“I accidentally lost an entire folder. Would you help me restore it from the backup?”
Vandalism  
One client fired an employee, who then wiped out thier company computer information on purpose.
Theft  
It was all dark and quiet, and then it was gone . . .
02-27-2009
You saved my bacon.
Mel Ussing, CPA
Your computerized information is always at risk of loss, even with most common backup methods
100% of hard drives eventually fail. In fact, the hard drive industry has a name for it. They have specifications of what is called the “mean time between failure” i.e. how many hours on average before the drive of a particular model and build will fail, such as, for example, 500,000 MTBF, a common figure for hard drives. The real fail time is more accurately warranty period plus 30 days.1 It is just a matter of time, and you hope it is not soon or at a bad time for you. Backup tapes are notorious for short life spans and unreliability for restore of needed files. There may not be research data on the failure of USB memory sticks (flash drives), but I know from personal experience that they fail, are unreliable, and are easily lost. How about you?
Here are some stats from independent sources that are not in the backup business
"As I mentioned in a recent column on mean time between failure, a couple of papers presented at FAST 07 (the USENIX conference on File and Storage Technologies) showed that annual disk replacement rates are much higher than predicted, the well-held belief in a burn-in phase for hard disk life cycle was wrong, and the SMART (self-monitoring, analysis and reporting technology) code in hard drives and storage management software—long touted by the industry as the best predictor of disk failure—was mostly a security blanket for IT managers." "One of the best methods to predict the failure of any device, storage or otherwise, is to simply count 30 days after its warranty."1
Two out of every five enterprises that experience a disaster go out of business within five years! 59% of companies cannot conduct business during unscheduled IT downtime. 40% of companies that cannot conduct business during a major IT outage go out of business within 5 years.2
A Company that experiences a computer outage lasting more than 10 days will never fully recover financially. 50 percent will be out of business within five years.3
An estimated 25 percent of businesses do not reopen following a major disaster.4
70 percent of small firms that experience a major data loss go out of business within a year.5
Of companies experiencing catastrophic data loss, 43% of companies never reopened and 51% of companies closed within 2 years.6
80% of companies that do not recover from a disaster within one month are likely to go out of business.7
75% of companies without business continuity plans fail within three years of a disaster.8
Of those businesses that experience a disaster and have no emergency plan,
43 percent never reopen; of those that do reopen, only 29 percent are still
operating two years later.9
10-23-2008
David,
In regards to our back-up rebuild your help was invaluable to our organization. I appreciate
the amount of time you spent on the phone with me and your patience in walking me through the process of setting a manual back-up. Your courtesy call after the rebuild of our back-up was what saved us. You gave me the
opportunity to ask some questions regarding how the back-up works, even though that wasn’t the reason for the call. It was because of this that we realized that the automatic back-up had not been reset, and had
not run for two days. Losing two days worth of data would have been extremely detrimental to our company. We would never have been able to reconstruct everything exactly the way it was. I’m sure we would have lost clients, if we weren’t able to take care of them in our usual efficient and effective manner, due to the loss of this data.
Q. OK, I know that hard drives fail, servers and workstations fail, and even tape and memory stick media used for backup fails. I know that backup media kept on site can also be destroyed or be stolen. So, what do I do?
A. In just a few minutes, you can maximize your ability to survive a hard drive failure, backup media failure, employee error, vandalism, system breakdown, theft, or disaster such as fire and drastic weather.
