Is a Hybrid Server Solution Right for You?

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Do you already use cloud servers? Chances are that the answer is yes, whether it’s for personal, small business, or enterprise use.

Cloud Computing (or Cloud Solutions) is what happens when any data or processes required to run your business are not stored on-site at your office location, but rather are stored in “The Cloud”, or in other words, across the internet in a data center.

This can include your data (files), email, website, and database servers. This technology allows you to access services and data from different locations. It’s the technology that houses your Gmail, your Dropbox, or other shared storage services.

Like any technology solution, there are pros and cons to using cloud servers. And whether you choose to use them is entirely up to your unique demands. There is even a hybrid solution that may just be the perfect solution to your business needs.

Here at Info-Tech, we partner with many established cloud solutions providers and offer a wide range of solutions from the very basic to fully co-located hosted solutions for your data and apps. In other words, we offer tailored cloud solutions.

Every business has technology and data management needs; they differ slightly depending on the type of business and its size, but the needs are generally the same. We take your specifics and implement existing ‘tested’ solutions to create a tailored ‘hybrid’ server solution that best fits your business. Custom-crafted for you, within your budget, and can be modified any time.

We can prepare a storage solution that is clear, simple, and easy to understand and implement on a budget in the time frame desired.

If your old server is bringing you down, what are your options? Here are some options to consider, but before making a final decision we recommend a consultation with one of our Virtual CIOs who will likely recommend an assessment.

On-Premises Servers (think old school)

On-premises servers mean your company’s server is hosted within your organization’s infrastructure and, in many cases, physically onsite. You are responsible for backup, updates, and security. This option leaves you in charge, but extra storage needs mean you’ll have to pay to upgrade. You should also have an excellent backup plan in place (offline and separate).

This solution could be all your company needs.

Cloud Servers

Your data is housed off-site, in the cloud. This allows you to access all your company data from any device, in any location. Great for dispersed or remote workers. You will never have to worry about replacing or updating server hardware, but you may have to pay more to store more, scaling your capacity according to your needs.

Back-ups should happen regularly and if you go with a reputable service provider, your data should be well protected!

Hybrid Server Solutions

A hybrid server solution is a mix of both. You can store the info that you need to access from anywhere on the cloud and house other data with an on-premises server – fitting both your budget and storage needs.

Get in touch and our team will walk you through your options!

Maintaining IT Support During Uncertain Times

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The past year has been difficult for small businesses. Constantly changing regulations have made it difficult to plan and budget. But, despite these difficulties it is important that your information technology (IT) needs remain a priority. Should anything go wrong, the downtime for even one employee could cost significantly more than regular, ongoing maintenance.

We’ve put together 5 ways you can maintain proper IT support and keep all of your technology infrastructure up to date, while keeping costs low (because we know budgeting is important when things are as unpredictable as they are these days).

Less stress and lower costs? Read on to find out how:

  1. Outsource: For small businesses it makes sense to hire a Managed Service Provider (MSP) for your IT needs. Instead of hiring one full-time employee you can have access to a team of dedicated experts with round the clock service. You can save money and have peace of mind knowing that you’re covered, no matter what comes up.
  2. Eliminate surprise costs: With an MSP you can pay a set monthly fee to cover any eventuality. If an issue arises, you know you can count on your MSP to get you back up and running in no time. We all know that any downtime for your business costs money (find out how much with our downtime calculator). Imagine launching a new product but your site crashes? With an MSP at your side, a potential disaster becomes a momentary inconvenience (and doesn’t break the bank).
  3. Be Proactive: An MSP can audit your current system to see what’s working and what you will need to upgrade, and then take care of it, without any interruption to you or your business. No downtime, no stress. An MSP can take a proactive approach to managing your IT needs, minimizing emergencies and unexpected outages. 
  4. Be Flexible: Working from the office, working remotely, or a combination of the two? Not a problem. As regulations continue to change, an MSP can ensure you are getting the right type of support to assist your workforce, whether they are working remotely or from the office. 
  5. Priority Status: When you work with an MSP, you are always the first priority. We know you and your business. Believe us when we tell you, you won’t receive the same service when you call Geek Squad panicking because your systems have crashed. You will always get the better support with an MSP like Info-Tech Montreal vs. “the other guys.” No waiting in line over here!

