Pool parties are the best not to mention all margaritas and martinis that come with them. A month ago, I was down at the swimming pool on a sunny Sunday and happened to meet a neighbor who is a paralegal. So here I am boozing and socializing with a paralegal and talking to her about her office and my work. Unfortunately she just happened to have a tough week at work, as the building in which her office is located had a fire. The office above her office was caught on fire and it all started with a cigarette butt. Fire went on and did some direct damage to one of the offices. But most of the damage was not from fire it was from something else.

You got it! Most of the damage was from sprinklers and water thrown in by the fire truck. Some offices in the building got flooded and everything from computers to files felt the brunt of H2O. Fire, flood, computers, files….sounds like some uninvited extra work, doesn’t it? Time to buy new office furniture, files and computers, flood control …shopping time! Wait a sec, where can they buy data that was on their old computers and servers? My friend was relieved to know that even though her computers were damaged due to water her data was still secure, as they had a backup server on a different floor in the same building. A NARROW escape! I just wonder how many businesses out there have a backup server in their basement or on another floor in the same building and don’t realize there are data centers (with fire supression technology ) in this world for a reason. Do they know that:

“70 percent of small firms that experience a major data loss go out of business within a year “.*

Even more than that I wonder how adamant are they about their basement backup server when they say “I have backup, it works well, I have it all taken care off and I don’t need offsite backup” I guess will let them live in their ignorant world, after all what do I know I am just a rabbit!

*Source: Contingency Planning, Strategic Research Corp and DTI/Price Waterhouse Coopers (2004) and is widely quoted in places such as: DianaShepstone, National data awareness project launched to help businesses prevent data disasters ( Data Centre Solutions, Jan. 8, 2007)  see: http://www.datacentresols.com/news/articles-full.php?newsid=5455

I was recently asked, “How effective is your daily data backup in your practice?” I had no idea so I retorted, “Very effective… I think.” With over twenty-five years of experience in the dental industry, I have amassed extensive clinical and administrative knowledge. However, I confess that technical issues still perplex me.

My paths first crossed with data backup before the days of computers. A fire broke out in the building where my dental practice was located. As I hauled my A/R ledgers and appointment book outside to safety, it dawned on me how fragile data and our data storage were. As the firemen extinguished the fire, I reasoned I could not expect our staff to carry the heavy and cumbersome records home everyday. What preventative measures could be taken in the event of an after-hour disaster? I crossed my fingers and prayed disaster would never strike again.

As computers manifested into the workplace, my love-hate relationship with tape backups emerged. Each of five tapes, beautifully labeled with the days of the week, accompanied an “advanced” procedure: remove the previous day’s tape at the end of the day, tuck it into your purse and store it at home; insert today’s tape into the tape drive for immediate data storage. My colleagues and I were awestruck by our flawless practice; that is until disaster #2 struck. Our computer crashed. With tape backups in hand, we boldly approached our software vendor to recover our data. “What do you mean the data on the tapes is incomplete or missing? You can only recover 10% of our data?” I begged. One agonizing year later of recruiting help and sifting through day end sheets (which luckily we had printed beforehand), we recovered our lost data. Our misfortune was perplexing; we had done everything we were told to do. Our software company conceded, “Your tapes are old, but can be maintained current by purchasing new ones monthly for a mere $150/month.” Can we say robbery? Oh yes, and there was no guarantee with the tapes.

Data loss can be catastrophic when it strikes home. Cognizant that my most precious data is personal pictures, I burned all of my photos to CD. The peril of this simple and affordable approach was exposed when my home computer crashed. I loaded the first of thirteen CD’s onto my fixed computer only to find nothing. I lost all of my pictures of my children, holidays and special occasions; even my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. The sting of that moment will forever haunt me.

May the age of automation have mercy on me? There must be a bright side to technology. I settled into the world of “automatic timely back-ups” (too good to be true), data encryption (say what?) and 100% restoration (right, I have heard that before). My software vendor was annoyed by my skepticism proclaiming I should be “thankful for technology.” Forgive my doubt but his artificial words did not deliver peaceful slumber.

I will be the first to admit it is easier to believe the plethora of lies out there about data protection, than to uncover the truth and establish proper protection. However I cannot disregard the anguish of data loss or the vast ignorance that surrounds it. While the dental software I most recently used was best in class, it was non-compliant with provincial dental association’s data retention requirements; we did not maintain or protect ten years of our patient files. If we ever had to restore our data, we would have been shocked by the sticker price that we thought was included in our monthly fee.

One thing I am certain, you will be threatened by data loss. Computers fail. Make sure you are protecting what you could not afford to lose. No matter how great software affects your bottom line, or how gorgeous that picture is of your newborn, it is worth nothing when it is gone and will cost you more than you could ever imagine. I encourage you to avoid the pain I experienced by taking the time to discuss the importance of this matter with someone who specializes in IT data backup. Ensure that your system will allow for complete disaster recovery. Ignorance is not bliss, at least not when we are talking computers.

Nelle Pedersen currently serves on the executive team of Toggle Networks, Inc, a Calgary firm committed to data protection.

I discovered a wasp nest in my yard yesterday.  As usual, it comes as a shock when you come across and disturb a wasp nest.  There were wasps’ flying everywhere, and me running into the house in record speed.  The nest that I discovered is actually underground.  I have battled many wasp nest’s in my day, but this is my first underground nest.  I pondered how to begin my “total annihilation” of this species from my yard.  My first attempt was not well thought out.  I decided to soak a towel, and lay it over the wasp area.  I then decided that I could drown the wasps, by turning on the hose over the towel, and soak the area.  What I didn’t count on was the number of wasps which were out of the nest at the time.  Within minutes, I had about 20 wasps in my area, trying to get into their blocked nest.  Time for a new plan.  I went and got some nest foam which I have used with great success in the past.  The problem for me is I don’t know if I will be able to access the entrance for the wasps.  I have tried to make my yard easy to maintain.  No grass at all in the backyard, and most of my gardens are covered in rock with plants interspersed throughout.  Under my rocks, I have placed a landscaping cloth.  My plan was to wait until either dusk or dawn, and pull on the landscape cloth, to expose the nest, and then hopefully see an entrance hole, and blast it with foam.  I attempted this procedure both last night and this morning, but as soon as I touched the cloth, the wasps came out.  I thought they were supposed to be dormant in the dark.  Perhaps it is because they are experiencing flood damage, that they have stayed awake all night.  My next attempt will be fire.  I have also burned many nests in the past also with great success.  I am hopeful that I can just burn right through my landscaping cloth.  I will have to test this first however.  I don’t want my whole back yard to go up in flames.  If all else fails, there is a frost in our near future.  I can always wait for Mother Nature to take care of the problem for me.