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 I get the most value from my relationship with my IT service 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.
Normalizing your service costs means taking a moving average of your service billing and setting that average as your flat monthly rate.
Why is normalization a better approach than paying for service per hour?
- Support billed per hour means the more your computers break down, the more your service provider makes, which is an incentive contrary to your interests of having your computers running and available when you need them.
- A normalized cost approach means the more your systems break down, the less profit your provider makes, which incentivizes them to keep your systems running problem-free and aligns their interests with yours.
As a business owner or financial controller, your goal should be to align your vendor's interests with that of your company's through a normalized cost agreement that incentivizes a pro-active approach from your provider.
At NICS, we take a normalized cost approach to your technology services that aligns our costs with yours, making the efficiency of your technology our priority. We value our client relationships and strive to improve the value of our services, maintain open communications, and use our resources to improve our community.
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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