No device has had more impact on businesses across all industries than computers, or more specifically, transistors, which are the building blocks of classical computers. Before computers, paper may have had a similar impact on business, but at 20nm or less in size, we can stack 5000 transistors in the width of one sheet of paper and accurately copy them all in a fraction of a second.
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- Written by Shayne Zaba
Backup Recovery Objectives
Your backup strategy should have at least two objectives:
- Your Recovery Point Objective, or RPO.
- This objective defines how much data you are willing to lose in a disaster. Average small business RPO is 24 hours, meaning you are willing to lose up to 24 hours worth of data.
- Your Recovery Time Objective, or RTO.
- This objective defines the longest it can take for your systems to be restored after a disaster. Average small business RTO is 72 hours, meaning you are willing to wait up to three days to get your computers and systems back up and running after a fire or other disaster.
These objectives allow you to define your requirements for your backup system, which any provider should be able to take and give you a quote on a backup system that meets those requirements.
In addition to these metrics, you should also have local backups that happen several times a day to provide local recovery from corruption. Corruption can be a user deleting a file by mistake or a virus encrypting it. We recommend Microsoft Shadow-Copy and Microsoft Server Backup for your local backups. In an environment with many servers, we recommend Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) for backups.
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- Written by Shayne Zaba
Technology is required to stay competitive and grow. As a small business, pivoting and adopting emerging technologies sharpens your competitive edge. Many computer technologies exist to automate common business tasks and are essential to scaling your business while maintaining a profitable bottom line and stakeholder satisfaction.
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- Written by Nathan Bingham-Thomas
IT Normalization
How do you get the most value from your relationship with your IT provider?
Managed services answers this question by recognizing that the best service results from aligning you and your provider's interests with normalized IT costs at a monthly rate.
What are your interests?
- Computers that work when you need them.
- An IT service provider that returns your calls.
- Not getting nickel and dimed for every phone call and email.
- how much you pay for IT service and how pro-active you are is a function of your Cost of Downtime.
- New software and hardware that adds value to your business.
What are your provider's interests?
- They want to generate more revenue at lower costs.
- They generate service revenue by tuning a working computer system to keep it available and running smoothly, or by fixing a system that is broken and down.
- If the way they generate revenue in your relationship is when something you have breaks, then it's in their interest to let your systems break.
- If your provider gets paid a flat rate every month regardless of what breaks, then it's in their interests to have your system run as smooth as possible. The less time they spend fixing problems the more of the monthly rate they take as profit.
- They generate service revenue by tuning a working computer system to keep it available and running smoothly, or by fixing a system that is broken and down.
Your goal as a business owner or budget controller should be to move to a normalized IT rate over time and align interests with your provider. Start with a break-fix strategy and use your average cost over six or 12 months as the starting point for your monthly rate, and build a fair mechanism in to adjust the rate as needed.
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- Written by Shayne Zaba
“The onboard sensor networks of ground-based equipment, provide real-time answers and automated results during seeding and harvest. Improvements in the computing power and battery life of unmanned aerial vehicles now allow real-time insights on your investments during the growing season, all without boots on the ground. However, few farmers have asked the tough question, are they legal in my field?”
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- Written by Ryan Louden