As networks and devices become increasingly complex, more and more things can go wrong. As a result, disaster recovery plans have also become more complex.

Is yours good enough?

According to Jon William Toigo, the author of Disaster Recovery Planning, 15 or 20 years ago a disaster recovery plan might consist of powering down a mainframe and other computers, disassembling components, and drying circuit boards in the parking lot with a hair dryer. That’s because a disaster, in those days, was usually a fire that set off a company’s sprinklers.

Today, there are many more threats, including sabotage. Moreover, most companies’ IT systems are too large to be recovered using such a simple hands-on approach. Even if you could recover from a disaster in the manner Toigo recalls, you probably wouldn’t want to due to the downtime it would require—downtime that could have a significant financial impact.

Consider the case of Hurricane Katrina. When it slammed the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005, it wiped out the communications infrastructure of a whole region, uprooting 1,000 wireless towers and knocking down 11,000 utility poles. Many businesses were forced to shut down entirely—even critical ones, including 25 hospitals and 100 broadcast stations. But clients of such company did stay in business—by relocating to off-site facilities equipped with the computing power and backed-up data to keep systems and services online. Some even utilized 18-wheelers with servers and other office equipment inside.

Disaster recovery in the modern age is a detailed, step-by-step course of action for quickly getting back on your feet after a natural or manmade disaster. The details may vary depending on your business needs, and can be developed in-house or purchased as a service.

How prepared are you for disaster? Call us today for a review of your plan.

Most small businesses rely on technology but can’t afford reliable staff. That’s where we come in.

Focus on your business, we’ll handle the technology.

Sky Technology serves as an affordable, comprehensive and highly skilled IT Department for small to medium businesses. We specialize in creating information system stability for businesses without a full-time technical staff as well as overburdened technical groups that require additional expertise.

Philip here.  Apparently there’s a big issue involving the preference of Vampires versus Werewolves in movies (and the minds of teenagers) these days.  This feud is nothing new.  I’m familiar with similar trends from yesteryear (Star Trek versus Star Wars, Hot dogs versus Hamburgers, McDonalds versus Burger King, Dungeons & Dragons versus…well, everybody).

But there’s a one that’s been going on lot longer than all of these.

Data versus Information.  We often confuse one for the other (werewolves and vampires both have fangs, do wacky stuff in the night, and have *tons* of angst!).  But we run into trouble when we confuse them (I dare you to drive a stake into the heart of a werewolf…boy, will you be embarrassed!)

Data is just values that describe stuff.  It doesn’t become information until it’s actually useful.

Example…phone books (yeah, remember those?).  They include tons and tons of data…names, numbers, addresses.  But when you use one, you retrieve the information that you’re looking for.

Information is what comes out of using the data.

Data:  Phone book.

Information:  Name and phone # of nearby plumber that can fix the toilet.

Notice that there’s a process that’s undertaken that retrieves information from the data?

The challenge is when we look at the data and say “Wow, we’ve got all this data.  We’re really smart, and know what’s going on.”  If we never do anything with the data, it’s static.  Dormant.  Useless.

So, let’s say you’ve got a list of your Customers.  Cool.  That’s data.  And it includes when their last purchase was, what they bought, etc.  Yup, data again.

Now, let’s say “give me a list of customers who have not purchased from us, or whose total sales volume have gone down more than 50% in the past 6 months.  Now you’ve got a list that is useful…it tells you something!  That’s data, baby!

So here’s the problem.  It’s a lot easier to accumulate data.  And obviously, it’s a critical function, because you can’t have information without data.  And there are a lot of folks out there who think that a ton of data is useful.

And it can be.  But there has to be a process applied to it to get the information out of the data, that’s specific to a need (or a question).

So look at your organizations’ data.  And ask a critical question of your data.  How tough is it to get information out?  The tougher it is, the less valuable your data is.

This is something Sky Technology can help your company resolve.  Interesting proposition – coming from a ‘computer repair company’!  J I laugh because we have been called worse!

• If its out of warranty, its too old.

• If it lacks the features someone could be using, its too old.

• If a faster PC could increase productivity and thus profit for a business client, then the old one the employee is using is too old even if its a dual core 3.0 from two years ago.

A slow network or slow desktop can cost an employer several minutes per day per employee. $40 a day in lost productivity adds up quick. Then multiply that number by employee count, and then multiply that by 20 work days a month.

That is an eye opening experience.