Tips

Tips

• 7 predictive analytics skills to improve simulation modeling

  Predictive analytics skills such as statistical analysis, data preprocessing and model evaluation can help data professionals build more accurate, dynamic simulation models.  Continue Reading

• Implement a business continuity plan for remote workers

  Business continuity efforts don't stop when employees go remote. Learn how to create and manage a reliable business continuity plan for remote workers.  Continue Reading

• Can AI predict natural disasters?

  AI technology works with vast amounts of information to provide data-driven planning. Learn how AI can help organizations prepare for upcoming disruptions with this tip.  Continue Reading

• Change management in business continuity

  Change management and business continuity share a common goal: Preventing future disruptions. Find out where change management fits into business continuity planning here.  Continue Reading

• Best practices for VoIP disaster recovery

  VoIP technology can provide communications support in a crisis. Disaster recovery teams must protect VoIP systems just as you would any server holding mission-critical information.  Continue Reading

• Business continuity failures: 5 real-world examples to study

  Business continuity failures are costly and can significantly harm a company's reputation. These five high-profile examples demonstrate what can go wrong when a plan fails.  Continue Reading

• 6 DRaaS risks to assess and mitigate

  Cloud DR is a popular strategy today, but not exactly invulnerable to threats. Assess the risks associated with DRaaS and learn to mitigate them before a crisis strikes.  Continue Reading

• 7 top cloud-based analytics tools for enterprise use

  Cloud-based analytics tools offer flexible deployment, advanced visualization and integration capabilities to help organizations turn data into actionable insights.  Continue Reading

• Organizational vs. operational resilience

  Organizational and operational resilience are two critical components of BCDR. Learn the differences between the two and how to establish them for peak resilience.  Continue Reading

• 8 data sanitization software options for businesses

  These eight data sanitization software options can help backup administrators protect sensitive information, ease compliance and strengthen data security.  Continue Reading

• Data center power outage causes and how to prevent them

  Mitigating data center power outages is crucial for business survival. Learn the strategies today's organizations use to safeguard their critical infrastructure from disruptions.  Continue Reading

• Clear, Purge, Destroy: NIST media sanitization 101

  NIST SP 800-88 outlines how to responsibly destroy data and keep confidential information out of the wrong hands. Learn more about the NIST guidelines for media sanitization here.  Continue Reading

• High availability and resiliency are vital to a DR strategy

  Together, high availability and resiliency can prepare an organization for potential disruptions. Find out how these metrics work in disaster recovery.  Continue Reading

• 4 types of simulation models used in data analytics

  Combining different types of simulation models with predictive analytics enables organizations to forecast events and improve the accuracy of data-driven decisions.  Continue Reading

• The importance of a data destruction policy

  Data destruction policies increase backup efficiency, ease data management and help organizations meet compliance requirements for data storage.  Continue Reading

• 8 top cloud analytics certifications

  Cloud data analytics certifications enhance careers and business efficiency. Compare costs, skills taught and time required to earn top credentials.  Continue Reading

• The difference between data cleansing and data transformation

  Data cleansing corrects errors to improve data quality, while data transformation changes data format and structure to support analytics processes.  Continue Reading

• 10 ways to reduce your MTTR

  Mean time to repair is a critical metric for BCDR professionals. Learn how to calculate and reduce MTTR with this tip.  Continue Reading

• 7 ways to improve your ransomware backup strategy

  It's time to review your strategy for ransomware backup and recovery.  Continue Reading

• The road to carbon neutrality is paved with efficient backups

  Backups are an unavoidable aspect of IT that can contribute to a larger carbon footprint. Learn how your business can transition to a more carbon-neutral backup strategy here.  Continue Reading

• Use a business impact analysis questionnaire to get critical data

  The quality of the business impact analysis questionnaire will determine how well prepared your organization is for a disaster. Get started with some tips and sample questions.  Continue Reading

• 7 data cleansing best practices

  Organizations rely on data for analytics and decision-making, but if that data is flawed, inconsistent or otherwise unreliable, it's not as valuable.  Continue Reading

• The ultimate guide to backup deduplication

  Backup deduplication can reduce active storage space consumption, decrease backup job times and increase the overall efficiency of a storage infrastructure.  Continue Reading

• Business continuity roles and responsibilities

  Business continuity is a vital part of an organization's recovery strategy. Make sure that these BC roles and responsibilities are accounted for when crisis strikes.  Continue Reading

• Use backup and business continuity planning to protect data

  The data backup strategies and habits you enact during normal business hours might be the difference between maintaining business continuity and a lengthy, difficult recovery.  Continue Reading

