Deb Shinder's Tech Blog

I have been writing articles for TechProGuild and TechRepublic for over five years now, specializing primarily in Microsoft operating systems and application software as well as generic networking and security concepts and practices. I've authored two sole-author books (Scene of the Cybercrime, published by Syngress and Computer Networking Essentials, published by Cisco Press). I've also co-authored several books with my husband, Dr. Thomas Shinder, including three best-selling ISA Server books. I've co-authored, contributed to or edited about twenty additional technology books for a number of different publishers.

I edit the weekly WinXPNews (www.winxpnews.com), sponsored by Sunbelt Software, and the monthly Inside Windows Server Security journal published by Eli Journals (formerly by ElementK). I'm a regular security author on GFI's www.windowsecurity.com site, and I write technical whitepapers, marketing material, online courseware and product documentation for Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and a number of other software and hardware companies. My husband and I are co-owners of a training, authoring and consulting company called TACteam.

I'm an MCSE and a Microsoft MVP in the area of server security. I occasionally do speaking engagements at tech conferences and teach in the Dallas County Community College system. In my former life (prior to 1994), I was a police sergeant and taught criminal justice and defensive tactics courses at the regional police academy.

In my spare time (umm, yeah), I maintain a personal Web site at www.debshinder.com, a family Web site at www.shinder.net and a company Web site at www.tacteam.net.

I'll try to post here at least once a week, but with my workload, I'm not making any promises. :)

For many businesses on the Gulf coast, the importance of a disaster recovery plan hit home this week as Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Gulfport, Biloxi and other southern cities and towns. Those of us who live further inland may not have to worry about a direct hurricane hit, but just about every geographic area is subject to some sort of natural disaster. What would happen to your mission critical data if your office were hit by a tornado, flood, earthquake or other natural disaster?

Most of us tend to think of "disaster recovery" as a plan for restoring our data after a server's hard disk crashes. Way too many keep their precious backups in a drawer or on a shelf right there in the server room. But if the server room itself is washed away, having faithfully performed that nightly backup won't do you a bit of good. When it comes to a disaster recovery plan, it's time to think not just outside the box, but outside the building -- or even better, outside the city where your business is located.

If you have multiple offices in remote locations, it makes it easier. You can backup the data from your Dallas office to the server in your Memphis office, and vice versa. If you're a small business with all your eggs in one geographic basket, you'll need to make a little more effort (and perhaps spend a little more money). There are numerous services that let you upload your backups to a server over the Internet. Another, less expensive option might be to work out a deal with another small business in a remote location so that each of you provides server space for the other to store backup files. Of course, if your data includes sensitive information, you also have to consider the security implications of transferring it off site. You may need to encrypt it.

Whatever solution you decide on, it's essential that you start thinking now about expanding your disaster recovery plan to include off site backups if you haven't already. It's the kind of thing we tend to put off -- until we suddenly wish we hadn't.