Friday, September 13, 2013

Backup and ...........Disaster Recovery?

This week I had an interesting experience.  I'm working with a new client who is coming on board.  Before we agreed to work together we had extensive conversations about their backup.  They were using one of the popular cloud backup solutions.  Their then current IT vendor had told them they were covered.  Their biggest concern was that their email/email server was being backed up.  Their IT firm said they had it covered.

I'm always cautious when we are going into a new environment.  We do a lot of talking and scanning up front but there are always some items that are just hidden.  We call this finding snakes in the grass.  It's a normal part of our business.  The snake we found was a backup solution that was not adequately protecting my client.  We found that, while the files on their server were being backed up, the most recent email backup was a month old.  So.... in the event of a disaster they would have their files but no emails.

What I always find amazing is that some IT providers will gloss over things thinking that they are saving the customer the pain of having to spend money.  What would the pain have been if my client had a crash and then found they had no backup.  It's also strange to me because it is less expensive than most people think to solve the problem.

My policy is to explain the circumstances and then give my client the choice. The happy ending is that we found the problem and the client agreed to move forward with a solution that will keep them protected.

Thanks for reading.  I'd love your comments or questions.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Tech changing things again.

Personally I think it is good to be forced to adapt to your crazy college roommate.  I love experiences that force you to grow. Im sure not everyone shares this point of view.  Please share your thoughts.

How Facebook is banishing roommate horror stories from the dorm