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Save Time & Money with Proactive IT Services

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Save money and time

IT support services can be one of the largest and most unpredictable expenses within a modern business. Unexpected failures, mandatory upgrades and sudden staff changes can happen quickly and the costs can soon add up.

These factors are a part of the IT world and make IT departments costly, hard to manage, and difficult to budget for.

Switching your business to a proactive IT support provider (or managed service provider – MSP) can lower costs and reduce unpredictable expenses. Making the switch can cut down management overheads and reduce budgets to a fixed monthly cost. Here are some tips on how this can be done:

Reducing Infrastructure

It is common in many firms for tasks to pass through multiple devices before they can be delivered or shipped. Invoices, payroll, and deliverables are particularly the common culprits. When looking to improve efficiency and lower unnecessary costs, this is typically the first place to trim fat.

Instead of adding office clutter with more servers and devices, cloud resources can streamline these processes. Using cloud-based technology to do some of the same tasks as before typically adds more power and improves speed and efficiency.

Cloud-based services are usually faster and available to more users (both internal and external) at once. Files and services are easier to access and less likely to clog up the internal network.

Reducing the overheads associated with running internal servers is commonly a major bonus too. Eliminating associated costs such as ongoing maintenance, security, cooling and upgrades are some of the bonuses many firms receive.

Cloud technology has the power to simplify and speed up your entire work-flow while making large financial savings.

For most businesses, these savings can be put into critical areas of the firm where they can be better used.

Keeping IT costs predictable

In the world of IT, bad news is a fact of life. Systems failures and critical events will always happen eventually, it’s just a question of when. Virus attacks, malware, hackers, and hardware failures occur commonly and can take a single system or the entire network out of operation for days.

Proactive IT services focus on tackling these issues before they happen. Continuous monitoring of the systems can alert us of hardware issues before their symptoms even begin.

Antivirus, firewall, and security systems are also kept up-to-date every night to prevent threats from being exploited and data being stolen or held for ransom.

Reducing Downtime

IT failures that take your systems offline typically cost far more than the total repair bill to fix it as staff are sitting around waiting. Every minute your systems are unavailable is time spent not creating business income or value. The more staff you employ, the more the cost multiplies.

It’s important to consider the value of the business’s reputation on top of just downtime. Not having services available when clients or customers need them most can sour relationships. Your services may be the difference between meeting or missing a critical deadline. If your service isn’t reliable then clients may look at your competitors for a solution.

No Internal IT Hires

As every business owner knows, the cost of staff is far more than just their salary. Holiday pay, retirement, sick leave, training and downtime all must be factored into the total cost. Staff costs are the single biggest bill to pay, even in the smallest IT departments.

Proactive IT reduces staff costs down to a single lower cost bill that includes all your IT needs.

We train and manage our own staff to service and support your firm. By doing so, you get all the advantages of an IT department to meet your business needs without the overheads and management that are not central to your customer demands.

Proactive IT Services for your Firm

While IT and services are complex, expensive, and resource consuming; it doesn’t have to be for your business. Proactive IT services present a simple and cost-effective solution to meet your requirements.

We can slash your downtime, secure your business and keep on top of your infrastructure for one low monthly bill.

If you are in Adelaide South Australia please contact us on 08 8326 4364 or support@dpcomputing.com.au  to see if our Proactive IT Services are the right fit for your firm.

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Buying Technology This Christmas

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Christmas TechChristmas will soon be here. The latest devices and gadgets are hitting store shelves just in time to keep up with the rush. Social media, blogs, magazines, television screens and the web are brimming with advertisements and reviews of the latest technology you can buy.

Before you rush out to buy the gadgets you’ve been waiting all year for, consider a few important questions before handing over your hard-earned cash.

What Problem Do I Need Solved?

First, you must ask what problem you are trying to solve with a new piece of technology. The most important thing to consider is how adopting your new device will improve on what you had before.

Also remember that it is all not work and in some cases, a sleek new gadget or device for fun and play is ideal.

When you’ve answered this question, you should consider whether there is other tech or competing devices out there that can perform even better.

Is Being an Early Adopter Good?

