Technology T'ai Chi

Another brief digression.

There are many reasons to invest in technology.

You want to be able to grow your business, that’s stipulated.  So there are technologies out there that can help actively, directly improve your revenue, productivity, and profitability.

You also want to be able to protect your investments (as I’ve noted in other posts here).  Technology investments can help you sleep better at night, knowing that your information is safe, and your business can go in in the face of disaster.

But technology spending always gets a bad rap.  IT has always been a cost.  Everybody sees IT as a money pit.

Well, I am not here to lie to you – IT is a cost.  But my whole point here is not to tell you something you already know – it is to help you understand that spending on technology is a good idea – it is truly an investment.

Again, it is a matter of perception. Let me give you a simple example of a highly publicized bit of a brouhaha from recent history.  A little something we call “Y2K”.

As you are all likely aware, Y2K refers to the inherent deficiency in many computer programs written in the mid-twentieth century.  Two factors converged – programmers never thought their programs would remain useful as long as they did; and storage – memory and disk space – was expensive.  So programmers used only two digits to depict years, just to save on space.

That was all hunky dory until it was noticed that, hey, when the year 2000 hits, the programs will think that it’s actually the year 1900.  Hilarity would ensue.

Ok, actually, death, destruction, mayhem, and incorrect checking account balances would ensue.  That’s what everyone thought.  There was genuine concern that the technological infrastructure would fall apart.

You know what?  Everyone was right.  It could have been very, very ugly.  Little things like the air traffic control system and the entire banking industry could have been affected.

Thus began a seriously massive effort to come up with ways to fix the problem, and execute on all the plans for remediation.

Well, as you all know, things did NOT break, planes did NOT fall out of the sky, January 1, 2000 was quite and peaceful, as these things go.

And what was the reaction of people outside the IT industry?

“Oh, those geeky IT guys made up all of that dire nonsense just to get us to spend a bunch of money on a non-issue!  We’ve been had!  See, the turn of the century came and went (well, actually, no, that was a year later) and there was no disaster!”

That was a frustrating experience, true.  At the same time, that’s exactly how things are supposed to work. Obviously, nothing happened because of all that hard work and money spent to remediate the programs involved!  And the result:  smooth, invisible, stable, a non-event.

If you invest properly in your systems when they are working well, then your systems will continue to work well.  They will be relentlessly reliable, and a solid member of your team – helping you grow your business.

The Internet is a dangerous place.

(And yes, I know it’s not really a place, but bear with me on this.)

There are a vast variety of voracious vagabonds just looking to interrupt your browsing and shopping experience, as well as access your network or PC.  Some of them want simply to disrupt your connection or use it for their own purposes.

As soon as you are connected to the Internet, either via dial-up, DSL, Cable, Satellite, cans and a string, or whatever – you are vulnerable.

Here’s why.  Imagine, if you will, that the thin cable by which you communicate with the Internet is, in reality, a bundle of 65,535 wires.  From a logical standpoint, that’s what it is.  Each of those wires is referred to as a port.

Imagine also a giant book in Switzerland (it would have to be in Switzerland) that has a page for each port, giving its number and describing its purpose.  For example, port 80 is set aside for web pages, ports 110 and 25 are for e-mail, etc.  Many of the pages say “This page reserved for future use.”  The book is in Switzerland because everyone in the world can come and see it – including the bad guys.  There’s the rub.

(By the way, if you want to see the “book”, do a Google search for “TCP/IP Port Definitions, or look here.)

Now, if you didn’t take any action, all 65,535 of those ports would remain open for business, allowing all kinds of junk to come through your connection.  And the junk will be there.

There is a way to prevent this:  a Firewall.

A firewall is really a piece of software.  It’s a special program that runs either on a regular computer (like Windows Firewall does), or on a special-purpose computer referred to as a firewall appliance.

All firewalls do two things:  close unused ports, and monitor traffic on the open ones.

