Re: Hot Backup

The world rejoiced as andrew(at)libertyrms(dot)info (Andrew Sullivan) wrote:
> Having undertaken the exercise, I really can say that it is a little
> strange to think about what would happen to data I am in charge of in
> case a fairly large US centre were completely blown off the map. But
> with a little careful planning, you actually _can_ think about that,
> and provide strong assurances that things won't get lost. But it
> doesn't pay to call such questions "silly", because they are
> questions that people will demand answers to before they entrust you
> with their millions of dollars of data.

I was associated with one data center that has the whole
"barbed-wire-fences, 40-foot-underground-bunker, retina-scanning"
thing; they apparently /did/ do analysis based on the site being a
potential target for nuclear attack.

Realistically, two scenarios are much more realistic:

a) The site resides in a significant tornado zone where towns
occasionally get scraped off the map;

b) The site isn't far from a small but busy airport, and they did
consciously consider the possibility of aircraft crashing into the
building. Presumably by accident, not by design; the company owns
quite a number of jet aircraft, so that vulnerabilities involving
misuse of aircraft would rapidly "fly" to mind... (Painfully
and vastly moreso since 9/11, of course :-(.)

When doing risk analysis, it is certainly necessary to consider these
sorts of (admittedly paranoid) scenarios.

It's a bit fun, in a way; you get to look for some pretty odd-ball
situations; the "server room being overrun by Mongol Hordes." That
particular one isn't too likely, of course :-).
--
(reverse (concatenate 'string "moc.enworbbc@" "sirhc"))
http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/advocacy.html
"I've discovered that P=NP, but the proof is too long to fit within
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