Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)

Three out of four companies worldwide do not have a reliable disaster readiness plan established, according to the Disaster Recovery Preparedness Council^[1]. That’s 75% of companies around the globe. You might be inclined to shrug, but compare that statistic with the repercussions and what those organisations are likely to face once their systems fail.

Some quick disaster recovery facts

In any given year, approximately 36% of organisations around the world experience the loss of one or more critical applications, VMs or data files for a number of hours, and close to 20% lose them for a matter of days. That’s a lot of business lost. Companies have reported financial losses ranging from between $50,000 to over $5 million in a year due to failing to have disaster recovery plans in action.

How to plan your Disaster Recovery

There are steps you can take to mitigate disaster and ensure your business suffers as little as possible. A Disaster Recovery plan will outline everything you need to recover (from applications and documents to entire sites if you wish). Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO), both clearly outlined, will give you peace of mind as to what to expect during the disaster recovery period, and can be used to determine the disaster recovery of your applications, which, we feel we must stress, should be tested regularly.

Testing your Disaster Recovery Plan

Testing their Disaster Recovery plan is where many organisations also fail. It isn’t enough to create your disaster plan and then forget it. With new applications comes the need for new testing. The abovementioned Annual Report also found some worrying statistics regarding this matter; in that one third of organisations only tested their DR plans once or twice a year, and close to a quarter never tested at all. And when companies do test their plan, more than 65% don’t pass.

When disaster hits

When something does go wrong, how do you want to react? Do you want to be the business owner frantically calling your I.T. department trying to figure out what’s happened, what’s been lost and what can be saved? Or do you want to be the one who knows it’s all taken care of, and your company’s tested and proven Disaster Recovery plan means your data and applications are protected, and this is a minor hiccup to your day?

Help with Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)

If you’d rather be the one keeping their head while others are panicking and losing profits, Network Overdrive can help. Take a look at our Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) options and call us today to ensure you’re covered.

[1] The State of Global Disaster Recovery Preparedness Annual Report 2014

Next steps…

Find out how we can help your business.

CONTACT ONE OF OUR CONSULTANTS FOR A DISASTER RECOVERY SOLUTION TAILORED TO YOUR ENTERPRISE.

Zero-day virus demonstrates the importance of proactive IT-security measures

Last week a number of our clients were targeted by a virus pretending to be a scanned document from their local photocopier. Unfortunately, none of the major antivirus software systems detected the virus and allowed you to open a word document containing a macro connecting your computer to hacked websites where it downloaded a malicious executable.

This type of outbreak, where the vulnerability is undisclosed until it starts affecting your network, and where no antivirus programs have blocks in place, is known as a zero-day outbreak, as you have zero days to act once the virus is detected.

If you were affected by the virus, you are not alone. Telstra reported that over 180,000 of their customers got the same infected email and iiNet reported similar numbers.

This outbreak shows, yet again, that there are organisations out there working very hard to bypass security measures in an attempt to take control of your networks and access valuable information. The best defence against this type of outbreak is you being suspicious, refraining from opening attachments from unknown sources.

The outbreak happened on Friday, but it took until Sunday before we were confident that all companies’ antivirus software was up to date. The nature of this outbreak also made us take the unusual step to notify many of you to take precaution on Friday.

Our team reviewed over 10 different software solutions, engaged all the top-tier security vendors and manually blocked as many emails as we could during the outbreak. Once we identified a detection process we then systematically and manually deployed the solution to ensure everything was clean. Having our team proactively manage this changing virus definitely minimised the damage caused.

I want to thank you all for allowing us to disrupt you to do this important work and keep your systems secure. The events again demonstrate how important it is for businesses to have a dedicated IT Security team, as those who don’t would have been much more exposed to damage.

We recommend you review this cyber map from Kaspersky that shows real-time virus attack statistics across the globe. When writing this, Australia is listed as the 31^st most targeted country in the world.

Are your business systems documented? We can help.

Successful businesses understand the importance of recording all of the processes that reflect the best practices and operations of their company. Operating a business requires you to be aware of all cost-factors, and to be conscious of your resources.

This is important because, without correct documentation, your procedures – the way your business works and the way your team members habitually do everything – become haphazard and inconsistent.

