Viewed holistically, remote monitoring not only serves as an insurance policy for business operations but also creates real business value. Unfortunately, the incremental spend often causes businesses to overlook the tangible returns on investment. Or, doing it yourself seems like the cheaper option. Here are the seven most frequently overlooked areas of business value versus doing it yourself or not at all.

I’ve had more than one conversation with a client that started like this…“Oh, by the way, we’ll be moving our office in two to three months.” This should be music to my ears since we’re in the business of supporting our client’s technology needs. However, office relocation can easily become a painful experience. We often encounter issues with the availability and variety of data communication providers at the client’s new location. In spite of the perceived availability of high-speed data communications, it isn’t always that easy.

If you were unfortunate enough to experience Hurricane Ike, how did your email server fare? Not everyone can afford to keep their servers in a nice, safe data center or colocation facility. Does that mean your business is subject to your building’s physical power or Internet connection? The answer to that question is absolutely not. There are two ways small businesses can increase email uptime without breaking the bank.

Business continuity and disaster recovery planning are all about a company’s ability to survive and continue operations in the face of physical and environmental events, such as natural disasters (fires, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc), network outages, disgruntled employees and computer viruses. Critical business technologies – telephone, email, Internet, corporate applications, databases – must be included in the planning process to ensure corporate survival and continued operation.

Hurricane season is officially here. Businesses are now planning and refining their disaster recovery and business continuity plans to prepare for potential disruptions. Companies need to make sure and investigate a few specific areas – offsite backup, colocation, email continuity and data recovery. A VoIP telephone network is another smart continuity tool. more…

Without access to your business’s mission critical data, productivity as a whole could come to a screeching halt. For years, businesses have relied on tape backups to secure their primary data repository. While the technology associated with these types of solutions continues to become more refined, one aspect of this process still leaves a business vulnerable – human error. more…

It’s that time of year again…hurricane season is upon us. With the effects of Hurricane Ike still fresh in Houston’s memory, what are the lessons learned when it comes to securing the integrity of your business? more…

Are you working on a Zombie computer? If you are, you might not know it. Today, so many variants of malicious software (malware) are present on the Web, one can hardly keep up.
Trojans, viruses, spyware, hijackers, rootkits, backdoors, worms, crimeware…..have you had enough yet? I wouldn’t be surprised if a new variant [...]

Businesses are always looking for alternative ways to cut costs, increase value and streamline operations without disrupting output of future growth. Traditional cost-cutting strategies such as canceling or postponing projects and reducing headcount can offer immediate relief of financial obligations associated with budget. However, these methods often fail to ultimately generate quantifiable value. Here’s a list of five business technology trends designed to extend cost-cutting solutions, as well as true business value…more…

Virtualization for the small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) supports the need for IT to optimize server environments, without the need for additional or extensive hardware investments. It also provides a new approach to disaster recovery and improved back-up capability. more…