If your business is hit with an IT disaster, do you have the tools and planning to respond effectively? Or are you scrambling to find solutions?

If you want to survive a disaster, it's best to be prepared for anything, including an unplanned IT system shutdown (known as an "IT disaster"). IT disasters knock you offline, halting productivity and potentially erasing valuable data.

Technology is an integral part of modern businesses. When you acquire a new business, have you considered its current IT setup and what it may look like once it is merged with your company?

Communicating and assessing expectations is crucial for a smooth transition.

Have you recently called your IT provider for more unplanned on-site visits than usual? Instead of sticking to the routine IT maintenance visits, are your provider's IT technicians now being called to your location to fix a growing-laundry list of minor issues?

You may wonder, "Do I need to hire an on-site IT technician, or is my IT provider not working out?"

We've put together seven questions to help determine whether your company might benefit from hiring an internal IT technician to help with small, daily IT tasks.

If you turn on your computer and all of your files are gone? What do you do? How does it affect your business?

If you are hit by ransomware, do you know how quickly you can be back online?

What do you need to return to productivity when vital IT applications or hardware go down?

These situations are examples of IT disasters, and they can halt productivity, damage your reputation, and accrue significant financial losses if they are not handled swiftly and effectively.

When you say the phrase "IT disaster," often it's associated with a natural disaster or catastrophic damage to your office building. But IT disasters are more than facility damage. They can be anything—seemingly big or small—that affects your IT setup in a way that halts productivity.

Backup systems are essential to IT disaster recovery and minimizing IT downtime. But what affects the prices of the different services? Why does the cost vary between applications and services? What is the actual cost of backup services?

The answer is, "Well, it depends on what you want from your backups.

What would you do if you turned on your computer and suddenly everything was gone? Would you have the backups you need to restore your computer, or would all the data be lost forever?

IT backups are an essential part of IT disaster recovery planning.

What would you do if you turned on your computer and saw only a blank screen? No files or programs to open, just a blank slate. What data are you most worried about losing? Do you know how to get it back?

IT backups are an essential defense against IT disasters because they can restore crucial data and systems if hardware memory is compromised or erased.

"Under-promise, over-deliver" is a classic phrase that encourages salespeople to go above and beyond for their clients. But what if you feel you're with an IT provider who over-promises and under-delivers?

IT providers are meant to be partners driven to help your business grow.

If you're unhappy with your IT provider, you might consider leaving your old provider and hiring a new one. But what does this transition look like? What steps do you need to take to change providers?

Unfortunately, you can't make this switch overnight.

When browsing the internet, it's easy to run into offers for free IT risk assessments. But are they helpful and effective for your business? Or are they a sales pitch?

Some free assessments can indeed bring immediate, glaring dangers to light. However, these assessments are often ineffective in the long wrong due to the limited time and resources used.

If you find a computer sale at your local store, should you take advantage of it? If your business needs new computers, do you know what kind to buy?

Business-grade and consumer-grade hardware and software are built with different user functionality.