BUSINESS CONTINUITY
COLOCATION
BUSINESS CONTINUITY
BUSINESS CONTINUITY
Nationwide Workgroup Recovery now Available
Where will your employees work if your building becomes inaccessible? With Continuity Centers, anywhere you want them. Our mobile and flexible real estate recovery provides you with workspace for your staff - anywhere in North America - in addition to our one-hour recovery centers in New York. Contact us today to find out how to keep your key employees working and your business running whether it's simply a burst pipe in your building or a regional catastrophe
Six things you can do right now to make your business network more secure:
Install a real business firewall
A firewall is one of the best ways to keep hackers out and data safe. Hackers strike randomly by searching the Internet for open, unprotected ports. As soon as they find one, they can intrude and delete files or download huge files that cannot be deleted, effectively shutting down the operating system. They can also hijack vulnerable computers as “zombies” for sending spam, which will eventually could cause a company’s domain to be blacklisted and their ISP to shut down its Internet and email access. A firewall is the equivalent of a guard at the bank door.At home, most people use residential routers, such as Linksys as their firewalls. Residential solutions don’t offer nearly enough security features to effectively secure a business network. You need more than just the firewall that comes with your wireless router. You need several lines of defense. Business class firewalls offer the protection that small businesses need to protect from intrusion. Additionally, these devices allow for setup of a secure VPN, content filtering and more.
Install business class virus protection
Virus attacks originate in spam, downloaded data and music files, IMs, web sites, and e-mails. Small businesses can’t afford to be without current virus protection. A virus won’t just corrupt files and bring down a network; it can also hurt a company’s reputation. If an employee unknowingly spreads a virus to a customer, or if the virus hijacks the employee’s e-mail address book, many people, customers included, can be compromised and the company's reputation could be damaged.Many small business owners use free versions of anti-virus software from providers like Norton, Symantec, or AVG and think they will offer adequate virus protection. The fact is that solutions on the low end of the product spectrum just don’t offer the functionality you need for business. You need anti-virus software that installs on your Exchange Server and that runs hard drive scans on a regular basis. Free solutions will not do that. You get what you pay for with anti-virus software.
Test security patches before installing
Automate and keep an offsite copy of backups
Make backup an automated function. Eliminate the possibility of human error by utilizing automated online backup services. SaaS providers encrypt all transmissions and stored data. This is a much better solution than having various tapes or discs floating around in cars, at home; all vulnerable to loss.Determine that backups are secure and not corrupted.
You should test your backups quarterly to make sure you can actually perform a full system restore if the occasion ever calls for it. A surprising number of times you’ll find that old-media backups, like tape, are corrupted or otherwise unusable.Develop a disaster recovery plan.
Despite all the safeguards you can put in place, sometimes there’s no stopping a power outage or natural disaster from seriously compromising your business. That’s why it’s so important to be prepared with an inventory of all your data and hardware assets, all software license keys, and all vendor contacts so that you can quickly start recovering after a disaster. With a plan in place, you’ll know exactly what to do and in what order. Without a plan in place, you’re more likely to be immobilized by disaster and waste precious time trying to get your business back on line.
COULD YOUR BUSINESS SURVIVE A TEMPORARY SHUTDOWN?
"Private sector preparedness is not a luxury; it is a cost of doing business in the post-9/11 world. It is ignored at a tremendous potential cost in lives, money and national security."
9/11 Commission Final Report, page 398
Nearly 75% of U.S. companies have experienced some sort of business interruption. Many never fully recover. In fact, 70% of all businesses that sustain any interruption are unable to survive the downtime even though properly insured.
A well planned Disaster Recovery solution insures that it is; business as usual for you and your customers, even when disaster strikes. Many businesses lease fully equipped office facilities ready to utilize on a temporary basis following a disaster. It becomes their alternate facility, and their business continues to operate seamlessly.
Everything your business requires should be in place at your DR site , including office space for your staff complete with computer workstations, data storage, state-of-the-art technology services, advanced telecommunications technology, conference rooms, executive offices and virtually every other tool your company needs to continue operations until your permanent location is ready for your return.
Call or email us to find a facility for you
Have Plans Ready To Cope With Unexpected Disaster
by; Morey Stettner
Analyzing business risk typically involves identifying vulnerabilities, plugging security holes and ensuring the enterprise can continue to run amid a disruption. Yet some disruptions blossom into full-blown disasters.
