When businesses save files to their hard drive or another storage device, they often feel as though their data will always be available when they need it. That assumption, however, is dangerous and can cause any company to lose their important files. Data corruption, hardware failure and malicious attacks are just a few of the threats that can harm your files, and those who fail to back up their data will be out of luck. Confused and frustrated, these individuals often find out the hard way that they should have taken action.

If you don’t want to repeat the same mistake, then it’s time to take a look at the different ways that you can protect your data from being destroyed. Taking the right steps will give you peace of mind because you will know that your files are not in danger. No matter if you are trying to safeguard family pictures or business contacts, the following information will help you reach your goals.

Cloud Backup

When protecting your data is your No. 1 goal, you might feel as though creating a local backup is enough, but it’s not. If all of your files are stored on the same server, then you will still lose everything if that server gets destroyed. The good news is that you can combat this problem by utilizing a Cloud Backup solution. This option involves uploading the data that you want to protect to ‘The Cloud’ – a cluster of servers located in a remote, secure datacenter.

If something happens to your main or local storage server, cloud backups enable you to still have access to the files that you need. Best of all, your data will be available anytime, anywhere, and from nearly any device.

Set a Schedule

After learning about the importance of keeping backups, many businesses either dedicate a server to secure their files or rent one. At first, they put in the effort to create backups on a regular basis, but they don’t remain dedicated to the process. As time goes on, they often stop using their backup servers. To avoid that situation, you can determine how often you need to create backups and set a schedule.

When you do so, staying on track will be that much easier. Some people backup their files one time each week, but others do so every night. The number of backups that you want to create will depend on several factors, but the important part is to remain consistent.

Set a Retention Limit

Once you have a backup system in place, you want to decide on the amount of time that you will store your data. Many businesses will delete some backups every few months or years, but you might need to keep some records for as long as you can. For example, tax records should be saved for seven years if you don’t want to encounter problems.

Although deciding which files to keep is not always an easy task, prioritizing your data can help. The length of time that you will keep each backup will also depend on the amount of storage space that is available to you. So if your current solutions are not meeting your needs, then it could be time to consider upgrading.

Use Encryption

Backing up your data is a smart move, but you also need to protect your files from unauthorized individuals. Criminals try to target servers that have the least amount of protection because they want to access data easily. If you don’t secure your files, then you could become a victim. If you own or manage a business, then you are also putting your customers’ data at risk, which is not acceptable.

When you encrypt your data, you scramble the code in a way that makes it all but impossible to read. Even if someone can obtain your files, they will not be able to do anything with them. Only those authorized with the decryption key will be able to actually view your data.

Final Thoughts

Don’t make the mistake of ignoring the threats that can destroy your data. If a business loses its clients’ contact information, then that business could fail. Even if a company can recover from data loss, the fallout could have a lasting impact on its reputation. If customers don’t think that a business takes steps to keep their digital information safe, then they will find a company that does.

As technology continues to improve, you will start to depend on it more and more each day, and the dangers involved with not protecting yourself will only increase. Backing up your data right now could be a choice that saves your business from failure, and you should keep that fact at the front of your mind when you are making your decision.

Looking for the easiest way to protect your data while utilizing all of the best practices mentioned above?  Look no further than TurnKey Internet’s next-generation Cloud Backup solution – TurnKey Vault.  What makes TurnKey Vault the absolute best Cloud Backup solution on the market is our system was built from the ground up with business users in mind. From encryption so strong that even we can’t see your data, to the most advanced features on the market – like Live Cloud Replication, bare metal recovery and the ability to restore a server, PC or even an entire office of computers, live, in real-time, into a fully functional, cloud-based virtual environment accessible from anywhere over the Internet.

TurnKey Vault’s next-generation Cloud Backup technology offers true Business Continuity and peace of mind through cloud-based redundancy that allows you to restore anything, anytime, anywhere. For more information, visit TurnKeyVault.com

Negotiation is both an art and a form of war.  On nearly a daily basis I find myself discussing with a potential new client reviewing our Cloud Server offerings that makes a general statement that the price is too high and could we match another offer they found on the Internet.

