Preventing Blackout Friday

It’s Black Friday; do you know where your data is? Because if it’s not accessible remotely, backed up, and properly secured, there’s a risk that an event could cause it to become Blackout Friday.

We’ve seen many small and midsized nonprofits that have some form of on-premise file server. Some of these were server-grade equipment in data closets with at least some form of backup, but many have been desktop-grade equipment repurposed to provide shared file access. We’ve also seen situations where a backup program was being used, but when a failure occurred, it was not possible to actually restore the backups from the media. We’ve also seen where the main backup media is stored in the same location as the server, so if an event like a fire or other disaster destroyed the building or disrupted access to it, the backup would not be available either.. And of course, the equipment is constantly aging, so unless there is a strategy to maintain and upgrade it regularly, an agency can get a sudden surprise with a big expense when there’s a failure or capacity is exhausted.

At IT4Causes, our strategy for data sharing and backup focuses on using Cloud technologies to mitigate the risk of on-premise servers. By using services like OneDrive that’s part of Microsoft’s Office 365 donation to nonprofits, data can be shared across authorized users in the organization, whether they are in the office or working remotely. The data is replicated in large, geographically dispersed data centers with extremely tight physical security and backup power, so it’s seamlessly available to those users after incidents as small as a disk failure to major storms that shutdown whole cities and states. The equipment in the datacenters is constantly upgraded to provide the required processing horsepower and raw storage capacity to support any agency’s needs. The backup protocols are constantly tested to ensure archived data can be accessed when required. And security precautions have been designed, built, tested, audited, and monitored to ensure the ability to comply with important standards like HIPAA and PCI DSS.

Cloud-based solutions can help your organization prevent Blackout Friday. Contact IT4Causes to learn more.