In the last decade, entrepreneurs have faced everything from a terrorist attack on U.S. soil to Hurricane Katrina to a global economic crisis. Leaders of companies that survived these shocks may not have predicted such events, but they planned for high-level emergencies.
Yet just as many adults avoid shopping for life insurance rather than confront their death and its consequences on their family's finances, entrepreneurs may prefer not to spend time dreaming up big disasters and planning how their company would respond. That's a mistake, warns Howard Kunreuther, a professor of decision sciences and public policy at University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
Planning for severe emergencies can actually save a business. It's precisely these types of low-probability but high-consequence events that do the most damage.
"It's not that anyone thinks these catastrophic events can't or won't happen," said Kunreuther, co-author of "Learning From Catastrophes." "They just think, 'These things won't happen on my watch.'"
Entrepreneurs tend to concentrate on short-term challenges. They may spend most of their time putting out fires or planning for three or six months in the future. And given their optimistic nature, business builders tend to under-predict the next potential crisis.
It's tempting to adopt the attitude, "If there's a low-enough probability of some massive natural or man-made disaster occurring, then I don't need to plan for it." This explains why some executives may be willing to prepare for more routine problems such as fires or spring floods while neglecting to plan for less-common but higher-magnitude disasters.
You can avoid this trap by analyzing worst-case scenarios with your employees, Kunreuther says. Hold a brainstorming meeting where you ask your team to identify what can happen at a local and national level that would seriously affect the firm's ability to function.
"Gather everyone to help you figure out mechanisms you can apply to think outside the box and prepare for catastrophe," Kunreuther said. Rather than just hire a consultant to draft a disaster recovery plan and then forget about it, stage drills with employees to practice emergency response.
At www.ready.gov you can obtain free business-preparedness resources and participate in the "Ready Business" mentoring initiative that includes guides on how to take practical, low-cost steps to protect your business. You can also review worksheets on how to protect inventory, improve data security and shop for proper insurance coverage.
Business risk increases as demand for data protection exceeds capabilities
The need to protect critical business information is straining IT resources and leading to compromises that increase risk for many organizations. Conflicting pressures — rapid data growth, limited budgets, and demand for 24/7 application and data availability — complicate the decision criteria for solutions.
The ever-increasing demand for storage capacity — growing 25% a year in databases and double or triple that rate in unstructured files — often renders the use of disk technology cost prohibitive, forcing more business-critical information onto economical tape media. At the same time, increasing dependence on business automation is expanding the proportion of IT services considered mission-critical, contributing to widespread demand for recovery time objectives (RTO) of 24 hours or less.
As a result, many organizations are torn between the need to improve application availability and address compliance requirements on one hand, and the cost and potential disruption of overhauling their backup and recovery capabilities on the other.
SunGard’s Secure2DiskSM powered by Data Domain solution offers the potential for dramatic improvement in your application and data availability. Our online, disk-based approach integrates industry-leading backup technology from EMC® Data Domain® and the renowned reliability of SunGard’s Recovery Services.
Read more . Download the data sheet.
How we provide alerts ....
A well planned Disaster Recovery solution insures that it is; business as usual for you and your customers, even when disaster strikes. Many businesses lease fully equipped office facilities ready to utilize on a temporary basis following a disaster. It becomes their alternate facility, and their business continues to operate seamlessly.
Everything your business requires should be in place at your DR site , including office space for your staff complete with computer workstations, data storage, state-of-the-art technology services, advanced telecommunications technology, conference rooms, executive offices and virtually every other tool your company needs to continue operations until your permanent location is ready for your return.
Call or email us to find a facility for you
Have Plans Ready To Cope With Unexpected Disaster
by; Morey Stettner
You plan for risk. But do you plan for extreme risk?
Analyzing business risk typically involves identifying vulnerabilities, plugging security holes and ensuring the enterprise can continue to run amid a disruption. Yet some disruptions blossom into full-blown disasters.
In the last decade, entrepreneurs have faced everything from a terrorist attack on U.S. soil to Hurricane Katrina to a global economic crisis. Leaders of companies that survived these shocks may not have predicted such events, but they planned for high-level emergencies.
