At Tabush Group, we are closely tracking the developments and recommendations of the CDC and other experts regarding coronavirus (COVID-19).  The health and safety of our employees and clients is of the utmost importance.

The business of owning and running a law firm constantly evolves, but has seen vast change, particularly over the last few years.

A disaster in the IT world comes in many forms – natural disasters, ransomware, a cyber breach, and acts of terrorism, just to name a few.  These disasters disrupt normal business and can ultimately have severe and expensive consequences on a company’s reputation and bottom line.

The bad news is many companies think these disasters can never happen to them and don’t take the proper precautions; the good news is that prevention of many disasters is attainable, and planning ensures that when there is a disaster, your company is prepared to get back to business as usual.

Equifax, one of the 3 largest credit agencies in the U.S., last week revealed a security breach which compromised over 140 million individuals’ personal information. While this is not the largest security breach ever in the US, because of the data that was taken, it has the potential to be the most severe, evidenced by the resignation of the company's CEO and the "retiring" of both their CIO and CSO (chief security officer).

To clarify the title of this post, I’m referring not to clouds up in the sky, rather the ones that live here on land, in data centers across the country and around the globe, and store our digital lives, from music and photo collections to critical business information and applications, better known as cloud computing.

Having helped create, implement, manage, and restore backup and disaster recovery plans for dozens of firms, the good news is that a solid backup plan is very doable; the bad news is that it’s not as simple as you may think. Here are some experience shares and reality checks.

When a natural or man-made disaster occurs, it’s a troublesome experience; but it can be a beneficial lesson learned when planning for the next crisis. When you consider events like the 2011 Japanese tsunami, it’s no wonder effective offsite back ups and business continuity solutions are such an important topic today.

A report entitled Beyond the First 48 Hours published by PricewaterhouseCoopers in January 2013, recommended that corporations think past a crisis:

“Businesses, including small ones, must implement long-range plans for reestablishing operations and preserving their company’s brand. They must have effective Business Continuity Solutions in place that include Offsite Back Up and Disaster Recovery Plans to safeguard business data via offsite storage.”

Recently, there’s been a lot of talk about Solid State Hard Drives, or SSDs as they're better known. You may have seen them as options for desktops or laptop computers. As you know, new features and innovations in technology are routine, but many of them are minor. However, every few years, a major feature or upgrade is released; SSD technology is one of them.