Tag: small business technology

  • Five IT questions your MSP should be able to answer TODAY, and what it means if they can’t

    Five IT questions your MSP should be able to answer TODAY, and what it means if they can’t

    Your managed service provider (or tech person) is supposed to be the safety net between your business and disaster. They monitor your systems, manage your backups, and promise to keep things running when everything else goes sideways. But how do you know they can actually deliver on that promise? The answer starts with five straightforward questions about business continuity. If your MSP stumbles on any of them, it is time to pay attention.

    Question One: “What is our current recovery time objective, and how was it determined?”

    Every business has a threshold for how long it can survive without its critical systems. That threshold is your recovery time. A capable MSP will not only know an estimate of your recovery time off the top of their head but will also be able to walk you through how they arrived at that number. It should reflect conversations about your` customer commitments, your compliance requirements, and the operational realities of your environment.

    If your MSP gives you a blank stare or quotes a generic number that sounds like it came from a boilerplate contract, that is a problem. Your recovery time should be as specific to your business as your business plan. A provider who cannot articulate it has not done the foundational work required to actually protect you.

    Question Two: “When was our disaster recovery plan last tested, and what were the results?”

    A disaster recovery plan that has never been tested is not a plan. It is a guess. Testing reveals the gaps that documentation alone cannot uncover: the backup that restores slowly, the dependency nobody remembered, the credential that expired six months ago. Your MSP should be running tabletop exercises and full restoration tests on a regular cadence, and they should have documented results they can share with you.

    If the last test was “a while ago” or “we have not gotten around to it,” you are operating on hope. Hope is not a business continuity strategy. A mature MSP treats testing as a recurring discipline, not a checkbox they tick once during onboarding.

    Question Three: “If our primary systems went down right now, what is the exact sequence of events that follows?”

    This question tests whether your MSP has a real, rehearsed incident response workflow or just a vague sense of what they would probably do. The answer should be specific. You want to hear about alerting protocols, escalation paths, communication plans for your team, the order in which systems get restored, and who is responsible for each step.

    Vague answers like “we would get on it right away” or “our team would jump in” are not reassuring. They suggest a reactive culture rather than a prepared one. In a genuine outage, clarity and speed come from preparation. Every minute spent figuring out what to do next is a minute your business is losing money and trust.

    The difference between a four-hour outage and a four-day outage often comes down to whether someone had to improvise or simply had to execute.

    Question Four: “Where are our backups stored, and are they protected from the same threats as our primary environment?”

    Backups that live in the same environment as your production systems are vulnerable to the same failures. A ransomware attack that encrypts your servers can just as easily encrypt your backups if they are sitting on the same network. Your MSP should be able to explain a layered backup strategy that includes offsite or cloud-based copies, immutable storage options, and air-gapped protections for your most critical data.

    If your provider cannot clearly explain where your backups live, how they are isolated, and how often their integrity is verified, you are carrying more risk than you realize. This is not a technical footnote. It is the difference between recovering from an incident and starting over from scratch.

    Question Five: “How do you ensure our business continuity plan evolves as our business changes?”

    Businesses are not static. You add new applications, migrate workloads to the cloud, open new locations, onboard remote employees, and shift priorities quarter to quarter. Your continuity plan needs to keep pace with all of that. A strong MSP builds regular reviews into the relationship, reassessing your risk profile, updating recovery procedures, and adjusting priorities as your infrastructure and operations evolve.

    If your MSP set up a plan two years ago and has not revisited it since, the plan is probably protecting a version of your business that no longer exists. Continuity planning is a living process, and a provider who treats it as a one-time project is not truly invested in your resilience.

    Here are some warning signs your MSP (or tech person):

    •             They cannot produce documentation for your disaster recovery plan on request

    •             Backup reports are not shared with you proactively or on a regular schedule

    •             You have never been invited to participate in a recovery test or tabletop exercise

    •             Your last business continuity review predates a major change in your infrastructure

    •             Incident response feels improvised rather than rehearsed when issues arise

    •             They deflect technical questions with jargon instead of clear, direct answers

    These five questions are not designed to be gotchas. They represent the bare minimum of what a competent managed service provider should know about your environment and your risk posture. The answers reveal whether your MSP is a genuine partner in protecting your business or simply a vendor collecting a monthly fee.

    If your provider cannot answer these questions confidently and specifically, it’s time to find one that can. One that will have a serious conversation about expectations, accountability, and what business continuity actually looks like in practice. Your business deserves a partner who is ready before disaster strikes, not one who starts preparing after it does. Valley Techlogic can be that partner, learn more today.

    This article was powered by Valley Techlogic, leading provider of trouble free IT services for businesses in California including Merced, Fresno, Stockton & More. You can find more information at https://www.valleytechlogic.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/valleytechlogic/ . Follow us on X at https://x.com/valleytechlogic and LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/valley-techlogic-inc/.

  • 10 Common Tech Questions & Our No-Nonsense Answers

    10 Common Tech Questions & Our No-Nonsense Answers

    We write about a lot of different topics in this blog but today we wanted to take the time as a technology provider to answer the questions that are really at the forefront of our clients’ minds, both from a business standpoint and just from an everyday standpoint.Tech News Number 7

    We’ll be covering our top 5 general technology questions and our top 5 business technology questions as of posting this blog. If you have a question that you’re struggling to get answered – and we all know the rabbit hole Google can send us down trying to search for an answer – don’t hesitate to reach out. Chances are we might have the answer!

    Now onto the general questions first.