• Strengthen a business continuity plan with testing exercises

  Conduct a business continuity exercise to better understand your organization's BC plan. After the exercise, use our free after-action report template to review how it went.  Continue Reading

• 8 top self-service analytics tools

  Self-service analytics tools, such as Power BI, Tableau and Qlik, help users analyze data independently with AI, automation and intuitive dashboards.  Continue Reading

• Backup scheduling best practices to ensure availability

  For daily work files, databases and mission-critical systems and data, the more frequent the backup, the better. But how often should you back up all your data?  Continue Reading

• Backup retention policy best practices: A guide with template

  It's critical for an organization to know what data it needs to retain and where to store it. Create a backup retention policy with this free template.  Continue Reading

• 10 multi-cloud backup considerations for admins

  Using a multi-cloud data backup strategy can be good for data protection, but make sure that the providers are a good fit for your business first.  Continue Reading

• Assess and manage the risks of using AI for business

  Legal ramifications, public image crises and misleading information are some of the disastrous consequences of incorrectly using AI. If you don't have a policy for managing AI risks, now is the time.  Continue Reading

• 7 areas where AI can support disaster response

  Responding to a disaster requires IT teams to move quickly, with no room for error. Find out how AI-based technology can help before, during and after a crisis.  Continue Reading

• What is a fully integrated cloud-based data analytics platform?

  Fully integrated cloud-based data analytics platforms offer a comprehensive, scalable and secure approach to managing the entire data analytics process.  Continue Reading

• 5 top self-service analytics use cases

  Discover how self-service analytics empowers businesses across industries, enabling faster insights, better decision-making and greater data-driven innovation.  Continue Reading

• SaaS disaster recovery best practices

  Businesses that use SaaS applications hand off some responsibilities of managing that data, but disaster recovery is not one of them. Make sure you have a recovery plan in place.  Continue Reading

• Compare SaaS data retention policies from 5 major providers

  How long is your SaaS platform keeping your data? Learn how these five popular vendors handle data retention.  Continue Reading

• The pros and cons of self-service analytics

  Self-service analytics lowers skill barriers for data use but does require training and financial investment. Evaluate the pros and cons before deciding if it's the right fit.  Continue Reading

• 7 data sanitization techniques for better data protection

  Data sanitization is an essential aspect of data protection. Good data sanitization practices can help ensure the security, integrity and confidentiality of sensitive information.  Continue Reading

• 9 best practices for self-service analytics

  Expecting business benefits from an analytics platform everyone can use? Take the right steps before putting the tool into users' hands.  Continue Reading

• How to manage and mitigate reputational risk

  Believe it or not, there are actually several reasons for a business to care about its reputation.  Continue Reading

• 8 steps to improve data visualization literacy

  Data visualization literacy is a crucial element of analytics -- it helps you communicate findings. These eight steps can help you improve your DVL.  Continue Reading

• People-centered business continuity is critical in the age of AI

  Recent crises such as the CrowdStrike outages and California wildfires show why people-centered business continuity is crucial. Learn how to shift the focus to people here.  Continue Reading

• 6 top business continuity certifications to consider in 2025

  Organizations can bolster and validate the expertise of their IT teams with a variety of certifications. There are several options aimed at business continuity professionals.  Continue Reading

• Develop data literacy skills to advance your career

  Data literacy skills are the foundation of data-driven decision-making. Identify your current skill level and learn what you must improve to better use data in your work.  Continue Reading

• Will generative AI replace data analysts?

  Generative AI can't replace data analysts. It can help analysts be more effective, but GenAI lacks human insights and knowledge to do the job.  Continue Reading

• How LLMs can improve data analysis

  Data professionals can use LLMs to enhance predictive analytics, but human oversight is still critical.  Continue Reading

• 9 data visualization certifications

  Data visualization skills make you a valuable employee in a data-driven world, and adding a certification to your resume showcases your knowledge.  Continue Reading

• Business continuity vs. emergency management

  There is overlap between business continuity and emergency management, but don't confuse the two. They are separate but equally critical disaster recovery practices.  Continue Reading

• How to build and maintain a reliable backup infrastructure

  A backup infrastructure is critical to long-term data protection and rapid recoveries. As environments become more complex, maintaining a strong infrastructure can be difficult.  Continue Reading

• Why data backup is important

  Not every organization has a backup infrastructure in place. There are several reasons why that is a mistake, including recovery costs and rising threats to critical data.  Continue Reading

• How to implement a business intelligence project in 7 steps

  The BI implementation process involves a series of steps that organizations need to take to ensure projects are completed successfully and meet business goals.  Continue Reading

