Data Security in the Cloud: A Deep Dive into Cloud Backup

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Predictive AnalyticsCloud backup, also known as online backup or remote backup, is a data protection strategy in which a business or individual copies their data to a remote server hosted in a data center. This process involves regularly backing up critical files, databases, applications, and other digital assets to a secure and off-site location over the internet. The primary purpose of cloud backup is to ensure that data is securely stored and can be easily restored in case of data loss, disasters, hardware failures, or other unforeseen events.

Data Protection and Redundancy

Cloud backup provides an extra layer of data protection by creating redundant copies of your data in multiple geographically dispersed data centers. This redundancy minimizes the risk of data loss due to hardware failures or local disasters, such as fires, floods, or theft.

Accessibility and Availability

Cloud backup services offer high availability and accessibility. Your data can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection, allowing for remote work, disaster recovery, and business continuity.

Automated and Scheduled Backups

Cloud backup solutions typically offer automated and scheduled backup options. This means you can set up a backup schedule that suits your business needs, ensuring that data is consistently and reliably backed up without manual intervention.

Scalability

Cloud backup services are scalable, meaning you can adjust your storage capacity as needed. As your business grows and generates more data, you can easily expand your backup storage space without the need for significant hardware investments.

Cost-Efficiency

Cloud backup eliminates the need for on-premises hardware and maintenance costs associated with traditional backup solutions. You pay for the storage and services you use on a subscription basis, making it a cost-effective option for businesses of all sizes.

Security and Encryption

Reputable cloud backup providers prioritize data security. They typically employ strong encryption methods to protect your data during transmission and while it’s stored in their data centers. This helps ensure the confidentiality and integrity of your data.

Disaster Recovery

In the event of data loss, cloud backup allows for swift and efficient disaster recovery. You can restore your data quickly, minimizing downtime and potential losses to your business operations.

Compliance and Regulations

Many industries and regions have specific data retention and compliance requirements. Cloud backup solutions often offer features that help businesses meet these regulatory obligations by securely storing and managing data.

Versioning and File Recovery

Cloud backup services often offer versioning and file recovery features, allowing you to recover previous versions of files and restore specific files or folders to a specific point in time.

Focus on Core Business Activities

Outsourcing your backup needs to a reputable cloud provider allows your IT team to focus on core business activities rather than spending time and resources managing backup infrastructure.

Cloud backup is a crucial component of modern data management and protection strategies for businesses. It provides a secure, scalable, cost-effective, and reliable way to safeguard data, ensure business continuity, and comply with data retention regulations.

If you would like more information about Cloud Backup and Storage solutions for your business, fill out the form on this page and someone will get back with you or call us at 314-492-2506.

Assigning Priorities to Your Upcoming IT Upgrades

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No matter how much a company spends on technology and equipment, those solutions are not meant to last forever and have an anticipated lifecycle. Even after significant investments in technology in your organization, you may have noticed that those solutions are no longer as effective as they once were. Competitors are leveraging new technologies to better serve their clients and you’re getting left in the dust. Sounds like it might be time to implement some upgrades.

As a result, it’s critically important that you plan your IT modernization activities using at least one of these principles.

Simplify & Streamline the Design

In many cases, older IT solutions are a mixed menagerie of various technologies, frequently designed with a very simple modular focus – one or two processes can be accommodated, but only as long as the focus of the business does not shift.

Modern IT solutions are systems that are primarily engineered on standardized components and languages, so that they can be easily leveraged to use application programming interfaces (or APIs) in order to facilitate multiple processes running at the same time. In addition, modern IT networks and solutions can be used to implement advanced processes, like artificial intelligence and machine learning. These capabilities allow employees to service customers more easily, improving customer satisfaction and enhancing employee skills, by exposing them to advanced IT technologies.

Prioritize Employee Benefits and Added Value

One of the most significant benefits of any modernized IT network is the improved value that network users will experience due to upgrades and investments being made. With the latest in network solutions, your business can now deliver a level of customer service by leveraging the solutions that are available to you through a modernized network solution.

