A Beautiful Thing
adtadmin
They say beauty is in the “Eye of the Beholder”.
Ever wonder where that comes from, or why?
Perhaps it’s as simple as this – beauty is really ‘customized’ for each and every eye. How a sunset looks to me is a complex customization that touches me so profoundly, yet for someone else it goes barely noticed or perhaps that person is completely oblivious.
On the other hand, that person’s ‘customized’ sense of beauty is the realization of their grandchild grasping the comprehension of something intricate for the first time or a flawless restoration of a classic car.
When we pour our heart, soul, blood, sweat and tears into something like building a business or creating something out of nothing, we can get quite sensitive about instantly losing everything we have work for so long to attain. These days, most of what we create is connected to the digital world in the form of data stored on computer hard disk drives.
There are two kinds of computer hard drives, those that have failed, and those that will. It’s like death and taxes.
The beautiful part of hard drive failure is realizing your IT Service provider is backing up your data, and actually verifying those backups are functional on a weekly basis.
Last week, two of our clients escaped catastrophe because of their engagement with our Managed IT Services. One clients system was infected with the Filecoder Encryption Ransomware. The Malware infected the computer through a Phishing Email where someone clicked the link. The client’s systems including very important database was encrypted along with hundreds of images and documents. These documents were lost, unless they paid the ransom to the hacker. Fortunately, there was a functional backup to rely on for a restoration. A beautiful thing!
The second client’s system experienced a catastrophic hard disk failure on their server. The drive in question had a three year warranty, which expired the day before the failure. The relief on their faces of realizing their systems were only down for a fraction of the day was proof positive that backups are a beautiful thing. If your systems that store critical data have hard drives that are 3 years of age or older, it’s time to consider replacing these devices.
For years we have written and spoken to thousands of people about the importance of backing up data, AND equally important, positively verifying those backups.
I tell you now, if you have not yet suffered a failure, unfortunately you will. It’s a matter of time.
The only question is, will it be a beautiful thing?