LRS Small Business Tech Services

We provide technical consulting, emergency response service, and support for small to medium-sized businesses located within a 60-mile radius of Springfield, Illinois. The businesses benefiting the most from our service are those without the need for a full-time IT employee on staff, or those businesses whose in-house IT staff is already overworked.

Your data is vital to your business; protect it by backing up daily with these safety procedures in place.

• Regularly review your backup logs
• Check the management window every backup
• Review offsite backup status

If your existing backup system is beginning to show its age, then perhaps now is a good time to evaluate other options that were not available previously. For years, backing up to tape was the most reliable, cost effective, and widely used method for companies of all sizes. The cost of hard disk-based storage has rapidly decreased in recent years. Therefore, disk-based backups are now a more cost effective and efficient means for data backup and preferred over the older tape-based systems.

Backup technology has changed over the years, gone are the days of 1 nightly backup a day, to backup jobs that can run every hour and as those backup jobs run the information from that job is instantly replicated to a secure offsite data center.  If you are concerned that your backup is not efficient or would like us to review your backup technology with you let us know and we can help you out!

Yes!  Absolutely!  In fact, in Microsoft states within their service agreement for 365 that it is up to each customer to  backup content and data that is stored on their services.  LRS Small Business Tech Services can help any Office 365 customer in protecting that data.

Vigilance is the key to blocking online attacks with these defensive maneuvers.

• Install a trusted and reliable anti-virus solution
• Install proper firewalls
• Make sure your firewall and operating system are up to date
• Limit administrative access, when possible, on workstations
• Implement strong password policies
• Provide basic training for your employees to help identify potential malicious activity

Without the proper Internet firewalls or anti-virus solutions, your system can become quickly compromised. We recommend using a Next Generation firewall (such as Fortinet) which combines a traditional firewall with other network device filtering (such as web, application, and intrusion prevention).  Since malicious code is always evolving, it is vital to ensure your operating system and software patches are deployed as quickly as possible. Through our remote monitoring service, we keep a watchful eye on your IT network continuously and receive alerts if anything needs immediate attention.

Yes!  For companies that want to have LRS maintain their entire network, we have a proactive solution in which we can monitor the network and fix items remotely or onsite as issues arise.

Yes! For companies that have a security need to implement MFA (multi-factor authentication) company-wide we have a solution to help.  This solution can be implemented on each desktop / server within the organization to require a user to not only put in their password but to approve an MFA request that would be sent to their mobile device.

The benefits associated with proper IT maintenance all equate to time and money savings and include the following.

• Reduced IT maintenance costs
• Avoidance of unnecessary repair costs
• Increased speed and reduce downtime
• Adoption of newer tested technologies
• Prevention of problems
• Increased productivity
• An environment secure from viruses and hackers

Implement these four practices to help keep technology current.

• Adopt a 3-year life cycle for IT equipment and computers
• Allocate your budget to replace one-third of your computers annually
• Consider high costs to repair old machinery once out of warranty
• Be aware of invisible costs to productivity like slow boot times and unresponsive programs

Protect your computer equipment by staying aware of technological advances.

• Perform regular checks for service and computer updates
• Prevent problems rather than repair them
• Resolve issues quickly by staying up to date
• Avoid unnecessary costs by staying current

Since security is a priority, use these practices to fend off attacks and security breaches.

• Don’t use default passwords
• Always secure your wireless network with accepted encryption standards
• Always create unique and complicated passwords
• Be wary of using open networks for secure transactions
• Never give out your password
• Implement MFA (multi-factor authentication) if available
• If you’re unsure of how safe something is, ask a professional