Yet just as many adults avoid shopping for life insurance rather than confront their death and its consequences on their family's finances, entrepreneurs may prefer not to spend time dreaming up big disasters and planning how their company would respond. That's a mistake, warns Howard Kunreuther, a professor of decision sciences and public policy at University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
Planning for severe emergencies can actually save a business. It's precisely these types of low-probability but high-consequence events that do the most damage.
"It's not that anyone thinks these catastrophic events can't or won't happen," said Kunreuther, co-author of "Learning From Catastrophes." "They just think, 'These things won't happen on my watch.'"
Entrepreneurs tend to concentrate on short-term challenges. They may spend most of their time putting out fires or planning for three or six months in the future. And given their optimistic nature, business builders tend to under-predict the next potential crisis.
It's tempting to adopt the attitude, "If there's a low-enough probability of some massive natural or man-made disaster occurring, then I don't need to plan for it." This explains why some executives may be willing to prepare for more routine problems such as fires or spring floods while neglecting to plan for less-common but higher-magnitude disasters.
You can avoid this trap by analyzing worst-case scenarios with your employees, Kunreuther says. Hold a brainstorming meeting where you ask your team to identify what can happen at a local and national level that would seriously affect the firm's ability to function.
"Gather everyone to help you figure out mechanisms you can apply to think outside the box and prepare for catastrophe," Kunreuther said. Rather than just hire a consultant to draft a disaster recovery plan and then forget about it, stage drills with employees to practice emergency response.
At www.ready.gov you can obtain free business-preparedness resources and participate in the "Ready Business" mentoring initiative that includes guides on how to take practical, low-cost steps to protect your business. You can also review worksheets on how to protect inventory, improve data security and shop for proper insurance coverage.
Business risk increases as demand for data protection exceeds capabilities
The need to protect critical business information is straining IT resources and leading to compromises that increase risk for many organizations. Conflicting pressures — rapid data growth, limited budgets, and demand for 24/7 application and data availability — complicate the decision criteria for solutions.
The ever-increasing demand for storage capacity — growing 25% a year in databases and double or triple that rate in unstructured files — often renders the use of disk technology cost prohibitive, forcing more business-critical information onto economical tape media. At the same time, increasing dependence on business automation is expanding the proportion of IT services considered mission-critical, contributing to widespread demand for recovery time objectives (RTO) of 24 hours or less.
As a result, many organizations are torn between the need to improve application availability and address compliance requirements on one hand, and the cost and potential disruption of overhauling their backup and recovery capabilities on the other.
SunGard’s Secure2DiskSM powered by Data Domain solution offers the potential for dramatic improvement in your application and data availability. Our online, disk-based approach integrates industry-leading backup technology from EMC® Data Domain® and the renowned reliability of SunGard’s Recovery Services.
Read more . Download the data sheet.
What we do ....
We provide high-speed emergency notifications to ....
- Municipalities
- State Agencies
- institutions of Higher Education
- Schools
- Industries, and Corporations
- Federal Agencies
The FirstCall Emergency Notification System is a fast, effective, and efficient method for delivering real-time alerts. We are a focused interactive multi-media emergency communications solution.
Instantly Notify Everyone by ....
as well as by pagers, TTY/TTD devices, computer desktops, Windows Mobile devices and digital signage. The system can be activated over our secure website using any Internet connection or by calling our 24 hour operators from any phone.
How we provide alerts ....
Alerts are provided through our 8infinity Emergency Notification Suite of services:
Emergency Notification Service - Our battle tested service provides GIS map and / or Fixed List notification utilizing our web based or operator assisted user interface.
BlurtAlert for Desktops - BlurtAlert will override the regular application and display real time, visible instant pop-up notification of alerts on all PC screens, Digital Signage, and Windows Mobile based phones.
Inbound Community Information Line Service - An important tool that is an inbound toll free service, which allows emergency professionals the ability to provide the community with timely recorded information about emergencies occurring in an area.
Digital Signage Emergency Service - Selected features of the Blurt Desktop Alert for instant pop-up notification of alerts on Digital Signage and also has an easy to use content creation, content management, and High-Definition playback interface.
All of these services are integrated Software as a Service (SaaS) hosted solutions
How we are rated after bid evaluations compared to other vendors ...
The comparison scorecard chart below is based on the analysis of public data available in multiple public filings regarding RFP submittals.
Ask us for detailed analysis information about a notification company you might currently be considering. See why we consistently outpace other vendors.
FirstCall is dedicated to investing in R&D to bring new "First to Market" technology to our clients.