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The Challenge

For General Solutions Associates (GSA), technology is not just a convenience, it is a powerful tool that the company must use appropriately to ensure meeting its own compliance requirements.

When GSA sought (and received) SAE-16 type II Certification*, the AICPA* auditors who conducted the certification, while comfortable with the firm’s cloud-based technology platform, recommended bringing technology in-house to bolster both security and disaster recovery.

*The Certification attests to the fact the company and its systems have been audited over a minimum six-month test period and that they conform to the requirements of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Service Organization Control.

The Existing Technology

Prior to the audit, GSA had initially utilized an in-house server but had, over several years, transitioned much of its data and some productivity tools to a hosted solution with a third party provider. After adopting this approach, GSA management came to the realization that while this particular cloud solution was convenient, it did not meet all their regulatory requirements and lacked the robust availability the firm needed for its personnel. “As the business grew and we added more employees, it became more difficult to ensure the same level of availability we had enjoyed with our own server,” says GSA Partner, Joe Solana.

Then, when during the SAE-16 Type Two certification process, auditors advised that internal technology would improve the security over the hosted cloud solution they were using, Solana knew it was time to make a change. “We wanted 100% uptime, and we placed extreme importance on stringent security for customer data we are housing,” he says. “We also wanted to meet or exceed all the requirements to maintain our certification as a service provider.”

The Selection

In the midst of the audit, another GSA Partner Matthew LaHood thought of DynaSis, whose leadership he had met previously, and mentioned them to the auditors.

“The auditors had heard of DynaSis and they were very happy with that choice,” says Solana. With the auditors’ enthusiastic blessing of DynaSis, GSA was ready to forge ahead and called upon DynaSis to upgrade its technology systems, and a great partnership was born.

The Solution

DynaSis assigned one of its Technical Account Managers (TAM) to the GSA account. The TAN met with Solana to discuss the firm’s needs and to develop an effective, affordable solution that would include secure backup. After completing its analysis and developing specific requirements for GSA, DynaSis recommended an on-premises virtualized infrastructure composed of two physical servers, or hosts―a Dell host server and a Dell backup and Business Continuity server―that would serve as physical hosts for a framework of five virtual servers. In addition to the continuous on-site backup provided by the virtualized backup system, GSA’s data would also be backed up securely to DynaSis’s offsite Data Center for 100% redundancy.

The Implementation

For the first stage of the process, DynaSis engineers began monitoring GSA’s existing servers and desktops to create a baseline for the new solution and to resolve any outstanding issues. DynaSis also backed up all of GSA’s existing data to a secure location to prepare for the cutover.

For the second phase, the DynaSis implementation crew installed the new servers and built the network over a three-day period, then began advanced configuration to secure optimal connectivity and operability for all GSA’s desktops and devices.

“It took DynaSis about a week to get everything up and running, with all the machines connected and working,” says Solana. “The process went smoothly, other than typical upgrade glitches like a machine not being compatible. At first they had a bit of difficulty getting our phone system to integrate with the new routers, but they got that resolved quickly. It was a growing pain more than a glitch.”

After the solution was complete, DynaSis began providing 24/7/365 monitoring, and proactive management and problem resolution, including round-the-clock Help Desk support. For remote connectivity, GSA workers were able to access the network through a secure virtual private network (VPN).

The Result

Since the implementation, Novatec has remained as committed to GSA’s satisfaction and success as it was during the initial implementation, Solana says. “The 24/7 system monitoring and proactive management is the biggest benefit …and savings”, he notes. “I am not spending hours of my time trying to figure something out when someone has a problem. Having someone to help out is a lifesaver!”

When asked to sum up his experience, overall, Solana offers high praise for the firm. “We are a turn-key service provider like DynaSis. We know from developing solutions for our own customers, how valuable it is to work with a company that provides everything you need.” Solana concludes, “There hasn’t been anything DynaSis couldn’t do, and I would recommend them in a heartbeat. In fact, I already have.”