By taking the time to write down the way you do things and put it in a procedure manual, you can easily communicate methods to your team. This helps to make sure that their work is efficient and effective; matching the quality standards you have worked hard to establish. This is why project management and customer relationship management softwares are becoming integral to how businesses operate.

These business systems also allow you;, as the owner or CEO of your business, to spend your time focusing on strategy and planning, not fire-fighting and repeatedly explaining how to do things. This is why having your IT needs strategically aligned with your business is crucial.

In short, when your business is systemised and documented, you gain a strong business advantage.

Benefits of documenting your business systems:

• Easier to train new team members—your procedure manual is your training manual.
• Gain the freedom to focus on expanding the business.
• Deliver consistent quality of products and services.
• Your system becomes a basis for continual improvement.
• The sale value of your business increases.
• It is much easier to license (franchise) your business.

Introducing our new business systems partners

We are excited to introduce our new partners – QDT Management Consultants. As an integrated part of our service to you, QDT can design and help you to establish and maintain your documented business systems.

Your intranet-based system can include:

• • All policies and procedures documented, linked and easy to navigate in your intranet.
  • Forms available to print or complete on-line.
  • Records stored on-line.
  • Online issue and task tracking that never forgets anything.
  • Streamlined compliance with ISO 9001 (Quality Management) and other certifications.
  • QDT work closely with our technical team to provide you with a streamlined, easy to use system.

You can:

• Simply purchase a procedure manual template and populate it yourself, OR
• Engage QDT to guide and help you and your team create your intranet-based documentation.

Software tools

QDT use a variety of software tools, depending on the needs of the client, including:

Confluence (procedure manuals and online forms and many plugins for extending your system).

PolicyGuides (Easy to set up and use WordPress cloud-based software for procedures and forms).

Sharepoint (Simple procedure manual wiki system with the ability to include forms, records and workflows).

TKO (desktop-based procedure manual editor—use to write your manual and publish it to an intranet).

MantisBT (free issue and task manager useful for many types of business record) (Asana and Jira also available).

Customer success stories

QDT have designed many documented business systems and helped businesses achieve certification to management standards.

Keech Australia

QDT helped Keech Australia in Bendigo establish a procedure manual (using TKO) and issue tracking system (using MantisBT). Using these systems, Keech achieved certification in ISO 9001 (quality), AS 4801 (Safety) and ISO 14001 (Environment) and are also now a Hitachi certified international manufacturer.

National Protective Services

With QDT guidance, National Protective Services in South Melbourne have converted their Word document-based management system into an intranet using TKO software and are currently converting their paper- and email-based task and issue management systems to MantisBT.

RSP Environmental Services

After several attempts with other consultants, RSP Environmental Services in Bendigo engaged QDT to help them become certified in ISO 9001 (Quality Management standard). Within a few months they achieved certification on their first audit.

Intrepid Geophysics

After another ISO 9001 consultant delivered a Word document-based ISO 9001 system to Intrepid Geophysics in Brighton, Victoria, QDT converted it to an Intranet-based system using Confluence and helped them to maintain their certification efficiently.

Meet David Stephensen, Senior Consultant at QDT

David is a business documentation and workflow specialist. Adept at communicating complex technical information, David intuitively establishes systematic procedures to ensure worker safety, financial security, employment standards, and secure information technology procedures.

His experience as an information designer and educator has enabled David to head up numerous systems projects that have successfully documented quality standards, sequencing of tasks, and business goals.

To discuss your business systems, contact us today

You can help shape Network Overdrive’s services.

At Network Overdrive our main goal has always been to make technology work for you. We’re not interested in geeky stuff just for the sake of it. Therefore, we work hard to respond to your questions and fix any issues fast, so that you don’t have to keep dealing with the same problem time and time again.

In our never-ending quest to improve, we have implemented a feedback system in the past two months. One of the features of this system is that when we have finished a job, you receive an email with four faces at the bottom. By choosing the face that best represents your experience with our service, we can get prompt feedback and tend to any possible service issues straight away.

We would like to urge you to please take the opportunity to submit your response and partake in shaping Network Overdrive’s service into the future.

