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Tech
Buzz Today
by Greg Richburg
Today’s pop-culture spouts hip-hop, camera
phones, 50” Plasma HDTVs, high speed Internet
access, web cams and integrated global espionage
right there in your living room, office PC or PDA.
I have access to more information today than I could
have ever dreamed!! Someone call security! Am I
being oppressed?!
I want my instantaneous access to information about
bombs, adult media and Viagara without a prescription.
I want to download music and not pay a dime, not
to mention movies and software. I had “The
Passion of the Christ” on DVD before it was
even in the theatres. I want more popcorn Jiffy
on the double. I want my MTV!
What is happening? What is happening to us?
I can’t get a thing done these days without
first making sure I’m not going to become a
slaughtered lamb. And these days, my life is busy
helping people fend off advertisers, hackers, and
malicious “malware” programmers that live
their meager live just for the sake of twisting
society. If I could only get my hands on the creator
of the Netsky virus…
“Work smarter not harder.”
Have you ever heard that before? Of course you have.
Today, the smart workers come ready. They are careful,
especially in an office environment, but even in
the home. There are methods to the madness; there
are ways to go about your business prepared.
The first rule in American economics… “Why
build one when you can build two for twice as much?
Huh? Does that make a bit of sense? Actually in
a network it does. If one fails, the other takes
over. It is that simple.
I walked into a multi-million dollar business the
other day as an analyst. I was just there to offer
some recommendations, nothing more. A single hard
drive failure and their entire operation would be
in shambles. I really couldn’t believe it.
With the absurd abilities of a moderately intelligent
high school kid, it amazes me that some of our most
successful entrepreneurs take unnecessary risks.
A simple RAID installation, a hard drive mirror,
a backup tape drive, and a professional firewall
are all fundamental when planning to secure your
future.
If a hard drive crashes in a raid array, one of
the other drives in the array can handle the load
until the failed drive is replaced. That is the
idea! In a hard drive mirror, if the primary drive
fails, a simple switch and you are back up and running
in no time. Replace the failed drive and recreate
the mirror. YES!
What about viruses, file corruption, or accidental
deletions?
A tape drive system can quickly backup 40 gigabytes
of information on a daily basis. Archive your backups.
You lose a file, so what. Restore from backup. Of
course, you should always use a solid Anti-Virus
system as well.
Are there resolutions to the difficulties presented
to our future? If we protect ourselves well enough,
I guess we can limit our worries. I am not sure.
But some things are still for certain. Death and
taxes. Everything else is just a handshake. Make
sure you keep your hands washed.
A Rule for the road:
If you are running backups on your network, and
you have not tested the restore process, how are
you sure that your backups are running successfully?
Your disaster recovery plan should include a monthly
test of your restore process.
By Greg Richburg
Netricks, Inc.
http://www.netricks.com
About The Author
Greg Richburg a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer
and the owner of Netricks, Inc. a network consulting,
web design and hosting company in California. Visit
Netricks at http://www.netricks.com.
As well, Greg runs a web based distributorship for
Ujena swimwear and clothing. Please visit http://www.klickcommerce.com
and http://www.webbikinistore.com for details.
All past articles written by Greg Richburg are available
at http://www.netricks.com/news. Please address
article suggestions to: 1919@netricks.com. |
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