Hurricane Katrina taught us a lesson. Disaster recovery is important! Hopefully we will never again have to experience the devastation that this natural event wreaked upon us. However, that event got many businesses thinking – “How safe is my data? ” This article provides some basic steps that will back you recover your business’s data in case of a disaster.
How distinguished data are you willing to lose? It may sound like a dumb interrogate but it will help you determine your disaster recovery strategy. For example, many financial institutions use a technique called data mirroring or data shadowing. Every time a transaction is written, that same transaction is written to another disk at another location. For example, if your business is in Modern York City, a copy of your data is written or mirrored to a site in Philadelphia or wherever your backup site is located. If your business suffers physical damage, you have up-to-date data at another location. In theory, only the transaction being processed at the time of the disaster is lost.
This process is costly; you need to either retract or rent extra computer equipment. You also need to enter into a contract with a company that provides data storage. Obviously this may not be cost-effective for your company. So, how noteworthy data are you willing to lose?
How often does your business backup its data? Every hour? Twice a day? Once a day? Once a week? Your backup schedule answers the previously asked question. If you backup twice a day you are willing to lose half a day’s worth of data. If you only backup weekly, you are willing to lose a week’s worth of data.
Backing up is extremely notable. However, if your office is damaged, what about your backup media?
Store your data at an off-site facility. There are many companies that provide archiving and storage services.
Be colorful. Choose a facility at least 50 miles or so from your office. If there is a flood in your community, you don’t want your� storage facility in the same town or city.
A main pains is resolved; you have your data. However, depending on the disaster, your office may be gone. Data is no good unless you have the technology available to put that data to work.
How long can you afford to be out of business? One day? One week? One month? Not at all? The respond to this question determines the type of off-site facility, if any, that you have.
There are three types of off-site facilities. They are: hot, warm, and cold. Many financial institutions, health care companies, and other critical companies spend a hot site.
A hot site is a complete off-site replica of your data center. It includes all of the computer equipment, networking equipment, and any other technologies that are part of your data center. You are quite close to being up and running. This plot is also the home of your off-site data storage. The data is ready to go. In some scenarios, there are desks, phones, and other office equipment ready to use.
A hot site is expensive. In addition to the cost of renting or purchasing the technology, you are also incurring a monthly rent. This type of set is like insurance; you pay monthly and hope that you never have to use it.
A warm site has the technology but is not as up-to-date or ready to use. You may have to supply some additional equipment to make this a replica of your office. You may also have to install programs and data because your off-site storage may not be fragment of this position. This type of site is less expensive, but it requires more time and work to have it run your business.
A cold site is a bare bones facility. You will need to bring in equipment, restore your data, and so on. It is the least expensive of the three solutions, but it incurs the more down time.
Certainly there are other solutions. If you are a small business, you may be able to quickly purchase some computers, restore your data and temporarily rent space until you can rebuild or relocate. The key is to have a plan. Don’t wait until the disaster strikes!
A good plan is documented. This fact is often overlooked. Don’t let your employees convince you that the information is in their head; they will know what to do. They may not be working for you anymore, or God forbid, depending on the type of disaster, they, the company, and you may not be alive.
Your plan includes all the instructions necessary to rebuild your business. It includes: how to hook up your equipment, instructions for installing software and restoring data, how to rebuild your email system, how to rebuild your phone PBX system, and so on. It includes contact information, who declares a disaster, and it may even include phone scripts that employees use to reassure your clients that your business is still feasible.
Include walk-throughs to ensure that your instructions are correct. Ensure that people read the document, or at least the sections that pertain to their responsibilities.
A disaster recovery plan is the best written-document that you pray will never have to be used. Be prepared. You never know when a disaster may occur but you can know what to do if one does.
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Filed under Small Business Pbx Systems by on Jul 31st, 2010. Comment. 
With a little forethought and a small time investment (hours not days), you can virtually eliminate the costly and confusing telephone system you have been struggling with or have been putting off purchasing due to SMB budget constraints.
If you’re paying Ma-Bell for a traditional phone line, or have your contain confusing pbx switch on location, you’re not making the most of fresh phone technology. In fact, you may be wasting precious time and money for a system that does not meet your needs and actually takes away revenue.
Maybe you are paying a full-time employee to do nothing but manage the “phone system”, or worse, heaping the responsibility on a part-time additional duty basis to an employee who could otherwise focus on THEIR job.
You may have already joined the quarter million other home subscribers of the Magic jack community. Now it’s time to see how this can be applied to your small or medium business.
There are links to reviews of the magic jack included with this article, but in summary:
FEATURES:
- It’s cheap, costs include $40 for the device and 1st year of phone service, $19.95/yr after that
- Being a USB storage device(like a thumb drive), it carries it’s enjoy software and installs when inserted in the USB slot
- You can either make calls using a headset/mic or a traditional telephone (cordless phones & fax machines)
- It comes with “voicemail” forwarded to any email account you wish
- you get email notifications when new VMs arrive
- Although it’s not a dilapidated phone ine with 911 they provide 911 where YOU control the address, so you can set the 911 for ANY location in the US (got a sick mother? )
- Nationwide toll-free is included and international can be had for a price or…
- Send a Magic Jack to anyone you want to call and who you want to call YOU and it’s free WORLDWIDE!
