Prepare Your Business For Its Holidays

Are you planning a break, a holiday, or vacation from your business or work this summer? It’s great to get away from it all, but without advance preparation, you may find that you are not “quite” as away as you intended. Interruptions such as phone calls, IM messages etc, can prove to disrupt what should be a proper break away from work.

While you attend your “Zen silence meditation” for a week, or “Sit on the beach, drink cocktails and read 6 novels” for a fortnight, or go “trekking the Himalayas” for 6 weeks; here is a great check list to help prepare your communication flow and avoid distractions and interruptions:

E-mail

• OOO Message – ensure your “Out Of Office” message extends by a day to allow you some space to deal with email overload on your return
• Rules – Set up some basic rules in your email program to automatically clean out your inbox while away, helping to lesson the burden on return
• RSS Feeds – consider culling certain feeds, especially if coming into your Inbox through collaboration or shared work-spaces. You can catch up with them again on your return
• Quota – Is your email account straining under the weight of volume of emails? Consider doing a cull on your email account before you leave. Your patience will thank you for it.
• Passwords – Ensure your passwords are not going to expire while you are away. There is nothing worse than not being able to catch up on your return because you are locked out of your account, and IT Support are on lunch break (it happens!)

Telephone

• Call Forwarding – If you really need to keep up with phone calls, set up call forwarding to your mobile or an answering service
• Voice-mail– Otherwise, set up your voice-mail to say you are returning a day later, to allow you the time to catch up once you are back in the office

Computer

• Protection – Ensure your anti-everything is completely up to date. Consider doing a complete clean up of your system, defragmentation etc, and give your PC a little spa treatment. Password protect your PC if leaving it behind, even if you do not normally have one on it
• Backup data– Backup your PCs and Laptops to an external disk that you can remove from the premises or store in a fireproof safe
• Safety – If leaving your PC behind, consider the safest possible place for it – at home? At work? In a Safe? Also safeguard your USB sticks and other storage devices
• Power – Whether at work or at home, ensure you always use power surge protectors when using electrical equipment, including one for your phone line if relying on wired internet access. Turn everything off and remove plugs from sockets – no little red lights!
• Peripherals – Update drivers for peripherals; unplug the ones that will not be in use during your absence

Mobile

• Ensure you have your contacts up to date on your phone if required, and that whenever creating a contact, always use the country code so your phone numbers will operate when abroad (i.e. +353 or +44)
• Sync smartphones and update apps, software etc
• Ensure you bring your charger, connectors and all other wiring systems you will require whilst away. Nothing worse than your phone dying with no access to a charger.
• Consider your calling and data options – do you have a good roaming package with your provider? Would you consider buying a local pay-as-you-go phone while visiting a certain country to save on costs? Choose the best option for your needs. There are great roaming operators and packages available now.

Collaboration

• Shared Files – have you password-protected files that you need to un-protect to allow others gain access while you are away?
• Events Calendar – block out time away (including that all important extra day on your return) so your colleagues and clients can clearly see you are not available
• IM service – Consider who is connected to you on Skype, iChat etc, will they be able to contact you while away if you are using that medium? Set your status to invisible or away to protect your privacy
• Social Media – Be aware about declaring your absence if you are working from a home office. Mindfulness is important when communicating online about your whereabouts (another whole debate here)

Office

• Post – defer your post with your local Post Office
• Power – If the office will be vacant, shut off power completely if you can, to save money, but to also minimize safety risks
• Safety - Ensure locks are secure and you make a trusted person aware of your absence and ask them to keep an eye on the place. Also ask them to remove any leaflets/mail that may be left on doorstep etc
• Water/Gas – Turn off other vital services if possible, and ensure no electrical equipment is sitting on the floor
• Plants – water well if the break is short, otherwise leave in a tray of water or bring home if necessary

This is not an exhaustive list, and it very much depends if you are working in an organisation, from home or running your own business. Either way, you have a responsibility to take care of your equipment, your premises and of course yourself. Please share with us below anything you feel would be valuable to the conversation…
Enjoy your break!

Practical DR steps for SMEs

 In this post, I write about two possible approaches to ensure that a SME’s data is safely backed up and some pointers on getting access to your data in the event of a disaster.

Tape backups – the traditional approach

Traditionally, companies use backup tapes, typically on a nightly basis, to copy data from their system(s). Usually this data includes email, data files and applications data such as payroll, finance and sales information. It is important to ensure that the backup tape is stored off-site in a secure location and that doesn’t include the boot of the MD’s car ! If the tape is stored in a safe in the office, it wouldn’t be accessible, if staff cannot get access to the office in the event of an emergency. In addition to having a backup stored off-site, you can also keep a copy locally in your office for minor emergencies such as a file or email being deleted by mistake.

Rotation schedule is important

There are a range of service providers who provide tape backup services including off-site storage and if you google or bing for tape backup services, you should be able to find a number of providers. When discussing a backup plan with a service provider, there are two items to clarify;

• A tape rotation schedule which specifies for what period of time is a particular backup is stored before being over-written. A typical example would be the backups from Monday to Thursday are stored until the following Monday to Thursday where they are overwritten. Each Fridays backup is stored until the corresponding Friday in the next month and Fridays backup at the quarter end is stored until the year end or corresponding quarter end in the following year.