Early adopters are people that can’t wait for new tech to be released, they wait in line on release day and pride themselves on having the latest gadgets as soon as they hit the shelves. If you recognise yourself in this description you are likely to snap up the latest devices the day (or very soon after) they are released. This eager anticipation, however, is not always the ideal way to get the best deals or the best gadgets.

Companies often rely on new product hype to give sales an early boost. Waiting a short time for the marketing and hype to subside, can save a lot of money.

As the honeymoon period dies down and initial sales fall, companies often mark down their prices to keep their devices attractive and sales high. As newer, competing devices get released, companies also cut prices to maintain strong sales figures. For the budget smart consumer this is an opportunity for a bargain. A device good enough to buy on launch day is well worth waiting for (especially at a cheaper price!).

Have You Read The Reviews?

With all the information available on the internet we have access to seemingly unlimited amounts of information at our fingertips. Often weeks before a product is released, reviews are written and posted to various websites across the web.

One of the best things you can do when considering a new device is to watch and read a wide variety of product reviews. It also pays to be cautious of reviews that are particularly glowing or too downbeat as they may be a paid for review by the manufacturer. Keep an eye out for middle of the road reviews that fairly weigh the pros and cons of each device.

Have I Found the Best Deal?

There are many ways to keep an eye out to make sure you get the best price on the device. If you can, monitor prices over time to see how they rise and fall to find the best time to purchase.

When purchasing online, many sites include a box to add a coupon code when you are ready to buy. It sometimes pays to jump over to Google and search the website name and ‘coupon’ or ‘voucher’ to see if you can find the coupon code. A quick search can save you as much as 10, 15, or 20 per cent on some purchases.

Sometimes companies send out offers to appeal to groups they want to market to. A companies Facebook page may get different offers or vouchers than its Twitter followers or newsletter for example.

It can pay to search around for offers and vouchers to get money off before you checkout. A quick 5 minutes search can potentially save you a huge amounts of cash.

Speak with a Friend or Colleague

Do you know of someone who has a good grasp on technology? If so ask them about what you are about to buy and what their thoughts are of it. They may even know of a another website or shop to purchase the item from that offers a better price and / or service.

Purchase in Confidence

If you have asked yourself these questions, done all your research, and found the answers you are looking for then you may well be ready to buy.

You can now do so with the confidence that you have done all your research and you are getting the best deal and gadget for your money.

If you are still confused then let us know and we can help take the stress out of purchasing new technology: Give DP Computing a ring on 08 8326 4364 or support@dpcomputing.com.au .

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Christmas Holidays Setup & Installation

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Devices

The holiday season is upon us again. Advertisers have released their festive adverts and stores have dusted off their Christmas displays from last year. Most importantly, shopping centres have moved their latest and greatest devices to the front of the store.

There may still be work to do, however, before we can invite round family a little maintenance, updates and set-up goes a long way to ensure the holiday season goes without a hitch.

Sadly, not every device is ready to run straight out the box. Not every device even comes ready to interact with others when it’s first opened. Each new gadget comes with its own setup and new things to learn.

Often today, devices, toys and computers require extensive updates before they are ready to function. This commonly means large downloads and lengthy installation periods.

In previous years devices have been purchased for Christmas, only to be rendered useless waiting for updates while large numbers of requests crash the company servers. This can be highly frustrating and put a real dampener on the holiday spirit.

Here is how DP Computing can help you this season:

Setup New Devices

In the modern day simply purchasing a gadget doesn’t make it ready to use. Often they still need setup, updates, and extra steps to make it safe to access the internet too.

Bring your device to us and we can have it safe and ready to use the second you unbox it. We’ll perform initial setup, get it ready for the network, and install mandatory updates. By the time we’re done, your device will be the first one ready to use. For relevant devices, we can install additional features and software too: line of business software, MS Office suite, antivirus and security features and configure applications like email.

Whatever the device we can configure it to the way you want to use it.

Transfer Data and Retire Old Devices

Getting a brand new device can be fun and exciting. Before getting carried away with the latest technology, we must consider what happens to our old data too. Depending on the device there are any number of dangers and pitfalls to think about.

Replacing an ageing laptop or desktop computer with a brand new model has the inherent danger of what happens to the old data?

These computers typically use hard drive disks to store all their data. When disposed of improperly, hard drives are vulnerable to being removed and taken. These can often be read and copied by thieves looking to steal your data. Old devices containing data need just as much care and attention as new ones fresh out the box.

