Tip of the Week: How to Protect Your Business from 3 Common Disasters

It doesn’t take much to disrupt your company’s network and cause downtime. Whether it’s from something major like a natural disaster, or something minor like forgetting your network login credentials, you need to have a plan in place that gets your network up and running as soon as possible. Here are three common scenarios that you need to plan for.

Power Outages
Have you ever experienced a power outage due to overloading an outlet, popping a breaker, or a surge? A power outage is an annoying occurrence that can disrupt the work day and cause downtime. A computer system that’s offline can halt the productivity of an entire company, hurting your bottom line. Sudden power outages can also erase any unsaved data, and cause damage to computer hardware.

A Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) solution is perfect for minor power outages caused by small things like an overloaded outlet, or major disasters that can leave your office without power for an extended period of time. One benefit to a BDR is that it can backup all of your data regularly throughout the day. Another solution to protect your PC from damage caused by power outages, is to use an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to ensure that your hardware will continue to run uninterrupted during a brief outage. 

Disasters that Call for the Evacuation of Your Building
For when an actual disaster strikes, it’s good to have a rehearsed evacuation plan in place. This should include designated leaders who are capable of safely evacuating others in the face of panic. If you’re backing up your computer network with tape drives, then taking the drives off-site in the event of a disaster should be part of your emergency plan. BDR is the best solution in emergency scenarios because all your data can be automatically backed up to the cloud, meaning that you don’t have to worry about retrieving tapes in a chaotic office evacuation.

Forgotten Passwords
Trying to guess a forgotten password can be a rather frustrating exercise. What if the IT tech that set up your company’s network was gone the day of an emergency and only they knew the password? Or, what if the person who enacted the password was no longer with the company and they didn’t make the password easily accessible?

To prevent this password scenario for yourself, there are several solutions available to make sure that your passwords are easily accessible. Using a secure password storage services like LastPass or KeePass can help you to quickly retrieve the password. And even better, if your business had Computerware monitoring their computer network, we can detect problems and resolve password issues remotely. Not all password management solutions are equal though, so if you are really looking to implement something for your business that’s secure, be sure to reach out to us - we can help you pick the right one.

Call us at (703) 821-8200 to set up protections and monitoring to safeguard your office from power outages and other disasters.