Dan Blacharski
IT unemployment not as bad as other industries
With unemployment at 9.5 percent nationally and significantly higher in some areas, nobody can say the job outlook appears very rosy. But according to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics reports, the IT sector added 44,000...
Security experts have a place as a G-man
It's no surprise that the government has a strong interest in promoting cyber-security; and as a cyber-security expert, job prospects are good if you want to go to work for Uncle Sam. The Defense Department-sponsored Digital...
Companies facing more pressure in disaster recovery
According to a recent survey, companies are facing greater pressures in the area of disaster recovery. The prospect of the high cost of downtime is putting pressure on disaster recovery staff to deliver, but at the same time, the...
The ROI of virtualization
Virtualization is really a simple and elegant concept, and the driving force behind it is the cost savings. But does it really save money? Sure. Does it save as much as everybody claims it will? Probably not, but then again, nothing...
Monitoring performance in virtualized environments
A recent InformationWeek piece highlighted the real elephant in the virtualization room, and that is the question of performance. Abandoning the model of running applications on a dedicated server, and provisioning (or more likely,...
Print-to-mail and disaster recovery
Does your disaster preparedness plan include procedures to ensure the continued production and distribution of printed documents, such as invoices and other vital business material? A recent Gartner research note suggested that the...
How much can your vendor increase your storage utilization?
Everybody's looking to save a buck these days, and that fact hasn't been lost on storage vendors, who have been anxious to promote their own reclamation systems, virtualization programs, and other techniques designed to extend the...
US standard for disaster preparedness
In my discussions lately about the British standard for business continuity (BS 25999), one might wonder whether the US has an equivalent generic standard, and the answer is, "sort of."The US Private Sector Preparedness Act, part of...
PCI DSS and storage of credit card data
The PCI (Payment Card Industry) Data Security Standard is all-encompassing, setting a standard for security and protective measures for merchants who store credit card information. Created by the credit card industry, the standard...
Getting executive buy-in for disaster preparedness
The biggest obstacle to putting a good disaster recovery plan in place is inadequate funding. My current survey (see the bottom of this entry) asks how the recession has affected your disaster recovery plans, but it may not just be...
Has the recession affected your archive and disaster recovery plans?
IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Storage tracker says that the storage software market is down for the first time in five years. the market was worth $2.8 billion, according to the study, which is 5.2 percent less than the year-ago quarter....
Giving your disaster preparedness exercise a cool name
It's not often that I recommend that any company, anywhere emulate the Federal government at any time, but let's give credit where it's due. The Department of Homeland Security conducted its Continuity of Operations plans yesterday....
How long can you endure a disruption?
Okay, all you Yankees, I'm going to talk again about the British Standard 25999, or British Standard for Business Continuity again. But before you click somewhere else, let me remind you that even if it doesn't apply directly to you,...
Disaster planning: Raiding the vending machines
In my unofficial, decidedly unscientific poll, I asked "what's in your disaster recovery plan?" Here's the results. Thirty-nine percent said they have backup software with off-site storage, and a surprising 18 percent responded that...
What is BS 25999?
The British Standard for Business Continuity (BS 25999), launched in 2007, was designed to provide a standard approach to business continuity, and to establish a way of assuring business continuity management all the way down the...
Testing the business continuity plan
The business continuity plan may be backed by good technology and written documentation, but unless it's brought out and tested every now and then, there is still a risk that everything may not work as it should when a real emergency...
Planning for a pandemic
Disaster preparedness and business continuity planning revolves mainly around two things: Ensuring that IT systems and data are accessible from any location in case of disaster, and ensuring that the people are available to continue...
When does disaster recovery kick into action?
We tend to think of disaster recovery and disaster preparedness as something that kicks in only very rarely if ever, when things like hurricanes, earthquakes, or acts of war happen. In fact, disasters come in all shapes and sizes. A...
President's Cybersecurity Plan and the IT Security Business
President Obama outlined his cyberspace security strategy last week and released a very far-reaching document. At the same time, the President also announced that there will be a new cybersecurity coordinator position at the White...