There are many cases where companies individuals have had important information stolen this way. In some cases the information has been used to access accounts, blackmail, industrial espionage and even identity theft.

Mobile devices typically have some form of data storage too. This may store applications or media that has been bought and paid for; but also data such as records and photographs that hold a great deal of value.

We can help transfer old files and data to your new device and safely dispose of your old one too.

We can ensure that every photograph, video, and bit of data is recovered from your mobile device or laptop so that you never lose a single file. We can securely wipe and even physically destroy old hard drives at your request. We strive to ensure you keep every bit of your old data and not a single byte falls into the wrong hands.

Troubleshooting

It sometimes happens that new technology has moved so fast and changed so much that it doesn’t play well with older devices already installed on your network. Sometimes it seems impossible to even connect certain devices at all.

Often simple configuration changes are all that’s required to introduce two pieces of technology successfully. With the right set of eyes and in knowledgeable hands the most complex of jobs can be turned into a quick fix.

If your goal is for a stress free, fun and relaxing Christmas season and you are in Adelaide South Australia please contact us on 08 8326 4364 or support@dpcomputing.com.au and we’ll get you up and running in time.

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Is IT Becoming a Burden?

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Is IT becoming a burden?

In todays world technology allows us to accomplish more tasks faster than ever before. Paperless documents, remote collaboration and video conferencing have all lowered the costs and increased the speed of everyday business at an extraordinary rate.

As with most things, the benefits of modern IT does come at a cost. Consistent maintenance has become critical to almost every business. The IT department is now as important to the functioning of a firm as sales, marketing, or management. The advantages that come with modern technology more than outweigh the drawbacks – it is up to the business owner to balance both. In today’s highly competitive business environment the latest tips, tricks, and tools are essential to keeping ahead of the competition.

The Cost of Well Maintained IT

While good, well maintained IT is a powerful asset; poor, crumbling IT can quickly turn into a liability. Machines, servers and desktops need to be kept up to date with the latest operating system and security patches as a matter of priority and data requires consistent back-ups.

Poor security and data backup measures put both your own and your customer data at risk from attack. Regular security updates close vulnerable gaps, while backups protect valuable data. Strong security protects you against losing and / or compromising your own and your customers data.

Determining what is and isn’t good IT practice for your firm takes the knowledge of an experienced professional. Good security involves more than one managed system to protect your assets. Good data backup is ideally done daily, involving more than a single copy to both and onsite and offsite location. Without these basic steps, a business is as little as one glitch away from a complete critical failure.

Managing Internal IT

The IT demands of every firm changes on a near-daily basis:

  1. Software is often added, updated or removed.
  2. User accounts need to be added, removed, or changed.
  3. Permissions require modification to suit ever-changing requirements.
  4. Email addresses and aliases modified, created and modified.

Depending on the size of your business, the time requirement of regular IT changes alone is more than an individual or even some smaller IT departments can handle.

Many smaller firms deal with accounts, permissions, and software at an individual level. Wherever this is the case we generally see complications happening. Settings, software and services get lost and forgotten in the system and often cause cascading IT issues throughout the firm. User accounts are often left on the system months or years after an employee has departed which leaves security holes in the network.

For reliable and secure IT management, policies are needed to prevents bad systems. Proper IT management allows staff to get on with their work without technology getting in the way. Data is managed at a department level, accounts are removed for staff that depart the business and software is updated and installed by professionals. Using this approach the liability of the firm for IT failures is drastically reduced.

Managing IT Without The Added Burden

One of the major complaints about setting up well managed IT is the overhead that it adds to the firm. Staff costs, additional management as well as office space of an IT department is a daunting financial burden to add.

Staff costs alone can make building an equipped IT department prohibitively expensive. Qualified, dependable, knowledgeable IT staff demand a high salary and costly benefits. In addition, equipment costs and lead time to get up and running on your business systems drive the costs even higher. Some firms simply don’t have the space required to add an entirely new department to the business.

This is why, for many businesses, outsourcing is the most effective way to update their IT without increasing business overhead. Outsourcing provides modern IT for a simple, fixed monthly cost. Removing the distractions of managing an entirely new department allows the business to focus on doing the job they do best.