Solana also applauds DynaSis’s TAM model. “Their consultative work is really valuable for a company like us without extensive technical expertise.”

The Future

The implementation been so successful that GSA is currently working with DynaSis on developing a failover disaster recovery solution. “They are working on a new network design and business continuity service for us that includes a redundant virtual server that could be hosted at their data center or wherever we want,” says Solana. “If our office building was not accessible, we could just flip a switch and be up and running.”

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By the DynaSis Team

As the U.S. lumbers through yet another year of debilitating winter storms, it is becoming painfully clear to more businesses, every day, that disaster recovery isn’t an issue only for the “summer storm” months. Here in our corporate home of Atlanta, we have been spared the hardships of last winter, so far. However, February is one of the months when we are most likely to experience a winter storm.

Disaster recovery (as opposed to its longer-term cousin, business continuity) is about rapid resilience. Think of it as your “bounce back” metric. In the event an ice storm paralyzes your company and keeps employees at home, will your “doors” still open the next day? What if the key employee charged with ensuring continuity is stuck on the side of a road in his or her car?

These are questions many firms fail to consider when they think of disaster recovery. In our discussions with new customers and prospects, we are amazed at how many have narrowly defined plans that require every piece of the puzzle to fall into place, perfectly. As anyone who has experienced a disaster knows, crisis events never unfold perfectly.

Some companies accept the idea of closing their doors for a day or a week in the event of extreme weather or other closure event. Others cannot lose even an hour of operation. An alarming largely number haven’t tested their plans adequately or don’t have a step-by-step plan for recovery if the impetus for disaster is technology (e.g. a blown server) rather than weather.

In our virtual travels around the Internet, we found a 10-minute survey, prepared by the IT Disaster Recovery Preparedness (DRP) Council (a non-partisan advocacy group composed of IT business, government and academic leaders). It is designed for firms operating virtualized environments. However, the majority of its questions are germane to all businesses, virtualized or not. If you have a few minutes, take the quiz and see where your business places.

More importantly, make 2015 the year when you commit to ensuring your firm adheres to basic disaster recovery recommendations. On the IT side, double check your backup plan and find out how long it will take to restore your data, should you need it. Ensure your employees can access company data from either your server or your backup, securely and remotely. (Preferably, they should be able to access it from their phones―and know how to dock their phones to a laptop for Internet connection. Cellular providers are federally mandated to have a very high level of continuity and backup power.) If your business relies on ordering or other systems hosted in the cloud, explore the disaster recovery plans for your providers, too.

On the people side, assign someone in your company to work on evaluating and updating any materials you have. In the wake of even a small disaster, confusion over mission critical activities and chain of command brings many firms to their knees. Make a schedule to test your plan.

Finally, remember that you don’t have to handle these tasks alone. DynaSis offers four different disaster recovery solutions based on your level of outage tolerance. We can have you up and running, even in the event of a site disaster, in two hours or less. To explore the subject more thoroughly, we invite you to download our white paper on disaster recovery planning.

Many business owners are surprised to learn that significantly improving their business resilience can be achieved with minimal additional investment that can reduce both cost and risk. To learn more, give us a call.

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By the DynaSis Team

With a new year underway, companies large and small are making plans for the IT projects they believe will support their companies, their staffs and their business goals. Last year was definitely a watershed for technology, for everything from cyberattacks to cloud migration, making us wonder if these events and trends would have an impact on 2015 goals.

Scanning the horizon, we found that IT leaders appear to be focusing on a number of core technologies. Per a sampling of more than 1,000 CIOs in the 2015 TechTarget IT Priorities Survey, some of the “hot” initiatives for 2015 are mobility (36%), virtualization (30%) and at the top of the list, data/data center consolidation (40%).

