Ferrum Technology Services Blog

Data breaches can be a death blow for the small business. In addition to the financial ramifications of such events, they also cost a whole lot in reputational damage and organizational inefficiency. It’s pretty important for personal and organizational security for people to know that there are a few simple things you can do to help keep digital assets secure. 

One of the worst-case scenarios is losing your smartphone, and it’s easy to see how something as simple as a lost or stolen device could cause major issues. That’s why it’s important to take security seriously and be proactive, rather than waiting for a problem to occur. Here are four steps you can take now to reduce the risk of a lost or stolen device becoming a serious problem for your business.

If the Internet has made one thing in popular culture abundantly clear, nostalgia is a potent force. It makes us look back on our formative years to experiences that shaped who we are today. One such example is music, but what would you say if we told you that this music could disappear forever?

Technology has empowered us to achieve more than ever, but with that progress comes increased expectations for everyone. This means greater productivity, and the pressure to perform can be relentless at times, making it crucial to find efficient ways to manage our tasks. Unfortunately, there is a natural limit to how much we can accomplish, and certain challenges can push us to that limit faster. Today, we want to explore two of the most common productivity pitfalls.

Data backup is the glue that holds businesses together during difficult times. Despite this, many employees are still unclear on how the whole system works and what data gets backed up. Today, we want to explore this topic and clarify what typically occurs during the data backup process.

We cover data backup and disaster recovery quite a bit, and you might be familiar with some of the terms and strategies we discuss. Today, we’re taking a deeper dive into the 3-2-1 rule and its crucial role in your business’ disaster recovery plan. Let's explore how the 3-2-1 rule can strengthen or weaken your data infrastructure.

There is an almost comical laundry list of problems that all businesses should be prepared for, but what’s not funny whatsoever is what happens when you fail to do so. The term “BDR” is often used as an umbrella term to describe what kind of preparation your organization needs, and today, we want to dive into some of the details that you should know.

Gone are the days when businesses relied solely on manual tape backups conducted at specific intervals. Modern solutions like automated backup and disaster recovery (BDR) have made the traditional tape backup method obsolete.

Digital storage is one part of computing that has seen astronomical growth over the past several decades, and with the solid state drive (SSD) more affordable than ever, you have to wonder how well your old hard disk drive (HDD) is holding up. Despite the cost difference between the two, the HDD is a viable option, albeit a mechanical one that is prone to breakdown over time.

We focus pretty heavily on data backup as an important solution that all businesses should use, and for good reason. It can be all the difference between losing your business’ future or preserving it. We know you don’t like to hear it, but investing in a proper data backup solution is well worth the cost, even if you never have to use it.

Data backup is something that all businesses need in some capacity. The reasoning for this is simple: you can never predict the future, so your business’ life is never guaranteed… unless, of course, you plan for the worst. Today we want to share with you some best practices as they relate to data backup and disaster recovery, practices which we hope will give you the confidence that you can recover from even the worst-case scenarios.

Individuals are increasingly understanding the value of their data, and that is a good thing. Unfortunately, a lot of small and medium-sized businesses are operating today without any type of data backup protecting their business’ data, and that, of course, is bad. It is important that if you don’t have a dedicated data backup and recovery strategy in place, that you work to fix that immediately. Today we’ll tell you why. 

While nobody wants their company to suffer a data breach, the nature of today’s workplace makes these occurrences harder and harder to avoid. In fact, chances are that you’ll eventually encounter one, which makes it important to prepare to deal with it when it comes about.

Here, we’ve outlined a few steps to help your business weather the storm:

The calendar is chock-full of novelty holidays, March specifically starting with things like World Compliment Day (you look great, by the way) and ending with the very scientific Bunsen Burner Day. However, while things like National Pears Helene Day—March 15—are fun, some of these days touch on more important topics.

Let’s go over some of the novelty days in March that can provide us with some IT best practices to keep in mind.

Business owners are now concerned about how they are spending capital on solutions to help them to avoid procedural interruptions. One issue that all businesses should be aware of—and work to mitigate—is the loss of data that can cause these interruptions.

Your business’ data is extremely important to the livelihood of your business and as a result, you need to have plans in place to protect it. Sure, you can invest in all the top notch cybersecurity tools and services, and they may keep you from getting your data stolen or corrupted, but what happens if something terrible happens to the servers that it is stored on? No level of threat detection is going to save a server if it is charred, under water, or its components are completely fried. 

When considering a continuity plan for your business, you need to consider some scenarios that may not ever happen. This is called risk management and it is the basis of keeping your business up and running regardless of the situations that it encounters. This month, we thought we would outline some of the variables that need to be addressed when creating a comprehensive business continuity plan. 

Imagine for a minute that you work in a small factory or machine shop. Some wind comes through and drops a 200-year-old maple tree through the roof onto the machines that you use to create your product. The devastation is total. If you have a second factory built to scale from the first, you could just ship your workers over to that one and keep productivity high. Chances are, however, there is no second factory. Your business is done until you can get the situation fixed. It could take days, weeks, or even months to get your business back on track; and if the stats are any indication, it probably won’t. 

In order to function properly, the modern business needs data. With the predictions of serious cyberattacks, like ransomware, that have been made for the coming year there is no business that can neglect its data protections. Here, we’ll discuss what these predictions are, and what you need to do to prepare.

It’s true that managed IT service do a lot to make technology accessible to small and medium-sized organizations that wouldn’t typically look immediately to technology to fix parts of their business. One of the innovations that modern business has made is that they prioritize a smarter approach. Apart from data storage and database management, modern businesses are using the data their marketing, sales, fulfillment/distribution, and support departments take in to see exactly how their business is actually functioning and make sound business decisions as a result. Today, we’ll take a look at how the managed IT service provider can help a business with its data management.