Please don’t treat us like a restaurant where, when you’ve been served terrible food, you still tell the waiter that everything was great, only to vow to never return. If we have failed to meet your expectations, we want to know about it.

We are happy to see that so many of our clients have already embraced this new way of giving us feedback and, to be honest, we are extremely proud of the results.

In the past two months we have achieved just short of a 94% happiness factor!

To break that statistic down further; 84% reported that upon having their issues resolved they felt “great” 9.9% felt “OK” whereas 2.2% “wish it had been better”. 3.9% of clients stated “IT is killing me!”. Ouch!

Every time someone provides us with the feedback that they “wish it had been better” or that “IT is killing me!”, we take action.

So, as hard as we work to reach 100% customer satisfaction, we also encourage you to be honest with us and give us negative feedback if you think we deserve it.

By the way, the typical IT service desk expects to have a 50% happiness rating. Needless to say, we are extremely pleased that we are currently smashing that metric.

4 key issues every Office Manager needs to address when implementing Microsoft Office 365™

Businesses worldwide, regardless of size, are embracing Microsoft Office 365™ and moving their data to the cloud. Before your organisation makes the transition there are important questions you should ask and strategies to implement to make the transition run smoothly.

How easy this transition will depend on the complexity of your organisation. Here are some key considerations to address before implementing Office 365™.

1. Migration

It is worth taking your time to research which services are right for your business and what you need to do to make the task easier. Issues around the migration will depend on the complexity of your organisation; for instance, how many users you have, how many servers you require, how much data you are moving, and whether you are opting for a coexistence hybrid or completely cloud-based service.

With coexistence hybrid, your users will use a single sign-on through your on-premises Active Directory, which will sync with Office 365™ on the cloud. With the cloud-based service, your users will each need their own credentials to access their email.

If you are a relatively small business, migrating your database and existing archive should be easy, but for larger businesses dealing with terabytes of data, the process will be slower. There are third-party solutions that can speed up this process and help build the archive for you.

Prior to migration, however, deletion of any redundant users is recommended, along with a purge of your email list and review of who can access sensitive and confidential documents.

2. Archiving

Office 365™ has limitations on the amount of data you can store (1 TB at the time of writing), which means that third-party archiving for data resilience may be required, particularly for large organisations. If you have offices located across multiple countries, you may wish to investigate third parties that can store geographically-specific archives to ensure secure data retention and accessibility via eDiscovery.

3. Spam filtering and email hygiene

Office 365™ uses OPE to filter emails and does not fully protect against threats such as directory harvest or distributed denial of service attacks, spear-phishing, etc., or those encountered at the connection level.

From 2010 to 2014, phishing attacks rose by 162.79%, (source) while spear-phishing attacks rose 40% in 2014 alone. No default setting can be perfectly tailored for every business, meaning some configuration of spam filters will most likely be necessary. Externally hosted protection may be prudent to lessen the need for on-premises solutions, particularly for large organisations.

4. Remaining online when Microsoft Office 365™ isn’t

Despite its power, Microsoft Office 365™ is still as vulnerable as any other program, and failures with email, authentication and security can still arise. A survey conducted by Osterman Research in 2013 found the typical employee utilises email for business purposed for an average of 149 minutes a day.

Multiplied by the number of employees in your company, that’s a lot of time wasted if they aren’t able to access their email. It’s a good idea to have contingencies in place to mitigate these worst-case scenarios, should the service become unavailable. It’s recommended to investigate third-party failover solutions that automatically sync once Office 365™ is back online.

6 malware trends that Office Managers need to watch

Every year, cyber criminals evolve their tactics to combat strategies preventing their attacks, and an increasing number of systems and data are put at risk. The AV-TEST Institute has registered over 375 million new malware programs in the past 12 months – that is over 390,000 malicious programs every day!

For an impressive but daunting visual of the very real prevalence of cyber attacks, one only needs to glimpse the Norse Attack Map for a couple of seconds. New sophisticated methods mean organisations must not only have systems in place to prevent old styles of security breaches, but they need to stay on top of trends to prevent attacks from new ones as well. The following is a list of trends, both old and new, that Office Managers will want to watch out for.

