Handling Large Data Archives

For a lot of years now archiving large amounts of data was handled by storing it on tape or storing it on CD or DVD. Of course this is when we considered large to be a few hundred megabytes or a small number of gigabytes. My how times have changed. Data just keeps getting larger and as a result we now see that many of our clients have stopped archiving data. The number of GB’s of data is just too huge to manage. Instead it is being stored on the server mingled in with current data.

We have a better way.

Issues in data archiving are:

• quick easy access
• restricted permissions
• redundancy

These three things are critical to good data archival practices. So let us introduce you to an appliance that is really good for data archiving.

It’s called Drobo. A simple Drobo is a four drive unit. It takes Sata drives which are pretty inexpensive these days and come in large formats. It’s a plug and play device as far as the drives go. We can put drives of any size in it, we can mix and match those sizes and we can lose up to two drives to failure and not lose any data. Recovery is as simple as sliding in a replacement drive. To access your archival data we simply map a drive to the Drobo volume.

How much? Well the 4 drive unit costs about $400, plus the drives. They make bigger units too for those of our clients with vast data archive requirements.

 

You might find us suggesting these. They’ve been around for a couple of years now and on our radar for almost that long. Ted attended a premier training event a while back in Las Vegas and came back thoroughly impressed by the technology. I think that you’re going to like these.

Considering Buying New Phones or Phone Service? We can do that.

Phones, phone systems (PBX) have changed dramatically and we’ve been watching carefully. Phone systems have changed from the blackbox that hangs on the wall that you never touch into true computers that operate on the network on the same Ethernet cable as your computer.

Computers are our expertise, which is why we’ve been watching carefully. We’ve also been busy building relationships with key hardware vendors and voice line suppliers. The phone business has become the computer business and we’re ready to supply these services for you. 

As we have done with computers, servers and software, we have selected the vendors and service suppliers that were willing to develop close relationships with us and our clients. We look for partners that not only supply hardware and services to small/mid businesses but ones that are interested in developing a deep relationship with us so that we can support you better while helping them to develop better and better products for our customers. It’s a trademark of Harbor Computer Services and we’re approaching the Phone system vendors with the very same expectations.

We’ve connected with several partners: Cisco, TelNet, Verizon, Sprint, CallTower, UltraCom and Unified. We have selected products from within the set that these companies offer for specific attributes so that we can customize the telephony solution to your needs.

There are a few things you should know about new phone systems:

• They need good computer cabling
• They cost about 1/3 of what phone systems used to cost
• They last about 1/2 as long
• They are integrated with your Internet service
• They can integrate with your mobile phones too
• They are loaded with features
• They are computers and do require some maintenance

Thinking of phones as computers is a new idea for most people, but if you buy a new phone today it is a computer. The industry has shifted. Phones are now playing in our ballpark and we’re ready to go to bat for you.

When you’re ready to talk about phone replacement or updating your phone service let us know and we’ll bring the best folks to the table for you.

Who is the most common target?

Today I am reading the incident and compromise report for 2010 by Verizon and the US Secret Service. It’s a good read if you are in my business. It gives me the pulse of what the bad guys are attacking and let’s me know if we’re doing the right thing to try to keep our clients out of harms way.

The good news is that in 2010 the incident of compromised data is down. But the bad news is rather dramatic.

Of all of the cases that they evaluated in 2010 a HUGE percentage of the data attacks occurred on small businesses. So why is this?

It’s the same old thing with crime, whether physical or virtual. The solution is simply don’t be an easy target. This says that far too many small businesses are leaving themselves unprotected but also that getting out of harms way isn’t difficult. The marketplace for crime in small business is wide open, so if you’re the company with a quality firewall, update to date anti-virus software, good acceptable use policies for the Internet and are filtering spam – you are not the low hanging fruit and the criminals will go elsewhere. But if you don’t have locks on the doors the criminals will walk in your door.

What are they looking for? When a cyber-criminal robs you they don’t ransack the place. They try to leave it as clean and untouched as when you left it so you won’t even notice that they’ve been there. There are two important statistics here.

Less data was stolen from servers. Why? Because not all data resides on servers anymore. A lot of data now resides on laptops, netbooks, phones and ipad type slates. Its easier to steal from those locations than it is from your server, so guess where crime has shifted to?

Most data thefts were not discovered by the business whose data was stolen and this is up by 25%. That means the bad guys are getting better at what they do. They are more adept at getting what they want without breaking anything in the process. The thefts are generally reported by consumers or business associates. They are the ones that end up with the stolen identity or the confidential business process that suddenly everyone knows how to build. They are the ones that suffer.

So what does the report recommend besides don’t be an easy target?

Notice the word mitigation in the title of this figure. It is about mitigation. The bad guys are smart and they change tactics frequently. Security can’t be guaranteed but you can move yourself from harms way. The first item is a big one for many of our clients. We know most of you take our advice when it comes to security efforts, but few take our advice when it comes to data storage. Data archiving is a form of data protection. If there is one item that we should discuss with you beyond our usual recommendations it is this.

If you’d like to read the report for yourself, you can find it at http://www.verizonbusiness.com/resources/reports/rp_data-breach-investigations-report-2011_en_xg.pdf

Internet Explorer 9 Soon To Be Installed

About a month ago Microsoft released Internet Explorer 9. It will now begin to arrive on your computers with the next update cycle. Ted was our Beta tester for IE 9 and has been running it since the very first beta was available nearly a year ago. He’s been through the pains to the gains and reports that it’s a fantastic upgrade.

However, as with all recent Microsoft application releases in addition to new features there is also a new look and feel.

Web-focused browsing

Windows 7 integration

Security

Tracking Protection

There’s a lot of new stuff in IE 9, but the links above will take you a few under 1 minute video’s that show off some of the new features. To sum them all up, IE 9 has better integration with Windows 7, is more secure that ever, has better download security, allows you to prevent website from tracking you so those annoying ads will have a more difficult time finding you and it’s fast, really fast.

Best of Michigan businesses

Harbor Computer Services has been named Best of Michigan businesses for IT Services by the readers of Corp Magazine. I attribute this award to our wonderful customers and thank you for nominating and voting for us.

https://www.corpmagazine.com/features/cover-stories/itemid/3724

Amy Babinchak, company CEO, said, “I am very proud of my employees for continuing to have such a passion for their work. It is because of their efforts that Harbor has been recognized as a best Michigan Business. I started Harbor Computer Services to serve a market space that was not taken seriously by other IT firms. Small Businesses deserve great IT support services and we're happy to have been recognized as having reached that goal for our clients.”