Now, IT Glue is all set to take the value of Datto SaaS Protection + to the next level and enable MSPs to enhance their service offerings even further. We are excited to introduce a new feature in IT Glue, Datto SaaS Protection User Insights, which will deliver real-time updates on Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace backups within IT Glue. This latest innovation redefines how IT professionals manage and protect their clients’ everyday operational continuity with comprehensive backup insights.

Datto SaaS Protection User Insights: Safeguard users’ daily productivity with at-a-glance backup details

Without easy access to backup information, IT pros can struggle to stay ahead of potential risks, leading to security vulnerabilities in client environments. This, in turn, affects end-users’ ability to continue daily operations since uninterrupted access to calendars, files and communications is critical for their day-to-day tasks. To avoid such unexpected disruptions to their clients, IT pros must have complete visibility into the user protection status.

With Datto SaaS Protection User Insights in IT Glue, IT pros like you can tackle this challenge effectively. The feature brings Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace user information from Datto SaaS Protection + directly inside IT Glue — the documentation platform for your day-to-day functions — providing you with comprehensive visibility into your clients’ backup status.

By eliminating the need to toggle between multiple platforms, Datto SaaS Protection User Insights enables you to take swift action when necessary, considerably enhancing efficiency and security. Whether you need an organization-wide view or a detailed, user-level perspective, the feature provides an at-a-glance overview of which users and applications are protected, and which of those might be at risk. This granular visibility allows you to proactively manage data security, ensuring that every user is covered and that no detail slips through the cracks.

Streamline backup management and identify user protection status with ease

Datto SaaS Protection User Insights in IT Glue offers the following advantages:

• Quickly determine user protection status: Instantly see which users are not backed up within IT Glue, instead of manually searching through your backup portal. This streamlined approach saves you time and reduces the risk of overlooked vulnerabilities.
• Effortlessly provide backup for new contacts: An IT Glue administrator can easily review the contact list and identify the new contacts syncing via the Microsoft 365 integration but not backed up by Datto SaaS Protection +. They can then quickly enroll those users to provide immediate protection. Let’s say a new user was accidentally not backed up during the onboarding process; this helps you easily rectify that oversight.
• Complete backup health information in one pane: View Datto SaaS Protection + insights for all Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace tools like Mail, Calendar, Contacts and Drive, directly alongside your user documentation. This includes critical information such as:
  • Product type (Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace)
  • Protection status
  • Last backup time
  • Backup drive size
  • Mail backup size
  • Contact backup size
  • Calendar backup size

Get comprehensive backup visibility with centralized user information

Managing backups across multiple clients can get complex and time-consuming. However, with the Datto SaaS Protection + integration in IT Glue, you can achieve complete visibility seamlessly at both the global and granular levels.

In the global view, this integration provides an at-a-glance overview of backup status across all your clients, eliminating the need to manually check each client’s protection status, including the Backup Percentage, Backup Status, Service Health, Cover and Sync Status across all clients. Think of it as a “mini audit” that offers a snapshot of your entire client base’s data security. You can also leverage the global export functionality to quickly review backup health details across all clients and identify all unprotected users.

Additionally, you can view more detailed backup insights on a per-organization level, for more specific Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 backup status information. This includes critical details, such as the number of protected seats per application.

Consolidating backup documentation within IT Glue allows you to be proactive rather than reactive. Since the failed backup status is visible along with other information, an IT Glue administrator can quickly spot a contact with a failed backup status while going through the contact list. This allows them to promptly address the issue before it escalates into a bigger problem. Such a streamlined approach ensures that you can address potential vulnerabilities before they impact your clients.

Seamlessly manage your SaaS backup documentation with IT Glue

As SaaS data security becomes a growing concern, having complete visibility and control over your SaaS backups is not a luxury but a necessity. With the integration of Datto SaaS Protection User Insights into IT Glue, IT pros like you can now seamlessly access your SaaS backup information along with all the other mission-critical IT information. This powerful feature empowers you to proactively manage backups, address vulnerabilities and protect your clients’ critical data and daily productivity with unparalleled efficiency.

Learn more about this feature at this Knowledge Base link.

IT Glue is an award-winning, SOC 2 Type II compliant documentation management platform designed to streamline your IT operations and optimize your IT environment. Powered by its AI engine, Cooper Copilot, IT Glue seamlessly adapts to your unique documentation needs and elevates your IT documentation so your team has access to the information they need when they need it.

Want to discover how to simplify your IT management and unlock the exponential efficiencies of your IT environment? Get a demo now.

The post Protect User Productivity and Data With Backup Documentation in IT Glue appeared first on IT Glue.

What is a vCIO?

A vCIO is essentially a contractor or a service that offers high-level IT strategy and consulting services remotely. Acting as an outsourced Chief Information Officer, a vCIO collaborates with businesses to develop and implement comprehensive IT strategies that align with business goals. This includes overseeing technology deployments, managing IT budgets, ensuring cybersecurity measures are up to date and guiding technology-related decisions. Unlike a traditional CIO, who is a full-time executive within a company, a vCIO allows businesses, especially small to medium-sized ones lacking the resources for an in-house CIO, to access expert IT leadership and advice on demand. This role is pivotal in helping businesses navigate the complexities of technology infrastructure, software integration, data management and the ever-evolving cybersecurity landscape, ensuring that IT systems support and drive business objectives efficiently.

