The biggest danger businesses have with remote backup services is lack of knowledge in what to look for in a Michigan computer services company. There are literally hundreds of companies offering this service because they see it as an simple way to make a quick buck.

But not all service providers are created equal and you absolutely want to make sure you choose an ethical, reliable vendor or you’ll get burned with hidden costs, unexpected “gotchas,” or with the horrible discovery that your data wasn’t actually backed up correctly, leaving you high and dry when you need your data most.

Your remote backup provider should meet the following seven criteria:

1. Rock solid, data transfer, and data storage. This is fairly obvious; you want to make sure the company housing your data is actually secure. After all, we are talking about your financial information, client data, and other sensitive information about your company. Never trust your data to anyone that doesn’t have the following security measures in place:

Ask your service provider if they are HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, Gram-Leach-Bliley, and SEC NASD compliant. These are government regulations that dictate how organizations with highly- sensitive data (like banks and doctor’s offices) handle, store, and transfer their data. If you are a medical or financial institution, you are required by law to work only with vendors who meet these stringent requirements. But even if you are NOT an organization that falls under one of these regulations, you still want to choose a provider who is because it’s a good sign that they have high-level security measures in place

2. Ensure the physical location where the data is stored is secure. Ask your service provider if they have an ID system, video surveillance, and some type of card key system to allow only authorized personnel to enter the site.

Your data should be encrypted with SSL protocols to prevent hacking during transfer.

3. Multiple data centers that are geographically dispersed. The best way to avoid loss is to have redundancy in operations and infrastructure. Your remote backup service should house multiple copies of your data in more than a single location. That way, if a terrorist attack or natural disaster destroys one of their locations, they have backups of your backup in a different city where the disaster did not strike.

4. Demand the ability to receive overnight copies of your data on DVD or some other data storage device. Do not rely on a provider that only offers internet recovery.  Choose a backup provider that will provide overnight copies of your data via some physical storage device.

On that same token, ask your service provider if you have the option of having your initial backup performed through hard copy. Again, trying to transfer that amount of data online could take days or weeks. If you have a large amount of data to backup, it would be faster and more convenient to send it to them on DVD.

5. Make sure your data can be restored to a different computer than the one it was from which it was backed up. Amazingly, some backups can only be restored to the same computer they came from. If the original computer was burned in a fire, stolen, or destroyed in a flood, you’re left without a backup.

6. Require daily status reports. All backup services should send you a daily e-mail to verify if your backup actually ran AND to report failures or problems. The more professional providers should also allow you to notify more than one person (like a technician or your IT person) in addition to yourself.

7. Demand help from a qualified technician. Many online backup services are “self-serve.” This allows them to provide a less expensive service to you. BUT if you don’t set your system to back up correctly, the money you will save will be insignificant compared to the losses you’ll suffer. At the very least, ask your service provider to walk you through the steps on the phone or to check your settings to make sure you did the setup properly.

The Single Most Important Thing To Look For When Choosing a Remote Backup Service Provider

While the above checks are important, one of the most critical characteristics of a backup service provider – and one that is often overlooked — is finding a service that will do regular test restores to check your backup and make sure the data is able to be recovered. You do not want to wait until your data has been wiped out to test your backup; yet that is exactly what most people do – and they pay for it dearly. If your data is very sensitive and you cannot afford to lose it, then test restores should be done monthly. If your situation is a little less critical, then quarterly test restores are sufficient. Any number of things can cause your backup to become corrupt. By testing it monthly, you’ll sleep a lot easier at night knowing you have a good, solid copy of your data available in the event of an unforeseen disaster.

Popularity: 1% [?]

One of the most overlooked facets of the company information technology structure is an optimized backup and disaster recovery system. With all of the technology available today, the absence of even the most elementary backup system is a mortal sin in regard to the business technology world. There are affordable backup and data recovery systems in every price range, so even companies with limited budgets can afford an elementary system at the very least. Also many computer services firms now offer backup and data recovery systems as integral parts of their managed IT services.

