Sidebar 1: Disaster Prevention Checklist

Know the outage costs

Know your recovery time

Know your maintance agreements

Perform regularly scheduled reboots

Perform preventive maintenance

Schedule down-time for routine maintenance

Have spares, either parts or servers, on-site for points of failure

Use redundant fault-tolerant systems when zero down-time is required

Know your Maximum Time to Repair

Perform Disaster/Recovery drills

Validate your backups

Be static safe

Keep your lab clean and locked

Perform Facilities Disaster/Recovery drills

Examine LAN traffic regularly

Centralize the helpdesk

Post hotline phone and beeper numbers

Be proactive

Document everything