Bad Backup, bad bankruptcy

Orange County, CA - Always make sure your backups are in good working order. Here is a story of a company reports to be out of business because they lost 300 GB if their IP and company operations history - GitLab.com melts down after wrong directory deleted, backups fail. The story mentions Gitlabs.com outgrew the cloud and that is why this happened. No, they simply had bad backups and they did not check to make sure they had an ability to recover before doing work on the storage system. Data loss disasters can happen in the cloud, too. So make sure you have your backup operations in order. Disaster can strike in innumerable ways no matter your IT operation model.

Backups need to be constantly examined to make sure they are working. Here is a partial list of questions you should be asking when doing your due diligence:

Bad Backup, bad bankruptcy2017-09-18T00:47:29-07:00

I Am a Non-Technical Executive: What Seven Things Should I Be Asking My IT Guys About IT Security?

Irvine, CA - Overseeing IT and security is a daunting task, even if you are an IT professional. If you are an executive to whom IT reports, then the task becomes near impossible. The list of following questions is designed to empower you to have a meaningful discussion with your IT team so you can be an informed and responsible manager pursuing your due diligence role in protecting the assets of your firm. If you are an IT professional, these are questions you should be prepared to answer.

1.       Q. When did we last do a risk assessment? Please share that document with me. I would particularly like to see the Risk Assessment Table.

A.      Make sure your IT team is periodically assessing the risks to your IT systems.  They should be recommending upgrades and new solutions for you from time-to-time, and you should be listening.  They need to be able to express the threat in operational and economic terms in order to justify the expenditure.  If your team can’t give you a clear and coherent answer on when and how they last did this, send them off with a task and a deadline.

2.       Q. When did we last do a Vulnerability Scan? What were the results of that scan? I would like to see the report.  Who did the remediation? When is our next scan planned?...

I Am a Non-Technical Executive: What Seven Things Should I Be Asking My IT Guys About IT Security?2021-01-28T18:23:01-08:00

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