1. Automated mass exploit

Despite their anonymity, hackers are still human. This means that all the work they do, including identifying targets to attach, takes a good deal of time and effort. Expect this to change with automated and increasingly sophisticated processes doing the hard work, resulting in wider cast nets that catch as many victims as possible with minimal effort. To combat this, automated security systems will need to be explored and deployed, with less focus on manual strategies.

2. Cloud data compromised

As more organisations embrace the cloud, more data becomes available online, attracting increasing attention from hackers and cyber thieves. Eager to keep ahead of the trends, companies are embracing the cloud without full awareness of the risks involved, with Netscope reporting, of the 700+ cloud apps being used by organisations, an incredible 91.9% aren’t enterprise-ready, and are leaving data vulnerable.

Implementers of security protocols are having a difficult time keeping up with the necessary checks and balances or the amount of breaches. Breaches are expected not only to rise, but many will go unnoticed and unreported for months, possibly years.

3. Continued growth of botnets

The use of botnets will continue, with infected systems still propagating spam, click-fraud and DDoS attacks. They’re cost-effective, efficient and easy to program, with computers infecting computers. Tightening administrator privileges, installing firewalls, installing host-based intrusion preventions, reputation-based filtering, using a proxy server for outbound traffic and monitoring DNS queries are some of the ways you can mitigate the risks.

4. Socially engineered phishing attacks

“Dear Customer.” You’ve no doubt come across this greeting in your spam folder. In the first quarter of 2015, spam constituted 59.2% of email traffic. Such emails are adopting the forms of social media platforms, posing as a user’s friend to entice them.

Another trend is that of piggy-backing, in which hackers leverage news of an attack to contact users, warning them their information may have been violated, urging users to click on a false link to update their details.

5. Two-factor authentication to be compromised

Attacks on mobile-based two-factor authentication are expected to rise the more predominant its use for security becomes. Smartphones are a major security risk, with many users unaware of just how vulnerable they can be. The simultaneous attack of both a user’s smartphone and primary computer can compromise two-factor authentication. As more users adopt two-factor authentication, its effectiveness will enhance but so too will the allure for attackers.

6. Web-based malware

One of the largest prevailing threats will still be users visiting rogue or compromised sites that automatically infect their computers or devices. In 2014, international software security group Kaspersky Lab investigated data shared with them by customers using Kaspersky’s malware protection, Kaspersky Security Network (KSN). The investigation showed Kaspersky Lab products records had detected and prevented a total of 6,167,233,068 threats.

Ensuring web browsers and virus detection software are up to date is a good start against malware threats, as is configuring your spam filter to detect and catch suspicious emails. It is also crucial to educate users within your company as to how to recognise suspicious sites and emails.

Mine or yours? How the cloud is changing our perception of IT investment

There was a time when business owners enjoyed looking out across the office landscape and know that they owned everything that was in front of them. From the furniture and the machinery to the staff that had been working there for more than 30 years – all they could see was there to stay. This is no longer the way.

Just like staff remaining within the same company for decades is becoming increasingly rare, technological innovations like email and other cloud-based tools are forcing business owners to get used to the idea of sharing.

From investment to unnecessary expenditure

While IT used to be seen as an investment, the rate at which new systems are introduced to the market today makes it more of a burden, having to constantly update hardware and stay on top of the latest versions of various software.

At Network Overdrive we are witnessing a trend in businesses asking us to provide monthly rental solutions for their IT investments. And from a financial point of view, this makes sense.

Five reasons why renting could work for you

1. No huge up-front fee

Whereas IT used to be a massive out-of-pocket investment that took years to get a return on, it can now be budgeted as a monthly expenditure. This makes a big difference for businesses that need good cash flow.

2. Know the true cost

If you’ve ever experienced IT breakdowns you know how stressful and costly they can be. With the right financial advice and guidance, a business owner could still make a $20,000 IT system into an investment. But as finance companies generally don’t handle software, any maintenance, repair or service will have to be dealt with separately.

By using a month-to-month rental solution you will be able to make a solid IT budget that’s not affected by unplanned events like server crashes or urgent program updates.

3. Simplify your books

Depending on your business model, it might be desirable for you not to have expensive hardware that has to be depreciated on the books. Instead, your IT can be treated like an ongoing business cost. This will also make your accountant’s job easier.

