Let’s say you’re a Dentist (or any medical field really) and you have business data;  X-rays, patient records, invoicing, insurance forms etc. How do you back it up and keep it safe? How do you back it up and still comply with that nasty ole HIPPA? It’s easy – find an online backup solution (or hybrid onsite-offsite solution) that is HIPPA compliant.

See? It’s easy.

There are some HIPAA requirements that need to be taken into account.

1.  The data must be stored offsite in the cloud, or another location owned by you; which can be expensive.

2.  It must be secure and use certain methods to maintain the integrity of the data.

3.  ANY business associates that a Dentist may interact with – that may have access to even (1) one patient record, needs to be HIPAA compliant.

At Bitback we were presented with this problem and we took it seriously.  We first met with the dental practice and reviewed the data they had, and the data of their business associates. Some associates were HIPAA compliant, others not.  Those that were stayed a partner, the others either complied or were ‘fired’.  Since Bitback is HIPPA compliant, storing the data was not an issue. What we needed to determine was what actually needed to be stored offsite. The less we stored, the less cost to the Dentist. We gave a thorough review of the data and came up with a plan that we could all agree on.  Which was good because the backup in place was an external hard drive plugged into 1 PC in the office.  If that hard drive died, the backups were gone. If there was a total disaster and the office itself was destroyed – everything was gone.

Patient names and addresses, what was owed to the dental practice, insurance claims in process, email; you get the picture.

Now the Dentist can sleep soundly knowing his data is safe. He receives a daily report, all the machines are backed up under 1 account. He can even access it when he’s on the golf course.

Thanks for Reading,

Mike

When I started out in 2009 most businesses were still using tape to back up their business. My system uses a dedicated appliance to help businesses save their ‘stuff’. It was original, cheaper than tape and it worked. Doing clone / image based backups of every machine in the business. PC’s and servers were back up and running in under an hour.

Then came the ‘cloud’.

I watched the development of the cloud closely. Was this going to be another Y2K? Or were cloud based backups a viable approach for a small business. Early versions of Carbonite and Mozy were clunky and often just failed when trying to restore. So I watched and waited. Eventually it became clear to compete I had to adopt online backup or cloud backups as a product I could sell. I researched many different technologies and finally settled on what is now known as Bitback Cloud.

Do I think cloud based is the best approach? No. I still firmly believe in hybrid backups. A local backup for speed of restore, and a cloud based option for total disaster recovery.

But I never saw what was to happen with the cloud. There are cloud backup companies cropping up daily. Free or very very cheap alternatives are flooding the market. It’s not good. For me or the customer. While getting a good deal is all and well, it means nothing if you can’t get your data back. If your data is not secure, than what have you got?

So today I compete against huge conglomerates who now in 2012 think cloud backups are the place to be.  Offering a cheap product and trying to just get clients not caring how many eventually leave, because they just keep getting more every day.

It’s wrong.

I get to know each and every one of my clients, I know their businesses and their business model. A dentist is much different than a CPA. I’m not going anywhere, and when the dust of lowered expectations settles I’ll still be servicing my clients. They are people I know, not just numbers on a sales sheet.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

When you are thinking of a hybrid backup, or you simply want to use only cloud backup; look for these 5 things.

Thanks for watching – Mike

Small and medium-sized businesses are becoming easy targets for hackers. According to local information security experts, data breaches are on the rise at smaller organizations. It sort of makes sense – most small businesses don’t have the expertise or budget to protect themselves.

All companies that do business online are targets for cyber-criminals. Regardless of their size, businesses need web security and technology experts on staff, but this is pretty impractical. The solution – outsource IT tasks. Need router help, hire a Cisco or Sonicwall expert. Need data retention and protection hire a managed service provider that does online or hybrid backups.

“The hacker community is smart. They have realized that this group of small and medium-sized businesses doesn’t have the capabilities that some of the larger organizations have and they become very easy targets,” said Vikram Sethi, director of the Wright State Institute of Defense Studies and Education.

The average U.S. data breach last year cost companies $194 per compromised record, according to the 2011 Cost of a Data Breach Study: United States released by the Poneman Institute, a Michigan-based privacy research center.

The total cost of a data breach for a small company can range from $25,000 to more than $250,000, these number do not  include federal regulatory fines. Most small companies are considered easy picking, and they eventually will get targeted.

Smaller organizations can take steps to protect themselves by:

-      Using anti-virus software

-      Using anti-spyware and anti-malware

-      Implementing a firewall

-      Backing up their data to a secure off site location.

In all cases the cost for a company to recover from a data breach is more than likely greater than the cost of protecting their information in the first place. And they will have a recovery plan in place.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

It is a complex online world and small businesses need some guidance. We can help.