Some things to consider when thinking about your backup and disaster recovery solution(s):

1. What happens if I delete a file?
2. Where is my email stored and is it backed up?
3. What if my computer crashes? Even if my data is saved how long will it take me to rebuild my computer to a functioning state?
4. Is my data all located in the same physical space?
5. Will a catastrophe wipe out my backup solution i.e. {an earthquake,a fire, a flood}?
6. Does my business count on any one system for important functions? How long can my business operate without this system? Does my current backup solution accomodate that expectation?
7. Does someone in our company know how to retrieve information off backups?
8. Are my backups tested so I know they work?
9. Are my backups monitored so I know if they are ever failing?
10. Is the backup data media (i.e. hard drives or tapes) transferred in a secure, controlled manor since it contains all data for my entire business?

This list covers about 1/4 of the questions that you should review when it comes to a practical backup and disaster recovery solution so if you haven’t asked yourself these questions, start today!  If you are overwhelmed, contact a local computer services provider which should be able to assist your company.

Popularity: 1% [?]

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Data Quality Concerns

The overwhelming concerns surrounding unclean data have convinced many companies that a robust and flexible solution is the only way to handle data hygiene issues. A quality data is the foundation on which every company’s strategy is build as well as many by which it is communicated to various stake holders and customers.

A Gartner Inc’s research report has predicted that ‘dirty data’ will cause 50 per cent of the insurers to have compromised decision-making assumptions by 2012. Data cleansing (also called as data scrubbing) is the act of detecting and removing corrupt or inaccurate records from a database

MIDAS

Bodhtree’s MIDAS (Multi Industry Data Anomaly Solution) Provides scalable and flexible technique of giving customers the choice to opt for Application Integration, Data Integration, Data Quality and Advanced analytics. MIDAS is becoming popular among the various verticals, because it not only provides customers the data integration and hygiene issues. It also allows organizations to valuable options to seamlessly integrate the solution into various applications.

Data Anomaly issues across the Globe

Companies that can’t address this unclean data are going to pay heavy price, not only will they lose customers, but industry experts predict a huge law suits stemming from providing wrong data.

According to the Data Warehousing Institute, a US-based organization that provides high-quality education and research in the business intelligence and data warehousing industry, businesses lose more than $600 billion every year due to poor quality data, while direct marketers in Europe spend 195 million pounds annually on incorrectly addressed international mails.

Data Quality: Prime Agenda

The best way for companies to stay ahead by managing their data hygiene issues is to make sure their clean data becomes a goal not only of individual departments but of the corporation as a whole. CIO’S need to make quality data a corporate goal. Quality data needs become fundamental pieces of culture and put it on the same level as other profitability. Quality data creates satisfied customers

MIDAS Addresses data hygiene issues

Organizations across multiple industries can now save millions of dollars wasted on unclean data. Bodhtree’s MIDAS – Multi Industry Data Anomaly Solution helps solve data completeness, accuracy and integrity problems. MIDAS integrates across various applications and databases with its proprietary tools.

§ MIDAS offers a viable and convenient options:

–SaaS (Software as a Service), where in customer data has been transmitted to Bodhtree servers using secure FTP layer. Bodhtree performs data hygiene operations and report back results and enriched data through web based portal.

–On Premise, where in Bodhtree installs MIDAS at customer premises using data hygiene jump start templates. Jump start templates are set of tools and processes that Bodhtree has built over years of experience in handling critical customer needs. These templates enable faster deployment of solution at customer end.

– Turn-key Solutions, where Bodhtree’s proven processes would be applied at customer location using customer specific tools. MIDAS process is tool agnostic and can be applied on customer data using any existing toolset that customer owns.

MIDAS – Technology

• MIDAS is open standard based J2EE application which adheres to best industry practices in form of vertical specific pre-canned data / application integration steps, data connectors and reports.

• SOA & JSR 168 compliant architecture

• Comes with Role based access control (RBAC) mechanism

• Inbuilt data connectors for industry leading OLTP / ERP / DSS systems such as:

–SAP, Oracle EBS, JD Edwards, People Soft

–Salesforce, SugarCRM, Siebel On Demand

–Quickbooks

–EDI Connectors

–JMS, XML

–CSV and Excel Files

• 24/7 support from global delivery centers (GDC)

• SAP Certified Product

• Oracle certification in progress

Key Drivers for MIDAS to Conceive

One of the key drivers behind the development of MIDAS is the burgeoning global data cleansing market segment and the unprecedented growth of data generated by individuals that requires constant optimization attention. The market for data cleansing solutions is pegged at $100 billion in the US alone, of which the healthcare sector accounts for about $20 billion, which holds huge potential for solutions like MIDAS.

