All posts by Rob Mackle

How Can You Earn Carbon Credits

September 2, 2016 Rob Mackle

Earning carbon credit is a complex business. It all begins with the Kyoto protocol. Your country needs to be a part of the protocol for your enterprise to even entertain the thought of carbon credits. Second, there should have been an eligible quantifiable reduction in your enterprise carbon footprint before you can even think of applying for the credits. Finally, your tax laws must ascribe value to your carbon credits.

To start with, going green also has a lot to do with your awareness of what it means to go green. Employers and employees must be conscious of the enterprise policy in context. They must be educated about what green really means and how it must be implemented across the organisation. Managers at different levels of the organisation must be encouraged to report on possible infractions of the policy and also come up with ideas on how carbon credits can be earned.

Carbon reduction must be measurable. Cloud computing is considered to be one sure methodology of proving that your enterprise is going green. But, carbon footprints, consequent upon computing in the cloud, are not very clearly quantifiable! Conscious efforts must be made to measure and quantify the carbon credits earned from cloud computing. Clearly defined and acceptable measures must be implemented at every level, and measurements must be tracked constantly to ensure that carbon credits earned are being accounted for, and your enterprise is moving towards the eligible levels for instituting an application for carbon credits.

Carbon saving activities must be definable. Carbon saving activities in cloud computing will gain definition, if you use energy saving devices in setting up your computing environment. Energy saving devices could be less energy consuming clients or air conditioners that use power sensibly. The source of energy itself must be green or a renewable energy source. Enterprises that use coal coke to power their generators cannot claim to be green!

Greening policies must be pervasive and all encompassing for carbon credits to pile up in your favour. The boundaries of your greening policy can extend beyond the enterprise and carbon credits can be earned by riding on greening policies of associates. Enterprises can ensure that they associate only with service providers who have policies in place for carbon footprint reduction. Else, it may defeat the very purpose of your greening policy and your efforts to compute in the cloud.

Backup Technology Limited is a globally trusted company, which provides simple, automatic, secure and encrypted cloud backup services. It is based in the UK, with a branch in the USA. For more information, please visit www.Backup-Technology.com

Points to Consider Before Selecting the Best Cloud Backup Provider

August 4, 2016 Rob Mackle

Cloud backup has become popular in the cloud technology space due to its automation capability, effectiveness and reliability. Advanced cloud backup technology offers a variety of services to customers and businesses. Therefore, it has become essential to consider basic factors before selecting a backup service provider. Businesses must know the relevant questions to distinguish between business grade and customer-focused services in order to meet their needs.

Versatility and Performance

Companies could reduce data backup time if they choose a cloud backup services. It is a specialty service that provides not only faster backups, but also faster restores as compared to traditional options, like tape.

There are many backup service providers that offer remarkable figures to show how helpful their procedure is in minimizing the data volume that is backed up on daily basis. The statistics differ in various environments, so it is essential to get proof of advertized statistics. In addition, the service must support different type of platforms and apps like Mac, UNIX, Linux, Windows, Oracle, Dynamics, SharePoint, SQL Server, VMWare, Hyper-V, and Microsoft Exchange.

Questions to Ask:

1/ How does the duplication process work? Is the process file level or block level?

2/ What is the type of applications and operating systems that are supported by this technology?

3/ Is it possible to use a customized service to meet business needs?

4/ Is it a hybrid cloud supported service?

Compliance and Security

When companies manage confidential information, it is obligatory to consider compliance and security measures. Many service providers give guarantees of encrypted data at all stages. They make sure that the encryption key is not accessible by employees or other third party service providers.

Some service providers are ISO certified, perhaps ISO 9001 and ISO 27001. These certificates give proof that the service provider has serious intentions towards data protection and management.

Some companies are unwilling to backup their data outside of Europe or USA due to security concerns and legislative issues. Before selecting a service provider, companies need to check as to where the data will reside.

Questions for Comparing Service Providers

1/ How does this service provider encrypt data?

