Identifying your business risk profile is critical to protecting your business. Not all companies have the same risk profile and it is therefore important to analyze your dependence on IT and the risks you have to face. All companies do however have the following risks in common:

1. System outages (hardware/software failure)

2. Email outages (usually due to mail server or connectivity failure)

3. Virus/Malware infections and Internet threats (outdated/inactive AV)

System outages

Hardware failures are inevitable so it is best to prepare for this unavoidable event. One of the key decisions to make is how much downtime your business can accommodate as this will have an impact on the disaster recovery or business continuity systems you will require. Putting a value to downtime is a complicated process, but never underestimate the damage that downtime could inflict. Some of the evolv networks services include:

1. Hardware onsite warranty management

2. Bare metal recovery imaging (ability to image your server and recover to dissimilar hardware)

3. Continuity solutions ensuring minimal to zero downtime upon failures

Email outages

Email has become a critical business tool for many companies to the point where your business cannot function without it. Although mail server uptime can be kept above 99% the requirement for an email continuity strategy remains important. As a Mimecast Partner we assist clients in utilizing the mimecast Email Continuity services to ensure they are able to function during periods of downtime. Even remote users can send/receive email as if there is no failure at all. The failover processes is fully automated to ensure users do not detect the interruption and also automatically returns when the server becomes available.

From a connectivity perspective we can assist you in deploying backup connectivity to ensure that your business can easily recover from a temporary connectivity failure.

Virus/Malware infections

AntiVirus protection is only one level of protection that your environment requires. Many websites intentionally test the security vulnerabilities of your environment to deploy malware. Edge firewalls can protect internal workstations from security vulnerability scans as well as blocking internal machines which are “phoning” out. To further protect your environment we suggest utilizing content filtering systems which block high risk sites. The categories are automatically updated to ensure that new websites are automatically blocked.