Frequently Asked Questions

In an increasingly digital world, growing businesses need responsive consultants who can help protect their information infrastructure now more than ever. At Dolce Vita IT Solutions, we are committed to find what works for YOUR business and helping you achieve your business objectives.

What does "Dolce Vita" mean?

Italian for "sweet life", Dolce Vita was chosen as our name because it reflects our philosphy that life is meant to be cherished and enjoyed. We work hard every day to make life "sweeter" for our clients, their staff, and their customers.

Why should we consider the use of an IT consulting company to help our business?

Chronic information systems issues are common in small and mid-sized businesses...this causes loss in productivity and profitability. A highly qualified managed services provider can help in identifying and prioritizing these issues…this is an enormous benefit which pays dividends far beyond the short-term. The potential for productivity and profitability improvements are long-term resulting in recurring net income benefits. For businesses with internal IT staff, DVITS can be a resource for periods of high workload, and can act as an impartial "extra set of eyes" for challenging issues which can crop up in any business.

How much cash flow can we preserve by reducing downtime?

Businesses live and die based upon repeatable cash flow. A simple real-world example from our client base: A manufacturer with 20 employees was experiencing a documented quantity of 185 hours of downtime (internet down, email down, servers periodically down) per year during working hours. It was not terribly unusual for employees arriving at 0600 to have no internet or email. It was normal to train their early morning staff on how to restart the cable modem and firewall as well as the switches just to get the network running again. Based upon the staff average salary of $18/hour excluding executives, the downtime cost was over $85K per year. The management staff called in Dolce Vita to assess the situation. DVITS recommended some basic changes and implemented our Remote Monitoring and Management system which identified and eliminated the root causes. This eliminated the excessive downtime resulting in increased profitability for the client.

Why the emphasis on managed services?

Managed IT services result in higher reliability, greater usability, and more productivity from staff...resulting in higher revenue and job satisfaction. Managed services combined with good planning and reasonable infrastructure investments pay dividends many time over.

What is "the cloud" and why is there so much discussion about it?

Over the past 10 years most businesses have moved to a “hybrid” storage environment…instead of 100% reliance on local servers and IT resources, many assets have been migrated to the cloud. This allows the business to potentially get the benefit of a robust data center, which may include improved uptime and redundancy.

The cloud is not a silver bullet...while it does get an organization's data off its internally managed servers, this does not necessarily reduce costs of management. The systems still have to be managed, backed up, etc. However, cloud based systems when properly implemented can provide redundancy, ensure up-to-date hardware and software, and it can reduce IT workloads as well as reducing capital expenditures in many circumstances. Dolce Vita IT Solutions uses cloud-based functionality in some of the most mission-critical portions of our business operations and we will work with your business to see how cloud strategies can help your business to function more effectively.

What business verticals does DVITS typically work for?

We manage networks and perform projects for manufacturing facilities, medical practices, insurance companies, mid-sized retailers, banks, hospitals, and even other IT companies.

Our objective: Allow each client to focus on their core business and mission, and minimize their information technology concerns.

What size businesses does DVITS typically work for?

We manage networks with as few as 2 users up to well over 250 users.

It looks like there is a real emphasis on disaster recovery...isn't there a small chance of this occurring?

Actually the emphasis is not so much on disaster recovery as in business continuity preparation. While nearly no businesses will face a major catastrophe such as a tornado, fire, or flood... EVERY business will face accidental data deletion or destruction. This can occur due to user error, malware infection, or data corruption. If there are no specific written plans to deal with this, it can truly become a disaster. Gartner Research and other studies indicate that 70% of businesses who sustain a significant data loss go out of business within two years. We help clients plan for the types of negative events which are most likely to seriously impact their business and plan around these. Request our business continuity preparation kit here.

What is malware and why do I hear so much about it?

Malware is a term which generally refers to malicious software...a computer, tablet or smartphone can become infected even by going to valid websites...if a website has compromised code, then the act of accessing the website can result in a "drive-by" infection which results in performance degradation, unexpected browser behavior, etc. Even the use of up-to-date anti-virus cannot prevent all infections. Be aware that ANY operating system can become infected...the best defense is prudent browsing, daily antivirus scans with up-to-date anti-malware, and ensuring any information you want to keep safe is backed up. DVITS works with businesses to ensure that they are reasonably protected from major threats.

What are the real risks to my business from ransomware?

Ransomware is one of the most pervasive risks to today's businesses. Ransomware is basically malicious software which infects and is capable of encrypting any data which that user and computer have access to on their network...effectively locking users out of networked server data or locally stored data. As with nearly all malware there is a profit motive involved...chiefly to infect a businesses systems, lock them down, then extort money from the business in exchange for unlocking the systems.

In January 2016, 2900 variants were recognized...in Dec 2016 over 32,000
According to Trend Micro 80 new ransomware families emerged during 2016
The FBI estimates over $1 billion in ransoms paid in 2016

Read more about how ransomware can seriously damage your business here.