This may seem like a strange Monday Tip for a blog focused on Business Continuity Management and Business Continuity Planning, but it actually makes a lot of sense. Here’s why. What is Value Value, or Value for Money, is a better comparative measure than price in my opinion. Value is a slightly subjective judgement in…
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? I’m often intrigued by the reasons I get back from business owners and IT Managers when I ask the question: How often to you perform a test restore of your backups? Answers I’ve had include:…
Do you outsource your IT support? Read on Are you in a regulated industry or do you hold any information that can be classed as being confidential? Have you outsourced your IT support? Then you have a critical question to answer. Has your IT support company signed a Non Disclosure Agreement that binds them to…
Businesses change over time. Make sure your plans reflect reality If you have made the effort to analyse your business processes and prepare plans to protect them, you may be tempted to think that your work is done. Unfortunately, the truth is different. Unless your plans are so generic as to be of limited utility,…
Systems fail at the most inconvenient time. Having a plan to follow will reduce down-time and stress. If you have computers in your business, and I bet you do, you will know from personal experience that sometimes they go wrong. Usually this will cause only minor inconvenience but occasionally it can result in significant disruption…
Security is a lot easier to implement in the modern digital world, but enforcing it over the long term needs thought, and procedures that are adhered to. In the old days, security was simple. The main access control method was physical keys: to the building; to desks and filing cabinets; to the safe and strongroom….
It’s pointless storing all that data on your backup tapes if you can’t restore them later. Many organisations continue to store their backup data on magnetic tape. This is mainly because of volume versus cost and/or portability issues: the ability to transport tapes off-site for safe keeping. In any complex electro-mechnical environment it is usually…
Using the same, poor, password on multiple sites exposes you to risk How many web sites do you have accounts on? 10? 100? 1000? If you are anything like me, the answer is probably several hundred. Actually, I just checked and found the figure is at least 628! Another question: how many of those accounts use…
Unless you can realise your investment, it is worthless For the purpose of this tip, I am assuming that you own your business and are not just a shareholder in a traded company. Small (< 25 employees) businesses are fun. They’re small enough that everybody knows each other; it’s pretty easy to keep on top…
Not all backup systems are created equally, make sure yours is fit for purpose Backup systems seem like pretty boring things to most people. Sure, the people understand the need to protect their data and they have taken the step of backing up their data; but why should they care about what sort of backup…
