Small businesses are positioned for the perfect data storm: more data, at more value, with more risk. Small businesses are creating more data than ever, the value of their data is increasing, and there are more risks of losing the data.

Their need for a robust backup and disaster recovery (BDR) solution has grown in importance—and they can no longer rely on over-simplified backup solutions to protect their data and keep their businesses running. A challenge, however, is in having fewer resources to manage and protect their data.
In fact, small businesses are often more at risk than their large enterprise counterparts and have distinctive challenges. They are:

• Limited financial resources
• Limited IT resources
• Limited and inadequate solutions designed for small businesses

We believe that every business, of any size, is entitled to a robust solution to back up their critical business data. With small business’ limited people and financial resources, the most effective way for them to implement a BDR and business continuity solution is via a managed service provider (MSP).  Here are six pain points unique to small businesses, regarding their backup and disaster recovery needs:

6 CRITERIA FOR SMALL BUSINESS DATA PROTECTION

1. Recoverability

In a disaster a small business cannot afford lengthy downtime since most carry less than a month of operating cost in cash. Does the solution have instant restore capability? Does it meet both recovery time and recovery point objectives?

2. Comprehensiveness

Small businesses generally do not have a dedicated IT department that can manage separate backup, recovery and business continuity solutions. Does the solution provide key functionality that is seamlessly integrated? Experts agree that a combination of on-premise and cloud-based services offer the best total protection for businesses of all sizes, especially small businesses.

3. Ease of Use

Small business owners or the IT person doesn’t have time to learn or manage complexity. Is the system easy to use, deploy and manage? Is it supported by a large network of MSP’s for added value?

4. Performance and Reliability

A recent study shows that only 17 percent of SMBs feel secure and confident in their backup plan; while another 14 percent say they feel very insecure and vulnerable. Quicker and more frequent backups limit data loss. An ideal solution is incremental back-up, where the technology adds what you’ve changed or deleted, rather than backing up the entire volume of data repeatedly. Datto’s Inverse Chain Technology™ is the most advanced backup technology for both performance and reliability.

5. Affordability

Small businesses have often been relegated to cheap (both in price and technology) backup solutions. With limited resources it’s been difficult for a small business to purchase a business continuity solution; they’ve been limited to a glorified backup solution at best. Is the solution cost-effective and affordable with a small business’ budget in mind?

6. Scalability

Small businesses grow into larger businesses. Make sure the solution not only meets your data backup needs today but can scale as your company grows.

THE DATTO SOLUTION

Designed for small businesses, Datto ALTO is an advanced backup, disaster recovery and business continuity solution that is easy to use, cost effective, and provides an insurance policy against costly downtime and significantly decreases the likelihood of any extended interruptions in business continuity.

• The entire system is backed up seamlessly through image-based backup
• Downtime is reduced and employees can work without any special connections or software through leading edge Hybrid Virtualization^TM
• Backups are automatically verified daily through screenshot backup verification
• Breakthrough bare metal restore technology allows users to perform restores to dissimilar hardware
• Inverse Chain Technology^TM creates an optimal backup chain from scratch and restores and virtualizes every point
• An easy to use and intuitive interface reduces time to install and maintain

In Conclusion

As a small business you cannot afford downtime – yet you require a business continuity solution that fits your IT infrastructure and budget requirements in a robust, yet easy to use solution.

Keep Your Employees Happy (And Your Data Secure)

Smartphones and tablets continue to flood the workplace, and businesses everywhere are racing to appropriately regulate and manage these mobile devices. To support today’s bring-your-own-device (BYOD) movement, you’ll need a mobile device management (MDM) solution that keeps your employees happy – and keeps you in control.

AITS’s Mobile Device Management is an affordable, easy-to-use cloud platform containing all of the essential functionality for end-to-end management of today’s mobile devices, including iPhones, iPads, Androids, Kindle Fire devices, Windows Phones and BlackBerry smartphones.

With MDM, you can provide users with fast and secure access to corporate data from their personal devices. And with the industry’s broadest device support, intuitive workflows, simplified deployment options, and advanced management and security features, we make BYOD simple.