Another survey of nearly 3,000 CIOs, by research firm Gartner, indicated similar results. For this group, business intelligence/data analytics is the number one priority for 2015, with 50% of respondents ranking it first. Next in line are infrastructure (hardware platforms) and mobility, with cloud computing not far behind.

In the report, Gartner noted that these investments aren’t simply cyclical IT refreshes. Rather, based on survey comments Gartner predicted, “For at least the next decade, deep technology-driven innovation will be the new normal for market leaders.”

In other words, these tech executives are building out the platform solutions that will help their companies function in a world where technology isn’t merely a business enabler―it’s the chief cog in the business wheel, with all other functions revolving around it.

These IT executives have realized that their data is spread among too many storage locations, or that the manner in which employees are storing data isn’t efficient or well organized. They know that they can do more with the data they have, but they need to robust solutions to help them leverage and analyze it.

They also understand that mobility is paramount to productivity, but they know they cannot continue to allow ad-hoc connections and random mobile solutions on their networks. They want a dedicated platform that unites and manages everything.

In sum, these executives want to build strong, secure frameworks that facilitate productivity, mobility and meaningful use of and access to data.

This is an approach we have long espoused. Businesses needs productivity (which also means availability) as well as mobility and security, and they don’t derive much value from only having one or two of these elements in place. The best solutions are those that encompass all three.

At DynaSis, we recognize that small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) need powerful IT platforms even more than their larger counterparts do. We have been helping our customers deploy and maintain comprehensive, end-to-end solutions for years, whether on-premise through Digital Veins, in the cloud with ITility by DynaSis, or as a hybrid that gives them both (Ascend).

This year promises to be both exciting and challenging in the IT world, with many new developments, good and bad, and DynaSis is ready for all of them. We look forward to helping SMBs harness technology for their benefit without becoming victims of those who would use it for evil. To learn more or get started, please give us a call.

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By the DynaSis Team

Last week, we talked about the cloud and promised to explain some of the nuances between data storage, backup, sharing and syncing. These terms seem pretty obvious to computer users with a bit of experience, but solutions aren’t always what they seem. Furthermore, they can overlap. In this blog, we hope to clear the “cloud” of confusion that surrounds them.

Storage: Computer storage, aka data storage, is the media used to house data. Data can be stored on magnetic disks (“hard drives”) or on solid-state drives (flash drives). Storage can be on-premise (e.g. inside a PC, laptop or server) or it can be cloud based―residing on a server at a data center. (Data can also be stored on memory chips, but this data isn’t generally accessible, so we aren’t talking about it, here.)

Backup: A backup is an archive of a dataset. It can be a complete copy of a drive, or only a partial backup. Backups can be retained on the same media as regularly accessible storage, although some companies also still use a tape-based technology.

File Sharing: File sharing from a universal perspective means nothing more than literally letting someone have one of your files―whether via email, thumb drive or a cloud-based sharing service. However, here we are referring to a framework that supports the sharing of files. These can be third-party storage solutions, like DropBox, or they can be systems set up on a corporate server and network, with permissions that allow sharing of resources stored locally.

File Syncing: Synchronizing files is the process of ensuring that if a file is stored in two places, for example, on a desktop and a server, or on a laptop and in DropBox, that the version of the file is the same. It can also involve syncing a file between two users―for example, when two co-workers collaborate on a document together.

How Do They Intersect?

Storage can be used for backup purposes, and storage can be configured to enable file sharing. Dedicated programs can also sync files between two or more units of storage (e.g. hard drives). In other words, storage is the core element on which three activities―backup, file sharing and file syncing―rely. Even when you share a file via a method that seems impermanent, like email, the file is being retained in the data store of that email client.

Despite the fact that storage is an underlying “container” for the files involved in these activities, users cannot assume that all storage will perform these tasks equally well. That’s essentially the point we want to make with this educational journey.

For example, we’ve seen many users employ a solution like DropBox for file storage, syncing, sharing and backup. After all, DropBox makes backups of a user’s files and syncs them to his or her computer. That user can also share folders with other DropBox users. So, in essence, it can perform all four tasks.