What We Do

By trusting your IT to us, we ensure that your systems are up-to-date, secure, working to their best ability and fully backed up. We can keep you competitive by allowing you to focus on running your business rather than worrying about IT issues.

Along with day to day IT management, administration, monitoring, and setup; we can assist your transition to the cloud (if appropriate for your bsuiness), setup remote working, and provide IT assistance to set up the latest technology that will enable you to succeed.

Allow us to help you do more than ever before. Bring your IT demands to us and we’ll provide you with the modern IT you need to let your business thrive. If you are in Adelaide South Australia please contact us on 08 8326 4364 or support@dpcomputing.com.au.

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Keeping On Top Of Your Workday

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Organise your workdayIt is very easy to lose track of time during your busy workday. Often you can be running late before you know it and wondering where the time has gone. Luckily, there is range of technology solutions to help you organise your to-do list and help you get on top of your workday.

The Outlook Calendar

We are often guilty of spending the entire day stuck with emails in Outlook. In addition to emails, there are a range of features that can help you make the most of Outlook. With some simple tweaks, you will be able to manage your day like a pro.

The Outlook Calendar allows you to make quick changes, alter your diary, and update items on the go. The Calendar interface allows appointments to be picked up and moved to a different time or date with ease.

The biggest advantage Outlook has is the ability to access and update it from anywhere. With 2-way sync, appointments, meetings, and events can be updated anywhere and accessed everywhere – whether it be on your computer, laptop, tablet or phone. The days of no longer being able to check your calendar because you are not sitting in front of your computer are now long gone.

Today you can add events straight from your email and even invite others to events can be contacted with reminders automatically. You can even schedule your own reminders before the event too. Using your calendar to stay on top of your day has never been easier.

OneNote

The Microsoft Office suite includes OneNote, despite it not being as well known as other members of the Office suite (ie Outlook, Word, excel etc) it can be an indispensable tool that you shouldn’t do without.

OneNote acts as a virtual notebook to keep your ideas, projects, and notes in line. Using OneNote enables you to power-up your text with drawings and diagrams, tailor your projects with color coding, and record your thoughts with media clips all in one location.

OneNote is becoming the ultimate record keeping tool that you simply can’t go into a meeting without. Physical notebooks begin to seem like a relic of the past, limited by old constraints that no longer apply to a laptop or tablet with OneNote.

Microsoft To-Do

Powered by Office 365 is Microsoft’s To-Do application. To-Do offers a simple, straightforward to-do list that makes it easy to plan your day.

Whether planning your school work, business projects or keeping on top of your home life, To-Do is designed to boost productivity and make the most of your time. The simple interface makes it easy to use and the instant reward for checking of tasks makes it well worth your while.

To-Do sorts your tasks into lists, which are combined into a single day view. The view of your day provides a clear, clutter-free list of tasks to be done.

Being Office 365 based means that the application syncs with all your devices to give you access from anywhere. This empowers you to quickly add, change, schedule, and tick off tasks as you go.

Keeping On Top Of Your Day

Losing track of time is easy to do. It does not take too much before your day seems completely out of order. With the tools listed above from Office 365 and a tiny bit of planning, your days can become more productive than ever.

Being back on track, you will no longer have to spend your free time making up for lost time. Your spare time will be your own again and everyone will wonder how you manage to remain so productive.

Give these tools a try today and you’ll wonder how you ever managed without them.

If you need help and are in Adelaide South Australia please contact us on 08 8326 4364 or support@dpcomputing.com.au.

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Common Types of Malware to Watch Out For

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Infected SystemsWhat is a virus and is it the same as malware?

Malware describes software designed to act maliciously on a computer. The name ‘malware’ is a shorthand for ‘malicious software’ and describes exactly what it is. A computer virus is a single type of malware that can cause harm to your PC, but it is only one of many. Other types of malware are listed below.

Adware

Short for advertising-supported software, adware is a type of malware that delivers adverts to your computer. These advertisements often pop-up and are intrusive, irritating and  designed to trick you into clicking something you don’t want. A common example of malware is pop-up ads that appear on many websites and mobile applications.

Adware often comes bundled with “free” versions of software that uses these intrusive advertising to make money. Commonly it is installed without the user’s knowledge and are purposely made to be difficult to remove.

