“Our job as providers is not telling them what they need, but rather listening to the customer’s needs” – Lance Thompson In preparation for our Indianapolis and Metro Detroit business continuity and disaster recovery workshops, I spoke with Lance Thompson, founder and president of Baseline Data Services about what we can expect from his session, Real Life Disaster Recovery: Precious Vicarious Lessons. He shared some BCDR wisdom that was too good not to pass on. As highlighted in the quote …

Happy New Year! It’s been a huge year for us at Online Tech, from hitting our 20th anniversary, to opening two new data centers throughout the great lakes region. We’ve definitely been busy, and we aren’t looking to slow down now. Our next Michigan event will be a half-day business continuity and disaster recovery workshop. This workshop will be on February 19th, at our Metro Detroit data center. We’ve gathered a group of experts to give some hands-on business continuity …

After 30 years in the disaster recovery industry, Lance Thompson has plenty of tales to tell. A few are extreme – like making huge efforts to help clients through the aftermath of hurricanes, floods, tornados and fires. Most are born from more mundane, but considerably more common, issues like human error, maintenance issues or power outages. But they all come together to form the basis of Thompson’s message in an upcoming Online Tech ‘Tuesdays at 2’ educational seminar on December …

There are many backup and recovery options out there; some onsite, some offsite. Trying to parse through which one fits best into your disaster recovery plan can be very difficult, and often for a result that isn’t ideal. I spoke with our Director of Infrastructure Nick Lumsden about the reasons why someone may want onsite versus offsite backup, and vice versa, to try clarifying the muddy waters of backup and recovery. So, when is it good to stay onsite? Nick …

By JASON YAEGER Online Tech Director of Product Management, Risk Management Officer and Security Officer The cost of data loss can be staggering. A study at the University of Texas tells us that 43 percent of companies that experience a catastrophic data loss never reopen, and that another 51 percent close the doors within 10 years. For small- and medium-sized businesses, the cost is even more staggering: 70 percent of companies with fewer than 100 employees that experience a catastrophic …

Offsite backup: a necessary evil that can be unreliable, hard to track and expensive to support. We know; it’s not what you got into technology for. Nonetheless, the business depends on putting mission-critical data offsite for those just-in-case moments of disaster. The problem is, most “disasters” tend to be a single file that someone accidentally deleted or that got corrupted somewhere along the email chain. Granted, if the primary business location becomes a smoking hole in the ground (perish the …

NOTE: This is the latest in a series of Online Tech client profiles. Read more here. Indiana-based Baseline Data Services, LLC, was looking for data center space to continue growing its disaster recovery services business. Coincidentally, Online Tech was in the process of investing $10 million to open a secure, compliant, enterprise-class hosting facility in nearby Indianapolis. The rest, as they say, is history. The two organizations were so impressed with each other that not only did Baseline become the …

Note: The following article is part of a shared content agreement between Online Tech and InfoSec Institute. (View original post.) For more information on IT disaster recovery, download disaster recovery white paper or check out our case studies. In this article, we’ll learn about the concept of data loss prevention: why it is needed, what are the different types of DLP and its modes of operations, what is the planning and design strategy for DLP, what are the possible deployment …

In a previous post, I laid out the first three questions your CIO should answer before you start your backup and recovery research. The CIO should provide direction around the value of the data, the Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and the Recovery Time Objective (RTO). Once these executive-level business requirements are understood, the context can be used to ask the next set of high-level business and technical questions that drive your backup and recovery strategy. 1) How confidential or compliant …

There are a number of options for offsite backup, including tape backup shipped offsite, backing up to a simple cloud storage like Amazon, or an enterprise-grade offsite backup and recovery solution. Before any detailed conversation takes place around the technical and business considerations impacting your backup strategy — such as compliance, confidentiality of the data, security requirements and recovery targets — there are three questions your CIO needs to answer prior to researching solutions for your offsite backup and recovery plan. …