Similarly, we have seen companies employ standard hard drives to perform backup, sometimes using backup software; other times by simply making a manual copy (what the IT world calls an image) of their drives every night.

Both of these approaches are technically backup, but they may not be managed in a manner that best protects the firm, nor will they necessarily be easy to restore in the event of a disaster. There are better solutions―dedicated “backup appliances” that include software that manages the backup and ensures its integrity, for example. There are also dedicated backup services―often connected to cloud-based storage― that incorporate recovery features, as well.

Similarly, file sharing and syncing can be done in DropBox or another file storage solution, but it doesn’t give the corporate entity as much control over where and to whom the files go. As a result, we recommend that no company―no matter how small―implement backup, sharing, or syncing solutions for company assets without guidance from a knowledgeable IT services firm, like DynaSis.

If you’d like to learn more about best-practices file backup, sharing and syncing―and even about storage solutions that give you more control, please give us a call.

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By the DynaSis Team

Cloud storage has penetrated many aspects of our lives in the past few years and is increasingly common at the corporate level, whether we realize it or not. When a cellular provider backs up your smartphone contacts, they are being stored in that company’s cloud. Virtually all the myriad “free storage” offers we may use daily, from Google Drive to DropBox, are cloud-based.

Yet, technically, all of these clouds are also on-premise based, too. How is that possible? Every “cloud” must be tied to a physical server in a physical location. There is no massive, amorphous and anonymous storage cluster that has been created within the Internet by storage contributions from random players. Every cloud resides at some company’s “premise” (physical location), even if that location is a data center (which, after all, is owned by someone).

The concern that most business owners, CIOs and others have about the cloud stems from the fact that these clouds and their data don’t reside on the company’s in-house server. They fear letting someone other than themselves retain control of their data, even if the other entity is operating under best-practices security protocols they may never be able to attain.

As we mentioned in a November 2014 blog, cloud storage and services are generally far safer and more secure than those residing in-house, especially for small and medium-sized businesses without big-boy security budgets. Furthermore, It’s highly likely that your employees are using cloud-based tools, even if your company isn’t, and they may be storing corporate files there.

Cloud security is not the focus of this blog, although we would be happy to discuss cloud security with you. The point of this discussion is that a cloud is nothing more than a dedicated amount of storage space on one or more servers that designated individuals can access remotely to store, sync and/or share files, run programs and perform other typical workplace functions. We say “designated” rather than authorized, because some clouds are open, meaning that the data there can be accessed by anyone, while others are access-restricted (secured).

In 2015, we will be talking about the cloud every month or so, introducing you to its various aspects and providing tips on how you can use it. Next week, we’re going to discuss the difference between storage, backup, sharing and syncing. These four operations are often intertwined, but whether they can happen in tandem with one another is up to the business owner to decide.

We believe that understanding “the cloud” and all of its possibilities is an important step to gaining confidence in this amazing technology. This knowledge will help you make the decisions that are right for your firm and enable you to secure your data to the greatest degree possible.

We’ll continue this discussion next week. In the meantime, if you would like to learn more about cloud computing or be introduced to one of our cloud productivity solutions, please give us a call.

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By the DynaSis Team

The approach of a new year always brings a bevy of predictions for what will happen in IT, many of which fit our idea of “pie in the sky.” This year, however, two in particular caught our eye.

  1. Managed service providers (MSPs) and co-location providers will flourish with hybrid IT offerings.

This prediction, from Lazarus Vekiarides, CTO of ClearSky Data (an early-stage enterprise infrastructure firm), gave us a sense of accomplishment. Hybrid IT offerings are those that have a cloud component and an on-premise component, for example, a data server at the office with hosted Microsoft Exchange in the cloud. DynaSis has been promoting hybrid IT solutions for years, including our Ascend offering, so we read this with a sense of real satisfaction. Remember folks; you heard it here, first.