MIDAS Case Studies

1. MIDAS – Data Anomaly Solution

Client Background

The US client is the world’s largest infomercial company, with sales of more than USD 3 Billion, operating in US, Europe, Japan and Autralia, with a customer base of 30 million customers. The marketing channels used by the client are web, 1-800 numbers and kiosks

.

Business Situation and Challenge

The client had outsourced the entire operations, where order calls are received by tele marketing companies and call centers and deliveries are handled by fulfillment centers. These centers are spread across the world in numerous locations. Orders come through various channels and geographies. Data from these companies are transmitted back to client at pre-defined intervels, and need to be loaded to client ERP and then to Data Warehouse.

The challenge faced by the client was the consolidation of customer records received from different data sources. A clean customer master was essential for the realization value of campaigns run by the client marketing teams.

Bodhtree MIDAS Solution

The customer master contained 30 Million records with anomalies such as incomplete, invalid, incorrect and unstructured data and customer duplicate records. The MIDAS solution provided by Bodhtree helped in elimination of 10 million duplicate records, enrichment of the customer data and mapping of the actual customers to the corresponding sales and inquiry records. MIDAS provided the client a “single version of truth”, which helped the client to calculate the actual realization value of the various marketing campaigns.

2. MIDAS – Critical Applications Integration

Client Background

The client is a leading global pharmaceutical company, pioneer in global drug discovery and pharmaceutical sales and has presence in more than 100 countries. It has wholly-owned subsidiaries in the US, UK, Russia, Germany and Brazil; joint ventures in China, South Africa and Australia; representative offices in 16 countries; and third-party distribution set ups in 21 countries. It is the first pharmaceutical company in Asia outside of Japan to be listed on the NYSE.

Business Situation and Challenge

The client has various applications such as SAP, forecasting applications, project management applications and third party .NET applications for stockist data maintenance which are part of their supply chain nodes. There is constant flow of crucial data between these applications. Currently data is being transmitted in different modes right from FTP, customer ABAP coding and custom .NET coding. Since the data transferred between the applications are crucial, any loss of data or delay in transfer will result in a down time in the application processing, which would in turn have a huge impact on the company’s supply chain operations.

Tracking and monitoring the flow of data between the systems was a huge challenge. The use of multiple technologies with out proper coupling for data was not reliable due to the increased instances of failures. Tracking the failures, finding the missing data etc. were non-productive as well as time consuming, apart from the other impacts it had on the business due to the downtime.

MIDAS Solution

Bodhtree’s MIDAS has the ability to integrate data and applications including ERPs. MIDAS was used as an intermediary for data transfer between the applications. MIDAS also provided a real time console for monitoring the status of data being transferred. MIDAS also provided automated critical alerts via and email and sms to the concerned personnel, to ensure timely attention and smooth processing of the applications.

MIDAS helped the client’s applications to integrate seamlessly and made the crucial data transfer flawless. It eliminated the downtime and resource overheads and ensured smooth flow of the supply chain operations.

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Forensics is an ever evolving science with a lot of possibilities get deeper knowledge about by different forensics schools or forensics colleges.
The number of crimes involving electronic data is sky-rocketing these days, particularly with the immense preponderance of computers and other digital media in our lives. Thus, data forensics has become a distinct sub-division of forensic science consisting of technical expertise, the finding of electronic evidence, digital investigations and even data recovery. To count only a few of the judicial cases for which data forensics is useful, we ought to mention sexual harassment, intellectual property theft, discrimination, breach of contract and so on. Therefore, it is not that difficult to understand why data forensics is so important in the legal system.

A normal type of computer investigation cannot detect or extract bits of information remained after deletion. File left-overs, deleted files, hidden and discarded files are searched and analyzed as part of the data forensics analysis. Although there are lots of challenges when trying to identify the criminal process or to recover data, this search for the needle in the haystack is pretty successful. What is the relevance of such evidence for legal cases? Well, practice has already proved it that the recovery of a deleted e-mail message can change the course of a trial.