Often these requests are inclusive of a generic statement that they saw a lower priced offer on social media web site or forum from a competitor that may or may not be named, and may or may not even have a specific online offer, but our potential new client insists we should match the deal to earn their loyalty.

It’s not unheard of for someone to try and negotiate a deal, and sometimes people may bend the facts of a competing offer to see how far they can push  a discount or deal – after all we are living in a Black Friday ‘discount’ society now – year round bargains, and a good deal is front and center in just about any discussion between a customer and a business.  Deals are not just about TV’s and electronics any more – Cloud Services, IT Services, Internet Access – its more and more common to ask for a deal these days on everything,.

Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ suggests “Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” – and closing a sale when a potential client looks to you to match their perception of a good deal can be a real battle.  When I see these types of requests I seize the opportunity to showcase what I’m bringing to the table, and that few if any other competitor can come close to the total value being proposed. When I hear a potential client asking if I can “match their price”, I focus on asking the potential client if their other offer can “match what our service provides”.

My response usually looks like this.

Thank you for considering TurnKey Internet’s Cloud Servers – and I appreciate the opportunity to help showcase why we are the best fit for your IT project needs. You asked if we could ‘match’ this other offer you referenced, and I wanted to first clarify to help ensure we are comparing apples to apples (or at least apples to another fruit!)

Does this other competitor offer and provide :

• A money back guarantee, in writing – do they stand behind what they sell with a written policy?
• A 100% Service Level Agreement (Uptime, Network, Security, and more) in writing to guarantee your business?
• Do they Answer the phone – Pick up the phone right now, dial the phone number, does a real person talk to you within 60 seconds?
• Do they use latest Cloud Technology (watch out for vendors offering cut-throat deals using insecure, or outdated technology like OpenVZ based Clouds).
• Do they have 3rd party verified reviews about their product / offer or company – including BBB report cards, and public audit / certifications.
• Do they own, operate, and maintain their own Datacenter, servers, stoarge systems, staff, and infrastructure – or are they just a wholesaler or middleman between you and the people who do the work?
• Does their offer include Backups at no additional charge?
• Do they offer free Cloud-Migration assistance ?

While I am not personally familiar with the competitor / offer you mentioned – can they match what TurnKey Internet is offering you in this proposal?  Can they match what we offer – and will they agree to match the quality, service and price that we are offering?  

I understand that you always want the highest confidence in the online partners you choose, and I assure you TurnKey Internet is committed to your online success in every way possible.  I assure you that once you add in the entire scope of our proposal you will see that the our price is not only the best, but the total proposal is the best fit for your long term Cloud Services needs.

While some potential sales negotiations can’t be swayed to avoid the ‘price match’ war, the ones who see the value are the clients that will be there for the long term when you deliver what you promise.  The key is to showcase what you bring to the table – that sets you apart from the competition.  For those who remain price fixated who may choose a different path they may still find their way back to you eventually thanks to leaving them with the positive aspects in mind.

If you’ve ever waited for a slow website to load, you know how frustrating it is. It only takes a few seconds – if that – for you to start getting impatient and considering going to another site.

Visitors to your site feel the exact same way. People have grown increasingly accustomed to instant results, and most web users expect web pages to show up on their screen right after clicking or tapping. A slow website can directly, and negatively, impact your sales and ability to draw in new clients.

However, it’s not just sales that take a hit when your website is crawling. Slow load times can result in reduced search engine rankings and depressed conversion rates. Additionally, a slow website is often the sign of a design problem, which may mean that you’re using more bandwidth to do less.

 The Five Second Rule

According to a recent study, one-third of online shoppers will leave your site if it takes more than five seconds to load. Along with the fact that five seconds is a very short amount of time to work with, the study found that people are getting more impatient; a previous study showed that you had six seconds before people left.

If that weren’t bad enough, a study done by Google that specifically looked at mobile users found that these individuals are even more impatient. More than half of those involved in the study will leave a mobile website if it doesn’t load in three seconds.

What this means is that your website design needs to focus on speed instead of design elements. To ensure that people will go to your website – and stay – your site needs to be fast and streamlined.

 Load Time Affects Sales

If you’ve got your website loading under five seconds, you may get visitors to stick around, but it won’t necessarily net you a sale. The study that found many people will leave after five seconds also determined that a 2.4 second load time led to the highest conversion rates. This is backed up by data collected by Kissmetrics, which showed that a one second delay in website response time can lead to a seven percent conversion rate drop.