- You can migrate your novel landline phone number, maybe your cell number not always, or get a new phone number*
- ALL of this depends on a broadband connection (I recommend Always on like Cable, NOT DSL), and a computer/laptop.
UNFEATURES
- Call quality (QoS) resembles a cell phone, in both sound quality and dropped calls.
- Customer service is basically their FAQs online and that’s about it.
- The device is bigger than other USB devices, but has a dongle to get it out of the procedure of your other USB plugs
- One yank on the phone cord and “POP”! out comes the MJ
- limited local phone numbers means long distance numbers in some locations
- Ordering the service online or over the phone or using the MJ program can be confusing
* The “local” phone numbers are not always a local call for your city, for instance in Montana the ONLY number they have are local to Helena, great if you live in the capital not so great for the rest of the state.
The savvy entrepreneur has already seen some openings with the above list for cutting costs. Let’s look at a few ways you can make the most of this new technology for your business.
We’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg, but here are some cost effective uses:
HARDWARE
- Connect your Home & Work offices
- Virtual Office employee(s) and VAs
- Key Customer and teleconference training
- Anyone who travels for your company
IMPLEMENTATION
- Fax
- Small pbx-like features
- Integration with other tech i.e. Virtual PBX systems
First, HARDWARE solutions.
By simply purchasing the Magic Jack device at $40 ea. you can save tons on the recurring phone bill.
1 – Connect home & work offices, engage a MJ intention for home and work, for anyone who commutes. After the initial $40 you get 1 year of uninterrupted calling from work to home etc. try out call forwarding thru a virtual pbx
2 – Virtual Office employees or VAs you contract with can now believe voice contact with no cost to THEM if you simply buy them a MJ design, it’s up to you if you ask for it back at the end of the contract or give it to them for a job well done.
3 – Key customer care and Teleconferencing or training This encompasses many areas but essentially it’s a repeat of the above, for a nominal $40 charge you can ensure your key clients and business partners stay connected again at no fee for them. It’s so easy to use they really won’t have to wade through a tech manual to begin calling you. If you host training over the phone/online through .rdp connections etc. you can send one of the MJs to them ahead of training (perhaps with any manuals) and ask them to call on your $40 dime. Especially if you will have ongoing training with this client. Again, you can choose to just give it to them as a gift. $40 isn’t much when you consider the designate of other training materials you use.
4 – The Road Warriors friend Having spent half my life on the road, I can tell you if I were doing that kind of work now, I would buy the MJ without even thinking about it. Being able to call “Local” to my home or the US when overseas for a year for $20 you bet I’m on board. Just imagine, you regain to the hotel (with broadband access of course) late at night, and just want to touch nasty with home or the office, now you plug in MJ into your laptop and before you can unwrap the baby soap bar, you’re ready to make or receive calls from home FOR FREE minus $20 initial fee 
If you are already paying for cell phones for the travelers maybe you can cut down on some of the primetime minutes by simply buying the MJ, or better yet, give the MJ to them for personal calls and encourage strict business ONLY calls on the cell phone wiht no excuses for wasted minutes chatting with family etc.
Now that’s only what you can do by being nice enough to purchase MJ devices for everyone, now let’s explaore some of the cool things that can be set up on the USAGE/Implementation side of the house:
1 – FAX Although officially not supported yet, key word being “YET”, faxing can be done from anywhere again as a local call with no special setup, just run in and send. Again, you might consider integrating with a virtual pbx system for a smoother operation especially if you wish to offer fax back capability.
2 – Private Branch Exchange (private telephone switchboard) although it’s far from a PBX or virtual PBX system, the magic jack will allow 3-way calling and choose voicemails. Once you have the MJ phone number you can marry it with a virtual pbx and gain full-featured expend of a pbx with the orders or important calls coming to your MJ phone.
If you have status up your business to be on autopilot, send a MJ to your order takers and Cust Support VAs and let the calls come in with no per minute charges coming back to you.
3 – Integrate The most effective expend of technology means marry-ing or integrating several solutions to create a full-featured robust solution.
If you aren’t familiar with virtual-PBXs look into using one like onebox, for service starting around $10/mo., prices go up depending on usage, you get 1-800 access and the same basic features that a geeky full-time phone switch programmer at your company can create, with less cost and hassle.
- Have calls routed within the PBX to various voicemails, but more importantly following the Tim Ferris way of doing things, you can have them follow YOU or any of your employees and VAs, no matter what phone or time of day they will be at that phone number, giving the illusion of 24/7 customer support.
Routing can also include having the really important calls directed to the MJ plan number/voice mail so you procure ONLY the most pressing calls, again, from anywhere in the world (With broadband access).
Well, this is again fair brushing the surface of what the world of VoIP and devices like the MagicJack can garner for the SMB world, for more info please visit http://squatchtech.ning.com and follow the articles relating to small business technology use.
Your uncle BobSquatch
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Filed under Small Business Pbx Systems by on Jul 22nd, 2010. Comment.