What is the difference between a vCIO and a CIO? 

While both vCIOs and CIOs aim to align IT strategies with business goals, the traditional CIO is a full-time executive position, focusing on internal IT management and strategy. In contrast, a vCIO offers flexible, external expertise, providing strategic planning and consulting to optimize IT performance and investment.

What does a vCIO do?

A vCIO provides valuable IT services to businesses they work with. These services often include the following: 

• Technology roadmapping: A vCIO plays a crucial role in guiding the strategic direction of your business’s technology. They conduct thorough evaluations of the IT department to identify any deficiencies and implement solutions that not only address these issues but also support the broader objectives of your business. The outcome is a technology roadmap tailored to your company’s needs, designed to keep your IT infrastructure modern, secure and aligned with industry innovations. This approach not only ensures that your business stays competitive but also prepares your team for the integration and use of new technologies, enhancing overall productivity. With the majority of top global companies outsourcing their technology planning, leveraging a vCIO’s expertise is a strategic move to maintain a cutting-edge IT environment.
• Vendor relationship management: The vCIO role extends beyond internal strategy to encompass vendor relationship management, building and maintaining strategic partnerships with key technology providers. This ensures not only the seamless integration of services but also that your business’s interests are protected. The vCIO’s expertise in negotiating and managing these relationships means your business benefits from smooth, reliable service delivery, enhancing your technology stack’s efficacy and efficiency.
• Risk management and business continuity planning: A vCIO’s role in risk management is critical. By assessing potential vulnerabilities and formulating robust defense strategies, a vCIO protects your business’s online assets and confidential data. Their strategic approach to disaster recovery planning ensures that, even in the face of IT interruptions or data breaches, your business operations can continue with minimal disruption. This proactive approach to cybersecurity, combined with their expertise in modern security practices, protects your business from the wide range of risks present today.
• Resource optimization: Optimizing your current technology infrastructure for maximum efficiency and effectiveness is a key responsibility of a vCIO. Through thorough assessment, they pinpoint areas for improvement, suggesting solutions that not only enhance efficiency but also drive growth and profitability. By identifying and eliminating redundant or outdated software and replacing it with cutting-edge applications, a vCIO ensures your technology infrastructure is lean, agile and perfectly aligned with your business objectives.
• Senior management consulting: A vCIO works closely with your company’s senior management, offering regular insights and recommendations that keep them informed and engaged with the IT evolution as your company grows. This includes providing solutions to emerging IT challenges, advising on compliance with fluctuating industry regulations and ensuring that your business remains at the forefront of technological advancements. Their strategic input helps shape the future direction of your business, ensuring IT initiatives are always aligned with your goals. 

Benefits of using vCIO services

Organizations choosing to use vCIO services often gain the following advantages and benefits:  

• Strategic alignment: With a vCIO, your IT initiatives become a catalyst for growth, driving efficiency and ensuring your investments in technology deliver real, tangible business value. This strategic alignment between IT and business goals is a key element of the value a vCIO brings to the table.
• Enhanced cybersecurity: The expertise a vCIO brings to your cybersecurity efforts cannot be understated. Designing comprehensive security strategies, they ensure your data is protected and your business complies with relevant regulations, protecting your business against the landscape of cyberthreats.
• Improved IT efficiency: A vCIO’s ability to review and optimize IT processes eliminates inefficiencies, automates routine tasks and ensures your IT resources are effectively utilized. This not only improves your overall IT efficiency but also frees up your team to focus on more strategic initiatives.
• Cost-effectiveness: Choosing a vCIO offers high-level IT expertise without the financial burden of a full-time executive salary and benefits. This cost-effective solution allows businesses to leverage strategic IT guidance and support, optimizing their technology investment and driving their business forward. 

What is the difference between a vCIO and a MSP?

While MSPs offer tactical IT support and management, a vCIO provides strategic guidance, helping businesses navigate the big picture of their IT landscape. This distinction highlights the vCIO’s role in ensuring IT strategies are not just about maintenance but about driving business forward. Read more about the differences between a vCIO and an MSP in this blog post.

Deliver vCIO services with myITprocess

In conclusion, a vCIO brings significant strategic value to IT professionals. For MSPs aiming to provide vCIO services, IT Glue’s myITprocess is essential. This tool simplifies the IT strategic planning process by ensuring that all crucial information is readily accessible, thereby improving decision-making.

