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Law Firm Data Security: 7 Questions to Ask Your Offsite Backup Provider

Rekall has a lot of experience shopping for legitimate offsite backup companies.  We have tested many and feel that we know exactly what questions to ask in order to cut out the riff raff.  Below are the questions you need to ask in order to get a good idea if your dealing with a legit backup company or a fly-by-night storage peddler.

Q. How long will to restore the firms data entirely?

A. You may have to wait hours or even days if the backup company does not provide a local backup as well as remote.

Q. How many revisions of a file is backed up?

A. The answer should be unlimited, but it will probably affect your data storage block that you purchase.

Q. How long can I backup; can I restore from 1 year ago?

A. FOREVER & YES.  Understand, the longer backup you have, the more you may pay due to a large backup history.

Q. Will the software back up Exchange, SQL, and System State natively, or do I need ANOTHER program to do it for me? AND HOW MUCH IS THAT PROGRAM?

A. The answer should be YES, we will back everything up natively. No other software needed, our software does it all for you in one shot.  A backup company that makes you perform manual backups yourself or uses third party software to perform the backup is simply a trolly service. They are selling you the ability to upload your data to a cloud backup. They rely on YOU to make the backups.  RUN, do not walk away from these companies.  If you have a problem with a backup, due to the fact that they don’t support the backup but only the trolly, you have no one to call.

Q. Is the backup software HIPPA compliant?

A. If it’s not, hang up.  HIPPA compliance is a very simple procedure for security, it means that if you like, you can configure your own security hash (code) when your backup executes.  This is instead of using the standard backup service hash.  If they didn’t put in the time to add this option to their development of the backup software, don’t waste your time considering them.

Q. Do you provide domestic telephone tech support?

A. YES, it must be phone, domestic support is a personal preference depending on the user.  DO NOT SETTLE FOR CHAT SUPPORT!

Q. Do file revisions count against my data storage block?

A. It depends.  It would be nice if they didn’t, but in our research, when the revisions history does not count against your storage block, this amenity is usually accompanied with horrible software, sub-par support, crazy backup age rules and third party backup software.  Be VERY wary of companies who promise revisions that will not add up against your data storage block.

5 Reasons Your Firm Needs a Corporate Email Solution Instead of AOL, Hotmail & Yahoo

If your current office email is AOL, MSN, Hotmail, Yahoo or Windows Live, you are doing yourself and your firm a major disservice. We see a lot of small businesses working on email addresses that are home solutions. While these free solutions are good for home use, they are not acceptable corporate solutions. Here are the top 5 reasons why you should be using a professional email service.

Guarantees Email through AOL, Hotmail, and the like does not come with guarantees. Most hosted corporate email solutions have SLA’s or Service Level Agreements. These dictate the amount of average downtime that you may or may not experience using the service, and if down, the average time the service will be down for until fixed. This is a guarantee made by the provider. Here is an example of Google’s SLA for their Google Apps email cloud solution. Google Apps SLA

Power The full power of your email solution can help you organize calendars, tasks, contacts & appointments. Many free email services don’t offer you anything beyond basic email functionality let alone sharing resources with firm staff or with individuals outside the firm who you collaborate with.

Remote Connectivity With this power unlocked, you should be able to access you email from anywhere on any internet ready device. Your mail, calendar & contacts should sync wirelessly to your mobile device. You should be able to make a note or task on your phone and review it at your workstation later on that day with seamless syncing. The true power of a corporate mail system will help you organize your business like never before.

Support Legitimate hosted email providers also offer tech support, if you have an issue with AOL or MSN, good luck speaking with a human, they are notoriously horrible to contact and the support is usually not very helpful if you face real problems.

Security/Spyware/Viruses/Spam Corporate email services also have features such as spam filtering & virus/spyware monitoring. Free email services do not give you these options, and if they do, they are not that great. Nothing is worse than unintentionally giving your client a virus because your mail service does not scan outgoing mail, and they will know it came from you when they open your email and start getting pop-ups.

Rekall works with Hosted Exchange & Office 365. All the services that we work with are rock solid, we don’t sell services that are annoying to use or that are not up to our standards. I will warn you that there are more bad services out there than good. If you ever have questions regarding choosing the right  corporate email solution for your firm, don’t hesitate to give us a call. Even if we’re not reselling the product, we’ll offer our 2-cents and assist anyway we can.