"You're
so vain, you probably think this song is about you."
Carly Simon sang that back in 1972. The song "You're So Vain."
was about a self-absorbed lover of hers named Mick Jaeger, Kris
Kristofferson, Warren Beatty, Cat Stevens, David Cassidy, David Bowie, or
none of the above.
So if
this sounds like you, and I don't even know you, it's not about
you. If it sounds like you, and I do know you, it's still not about
you.
A
dermatologist has a problem, a $189 broken disk drive in his practice's
Server. One broken disk drive is problem, two is a disaster. I told him
this on several occasions, emailed, called, and documented exactly what
would happen if a second drive failed. $189, but the man said no.
These
drives are very hard to find, but I know a guy who knows a guy and he said
he could get me one, so I bought two. One to replace the bad
drive, and one to keep as a spare because they were so hard to find. I put
them on a shelf in the office and went to Mexico with the family.
I was
actually composing an email to the dermatologist, beachside in Playa
del Carmen, when the phone rang. "The Server is broken, it
won't turn on, it was like that when I came in." A second
drive had obviously failed. One of my partners came to his rescue, picking
up the drives from my office (Lucky huh?), and started Disaster
Recovery the same day. A few days later, stateside, I had a
$600 international cell phone bill, the good doctor had a $12,000 invoice,
and we didn't have a drive left.
We
recovered everything from backup, right up to close of business the night
it crashed. Things were still missing. Not from our side, from the software
providers side. Turns out, the backups built into two of
their big three programs hadn't been working for months. Software
people, even though the Client was promised foolproof backups, (Rule
#4: Blame the Client.) said it was the Client's responsibility.
Oh,
and about that. Your software provider doesn't care what happens to you
once you've bought their software. No matter what they promised to get you
to buy it. Does your Cadillac Dealer care if your drink and drive? No.
Leopard Cubs
practice killing before going on their first hunt. Teenagers practice
driving before they wreck your car. Golfers practice, Ballerinas practice,
Magicians, even Dermatologists.
Fortune
500 Companies practice Disaster Recovery. I know, I've been there and
it's exhilarating recreating a multinational computer
system from dirt and a rib. Companies that can put a number
on what being out of business costs do it. I do it. You can too.
Got a
website? Call your web host and ask how you're protected. Most of
you are going to find that you're riding bareback. Back in the day you
developed your website on your very own PC and pushed a copy to the web.
Not now, now we do all that in place, in the Cloud. The stakes are high and
recovery time is way longer than ever.
Got
that one rented application your company revolves around, the one with
the hefty annual maintenance fee, call them. You pay for maintenance, get
something for it. Protect your business.
OK,
you back up your Outlook and QuickBooks files every week. Any idea how to
restore them? Any idea if you even can? Ever tried? Will they survive
whatever wipes out your originals? Have you asked these questions?
If
you've got a guy, ask your guy. If you don't have a guy, get a guy. You can
even ask me, maybe I'll be your guy. Maybe you are your guy.
Hope for
the best, prepare for the worst, that's your call, and that's
Cocktail Talk.