Here are some ways myITprocess helps MSPs with IT strategic planning:

• Utilizes a structured framework: The tool employs a standardized, industry-proven IT strategic planning framework to ensure consistent results across all clients.
• Uncovers technology gaps: myITprocess proactively uncovers technology gaps and address risks before they escalate to maintain client satisfaction and continue driving profit.
• Streamlines QBR management: The platform simplifies quarterly business reviews from agenda setting to post-meeting summaries.
• Delivers simplified client presentations: myITprocess presents IT roadmaps in an easy-to-understand format, enabling real-time client feedback.
• Organizes prioritized IT roadmaps: The software integrates IT risks into a clear, client-facing roadmap, organized by priority, timeline and budget to secure early commitments.
• Generates custom reports: Our system produces automated, customizable reports that illustrate the current state of client IT infrastructure, completed work and future opportunities.

With the support of IT Glue’s myITprocess, MSPs can enhance their IT strategic planning and drive real business results.

Ready to transform your IT strategy? Schedule a myITprocess demo today.

The post What is a Virtual CIO (vCIO)? A Guide to vCIO Services appeared first on IT Glue.

Data is the lifeblood of modern organizations across the world. Considering its significance in building intelligent organizations, managing and protecting your data is critical. However, this could be challenging since most organizational data resides in different locations — on-premises storage systems, the cloud, SaaS applications or other devices. Managing data from different sources is getting complicated, and this could compromise your clients’ security.

Complete visibility with IT Glue and backup integrations

Most technicians don’t log into their backup solutions daily. Backup is more of a set-and-forget tool that is usually accessed only by administrators. Although, technicians might still need to access backup information occasionally.

With the Unitrends and Datto Continuity integrations in IT Glue, you get total visibility into your hardware assets and their backup details to determine whether they are protected. On top of understanding the backup health of your devices, you also need to understand the backup information of critical SaaS solutions you support, including Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.

The new Datto SaaS and Spanning Backup integrations enable you to holistically understand the status of your protected assets and users with ease.

Ensure business continuity with Datto SaaS Protection

This new integration helps you auto-document Datto SaaS Protection information for Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace services directly in IT Glue. Since your backup details reside right next to your IT documentation, you can easily determine which environments are protected or not.

You can view all your managed environments’ Datto SaaS Protection backup information in a single pane, including backup status, health, coverage and sync status. Without going into your backup tool, you get to know the exact backup status of all your managed environments, giving you complete peace of mind.

On a per-managed environment level, you can view details such as Protected Seats per application and Backup Health. On a global level, you can see the backup status of all managed environments. These details provide a holistic view into your organization’s backup status.

You’ll also see the Datto SaaS Protection Backup Percentage (in the last 24 hours) across all your managed environments, or per environment, giving you the granularity you need to manage your environments holistically.

Visit this Knowledge Base article for a step-by-step guide on how to set up the Datto SaaS Protection integration.

Complete Contact backup documentation with Spanning

With the new enhancement to the Spanning Backup integration, you can see both your Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace backup information in IT Glue, giving you a complete view into your user protection status.

With Spanning for Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace integration in IT Glue, you can view your Mail, Calendar, Contacts and Drive backup details alongside the rest of your Contact information already in IT Glue. You can easily determine the user protection status for both Google and Microsoft solutions, along with other backup details like the last backup time, status, total protected asset size and asset backup time in IT Glue.

Visit this Knowledge Base article for more information on the Spanning Backup integration.

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The post Take Your Backup Documentation to the Next Level appeared first on IT Glue.

In this blog, we shall discuss the importance of backup documentation and how you can leverage it to create the right backup strategy for your company or clients.

What is backup documentation?

Backup documentation refers to the process of documenting all the formal policies, asset backup details and other activities associated with backup. For instance, in the policy document, you can note down key factors like the location of the backups, type of backups, type of data stored and stakeholders responsible for the process.

Clear documentation of all your backup details and activities can provide critical insights into the overall backup health of your assets and the ideal backup practices that must be followed in an organization. MSPs can use their backup documentation to determine the status of backups, identify their clients’ needs and outline the backup services they provide to their clients.

Why is backup documentation important?

The primary goal of backup is to have a reliable method to recover lost data. Without automated and structured backup documentation, you risk improper and inefficient maintenance of your backups, or even worse, not documenting critical backup information at all. You need robust backup policies and full visibility into backup details to ensure everything is protected and you are prepared in case of any unforeseen events.

Backup policy documentation

A backup policy refers to a document containing guidelines and procedures on how backup data should be managed in an organization. It sets the ground rules for various aspects including backup planning, data types to be backed up, the importance of the backed-up data and more. In addition to procedures and guidelines, a backup policy should also contain information on responsible stakeholders and related documentation.

In an organizational setting, backup policy documents may differ from one company to another. Here’s a list of some of the common sections to be included in a backup policy.

Purpose and scope

This section focuses on the overall aim of the backup process in an organization. For instance, you can define the purpose of the backup policy to ensure business continuity following an unforeseen cyberattack. You should also clearly define what you intend to achieve with your backups to eliminate any ambiguity within your team.

Roles and responsibilities

The backup policy you create should clearly define the roles and responsibilities of all the stakeholders involved in backup and disaster recovery efforts. This section should have detailed information on who is responsible for monitoring the backup status periodically and who should be contacted when there is a need to restore information from the backup.

