Theft

[RVSWA]

I just spent this Sunday afternoon filling out a police report identifying the items stolen from an office break in. In all honesty, our greatest loss appears to be from the lack of frequent off site backup. Computers and servers can be replaced, information can't. The police have asked for the serial numbers of the stolen goods and the estimated value. We had begun an inventory previous to the breaking, but I'm not sure the extent of this information. Don't get caught with your pants down.

 

[Pressed]

Good advice and sorry to hear that! With the economy the way it is, I'll bet crime is rising and going to be high for awhile.

===================================
Forging

http://mech.e.tripod.com

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Ddraig Breuddwydia....

http://www.tailofthedragon.com

 

[csd72]

Yes this is a lesson that I learnt at the first place I worked for, they had 10 computers stolen that had not been backed up for 2 weeks 800 hours of work is nothing to be laughed at. Much worse if it is longer.

 

[spider007]

We back up the server on tapes, every night....
....and then keep the tapes right beside the server.

 

[zdas04]

I've got an inventory of serial numbers, etc--ON MY COMPUTER. It is amazing what stupid things smart people do.

David

 

[RVSWA]

We lost three weeks of data, fortunately it has been extremely slow so the amount of work lost will be manageable given the abundance of free-time we have... We had good records of the serial numbers on the back up drive at my house so that helped. What really seems to be giving us the most trouble is getting our "network" licensed Autocad and Enercalc software back in action. With permission to use our software, we could have been working today, but they are all on network installs. We have an IT consultant worth his weight in gold and our insurance adjuster has been helpful so we will see how that works out... I can see there are some really useful template files that should be on a CD for just this case. I am going to work on an action plan for this sort of thing, "How to get your business up and running asap". I'm curious to see how much the insurance company is willing to cover. More to come...

 

[MiketheEngineer]

Have you ever checked that your backups will work...

We had a case where the IT department thought they were doing it right - BUT never checked.

Guess what - when we needed them - they wouldn't work. We lost three weeks of data - a LOT of data.

The head of IT and this is a BIG comapny lost his job about as fast as it took to make a backup.

 

[spider007]

I HATE loosing even an hour of work, when my computer crashes.....i can't even imagine loosing weeks....i'd be sitting at the desk crying like a 5 year old kid

 

[DonPhillips]

With high-speed internet connections and the cheap cost of storage, I think offsite, services using the internet may be a good backup to your backup as well.

Don Phillips

http://worthingtonengineering.com

 

[carnage1]

does anyone have any idea how secure off sight storage is for sensitive materials? I am curious.

Luck is a difficult thing to verify and therefore should be tested often. - Me

 

[DonPhillips]

I think you have to do your homework on who you choose but usually you can encrypt your backup.

Don Phillips

http://worthingtonengineering.com

 

[kontiki99]

Like my old boss used to say, "nobody realized how fast you could loose so much data until computers came along."

Given that hardware failure is not if, but when, I'm always amazed.

XP supports encryption, just save the certificate with the key to see the data again.

 

[RVSWA]

Yeah, no, I believe the hardware is operation just fine, somewhere else... I will look into backup encryption and an alarm system. We began a few years ago with a company that provided off-site nightly backup to Lynnwood and Spokane but after 6 months we discovered that they had backed up nothing, not even once...

We use Microsoft Small Business Exchange server and it's been great, but one of the problems that arise is the immense size of the exchange backup file. Think of all the mail you haven't thrown away yet... All of that is balled up into a single file that wouldn't transfer over a common small business internet connection. I am going to work on a disaster recovery plan for my office and when I have an outline, I think I am going to start a new thread. I'm sure large companies have such a think but we are a small office, no outside consultants here...

We are up and running thanks to an excellent choice of IT consultants Emerald City Solutions, he's also a Cad consultant so if you are in the Seattle area look him up...