Where do you turn?  How do you recover?  Can you afford to lose a month, a week, or even a day?  Protecting your data is vital and everyone needs a backup strategy.  Traditional onsite backups are time consuming and in some cases complicated.  If multiple external hard drives are involved someone has to keep track of which hard drive is in use.  Someone also has to make sure to switch the hard drives.  If the strategy involves sending the data home with a staff member for off-site protection that person must remember to handle the storage unit with care.  More importantly, they must remember to bring the unit back at the correct time in the rotation.  These solutions waste valuable time; time that could be spent on revenue generating activity.

Enter the Versa R2000 Backup and Recovery System – a data backup and recovery system designed to be a stand alone system that includes 5 integral parts in managing data backup, protection, and imaging.  With the R2000 you’ll get complete nightly backup of your data at blazing gigabit speeds.  This enterprise level solution also provides for continuous real time data protection and easy file restoration.  When ever data changes on the network it is replicated to the R2000.  Point in time images of your network servers and workstations for immediate disaster recovery with bare metal restore.  Recovery of an entire system is easy and fast.  The R2000 Vault will backup critical data to secure off-site location, i.e. your data can be secured on the Cloud.  The R2000 replicator allows a primary R2000 to replicate secondary unit off-site at a Data-Center or remote office.

Your data is critical to every aspect of your business.  Gain piece of mind and access to an enterprise level data protection solution.

The attendees truly added to the quality of the experience by asking insightful question and providing real world examples for Paul Bjornsen, CTO at AST, to work through providing practical insight into Cloud Computing.  Attendee Skip Weisman, of Weisman Success Resources,  had the largest impact on the discussion.

Thanks to all the attendees.  Special thanks to the sponsors who partnered with AST to bring the Symposium together – Brad Weaver of PrimePay, Joseph Cantatore of Accounting Services of the Hudson Valley, and Larry Johnson of William A. Smith and Son.

In the 19th century ice harvesting was a major industry vital to the economy of many regions. Thanks to the innovation of Thomas Edison and Samuel Insul refrigeration enabled by cheap electricity decimated the ice harvesting industry. With Disruptive Technology those who do not adapt risk becoming irrelevant and falling out of the marketplace. As Neil Postman states, “technological competition ignites total war…it is not possible to contain the effects of a new technology to a limited sphere of human activity.” In other words you don’t have America plus electrification; you have post-electrification America, which looks radically different from America prior to the advent of electricity as a utility.

What is “Cloud Computing?” The term “Cloud Computing” may be defined as “hardware and software available on demand via the internet” or “IT available as a utility much like electricity.”

Proponents assert that Cloud Computing significantly reduces both IT and telecommunication costs by providing shared IT and telecom resources. The savings realized can be hundreds to thousands of dollars per month. Proponents also that that Cloud Computing can substantially decrease the cost of running and maintaining internal IT resources, while freeing up both the time and money typically diverted to that area of the business.

Detractors dismiss Cloud Computing as little more than an overhyped marketing campaign. Proponents are playing fast and loose with their definition and promises of a utopian future for early adopters. The result is a lot of confusion in the marketplace.

Whether you are a proponent, a detractor, or someone unfamiliar with the term it behooves all of us to be aware of the trend and, if need be, evolve to deal with Disruptive Technology. We need to separate Cloud Computing hype from fact.

If you want to separate the hype from fact attend the Technology Symposium on “Cloud Computing – The New IT Strategy for the New Economy” Tuesday October 13. For more info or to register for this event go to www.astmanagedservices.com /news.html