Protecting your data is vital to the survival of your business. Here are six methods that all business owners need to carry out in order to secure data.

1.      Implement “Business-Class” Firewall Protection

Linksys, Buffalo, or other residential routers work great for home computer systems but do not offer enough security to protect a business network. You need a business-class firewall, such as Cisco or Sonicwall to keep hackers out and data secure.

If your business needs a more secure firewall, CNS can set-up, install, and configure an integrated perimeter defense.  We’ll ensure your network’s availability and the security of your company’s resources by protecting the network infrastructure against attacks.

2.      Get Enterprise Size Virus Protection

How important is anti-virus protection? Your company’s reputation is at stake! If an employee unknowingly spreads a virus to a customer, or if a virus hijacks a PC, a lot of people are going to be angry. You need an enterprise size solution to protect your business, employees, and customers.

Don’t be fooled by free and low-cost anti-virus software. They are made for personal computer systems, not for businesses.

At CNS we monitor, respond, and protect against a broad range of threats from the Internet, so you don’t have to. Our surveillance, protection, and support continues 24/7.

The appropriate software should guard your network at every entry point, from the Internet to servers and desktops. Outbreaks are rapidly contained before threats can spread, and automated cleanup removes malware and remnants.

3.      Update Your Operating System Patches

Keep your servers, workstations and remote computers up-to-date with the latest security patches and updates.

With today’s constant stream of patches coming from so many sources, the needs for security and stability are increasing every day. Businesses can no longer afford to not keep systems updated. With CNS, you have a powerful and reliable source on your side:

CNS provides fast, easy and reliable Patch Management to keep your servers, workstations and remote computers up-to-date with the latest security patches and updates.  Patch Management can be implemented in minutes. Start getting you computers up-to-date and secure today!

4.      Secure and Automate Your Backups.

Over the twenty years we have been servicing businesses, the most costly mistake we’ve seen companies make is the failure to test, automate and secure data. If you lose your data, you lose your company, period.

Our DataSafe solution is your comprehensive, end to end disaster recovery plan. By leveraging our technology, we secure a local copy of your data that provides an efficient way to recover your information.

 5.     Keep a Copy of Your Backups Offsite!!!!

Many businesses store their backups onsite, either on a hard drive or a set of tapes.

It’s handy to have them around in case you need a quick restore of a file, but what happens if some event, big or small, destroys the file or your whole physical office?   If you only keep a set of backups onsite, you’re one faulty sprinkler system away from disaster.

Our Managed Solution includes an electronic transfer of your data to an offsite datacenter if the worst should happen.

 6.      Develop a Disaster Recovery Plan:

Despite all the safeguards you can put in place, sometimes there’s no stopping power outages or natural disasters. That’s why it’s important to be prepared with an inventory of all your data, hardware assets, software licenses, and vendor information so that you can quickly recover from a  disaster.

With a plan in place, you’ll know exactly what to do and in what order. Without a plan, you may waste precious time and money getting back to business.

 Take that Important First Step!!

Move to a Secure, Reliable, and Hassel-FREE Computer Network

All the above issues are covered in our Managed IT support plan. We can also offer 24×7 help desk support along with the onsite support when needed. 

Contact us to schedule your FREE Network Audit.  Simply give us a call at (800) 781-2755 or email us at contact@cns-service.com. 

P.S. When you sign up for your Free Network Audit, you will be under no obligation to hire us for anything – so call us right now while you’re thinking about it.

See more information on our Managed IT Program

A recovery solution may be as simple as restoring a deleted file or a complete server, the recovery point is as far as the previous nights’ backup. A file restore still has a simple and very fast restoration time within minutes.  While a server recovery upon a hardware failure can take several days to get back into production with the current environment.

Now that server virtualization is more affordable and being used in production, the backup and recovery strategies can change the RPO and RTO dramatically. The traditional disk to tape is no longer a constraint for dictating all of the recovery scenarios that may arise.

VMware provides virtual snap shots to apply patches and applications to a server in a test environment without impacting production and going through a lengthy process to create the test server or servers. VMware also leverages the Equal Logic SAN to provide an easy and fast recovery from a physical server hardware failure within minutes.

The Equal Logic SAN can be leveraged for multiple snap shots per day that can be kept and used for entire virtual server recoveries within minutes.

The granular capability of backup to disk software also allows files and databases to be saved multiple times per day. Files can now be restored to multiple points in time by the end user out of Windows Explorer by leveraging Microsoft’s Data Protection Manager.

Another component can be introduced for getting data offsite to another remote server on a nightly basis eliminating nightly tape backups and weekly off site tape rotations. Then it is just a matter of how to handle any permanent archive, which is accomplished by tape or hard drive. The hard drive can be space at a secure facility such as a hosted data center. Most services allow up to 7 years for such long term storage of data. This is more often an expensive method as simply buying hard drives every month is far more affordable since the price for hard drives are now a couple hundred dollars and hold up to 2 TB.

If you’d like to learn more about easy to manage backup and recovery solutions, contact CNS.  One of our highly experienced IT consultants would be happy to help you design a plan to support your unique needs.