Is Cloud based backup taking over the industry?

Is cloud-based backup taking over the backup industry?

There are very simple concise answers why remote based backup has become the number one method for businesses to securely protect their data.

But first, let’s look at the problem.

The majority of all a companies documentation production is now stored electronically in the form of data created by its users. This data could be accounting, sales, or manufacturing related. It may be in the form of databases, documents, and more.  Smart business owners will store this data on a secure central server where it is backed up daily.

Historically businesses have used either a tape backup system or an external storage device such as a NAS.

Tape drives were the staple of business backups. The software that rom They were somewhat automated – they required tapes be changed daily or backups did not run. Tapes fill and old backups are overwritten.  Larger backups required multiple tapes. Tapes wear out and required replacement annually. You never knew if the tape had gone bad and your data was safe. Tapes were generally kept in the same location as the data. Therefore, if there was an event such as flood, fire or theft then the data could be permanently lost. The software was static, if needed updates you paid for them.

External storage devices such as a NAS are less common. Although the NAS is more reliable than a tape, it suffers from many of the same flaws when protecting your company.

The right Cloud-based backup resolves all of these issues. Backups are automated, and require no user intervention. The backup application is updated automatically. Data is kept in a secure off-site location. The transmission of data is encrypted and the data integrity is verified at the destination to ensure the backups are successful.  The cost is predictable and in line with what companies typically invest in a tape system.

In reality cloud-based backup is superior to traditional on-site backup in most every way.

What are the weaknesses of a cloud-based solution? They require a stable, high-bandwidth internet connection. Initial backup or restore of large volumes of data can take time.

At SmartCloud LLC we are proud to offer Smart Backup Remote Backup.

Simple, Secure and Reliable.

Contact us today for a free trial. 

Let’s get right down to it. Email is not a luxury. It’s not something that you have a choice about. It’s not even an option. More business will get transacted today by email than by phone and postal mail combined.

No one ever wants to miss an important email. So like most things, bigger is better, right?

Well… not always.

Read on if you want to understand why you didn’t get that big email you were waiting for.

The History

Let’s throw in a little background for a history lesson.

When email was first invented, it was by uber smart guys sitting in a computer Bat-cave entering commands line by line on a monochrome monitor. They knew shell commands and how to format an SMTP transaction. Hit enter and off a message went to another uber bright guy in another Bat-cave across the campus.

Fast forward to today when almost every person on the earth communicates with beautifully written email interfaces that populate email addresses and format the SMTP transaction.

Along comes the humble email attachment. Not only can you send a message, but  now you can include a file along with your text!  And it’s all almost instantaneous. Who wouldn’t like that?

The Problem

So where does the problem come in? Setting up email servers became commonplace. Any organization or individual can set up an email system and they only have to adhere to loose rules – RFCs. Those rules make no stipulations what size email is accepted, or transmitted. 

Each provider chooses their own limits.

Where were we again? Oh yes, everyone wants attachments. Did you know that when you send an attachment it is converted into that same protocol used by those uber smart guys in there Bat-cave.  The process of handling attachments is messy and inflates them roughly 33%. When you send a 20 MB attachment, it becomes a 26 MB email.

Because of inflation, loose server guidelines, and an email protocol that has seen little change in 30 years, email is being asked to do something it was never designed to do – transfer large amounts of data.

Bigger Attachments?

You still want to send and receive bigger attachments? Every email system sets their own rules for size. so even if your company can send 50 MB attachments, chances are that it will get rejected as too large by the recipient’s email system. The recipient is wondering why you did not send the file you promised, and you are wondering why they did not respond.

Why doesn’t everyone want larger attachments? Including email admins? Because they know that email was not designed from its inception to be used in this way.

Transferring large files has become popular so some email providers now offer alternate methods. At SmartCloud LLC we provide OwnCloud as a secure method of sharing large files quickly and reliably.

Summary

Email is a part of business today. As is transferring files between you and the people with which you do business. Finding the right way to send files can be as simple as contacting your administrator to find out what systems they have in place.

Bigger can be better, but remember you have options when transferring files.

An article from Malwarebytes regarding data breaches

What is a data breach?

The Malwarebytes Labs blog called 2018 the year of the data breach. What a year it was. The list of companies that were hacked by cybercriminals reads like a who’s who list of the world’s biggest tech companies, retailers, and hospitality providers—and that’s only the data breaches that we know about. In many instances, an organization or company won’t even know they’ve been breached until years later. According to the Ponemon Institute’s 2018 Cost of a Data Breach study, a data breach goes undiscovered for an average of 197 days. It takes another 69 days to remediate the data breach. By the time the security failure is discovered and fixed, the damage is already done. The criminals responsible will have enjoyed unfettered access to databases full of valuable data—your valuable data. Not to mention the data of hundreds of millions of people like you who had the bad luck of doing business with a company that got hacked.

Unlike most of the other topics we’ve covered under Cybersecurity Basics, a data breach isn’t a threat or attack in its own right. Rather, a data breach comes as a result of a cyberattack that allows cybercriminals to gain unauthorized access to a computer system or network and steal the private, sensitive, or confidential personal and financial data of the customers or users contained within. Common cyberattacks used in data breaches include the following:

• Spyware
• Phishing
• Broken or misconfigured access controls

With most data breaches, cybercriminals want to steal names, email addresses, usernames, passwords, and credit card numbers. Though cybercriminals will steal any data that can be sold, used to breach other accounts, steal your identity, or make fraudulent purchases with.

In some instances, hackers want to steal your data just to prove that they can. This was the case in the 2015 VTech data breach, in which the data on 5 million adults and 200,000 children was compromised. The hacker responsible claimed they had no plans for the data and did not share it with anyone. Honor among thieves, right?

Want to read more: https://www.malwarebytes.com/data-breach/?utm_source=double-opt-in&utm_medium=email-internal-b2c&utm_campaign=EM-B2C-2019-April1-newsletter&utm_content=laws

SmartCloud LLC is proud to announce the move to our new datacenter.

We are now located at 660 Greens Pkwy Houston Texas. 

This is a brand-new data center built with cutting-edge technology in the industry. Multiple certifications  include SOC Type 1 and SOC Type 2redundancies for IP Connectivity and Power.  Highly secure with 34x7x365 maned security staff and eight levels of security. Built as one of the premier green energy data centers in the country.

In addition to the new data center itself SmartCloud LLC has incorporated new server configurations based on the Hewlett-Packard Enterprise BL7000 multi-blade chassis with the capability that over quadruples our previous capacity. With newer faster servers and processors performance has been improved while reducing energy consumption maintaining our desire to be a green cloud services provider.

The transition was completed on March 25, 2018.

We are very pleased with the fact that the transition was accomplished with little or no interruption to services for our customers maintaining our long-standing history of reliability and customer satisfaction.

Customers are welcome to tour the new facility.  Contact us for an appointment and we would be happy to show you the technology behind the services you use every day.

Once again we know that you have a choice. Thank you for choosing SmartCloud LLC as your Texas based Cloud Services and MSP provider!