• How to build an effective business intelligence strategy

  Explore the eight steps organizations need to develop and implement a successful business intelligence strategy, as well as some of the challenges staff can encounter.  Continue Reading

• Metaplane app adds data observability for Snowflake users

  The data observability specialist's new native app for the data cloud enables users to monitor data quality as they develop the analytics and AI tools that inform decisions.  Continue Reading

• 10 top benefits of business intelligence for companies

  By using BI tools to analyze data and drive better business decisions, organizations can improve their operations and gain the benefits and advantages outlined here.  Continue Reading

• Traditional BI vs. self-service BI: Differences and uses

  Traditional and self-service business intelligence are different approaches to BI initiatives. Here's what you need to know to decide which is right for your BI needs.  Continue Reading

• When to use a mirrored site disaster recovery

  Mirrored disaster recovery sites are a good fit for businesses that require rapid failover and have the right resources to build a duplicate data center.  Continue Reading

• How does enterprise data protection in Copilot work?

  EDP is Microsoft's way of ensuring that any data that users expose through Copilot queries doesn't end up with third parties and isn't used to train the AI model.  Continue Reading

• NoSQL database types explained: Column-oriented databases

  Learn about the uses of column-oriented databases and the large data model, data warehouses and high-performance querying benefits the NoSQL database brings to organizations.  Continue Reading

• 4 cloud disaster recovery best practices

  The cloud is a widely implemented technology for flexible and reliable disaster recovery. Businesses can optimize a cloud DR strategy with these four best practices.  Continue Reading

• NoSQL database types explained: Key-value store

  Utilizing a key-value store can improve data processing speeds and scalability for data operations that do not require complex queries or analytics.  Continue Reading

• 6 disaster recovery site requirements for businesses

  Building a disaster recovery site provides organizations with a high degree of control over the facility. It also makes them responsible for several critical requirements.  Continue Reading

• Top 5 metadata management best practices

  Organizations must craft a strategy, assemble a team and adopt standards to develop a strong metadata management strategy and ensure data accuracy, consistency and quality.  Continue Reading

• 4 open source emergency management tools for DR teams

  Emergency management can be a hectic and expensive process. Open source tools can help keep costs down and pool information from a wide array of resources.  Continue Reading

• How to improve backup performance

  Achieving and maintaining optimal backup performance is a continuous process that requires a proactive approach to monitoring, analysis and optimization.  Continue Reading

• 6 open source data recovery software options to consider

  Data loss can plague just about every organization, and costs of recovery can add up. Open source software tools provide a reliable, cost-effective recovery option.  Continue Reading

• 5 reasons to use AI and machine learning in a data warehouse

  Using AI and ML in a data warehouse gives the whole organization a single source of truth that can align decision making and foster better insights.  Continue Reading

• 7 skills for improved data visualizations

  Great data visualizations require a combination of analytics, design and communication. Master seven key skills for data visualizations to effectively communicate data insights.  Continue Reading

• Use network fault monitoring to prevent malfunctions

  Network fault monitoring systems are essential tools to optimize network performance and availability. They are also key components of proactive disaster recovery.  Continue Reading

• Metadata management tools: 9 top options to fulfill key needs

  Metadata management tools can range from comprehensive packages of many features to masters of a specific niche. Consider 9 of the top options to find which fits your needs best.  Continue Reading

• 5 data governance framework examples

  Data governance isn't plug and play: Organizations must select which data governance framework best fits their business goals and needs.  Continue Reading

• 6 dimensions of data quality boost data performance

  Poor data quality can lead to costly mistakes and bad decision making. The six dimensions of data quality ensure accurate, complete, consistent, timely, valid and unique data.  Continue Reading

• Data literacy training requires a dual approach

  Data literacy training is a flexible learning process. Organizations can tailor training for their teams, but individuals can find educational resources to better their skills.  Continue Reading

• Understand Microsoft Copilot security concerns

  Microsoft Copilot raises security concerns around unauthorized or unintentional data access. Prevent leaks with vigilant oversight and comprehensive user access reviews.  Continue Reading

• How to make a metadata management framework

  Don't wait until you have a metadata management problem to address the issue. Put a metadata management framework in place to prepare for potential issues.  Continue Reading

• 6 key steps form a data-driven decision-making framework

  A data-driven decision-making framework provides guidelines that any organization or individual can use. Improve decision-making on a professional and personal level.  Continue Reading

• Successful data operations follow a data governance roadmap

  Implementing a data governance strategy requires a roadmap to keep everyone on track and overcome challenges. Follow eight key steps for best results.  Continue Reading

