Don't Wait for an Act of God to Secure Your Data

aNewDomain.net – Corporate data needs to be protected by Acts of God in order to gain protection from the natural “Act of God” events that cause them. Unless you’re the outgoing Pope and even so, don’t count on that. It’s up to you to secure your data.

Think about it. The recent increase in super storms is causing companies to reevaluate the location of their data security and data location.

The multiplicity of electronic data coupled with larger and more frequent weather anomalies and emergencies even is prompting the U.S. National Weather Service to change the way it labels natural disasters.

Now it’s frequently using words like “catastrophic” and “complete devastation likely.”

A storm of the century now is more like a storm of a decade, if not just a winter.

The network administrator must be mindful of all possible scenarios that can threaten their physical data — just as they are about the threats of the data from a binary level.

The list is long: Floods, fires, earthquakes and even electrical interruptions are the new normal.

Even Amazon’s S3, which has an excellent record of reliability and hosts some of the biggest websites on the Internet like Netflix, failed at the end of 2012 and still gets lots of bumps.

Using Amazon or any number of co-locations to protect data during a catastrophic event is critical for business to stay up especially when their customers need them most. Even business that had previously believed their data was safe when house in a different state are having to re-think that strategy.

Two so-called storms-of-the-century in just as many years — Hurricanes Sandy and Irene – affected the mid-Atlantic states so severely that New York businesses found New Jersey wasn’t far enough away to keep its data safe.

Smaller business may choose not to host the data offsite. If so, here’s one of my favorite resources, DriveSavers recommends. As an IT pro, I have the creds to tell you these are right on the money.

Keep all electronics out of basements and off the floor in general. Basements are naturally cool places, but are the first to flood.
Before a storm if possible, unplug the hardware — laptops, printers and other electronic devices — from all power sources.
Invest in a surge protector. Surge protectors and battery backups should be checked or replaced every few years to ensure the highest level of effectiveness.
To help protect against water damage enclose any valuable devices in plastic or place in a watertight plastic bin.

Knowing about these threats is a great step forward in keeping your sensitive data physically available to you and, more importantly to businesses from small to medium sized entrepreneurial startups to major enterprices, tight and secure at all times.

Bottom line. No exceptions.

Based in Charlotte, NC, Anthony Pruitt is an IT pro, a columnist and the podcast captain at aNewDomain.net. Follow him @ihavnolyfe or on Google+ and email him at Ant@aNewDomain.net.