On a more serious note, hybrid offerings give companies the best of both worlds, allowing them to enjoy the security of retaining storage and control of their primary data, at their location, but allowing cloud-based delivery, retrieval and often backup of as much data as makes them comfortable. On a related note, Vekiarides also predicted that the Hybrid Internet (an approach that uses both the Internet and local networks, both wired and wireless, for data and solution delivery and exchange) will support more hybrid cloud deployments, bridging the gap between public and private clouds.

  1. Corporate IT silos will disappear.

This one, from Gaurav Rewari, CEO and co-founder of business analytics firm Numerify, Inc., caught us a bit by surprise. It’s not that we think IT silos are a good thing (we don’t). Rather, we don’t think they will go away, that quickly. IT silos are individual, often departmentally aligned data stores, applications and functions in enterprises that are not accessible or interconnected for the benefit of the entire business. They make it difficult for a business to work in the most productive manner, possible, let alone to attain any level of agility.

Rewari predicts that in 2015, solutions and platforms will help businesses achieve better integration of their data in numerous ways, breaking down those silos. He specifically cited customer relations management (CRM) software and IT system data collection and analysis.

We have helped some of our customers select advanced CRM tools with business analytics, but for many, the daily grind of producing still gets in the way, hence our skepticism here.

In the area of IT system data, however, we see a very bright future. For more than a decade, DynaSis has been providing its customers with significant value through our Digital Veins service, monitoring data collected from myriad customer systems to identify and resolve issues.

Recent developments in the technologies that surround this effort are giving us more ways to help those customers than ever before. These customers stand as living proof that this approach saves money, reduces downtime and increases productivity and security.

A final prediction that interested us, also from Rewari, was that IT will shed its “Department of No” image demonstrating the value of IT to the C-suite. Every day, we hear from firms whose IT Managers need our help to accomplish their tasks, but executive management doesn’t see the value. We look forward to seeing that dynamic change, so we can help those folks be more productive.

Do these predictions interest you? Would you like to learn more? To explore the possibilities or see how DynaSis is already achieving both predictions for its customers, please give us a call.

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By the DynaSis Team

For the final article of 2014, we thought it would be interesting to share some thoughts on leadership. A few decades ago, a major component of being a great leader was leading in your physical space―being in touch not only with your employees but also their work environments and activities. IBM CEO John Akers was praised for the way he left the executive office and walked around his company’s facility, connecting with workers in their own spaces.

With the advent of the digital era, leaders must deal with a new dimension in “connection”―the digital one. Many business experts conjecture that great leaders now must also be champions of the digital world, and some of the most respected, beloved CEOs are doing just that.

Following are a few ideas to help business owners expand their reputation for leadership and engender loyalty, respect and admiration among their employees, peers and customers.

Be Social

No one expects or wants a company owner or president to post on Facebook all day long, but having a social media strategy is an important part of leadership. Despite this fact, CEO.com reported in 2013 that 68% of Fortune 500 Company CEOs have no social media presence.

On the flip side, Virgin CEO Sir Richard Branson, who has been named Britain’s most admired business leader of the past 50 years, has 4.5 million Twitter followers. The brand value of his social media following is incalculable, and the “cool” factor he has garnered from his efforts isn’t hurting, either.

In January 2013, an Economist article asked the question, “How can you be a leader if you don’t have followers?” Branson’s success certainly offers solid support for this argument.

Treat Digital Communication as a Gift that Comes with Strings

Digital communications such as email, the Internet and social media have empowered businesses and connected them with their customers in ways never before possible. Great leaders in the digital era recognize this fact and direct their outcomes in an honest but thoughtful manner.

The digital world makes it easy for CEOs and other business owners/leaders to connect with their employees, vendors and customers, sharing professional insights, thanking them for their support and more. The double-edged sword of this reach is that an ill-timed or inappropriate comment, even in a “private” forum such as a closed Facebook group, can leak out to the world.