2/ Does the provider focus on consumers or is it a business solution?

3/ What are the types of data centers in which data will be stored?

4/ Will the service provider deduplicate data? If so, what is the procedure of deduplicating encrypted data?

5/ Is the provider certified for an ISO? (ISO 9001 and ISO 27001)

Pricing

Pricing is an important factor for businesses while considering a backup service provider. Transferring expenses from CAPEX to OPEX model is a significant factor; as many companies have a preference for CAPEX for accounting purposes. Some service providers can give high value and quality service with reasonable rates that can meet business needs of all customers.

Questions to Ask

1/ Does the provider charge for download and upload of data?

2/ Does the price depend on licensing or cost per GB?

3/ Are there any extra charges?

4/ Does the provider send quarterly, monthly or annual bill with arrears or in advance?

Availability and Service Levels

To select a reliable platform, get some references from existing customers in similar industry. Companies can ask about assurances related to uptime, downtime, the type of disk to save data (age, RAID and drive specification), nature of resilience in network, location of the support team and their availability through email and telephone.

Vendor lock-in

Before finalizing a provider, ask about their shortest contract period and the level of services they provide. Inquire about restrictions regarding terminating the service, cost and procedure for accessing and downloading data after cancelling the agreement.

Is it Safer to Backup Data in the Cloud?

July 11, 2016 Rob Mackle

Data backup and protection is an important matter; and it becomes more sensitive when you try to backup data to an offsite server with the help of cloud based services. Although the concern is understood, cloud based data is automated, very safe, efficient, and the data is backed up to geographically dispersed locations, typically far away from the origin. As a result, natural disasters, such as tornadoes, wild fire, floods, etc. won’t affect it. The system is also efficient because it doesn’t require hardware changes and more storage space is always available for the users. But, is it safe for everyone? Is there any chance of hacking? I will give answer of these questions below.

Keep in mind that not all cloud backup services are the same. They differ in technology, years of experience, and management. But, one thing is clear that you must know your wants and needs when it comes to protecting your data.

Where is the Data Stored?

The cloud has become more popular, but most don’t seem to know what it actually means. Most of the people have concept that using the data storage service is risky because they think that all the data in the cloud usually go to a cyberspace where hackers can easily go and access it without any problem.

Well, this could be true if you are not using reliable data storage services. Cloud is a very simple service with data servers in data centres, connected with the main storage and user’s personal account. Internet is a network of servers that carries the data to and from data centres, just like a highway is for vehicles.

Data centres are very protective areas where highly skilled and reliable workers are appointed for the management of servers. In most of the cases, only a few reliable persons are given access to these data centres. The workers are allowed to access the data centres with several physical security options and with the permission of users, who provide the secret PIN to open the storage vaults. Video surveillance system is used for 24x7x365 in order to ensure security of data. Many do not label their data centre as “Data Centre”, for security reasons; they are just typical buildings that blend with the neighbourhood buildings.

Data centres can not be physically robbed. We have never heard such stories. However, it has a cyber-based system linked to the computers of users. No doubt that there is a minimal risk of cyber-crime or data hacking, but it is very rare, because cloud backup companies have come up with sophisticated systems that can keep hackers off their servers.

Hackerproof?

Is backing up in the cloud really hackerproof? The simple answer is yes and no. If the technology used is a sub-standard, hackers can get access to the data centres with the help of specialised hacking protocols. However, the latest security systems have made it very difficult. For instance, multiple security levels (using emails, phone numbers, and physical statements) have made it almost impossible for hackers to access and compromise data.

Your data is much more secure being backed up in the cloud, where it is handled by qualified security experts than it is in the basement of your home. Modern security applications and tools are implemented in order to ensure that there will be no risk. On the other hand, users are also encouraged to monitor the activities.

Seven Things to Consider When Choosing a Cloud Backup Service Provider

June 22, 2016 Rob Mackle

The best approach to fully protect your data (and restoring it after a big disaster) is by simply replicating all data to a secured data centre to an off-site location.

