Nobody stays in business long if their business-critical data and apps are lost. So pardon me if I sound like my replay button got stuck, but I’ll say it again: make sure your critical data and apps are replicated to a secure remote environment that’s always accessible from anywhere.

You’re at least halfway there if you’re using a cloud-based backup replication service — but, of course, you need to make sure you’re dealing with a provider with a secure, scalable, fail-safe environment and plenty of flexibility when it comes to service options.

Combining virtualized data replication, secure data storage, and disaster recovery capabilities in a resilient cloud environment makes data recovery smoother and less costly, since data replicas and data backups can be managed with the same software. Your provider should be able to ensure the safety, security, and integrity of your data whether it’s replicated to a shared environment or a discrete, dedicated one.

And don’t forget about what you’ll need to communicate with employees and customers. Using cellphones, web-based email, instant messaging, Facebook, etc., can enable you to stay in touch with employees. To interact with customers when your facilities are compromised, your best bet is hosted voice-over-IP (VoIP), which allows your office phones to easily be forwarded to other numbers.

Passwords can be an effective way to make sure only those who should have access actually get access.

But now virtually every application demands its own password, and it’s unrealistic to expect end-users to memorize five, ten, twenty different strings of letters, numbers, and symbols to do their jobs.

It’s also unrealistic to expect system administrators not to buckle under the burden of managing these mushrooming password requirements.

For all the password pain expressed by frustrated end-users, the real pain is at the backend, where system administrators spend countless hours defining the levels of access those passwords provide for every application used by each end-user. It’s so complex that mistakes are inevitable. Add these errors to the risky ways end-users deal with passwords and it’s inevitable that the security of vital company information is jeopardized.

The best solution we’ve found is single sign-on (SSO) technology, which shifts where end-user access gets defined from the application level to the gateway. Since SSO means end-users need only a single password, system administrators can easily make and keep track of adjustments to application access.

Ask your technology partner to talk with you about SSO — because there’s a cure for those sign-on blues.

There’s an old saying about necessity being the mother of invention. If that proverb contains any truth, we should soon see a good deal of invention triggered by the very real necessity to do more with less.

Invention can have another mother, too — the desire to do the best job possible. A good technology partner will always listen to clients and try to develop innovative solutions that match a client’s goals.

For us at Quest, VoIP is a good case in point.

When we found that the typical options for implementing VoIP — in-house or hosted — were not meeting some of our clients’ needs, we went exploring for other approaches. And we hit upon one: a hybrid VoIP approach that combines the security, flexibility, and performance of an in-house implementation with the ease and cost-effectiveness of a hosted service.

In the end, it doesn’t matter if the best solution emerges in response to a dire need or a desire to make something good even better. What matters is that you have a technology partner willing to be as creative and resourceful as you need them to be.

Today I’m going to start with a little quiz:

What’s the most common misperception about IP-based Video Surveillance today?

Answer: It’s that upgrading from an analog CCTV (closed circuit television) system to a digital IP Video Surveillance system forces you to junk your current investment in cameras, lenses, and cables. This is simply not true.

In fact, IP-based Video Surveillance technology was designed with the understanding that users would want to keep as much of the security equipment they had already purchased and installed as possible. There was no technical reason why it couldn’t work, and none was created.

And don’t let the cost stop you. You already have the cameras, and it’s very likely that you have many of the other components necessary for IP Surveillance — IP network, broadband connectivity, wireless LAN — already in place today.

IP Surveillance offers many benefits, from live streaming video to notification of an event in your building. Talk to a trusted professional about what you need to make the move from analog ... I guarantee you will not have to start from scratch.

If email is essential to your business, so is email backup. Unfortunately, as your information technology systems become more complex, so does operating them. Too often, these systems end up causing the email outages they’re supposed to prevent.

It’s not hard to see why. These systems need lots of care and feeding. Management of them includes dealing with servers, licenses, and capacity issues. They have to be updated and patched on always-irregular schedules. Then there’s the complex backups of multiple, non-integrated databases and applications.

Why Exchange 2007 isn’t enough
And at the heart of all this is your email system. You may think that using Exchange 2007 will save you from the worst effects of an email outage. Think again.

Exchange 2007’s new capabilities help reduce risks, but still fall short. Although Exchange 2007 has failover technologies that can be used to loadshift between systems (thus shortening the duration of an outage), it’s a process that burdens users. And Exchange has no built-in means of providing alternate access to stored messages.

So when it comes to email continuity, you need more. And you need it to be cost-effective. A solution worth considering is an email backup managed service.

The appeal of an integrated, unified messaging system and other operational efficiencies has made VoIP hot. To be sure, there are advantages, but there are also hidden pitfalls.

The first thing to remember is that VoIP is a data application running over your existing network, so it needs bandwidth and ongoing support. Without these, the performance of your phone systems and every one of your business applications will be affected. Don’t forget: a downed network means no applications and no voice communications.

And while VoIP is a data application, its success depends heavily on how well you understand and manage traditional voice providers — the phone companies. Even many seasoned IT people don’t understand telecommunications requirements. Conversely, you can’t expect the phone company to help determine network readiness — data networks are not their business.

Finally, before you buy from one of the many vendors ready to sell you VoIP — or, more likely, some piece of VoIP — make sure that vendor can analyze and support your complete voice-data implementation — including your phone services. You can’t afford a VoIP vendor who tells you that voice is not their business.

Regardless of the nature of your business, your first step into VoIP requires expertise in cost-effectively integrating the disparate worlds of voice and data.

This issue of our newsletter is devoted to infrastructure. Although it comprises the very cable and wiring on which every network and application runs, it’s not unusual for organizations to do an initial infrastructure design and installation and then never think about it again. Even when laid in place 10-15 years ago, infrastructure gets noticed only when there’s a major problem or move.

But two reasons make it worth noticing: performance and unnecessary expense.

Performance and cost
Performance troubles begin when new bandwidth hungry applications are routinely layered onto existing infrastructure with no real analysis of the impact. These problems typically get blamed on the network or applications — and that’s where the unnecessary expense starts.

Because infrastructure is low on most folks’ radar, performance problems get ‘solved’ by upgrades to software or networking equipment...money spent everywhere but on the fundamental problem.

Performing an audit of your existing infrastructure every year or two to determine if what you have at the base level — your cables and wiring — are up to delivering what users expect is essential. If you don’t have the time or expertise in-house, ask a trusted partner. And if you’re building a new data center, be sure to let experts manage the infrastructure installation. Don’t leave it to an electrical contractor.