4. Save yourself the trip to the tip

The average life span of a business computer is 3-5 years. The fast turnover of IT equipment is making discarding of old hardware as much of a headache as purchasing it.

While downloading software has made CDs obsolete, there is still plenty of equipment that needs to be taken care of once it’s no longer used. To our clients, having their out-dated hardware taken care of and replaced without having to lift a finger is one of the most valuable aspects of our services.

5. Let your IT grow with your business

Hiring new staff? With a hardware as a service solution you can have a complete workstation installed and ready to use in a couple of hours by simply adding a small sum to your monthly fee.

To have flexible IT solutions that can change to fit your business’ current needs also makes it easier for business owners to make decisions about when and how they can afford to expand.

Figure out the best solution for your business

As with all business decisions, there is no one-fits-all solution. As a business owner you should always be ready to sit down and consider questions like, ‘What do I need from my IT solutions?’, ‘What am I willing to spend?’, ‘Am I likely to require frequent updates to my systems?’ etc.

A month-to-month solution does not fit all business types and some of our clients have chosen not to use it. For example, it often doesn’t work for our not-for-profit or government clients that have their IT solutions financed by grants set aside specifically for this purpose. But for most businesses it does make sense to make the switch away from the ownership way of thinking.

Then again, some business owners will always enjoy looking out over the office, knowing that every screen and cable is theirs to keep. All the way to the tip.

The rise of Shadow IT

How to use Enterprise File Sync & Share (EFSS) to balance functionality, ease of use and IT security in your enterprise

Cloud apps such as Google Drive, Gmail and Dropbox are being used by enterprises at a higher rate than ever before. According to Netscope’s 2014 Q4 Cloud Report, organisations today use 613 cloud apps on average, of which more than 88 per cent are not enterprise-ready, meaning the security of the data stored and shared is at risk of being compromised.

While employing shadow IT solutions might seem convenient for staff, it can have dire long-term consequences for your organisation as well as your customers.

What is Shadow IT?

The term Shadow IT refers to IT practices and solutions used within an organisation without the formal organisational approval. They are solutions like Facebook groups, Evernote projects and Yammer threads, employed by staff to aid the collaborative process by enabling fast sharing of information and resources.

While the benefits of social media for businesses are no doubt great – better communication with staff and clients, instant customer feedback, increased insight into competitor business practices – 13.5 per cent of apps are at risk of access from third parties.

A 2014 BT survey found that of the 1,000 CIOs and “IT decision makers” surveyed, 76 per cent reported unauthorised Shadow IT practices within their businesses.

Notably, the study also found that Shadow IT solutions now account for one-quarter of IT budgets, leading BT to suggest that CIOs now “face a Darwinian moment” where their influence and power base is being eroded.

What’s at stake?

While compromised security and leaks might simply be an embarrassment to some businesses, organisations handling credit information, and medical and government records, risk heavy penalties for failing to adhere to regulations.

Exposing sensitive business information to the public or a competitor can also jeopardise your business’ intellectual property.

With businesses-targeted cyber crime on the rise, one could argue that CIOs and IT departments have never played a more important role within an organisation than they do today.

What you can do to safeguard your business?

The main reason that employees are taking it upon themselves to find ways to communicate, share and collaborate, is that there is no officially authorised and promoted system in place within the organisation.

This is often a result of poor internal communication where the IT department does not understand the needs of employees, while employees don’t understand that the the IT department can create or choose a system that is both functional and secure.

This suggests that education and communication between management, staff and the IT department is the best place to start.

There are excellent Enterprise File Sync and Share (EFSS) systems out there and by embracing them, your enterprise can put in place a collaboration platform that is both efficient and meets legal standards of data security.

How to know what to choose?

The most important thing to consider when selecting your EFSS solution is that it should not compromise ease-of-use for staff.

Secondly, evaluate the security level required for your organisation’s data. What laws must you adhere to? Are you handling sensitive information such as credit details or medical records? Would a security breach affect your clients or would the damage be limited to the business itself?

Once you have established this you can start exploring the market to find the system that best suits your organisation.