Having a set-monthly cost that not only helps ensure your business back-end runs smoothly but ensures that it’s fixed quickly when it doesn’t is the easiest way to plan and budget for your IT support needs this year. If you’re still not convinced that an MSP is the right fit for your business, contact us to discuss your options. We’re always happy to chat and see what options are best for you.

5 reasons your business needs a Managed Service Provider (MSP)

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A managed service provider (MSP) is a company that remotely manages a customer’s IT infrastructure and/or end-user systems, typically on a proactive basis and under a subscription model. InfoTech Montreal provides managed services, and we believe this model can provide value and peace of mind to our customers.

Our Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) services ensure there’s always someone watching over your network, quietly working in the background so your business can continue running smoothly.

Top 5 Reasons You Need an MSP

 

      Budget: All businesses whether big or small are concerned with their bottom line. With the MSP business model, there’s a set fee paid for our monitoring services – no surprise invoices or unexpected costs at the end of the month.
      You know what you’ll be paying, and you know what you’re paying for. We deliver better services more efficiently by reducing costly on-site visits with remote access and monitoring tools. That’s music to an accountant’s ears.
      Proactive Problem Solving: With our remote monitoring and management it services we’ll discover any issues before they become problems. Without monitoring you may be stuck in a reactive cycle, dealing with issues after they have wreaked havoc on your systems.
      Preventing a problem before it impacts your daily business is our job. We’ll focus on monitoring and maintaining so you can focus on the tasks at hand.
      Constant Support: Even with constant monitoring issues may arise from time to time and when they do, we’ll be there to help you through it. You can call on us for support whenever an issue pops up. No need to frantically google IT Support in your area.
      Simply open a support ticket and we’ll work through the problem together. Best of all we already know you and your business like the back of our hands.
      24/7 Monitoring: Even if you have a traditional brick-and-mortar business with set hours, there is constant activity going on behind the scenes. Your HR systems, websites, financial applications, and email management systems never stop working, and neither do we.
      Many issues with viruses and spyware; e-mail delivery and spam in our inboxes can be remedied with proper monitoring and management software put in place by a qualified managed services provider.
      Automated Updates: We’re all guilty of ignoring our systems when it comes time for updates. They never seem to come at a convenient time. But updates are critical to patching known vulnerabilities and for fixing bugs and making improvements to your software. Antivirus solutions need to be monitored like an alarm system at your home or office.
      Disk space and failure alerts need to be set for hard drives, expiry, and end of life notices of business-critical software support and updates, renewals for domain names, and security certificates all fit into managed services. With an MSP by your side – you don’t have to worry about whether your systems are updated. We’ll do it for you. No more pesky update reminders for you to ignore until later.

Have we convinced you yet? Contact us to discuss your individual needs.

Tips for Managing your I.T. Budget

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You know having proper I.T. and tech support is important for keeping your business operating smoothly, but budgeting for it can be tricky sometimes. How much support do I need? What if everything is running smoothly? Do I need to hire someone to be in the office full-time? So many questions!

We know arranging for and setting up tech support can be tricky, confusing and sometimes, expensive – so here are a few tips for helping keep costs down, while ensuring you get the best bang for your buck.

 

Take Advantage of a Fixed-Price Monthly Solution

While a pay-as-you go solution might feel like it saves you some money, realistically, in the long run it’s going to end up costing you much more. A lot of the common issues that occur with viruses, spyware, email delivery and spam in our inbox, and general hardware/software malfunctions can be remedied with proper monitoring and management. Here at Info-Tech Montreal, our monthly Remote Monitoring and Management services ensures there’s always someone watching over your network, so we can actually catch and prevent problems from happening before you even notice anything is wrong! This is much more cost-effective than waiting for something to crash and then fixing it.

