• What Online Backup and the New England Patriots Have to do With Mother Nature

    Dealing with loss is never easy. Seeing someone else go through loss can be even more heart-breaking, unless that other person is Tom Brady. His losses are to be celebrated. I say this mostly because I am a Seahawks fan and am fine seeing the Patriots knocked down a peg. There is actually a bit more history for me in rooting against Tom Brady, dating all the way back to 1997, however that year I was also glad to see Peyton Manning take a big loss as well. This year I am rooting for Peyton to win one more; his legacy has earned that. The term legacy has stuck itself in the forefront of my mind as I ponder my experience as a football fan. I am a couple years younger than both Brady and Manning, but not by much, and theirs were the stories that dominated much of my sports discussions in high school and college. I remember Brady and the tuck rule, Manning and his infamous defeat in his final college game, even spy-gate; but there is a lot more that I have forgotten over the years.

    Memory is an incredible thing. The sights, sounds, smells, etc… of life find their way into our memory banks and store themselves for just the right moment twenty years later. Who hasn’t taken a whiff from a scented candle to be immediately transported back to your childhood when your mom pulled that freshly baked pumpkin pie out of the oven? Or what about that song that randomly comes on the radio that you used to rock out to with your best friends during those nights in high school that now feel like an eternity ago? It is tragic to see the ravages of age take even the most precious memories we hold dear.

    Most of those who read these posts, however, are in the prime age of life production; firing on all cylinders and making things happen for themselves. So why put the effort into worrying about memory? It is, at this stage, a trusted friend. The truth is, anything can happen at any time, and I am not even talking about amnesia. I am not even talking about the human brain; I am talking about the one that many humans rely on more than their frontal lobe—their hard drive. While there is currently no ability to “back up” a human brain (those who have seen Dollhouse may want to argue), backing up your computer is an absolute necessity. Please allow me to share a story of why online backup is vital to a company’s success.

    A Personal Lesson about Online Backup

    I started my side career of photography back in 2005. Barely more than a hobby, I took the opportunity to show some photos to the procurement director of the local chamber of commerce. They ended up being exactly what they were looking for, and the chamber purchased eight of my photos right off the bat for use in their promotional materials. Excited and hopeful, I was smart enough to realize that I needed a backup copy of my photos. I purchased an external hard drive and backed up everything I had. Online backup options weren’t readily available at the time either, so I was making the right choices, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough. A year or so later I upgraded my computer and figured I would just use my backup for the file transfer. After already tossing out the computer hard drive, I became devastated when I learned the external drive was corrupted and no files could be recovered. Lesson learned.

    As personal as the loss of those images (as well as some other documents) were, I rebuilt my image library and have taken appropriate precautions against that happening again. I am also thankful that wasn’t my primary source of income; that could have been much more horrific. Yet stories like this happen more often than not.

    “I needed to make sure our server for our ERP system, our domain controller, and other critical systems were safe from any sort of disaster,” said Smith. “I wanted to deploy a solution that gave our business true IT resiliency.” Lisa Smith, from Torrance Casting uses Axcient as part of their backup strategy. “One of the key differentiators that Axcient was able to provide was the ability to perform local and cloud failovers. Smith could rest assure knowing that if her ERP server did crash, she could quickly failover locally on the Axcient appliance and her employees could continue working. In addition, if her entire office went down, she could instantly start a virtual office and virtualize her network in the Axcient cloud.”

    Online Backup is a Necessity

    Axcient is just one of the reliability partners that B2 Technology Solutions uses to ensure our clients face little to no downtime, regardless of what problems may happen. Things do go wrong; equipment can get stolen, power surges from lightning can fry computers and more. Knowing your data is safe and secure, with redundant backups both on-site and off-site allow you assurance that your business will continue no matter what may come your way.

    If you have not yet backed up your data, please do! An external backup option is a good choice, but you also need to heavily consider an off-site, cloud based solution. There are many options to pick from, so let B2 help determine the plan that is best for your situation. If protecting and accessing your data is mission-critical, contact us today to get safe and secure; enjoy a great user experience with B2 Technology Solutions!

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