Cloud backup is done automatically with the help of the Internet. As a matter of fact, it is very important for every company to protect their personal or official data by using a good cloud backup service by choosing an appropriate service provider.

Seven Important Features in a good cloud backup service

With thousands of cloud backup companies offering what seems to be the same services, companies looking for these services become overwhelmed and don’t know where to start. From a glance, they all all look the same. But, the fact is, they are all different. Clients need to have a service that is more efficient, reliable and cost effective. They also prefer to choose the backup service provider having efficient mechanism for the data protection and recovery from the main data centre. Clients also do not want to pay exuberant amount of money; they want a fair price.

Never choose the cloud backup service provider if he doesn’t meet the given requirements:

Data Seeding Options:Data seeding reduces initial backup time and enables the user to transfer data easily. If you have a large amount of data to backup, start the backup by sending the data in an encrypted external media.

Overnight Data Shuttle:You should ask if the company will be able to provide you with overnight shipment of critical data in case of network outage. This service is preferred by big organisations.

Security for Storage and Transfer: You need to ensure that your data is safe with the service provider. After all, it is your data. Don’t choose a company if it is unable to offer security.

There are several government agencies dictating how data storage companies handle, protect and transfer data. Is the company HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, Gram-Leach-Bliley and etc. compliant? Compliance to these regulations confirms the standing of the cloud backup company you are considering.
Ensure that all types of data transfers are fully encrypted with SSL protocols. This helps to minimise the chances of data hacking.
Check where the service provider stores the data. Ask what kind of procedure is in place to access the data centre. Does it have some kind of ID systems and video surveillance facilities?

Geographically Dispersed Data Centres: Allows redundant copies of your data in more than one location in case of a natural disaster or a terrorist attack. Ensure that the data centres are at least 3,000 Km away from each other.

Data Recovery with Different Devices:The service needs to be device agnostic. Today, everyone has laptops and other gadgets such as tablets. It is necessary to choose a backup service that allows recovering the data from different devices other than the one used to backup the data.

Technical Assistance:A backup service provider must offer technical support in order to solve any issues. You should demand this feature in order to get the support you need to protect your data and perform recovery when needed.Daily Reports: This is for the information and record purposes. It is necessary to see the activities related to your data. You can easily see when and where data was transferred.

Communicating Data Breaches with Employees

June 16, 2016 Rob Mackle

Data breaches happened less frequently in the past. With the increased activity in ransom-ware, data breaches are now becoming a daily occurrence. Major corporations like Sony, Domino’s and Home Depot have been hacked. It is believed that there will be more data breaches in the coming months and years. If, as an employer, you find yourself in the unfortunate situation of a data breach, how are you going to communicate the breach to your employees? What happens after the security breach?

Be Transparent

Employers should notify the breach to employees as soon as possible once they have all the facts about the breach. Employees have the right to know about the breach incident directly from the employer, rather than from the rumours circulating. On the other hand, the companies are also required to make sure that workers will keep the shared information strictly confidential or at least until it is officially announced.

An Inside Job?

It is essential to ensure that employees are receiving the right information in a timely fashion. Tell them that concerned department has started investigations about the matter; without divulging too much details into the breach, so as not to alarm the culprit in case it is an inside-job.

An Outside Attack?

Share more detailed information (as they become available) about the breaches if your investigation confirms that the cause is not internal. Update them as frequently as possible. This will ensure that the workers are not worried about their personal information. Personal information, like: address, social security numbers, birthday, salary amount, etc. could be recipes for an identity theft.

Personal Information

You need to think about Data Protection Act (DPA). In the UK, for instance, businesses must adhere to DPA. This act ensures that employers holding personal information on their workers must keep the information safe and secure. DPA is very helpful to avoid information breaches.