• Prepare your small business for ransomware attacks

  Ransomware is a threat to all organizations, but small businesses are particularly at risk. Mitigation efforts and recovery planning are key to keep smaller companies in business.  Continue Reading

• How to use Microsoft Copilot in Power BI

  Enable Microsoft Copilot in Power BI to automate key features using generative AI capabilities that improve insights and accelerate decision-making.  Continue Reading

• Evaluate 8 of the top embedded analytics tools

  Selecting the right embedded analytics tool for your organization can be difficult. Use general criteria to evaluate eight of the top options and decide if one is the right fit.  Continue Reading

• Example disaster recovery plan for small businesses

  Small businesses make significant investments in IT infrastructure. They must protect those investments from unplanned and potentially destructive events with a DR plan.  Continue Reading

• Collaborative business intelligence helps users connect data dots

  Social BI enables users to interact with their organization's data -- and data experts -- in applications where they already collaborate and work.  Continue Reading

• Use RAG with LLMs to democratize data analytics

  Pairing retrieval-augmented generation with an LLM helps improve prompts and outputs, democratizing data access and making previously elusive information available to more users.  Continue Reading

• 10 top vector database options for similarity searches

  Vector databases excel in different areas of vector searches, including sophisticated text and visual options. Choose the platform that best fits organizational needs.  Continue Reading

• AR and VR data visualizations offer promising future

  AR and VR data visualizations offer a new perspective to capture patterns and trends in complex data sets that traditional data visualizations struggle with.  Continue Reading

• 10 top data discovery tools for insights and visualizations

  Data discovery can use sampling, profiling, visualizations or data mining to extract insights from data. These 10 top tools differ in scalability, performance and other features.  Continue Reading

• Should you use open source for enterprise disaster recovery?

  With research and planning, businesses can benefit from using open source software for enterprise DR. But IT teams must be mindful of hidden costs and data protection capabilities.  Continue Reading

• How to use a data governance maturity model

  A data governance maturity model identifies where current operations are lacking and how to make improvements that better protect and use data.  Continue Reading

• Cloud database comparison: AWS, Microsoft, Google and Oracle

  Here's a look at the rival cloud database offerings from AWS, Google, Microsoft and Oracle based on their product breadth, migration capabilities and pricing models.  Continue Reading

• How to craft a cost-effective backup strategy

  A cost-effective data backup plan requires IT teams to examine their data protection requirements and choose the right strategy that fits into what the business can spend.  Continue Reading

• 8 reasons businesses have no DR plan (and why they're wrong)

  In today's interconnected world, disaster recovery planning is not a luxury but a necessity for safeguarding the future of any business. Don't make the mistake of being unprepared.  Continue Reading

• Top 6 data fabric tools providers

  Organizations that want a data fabric architecture should consider how six top vendors use their suite of tools to support a range of data management, automation and AI capabilities.  Continue Reading

• 6 slow backup causes to watch out for

  Backup performance is affected by several factors. Ensure that backups are running in a timely manner to protect data and prevent bottlenecks.  Continue Reading

• Understand the BI lifecycle to build an effective architecture

  Following and understanding the five steps of the business intelligence lifecycle is the foundation of a successful and effective BI architecture.  Continue Reading

• 7 data modeling techniques and concepts for business

  Three types of data models and various data modeling techniques are available to data management teams to help convert data into valuable business information.  Continue Reading

• 13 reasons your disaster recovery plan failed

  Preventing failure is an important goal for DR teams, but disasters do not conform to how plans are designed. Familiarity with the causes of failure can help bolster a DR plan.  Continue Reading

• How GenAI-created synthetic data improves augmentation

  Synthetic data can enhance the performance and capabilities of data augmentation techniques. Navigate the challenges generative AI models present to reap the benefits.  Continue Reading

• 6 benefits that make a disaster recovery plan worth it

  Disaster recovery plans help reduce recovery time, ultimately saving time and money. Time spent testing and planning upfront pays dividends when a disaster strikes.  Continue Reading

• How generative AI can make data visualizations accessible

  Data teams can use generative AI to make data visualization creation approachable for business users of all technical skill levels -- if organizations can manage the challenges.  Continue Reading

• The 4 phases of emergency management

  To effectively recover from a disruptive incident, IT and DR teams must have a plan in place. This guide breaks down the four phases of an emergency management plan.  Continue Reading

• Evaluating data quality requires clear and measurable KPIs

  KPIs and metrics are necessary to measure the quality of data. Organizations can use the dimensions of data quality to establish metrics and KPIs for their specific needs.  Continue Reading