Tony's Microsoft Access Blog : Disaster Recovery

ioSafe Solo USE External Hard Drive with Disaster Protection

Tony — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:32:00 GMT

Now here's an interesting product. ioSafe Solo External Hard Drive, Fireproof Waterproof Rugged USB in 500 Gb, 1 Tb or 1.5 Tb capacities.

Note however that the fire rating is only 1/2 hour at 1500 F. While this is probably quite adequate for most disasters if the fire is real bad this won't be sufficient. Or the proverbial tornado, etc. You will still need offsite backup.

That said I'd put this device in it's own closet with fire resistant drywall on all the walls and ceiling as well as a steel fire door. And a sprinkler.

My job description today is paranoid pessimist.

‘Tis The Season To Think About Backups

Tony — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 05:23:34 GMT

An excellent blog posting ‘Tis The Season To Think About Backups. " Just this week a close friend as well as a colleague here at Microsoft had their houses broken into and their PCs with all their photos and videos stolen. Luckily they had done a proper backup. "

The author mentions Outlook and Outlook Express without stating that those files are found in the User Apps folder which is hidden away. In Windows XP it's found in C:\Documents and Settings\ttoews\Application Data while in Windows Vista it's found in C:\Users\ttoews\Application Data. (Or similar.) These days many folks are using Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and similar so that may not be of concern to you. Unless, of course, they lose your email for you.

For genuine stories about lost data see the following blog postings Egyptian poet pleads for stolen works to be returned and Have you made a recent copy of your files and photos?

IT Disaster Recovery Planning for Dummies

Tony — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:56:22 GMT

An interesting blog posting about the above book - IT Disaster Recovery Planning for Dummies

Must read - The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why

Tony — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 23:06:36 GMT

The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why

by Amanda Ripley

This book should be at the top of your *MUST* read list. Right after the Bible, Koran or other books important to your faith.

How did all the 309 passengers on Air France flight 358 which crashed in Toronto get off the aircraft in under 90 seconds? With fire blocking some exits? The flight attendants were trained to yell at the passengers to break their mental paralysis and hysteria.

One particularly sad story was of the couple, on a flight a few decades ago, who were among the few who successfully evacuated an aircraft because the husband read the safety placard. However their long time family friend was frozen in place and didn't get out.

Read the safety placard. Every time. Count how many rows back and forward in your aircraft to the nearest exits. Do your absolute best to ensure your family sits together in an airplane. Much time is "wasted" when family members understandably insist on evacuating the aircraft together.

How did Morgan Stanley successfully evacuate 2,687 people from the World Trade Center on 9/11 with only 13 lives lost? Five of which included the security directory and four security personnel. Their security director insisted that annually everyone do the evacuation drill from the building. And management backed him up.

Note that the World Trade Center had quirks in it's stair wells due to the height of the building. Also many stairwells have confusing exits at ground level. If you work in a high rise have you evacuated recently? Have you evacuated through all the possible stair wells?

Wear shoes that you can walk a mile. Discarded high heel shoes cluttered the WTC stair wells causing problems. Many evacuees had foot injuries due to not wearing shoes by the time they got to ground level and walking out on the debris.

How do you get from your hotel room to the fire exit? From your conference floor to a fire exit? A movie theatre? A bar? Has the bar blocked the fire exits?

The more thinking you do of how to get out of aircraft or building the less likely you are to freeze in place or waste seconds or minutes trying to figure out what to do. And it doesn't take much thinking. A quick glance around as you move around the building look for those fire exit signs.

I could go on and on about the lessons in this book. However this would be unethical and take a number of pages. And I wouldn't get all the tips either. I'd only get the tips that were relevant to my situation.

In my opinion one suggestion that was missing is a strong LED pocket flashlight. One which uses a AAA battery. Although not cheap at about $50 each they could be a life saver. And darned handy at other times too. I don't trust the backup power systems which handle stairwell lighting. I have no idea when the last time those batteries were changed.

Read this book. Reread it a year from now. And hope you never, ever have to use the suggestions. If you're paranoid like me you'll visit her website at http://www.amandaripley.com and subscribe to her blog.

(I know I'd have severe survivors guilt if there was a disaster, lives were lost or severe injuries and I made it out. In which case I'd be looking for a counselor and talking about the situation as much as possible. But that's another problem out of the scope of this review. Search on critical incident stress debriefing.)

Available from your bookstore, library or by inter library loan.

Lessons from Vancouver - (water cooled) emergency generator failed

Tony — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 01:30:37 GMT

"But as soon as the fire department started drawing massive amounts of water in their attempt to contain the fire, the water pressure in the mains was reduced to a level where the (water cooled) emergency generator couldn't operate any more."

From comp.risks DR/BCM lessons from the Vancouver fire

Didja hear the one about the outfit with twelve hours diesel in a tank inside the building and seven days diesel in large tanks outside? Turns out the pump to move the diesel from the larger outside tank to the small internal tank was on external power and not the generator power.

Vancouver Power Outage Walloping Some Domain Owners

Tony — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:46:06 GMT

Vancouver Power Outage Walloping Some Domain Owners

Some sites losing Telus phone service Gotta love that final quote "All of our major sites will not go down." So long as one of your major sites will stay up that will be good enough?

Power outage in downtown Vancouver extended

Tony — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:34:54 GMT

The outage caused by an underground fire at 9 am Monday morning in downtown Vancouver has been extended to Wednesday evening. 24 hour battery backup systems have already started failing.

Power and phones out until Wednesday in downtown Vancouver

Is your business prepared for such an outage?

It'll never happen to you, right? Wrong.

The 1998 Auckland power crisis was an event that occurred in the Auckland, New Zealand Central Business District. The area suffered a five-week long power outage in 1998.

The Hanukkah Eve Wind Storm of 2006 in the Seattle area including Microsoft. Some folks were without power for ten days although the Wiki article doesn't state that.

Using Terminal Server when a disaster strikes nearby

Tony — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 23:20:00 GMT

David Fenton, respected denizen of the comp.databases.ms-access and recently the microsoft.public.access newsgroups, has an interesting posting on a client who has an office near the recent New York steam pipe explosion.

OT: Disaster Recovery

I've read of similar situations in the past where there's a nearby incident of some sort, such as a large fire, or chemical leak. The power was still on but the employees couldn't use the systems. This also illustrates why employees should keep their files on the server and so on and so forth.