A disaster isn't just a natural event, such as a flood, hurricane, or an earthquake. In
this day and age information is King. Cell phones, PDA's, laptops, computers are
everywhere. And to top it off all your information is on a computer. You use it
everyday in your job, your bank and financial information, your correspondence,
every bit of information you have is on a computer. So how would you cope if
your computer became inaccessible? Say the hard drive died, or the power supply
burned up or in the event of a natural disaster?
We all have a reliance on computers, do you have a Disaster Recovery Plan?
The big boys do. They hire loads of experts to insure your bank account is safe
not only from hackers but tornado's, earthquakes, floods, fire, you name it.
They have banks of servers in different parts of the world that have duplicated
information about your accounts.
But the question is do you?
One way to insure you have adequate protection is to duplicate your
computer, if not in your home or business, maybe someplace else. There are online
services now that will back up your data to a place far away from your
location. The theory is that the same disaster will not happen to two
different locations because of the distance. A earthquake in California will
not effect New York. Or a flood in Omaha will not effect Anchorage. Distance
makes a difference. It maybe expensive and if your current computer isn't
available you will need a backup computer.
Now the normal person will not have the resources to duplicate their data in
more than one place. Be that Grammas house or your own. Still having a back up
will ease the pain of a hardware failure or a natural disaster.
How would you go about creating a Disaster Recovery Plan? Well the big boys
create reams of procedures (I was on two DR teams, believe me when I say your
banking account is safe!) and it is quite involved and expensive. But you
can have a DR all setup and waiting.
Consider this, what did you do with that old computer when you bought your
new one? Gave it away? Trashed it? Well that would have been sufficient to
cover you in a disaster.
Why?
Well if you have a hardware failure you may need a computer to use for work
while the other one is being fixed. You could rent a computer (like a car)
while it is being fixed. But you would have to install all the applications you
use and then restore your data to the rental computer. (Then insure it is
wiped when you return it - wiping means erasing all your data to a
degree it would cost more to recover it than it is worth to the thief).
Question: You DO have a BACKUP of your DATA?
Right?NO?? Read this page:
Data Backup
So you have the old computer and I can see your face. You don't want to use
that 'ol dog, the reason you bought a new computer was the old one was so slow,
the hard drive was full, and on, and on. But if you cleaned it out, got rid of
all the junk, maybe upgraded the memory and hard drive it would get you by
until your good computer was repaired or replaced
Things to consider for a DR Plan:
Where the backup computer is stored.
Will it be accessible to do backups of your data to?
What to backup? You will need to
consider a typical day, what do you use on a daily basis if you use the
computer for your business. What records are on the computer that you can not
do with out or are irreplaceable. What records will take a lot of time and
effort to replace?
How much money can you spend on the DR computer?
If you have an 'off site' DR computer will it have
all the applications setup and ready if you need it? The email
works, the word processor, spreadsheet, data base (like Quicken) are all
operational? Most software publishers will allow you to make one back up of
their software with out another license (All ways check the End User License
Agreement before assuming this is true!).
And the last thing is to test, test all
your applications, test the recovery of you backup data, then when you are
satisfied that the recovery computer will work until the good computer
is ready you will have a valid and functional Disaster Recovery
Plan.
Note:
If you are going to use the old computer you upgraded from to be your
Disaster Recovery
computer check out these pages for information on how to....
With a little effort and maybe some money
you will be covered in the event of an emergency.
Note:
A suggestion for those
that evacuate an area that a hurricane is coming to. You
should power down your computer of course. Also if you have a UPS you need to
get the circuit lock that came with the UPS and reinsert it to keep the UPS
batteries from shorting out if it gets wet.
If you have time take the computer, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and ups and
put in heavy trash bags. Squeeze out any extra air, and seal the bags. Then
place them above what would be the high flood plain if the area should flood.
Keeping your computer dry will help you recover faster than if you left the
computer in it's normal place. Ten minutes will save you a lot money later
after the hurricane is gone.
Remember: It is your
data and only you can protect it.
This site contains a lot of information. As
with any publication not all information is available due to space, time, or
subject constraints.
If you have a question that you did not find the answer
on this web site you a can
ask your question here and we will endeavor to get you the most up to date
answer possible!
