ATECH MSP Blog

Much is made about business continuity planning, but there is a knowledge deficit about what exactly business continuity planning entails. Today, we will talk about the basics of the business continuity plan (BCP) and how today’s most successful businesses go about reading their contingency plans. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many people to begin working from home, necessitating remote communications to make sure that teams remain cohesive and business endeavors are fulfilled. One extremely useful tool for this purpose is video conferencing, as it is currently helping people keep some consistency in a very unsure time.

As the workers that power many businesses are remaining at home, remote solutions have proven to be a significant tool in keeping productivity moving. However, with nobody going into the office, monitoring your IT environment is necessary to make sure that the infrastructure you depend on is still in the right conditions. For this week’s tip, we’ll discuss some best practices to help you do so.

Despite how it might feel for many, the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak is not the first time that humanity has dealt with such a serious health crisis. With the information technology we have at our disposal, we’ve been able to stifle the infection somewhat, with more innovation happening all the time. The same has happened at different times throughout history, so to keep our spirits up, we figured it would make sense to discuss how the darkest times also brought great progress.

The world has been turned on its head recently and it has forced the hands of many business owners to make a complete digital transformation of their business. Many businesses have made this transformation previously, but haven’t completely worked out the logistics of it when the stay-at-home orders came down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Today we will look at four elements of a digital transformation that are extremely useful for your business.

“So, where have you been working?”

This isn’t an uncommon greeting when you haven’t seen someone in a while. With COVID-19’s influence, many people would answer that they have been working from home, if possible. While business owners may be resistant to the idea of remote work, the potential benefits make it possible that remote work is the silver lining to the coronavirus cloud hanging over us.

Collaboration has always been key to the success of businesses, and with the cloud technologies now available, collaboration is possible in more ways than ever. COVID-19 has made business connectivity more important than ever, so we saw it fitting to recognize some of the cloud’s collaboration options. They come in a few distinct flavors:

“It’s time to do some spring cleaning! It’s been put off long enough!”

It’s easy to let things pile up to deal with them at a later time, especially when you are on strict timelines and only have so many resources. That’s why my desk can look like a disorganized disaster some of the time (but in my defense, it cleans up very well when it needs to). 

Microsoft’s latest Security Intelligence Report cites phishing attacks as the most prevalent cyberthreat. With the COVID-19 outbreak pushing large numbers of workers to their own homes, it is almost assuredly still the case. As a result, it is extremely important that you and your staff understand how to spot potential phishing attacks and what to do when confronted with an attack. Today, we will provide you some tips on how to identify and remediate such attacks.

When a budget comes into play, it is important to remember that there are a few ways that you can adjust it beyond eliminating line items. For instance, you can instead optimize some of the most egregious financial requirements your technology has--its support costs--by translating the unpredictably variable costs you likely deal with now for your support, to the much more sustainable agreement that a managed service provider will operate through.

The COVID-19 pandemic has most of the world at home. It has completely disrupted everyday life and has businesses scrapping their normal strategies for work-at-home policies that will at least allow them to maintain some productivity. These strategies, while highly effective, carry with them additional risk. Today, we take a look at some of the risks associated with relying on remote workers.

As the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, affecting hundreds of thousands of people, and keeping hundreds of millions at home, the beginnings of recessionary fear have begun to hit small businesses. Today, we will go through a few elements that will help you get your business through this (and many other) anxious times. 

The COVID-19 outbreak has a lot of business owners looking over their supply chains and their budgets wondering how they are ever going to make things work. If yours is like most businesses, you use IT to make your business smarter, more efficient, and help your workforce be more productive. Unfortunately, with recessionary winds swirling around as a result of this terrible situation, it may become inevitable that your business will have to do more with less for some time. 

The cloud is an undeniably useful technology to implement in your business’ processes, and is a very popular option as a foreseeable result. This does not mean, however, that the cloud isn’t subject to some risks. Let’s go over a few risks the cloud presents, and how you can mitigate them by selecting the right provider.

It is pretty apparent that there are a lot (a lot) of acronyms used when discussing IT. In fact, that itself is an acronym for information technology. They can all get pretty confusing if you don’t necessarily think about these things every day. Considering this, we’ve put together a list of terms for you to know that we think may be handy to have.

With the widespread support of social distancing that current events have encouraged, remote working options are seeing an understandable surge in popularity. In order to make the most of “telecommuting,” as it is referred to, there are a lot of reasons to use a Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, solution. Let’s go over some.

Everyone from Wall Street to Main Street is feeling the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak. As a result, many businesses have had to enact their disaster recovery strategy to ensure that their business remains on solid footing during this dark time.

There are a variety of reasons that you may find yourself working from home at some point or another. Whether there’s something going on at the office, you’re mindfully practicing social isolation, you’re home sick, or it is just an option you want to exercise, you need to be sure that you and the rest of your team are doing so in the best way. Here, we’re sharing a few tips to help you do so.

Each March 31st, we like to observe World Backup Day, where we educate people about the benefits of having a comprehensive backup plan in place. This year, with tens of thousands of people being affected by Coronavirus, business has ground to a halt in large portions of the world. Today, we are going to look at the business continuity strategy and how, in times like these, you’ll be glad you have your data backed up. 

The average person’s mobile plan comes with a data cap. It’s for this reason the Wi-Fi hotspot is looked on as an essential tool, especially with so much content available nowadays. With 5G on the horizon, some reports have suggested that Wi-Fi will be phased out by ubiquitous wireless Internet access. Turns out, in the immediate future, the Wi-Fi hotspot isn’t going anywhere.