Backup is such a pain that you (or your staff) don’t do it
Your current backup method takes so much time that you do it only once in a while, and you know that is not often
enough
Your worry about the lack of current backup
When you do perform a backup, your time is diverted from more profitable work, so you lose net profit every
minute you spend on your backup work
Your internal de facto computer “guru” is diverted from the main business role to perform daily backup duties,
with loss of profit opportunity
Your internal guru or volunteer attempts to perform backup tasks that require a professional for the best solution
that will give you certainty of disaster recovery and business continuity
You have no idea if the backup worked correctly
You have no confidence that your data is recoverable – you just hope it is (one of my client's former
tape backup system said it worked, but tapes were blank)
Some company sells you hardware, software, and tape media or external hard drives, but that’s it; then, you have
no ongoing monitoring and proactive tasks performed for you
You have no idea how to restore a file from the backup solution you have
It is very difficult, time-consuming, or impossible to retrieve backed up files
You do not know where to find the files you need to recover
Your backup is not encrypted
Your data is at risk of inappropriate release to both outsiders and insiders
There is a lack of strategic direction and regulatory compliance for health or financial information
The Solution
Backup is easy
Backup is regular, daily, automatic and most days takes only 5 seconds of your time
You know your backup is current
You are certain of disaster recovery and business continuity
Every day you know that the backup worked
You have confidence that your data is recoverable – we help you test it any time you like, or test it on your own any time you like
You know how to restore a file because it looks and works like normal File Explorer activity (or you can call us to lead you through it)
It is very easy and fast to retrieve backed up files
You know where to find the files you need to recover
You have ongoing monitoring and proactive tasks are performed for you
Your backup is encrypted
Your data is protected from inappropriate release to both outsiders and insiders
You are provided with strategic direction
You have the ability to meet regulatory compliance for health or financial information
The InfoTech Group is your full-service information backup, restore, recovery, and compliance department on a small budget. You will have Planning, Training, Support, Reliability, Availability, Performance, and Information Security (including regulatory compliance)
You will have a single point of contact for a complete solution with no finger-pointing from one vendor to another, so that you can concentrate your time on what is most profitable to you
You will get backup like big business gets from full-time staff, but for a fraction of the price
10-19-2008
Our firm has been using the Servare Onliine Backup service for several years and have had nothing but success with the service. We measure that with the amount of time we have to spend dealing with configuration, settings, problems, etc and that has been practically zero.
Once the software application was loaded onto our servers and configured (10 mins max) we have never had to do any more or worry about it. We get confirmation emails daily with backup confirmations, settings changes, backup space being used, etc and the service has been exceptionally reliable.
We are a healthcare practice management firm, serving 50+ clients and our data needs to be secure and backed up daily in accordance with HIPAA requirements, and Servare has been able to provide that level of security. We use a plethora of online services including FTP, Meeting, Chat Support and Backup and Servare has been without a doubt the most dependable and maintained the best customer service.
When we recently migrated several of our servers to a Virtual Environment, we had issues with the online backup, due to Virtual Machine settings on our end. David Pettit responded to our concerns immediately and continued to communicate by phone and email throughout the process, to ensure our issue was resolved. David went above and beyond what I would expect from an online service firm and provided additional resources for our firm to ensure our data was always backed up, during this issue, at their expense and eventually resolved the issue for us due to his perseverance and commitment to our satisfaction. David even tried to credit us for services we paid for in addition to our regular service that we implemented to resolve the issue.
I cannot speak highly enough of David’s services, customer service, support and quality. The service provides a secure and reliable online backup solution with exceptional support and flexibility and as a firm that lives and dies with its data, we put our complete trust in Servare and David and will continue to do so in the future.
Please feel free to contact me at any time if you have any questions or require any further detail
Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE NT/2000/2003) [since Oct 1996]
Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA 2000/2003) [since Jul 2002]
Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) [Oct 2002 - Oct 2005]
Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP)
Certified Novell Administrator (CNA)
Network+, Security+, and Linux+
Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) [Oct 2004 - Oct 2007]
Years of information technology experience represented by The InfoTech Group - 40
Proven skills and results with satisfied clients, partners, and partners' clients
11-18-2008
You have a great service and have on several occasions helped me on the phone; solving the issue at hand. I wish only the best for you.