Spyware

Spyware is designed to spy on the user’s activity without their consent or knowledge. Spyware is often installed in the background, collects keyboard input and can harvest data from the computer, monitor web activity and more.

Spyware typically requires installation to the computer. This is commonly done by tricking users into installing the spyware themselves instead of a software application that they thought they were getting. Victims of spyware are often be completely unaware of its presence until the stolen data is used elsewhere (ie in a fraudulent bank transactions or stolen online accounts).

Virus

A computer virus is a form of malware that is installed inadvertently, causing damage to the computer and / or user. A typical virus may install a keylogger to capture passwords, logins and bank information from the keyboard or it might steal or delete data, interrupt programs or cause the computer to crash.

Modern virus programs commonly use your computers processing power and internet bandwidth to perform illegal tasks remotely for hackers. The first sign of this can be when the computer sounds like it is doing a lot of work when no programs are running. A computer virus is often spread through installing unknown software or downloading attachments that contain more than they seem.

Ransomware

Ransomware is a very malicious variety of malware that prevents the user from accessing their own files and data until a ransom is paid. Files within the system are often encrypted with a password that won’t be revealed to the user until they receive money usually in the form of bitcoin.

Instead of accessing the computer as normal, the user is presented with a screen which details the contact and payment information required to access their data again.

Ransomware is typically downloaded through malicious file attachments, email or through a vulnerability in the computer system.

Worm

Another type of malware is the computer worm. Worms spread across computer networks by exploiting vulnerabilities within the operating system. Often these programs harm their host networks by consuming large amounts of network bandwidth, overloading computers and using up all the available resources.

While similar to a virus a worm is able to both copies of itself and spread independently. A virus must rely on human activity to run a program or open a malicious attachment while worms can simply spread over the network without human intervention.

If you would like to make your business secure from malware, give us a call at 08 8326 4364 or via email on support@dpcomputing.com.au.

4 Ways To Protect Your Firm Against Unknown Threats

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Unknown threatsProtecting your business against the latest IT threats should always be a top priority. Updating your antivirus and keeping your operating system and applications up to date is a great way to start. What happens though, when a threat appears at your door before security firms have had a chance to catch it?

A security threat that exploits a previously undiscovered vulnerability is known as a zero-day threat. The name “zero-day” is designed to show how long since the vulnerability was discovered and also indicates that system developers have had zero days to fix it.

A newly discovered attack might be included in a computer virus or worm. This will allow it to spread far and wide, while inflicting the maximum amount of damage possible. When spread successfully, a new exploit has the potential to reach hundreds of thousands of computers before an operating system or anti-virus update can even be issued.

Here are 4 ways to help protect your business or lessen the damage from an unknown or  zero-day attack.

1. Preventative security

The number one way to mitigate the damage from any attack is to prevent it from happening in the first place. Maintaining a good firewall and up-to-date security system is the best way you can take to ensure the security of your system.

A firewall, which monitors traffic in and out of your network, reduces unauthorised entries and exits over the network. Even without knowing the exact nature of the attack, suspicious activity can be stopped.

The same is true of modern security software. Even when it can’t identify the specific zero-day threat from its virus database; it can often identify malicious intent from learned behaviour in the system.

2. A Locked Down Network

Should a zero-day threat make it into your network, our next goal is to limit its effects. By restricting user access to only essential files and systems we can limit the damage done to the smallest area. Good security policy dictates that each account should only have full access to the systems needed to complete the user’s job. For example, users from the accounts department shouldn’t have access to sales department databases – see our blog article here on this area of security.

In this way, the damage of a single compromised account is limited to only the network area it has permissions to. Limiting the impact makes it easier to recover if the worst happens.

3. Good Data backup

Whether your entire network has been exploited or only a small area has been affected; good data backups are a must and are your protection against major long term damage. Having a good backup means having the procedures in place to create regular backup copies and also regularly test those backups to make sure they can be restored at a later date.

Reliable and well tested backups are worth their weight in gold. They allow you to sleep well at night knowing your data is safe and your system can be recovered.

4. Intrusion Protection

While the precise methods of a zero-day exploit can’t be known in advance, a network intrusion protection system (NIPS) can monitor your firms network for unusual activity.

