The IT strategy for most Canadian companies faced a pivot in 2020/2021, to very quickly support  a remote workforce. While initially it was a mad scramble, most organizations were able to adapt and thrive with a remote workforce.

The Internet has changed the way we do business in an uncountable number of ways. It’s hard to say which Internet-based innovation has changed our world the most, but if we were to make a list, cloud services would be very near the top.

This is the first in a series of blog posts focused on “consumers” of data centre services. Our goal is to provide some visibility into the “provider” side of the data centre business.

Below is a great article reprinted with permission. See links below to the original posting from Darren Ghan of Data Centre Legal Services.

WHY IS DISASTER RECOVERY PLANNING IMPORTANT?

IT World Canada recently spoke with Dan Hamilton, VP of Technology at Whipcord about the secret to successful Disaster Recovery in the face of growing cybersecurity threats.  

WHY IS DISASTER RECOVERY PLANNING IMPORTANT?

In today’s increasingly complex IT environment, businesses are under great pressure to manage and protect their data from various types of threats. From ransomware attacks to unforeseen natural disasters, there are a multitude of threats that can put business operations in jeopardy. In addition, data retention legislation is impacting how businesses manage, store and protect their customer’s data, which adds another layer of complexity.

So how do organizations demonstrate data management compliance and prove to their stakeholders that they can recover from a disaster with minimal impact to the business? Well, it begins by being proactive and building strong business continuity plans around their critical IT applications that their users need to perform their daily functions.

Disaster recovery planning is a critical part of business continuity planning, as it revives the company’s IT operations and processes if a disaster strikes. Having a plan in place that’s proven to work can save a company time, money and its reputation. Many companies have already made disaster recovery a priority and invested heavily in modern and reliable solutions. In fact, Gartner Research has estimated that businesses will have invested more than $3.7 billion in disaster recovery methods from 2017 through to 2021.

Unfortunately, to this day, many companies still don’t have a disaster recovery plan in place and are still using outdated methods to back up data. Some don’t even perform adequate testing to ensure that their backups are recoverable or uncorrupted.

So, what if your business is still in the dark ages of disaster recovery planning, but wants to take proactive steps in a new direction? Where do you start? Here are some general tips that can help you get started in building a disaster recovery plan for your business:

What is Ransomware and why it’s increasing

Most recently many businesses have transitioned their workforce to work from home, making them increasingly reliant on being digitally connected through a variety of devices. Although there are many advantages to this change, we’re also seeing some disadvantages in terms of increased ransomware attacks due to the significant growth of devices being left exposed. In the first half of 2020, ransomware attacks reached an all-time high, and we continuously hear about new attacks happening every week. What is often happening in these attacks, is the hackers are encrypting servers and files with ransomware before demanding a large sum of bitcoin in order to release the resources. These costly attacks can range from hundreds of thousands to even millions of dollars.

This frightening ongoing trend is putting all types of business on high alert and demanding that they prioritize their IT security and disaster recovery plans.

Evaluating different factors of Private Cloud

If you’re in an IT technical role you likely already have a good understanding of the different cloud services options and the various providers out there. As you already know, there are a few different benefits of public, private and hybrid cloud environments. If your company is currently going through the process of evaluating which type of cloud deployment will work best for their organization, they’re likely looking at few different factors such as security, cost, control and scalability.

So, when does private cloud become the top contender for deployment? Let’s look at the reasons why an organization might choose private cloud and who those organizations might be.

Challenges in Scaling up IT Infrastructure

With the recent shifts in the economic landscape, several industries are facing challenges in scaling up their IT infrastructure and responding to new mandatory work from home protocols set forth by governments. These new regulations are demanding that companies respond rapidly to enable their workforce to work remotely.

Over the years, Whipcord has been assisting companies with technology, tools and expertise to facilitate such demands. We’ve created some helpful tips that may help companies to evaluate their existing IT resources and begin to scale their remote work capabilities in response to the changing environment.

If you're a business searching for a solution that offers more reliability during times of uncertainty, then you're not alone. Everyday it seems like there's another report predicting those uncertain times are increasing, with outages being "bound to continue as extreme weather events become more frequent and severe.” Hearing about how BC Hydro's customer outages have tripled in the past 5 years, the luxury of a Disaster Recovery (DR) solution has now become a necessity.

Living in BC today, we’re used to the beautiful scenery, greenery, mountains, parks and of course the rain, but what we’re hearing about in the headlines paints a much different picture:

Well first off, the Internet of Things is a buzzword. And like many technical buzzwords, the underlying concept that it purports to describe existed long before the media-friendly “IoT” moniker came into existence.