Data forensics constantly needs to face apparently unsurmountable challenges. The applications do have far-reaching applications, but the work to extract digital evidence is strict and exhausting. Sometimes the extractor has difficulties in getting to the information that is buried too deep in the electronic system, or too exposed to destruction. This is also the reason why a duplication procedure is used to protect the information during the extraction process. Great caution, strict standards and lots of skills are needed for each of these steps and only the best in the field can succeed.

When a criminal act involving digital systems is detected, the best way of action is not to address the other party and ask for a preservation of computer records, but rather a surgical approach by an expert in data forensics. This will reduce the costs of data collection and will make info recovery more likely. Moreover, it is false to assume that data forensics only applies to computer hard drives as the main systems that can store information; there are cases of criminal action involving, USB devices, CDs, DVDs and even voice mail systems. Memory hard drives are now incorporated even in fax and photocopy machines so that many of the documents can be recovered afterwards.

Popularity: 1% [?]

There's no getting round the fallibility of computers:  the motherboard might die, the power supply may become beyond rescue or the whole thing might just become ridden with viruses and slow to a crawl.  If you decide to buy a replacement computer then the issue of data backup from the old machine to the new one is very important.Use the following 5 steps if you find yourself in this situation:

1) Once you have unplugged the cables and peripherals from your old computer you will then be ready to remove the hard drive from the broken computer.Your computer's handbook should show you the correct way to open the case.Many older machines will have a case that requires unscrewing to gain access, whereas some others will have latches that simply have to be 'pushed' open.

2)  Now you have the components exposed you should be especially wary of causing damage via static electricity, as anyone well versed in ict facts will tell you.  In order to 'de-static' yourself touch something metal before you go near your computer.Repeat this step every time you step away from your machine.

3) Next you should locate your hard drive.This task should be simple enough as it should be located at the front of your computer in a slot near the CD drive.  Again, in older computers it may be attached by screws.

4) Disconnect the hard drive power supply unit and data cable by gently pulling them out.Unscrew the hard drive if appropriate and then remove it. 

5) Finally, you should insert the hard drive into the external hard drive enclosure.Plug the USB data cable into an available USB port on the new working machine.Your new computer should then automatically recognise this as an external drive and assign it a letter as appropriate.You should then be able to gain access to the data on your old hard drive.

If you are looking for for more sophisticated data backup solutions then you may want to approach a specialist provider.

Popularity: 3% [?]

It used to be the case that you would backup everything on your computer using floppy disks.Today, when one sound or graphics file can easily be larger than the capacity of a disk, it would be impractical to back up even you documents with floppies, let alone your applications.  Luckily there are better options including Zip disks, CD writers, tape drives, external hard drives and even online backup services.You can also compress all of your backed up files so that they take up less space.Use the following tips and you will be able to find the media that is best suited to your needs.

1) Determine the quantity and approximate file sizes you will be backing up.

2) Figure out the quantity and file sizes of any documents or applications that you want to archive permanantly to a backup device or removable media.

3) Plan for that amount to grow in the future.

4) Work out your budget for a backup storage device and removable media to use with it.

5) Consider if you plan to archive photographs or scanned files, need portability of the media or the drive itself, wish to record music for playback on some other equipment, or require ease of use.Weigh these factors along with your need to back up the files.

6) Calculate the total cost per MB of media for each drive that you are considering.zip drives themselves are cheap however the disks aren't.

7) You should consider buying a 100MB zip drive if you need limited storage capability (less than 1GB).An external parallel port or even USB Zip drive will provide versatility and portability.You should consider buying a 250MB Zip drive if your storage requirements are moderate (a few GB). 

8) Buy an internal zip drive if you will only use the drive for backup and you are able to install it yourself (installation fees will add up).

9) Buy a CD-RW drive if your storage needs are more moderate and you will regularly back up more than 500MB of data.

10) Buy a Jaz drive or tape backup drive if you will be backing up large amounts of data on a regular basis.

11) Buy an external hard disk if you will need a lot of space, wont be keeping your old backups and dont need portability.

12)  If you require additional security, data protection and the ability to recover your data quickly then online data backup should be a serious consideration.

Popularity: 5% [?]