Compliance requirements

The backup policies created by organizations play a crucial role in compliance audits. You can use your backup policies to ensure you are in compliance with the regulatory laws governing the industry. For instance, there are specific data laws on how customer data should be stored and backed up in an organization. You can use your backup policy to outline the ways in which your clients can store customer data in their companies.

Data, systems and configurations

This section of the policy concerns the types of data that must be backed up and the systems and configurations that go alongside it. You need to create specific rules for specific types of data, how they must be stored, network configuration information, etc. This helps you retrieve your data in the most efficient way possible.

Backup frequency and schedule

When you have automated backups in your IT environment, you need to create a fixed schedule and frequency to ensure effective storage of recoverable information. Scheduling ensures your critical data is automatically backed up within the required timeframe. Moreover, scheduling allows you to keep your backup activities outside your business hours so that they don’t interrupt your core business tasks.

Backup methodology

Your backup policy also needs to address the backup methodology you are going to incorporate. A full backup stores all the files and systems in an IT environment. However, it is time-consuming and may not be feasible every single time. Once you have fully installed all your backup networks, you can set rules for incremental or differential backups based on your requirements. Your policy must have guidelines on the type of backups that must be performed.

Backup location and retention

Your backup policy should also focus on the storage location of your backup. Depending upon your backup strategy, you might have a cloud-based server, an on-site server or both. The location of your backup must be included in your backup schedules and specified in the backup policy. Besides knowing where your backups go, this also helps you adhere to compliance regulations.

Recovery objectives

Recovery time objective (RTO) refers to the time you have estimated to recover your lost data, and recovery point objective (RPO) concerns the maximum amount of data you can tolerate losing. RTO and RPO are highly critical to understand the overall objective of your backup plan. Including these metrics in your formal backup policy will help you with the effective retrieval of data.

Testing plan

Backup is not something that you can just implement and forget. It must be periodically tested to identify recurring issues and incorporate the necessary updates. Your backup policy should also include your testing plan with all the key details such as frequency of testing, responsible stakeholders and testing procedure.

Backup activity documentation

Backup is more of a set-and-forget process. However, you still need to know the status and integrity of your backups. In case of an unexpected disaster, this will help you get back online as quickly as possible. This is why it is extremely important to bring your backup information alongside the rest of your documentation. Moreover, this will also allow you to compare your asset inventory with your backup information. 

With the help of structured backup coverage reports, you can generate automatic reports that contain comprehensive information about all the backups and their status in your organization. The insights you derive from these reports, which include up-to-date status of backups and other critical details, can be used to identify assets that are not protected so you can quickly remedy the issue.

To make this work, your documentation tool must have an active integration with your backup solution. Once this is set up, you will simply have all of your backup information alongside the rest of your IT documentation. This will help you stay vigilant, and it also makes life convenient since you don’t have to access a different tool to verify your backups.

Being able to view your backups inside your documentation tool is just the first step. Quickly gain full visibility into your backup health standing with a report that includes the following details.

Backup summary

Determine at a quick glance the backup health of your IT environment with a summary count of successful backups, failed backups and unprotected assets. With a complete view of your backups, it’s easy to determine what requires your attention first to ensure you are protected.

Backup status

You can view a list of your assets categorized based on their backup status. For instance, you can choose to generate a report that will show only one or all of the following: successful backups, failed backups and no backups. This helps narrow your focus if you just want to see the assets that are not backed up yet, or alternatively, the backups that are in good standing.

Backup device details

Every backup report should show you complete backup details associated with each individual asset including configuration ID, type, status, and last backup date and time. To ensure you can efficiently and successfully back up your unprotected devices, select only the fields that you need and exclude unnecessary information.

Backup timeframe

You can also generate backup reports that only include backups from a specific timeframe if needed. For instance, you can view the list of the most recent backups in your network rather than a list of all protected assets since the very first backup you performed. You can also select specific date ranges to identify backups that happened over a certain period of time.

What are the benefits of backup documentation?

Managing backups in a complex IT environment is an extremely difficult process. In addition, accessing your backup solution is not a daily occurrence so it is vital you bring backup information into your documentation tool. Without maintaining proper documentation, you will be flying blind when it comes to effective storage and retrieval of critical data. Some of the notable benefits of backup documentation are as follows.

• Clarity: Both MSPs and IT teams can benefit a lot from the clarity offered by backup documentation. You will have well-established procedures, policies and guides on how to perform various backup tasks. Even in case of uncertainty, you will have clear information on what steps to take with regard to backup data.
• Accountability: When you have clear backup documentation, you can easily identify who is responsible for specific backup activities. Your documentation will also have clear instructions on how to contact the individuals associated with various tasks.
• Control: With backup documentation, you can maintain great control over backup activities. You can ensure failed backups are quickly dealt with or completely unprotected assets are backed up right away. Most importantly, you can access the backup details whenever you want.
• Full visibility: Backup documentation helps you identify which assets are protected and which aren’t by allowing you to review the list of assets in your inventory. MSPs can use this information to identify risks or opportunities in their clients’ environments and create more revenue for business growth.
• Business growth: MSPs can manage the backups of multiple clients easily with the help of clear backup documentation. MSPs can also convey the benefits of device backup health to their new customers and sell new solutions to them. Leveraging backup documentation the right way can help MSPs sell more backup solutions and grow their business.