Most people who are considering moving to the cloud are familiar with public cloud services such as those offered by Amazon, Microsoft and Google. However, while those services have attributes in common, private cloud services – such as those offered by Whipcord – are different.

There’s more to choosing an IT partner than just searching for a solution that meets your technical requirements. Your partner will become an extension of your team, so it’s important to take the time to find the right fit, and asking the right questions is the first step in creating a trusting and lasting relationship. In this mini-series we’ll explore the most important questions we’d want you to ask someone like us! 

There’s more to choosing an IT partner than just searching for a solution that meets your technical requirements. Your partner will become an extension of your team, so it’s important to take the time to find the right fit, and asking the right questions is the first step in creating a trusting and lasting relationship. In this mini-series we’ll explore the most important questions we’d want you to ask someone like us! 

There’s more to choosing an IT partner than just searching for a solution that meets your technical requirements. Your partner will become an extension of your team, so it’s important to take the time to find the right fit, and asking the right questions is the first step in creating a trusting and lasting relationship. In this mini-series we’ll explore the most important questions we’d want you to ask someone like us!

There’s more to choosing an IT partner than just searching for a solution that meets your technical requirements. Your partner will become an extension of your team, so it’s important to take the time to find the right fit, and asking the right questions is the first step in creating a trusting and lasting relationship. In this mini-series we’ll explore the most important questions we’d want you to ask someone like us!

There’s more to choosing an IT partner than just searching for a solution that meets your technical requirements. Your partner will become an extension of your team, so it’s important to take the time to find the right fit, and asking the right questions is the first step in creating a trusting and lasting relationship. In this mini-series we’ll explore the most important questions we’d want you to ask someone like us!

There’s more to choosing an IT partner than just searching for a solution that meets your technical requirements. Your partner will become an extension of your team, so it’s important to take the time to find the right fit, and asking the right questions is the first step in creating a trusting and lasting relationship. In this mini-series we’ll explore the most important questions we’d want you to ask someone like us!

The rate of cloud adoption will continue to rise in 2019 and be harder to ignore as more CIOs are challenged by the enormous costs of managing infrastructure while dealing with the high costs of delivering availability, security and performance. With a booming economy, enterprises will often overlook inefficiencies and real infrastructure costs because they don’t have to worry about it at the time. However, forward-looking CIOs will start preparing for the inevitable downturn by focusing on reigning in costs and reducing operational risk, while delivering a superior experience to their customers.

Whipcord is pleased to welcome Blackcloud to our Lethbridge data centre! Blackcloud's Biostar Hardware arrived at our flagship data centre, August 8th, 2018.

So far we’ve discussed networks and protocols. Both have been fairly general topics. but now we come to something a little more specific: Internet Protocol (or IP) addresses, specifically with a focus on IPv4 (Internet Protocol Version 4).

A protocol, in general terms, might be described as a formal set of rules to govern interactions between two entities. Another way to think of them might be like shared languages. For example, if I’m speaking Inuktitut and you’re speaking Swahili, our conversation likely won't be very fruitful.

In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, I outlined several key aspects of IT infrastructure, the prevailing types of cloud and managed infrastructure and the different approaches to creating a business case for the cloud. So how do we bring it all together?

What exactly is private cloud, and how is it different from public cloud services?

I think one way to look at it is that private cloud is the sort of cloud you would choose to build for yourself. Based on an industry standard platform, fully compatible with your existing Enterprise applications, secure and isolated from the public Internet.

Okay, call me a grammar nerd if you'd like, but when we talk about the Internet, it should be capitalized.

In this blog series we'll present the business case for cloud computing to empower more organizations to see the financial advantages that augment the technological benefits of migrating to cloud computing. In this series installment, we'll delve further into the different types of Cloud and the associated costs. 

A network, in its most basic sense, is just a collection of things that can communicate with each other.

In the IT world, networks exist to exchange information between individual devices, or “nodes”. This could be as simple as two devices directly connected to each other (we call this a Point-to-Point network) or it could be hundreds or thousands of devices connected with various switches and routers.

Disaster Recovery Has Never Looked This Good

The top sources of financial loss for businesses are downtime caused by uncontrollable factors like hardware failure - but did you know, 58% of downtime incidents are actually caused by human error, while natural disaster account for only 10%? So, while your biggest concern is a Chinook coming in after a big snow fall, Janet over in reception is getting way too excited talking about her new Instant Pot, knocking her cup of coffee all over her computer.