All was sunny on that nice September day…until the weather turned and the hurricane hit. A category three hurricane hit the city, killing power, damaging roofs and causing flooding. It was at this point, that one company discovered that its backup plan was inadequate against a total loss of the structure and the company lost critical financial data, IP, customer records, etc. The company tried to get back to normal, but 1 year later they were still struggling to keep their head above water (no pun intended)

This is obviously a worst case scenario, but the story shows the importance of being and staying prepared for a hurricane (or other disaster), because you never know when a bad storm or fire or flood may occur. And, with this year’s hurricane forecast  predicting 11 named storms, six hurricanes and two category-three hurricanes or higher, businesses need to feel confident that they know where their critical data is backed up and how to recover it.  According to the Ponemon Institute, nearly 50 percent of the 600 U.S. companies surveyed still fear substantial downtime in the event of a disaster. Are you one of them?

Even Virtual Machines Need Love

After a disaster, having a backup and recovery solution that only protects physical IT environments isn’t enough. It’s important to have a backup solution and plan that addresses all types of environments, including virtualization. A natural disaster such as a hurricane does not care if your servers are physical or virtual. And neither should your backup plan.

Off To the Cloud We Go

To save your physical business location data – move it somewhere else.  Seems like a simple solution, but many companies are still not protecting themselves in a different geographic location. So get an account with a cloud provider you trust and work on moving everything (as a backup) to the cloud. Online cloud backup providers are not all the same – find one that gets to know you and your business, contact them and meet first.  See if it is a good fit. Don’t just pick the cheapest one, google reviews, crashes, hacks, etc.

Sometimes Nature Bytes

“Nobody fools with Mother Nature” as the saying goes. Take it to heart and back up your stuff.

Thanks for reading, leave a comment!

Mike

There are many online backup service providers out there. Bitback adds members, while the big names gather the masses. They look for numbers and money and they have lost sight of what’s most important; saving businesses from ruin and consumers from heartache when their data is lost at the local level.

We get to know each and every business, from a child psychologist in Michigan to a home owner in the UK. We know them by name, and we are her to help.

Come and join the Bitback family.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

There are many things I believe you need to have in an online backup.

While Carbonite, Mozy and the countless others are decent products they lack the following:

1. Triple Military grade encryption – Files encrypted locally before sending, sent through an encrypted tunnel and finally re-encrypted at rest on the data server.

2. Support that knows your business and knows you. Most companies just want a million customers, and get them with super low prices. Quantity over quality. And support that neither knows you or your particular backup needs.

3. No storage penalties for keeping different versions of the same file – At Bitback we never charge you storage space for the same file that has been changed and re-saved. And we keep those versions forever. So you can get back the original spreadsheet you made 2 years ago. The others delete after 30 days.

4. Tier III & Tier IV data centers – make sure you backup uses them, or your data may be on low-end equipment with little to no security. At Bitback 2 people have access to the data center. How many have access at Google or Carbonite? I don’t know either.

We respect you and truly appreciate your business.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

Bitback Cloud Online Backup Tip #2 – How To Protect a File Using Windows Explorer

Setting a file to be protected is easy with Bitback Cloud Online backup

1. Open Windows Explorer

2. Locate file you want to protect

3. Right click on the file and choose “Protect with Online Backup and Recovery Manager”

4. That’s it:

Any issues please contact me.  Thanks for reading.

Mike

Tip #1 on using Bitback Cloud: How To Share Files From the Golf Course (or anywhere)

I did this one without sound – to prove how easy it is to do.

Any issues / questions? Contact me.

Was it easy? Did you need an audio walkthrough?

Let me know!

Mike

Issues #7 and #8

7  Automatic Scheduling of backups  – unless you have plenty of time on your hands to manually back up each PC/Server/Laptop/Mac that you use in your business; you have to have automated scheduling. Set it and forget it – just like a rotisserie cooker. This coincides with issue #6 above. You have to be alerted to problems, and daily reports sent to your email, is the way to do it. Most backup clients have scheduling these days and it can be set to run at a  minimum every hour. Since most only back up the file changes, this is not a big deal.

7a.  CDP (Continuous Data Protection) –  Another function that goes along with this is CDP. This means that the moment a file is changed, it is backed up. Make a change – it’s saved to the cloud.  We had a client once that needed raw data files created by a lab instrument to be saved automatically. This took care of that for them automatically.

8 Backups of Databases –  Not all backup software handles databases such as Microsoft Exchange, Sharepoint and SQL Server correctly. They can back up the database backups themselves, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. Some backup companies have products that are specifically made for Exchange, SQL , Sharepoint and Server versions. They have granular and transactionally consistent backups. Which means you can restore a single message or an entire mail store. Which also means you can restore SQl and Sharepoint databases to the last transaction performed. Which may be important for your business.

Thoughts? Agree or disagree?

Thanks for reading!

Mike