Not only does this help save you money by preventing problems from happening in the first place, but it also makes budgeting easier because you’ll have a fixed monthly cost. Think of it like evening out your electricity bill. Most folks prefer to pay the same monthly cost all year round, instead of paying much more in the hotter and colder months than in the fall and spring.

 

Get Your Computers on a Replacement Cycle

It can be an expensive day when all of your computers suddenly need repair and none are on warranty anymore. To prevent these pricey scenarios, we work with our clients to set-up a 3 -to – 5 year replacement cycle for their computers (based on the length of the warranty).

What does that mean? It means that, supposing you have 15 computers nearing their end of life, we’ll replace 5 in the near future, 5 more next year, and 5 the year after that, all with 5-year warranties. In 5 years, we’ll start the cycle again. This way you’re never faced with having to replace all of (or the majority of) your computers in a short period of time. We’ll also be able to get you a better bang for your buck than you would receive at a local computer shop.

Managing I.T. can sound expensive – and it certainly can be, if there’s no plan in place and it’s a reactive measure! But luckily, we have programs and services in place designed to keep your costs down without compromising on service. Reach out today and let’s chat about your unique case, and see what we can do for you!

Make Sure Your Business Tech is Ready in 2021: A Checklist

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New Year, New You! That’s what they always say, right? But in the shuffle of New Year’s Resolutions and fresh Business Strategies, we often forget to double-check the tech-stack that runs those business strategies. If you’re in business and operate off of more than just a laptop, there’s a few things everyone should check off their list to ensure your business back-end is set up for success this year:

Remote Access and Work from Home

Especially with COVID-19 and most staff working from home, it’s extremely important to make sure your employees’ set-ups are secure:

  • Is the connection being done securely through a VPN?
  • Are your company computers (yes, even those off-site laptops) being monitored by a professional IT company?
  • Are staff using personal or business computers? If your teams are working from personal computers at home, your business is exposed to an increased number of risks, including children or other users logging on to the computer, lack of security, potential for out-of-date or no anti-virus, etc. All of this leaves your company files and data at risk.
  • Finally, check the wireless where you or your staff are working from. Is it reliable? Secure? If you need help changing to a new service provider in a specific area, let us know – we can offer some recommendations for you.

Who is Managing Your Computers?

Whether your team is working from home or in the office, it’s important that all of the business’s computers have effective IT management. Having a team monitor your computers means that problems can be solved before they actually cause problems, or shut down the user for anywhere from hours to days. If you do have a team managing your computers, ask them the following:

  • Does each computer system have a monitored antivirus installed?
  • Are alerts being monitored for the:
    • Battery backup?
    • Data backup?
    • Cloud Services?
    • Antivirus?

Backups and Updates

Ensuring your data is backed up and that your systems are being updated regularly are important factors in making sure your business runs smoothly.

  • Is your data being backed up regularly, regardless of whether it’s on the cloud or on the server?
  • Have performance upgrades been done to all of your systems?
  • Have updates been done to all of your software?

Strategic Planning Ahead for 2021

Now is the time to look at those business strategies for the year and determine what kind of technology set-up you need to support the plans you have!

  • Do you need to switch to VoIP?
  • Is your website due for a refresh?
  • Is it time to migrate your emails to Microsoft 365 or G-Suite?
  • Do you require a new server?
  • Are you interested in perhaps moving your data / server to the cloud?

If you’re planning to grow your business in 2021, then you need to make sure your technology is up to par and can support your plans. Book a Free Assessment with us today – a $400 value – to diagnose and determine if you’re ready! You’ll get a detailed report afterwards with all of our recommendations, with absolutely no commitment.

Happy New Year! Here’s to growth in 2021!

What to do if Features you Rely on to do Your Work Suddenly Disappear

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Last month, in October 2020, Google decided to shut down its music and podcast hosting site called Google Play Music. Users were sent emails and encouraged to transfer all of their purchased and downloaded files to the YouTube Music platform before Google’s proprietary app was shut down, in order not to lose their data.

Also last month, Samsung announced that as of next year it will no longer be supporting its Sync and Drive storage for My Files, meaning that if users don’t transfer their current Gallery Sync and Drive data to Microsoft OneDrive, everything could be lost.

