SL Powers -- Technology Newsletter

February 2007
In this issue...

►Welcome
►8 Signs to Upgrade
►Using Instant Messenger
►Sensitive Data on Laptops
►Planning a Quick Recovery

Planning for
a Quick Recovery

Learn about what you can do to quickly and effectively recover your business' systems in the event of a disruption.

For most small and mid-sized businesses, computing systems and electronic information are necessary to conduct business on a daily basis. You shouldn't have to think about disasters causing you to lose valuable resources and data, but the reality is that the risk of unforeseen circumstances and disruptions to IT systems is always present. If your IT systems go down, it's not only inconvenient, it could cost your business a substantial amount of money. A study by Forrester Research estimated that the average cost of downtime for an e-commerce site is $8,000 per hour.

It is natural to depend on your information systems to be functioning reliably and effectively at all times. Whether your business needs to process certain orders by Christmas Day, or report financial data to the government to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, time is of the essence. By having a recovery system in place, you can help ensure a quick and comprehensive recovery if your business ever faces a disruption or unanticipated problem that shuts down your IT systems.

When thinking about backup and recovery, it is important to recognize that it's not just about data. Many small and mid-sized businesses also rely on access to specific software, customized settings, and operating systems. Today's Windows-based computing environment allows you to implement independent recovery solutions that quickly and effectively recover systems so that you and your employees can get back to business as usual as soon as possible.

Welcome
Welcome to The Continuum, our newsletter supporting SLPowers' focus on managed IT and continuity solutions for small business. These are exciting times at SLPowers, we have assembled the best technical staff that you can find in South Florida and our customers are noticing. As we move into 2007, we know that good IT support is no longer an option, we have to be excellent...and when it comes to our managed services product, Guaranteed Networks, we no longer want customers - we want raving fans.

We understand it's hard for anyone to get overly excited about IT support, so we know we'll have to work extra hard to achieve these goals but working hard is exactly what we are doing.

Very soon we will be releasing GN Restore and announce that "the end of tape is finally here". This managed product will allow you to backup and restore your data locally, mirror it off-site to redundant and geographically dispersed data centers, and leverage those data centers to quickly recover IT infrastructure in the event of a disaster. You've asked for it, we are delivering.

Again, we hope you enjoy reading Continuum and look forward to your feedback.

Rory V. Sanchez, CEO & President

8 Signs You Need to Upgrade Your Server
By Christopher Elliott
Reprinted with permission from the Microsoft Small Business Center at http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness.

Your server hardware is a ticking time bomb.

Don't be alarmed. It may never actually "blow up" — which is to say, melt down and take lots of data with it. But one day, sooner or later, it will become obsolete. And for your business, that's potentially an explosive liability.

"The older hardware is, the more likely that a failure and loss of productivity will occur," warns Donald Hess, senior systems engineer at Entre Computer Services, a systems integrator based in Rochester, N.Y. "In general, a company can avoid big expenses by updating its servers every three years. If it waits five years, then there's a big risk of being compelled to upgrade many components simultaneously." Ouch.

10 Tips for Using Instant Messaging for Business
By Monte Enbysk
Reprinted with permission from the Microsoft Small Business Center

Blame it on instant messaging. Here's the scene: A couple dozen professionals at a New York advertising agency quietly type away at computer screens congregated near each other, in an open room devoid of office walls and tall partitions.

Quietly is the key word here. An occasional laugh or chuckle punctuates the silence. But no one is talking. Why? They are communicating with one another almost exclusively through instant messaging (IM).

"When I'm visiting this firm, I can't help but notice this [lack of people talking]. Seems odd to an outsider, but this is now pretty much their corporate culture," says Helen Chan, analyst for The Yankee Group, a Boston-based technology research group, who has friends at the ad agency.

Should sensitive data be stored on laptops?
BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Every month seems to bring another episode of sensitive personal information escaping into the wild because a corporate or government laptop computer is lost or stolen. A common response is a lot of hand-wringing over how the data should have been encrypted.

But some key questions usually go unanswered. Why is so much private data allowed to be on laptops to begin with? What do people do all day that compels them to tote around records on, say, 26 million Americans, the staggering number seen in the recent Veterans Affairs case?

"It's pure laziness. There's actually no excuse for it," said Avivah Litan, a security analyst for Gartner Inc. "There's no good business reason for it."

Litan advocates a few simple steps: Organizations should keep sensitive information only on secure, centralized servers. Workers can access the data from PCs in the office or over private Internet connections, but can't store the records on their own machines to fiddle with them offline.