Is a help desk a service desk, and vice versa? To those not in the information technology industry, these terms sometimes get thrown around interchangeably. But they’re not one in the same. Here, we’ll look at what defines an IT service desk and what you should look for when seeking out this essential function of managed services providers. What is a help desk? A help desk (sometimes called “helpdesk”) provides what’s referred to as “break-fix” support for users (whether customer or employee) of a company product, service or other function. A help desk’s purpose might cover everything from technical support, to product or warranty questions, and even to basic customer service. Most important to understand: This kind of customer [...]

When a disaster or system failure disrupts your business, data loss can be a major — and a costly — consequence. And yet it’s an inevitable part of being in business: hard drives malfunction, lost files or deleted files result from human error, and frequent cyber attacks are an unfortunate fact of today’s landscape. But there is a way to protect your data and keep your operations from coming to a screeching halt: Business continuity and data recovery planning. Backing it Up Back in the day, data was backed up on tapes and stored at an offsite location in a physical vault. Over time, that process and the technology evolved to utilize more nimble, higher capacity storage devices, like [...]

When it comes to an IT disaster striking your business, the term to use is probably “when,” not “if.” And when a disaster happens, you can be sure it has the potential to bring your operations and your profits to a halt, with long-term repercussions: 93% of companies without a disaster recovery plan who suffer a major data disaster are out of business within one year. These days, having a disaster recovery (DR) plan in place is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s an absolute must-have. Part of that has to do with the increasing laws and regulations requiring many business types to establish a disaster recovery plan. Whether regulations apply or not, disaster recovery and business continuity planning go [...]

The cloud is a wonderful place to be for many businesses, and there are good reasons so many are adopting the cloud: cost-effectiveness, scalability, and security, to name a few. But it’s not completely without risk. Successful migration of your applications and data to the cloud takes careful planning in order to minimize the possibility of risks that are inherent in any cloud migration, including data loss, latency, interoperability, overspending, and security. Use this checklist to maximize your migration success. Determine & engage stakeholders Those who should be involved in this project from the start include, but shouldn’t be limited to, members of your IT team. Business stakeholders and other key roles should be included from the outset, as [...]