Welcome back to another edition of The Trigon Times. Summer is almost here and judging by our conversations with local small-to-midsized businesses, it appears that the economy is heating up as well! Speaking of which, we’d like to take a moment to thank everyone for truly partnering with us and allowing us to grow with them. We are truly grateful to be able to work with such good people… clients, prospects, vendors and co-workers alike.

In this issue, we address your company’s unsung heroes – routing and switching! Virtualization is something that we’ve been implementing for many of our clients, so we’ve included some tips on how to best avoid common pitfalls. Do you enjoy protecting your company from looming disaster (i.e. End of the World – 5/21/11)? Fabulous! We’ve included several options on how to disaster-proof your business. We even look out for you when you’re moving your office. Trigon keep can help keep you productive even if your PCs and servers aren’t on!

As always, if you’d like more information on any of the topics covered in our newsletter, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Also, if you want a specific topic covered in our next edition, please send us an email at solutions@TrigonIT.com. Be sure to check out the blog on our website every day for original content, technology news and compelling insights from our very own Engineers.

Disaster-Proof Your Business
by Jeff Wuorio
used with permission from the Microsoft Business Site

If you're a business owner, you need to know how to protect your business.

Try as we might, there's often no way to skirt disaster — whether it's national, personal or weather induced. But there are strategies to cope with it as best we can, no matter if its source is a burst river levee, a thoughtlessly discarded match, or the deranged actions of others. Knowing what to do in the event of a disaster is crucial for anyone, of course, but particularly for a small-business owner, whose livelihood may depend on a small storefront or home basement office.

Start with some strategies. Here's a checklist that can help you set up an effective and comprehensive small-business disaster plan:

Read more

Business continuity is an issue that no organization can afford to ignore. In fact, according to The Definitive Handbook for Business Management, between 60 and 90 percent of companies without a proactive disaster plan find themselves out of business within 24 months of experiencing a major disaster.

Increasingly, IT power and cooling are becoming more important as factors in ensuring business continuity. These 10 steps provide a good start for ensuring the integrity and availability of your IT systems.

1. Assess your situation.
Review existing power and cooling systems to identify threats and vulnerabilities to business continuity.

Read more

Unsung Heroes - How Routing & Switching
Keep the Business Going
used with permission from the Cisco Website

Routers and switches are the building blocks for all business communications from data to voice and video to wireless access. They can improve a company’s bottom line by enabling your company to increase productivity, cut business costs, and improve security and customer service.

Specifically, routers and switches support:

Sharing applications
•Provide staff access to business applications
•Improve employee productivity

Read more

Moving your office? 5 tips for Staying Productive
by Christopher Elliott
Reprinted with permission from the Microsoft Small Business Center

Even if you are only moving to another floor in your building, the thought of relocating probably sounds about as appealing as going totally without carbs for a week.

After all, moving your business or home is widely considered one of the single-most stressful life events for an individual. Add to that the prospect of losing valuable work time, and you can understand why small-business owners like Michael Hirschfeld try to get out of town when the business remodels, relocates or redecorates.

"I have always been scheduled to be out of town for the day before, day of, and day after moving day," says Hirschfeld, the managing partner of a real-estate company in Westport, Conn. "Simply put, less is more."

Read more

Avoid Virtualization Pitfalls
Five best practices for getting started with virtualization
reprinted with permission from HP

To save money on equipment and time on system maintenance, more and more businesses are deploying virtual servers. Reduced overhead and simplified management can free up resources that can be applied toward innovation and other valuable projects that sharpen the business' competitive edge.

But virtualization does have its pitfalls.

Read more

Business Continuity Tip

Tornado Preparedness
Checklist for Your Business

Over the past week, 15 states were hit by severe tornadoes. All told, hundreds of tornadoes were reported and many people lost their lives.

The economic impact on the business community has yet to be determined, but one thing is certain, those businesses with a continuity and disaster recovery plan in place are the key to recovery for some of the hardest hit areas.

The following checklist will help mitigate the risk to your business, and help protect your most important asset – your people.

Download this Tornado Preparedness Checklist from Agility Recovery.

Quote of the Month

Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children.

- Charles R. Swindoll
The Proud Family

Just for Laughs