Unparalleled Peace of Mind

AITS answers the MDM challenge, with an easy-to-use platform that simplifies the management of personal devices – without compromising the user experience, security or privacy. Our solution provides flexible approaches for enrollment, asset management, policy enforcement and the distribution of profiles, apps and docs, all based on device ownership (whether corporate- or employee-owned). We’ll even handle day-to-day MDM monitoring and management, and only escalate back to you the alerts that you want. It’s truly a set-and-forget solution.

Getting started couldn’t be easier. In just a few quick clicks, you can start enrolling devices and immediately manage the entire mobile device lifecycle — from enrollment to enterprise integration, configuration and management, monitoring and security, support, and analytics and reporting.

Separating Work & Play

Your employees want to maintain one device for both work and play – they want to access corporate email, then check Facebook, jump back to email and review an upcoming presentation over lunch. This need for “dual personas” is exactly what our MDM solution aims to address. So go ahead, let your employees leverage their devices – and rest assured that critical business data and applications will remain safe, secure, and accessible. On your terms.

Microsoft Office 365 Exchange Online

Security and reliability

Exchange Online helps protect your information with advanced capabilities. Anti-malware and anti-spam filtering protect mailboxes. Data loss prevention capabilities prevent users from mistakenly sending sensitive information to unauthorized people. Globally redundant servers, premier disaster recovery capabilities, and a team of security experts monitoring Exchange Online around the clock safeguard your data. And with a guaranteed 99.9% uptime, financially-backed service level agreement, you can count on your email always being up and running.

Stay in control

Maintain control over your environment while gaining the advantage of hosting your email on Microsoft servers. Manage your organization efficiently with the Exchange admin center, an easy-to-use, web-based interface. Run In-Place eDiscovery across Exchange, SharePoint, and Skype for Business data from a single interface through the eDiscovery Center. With mobile device policies, you can create approved mobile device lists, enforce PIN lock, and remove confidential company data from lost phones. And IT-level phone support is available to you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Easy to use and maintain

It’s easier than ever to provide your users with the business email they need to stay productive. Automatic patching eliminates the time and effort of maintaining your system. Give your users an In-Place Archive, so they can keep all their important data in one place. And provide them with anywhere access to email, calendar, and contacts on all major browsers and across devices. Integration with Outlook means they’ll enjoy a rich, familiar email experience with offline access.

Microsoft SharePoint

Simple sharing and seamless collaboration

Empower sharing and collaboration on your intranet. Give people places where they can organize and collaborate on content, data, and news to stay on the same page.

Inform and connect your organization

Inform and connect your people with intranets and portals. Share common resources and applications and broadcast your message with rich, dynamic pages.

Intelligence and insights

Microsoft One Drive

OneDrive for Business is the Microsoft cloud storage service that comes with Office 365 or SharePoint Server. With OneDrive, you can securely store all your files in one place, share them with others, and get to them from anywhere.

OneDrive is the Microsoft cloud service that lets you securely store all your files, share them with others, and get to them from anywhere. When you use OneDrive to store work or school files, it’s sometimes called OneDrive for Business.

If you’re using Office 365, you get 1 TB of space in the cloud for OneDrive for Business. If your OneDrive for Business library is hosted on a SharePoint server in your organization, your organization’s administrators determine how much storage space is available.

All files that you store in OneDrive for Business are private unless you decide to share them. You can also share files and folders with specified co-workers so you can collaborate on projects. If you’re signed-in to Office 365, you may even be able to share with partners outside of your organization, depending on what your company allows.

Microsoft Dynamics

Business intelligence like never before

Go from data to insights in minutes with Power BI. Any data, any way, anywhere. And all in one view.

• Deliver insights throughout your organization
• Connect to hundreds of data sources, simplify data prep, and drive ad hoc analysis
• Scale across the enterprise, with governance and security built-in

Apps that mean business

Create apps that work across Windows, iOS, Android, and web using PowerApps:

• Quickly assemble forms and add business logic
• Incorporate device features like camera and GPS location
• Leverage your SharePoint lists

Automate your business processes

Make repetitive tasks easy with workflow automation using Microsoft Flow:

• Automate tasks by setting up workflows between your favorite apps and services
• Streamline business processes—lead capture to mobile approvals