At Affect4 Technology Solutions, we deal with a lot of the same business-related issues that our clients do. Marketing, driving the business forward, taxes, internal policies, you name it. Believe it or not, we also have our own IT infrastructure that needs to be kept up and maintained. We see the same kinds of expenses (after all, working on our OWN technology internally is time our techs could be doing their jobs). We've put together a few big mistakes that we've seen businesses make that take much less effort to prevent than they do to fix later on when it is too late.

Missing Backup Procedures:

Failure to coordinate a complete backup strategy is one of the most prominent issues we see. We get a lot of clients who found us because they lost valuable data and their current IT solutions provider told them (in all honestly) that nothing can be done about it. Yes, there are expensive services out there that could cost tens of thousands of dollars or more to take a failed hard drive and restore some of the data, but even then there is no guarantee. You could get lucky, or you could get back just a few complete files. Businesses need to make sure they are running a reliable backup solution that can be tested easily.

Lack of Surge Protection:

Electricity is a cruel mistress - too much or too little can harm your equipment and result in data loss. Fluctuations in electricity can do damage over time to all of your electronic devices. For some reason, somewhere along the way people have been taught that a standard $12 power strip can protect your equipment from several hundred million volts of electricity from a single bolt of lightning. All of your equipment should be protected with a UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) - especially computers so that they have time to shut down properly in the event of a power outage.

Lack of Software Licenses:

You would be surprised at how widespread this issue is, but then again, software is expensive, and licensing can be difficult to manage. Software companies are cracking down on non-licensed software and have heavy penalties if they catch you abusing the system. All of your software licenses should be attached to the computer it is installed on and in a database so that you know exactly which licenses you have and where they are being used..

Lack of Spam Protection:

Spam is an annoyance for nearly everyone with an email address, but for business, spam has costs. About 50% of all email is spam, and you and your staff spend time sifting through it every day to determine the good and the bad. Spam can also come packaged with malware, phishing scams, or other attacks.

If you aren't sure where to begin, feel free to contact us for a no-obligation network and security evaluation. We will work with you to come up with a systematic approach to saving your data and your business.