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Neither Rain, Nor Snow, Nor Dark of Night...

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the who-needs-an-ark dept.

Digital_Quartz writes "This week's I, Cringely discusses possible plans for ensuring your data survives Hurricane Frances. I've always though remote backups would be the best solution to a problem like this. Maybe even something as simple as hiding a DVD-R under your desk at work, with all your worldly data on it. How do you secure your precious data against earthquakes, hurricanes, and swarms of locusts?" Reader pillageplunder writes "CNN is reporting: 'Scientists say more storms like Frances -- both very intense and very large -- are likely.' They theorize that warming oceans natural cycles are setting the stage. Some interesting facts throughout the article... Forecasting has gotten better, with a 3 day forecast now having a margin of error or 'only' 200 miles." And an anonymous reader writes "For those peer-2-peer geeks stuck in hurricane Frances, you can now listen to Central Florida Indymedia's coverage of the hurricane. In addition to giving updates about the hurricane, they are playing music, interviews, and relaying other radio stations. Possibly more interesting than the content to Slashdot readers will be the fact that it is being done via peer-2-peer. The java program p2p-radio from p2p-radio.sourceforge.net is being used in conjunction with shoutcast to deliver the content. Details on how to connect are available here on Tampa Indymedia's Website."

6 of 278 comments (clear)

  1. While we're on the subject, by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Don't forget the guy from UCLA that is predicting a 6.5ish earthquake in southern california within the next few days.

  2. Websites: The Forgotten Backup Problem by RonBurk · · Score: 3, Interesting
    You can actually read (elsewhere) in realtime panicky messages being posted by website operators who just discovered their hosting service is located in Florida and is going to be going down for at least a few days. People think they've got their bases covered when they have a backup copy of the data files comprising their website, but they often get a nasty surprise like this.

    It doesn't take a hurricane to teach website operators about backup problems, though. Worms that infect and destroy hosting service servers, or router attacks that effectively shut a hosting service down for days produce the same kind of collection of panicked webmasters.

    Just backing up website data files is only a part of a website backup plan. You really want at least two independent (that means both geographically independent, and not run by the same company -- don't forget the "FBI shuts down hosting company" scenario) DNS servers listed as authoritative for your domain. Very few websites meet even that lone requirement.

    You don't have good data backup if you can't demonstrate that you can recover from disaster, and the same is pretty much true for website backup. If you can't show that you can, within at least a matter of hours, have your website running on a machine it's never lived on before and serving "real" requests from the outside world, then you shouldn't really bother reading the fine print about whether your hosting company claims it offers 99.9% uptime or 99.99% uptime.

  3. Duh, put it on the network? by Ars-Fartsica · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Gmail, Yahoo Briefcase, blah blah there are a dozen ways to upload all of the "you life depends on it" data to disaster-proof service.

    If you are in business you should be using something like DataSafe, who will take your backup tapes and put them in very safe keeping should you need them.

  4. Re:Safe as can be by bluGill · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Not true, there are hurricanes in Wisconson and Minnesota. Of course by the time they make it even the worst of them are minor storms, less powerful than a normal summer thunderstorm. If it wasn't for the weathermen looking for trivia like hurricanes to try to make things interesting we would never know.

    There are worse things than saying something positive about the Vikings, you slip in something positive about the packers for instance.

  5. Hi-res Florida webcams by Animats · · Score: 3, Interesting
    High resolution surveillance cameras in Florida are still up and online. Not much to see at night, but check back tomorrow.

    The best camera is the Miami Beach ultra high resolution panoramic webcam. 8000 x 2320 pixels.

  6. In-House Security by consoneo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Concrete Nail Gun, 4 Nails, 4 Lenghts of Chain, one Personal Safe with an attachment point.

    Place 250 Gig hard drive inside, packed in bubble wrap and newspaper one foot thick.