ORPA Consulting

It has been a fantastic year for ORPA Consulting! We have added value for our clients in managing their IT, creating new software and databases, and Reliability work. Our hard work has won awards, recommendations, and high praise from customers near and far. And we presented our work at several conferences, in the US and abroad. We look forward to the promise the new year brings, and are grateful to our clients who made the switch to ORPA Consulting for their IT and Engineer...ing Services. We wish that you all have a safe and Happy Holiday season! Merry Christmas, Donna & David Jennings

Join us as David Jennings shares how ORPA's award winning services transform our client's businesses. Wednesday, Dec 6th, at 9:00 am at the 1-Million Cups event, 15 Perry Street in Newnan, GA.

Mission Accomplished! We are very happy to announce that ORPA Consulting delivered a major software update to the USDA Forest Service today. It was a team effort to provide this product both on-time and under budget! Thank you Donna, John, and Bree for addressing our client's needs and helping us to remain tough, lean, and aggressive! ORPA Consulting: connecting people with information!

How many systems can you lose before it cripples operations? When should computers be replaced? See if any of these issues fit your organization. https://www.linkedin.com//whats-your-fall-back-david-jenni

Hats off to our first responders

Great article on Reliability's impact on Production. Gets right to the heart of Industrial Engineering and how acquisition, operations and maintenance combine for productivity!

Your Data Back It Up! According to former US Senator Robert Torricelli "If you live long enough, you'll experience everything." This week, I visited with a sole proprietor who needed some computer work. He has a desktop computer that he uses for sales, CRM, and inventory management. He’s been using the same system for about 10 years.... And he has never backed up his data. Ever. Fortunately, this service call did not require a data recovery. But I did take a quick backup before I touched his computer. I also sold him on the idea of installing a flash disk drive and setting up daily backups. It is almost unbelievable that a company would operate without a data backup plan. It is difficult to describe my surprise that a business owner would leave themselves exposed to this type of problem. So here are four things you can do to protect yourself from data loss and service interruption: 1. Back Up Your Data. Really. Windows has a backup facility that sets the data and time of this activity. It is painless. With an external flask drive prices of $30/TB, cost is not a factor. 2. Perform Off Site Storage. Any size company can afford this. Even a very small company can afford to buy two flash disk drives for backups, and swap one out every morning. One stays on the main computer/server, and the other goes home with the owner at night. This is a big time IT solution that can scale to any size company. 3. Create an IT Disaster Recovery Plan. Big or small, every business needs this. A DRP is a documentation exercise. A DRP identifies who is to be contacted, and the steps to be taken to recovery the IT services after a service loss. This is not hard to do, and there are plenty of resources to help a company walk through this process. (Full disclosure: We sell DRP services.) 4. Test your DRP. Every year, at a minimum, take the DRP Handbook down from the bookshelf and read through the steps. Verify that your process steps are still valid. Check that the personnel notification list is current (with good phone numbers and email addresses). Update the handbook. Ensure that the DRP team members are included in the review and can accomplish the steps to manage a recovery. These basic steps will protect you from data loss or service interruptions. David Jennings is Senior Partner at ORPA Consulting and has be helping clients with the thornier issues in IT and Engineering Services for over 30 years.

A Managed Services Plan Can Give You Your Life Back If you are already busy, how do you get more done? According to SBA.gov, firms with fewer than 100 employees... account for 35% of all employment in the US. As the owner, or senior decision maker, in a small business you are busy all the time. Your daily To Do list reads like a decathlon event schedule. The one thing you don’t need is to waste your valuable time and resources on technology issues Your Information Technology requirements are high availability, resilience, and flexibility. But you are busy growing a business. You need to spend your valuable time chasing the dream, not chasing an IT bug. This is where an IT Managed Services Plan from ORPA Consulting can help. ORPA Consulting provides: Desktop Monitoring & Support Hosted Virtualized Servers Server Condition Monitoring & Support Onsite IT configuration/support Backup System Management Disaster Recovery Planning Our certified and trained professionals provide constant, real time monitoring and support for your business at a fraction of the cost of in-house FTEs. ORPA Consulting takes the role of insuring that your IT profile is operational, well managed, and efficient. And you get the peace of mind of knowing that your IT requirements are managed in a consistent, professional manner. Contact us today, and start getting your life back.