Automation is a large part of this because if you aren’t reducing the number of tasks that your employees need to complete in order to grow your company, you may find it difficult to improve their productivity. For this reason, it’s important that your IT products and solutions provide value to your employees that also translates into operational benefits for the business.

Adhere to Company Culture

When developing the IT technology upgrade policy that will best grow your company, it can be helpful to understand how that technology will fit into your organization’s culture. At the same time, you must also ensure that your staff is prepared to implement the changes you’re making across the IT environment. One part of the upgrade should stipulate that you communicate the changes up front, along with your expectations that they will be implemented.

It will also help to rely upon those employees who are most receptive to the changes, who will fully utilize the upgrades and can be considered a source of valuable information should others in the business require assistance. Are there any problems or issues of which management is unaware? Utilizing these receptive employees to understand the culture within your business will help to inform future decisions on technology enhancements and upgrades.

If you’d like more information on planning and upgrading your IT network, we invite you to fill out the form on this page and someone will get back in touch with you soon.

What Is Business Continuity Planning?

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It’s not just your data, it’s your business

Business Continuity is all about reducing the impact of a catastrophic data loss. Sure, you can restore individual files, but the ability to restore an entire server or the environment in the cloud in minutes, so you can reduce the impact of a catastrophic loss – that’s where the real value is.

WheelHouse Solutions has two levels of business continuity. Both share similar benefits such as local and cloud storage of your backup images and the ability to recreate your environment, in the cloud, in case of a catastrophic disaster. Our premium level business continuity solution utilizes a local appliance that allows for the quickest possible recovery time, for when seconds count.

How Does the Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) Appliance Work?

  • The BDR software periodically creates image-based backups of the backed-up server at pre-configured intervals (Usually every 15 minutes)
    The backup images are automatically backed up locally to the on-site BDR appliance.
    The backup images are then transferred automatically to the WheelHouse Solutions Storage Cloud.

Accidental File Deletion

In addition to full images, it can recover individual files, folders, and Exchange items (emails, attachments, mailboxes) in moments.

Server Hardware Failure

The on-site BDR appliance is leveraged for on-site virtualization of the impacted servers which allows restoring full operation to the business within minutes.

Catastrophic Fire or Flood

Multiple recovery options exist. One such option is the WheelHouse Solutions Continuity Cloud which allows servers to be virtualized, in WheelHouse Solutions’ cloud, for continued business operations even in the face of total disasters.

WheelHouse Solutions provides Business Continuity Planning to all types of businesses. We invite you to click here or call us at 314-492-2506 to request additional information about our Business Continuity Planning services. We’ll work with you to develop a solution that will meet your needs now, as well as provide for future growth and flexibility.

Microsoft Project Online Increases Collaboration and Productivity Throughout Your Business

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Microsoft Project Online is simple and flexible solution for project portfolio management (PPM), and other various forms of internal and external work processes. It works through Microsoft 365, and provides teams with the ability to plan, prioritize, and manage projects and other portfolio investments, from practically any device. It can be easily accessed by administrators, portfolio managers and viewers, team members, and project/resource managers.

Project Online is simple to use because of integrated, useful functionality provided by the application. Portfolio values can increase, through tools provided, allowing users to strategically evaluate project portfolios and make strategic decisons based upon the data. The program offers tools for time and task management, scheduling, and resource assignments, all of which allow employees to easily cllaborate and track progress. Visualizing data, to gain insight from projects, programs and portfolios, can be done through built-in reports and BI tools.

Collaboration between employees can be easily accomplished with the use of Project Online, as well. Skype for Business and Yammer work seamlessly with Project Online, which allows for more team participation. These integrated communication tools allow users to work together using video chat, voice chat, or instant messaging, within a project. Different teams can also submit project ideas with Office programs such as Outlook and SharePoint, so that a portfolio can be influenced by all different types of employees within an organization.

Project Online also includes powerful features such as point-and-click reporting capabilities and summary dashboards, that allow users to gather immediate insight about the portfolios. Project resources can even be consolidated into a single view, so that resource managers can compare other resources, across standardized data. In terms of resources, the Resource Engagement feature allows resource managers to respond to resource requests, based on availability across a portfolio.