The collected data also showed that people who made purchases from a site but were unhappy with the site’s performance were less likely to buy from the site again. In other words, the bare minimum to get someone to stay may be five seconds, but if you want to make a sale, and keep making sales, your site may need to load even faster.

 Google Is Impatient Too

Load times don’t just affect whether or not a potential customer stays on your website. They may also play a part in determining if someone ever arrives at your site. This is because Google looks at user experience when calculating search engine rankings.

There are a number of factors that go into user experience, but load time is a significant one. Search engine ranking is very competitive since it determines where your site shows up in search results and if it shows up on the first page. With less than 80 percent of people clicking to the second page of search results, it’s essential that you’re doing everything you can to be on page one.

Google offers a website to check your site’s performance, and according to the search engine, a score of 85 or higher out of 100 means that your site is doing well. Anything below that likely spells trouble when it comes to your search engine rankings.

It’s also important to note that Google has started to give websites that are mobile friendly higher rankings when people do a search from a mobile device. If you have a desktop site that loads quickly but don’t create an equivalent mobile site, you could see a drop in your mobile search rankings.

 Slow Load Times Could Mean Back End Problems

There are a variety of reasons that your website may be running slowly or simply not loading as quickly as visitors would like. Many common reasons relate to design, such as running too many scripts or filling up the page with large media files.

These problems can be resolved easily by streamlining a website and cutting down on files and scripts that bog the loading process down. Doing this may help to improve the performance of your web server as well. If the media files on your site that are taking up enormous amounts of bandwidth are compressed or if you reduce the number that load on your site, you could see a lot of resources freed up.

However, slow load times, especially if you have optimized your website, may indicate that there’s a larger problem with your server or the network you’re running on. It could be that you need more bandwidth, system resources or to change your service provider.

While attractive and innovative website designs may be appealing, if you’re in the business of selling, your focus should be on a website that loads quickly and is easy to navigate. Shaving just a second off of the load time of your site and pages within it could mean a dramatic difference in conversion rates and sales, and it could also improve your search engine rankings.

LATHAM, NEW YORK (October 5^th, 2016) – Leading Datacenter and Cloud Hosting Solutions provider TurnKey Internet, Inc. announced today that it is expanding its Datacenter and Cloud-based infrastructure into California. The Datacenter expansion builds on TurnKey Internet’s existing New York Datacenter by offering geographically specific and redundant, high-speed Cloud services from both their East Coast and new West Coast Facility.

The West Coast Datacenter, located in Los Angeles, California, offers multiple transit backbone providers with fiber network redundancy as well as physical security features such as Biometric hand scanners, IP cameras, 24/7 monitoring and manned building security. The facility also features multiple Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) Units, on-site Generator Protected Power, and advanced Fire Suppression and Detection systems.

TurnKey Internet’s next generation online backup service, TurnKey Vault, will now include both East Coast and West Coast disaster recovery storage locations which offer full Cloud replication, bare metal recovery, and encrypted backup & restore.

TurnKey Internet’s high speed Cloud platform, offering Cloud based virtual private servers will also now be offered from both West Coast and East Coast Datacenters. Colocation and Datacenter services will also be offered from both geographical locations.

“Extending our Datacenter, Colocation, and Cloud-Hosted services to California matches our vision of giving customers access to a ‘turnkey’ platform that delivers unmatched value and performance,” said Adam Wills, CEO of TurnKey Internet, Inc. He continued “This geographical expansion is an exciting step in the development of our Cloud-Hosted platform. Our clients can easily deploy and manage their Cloud infrastructure across multiple geographic locations. This provides a better experience by providing redundancy and performance increases through delivery of applications closer to the end-user.”