Network Overdrive offer a range of products and services to protect your business and ensure your organisation meets legal requirements.

Contact one of our consultants for a solution tailored to your enterprise.

Five questions to ask yourself before choosing a project management system for your business

What is a project management system?

A project management system is a great investment for any business working in collaborative projects. That’s why we’re surprised to see that many small and medium sized organisations still collaborate via email or other file sharing systems, such as Dropbox or Google Drive.

Sometimes business owners approach us about installing a CMS solution in their organisation, but they feel unsure of whether it’s a good investment. Our recommendation is that any business where staff are collaborating, and need to organise tasks in a structured fashion, will benefit from a CMS.

In fact, as soon as there’s more than one task, one step or one person involved, these units need to be organised, regardless of the type of business you’re running.

One system for the entire organisation

For larger organisations, one of the biggest challenges when implementing a CMS is to find a system that suits both the analysts and the creatives. We have seen many businesses where the finance team is working with one project management tool – typically Excel – and the creative department are working within a different tool – typically a cloud service. This might work great until these two departments need to collaborate in a more formal process.

But we also have freelance clients working alone who are using a CMS to organise their tasks, collaborate with clients and send invoices.

Questions to ask yourself before choosing

So how do you know what system to choose? There are an abundance of CMS solutions out there and it can be hard to know what to look for. We’ve put together a list of some questions that can work as a guide to choosing the system that is right for your business:

1. Do I need the CMS to create timesheets?

This might not sound like a central question but the fact is that the ability to create timesheets is one of rather few differences between the various systems out there. By answering this question you can limit your possible choices substantially.

2. Do I need it to integrate well with other software or cloud service?

Are you and your colleges frequently using other systems or services like Dropbox or Gmail? If you are, it might be worth looking into a system that integrates with these services.

3. Will I use it to send invoices?

As mentioned, many freelancers and small businesses without a dedicated finance department could benefit from investing in a CMS with the ability to send invoices. Again, once you’ve decided whether you want this function or not, you’ve limited your choices considerably.

4. Do I want to be able to invite clients to collaborate?

Are you solely producing work for your internal team to use or does it make sense to enable third parties to take part in the creative process? Do you need to present information to a customer or client? If so, what should they be able to see?

5. What system appeals to me aesthetically and functionally?

At the end of the day, choosing a project management tool is a bit like choosing a web browser – there are differences but a lot of it comes down to personal preference. Like with any IT solutions, you and your staff are expected to spend hours every day working within the system and it’s important that everyone feels comfortable with the choice.

Whether you need help implementing a system or want advice on the most cost effective solution, our consultants can help.

Contact one of our consultants for a solution tailored to your enterprise.

What do IT industry leaders think of the future of IT for business?

As more and more companies are embracing the shift of computing software from a brick and mortar presence to the cloud, the IT industry is seeing a major shift in the direction of it’s services. With the opportunities the cloud presents in allowing instant access to information from any device, quicker response time to customers and reducing a business’ total cost of ownership (TCO), it’s no wonder that cloud technology has been adopted by more companies at a quicker pace than previous technology innovations.

In November 2013, CIO Magazine surveyed leaders in the IT industry to find out what their concerns were for the future of IT in 2014. Below is a slideshow of the answers they gave:

The Future of Information Technology – By Network Overdrive from NetworkOverdrive

In case you’re short of time, here’s the data for you:

In your opinion, which of the following will have the most profound effect on the CIO role in the future?

MOBILE  33%

CLOUD 32%

BIG DATA 29%

SOCIAL 6%

In your opinion, which of the following tech trends will have the most profound effect on your organisation and your organisation’s IT department overall in the future?

Mobile

IT: 12%

ORG: 22%

Cloud

IT: 20%

ORG: 12%

Big Data

IT: 12%

ORG: 11%

Social

IT: 6%

ORG: 14%

What percent of your company’s total revenue does the IT budget represent?

2012 4.7%

2013 5.2%

2014 8.6%

Which other groups or functions in your organisation have/ will you have budgets specifically earmarked for investments in technology products and services currently? In 3- 5 years?

Now you’ve read the statistics, are you interested in moving to the cloud? Call Network Overdrive on 1300 368 928