Best Regards,
Robert Barkle
Does any other backup company offer you this combination of abilities? Is there any reason to put the survival of your company (and your income) in anyone else's hands? Call us toll free at 888.737.8922
More Reasons to Choose The InfoTech Group for Remote Backup
Raving fans
Hundreds of satisfied clients
Many satisfied partners with their satisfied clients
Much experience interfacing with Users, Consultants, Owners, Presidents, Vice Presidents, Directors, Managers, Supervisors ( Companies Served, Professional Contacts )
and finally ~ ~ ~ PEACE OF MIND ~ ~ ~
We guarantee that you will be happy with how well we serve your needs. That is rare. Let us do what will give you better sleep at night. Call us toll free at 888.737.8922
We have been with The Info Tech Group for over a year now. We use the remote backup services for our two locations. We have been very satisfied with the service and customer support that Dave provides. The set up and maintenance process is very easy to use and understand. Any time we have a question or issue Dave has always been very helpful and proactive in resolving any issues. I highly recommend Dave and his company. The real difference with Dave is his dedication to his clients and their needs.
I guarantee your satisfaction with all backup or consulting services provided by us. You pay if satisfied. You will not pay if not satisfied, as long as you have not already paid the related invoice. (If you or your authorized agent specifies equipment, software, or configuration settings against our best advice, that equipment, software, and / or labor to implement it is not included in the guarantee.)
Just what you need because it is the right way to do business. It forces us to provide the highest quality
work. It makes us plan well and also explain and include clear expectations and deliverables for all work. Our work and clear communication of expectations is of the quality that you will not need to exercise the guarantee, however, for your confidence, I promise it.
Hi. You have seen the highlights of our ability to provide you and your staff with great information backup service. You can see from the above paragraphs that we do know backup
services and provide exceptional service. You can take full advantage of that in your position.
You will obviously be proud of our work and like the resulting boost to your reputation for choosing us. Please contact us for your information backup needs.
After surveying 24 similar businesses, we set our rates just below the median average for business-class remote backup service. Just right for fairness and longevity, the two necessities for both you and us.
Wishing you much success,
David C. Pettit — Owner
The InfoTech Group, LLC
503.830.4030 or 888.737.8922
Now this – up to one month free trial, even for a large amount of space for an entire server, which is way more than anyone else will provide on a trial basis! Try it out, kick the tires, let us WOW you like we have others!
1 David Morgensetern Hard Disk MTBF: Wheres the Reliable Reliability Data?, (2007-03-20) See http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Data-Storage/Hard-Disk-MTBF-Wheres-the-Reliable-Reliability-Data/ 2 Merkow, M. Information Security: Principles and Practices
3 Jon Toigo, Disaster Recovery Planning: Managing Risk and Catastrophe in Information Systems, (Yourdon Press, 1989) ISBN: 0-13-214941-9, EAN: 9780132149419
4 “Open For Business” a publication of The Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), a nonprofit association that engages in communication, education, engineering and research for the insurance industry. See www.ibhs.org/docs/OpenForBusiness.pdf
5 Contingency Planning, Strategic Research Corp and DTI/Price Waterhouse Coopers (2004) and is widely quoted in places such as: Diana Shepstone, National data awareness project launched to help businesses prevent data disasters ( Data Centre Solutions, Jan. 8, 2007) See http://www.datacentresols.com/news/articles-full.php?newsid=5455
6 University of Texas Center for Research on Information Systems, as cited in Datamation, June 14, 1994
7 Jonathan Bernstein, president, Bernstein Crisis Management, LLC in Director, June 1998, v51n11, p44
8 Bruce Blythe, CEO, Crisis Management International in Blindsided: A Manager’s Guide to Catastrophic Incidents in the Workplace By Bruce T. Blythe (Portfolio Hardcover, August 22, 2002)
9 The Hartford’s Guide to Emergency Preparedness Planning, created by The Hartford Financial Services Group and now published by J.J. Keller & Associates
If you provide computer consulting services to clients who might use remote backup services, partner with us – go to our Partners page.
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