Category: News

Take a moment to scan around the office. Computers, phones, wireless devices as far as the eye can see, right? All storing and carrying data that your organization and employees depend on every minute of the workday — and likely after business hours, too. But what happens if that technology fails due to a natural or human-caused disaster?

Business and technology are more integrated than ever before, making it even more critical to have an disaster recovery plan in place. Studies show 43% of companies that experience a major loss of business data never reopen and 29% close within two years.

There are definitive preventive steps you can take to ensure that your business is in a position to quickly recover from the technology impacts of a disaster.

Plan Before You Need It

The time to put a recovery plan in place isn’t during a disaster, it’s well before.

A disaster recovery plan should be created in conjunction with your business continuity plan. Devising a viable strategy takes considerable effort and advance planning. It involves bringing a team of key stakeholders in your organization together to work through possible disaster scenarios and identify solutions. Keep in mind the disasters can be natural (such as a flooded data center) or human-induced (like a cyber attack or IT bugs).

Ask Questions

“What’s the backup to the backup?” It’s the winning question when creating a disaster recovery strategy. Your business’s initial backup plan may work for a period of time, but it may not be a long-term solution that can keep your business running until things are completely back to normal.

How long will your backup generators run? Can they handle keeping your air conditioning units working in your data center? What do you do if the backup generator goes down? Working through these lines of questioning can help your business identify areas to address and plan redundancies to keep your doors open.

Preventative Maintenance

A disaster recovery plan isn’t a “set it and forget it” endeavor. It requires routine preventative maintenance. This includes regular system updates, system testing and assessments to ensure the plan keeps up with changes in your technology environment.

Staff Training

A recovery plan is of no use if employees don’t know their role during an emergency.

Annual disaster recovery and business continuity training is critical to make sure employees are ready to jump into action. Identify and train team leads who will relay information to their employees in the event of a disaster. Training for new employees should be incorporated into their orientation program.

Additionally, tabletop exercises provide an opportunity to test disaster recovery and business continuity plans without a full scale drill. This involves engaging your organization in a mock disaster, gathering subject matter experts (SMEs) to talk through the scenario and documenting how your business would react. These exercises are an important tool to uncover interdependencies and gaps, and identify areas of concern and ways to address them.

Splashwire Disaster Recovery Services

Splashwire, a technology consulting and solutions company, can help your business establish a scalable disaster recovery solution, backed by 24/7/365 local support.

Our solutions include back-up and protection for operating systems, applications, configurations and data for physical and virtual environments.

Contact us to us to learn more.

Our offices will be closed Monday, December 24 and Tuesday, December 25 so our team can celebrate the holidays with friends and family.

Our on-call staff can still be reached by calling
(717) 724-0537 and selecting option 2.

Seasons Greetings!

Our offices will be closed Thursday, November 22 and Friday, November 23 so our team can celebrate Thanksgiving with friends and family.

Our on-call staff can still be reached by calling
(717) 724-0537 and selecting option 2.

Have a wonderful holiday!

Companies of all sizes benefit from from leaps in technology. Unfortunately, that same technology opens the door to information security weaknesses.

Businesses need an information security strategy to keep their customer and company data safe but, for many small to mid-sized companies, hiring a full-time information security executive to lead and implement a strategy either isn’t justifiable or is out of financial reach.

CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) Services from Splashwire bridge that gap.

What is a CISO?

A CISO is an expert who can provide leadership to your organization to create and execute an information security strategy. This includes developing policies, plans and procedures around the use of technology and the safeguarding of information for your business. A CISO also will serve as an advisor to your organization’s leadership team to guide strategic planning, forecasting, budgeting and resource management.

Why CISO Services?

A full-time CISO hire can be an overwhelming, cost-prohibitive commitment. It also can be difficult to find a candidate with the right level of experience, technical knowledge and business acumen. Many businesses also recognize they need to develop and implement a strategic information security plan but, once procedures and policies are in place, won’t have the ongoing need for a full-time executive-level expert. Outsourced CISO Services is the solution.

Splashwire CISO Services

Splashwire CISO Services are a cost-effective way to add a top-tier expert to your team to support your business with information security expertise and guidance. Through Splashwire’s CISO Services, your business will have a strategic-level leader to get your information security program in place, provide ongoing counsel and support long-range planning.

Get Started

Contact us to us to learn how other organizations benefit from Splashwire CISO Services — and how we can guide your business to effectively implement an information security strategy to support your long-term growth and success.

In April of 2016, the West Shore Regional Police proposed adding a K-9 unit to the department. Due to budget constraints, the department knew they would need community support and donations to make the K-9 unit a reality.

Officer Christopher Conroy, who is now the department’s K-9 handler, presented the idea to area residents and businesses to raise money. The initial cost to establish the unit was about $80,000.

“There are a lot of costs that go into a K-9 unit; the dog, initial training for the dog and handler, and a specialized vehicle, to name a few,” said Chief of Police Michael Hope.

In a short six months, Officer Conroy raised enough money to start the program. Conroy and K-9 Maximus Winston completed the K-9 academy and the unit became active November 1, 2016. The unit now assists with narcotics, searches, article searches and tracking.

A partnership between Splashwire and the West Shore Regional Police began years ago when Chief Hope attended an open house hosted by the company. The police department prefers to support local businesses, and Splashwire had the technology and networking solutions the force needed.

During a recent company event, Splashwire invited customers to join in donating funds to keep the department’s K-9 unit on the streets in Wormleysburg and Lemoyne.

“Splashwire is proud to lead by example and be engaged in the the communities we serve,” said Splashwire President and CEO Josh Hinkle. “We thank our customers for joining us in raising money for the K-9 unit and we’re pleased to match those donations.”

In total, including Splashwire’s match, $1,250 was raised and donated to the K-9 unit.

Continue reading “What is the Cloud (and how can it help your business)?”