Following on from the last post, here is a little more detail.

There are many computer backup solutions available; the one we use at Flint IT is Storage Craft’s Shadow Protect program which we believe ticks all the boxes. The main benefits of Shadow Protect are:

• High quality and extensive database backups which can quickly and easily be transferred onto a new server if your server should fail. Most companies cannot do this currently as Windows server backup will not restore to different hardware
• Easy to install server backup on all your PCs at once and monitor all backup operations from one central computer
• Fast and reliable recovery of your operating systems, applications, configuration and personal settings and data
• Ability to get your servers back online quickly, and your data restored within minutes with minimum downtime and maximum business continuity
• Backed up information is consolidated minimising the disk space required for computer backups
• Database backup images can be replicated to separate media giving you both onsite and offsite copies of your backup
• Near real-time computer backups as often as every 15 minutes are possible.

We believe that investing in Storage Craft backup could guarantee business continuity in the long term, protecting you from disaster and safeguarding the future of your company. For more details or if you have any questions contact us at sales AT flint-it DOT com or call 0845 3309680

Give Flint IT a call and let our cutting-edge backup and disaster recovery service give you peace of mind

Although backup broadband is essential to safeguard your internet access, a thorough disaster recovery plan must also ensure that you are prepared for a server failure. Your server may be out of sight and out of mind most of the time but could you afford for it to go down? Are you confident that you know the answers to the questions below? If not it may be time to think about improving your disaster recovery plan.

1. How frequent are your computer backups?
2. Is your full system backed up, enabling you to recover to a new server if the old one fails?
3. Do you have an offsite database backup which will enable you to recover if your server is lost to fire, flood or theft?
4. A backup is only useful if you know that you can restore from it; when did you last try to recover data from your existing computer backup?
5. Did you know that 50% of tapes fail? When did you last run a computer backup test?
6. How long does it take to recover from computer backup? Could your business cope with this amount of downtime?

Unless you already have daily monitoring of your backup systems it is likely that you will not feel entirely confident in the answers to all these questions. If this is the case have a look at our blog post explaining how to use Storage Craft’s Shadow Protect, or contact us at sales AT flint-it DOT com or call 0845 3309680 for more information.

Looking for IT backup in the Hertfordshire area? Give Flint IT a call.

Sage is a piece of computer software which allows small businesses to do a variety of finance tasks all in one place. Your company may use it for salaries and bookkeeping or you may use Act – which is also owned by Sage – to do CRM or SageHR. Many of the companies we interact with on a day to day basis rely heavily on Sage software for a large proportion of their finance and sales tasks.

We are well aware of how vital Sage software is; as well as being essential to your business workings, the information you produce using Sage is likely to be extremely sensitive and confidential. Because of the importance of this software we want to let you in on some useful information which could save your business from major downtime in the event of a disaster.

As well as general backup which you should have in your office, Sage comes with its own unique backup system built in. This is a clever piece of software but it does not quite have the capabilities to backup automatically so you need to make sure you do it, preferably on a monthly basis.

This is easy to forget but is so important; it might be worth setting reminders for yourself on Outlook or an alternate program to make sure you never forget to do your backups.

It may be tempting to back up Sage data and store the backups on your desktop, on a disk or USB device or in a folder on your PC. Whilst this is better than nothing, it is far from a fool-proof solution. If your PC crashes or is damaged all is lost, and disks and USB devices are easy to damage or lose.

A better thing to do is to save backups on your server, which should also have its own backup and disaster recovery plan in place. In this way, your vital business data is doubly backed up and highly unlikely to be lost, corrupted or hacked. 

Keep an eye on upcoming blog posts to read a story about how one of our customers dealt with accidentally deleting Sage from the server.

Contact Flint IT today for disaster recovery in Luton, Milton Keynes, Harpenden and St. Albans

Here at Flint IT we know how important IT is to your business. We know that if your computers and IT systems are slow or regularly experience downtime then your business will suffer. We want to give you the knowledge you need to ensure that you are getting the best out of your IT systems, giving you peace of mind and leaving you with time to get on with what is important – the running of your business.

In order to let your business grow unhampered by IT crashes or failures you need systems which are easy to install and use, and which save time and frustration for your staff. This is what the Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS) aims to do, giving small businesses the IT capabilities of larger enterprises but at realistic costs.

Your server is like a ‘filing cabinet’ which holds all the data saved from each PC in your office. You need it to be able to access your email, as well as share files and work collaboratively with your colleagues. Microsoft’s SBS gives you a central and secure area for all your data. Everything you save onto the server gets backed up automatically so there isn’t any chance of losing your vital information. In addition all data is protected with access control; you can limit who has access to the data and prevent anyone outside of the company getting hold of it. Having all your data on one server means that you can also securely access this data with mobile wireless or remote IT, allowing you to work from home or on the move.

If you use several PCs in your office and you need to be able to share diaries, contacts and data then a Small Business Server is probably a good thing to think about getting.

The advantages of a Small Business Server are:

• Keep all your files in a central store , easily accessed and found by all your employees
• Have access to Microsoft’s most advanced database technology
• Coordinate diaries and contacts and better enable teamwork
• Easily upgrade to SBS 2011 Standard Edition which will support up to 75 users as your business grows
• Get access to cloud computing and cloud services  such as Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online
• Use cloud-based versions of familiar programs; use the Microsoft Office programs you understand but with increased capabilities
• Regular, reliable computer backup of your essential files and folders which are easy to restore from in the event of a disaster
• Access your database on mobile devices wherever you are

We have recommended Microsoft’s Small Business Server to many of our customers, and now manage hundreds of users. If you have any questions about servers, or are interested in what Flint IT can do to free your business from IT problems, contact us at sales AT flint-it DOT com or call 0845 3309680.

For further details about Microsoft’s SBS click here…

Managed IT support for small and medium companies in Aylesbury, Stevenage, Biggleswade and Hemel Hempstead.

The Flint IT technicians recently received a call from a customer, Sonia*, who had deleted Sage accountancy software from her company’s server by mistake whilst clearing up some outdated files. Sage is essential to the business operations of her company, and would have caused a massive drop in business continuity if it was permanently lost.

Despite this Sonia wasn’t worried as she knew that we provide computer backup, and that our advanced computer backup solutions can be trusted. Not only do we provide computer backup for our customers, we also use monitoring tools to check the computer backup daily, ensuring that it is backing up correctly and that any problems are fixed as soon as we spot them.

Because of this Sonia had total confidence that we could recover the lost files for her, which we did within minutes from the computer backup which had been created just 2 hours earlier. Sonia and her staff were able to continue working with only a few minutes delay.

All of our customers have this same peace of mind, knowing that our computer backups are secure and that our systems are configured to run a backup every 4 hours. If your company doesn’t have this standard of backup you are at a high risk of losing the data which is essential for the day-to-day running of your business.

You may have a computer backup and disaster recovery solution but is it fool proof? Do you know that it is monitored 24 hours a day and that any problems will be fixed as soon as they are spotted? Have you run a test to check that you can recover from backup quickly and that all your files are being backed up correctly?

If not it is vitally important for the future of your business that you do so. A server crash without a proper backup plan could cost you weeks, and you may never recover all of your data.

If you have any questions, or would like to discuss the Flint IT backup and disaster recovery plan, please contact us at sales AT flint-it DOT com or call 0845 3309680.

*A false name has been used to protect the customer’s identity.