    1. How do I keep my Laptop battery in tip-top shape? A good rule of thumb is to keep your laptops lithium-ion battery running longer you’ll want to keep them from overheating, not let them discharge fully to 0% before charging, and not leave them plugged in while they’re at 100% constantly. Batteries have a finite life span but taking care of them will make them last longer, this advice applies to devices like cellphones as well.
    2. Do I actually have to eject a thumb drive or USB device? The short answer is yes, the long answer is because when you go to eject your device your PC finishes up tasks related to that device to improve overall performance. Removing it without ejecting it first may lead to corrupt or unusable data. It’s an easy step so don’t skip it.
    3. What happens when I see a warning on a site I use that it’s been hacked or compromised? If your browser is warning you about a site you’re trying to visit we recommend proceeding with caution, it could be that their security certificates are just expired but it also might be that the site has actually been compromised and visiting it or entering data into it might lead to your own system being compromised as well.
    4. Why does resetting my router sometimes magically fix my internet? Your router is a technology device the same as all your other ones, and sometimes a reboot is all that’s needed to get it back to working as intended. You want to wait at least 10 seconds to plug it back in to allow the capacitors inside it to discharge completely and ensure your reset works as intended.
    5. Do hackers really care about my information? All information has the potential to be valuable on the dark web or other nefarious sections of the internet. It may not seem like a big deal if your name, phone number or email are leaked online but they can use this information to get to the accounts they really want (like your financial accounts). It’s always a good idea to safeguard your information and employ good password practices.

    That covers the general questions we see a lot, what about ones specifically for businesses? Technology and business go hand-in-hand and these are the questions that come up the most.

    1. Do my vendors have to work with my other vendors when it comes to the technology I use? If they care about your business many vendors will try to assist clients as they navigate all the various systems you use to conduct your everyday business, but many will charge a fee to do so and some may refuse.
    2. How do I know if I’m spending too much on technology? New gadgets and software solutions come out every day, it would be impossible for anyone to buy or subscribe to them all. At the same time, it’s unreasonable to believe any piece of hardware will last forever or your business won’t outgrow a software that previously performed adequately. It’s a good idea to try and set a reasonable budget and have your IT team work with you to stay within that budget.
    3. Are backups really necessary? Yes, you may not know how necessary a file is until you go to look for it and it’s gone. Important contracts and records are just a couple of things your business can’t afford to leave to chance, we recommend complete system backups so you never have to worry about losing anything important.
    4. Will my team actually use it? If you’re thinking about giving a specific software or tech solution a try a good question to ask if whether your team has the training required to use it, and why it would be beneficial to your business. One example is two-factor authentication. We know businesses can receive a lot of pushback from their employees when they go to implement this, but the benefits drastically outweigh the hassle it may seemingly pose. Proper training is key when implementing any new technology measures within your business.
    5. How does it benefit the business? It can be hard if you’re not someone who works in the IT field or has a pretty good level of familiarity with it to know how implementing new solutions will benefit your business. That’s why it’s always our recommendation to reach out to someone who does, whether that be your in-house team or a technology provider you’re comfortable with.

    If your business needs help answering these or any other technology related questions, Valley Techlogic is here to help. You can schedule a no-obligation consultation here. If we missed any questions feel free to reach out to our live chat and let us know, we would love to add them to our next article.

    Looking for more to read? We suggest these tech articles from the last week.

    This article was powered by Valley TechLogic, an IT provider in Atwater, CA. You can find more information at https://www.valleytechlogic.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/valleytechlogic/ . Follow us on Twitter at https://x.com/valleytechlogic.

  • Does doing your own IT as a business owner really make sense? We did the math.

    Does doing your own IT as a business owner really make sense? We did the math.

    Business owners have a lot on their shoulders, especially in 2020. Delegating is no easy thing, painstakingly raising a business from the ground up lends itself to naturally being very protective over it.

    There can even be a sense of pride in doing things yourself for as long as you can. Each time you must hire out for a job you previously did yourself there can be a sting to it, as well as a feeling that you’re giving up control (which you are, but it’s a good thing!). We know nothing can feel more worrisome about losing control over than the IT systems that power your business.

    The thought of hiring someone else to do your IT for you can feel like handing over the keys to your kingdom. When it comes to your data and the systems you and your employees work on, keeping these things afloat is often synonymous with keeping your business running.

    While there might be something nice about not spending a weekend on a downed system or having to phone your internet provider yourself when your networks down, is it really worth the concerns that might arise from it not being in your sole control?

    The statistics say yes. Just take a look at this graphic.

    Doing Your Own IT Chart

    As you can see, business owners are working hard but aren’t spending their time where they would ideally want to. When you get bogged down with the everyday minutia you can lose sight of what made your business the success it is, the effort poured into actually building it.

    Also, while we don’t want to question anyone’s IT prowess if that isn’t your day job there could be things that are overlooked. Cyber security is something we write about a lot here and for good reason, thinking your business won’t be a target for any given reason is just wrong.

    Hackers are opportunists and if there is an opportunity for them to get into your business, they’re going to take it. IT professionals have all the tools necessary to thwart them at their disposal, but they can only do implement them when they’re part of your team.

    As with all things that are recommended to you, it’s good to have an open mind and a critical. These are important decisions you are making for your business after all.

    If you’re located in the Central Valley and would like to have a consultation to find out what your options are, we’d be more than happy to go over them with you.

    Looking for more to read? We suggest these tech articles from the last week.

    This article was powered by Valley TechLogic, an IT provider in Atwater, CA. You can find more information at https://www.valleytechlogic.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/valleytechlogic/ . Follow us on X at https://x.com/valleytechlogic.

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