• The delivery options to have a backup tape returned from the provider’s secure storage to the office or another nominated location in the event of an emergency. Typically, service providers can return a tape within three hours from when a request is made.

Online backups – encrypted & secure

With the increase in broadband availability and the decrease in storage costs, service providers are now offering online backup services, where the backup is compiled, encrypted and copied across a company’s broadband connection to a secure storage location. The time taken to transfer the backup is related to the size of the backup and the speed of the broadband connection. Typically, an online backup arrangement would start with a full backup of all data and then subsequent backups being for any incremental changes.

It is more convenient than using tapes, although some companies still keep a backup tape in the office in the event of minor emergencies. The online backup service provider also provides a facility to ‘copy back’ any previous online backup if required by the SME. With online backups, a rotation schedule needs to be discussed as well, to identify how long a SME wishes to maintain a nightly, an end of week or end of quarter/year backup. To find your nearest service provider, just google/bing for online backup service.

Access to a server

Whichever backup approach you wish to use, the SME should also discuss access to a server or servers, on which the data can be restored in the event of a disaster which takes down the existing server(s) in the office. Typically, backup service providers can provide this access directly or through a partner who provides hosting facilities.

This blog is intended to cover some of the basics in relation to data backup as part of a DR solution. There are a range of additional technologies and services that I hope to elaborate on in future blogs. I would be interested to hear your experiences in relation to data backups and recovery.

Use RSYNC to backup data on a second hard disk

On a production server, if you have two hard disk and do not want to spend extra $50 each month, then you could use rsync to backup the data from your main disk to the second disk. It’s very easy to setup. All you to do is use to the following scripts. Save the following script as /disk3/rsync_backup.sh

#!/bin/bash
unset PATH
# USER VARIABLES
BACKUPDIR=/disk3                            # Folder on the backup server where the backups shall be located
#KEY=/root/.ssh/id_rsa                        # SSH key
#MYSQL_BACKUPSCRIPT=/root/my_backup.sh        # Path to the remote mysql backup script
#PRODUCTION_USER=root@production.server.com    # The user and the address of the production server
EXCLUDES=/disk1/backup_exclude                # File containing the excluded directories
DAYS=60                                        # The number of days after which old backups will be deleted
# PATH VARIABLES
SH=/bin/sh                                    # Location of the bash bin in the production server!!!!
CP=/bin/cp;                                    # Location of the cp bin
FIND=/usr/bin/find;                            # Location of the find bin
ECHO=/bin/echo;                                # Location of the echo bin
MK=/bin/mkdir;                                # Location of the mk bin
SSH=/usr/bin/ssh;                            # Location of the ssh bin
DATE=/bin/date;                                # Location of the date bin
RM=/bin/rm;                                    # Location of the rm bin
GREP=/bin/grep;                                # Location of the grep bin
MYSQL=/usr/bin/mysql;                        # Location of the mysql bin
MYSQLDUMP=/usr/bin/mysqldump;                # Location of the mysql_dump bin
RSYNC=/usr/bin/rsync;                        # Location of the rsync bin
TOUCH=/bin/touch;                            # Location of the touch bin
##                                                      ##
##      –       DO NOT EDIT BELOW THIS HERE     –     ##
##                                                      ##
# CREATING NECESSARY FOLDERS
$MK $BACKUPDIR
CURRENT=$BACKUPDIR/current
OLD=$BACKUPDIR/old
$MK $CURRENT
$MK $OLD
# CREATING CURRENT DATE / TIME
NOW=`$DATE ‘+%Y-%m’-%d_%H:%M`
NOW=$OLD/$NOW
$MK $NOW
# CREATE REMOTE MYSQL BACKUP BY RUNNING THE REMOTE BACKUP SCRIPT
# $SSH -i $KEY $PRODUCTION_USER “$SH $MYSQL_BACKUPSCRIPT”
# RUN RSYNC INTO CURRENT
#$RSYNC                                                            \
#    -apvz –delete –delete-excluded                        \
#     –exclude-from=”$EXCLUDES”                                \
#      -e “$SSH -i $KEY”                                        \
#       $PRODUCTION_USER:/                                        \
#        $CURRENT ;
// No Compression
$RSYNC                                                            \
-apv –delete –delete-excluded                        \
–exclude-from=”$EXCLUDES”                                \
/                                \
$CURRENT ;
# UPDATE THE MTIME TO REFELCT THE SNAPSHOT TIME
$TOUCH $BACKUPDIR/current
# MAKE HARDLINK COPY
$CP -al $CURRENT/* $NOW
# REMOVE OLD BACKUPS
for FILE in “$( $FIND $OLD -maxdepth 1 -type d -mtime +$DAYS )”
do
#    $RM -Rf $FILE
$ECHO $FILE
done
exit 0

Save the following to /disk3/backup_exclude. Essentially, these are the files/folders you do not wish to backup using rsync.

/disk3/
/bin/
/boot/
/dev/
/lib/
/lost+found/
/mnt/
/opt/
/proc/
/sbin/
/sys/
/tmp/
/usr/
/var/log/
/var/spool/
/var/lib/php4/
/var/lib/mysql/