Disaster Recovery Runbook: Maximize recovery efficiency following a disaster

Every single minute following a disaster is crucial. You must be able to manage your time well and be as efficient as possible to bring everything back up to speed. This can be achieved when you integrate your backup solution with your documentation tool, so you can take advantage of a Disaster Recovery (DR) Runbook. With DR Runbook, you get an outline of all the protected assets after a disaster with the correct boot order. This also ensures that no devices are missed, left with errors or rebooted incorrectly.

Document backups with IT Glue

According to IBM, the average cost of data loss caused by a breach is $4.35 million in 2022. With the evolving cyberthreats in this digital world, facing an attack is not a matter of “if” but “when.” It goes without saying that organizations should leverage the right backup and documentation solutions to protect themselves and ensure minimal downtime. With backup documentation, you can establish the right backup strategy for your organization.

IT Glue is a brand trusted by over 13,000 IT professionals as their single source of truth for all information in the IT environments they manage. By integrating IT Glue with your backup solution, you can save time and reduce operational costs. You can access all your backup information from Datto Continuity, Unitrends and Spanning in a single pane of glass alongside the rest of your documentation to increase backup visibility and asset protection.

To learn more about how IT Glue can help you master backup documentation, request a demo.

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The post Backup Documentation: Ensure Consistent Backups With the Right Documentation appeared first on IT Glue.

Having all your backup information in one place by centralizing its documentation would help you gain a grip on this problem since it will increase the visibility of all your data and reduce in real time the risks they’re exposed to. It will also help you stay compliant with data protection frameworks and keep your business safe.

Find out how you can easily and comprehensively document your backup systems with our Datto Continuity, Unitrends and Spanning integrations. These will help ensure your backup and recovery processes are running the way they’re supposed to without any problems.

Keep your backup information with the rest of your documentation

IT Glue is trusted by over 13,000 IT professionals as their single source of truth for all information in the IT environments they manage. Our growing number of integrations enable you to get a complete view of your IT environment by bringing in important information from your tech stack including PSA, RMM, network monitoring, Microsoft and backup solutions into our platform.

Technicians usually don’t log into the backup solutions daily. By consolidating your backup information and having it rest next to your other IT Glue documentation helps you stay more vigilant. It helps you increase the security of your assets and users. Also, it makes life convenient for you and your techs since you don’t have to access a different tool to verify your backups.

Integrating IT Glue with your backup solution saves time and reduces operational costs. You can access all your backup information from Datto Continuity, Unitrends and Spanning efficiently in a single pane of glass alongside the rest of your documentation to increase its visibility and protection.

Spanning for Microsoft

The newly launched Spanning for Microsoft integration in IT Glue lets you view your Microsoft Mail, Calendar, Contacts and OneDrive backup details altogether alongside the rest of your Contact Information that’s already in IT Glue. You can easily determine the user protection status for each of these Microsoft solutions along with other backup details like the last backup time and status, total protected asset size and asset backup time in IT Glue.

Datto Continuity 

The Datto Continuity integration in IT Glue enables IT professionals to check the status, integrity and setup of Datto backups across all protected assets. It lets you see the last backup time, last backup status, the latest recovery point for the backup and whether the backup was successful.

The integration will also enable you to automatically document the Datto SIRIS appliance in IT Glue. This includes the documentation of details such as used storage (local), available storage (local), cloud storage used and last check-in time. Additionally, these fields from Datto will be visible in IT Glue as Device Details from the latest backup: protected volumes count, unprotected volumes count, protected names and unprotected names.

Unitrends integration

This integration shows you status updates from all your Unitrends backups, including the last backup time and storage for endpoints in IT Glue. Additionally, it allows you to create a Backup Coverage Report and DR Runbook so you can bypass a lot of administrative work to keep track of your assets.

Backup Coverage Report

You can produce an automated PDF report to show the current backup state of any internal or client networks. This helps you discover risks or opportunities to create more revenue. You can determine how vulnerable a network may be if a disaster were to happen and prepare for it using the findings in this report.

DR Runbook

Every single minute after a disaster is crucial and you must be able to manage your time well and be as efficient as possible to quickly bring everything back up to speed so you can minimize downtime and cut or limit your (financial and other) losses.

With the new IT Glue DR Runbook, you can export an automated runbook that outlines all the Unitrends protected assets when a disaster strikes. This includes the most up-to-date device data to help you get the necessary information for recovery, ensuring no machines are missed, left with errors or incorrectly rebooted.

The DR Runbook lets you begin the recovery process instantaneously and you can even specify the boot order in which you want your machines to be recovered.

Get complete backup documentation in IT Glue

If you’d like to learn more about how you can optimize your backup and recovery processes with smart documentation, schedule a 1:1 demo session with one of our documentation experts.

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The post Comprehensively Document Backups in IT Glue With Datto Continuity, Unitrends & Spanning Integrations appeared first on IT Glue.