Visual tiles provide easy navigation of the Microsoft Project & Portfolio Management functionality, allowing employees to quickly identify the important steps for managing project portfolios. And becasue it’s a Micrososft application, there’s a familiar interface, consisitent with other Microsoft 365 applications, so users will already be familiar with it if they’ve used other MS products. Users can also use most web browsers and devices to access, edit, submit, and collaborate on projects and portfolios.

Because Project Online is delivered through the cloud, it’s always up-to-date with the latest features, tools, patches and updates directly from Microsoft. Your IT staff won’t have to worry about costly upgrades, saving your business time and money. The program also comes with a 99.9% uptime guarantee, which includes continuous data back-up, disaster recovery, and data centers around the world, ensuring the safety and integrity of your business data. Project Online includes 24/7 IT support from Microsoft, allowing users to keep their business moving forward, while freeing up time for IT personnel to work on other IT issues within the company.

Microsoft Project Online is the perfect addition to any business or organization. Not only does it provide innovative tools and features that enhance productivity, there are also flexible collaboration tools that can be used with the different projects and portfolios.

Headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, WheelHouse Solutions can assist you in getting started with Microsoft 365 or any of the suite of Microsoft products and services. We’ll work with you to analyze your needs and recommend a strategy that’s custom designed for your business. If you would like more information about Microsoft 365, call us at 314-492-2506 to speak with one of our knowledgeable sales representatives.

Business Storage Solutions and Data Integrity and Restoration

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There are increasing risks daily due to ever-growing exposure of data integrity to new technologies and devices. Recognizing this, IT professionals are devoting more and more resources, time, and effort to detecting, preventing and restoring from hackers who, maliciously or otherwise, seek to gain access to management systems and disrupt the programming. In fact, Gartner estimates that spending alone on security threats will reach $77 billion globally in 2015. That is a lot of money by any standards for storage business solutions; where are the threats coming from?

A recent article by Shelly Cramer on Dell Power More on 7/31/2015 about 4 Steps To Protect Utility Management System from Hackers, shed some light on this problem. The Global State of Information Security for 2015 reported 42.8 million security incidents for the year, an increase of 48% since 2013.  So, what is the danger for utilities? Consumers typically take for granted their access to water, electricity, the Internet, oil and gas pipelines and associated utilities. But, the failure of any one of these has a cascading effect, similar to a row of dominos that starts with the first one being knocked over. Hurricane Katrina demonstrated this in New Orleans and years later, the infrastructure is still having problems. Ms. Cramer postulated that the four key areas to evaluate to help protect against utility management failures are human failures, known weakness spots and insecurities, disaster recovery and prevention drills, and data backup and restoration.

Unfortunately, the human area is becoming more and more an insider risk from disgruntled employees or consultants or former employees who still have access and use their knowledge to bring down the systems. Recurring training and continuing evaluations can reduce this risk. Known weaknesses obviously are studied carefully and many areas can present a risk. Bring Your Own Device, online bill pay, social networks and a mobile workforce are all key places to focus. Fire drills to evaluate reactions to systems degradation or losses can really help to not only train your IT security forces to react imaginatively but also to think deeply about the processes involved. How about data recovery and backup?

The keys on data recovery involve multiple areas such as location and type of storage, methods and time of restoration, the integrity of communication networks, and the resistance of restored networks to further attacks, among others. There are so many facets to data that many organizations turn to outside experts to assist them

Storage business solutions are one of the many ways that WheelHouse Solutions can help.  WheelHouse Solutions began in 2000 and is dedicated to the premise that companies need a trusted technology partner. Over the years, we added expertise in many different technology areas. A partial list of the value-added areas we offer includes cloud storage access and technology, telecom solutions and cost reduction, training for employees, managed IT services, and much more.

We start with an evaluation of your company and organization and give to you an accurate and detailed picture of where we can help you and the savings you will accrue as a result. Our mission is to become one of your trusted partners. We continually upgrade our own technology so we can offer you the best solution for your needs.  Call us today at 314-492-2506 for more information.