A few weeks ago I'd updated key settings in our old router to hopefully enable it to serve as a temporary replacement in the event of our main (SonicWALL) router having a hardware fault. Although we have "next day replacement" cover, there'd be an interval where, without some other kind of provision, we'd have no Internet accesss.

Just last week our main router was fried after a lightning strike. Cue the old one as emergency replacement - it worked and was good enough for almost two days. I was also glad to have a separate SSL VPN appliance providing an independent route in for branch offices; if we'd had all our VPN configured in the SonicWALL they'd have been unable to work as it wasn't set up in the old router.

IT risk management really is worth doing.