Businesses must report data breaches to the Information Commissioner in the UK. It also makes sense that employers inform and update their employees at the same time. If it is confirmed that employees’ personal information have been compromised, then the employer should offer support to its affected employees. Advice such as what the next steps should be and what to do if unauthorized credit card transaction is posted in their account. Detailed procedures should be described so that the victims can take immediate action whenever they face identity theft or unauthorized bank transaction.

It would be better to develop a database or provide a fully dedicated hotline so the staff can call and ask questions about the breach.

Official Press Release Statement

It is important to communicate with all employees, informing them that they are not authorized to speak to the press media about the incident at all times. Tell them that it is a standard process and everyone should obey this because the breach is related to company’s reputation and business.

Remember that data breaches are juicy stories. Reporters and bloggers love to write about them. Many true and false stories will be written. The key is to share the details with employees and release an official press release. You can win the trust of your employees by sharing timely information with them. This will give them more confidence and they will not share the details outside the company. The last thing you want is for the employees to learn about the breach from a third-party website or other traditional media.

Why Do Businesses Fail to Adopt Disaster Recovery as a Service?

March 8, 2016 Rob Mackle

With a Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) solution, small and large businesses alike can access comprehensive protection against downtime of mission-critical applications, which was previously only achievable for enterprises with significant IT budgets.

However, many organisations still overlook DRaaS solutions based on perceptions that are not necessarily accurate.

In this blog post we look at four common reasons why businesses opt against investing in DRaaS solutions.

‘We can’t afford Disaster Recovery’

Full Disaster Recovery (DR) is traditionally seen as a luxury reserved for big-budget enterprises. After all, configuring a secondary site for rapid failover involves considerable hardware and data centre investment.

By outsourcing your DR to a vendor with a cloud-based DRaaS solution, you eliminate these upfront investments and the need to overprovision. Advancements in cloud-based technologies enable DRaaS customers to run virtual infrastructures on any hardware, so there’s no need to maintain and replace specific hardware.

This makes comprehensive DR for all of your applications achievable with a limited budget.

‘We can’t afford rapid RPOs and RTOs’

Traditionally you needed deep pockets to achieve business continuity with DR solutions. Rapid Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) – i.e. the maximum period where data may be lost and the target time for the resumption of services – required extremely frequent snapshot replication of your applications and an always-on hot site with the required supporting infrastructure.

DRaaS vendors have adopted emerging, cost-effective virtualisation technologies that minimise RPOs and RTOs to just seconds and minutes. For instance, new DR software uses asynchronous replication at the hypervisor level, resulting in quicker, cheaper and more flexible failover.

Furthermore, DRaaS enables you to rely on the infrastructure of a vendor to gain rapid restore times. This will typically consist of a high-speed, fibre network connecting its data centres and stringent SLAs.

‘We don’t have the resources to manage Disaster Recovery’

Some organisations have a dedicated team to manage DR, but obviously this is out of the question for many.

A major advantage of DRaaS is that it outsources the replication, failover and failback processes, so you don’t need specialist resources and expertise. Some vendors have automated one-click systems to easily test and invoke an entire DR infrastructure, and then failback to the original infrastructure. This makes business continuity achievable with minimal human intervention.

‘We do not prioritise Disaster Recovery’

Planning for something that has not happened before or is seen as highly unlikely may prevent you from prioritising DR above other business processes and activities. However, the potential damage that downtime can cause to your businesses finances and reputation is so great that DR must be a top priority.

This is reflected by research that found that 70% of organisations that suffer from a severe IT disaster go out of business within a year.

By utilising a DRaaS solution, you can fully safeguard your organisation from lengthy data loss and lost revenue from downtime, without taking your IT department’s focus and budget away from other responsibilities.

It’s vital to examine your DR plan and processes, and consider the range of options that are available to your business. DRaaS is an attractive, yet often misunderstood option that offers exceptional efficiency and reliability in preventing costly downtime.

ClouDRaaS from BTL offers reliable and rapid response Disaster Recovery in the cloud.

To find out more click here or download our data sheet.