The advantage of NIPS over a traditional firewall and traditional antivirus software is that it does not rely on checking software against a known database of threats. This means it does not need updates or patches to learn about the latest attacks. NIPS works by learning the day-to-day patterns of network activity across the network.

When traffic or something out of the ordinary is detected, action can be taken to alert system administrators and lock down the network.

NIPS protects against threats introduced to the network from both external and internal sources.

Full Cover Protection

Used in combination these techniques can prevent, protect, and mitigate against the kinds of threats that even the top security firms don’t even know of yet.

If you could use help protect your business against security threats and are in Adelaide or South Australia, then give us a call today at 08 8326 4364 or via email at support@dpcomputing.com.au.

Tools to Take Your Business To The Cloud

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Tools to move to the cloudBeing engaged in business used to mean staying wired in at the office eight to twelve hours a day. In today’s world this is completely untrue as often the most efficient workplace is one that is spread far and wide and always on the go.

With todays technology you can free yourself from your desk with just a laptop computer and 4G modem (or just tether it to your mobile phone). This freedom to work out of the office is a huge advantage to modern businesses.

The Right Tools for the Job

The most important parts of working out of the office is to ensure you don’t lose touch with your team. Maintaining total collaboration between team members can be tricky but their are tools to help you to stay on top of your team communication.

One such tool is Microsoft Office 365, this provides the traditional tools (Word, Excel, Outlook, OneNote etc) and also adds remote team collaboration and a cloud based file server. Files can be saved into the cloud, worked on and accessed anywhere. At one time, remote working meant taking a copy of a file somewhere else to work. Changes to the original weren’t reflected in the remote copy and at least one version was destined to be lost forever.

Software packages such as OneDrive and SharePoint allow the entire team to work on a single centralised file saved to the cloud. Whether you are in the office, on a beach, plane, or train; the file is the same version for everyone.

Collaborative Working

The key to remote working is the ability to collaborate in the cloud with everyone at once. Modern software such as Office 365 allows all team members to be working on a single document at the same time.

Whether the project calls for spreadsheets, documents or a presentation; everyone can work together without missing a beat.

Even when you’re not working out of the office or busy on the road, collaborative software can help to power your team working in the office too.

Admin Done Remotely

Modern software has impacted the way in which we do our finances and simplify your bookkeeping.

Today, cloud computing has opened up ways to speed up business in ways we couldn’t have imagined. Cloud-based accounting packages such as Xero, MYOB or Quickbooks allow for your accounts to be done in the cloud.

Make your Finances Work for You

Maintaining your finances is as simple as logging into a single portal. This tool allows you to take both your admin and your work out of the office and keep it on the go.

By the time your accounts are due, your accountant simply has to log in remotely and pick up where you left off. By the time taxes are due the work is done and you can get on with other important things in your business.

Getting work done out of the office and on the go is a huge boost to productivity. Modern technology and software enables you to keep up to speed, continue collaborating and even stay on top of your accounts from anywhere in the world.

Give us a call today on 08 8326 4364 or support@dpcomputing.com.au to talk about how we can help you move to the cloud.

How Not To Struggle With Data Storage

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Large data

Many businesses have already embraced the benefits of going fully digital and it has saved us time and eliminated the need for stacks of file cabinets in every office.

But the digital boom presents us with a brand new range of issues. By moving all our files into a digital space, the amount of storage we need to maintain has grown larger and larger.

As digital technology has improved, the resolution and thus the size of the digital files we create has exploded. Items such as photographs, which used to be printed on film are now digital files stored and transferred by computers. As a result of the increase in both the number of digital files we use and their ever-growing size, the size of the data we need to store and backup has exploded exponentially.

This blog lists a number of ways in which we can tackle our ever-growing storage problem.

A Local Server or Network Attached Storage (NAS) Device

A local server is a high end computer system machine designed to serve many files to multiple clients at one time from locally held storage.

The advantage that a local network server has is that all your vital data is available to all users in one central location. This means that all employees on the network can access all the resources made available.

These machines can serve files at the speed of the local network, transferring large projects, files, and documents from a central source within the network quickly and with ease.

A Network Attached Storage device (or NAS) has many of the same network properties but in a smaller more compact profile. These can be available in units small enough to fit in a cupboard nook and yet still provide staggering storage capacity on only a small amount of power.

