsource menial tasks – like installing new software onto the never-ending pile of computers, laptops, workstations, and mobile devices. We were also able to save considerably on capital expenses which brought us even closer to reaching our ultimate goal, which is to reallocate as much of our budget as possible to achieving our organization’s mission.

Worried that your data center is holding back business growth, or bleeding your budgets dry? Call on one of our DP Solutions experts and ask about our varied cloud managed service plans. Whether you’re looking to unload your entire IT system, or simply just a particular part, we have the plan that will simplify your IT life.

After having a few discussions with our clients, DP Solutions has drafted a series of blogs that answer important IT questions that many companies seem to face today. By taking the guise of a few memorable, fictional personas, we can interpret the needs and pains that often stunt company performance and growth. In doing this, we can offer solutions that cure these issues for many businesses.

I am the business owner of a full-service tax, accounting, and insurance firm, for over 40 years. As CEO, it is my responsibility to protect my company and the jobs of 75 employees. My last major battle over security occurred in regards to employees working from their personal devices.

Without the budget to provide tablets and other smart devices for all of my staff, it seemed like a good idea to allow them to bring their own. As a growing company, we needed a platform from which employees could securely access data outside of company walls. It never occurred to me that doing so could endanger our company’s data and security until one of my employees lost a tablet that contained private client information and sensitive documents.

I struggled to find a way to deal with this possible data breach and gave the order for my IT team to research solutions to counteract this potential disaster. The answer to our mobile woes – as well as a few other company-wide concerns – came in the form of cloud technology. With the cloud solution, we quickly implemented secure remote access company-wide.

In addition to our mobility goals, we were plagued with unreliable, aging infrastructure. It seemed like we were always replacing servers! Most importantly, my IT support staff was overworked with never-ending project lists. Luckily, at one of my networking groups, a peer mentioned that cloud services could enhance productivity and relieve IT staff of daily maintenance headaches.

With the flexibility offered by our cloud service provider, we were able to maintain our in-house IT Department, and outsource the facets of our IT that were no longer cost-efficient.  My company was also able to utilize our recently replaced e-mail server by incorporating an in house cloud solution.

Thanks to the cloud, we’ve solved our mobility and device management issues. I expected high returns on productivity from this move, and I have yet to be disappointed. We have eliminated unnecessary equipment and thereby decreased our energy costs. Through the cloud, our employees are able to access business data remotely – and securely. I’ve also seen an increase in confidence throughout the office, now that a good portion of our staff can do their jobs effectively when off-site. Our office is more productive, our budgets more predictable, and with the secure solutions offered by DP Solutions, I know my company information is safe.

Discover the benefits of cloud, and see what DP Solutions’ custom cloud services can offer your business! Call on our experts and schedule a complimentary cloud assessment today!