For more information about TurnKey Internet’s latest expansion or to speak with a Cloud Hosting Solutions expert, visit www.TurnKeyInternet.net

About TurnKey Internet

Founded in 1999, TurnKey Internet, Inc. is a full-service Cloud Hosting Solutions provider with Datacenters in New York and California specializing in Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) to clients in more than 150 countries.  Services offered in both East Coast and West Coast, USA – include Public Cloud, Private Cloud, Dedicated & Bare Metal Servers, Backup & Disaster Recovery, Online Storage, Web Hosting, Managed Hosting, Hybrid Solutions and Enterprise Colocation. Headquartered in New York’s Tech Valley Region, TurnKey Internet’s Flagship Datacenter offers SSAE 16 Type II certification powered exclusively by on-site Solar and Hydroelectric sources to provide a 100% renewable energy footprint. In 2013 the facility was designated as the 37th ENERGY STAR® Certified Datacenter in the United States.  For more information, please call (518) 618-0999 or visit www.turnkeyinternet.net/media

Running and managing a website is a lot of work, and most people don’t even consider the possibility of being compromised. When they ignore the risk, webmasters are putting themselves at an even greater risk. If you run a personal or business website then it’s vital you take steps to protect your website from hackers. Criminals have many reasons for wanting to gain unauthorized access to your content, and all of them will impact you in a negative way.

The hacker might be interested in performing a prank, or they could try to redirect your traffic to another link. If a business website gets compromised, your customers’ personal data could be exposed, and that would ruin your reputation. The following information will help you keep yourself safe.

1. Stay Updated

One of the ways that hackers gain access to a website is by looking for software vulnerabilities. They will reverse engineer software and scripts to find methods to take control of your content and to view your files. To combat that problem, software developers consistently release updates for their programs, which address known weaknesses.

But some webmasters are still reluctant to update their sites because they don’t want to experience any downtime. When you choose not to install recent updates, you are inviting criminals to exploit you and your users. Ensure that you are always using the latest scripts when your goal is to safeguard your website.

2. Strong Passwords

Hackers will sometimes use brute force software to access your administration panel, and they can do anything they want from there. The brute force software works by repeatedly entering different numbers and letters into the username and password fields until it finds the correct combination. You can protect yourself from such attacks by using strong passwords that contain letters, numbers and special characters.

Although it’s still possible for hackers to use brute force software to break into your website, they are not likely to succeed. A complex password can resist a brute force attack for several thousand years before the correct combination is discovered. Unless your website contains extremely sensitive data, the hackers will likely move on to an easier target.

3. File Encryption

Many people store files on their website as plain text, and that makes it easy for hackers to steal and read the information. The problem becomes that much worse when the data contains the credit card numbers of your customers. You can add an extra layer of safety by encrypting your files so that they become all but impossible to read.

An encryption program works by scrambling a file until it’s unreadable, and only the person with the correct decryption key can reverse the process. If your important files are encrypted, hackers will not be able to see them even if they gain access to your website.

4. Rename Your Directories

When hackers want to take control of your website and to cause damage, they will search for your administration directories. If they can locate them, then the hackers can steal your login details or give themselves access. Many programs are available that will scan websites to find administrative credentials, and you can protect yourself by renaming your directories.

Although this step might seem small, don’t get tempted to overlook it because you must do everything that you can to stay safe. The name that you give your directories is not important as long as you know how to access them when you need to make changes.

If a business website gets compromised by criminals, then the entire business could fail. Whether you run a private blog or corporate site, it’s vital to be proactive when it comes to securing your content if you don’t want to encounter problems. Some people feel as though hackers would not want to target them, but their false sense of security could cause them to lose everything.

Safeguarding yourself does not need to be a hard or time-consuming process, and a little effort can work wonders to prevent a disaster from occurring. You never know when a security breach will take place, so you need to take action while you still have the opportunity.

Running a business can be very demanding and it may not leave you with enough spare time to regularly maintain your website’s security. If this scenario sounds familiar, your best bet may be to switch to a Managed web hosting solution. TurnKey Internet offers a complete all-inclusive fully managed service that lets you focus on your customers while running your business – leave the infrastructure, software updates, security, backups, and uptime to us. We provide a turnkey solution that employs a unique combination of Application and Network Engineers, deep-level performance monitoring and on-going guidance to maintain and optimize your cloud-based hosted infrastructure. You get all-access to our Support and network Engineers – far more cost-efficient than hiring, onboarding, and building your own team of tech gurus. As technology changes daily, we’ll keep your systems secure and up-to-date, while you focus on your business.