You work hard to provide impeccable service to your clients, manage their assets and keep your business operations running smoothly. Unfortunately, disaster may strike at any time. A critical part of IT success is to stay prepared to overcome these emergencies, so you can keep your clients’ networks and assets protected with minimal downtime.

Every single minute following a disaster is crucial. You must be able to manage your time well and be as efficient as possible to bring everything back up to speed. If you fail to do that, it could jeopardize your reputation as well as your revenue.

So, how can you ensure you are fully equipped to quickly recover following a disaster? The new IT Glue DR Runbook, through the Unitrends integration, is meant just for that. It enables you to export an automated standardized list of protected machines with their latest information, drastically improving your asset recovery time.

Comprehensive backup visibility

To leverage the DR Runbook, you must first enable the Unitrends integration in IT Glue. This allows you to bring in all your protected assets from Unitrends into IT Glue so you can easily see their backup health without switching solutions and wasting valuable time.

This integration shows you the Unitrends backup status, last backup time and storage for endpoints in IT Glue. Additionally, with the Unitrends Backup Coverage Report, you can produce an automated PDF report to show the current backup state of any internal or client networks. This helps you identify risks or opportunities to create more revenue.

Based on the Backup Coverage Report results, you can determine how vulnerable a network may be if a disaster were to happen and prepare accordingly.

DR Runbook

With the new IT Glue DR Runbook, you can export an automated runbook that outlines all the Unitrends protected assets after a disaster. This helps you begin the recovery process instantaneously and minimize downtime. With the exported DR runbook from IT Glue, you can then specify the boot order in which you want your machines to be recovered, so that you can ensure the most effective recovery for each function/department.

Once it is completed, you can send the IT Glue DR Runbook to the Unitrends DR-as-a-Service team to be used to kick off failover and recovery based on your boot order. If you do not use the DRaaS team, you may still utilize the DR Runbook for recovering impacted machines on your own.

The DR Runbook will include the most up-to-date device data to help you get the necessary information for recovery. This is a significant time saver. Normally, maintaining a list of all your machines and then identifying which were affected after a disaster is all done manually on a spreadsheet. However, with the Unitrends integration and the IT Glue DR Runbook, you can bypass a lot of administrative work to keep track of your assets, especially during times when you should simply focus on ensuring your IT environment is fully operational.

The automated DR Runbook ensures no machines are missed, left with errors or rebooted incorrectly. You can have peace of mind knowing that the DR Runbook will provide you with every single impacted machine and the necessary details to address potential issues.

Learn more about this feature in our Knowledge Base article.

The post IT Glue DR Runbook: Maximize Recovery Efficiency Following a Disaster appeared first on IT Glue.

If you are an IT professional, you are most likely managing dozens of assets that need protection, and your large tool stack is only complicating things further. This can change with our new Datto Continuity integration, which can bring in your backup information where the rest of your documentation resides for maximum efficiency and asset protection. 

By consolidating all of your assets alongside device backup information in one place, you can easily ensure your clients’ networks are never at risk. With the Datto Continuity integration, all backups will be synced to IT Glue so that you can easily review crucial backup information, determine the integrity of a network’s protection status, and quickly identify out-of-compliance issues and rectify them as needed. 

Consolidate all your assets and backup information

IT Glue is trusted by over 13,000 IT professionals as their single source of truth for all information in the IT environments they manage. With the growing number of IT Glue integration, you can have a consolidated view of your IT environment by bringing in important information from your tech stack including PSA, RMM, network monitoring, Microsoft and now Datto Continuity. 

Backup is not a tool technicians access every day. By pulling the information into IT Glue, which is accessed daily, technicians will have more visibility. 

The Datto Continuity information enriches your existing IT Glue configurations by bringing you fields you are already familiar with in Datto. 

Complete backup details in one pane

With this integration, you can see all the details about your backups directly in IT Glue, including the Datto SIRIS appliance and the protected assets. 

Datto SIRIS appliance: 

Automatically document Datto SIRIS appliance as IT Glue Configuration that will include details such as used storage (local), available storage (local), cloud storage used and last check-in time. 

Protected assets: 

You will get a single view for last backup time and last backup status. Additionally, you can easily determine whether the backup was successful, the latest recovery point for the backup and whether to use onsite or Datto’s cloud. This will help you quickly determine whether the configuration is protected. 

The following fields from Datto will be visible in IT Glue as Device Details as per the latest backup: protected volumes count, unprotected volumes count, protected names and unprotected names. 

Validate backup status and ensure integrity

Your clients are trusting you to ensure the continuity of their businesses, and you must aim to deliver on that promise. At a quick glance, validate the integrity of the protected configuration with a screenshot and the time stamp to ensure the backup is bootable. 

• You can see the integrity of your last backup by verifying when a successful screenshot was taken. You can provide a historical backup integrity summary information about the last 10 backups.  
• You can also quickly determine whether a client and their assets are protected with a single view for last backup time, last backup status, whether the backup was successful and the latest recovery point that you have offsite in Datto’s cloud. 
• Datto data volume updates will show up in IT Glue as well. This enables you to check whether volumes are protected, whether anyone added a new volume and whether a backup was set up. 