Both of these units can often be expanded with more and more storage, so as an organization grows over time its storage requirements are met.

Cloud Storage

Sometimes the best option for storage is to move your ever-increasing data outside of the business and into the cloud. Offloading the costs of hardware and IT management can work out to be an intelligent business decision and one that provides freedom and flexibility for your data storage needs.

The real advantage of cloud storage comes from the ability to expand and contract your services as needed without the overhead of adding and maintaining new hardware.

By moving storage to the cloud, data can be accessed from anywhere in the world allowing limitless expansion to any number of devices, locations and offices. Being able to access data from many locations at a single time can often provide a valuable boost to productivity that can help to improve productivity.

Some drawbacks of cloud storage come from factors that may be outside of the control of the business. Not all businesses have access to internet connections that are fast enough to handle large amounts of data transfer to and from the cloud.

Local laws and security regulations can prove to be a barrier to enabling storage in the cloud too. Some regulations either prohibit the feature entirely or enable only certain specific types for use.

The Right Choice For You

Both cloud and local storage can provide further benefits to enhance your business. Audit logs, central backups, and version control can all be used to secure the way your firm handles data.

Whatever your situation, whether a small NAS, server or cloud, we can advise on the best choices for your business.

Contact us on 08 8326 4364 or support@dpcomputing.com.au to allow us to use our expertise to make the right choice for your data.

Businesses Top 5 IT Security Problems

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Security Problems

In today’s world, companies seem to be having security issues most weeks. These issues relate to 5 main problems. Is your company guilty of any of them?

1. No Backups

A shocking number of businesses do not back up their data properly. According to market research company Clutch, 60 percent of businesses who suffer a data loss shut down within six months.

Even with companies that think they are doing their backups correctly they never regularly test those backups. It is a step that businesses miss surprisingly often\ so don’t be that business that only finds out that their backup isn’t working when it is already too late.

2. Being Reactive and Not Proactive

Technology is changing on a daily basis. Attackers are always working on new ways to break into businesses, hardware is evolving faster than most of us can keep up and old systems fail due to wear and tear. A huge number of businesses wait until these issues impact them directly before they respond. This results in higher costs, longer downtime, and harder hitting impacts.

By responding to hardware warnings before it fails, fixing security holes before they’re exploited and upgrading systems before they are out of date: IT can be done right. Being proactive about your IT needs means systems do not have to break before they are fixed. This results in less downtime, fewer losses and lower IT costs for your business.

3. Poor Passwords

A surprising number of people will use weak passwords to secure their accounts. Even more will write down their passwords on a post-it note right next to the computer. In other cases many people have no passwords at all! Strong passwords act, not only as a barrier to prevent unwanted entry, but as a vital accountability tool too – when system changes are made it is essential to be able to trace back to the account that made that change.

With an weak or insecure password tracking the individual responsible for reports or accountability becomes impossible. This can result in both auditing disasters on top of technical ones.

4. Little or No Staff Training

People are commonly the weakest link when it comes to IT security. Implementing IT security can be a bit like having state-of-the-art locks on a door propped open with a milk crate when staff aren’t trained to use that lock.

Often businesses can justify spending big on security hardware and software but spend zero dollars on training staff to use them. In this instance, a little goes a long way. Security training can help staff to identify a threat, stop it at its entry point and avoid any issues that may have occurred if the staff member hadn’t had any training.

5. Weak Data Controls

Some companies take an ad-hoc, fast and loose approach to data storage. Often crucial  data is spread across many devices, copied needlessly and even left unsecured. Client data can be found regularly on employee laptops, mobile phones and tablet devices. These devices are prone to being misplaced or stolen along with any data they contain.

Most companies focus on the costs of devices and hardware purchased for the business. The reality is that the data held on those devices is always worth many times more than the device that holds it. For many firms, their approach to data hasn’t been changed since when the firm was first founded. Critical data is often held on single machines that hasn’t been updated because they hold that critical data. Such machines are clearly vulnerable, outdated and of course prone to failure.

Common problems with simple solutions

Each of these common issues have simple solutions to secure against IT failure. With a professional eye and expertise in the field, every business should be defended against IT issues that risk the firm.

If you are in South Australia and need help securing your IT system, give DP Computing a call on 08 8326 4364 or at support@dpcomputing.com.au.