Tuesday, 20 May 2014

While you went to lunch, did a voltage spike eat your business?

This month I've been working on backup strategies which help businesses in the following situations.

1. Loss of business critical files / data

2. loss of business critical systems

3. loss of business critical connectivity

Now imagine if your business had lost data, connection to the internet / phones and email.

Not a problem if you can get everything back and running within 30 minutes.

Big problem if you lose your business.

According to Cloud backup the following facts relate to data loss

  • The average failure rate of disk and tape drives is 100% – ALL DRIVES WILL EVENTUALLY FAIL.
  • Only 34% of companies test their tape backups and, of those who do, 77% have found failures.
  • 60% of companies that lose their data will go out of business within 6 months of the disaster.
  • Over ½ of critical corporate data resides on unprotected PC desktops and laptops
  • Key causes for data loss are:
    1. 78% Hardware or system malfunction
    2. 11% Human error
    3. 7% Software corruption or program malfunction
    4. 2% Computer viruses
    5. 1% Natural disasters
    6. 1% Other
  • Only 25% of users frequently back up their files, yet 85% of those same users say they are very concerned about losing important digital data.
  • More than 22% said backing up their PCs was on their to-do list, but they seldom do it.
  • 30% of companies report that they still do not have a disaster recovery program in place, and 2 out of 3 feel their data backup and disaster recovery plans have significant vulnerabilities.
  • 1 in 25 notebooks are stolen, broken or destroyed each year.
  • Today’s hard drives store 500 times the data stored on the drives of a decade ago. This increased capacity amplifies the impact of data loss, making mechanical precision more critical.
  • You have a 30% chance of having a corrupted file within a one-year time frame.
  • Tape drives fail on average at 100%; that means ALL tape drives fail at some point and do NOT offer complete protection for your data if a natural disaster, fire, or terrorist attack destroys your office and everything in it. Business owners who were hit by hurricanes like Katrina learned a hard lesson about keeping remote backups of their data.
  • 93% of companies that lost their data for 10 days or more filed for bankruptcy within one year of the disaster, and 50% filed for bankruptcy immediately. (Source: National Archives & Records Administration in Washington.)
  • 20% of small to medium businesses will suffer a major disaster causing loss of critical data every 5 years. (Source: Richmond House Group)
  • This year, 40% of small to medium businesses that manage their own network and use the Internet for more than e-mail will have their network accessed by a hacker, and more than 50% won’t even know they were attacked. (Source: Gartner Group)
  • About 70% of business people have experienced (or will experience) data loss due to accidental deletion, disk or system failure, viruses, fire or some other disaster (Source: Carbonite, an online backup service)
  • The first reaction of employees who lose their data is to try to recover the lost data themselves by using recovery software or either restarting or unplugging their computer — steps that can make later data recovery impossible. (Source: 2005 global survey by Minneapolis-based Ontrack Data
Wow, what a list. Anyway this months project has been to make the system work in the following scenarios.

1. Our local server goes down / blows up - we want access immediately.


2. Our building is unavailable - we want to carry on working.

Our approach is to have local and offsite resiliance. This means that if your building is offsite, workers can carry on by purchasing a PC or using a home PC and connecting via the internet.

How do we achieve this?

Here's the technologies we implement.


  • Peer to peer synchronisation
  • Virtualisation
  • Cloud storage
  • Cloud services
  • Offsite email backup or server
  • Offsite automated backup

All the work we do doesn't impact your day to day running of your business and we always make sure both old and new systems run alongside each other so that you can test your new ultra resilient business.

To book a consultation in confidence out of business hours, contact mark@hopgood.eu and a number to call and we can talk about your requirements.


Source
http://www.cloudbackup.uk.com/support/data-loss-statistics/

Saturday, 17 May 2014

How to host a free unlimited website with no restrictions for free...

If you are a developer and want to get a website up and running quickly for testing,
there are a couple of options.

If you match any of these

1. You already have unlimited broadband to your building - home or office
2. You have a PC which you are prepared to run 24/7

Then you can host a website.

As a developer I like to set up a testing website for each new customer so that they can see what's possible before they go ahead with their main system. Perhaps you would like to avoid costs or restrictions imposed by your current host.

Here's a step by step way of getting your website up and running today.

1. choose an address. At iNumberz.com you can secure your name, i.e.

http://iNumberz.com/host/youraddress

one of my development websites is 


2. Register your address by visiting the following address with your chosen details

http://iNumberz.com/host/update.php?iNumberz=[youraddress]&passphrase=[yourpassphrase]

e.g. 

http://inumberz.com/host/update.php?iNumberz=test&passphrase=test


Change [youraddress]  to your chosen website name such as IndiaRocks
Your passphrase is a secret only known to you. Make it as long as possible.
If you are not sure how to generate a long passphrase, use the excellent password tool at

Make sure you remember your address and passphrase - it's not currently possible to change at a later date.


3. Test your new website by visiting the following address

http://inumberz.com/host/[youraddress]

e.g.



Any questions, please join the forum.






Friday, 16 May 2014

Using raspberry pi to host a website

If you are a raspberry pi fan, did you know that you can host a website using your raspberry pi.

Using iNumberz host facility you can host a

If you have a raspberry pi and an internet connection, here are the steps.


1. Setup your raspberry pi using raspbian ( debian version for raspberry pi )

2. Make sure apache web server and ssh server are installed

3. Choose an iNumberz host, e.g. http://iNumberz.com/host/yourname

4. email mark@iNumberz.com to get yourname registered as an iNumberz host

5. Open port 80 and port 22 on your broadband firewall / router

6. Direct your friends to your new website...

http://iNumberz.com/host/yourname

working example of a website hosted from home using raspberry pi / debian

http://iNumberz.com/host/blue