To learn more about the Datto Continuity integration, check out the Knowledge Base article.

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Considering the significance of business continuity, it is important to understand various aspects of business continuity planning and make it a part of your business operations. In this blog, we’ll explore everything business continuity entails and understand how it plays a critical role in developing a resilient business structure.

What is the meaning of business continuity?

In simple terms, business continuity focuses on creating a plan to deal with unexpected disruptions that take place in the business world. Although risk mitigation plays a major role in the functioning of all major business organizations, what happens when disaster strikes unannounced? This is where business continuity comes in.

It provides a roadmap to ensure that the essential functions of an organization are up and running quickly even after the occurrence of a disaster. With proper planning, you can keep mission-critical functions running throughout the organization and keep operational downtime to a bare minimum.

How do you ensure business continuity?

When thinking of hindrances to business continuity, we always think of major disasters like fire or cyberattacks. However, that isn’t always the case. The issue could be as simple as an employee leaving the organization with key information stored only in his memory. In such cases, you can ensure business continuity with well-documented processes.

To prepare for every scenario possible, you need to create a plan that addresses all aspects of business disruption. However, it doesn’t just end there. You need to constantly and consistently test and update the plan to ensure its effectiveness. In short, you need a business continuity management framework that acts as the foundation for all your business continuity efforts.

What is business continuity planning (BCP)?

A business continuity plan is a written document that provides an outline of how a business organization will continue to operate in the event of an unexpected disaster. These disasters could be anything including fire, flood, disease outbreaks, cyberattacks, etc. A BCP is the most integral part of ensuring business continuity since it identifies all potential threats and provides viable solutions.

Why do you need a business continuity plan?

Planning plays a critical role in any disaster prevention or risk management strategy. A BCP does exactly that and more. It provides an outline of what is necessary and how to react during a business disruption. Without a BCP, you won’t have a clear idea of what action needs to be taken when faced with a disaster. In essence, it is a written record of agreed-upon practices that should be adhered to.

Even when there are no key decision-makers around during times like the holiday season, a BCP can be used as a guide to follow standard business continuity practices.

What are the objectives of business continuity planning?

The main objective of business continuity planning is to recognize the potential threats to a business and come up with measures to counter them. Some of the key objectives of a business continuity plan are as follows:

• Prevent or minimize financial loss to an organization
• Serve customers even during an unexpected disruption
• Create contingency plans to mitigate the effects of various disruptions
• Identify key resources who can perform recovery operations
• Find weaknesses in solutions and come up with alternate solutions

What should a business continuity plan include?

Designing a business continuity plan is not a rigid process. It may differ from one organization to another. However, there are certain elements that could be applicable to all organizations. Here’s a list of common elements that should be included in a business continuity plan:

• All mission-critical functions and their complete analysis
• Data backup and recovery components
• An analysis of all IT functions within an organization
• A list of all major threats to a business
• A list of strategies and countermeasures against these threats
• Proof for all the tested strategies

You can also think of other key elements specific to your business while designing your plan.

When should a business continuity plan be updated and maintained?

A business continuity plan is not something you create once and then forget about. It is a critical part of your business, and you must periodically review and update it. You can update a plan when you come across new threats or solutions to existing threats. In fact, you must include anything that can provide you existing plan. Regular maintenance and review are essential if you want to be prepared for all kinds of threats to business continuity

Check out our Quick Start to Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery webinar.

What is business continuity testing?

For a business continuity plan to work successfully, you need to maintain certain quality standards. This helps ensure that your systems are running smoothly without any issues. Business continuity testing plays a key role in maintaining these quality standards. To put it simply, it gives you an idea of how prepared you are to deal with an unexpected disaster.

How do you test a business continuity plan?

Here are some proven ways to test your business continuity plan:

• Review the plan: Your testing process starts with a simple review of your existing plan. When reviewing the plan, you need to gather inputs from various departments and stakeholders. In addition to managers and business leaders, you need to include other individual stakeholders in the review process.
• Determine the duration: Your employees will often be too busy to take part in a testing process. That’s why you need to set aside some time for them to take part in it. Determine how long it should last so all involved stakeholders can prepare ahead and allocate time in their schedule.
• Create a scenario: You need to create a fake scenario of a disaster that affects your business. Your employees should perform their roles correctly during such scenarios. You need to monitor their activities and make sure everything is under control.
• Evaluate the results: Once the simulation is over, you need to evaluate the results of the test. This helps you identify areas of improvement and make modifications to the existing plan.

How often should business continuity plans be tested?

Testing should be a continuous process. The business continuity system is cyclical and relies on proper performance review and tweaking to run efficiently. But what if you don’t experience a disruption? How often should you stage a disruption to see how you perform? The answer lies in business continuity management.

What is business continuity management (BCM)?

Business continuity management refers to a framework that identifies the potential risk of exposure to various threats and the solutions you can incorporate. It measures an organization’s resilience against various threats and how the interests of various stakeholders can be safeguarded. It is a comprehensive framework that includes both the planning stage and the testing stage.

