You’re the Non-technical Boss with Responsibility for the Network…

How do you know your most important functions of your network are working?  How do you manage technical people whose work you don’t fully understand?  This week I have seven simple questions to ask and I provide you some tips on what answers you should expect.

Backup and Disaster Recovery is one of the most important functions in Information Technology management to assure the future viability of your firm.  But backup and DR is a function you don’t really know is working until you really need it and that is not the time to find out it is not working as planned.  My recommendation is that you bring this topic up in your next meeting with your IT team.  Here are the questions I suggest you ask:

1.       How is our backup system running?  (Let your IT person talk.  Be patient and don’t interrupt.  Let them tell you all they can.)

2.       Are we getting any error messages from the backups? (Error messages are not....

You’re the Non-technical Boss with Responsibility for the Network…2015-10-07T22:13:17-07:00

Some Good Q&A on Backup and Disaster Recovery

1. Where should small businesses start with disaster recovery, whether or not they already have a DR plan in place? What is the first question the small business owner needs to ask?

I recommend starting with determining RTO and RPO.  If the small business owner starts here he or she will be off to a good start with the DR plan.  What are RTO and RPO?

•         RTO – Recovery Time Objective, the time between the disaster and when the system has been made operational again.  Why is this important?  Different businesses have different costs associated with...

Some Good Q&A on Backup and Disaster Recovery2015-03-02T15:43:00-08:00

Some Good Questions and Answers on Backup and Disaster Recovery

1. Where should small businesses start with disaster recovery, whether or not they already have a DR plan in place? What is the first question the small business owner needs to ask?

I recommend starting with determining RTO and RPO.  If the small business owner starts here he or she will be off to a good start with the DR plan.  What are RTO and RPO?

•         RTO – Recovery Time Objective, the time between the disaster and when the system has been made operational again.  Why is this important?  Different businesses have different costs associated with

Some Good Questions and Answers on Backup and Disaster Recovery2014-04-29T23:01:20-07:00

What is Recovery Time Objective?

If your system breaks, how long do you want to be down?  How soon do you need your system back up and running?  Whether it is a week, a day, an hour or one minute, whatever time you establish, that is your RTO or Recovery Time Objective.  Think about what your business needs and you can come up with one component of disaster recovery/business continuity planning, your RTO.  Next up, you need to start thinking about your Recovery Point Objective.

What is Recovery Time Objective?2024-04-21T19:44:54-07:00

Symantec Pulls the Plug on Their Cloud Backup Offering

The shutdown of cloud backup provider Nirvanix does not surprise me as it appeared to me to be somewhat ill conceived.  While Backup Exec is good for conventional backup to tape and other media, is not so well suited for [...]

Symantec Pulls the Plug on Their Cloud Backup Offering2023-08-10T23:29:21-07:00

BYOD: Are You Bringing Your Own Disaster

With the incredible proliferation of mobile devices that allow anyone with network credentials to gain nearly unlimited access to internal network resources, we have opened the proverbial Pandora’s Box. The ironic thing in this fast growing story is those with [...]

BYOD: Are You Bringing Your Own Disaster2013-01-11T19:45:10-08:00

When Our Next One Hits Are You Prepared?

The 7.2 earthquake two weeks ago in Turkey got me thinking again about disaster preparedness and IT. It reminded me of the 5.9 earthquake that occurred on the U.S. east coast, a region that is not supposed to get earthquakes. I just did a couple of walk-throughs at two different client facilities. One had server racking very well secured at the top and bottom that looked like it would withstand a pretty severe shaking while the other site did not have any fasteners at either the top or the bottom of the server racks. I could have pushed the racks over myself by leaning on them.

When Our Next One Hits Are You Prepared?2023-08-10T23:20:26-07:00

A Great Webinar On Backup And Disaster Recovery

I just did a one hour webinar sponsored by IBM and brought to the Internet by eWeek, a Ziff Davis Media publication. If I do say so myself I think it went very well. Elliot Markowitz of eWeek said he thought it was the best webinar so far this year.

Click Here for the Webinar: 

http://bit.ly/ltTkAP

Disaster Recovery: Learning from the Past to Get Ready for the Future

A Great Webinar On Backup And Disaster Recovery2011-05-03T03:21:00-07:00

What Can We Learn From The Disaster In Japan?

Disasters are a horrible thing. We can only hope to never have our lives and loved ones involved first hand. But disasters do happen and almost all of us will experience the pain and misery ourselves at different points in our lives. The key is to mitigate the loss and pain through careful preparation. During a disaster our first concern will be for the safety and protection of those closest to us. Once that is secured, we will all begin the transition back to normal life and work.

I have had many tell me that in a disaster they are not going to care about their servers and the PCs at the office. That is true however, at some point, normal life must return. So how do you do that? You must have a disaster recovery plan in place. It must have several components:

What Can We Learn From The Disaster In Japan?2011-03-15T00:58:00-07:00