It’s difficult to talk about computing and IT infrastructure without the conversation quickly turning to the Cloud. For those who approach new technology with some skepticism or reservation, this can appear as another overly-hyped marketing gimmick - especially for those that have recently made an investment in their premise-based infrastructure. However, for others it’s a powerful technology, enabling businesses to do more with less and access technology previously out of reach or reserved for very large enterprises. In this blog series we'll present the business case for cloud computing to empower more organizations to properly understand the business case and financial advantages that augment the technological benefits of migrating to Cloud computing.

You may have heard the Internet described as “a network of networks”. This is in fact quite accurate. (Or perhaps “a series of tubes”, which, although not entirely inaccurate, is a whole different discussion.)

The routing protocol that allows us to navigate these interconnected networks is known as Border Gateway Protocol, or BGP. In BGP parlance, each of the individual networks that make up the Internet is known as an Autonomous System or AS.

It's here! NEW Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 1.5

Mitigate the risk of losing access to email data and ensure Availability for Office 365 users. With version 1.5 and existing email recovery technology, users can increase scalability, take advantage of powerful automation and self-service restore, and expand platform support. 

When it comes to moving your servers off-site, the only real question is “if not here, then why there?” The IT field experiences rapid advancements that give data centres an edge over what other businesses can provide for themselves, from a high level of physical security to network speeds.

Do you remember being admonished as a child for holding the refrigerator door open? Or what about air conditioning – we often hear that raising our thermostats slightly in the summer can result in significant savings.

The data centre is no different in terms of energy conservation strategies; we just do things on a much larger scale. 

When the lights go out, we often rely on Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) or “battery backup” systems to keep our computers running. From small and inexpensive home or office units to multi-megawatt data centre installations, these systems all perform the same basic task; they use batteries to supply power to computers and other IT equipment for brief periods when utility power is down. But that’s where the similarity ends - there are some important differences between consumer and enterprise UPS systems. 

In my previous post, we explored the difference between Volt-Amps and Watts, and came to the conclusion that, with today’s power-factor-corrected equipment, these two measurements are usually nearly identical.

When searching for a provider to outsource your infrastructure to, the cloud is an attractive option for most businesses, but not every organization is ready to make that leap. A data centre exists to protect equipment and data while offering cost-efficient solutions with higher reliability, increased connectivity and improved physical security.

If you’re seriously considering moving from an in-house server room to a colocation facility, you'll likely have some questions about power. What is a Volt-Ampere, you may be asking, and how is a VA rating different from a power rating in Watts?

When you take advantage of colocation you’re renting space in a data centre for your servers, storage hardware and network devices, leveraging the facility’s resiliency and physical security to provide you the ideal environment for your infrastructure. However, with the rise of cloud services, you may be wondering how colocation is still relevant?

Wow! After a big week in Boston at the Inbound 2017 Conference, I’m excited to head back to Canada and share all my newfound knowledge with my team.

As a business, your recovery point objectives (RPO) and recovery time objectives (RTO) are important aspects to your disaster recovery plan. As part of that plan, your data should be backed up or replicated and knowing your RPO and RTO will help you make an informed decision on what’s right for your business.

In 1950, mathematician Alan Turing shared his belief that computers would one day be so powerful that they would be able to think and also that artificial intelligence would become a reality. He created the Universal Turing Machine in 1936 that could be programmed to do anything, thus starting a new era of business computing. Turing also had a huge impact during World War II, but this wasn’t widely known until the 1970s as his work for the military was considered top-secret.

The biggest concern during a disaster is the financial loss that businesses will incur based on their ability to keep recovery time (RTO) low. Larger corporations have the financial resources and staff to reduce downtime, but the statistics for small to medium sized businesses are not as encouraging. It’s important to have a plan in case of disaster – which can be anything from a natural disaster to an internal failure. But, the decision on which service to utilize will depend on your in-house IT specialists so before making your decision you’ll want to consider your available resources, risks and the subsequent financial losses you may face.

When talking about disaster, most people immediately think of natural disasters, but there are more risks than just heavy rain or damaging winds. It’s important to consider man-made disasters when assessing your risks like chemical spills, cyberattacks or arson.

You can arm your company with all the best resources from software to hardware, but you’re still only as strong as your weakest link. Did you know that ‘people’ pose the highest security threat? It’s important that everyone within your organization adheres to a set of best practice security measures and knows what to do and who to talk to about cyber security, because it’s not enough to only be protected by an anti-virus.

At Whipcord we’re proud of our talented team - from the members of our Network Operations Centre (NOC) to our front-line sales team, we work hard to provide our clients with comprehensive high touch service. Today we’re featuring a newer member of our NOC who was integral in developing our new Bandwidth Accounting System.