Why is business continuity management important?

Business continuity management begins with the development of policies and procedures that ensure business continuity. This framework helps an organization identify whether it has strictly adhered to all the procedures outlined in the document.

Under this framework, you recognize the need for business continuity management first, then proceed to assess threats at the internal and external level, followed by designing and implementing a comprehensive business continuity plan before finally testing and analyzing the effectiveness of the said plan and new or recurring threats.

This is a cyclical process that has responsibilities for stakeholders at each step. The framework also helps businesses ensure that each member is performing what is expected for business resilience.

Who is responsible for business continuity management?

The responsibility falls on the entire organization without a doubt. Each member has a role to perform when it comes to ensuring business continuity after a disaster. Your employees need to be aware of the potential threats and they must know how to act in case of an unexpected disruption. Considering the level of responsibility associated with everyone, having a well-documented system in place is of critical importance.

Business continuity documentation with IT Glue

IT Glue is one of the top players in the industry when it comes to business continuity documentation. With our powerful platform, you can document all aspects of business continuity including security policies, guidelines, procedures, system information and more. By keeping your documentation up to date and sharing it with your team members through IT Glue, you can ensure instant access when in need of business continuity.

IT Glue’s SOC 2-compliant documentation platform features an immutable audit trail, multifactor authentication and next-generation password management engine. These features are fully integrated and linked with all your documentation.

To learn more about how IT Glue can help you with business continuity, request a demo.

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First off, attitude in the context of your business refers to collective attitude. As the leader, it also refers to your individual attitude. If times get tough and you start running around like a chicken with its head cut off, you’re done. If you as leader are willing to calmly fight your way through whatever challenges arise, then your team will draw inspiration from that. If you’re the owner, I presume the skin you have in the game is all the motivation you need, but this goes for leadership at all levels.

Collective attitude is something you build into your culture. And a resilient attitude is a combination of determination and resourcefulness. That attitude of “it’s not over until we win” not only points you in the right direction, but it permits you to do whatever you need to win. Tap into collective creativity. If something isn’t working, be prepared to pivot. Be brutally honest – not brutal, but brutally honest about your strategies and tactics.

Think about the coronavirus situation. You probably came into this with an entire way of doing business that worked. Then, just like that, the old rules get thrown out the window. If you’re going to insist on doing the same things during and post-corona that worked before, you are doing your company and yourself a disservice. You have to be willing to let go of old habits and patterns that no longer serve you.

At IT Glue, a lot of good stuff is baked into how we do business, but we’ve had to make a few significant changes to our approach because of the current situation. That’s resilience – keep what works, discard what doesn’t, and always be prepared to fight, every single day.

If you’re good at what you do, and the vast majority of you are, then attitude is going to be one of the most important factors determining whether you fail, survive, or thrive in 2020 and beyond.

If you haven’t had the opportunity to see why over 150,000 users love IT Glue, request a demo! Our award-winning platform is the most widely used and has a wealth of game-changing features, not to mention the highest number of integrations.

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Hiring & Firing

Obviously you want to hire the best people, but attracting the best is easier said than done. If you’re really good at sales, you don’t sell low value items on salary; you sell luxury real estate, investments or something else that makes you fat stacks. The same principle applies in every business – people who know their worth make a point to work in the company that gets them the most. The most money, the best work environment, all the things. Your HR strategy has to include building the environment that works for your hiring needs. Attracting the best candidates requires some quality marketing as well, but you need to have something to market in order to get a commitment. As for firing, just remember the old adage that it’s not who you hire that hurts your business, it’s who you don’t fire.

Training & Retention

An HR function that can be quite powerful is defining the roles in each organization, and what training is required to ensure that the people in those roles have the tools they need to be their best. Be aware that many roles change over time, so defining roles is a continuous process. Retaining employees usually starts with making sure that their roles, workdays and compensation are all aligned – and aligned with the employee’s own sense of personal worth. There’s a balancing act in there that can be difficult to master, so don’t take retention lightly.

Work from Home

May as well just say it, business resilience does mean having flexibility in working arrangements. If your employees need to avoid the office for whatever reason, then you need a specific plan to make that transition smooth. What used to be a “nice to have” perk has become a business essential, so take work from home out of your business continuity plan and put it straight into your HR operating plan.

Talent Pipeline

Investing in your talent is key to retention. You need to have people ready to step up in the event of a key departure. That means training, and building, and yes, counting on the fact that a few of them won’t want to improve and a few others will take their skills elsewhere. Turnover is part of business, so the key isn’t to avoid turnover by not investing in your workforce; the key is making sure turnover doesn’t hurt your business. There’s also technology that can help you build resilience against turnover. We’ve heard IT Glue’s documentation software, which helps you turn individual knowledge into company knowledge.

If people are truly the most important thing in your business, and they probably are, then HR functions have to be treated with equivalent importance. There’s a reason the world is shifting from the old school “HR as a line item” mentality to one governed by the principles of strategic HR management.

If you’re curious about how documentation helps you build turnover resilience, we should talk more. Start with our demo video, and we can go from there.

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