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How to Protect Your Small Business from Network and
Utility Power Risks: 15 Disaster Recovery Planning Tips
By Joshua Feinberg

Last time, in 12 Simple Disaster Recovery Planning Tips for Small Businesses, we jump-started your disaster recovery planning with a few tips on data backup, physical security and PC/workstation security.

Unless your company has a full-time computer support manager, or a similar outsourced relationship with a local consultant, there's a good chance that no one is paying much attention to various data protection issues.

So now as promised, let's turn our attention to two other major vulnerabilities that merit consideration in your small business disaster recovery planning: your internal local area network (LAN) and external utility power.

Local Area Network (LAN) Protection

How do you protect individual data files on network-shared folders?

Are you relying on shared application-level file permissions, such as those in Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel? Or do you use a more sophisticated, integrated security management approach, such as user and group security permissions in Microsoft Windows 2000?

Are usernames and passwords required to logon to all servers? Does each network user have a unique set of logon credentials, or do users share logons and passwords?

If users have their own network logons, do you have company policies that reinforce these efforts? For example, are employees forbidden from sharing logons or posting their usernames and passwords on yellow sticky notes near their PCs?

When an employee resigns or is terminated, do you have a procedure regarding network logons?

How many logons and passwords do users have to contend with as they run various network applications? What's holding you back from implementing a single sign-on approach?

How often are network users required to change their passwords? How is this enforced by your network operating system (NOS)?

Are there any policies in place that mandate sophisticated password selections, such as a mixture of upper and lower case characters, as well as the inclusion of both letters and numbers?

Do your designated administrators only user the "Administrator" logon when absolutely necessary? In other words, do administrators have stripped-down logons for everyday desktop software usage?

What kind of hardware redundancy do you have in place on your server(s) to protect your company from a single point of failure?

Power Protection

Does every sensitive electronic device in your company, both PC and non-PC equipment, have at least some form of real surge protection?

Tip: Don't be fooled by cheap power strips masquerading as surge protectors.

Do battery backup or UPS (uninterruptible power supply) units protect your desktop PCs and servers?

Do these UPS units have the ability to automatically send out network alerts and shut the affected PC or server down during a prolonged blackout? When was the last time you tested these capabilities?

Are you protecting your telecommunications lines with appropriate data line surge protection?

Do notebook PC users have portable surge protectors with data line protection?

The Bottom Line

While these tips shouldn't be regarded as the be-all, end-all of your LAN and power protection efforts, use the bullet points in this article to jump-start your disaster recovery planning. Both LAN and power protection are not one-time projects - they are ongoing risks that need to be monitored and re-evaluated at regular intervals.

In the next and final installment of this disaster recovery planning series, we'll check out virus protection and other more general small business data protection best practices.

Copyright (C) 2002, KISTech Communications Corporation

Joshua Feinberg is an internationally recognized small business technology expert, consultant, columnist, author, keynote speaker, and trainer. He is a published Microsoft Press author, as well as the creator of and two-year veteran writer of the Microsoft Direct Access "VAPVoice: Notes From the Field".
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