How do you plan for business IT disaster? Your business has Heimlich maneuver posters displayed, signs for first aid on the wall, evacuation routes for fire prominent near the doors and took out damage insurance coverage on your notebook computers. You just missed one small piece of the puzzle: business recovery. Without it, a small business cannot withstand even one natural or employee-induced catastrophe. It's estimated that 25% of all small businesses cannot withstand a natural disaster. Is yours one of them?Here are five disaster situations and what you "coulda shoulda" do to plan for them.
FIRE EARTHQUAKE TERRORISM FLOOD WATER DAMAGE TORNADO: Are you scared yet? Do you have the backup hardware in place to survive and be up and running within 30 days? In the late 90s, 5 buildings went up in a frightening blaze in a nearby city and I pulled up-to-the-minute financials off a smoldering server via dialup (we got 'em, but it was harrowing). Is your backup drive in place and tested? Do you have a readable tape backup from yesterday in an off-site location that you know about? If not, make sure you have (a) good data backup systems and (b) a backup drive and 7 tapes (one to keep off-site) and are paying someone to be in charge of rotating them daily.
Hints:
- Backup to a second drive, NOT to your computer's hard drive. Good software will not allow same-drive backups.
- Shut down Outlook at night or your email will not be backed up.
- Burn the data on the tapes or portable drive to a DVD once in a while.
- Windows Vista SP1 lets you create a recovery disk. Create several and store in different places.
- If your CDs or DVDs are damaged, use CD Recovery Toolbox instead of drinking hemlock .