It’s an inconvenience, to say the least, when services – especially those we pay for as a premium – are eliminated and we have to find workarounds to ensure we don’t lose our important files.

What if we don’t transfer files properly? What if we miss a specific instruction or forget and miss the deadline? Whether it’s family photos or work documents, it’s a risk you don’t want to take.

We’re not here to put down any specific companies or features, but we’re pulling back the curtain and revealing some of the downsides to working with or using these proprietary features.

Of course, the most obvious risk (as we’ve been talking about here) is that when working with tools created by individual organizations there is the possibility they could be discontinued. Major brands or service providers will almost always give users a warning ahead of time with instructions on how to move forward, but their solutions might not always work for everyone.

As mentioned above, Samsung is stopping its proprietary Sync and Storage options and recommending its users to migrate those features to Microsoft OneDrive – however, OneDrive is not available world-wide, and what if we just don’t WANT to use OneDrive and might prefer Google Drive or Dropbox? What if we don’t know what service we’d like to use? All of which leaves some users without an obvious solution.

Our goal here is always to ensure you’re receiving the best technology advice possible, whether you’re an individual with a Smart Home all tied to Google, or a business whose entire office runs on Apple products. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us if this is you. We can help you (and your entire office, if necessary) safely migrate your data to a more centralized platform before critical features are eliminated, or we can recommend the best way for you to move forward.

Have you or are you currently in the process of dealing with this? We’d love to hear your experience or, if you’re in a jam and need help, send us a message! Phone calls and e-mails are always free!

 

Note: If you are a Samsung user affected by the pending end of service here are the steps Samsung recommends you take to migrate your data to OneDrive:

To keep your data in the cloud and continue syncing, please make sure to move your data to Microsoft OneDrive. Please note that this option is only available until 2021-05-31. [How to move to OneDrive]

*This may not be supported in certain countries or device models

*From the moment you start to move your data to OneDrive, existing Samsung Cloud syncing with Gallery, and Samsung Cloud Drive storage for My Files will be terminated, and as soon as the migration is completed, applicable data will be deleted.

[How to download your data]

After 2021-08-31, your data saved in Gallery Sync and Drive will be deleted. Please make sure to download them to your mobile device and/or PC prior to the end of feature date. If you choose this option, you will not be able to migrate your data to OneDrive. [How to download your data]

*Applicable data will be deleted on the earlier of the two dates – 90 days from the moment you request downloading data or the final end of feature date.

How to Remove Edge Browser Tabs From Alt+Tab on Windows 10

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Starting with the October 2020 update, Windows 10 now shows Microsoft Edge browser tabs in the Alt+Tab task switcher by default. For some people, this may be handy. But, if you want to disable tabs in Alt+Tab, it’s easy to fix in Settings. Here’s how.

https://www.howtogeek.com/696775/how-to-stop-alttab-from-showing-edge-browser-tabs/

How to Enable or Disable Windows 10’s Full-Screen Start Menu

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While in desktop mode, Windows 10 allows you to use the Start menu in a full-screen mode (like the Start menu in tablet mode) or in a more traditional way that only covers part of the screen. Here’s how to change how it works.

https://www.howtogeek.com/694660/how-to-enable-or-disable-windows-10s-full-screen-start-menu/

How to Hide the App List in Windows 10’s Start Menu

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When you open the Start menu in Windows 10, you normally see an alphabetical list of apps installed on your system. If you’d like to have a smaller sleeker Start Menu, it’s possible to hide the app list on the left. Here’s how.

https://www.howtogeek.com/694705/how-to-hide-the-app-list-in-windows-10s-start-menu/

How to Send an Email with a Different “From” Address in Outlook

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If you have multiple email accounts in Microsoft Outlook, you can change the “From” address in a new email. This is quicker than swapping to a different inbox, and lets you send emails from different addresses, even if they aren’t your own. Here’s how—with some caveats.

https://www.howtogeek.com/689267/how-to-send-an-email-with-a-different-from-address-in-outlook/

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