If your company has experienced security issues, you may be wondering where you went wrong? You’ll be surprised to know that when it comes to protecting your infrastructure, there’s more to it than just the physical location of your servers and the software security you utilize. 

The Veeam ^® Availability Platform enables businesses of all sizes to ensure Availability for virtual, physical and cloud-based workloads. Veeam, through Whipcord, is offering free licences with only storage costs until December 31, 2017.

It’s undisputable that cloud solutions are on the rise, with Forbes predicting that within the next year 80% of all IT budgets will be committed to cloud solutions. The cloud continues to gain momentum as perception positively increases, and there are many advantages influencing the rise in businesses making the shift towards it.

There’s a misconception surrounding the cloud that it’s complicated. If you ask around, most people would give you a different interpretation of what they think it is. But ironically, the cloud offers a far more simplistic storage solution than previous methods. The need for cloud services is on the rise, with Gartner predicting “IaaS will grow 36.8% this year and reach $34.6 billion."

A solid disaster recovery plan ensures your company is resilient to IT disruptions and is able to restore services in case of disaster. Veeam's Availability Suite™ 9.5 offers more than just regular backups, instead it leverages IT investments in server virtualization, modern storage and the cloud. Together, Veeam, Whipcord and our partner Open Storage Solutions make it simple to create a comprehensive Availability strategy that includes an off-site infrastructure in the cloud.

Although cloud replication has proven itself to be a trusted and long running system to keeping your backup data secure and up to date, I have discovered that it involves exactly zero clouds. While this was a small setback in my research, I now know that Replication gives businesses and networks a cloud-based replica of your environment. This replica allows for easy access to a recent backup of a singular virtual machine, a set of VM’s (Virtual Machines) or even an entire network, along with the ability to switch over to said replica should anything go wrong with your own environment.

If you use a computer often, you've likely have had inconvenient experiences resulting in data loss. From accidentally deleting a work-in-progress to your network being three feet deep in water, data loss can leave a serious negative impact on your businesses performance. Fortunately, services such as Veeam Cloud Connect Backup can be a solution to these problems, letting you can rest easy knowing you have a (literal) backup plan.

Whipcord is excited to announce our expansion into the Toronto market and to help us kick off our launch, we're co-hosting an event on February 22 with Veeam and CareTek.

Data centre services company, Whipcord, sees success in 2016, looks to increased growth in 2017

We're Canadian...eh? 

Whipcord is proudly Canadian owned and operated with all of our facilities and infrastructure located in Canada. We guarantee that your data stays here, meaning that it's secure and not bound by the US Patriot Act.

Our team specializes in four key areas

We're a one-stop-shop for all your needs with our experts specializing in colocation, backup & replication, cloud and network and we can combine services to create the best fit for your business.

Recently we had the opportunity to attend the Convergence Conference in Calgary, Alberta with our partner Wolf Creek Public Schools. Convergence brings together teachers, technology experts within schools, and government and industry representatives from across Alberta to discover emerging technologies and trends in the marketplace.

Wolf Creek has been a partner of ours since the summer of 2016 and we were pleased that they were hosting a talk on the infrastructure solutions we have provided to them. To read more in depth about how we worked to move Wolf Creek to an offsite Infrastructure as a Service solution, download their case study!

So why would an educational organization choose Whipcord? Follow along as we discuss our top four reasons over the coming weeks.

Growing Cloud Service Provider Deploys InfiniBox to Exceed Customer Requirements and Deliver Dependable Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service

BUILDING A STRONG PARTNERSHIP THROUGH IaaS

• Wolf Creek Public Schools (WCPS) is a leading school division in Alberta for using technology to enhance student learning to meet the needs of staff, students and their parents
• Whipcord specializes in colocation, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), backup & disaster recovery and connectivity

As an addition to our growing suite of services, Whipcord is offering a flexible monitoring solution. This allows you to monitor your application, database, uptime, CPU, RAM, network, etc. - whatever is important to you.

Data services company, Whipcord expands into Vancouver, hosts launch event with Veeam

Whipcord is excited to announce our expansion into the Vancouver and Toronto markets and to help us kick off our launch, we're co-hosting an event on July 12 with partners Veeam, 3Copies and Skyway West.

Press release from Infinidat

This week we sent four of our team members to the annual Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce Golf Scramble. The Lethbridge Chamber is a strong advocate for and provides a voice for businesses in the city of Lethbridge, where our flagship location has called home for the past 16 years.

Press release from Infinidat

What an exciting day! Today we launched not only our redesigned website, but a fresh new logo. Whipcord has many large projects in the works this year as we expand into new markets and we feel our new logo represents the endless solutions we can offer our clients.