The potential to cause damage or spark controversy is likely what keeps CEOs and other leaders off social media. That’s unfortunate, because the good that can be done though digital communication is undeniable. Genuine, well-considered, respectful communications won’t offend anyone. Try a few, and see.

Speak in Your Own Voice

For leaders to garner respect and love from their customers and employees, their blogs must be authentic expressions from their own perspective. This doesn’t mean they have to write them with no help. Some leaders simply are not good writers.

However, blogs, social media posts and other communications shouldn’t be left solely to a communications team, either. The business owner/CEO should at the minimum approve topics as well as the “tone” that any series of communications will reflect.

The reality is that digital communication is unavoidable, and leaders can show their fearlessness by conquering this space with composure and poise. Ownership of the digital world will become more important with every passing year, as the upcoming Millennial generation enters its prime work years. Millennials are intimately connected and in tune with all things digital―and they want their leaders to be, as well.

DynaSis recently authored a white paper about the challenges of attracting the new generation of workers, which involves not only having leadership that appreciates digital communications, but also taking a proactive approach to technology, mobile device usage and management, and other imperatives for this group. The white paper is complimentary; to request the download please give us a call.

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By the DynaSis Team

For more than a decade, virtualization has been a well-promoted solution for achieving flexibility and security with on-premise (in-office) servers. With virtualization, a company and/or its IT vendor “carves” a server or dedicated storage device into multiple virtual servers/drives (these deployments are called virtual machines, e.g. VMs). One of the ways that DynaSis helps its customers maximize IT ROI (and security) is by designing and installing a virtual server layout from a single physical one.

Multiple VMs can reside on a single physical server, yet each will be totally segregated from the others and can have a discrete purpose, separate authentication and security protocols, availability rules and other characteristics of a physical server. Another advantage of virtual servers is that storage allocation for each VM can be altered quickly―and often, dynamically based on load.

For all these reasons, many cloud servers are virtual, with data centers dividing their large servers and storage arrays into numerous VMs for their clients. With virtualization having become an indelible fixture of data center operation, and the technology also being so beneficial for on-premise server installations, we scanned the Internet for expert advice on what we and our customers can expect from virtualization in 2015. Two items, in particular, sparked our interest.

Virtualization Security: With so many security breaches in 2014, it is inevitable that vendors will be placing a renewed focus on security. One of the hot new approaches at the data center level is “micro-segmentation,” where every discrete virtual machine becomes its own impregnable fortress with dedicated security.

Data-center-level solutions are generally too expensive for SMBs to implement for their on-premise implementations of virtualization, but that doesn’t mean companies that implement virtualization are at risk. Companies that work with a vendor that provides robust, end-to-end security and proactive problem resolution, including patch application, have the confidence that their virtual machines can be fully protected, as well. At DynaSis, we have always considered security paramount, and we recently introduced another layer of security for our Managed IT customers.

Converged Infrastructure: This term may sound a bit arcane to those outside the IT world, but it’s really a fancy way of saying bundling. Experts expect acceleration of this trend―where a company works with a vendor that provides a complete solution comprised of multiple infrastructure (hardware) components packaged to work well together.

Packaging interoperable infrastructure­ for maximum security and connectivity is always a good idea, but it requires preplanning, so it is easy to overlook. It’s the approach we take with our Ascend offering, where we build out a firm’s infrastructure and they lease it from us for a low monthly fee, including management and security. We definitely hope this trend will gather momentum in 2015, as it can be very beneficial.

In addition to these two trends, we saw mention of a number of protocols, solutions and platforms, all of which are too complicated to discuss in this short article. However, be assured that the DynaSis technicians are staying abreast of these developments to give you the most secure, productive virtualization experience possible. To learn more about the substantial benefits of virtualization, or to meet with a DynaSis Virtual CIO to explore the possibilities for your firm, please give us a call.

DynaSis, Atlanta’s premier provider of IT services and support for small and medium businesses (SMBs), today announced it has inked a strategic partnership with OpenDNS, a company whose namesake service provides network security that includes built-in phishing and optional content filtering for users while browsing the web. In keeping with its commitment to provide the most robust security possible for its customers, DynaSis has integrated OpenDNS into its platform and will extend its Managed IT Service offering to include this protection at no additional charge.

“Many SMBs give their users far too much latitude in making changes to desktop applications and operating systems, including bypassing browser-level helpers that scan websites for malware infection,” said DynaSis President Dave Moorman. “With OpenDNS, this protection happens in the background, stopping cyber criminals from executing drive-by malware downloads, whether initiated by a phishing email or by a direct visit to a site.”

The attack vectors to which Moorman refers are the most common mechanisms for infection by SMBs. In a phishing email, users are duped into clicking on a link to a malicious site, which can then download malware to an inadequately protected system―a process called a drive-by download. OpenDNS prevents this from happening by securing the Internet at a fundamental level―the DNS, or domain naming system―upon which web servers rely to transport users and their data to a site.

DNS is the equivalent of an Internet phone book. With every request for web service, whether it is browsing or delivering/retrieving email―some site must resolve the request and, using DNS, pair it with the matching website. Historically, this matching activity has been the task of Internet and email providers, most of whom handled only basic matching. With OpenDNS, however, users are protected by a purpose-built, targeted security platform that doesn’t simply match names to addresses; it actually scans an extraordinarily comprehensive database of “safe” and “dangerous” addresses before it responds to the request.

OpenDNS also gives users the tools to decide what to let in and what to block. It not only protects users from visiting sites infected with malware; it also stops any background requests that blocked site malware might launch to retrieve instructions on how to steal data or execute other malicious actions against the web visitor.

“Given SMBs accounted for 61% of cyberattacks in 2013, per security firm Symantec, business owners no longer can ignore cyber security,” said Moorman. “Our partnership with OpenDNS gives us the opportunity, not only to incorporate their service into our Managed Services offering, but also to stay deeply attuned to the evolving threat landscape so we can give our customers the information they need to make productive, safe decisions.”

About DynaSis
DynaSis is a managed IT service provider for small and medium-sized businesses in Atlanta, Georgia. DynaSis specializes in offering on-premise and on-demand managed IT service plans, managed hosting and professional equipment installation. For more information about DynaSis’ services visit www.dynasis.com.

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By the DynaSis Team

Despite decades of advocacy by IT and disaster recovery experts regarding the importance of off-site backups, crisis communication plans and other elements of business survival, many companies still don't have a functional plan for business continuity in the wake of a disaster or major disruption.

In fact, the majority of firms don't even have an adequate program for ongoing IT continuity to reduce business interruption. Per the 2013 Ponemon Institute, 86% of firms experience one or more measurable instances of system downtime in each year, with 60% of those instances being attributed to user error.

On the resiliency side, a Sungard Availability Services survey found that 75% of continuity plans are not used in their existing state during either testing or a disaster. Inadequacy of communication protocols is equally disconcerting, with 85% of companies believing their crisis communication plans aren't very effective. At the same time, severe weather events, cyberattacks and power grid overloads are causing an increasing number of business disruptions.

Cumulatively, this state of affairs makes a pretty strong case for well-planned, functional business continuity and resiliency plans, but they don't tell business owners how to go about accomplishing that task. For resource-strapped small and medium-sized business (SMB) owners, the challenge can be overwhelming.

We don't have room in this blog to provide you with sufficient practical advice, but we can offer a few pointers.

There are many other aspects of disaster and disruption planning that go hand in hand with these suggestions. On the IT side, they include best practices for backup hardware, network management to reduce short-term outages and more. To explore the options and begin taking proactive steps to bolster your business continuity mechanisms (both short-term and long-term) we invite you to download our white paper on disaster recovery planning and give us a call.

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