By default, a firewall wants to close every port.  But it can’t – some of them have to stay open for legitimate traffic, as mentioned above (mail, web, file sharing, etc.).  But it closes what it can, protecting you from the majority of the bad guys – who simply use open ports to tap into your systems and send over viruses and other goodies.

Some bad guys try to be even smarter:  they send traffic through ports known to be open, but what they send doesn’t belong.  They will send a virus through port 80, for example – our Web port.  So the other thing a firewall does is look at the flow of traffic and block what doesn’t belong.

The level of sophistication involved in properly configuring a firewall consumes several volumes.  Fortunately, the defaults are vastly better than nothing at all.

If you have an Internet connection, make sure there is a firewall of some type in place.  The bad guys know how to work the system; don’t make it easy for them.

ps

I thought I would interject here why I am trying to convey my particular message. The message, of course, revolves around Technology Stress, its prevention, and its cures.

Let’s be frank with each other (insert joke about name here). Most people I meet and deal with on a professional basis don’t do anything to PREVENT technology stress. The efforts are mostly directed toward relief. And that’s fine; I’m happy to help and address the flaming cauldron of aggravation that is causing lost sleep and ulcers. I will put out the fire, get things back in order, and help your business recover. You will then pay me a great deal of money.

It is at that point, of course, that most folks realize they need protection from disaster – ways to mitigate the risks inherent in using technology. Yes, the prevention costs money. Yes, you may never need it. But if that meteor seeks you out, you’ll be grateful for Bruce Willis and the gang to blow it out of the sky. And the money you spend on mitigating, avoiding, and transferring risk (and even accepting it sometimes) is going to be less than recovering from a disaster.

What’s the degree of risk that we’re discussing, anyway? That question depends on the business. But factor in idle employees, lost revenue, replacement hardware, lost data, and the cost of someone (me, for example) to put it all back together and get the business running. Then add lost customers (particularly if yours is a web-based business – “loyal on-line shopper” is an oxymoron). Lost reputation. Lost sleep.

There is a degree of balance that should be considered. Be realistic about the risks, and plan accordingly. Not everyone needs triple-redundant, hot fail-over, clustered, mirrored, radiation-hardened web servers with a side of fries. Those fries are bad for you. But don’t under-plan either. I will help you with all of this. Drop me a line.

(Now, some might find my message rather gloom-and-doom laden. You know, my favorite prophet has always been Jeremiah – he turned out to be right, after being imprisoned for his prophecies. I’m no prophet, but my emphasis on protecting your environment and technology and thus your business is what I believe to be right.)

I’m here to help you evaluate and mitigate the risks. Most of the information you see here is geared toward the prevention of Technology Stress. Now you know why.

ps

One of the best slogans for software that I ever saw was for Dantz Retrospect Backup software. Dantz has since been eaten by EMC, the mega-huge storage company, and the slogan has vanished as far as I can tell.

But it was: “To go forward, you must backup.”

And that’s what we are going to be discussing today: Protecting your data from loss through good backup procedures.

Depending who you ask, you might get many different definitions regarding “backup.” We are going to treat this in a fairly generic sense. “Backup” is going to be defined for our purposes as the process of copying data from one medium to another in order to protect the data from loss.

Loss can happen for many reasons. Perhaps you have inadequate power protection. Perhaps you have suffered a disk crash or a virus attack. Perhaps a disgruntled employee has wreaked vengeance upon your systems. Maybe a hacker has come in and disfigured your web page data and you need to restore it to its pristine form. Or maybe your office got hit by a meteor, Heaven forbid.

(Oh, and rest assured, we’ll talk about these other potential problems in other blog entries.)

And just as there are many forms of loss, there are many forms of backup as well. And the cost thereof can vary over a wide range.

Some of the popular forms of backup include:

• Tape (yep, still very prevalent, especially in large companies) – This usually requires backup software both to do the initial backup, and to retrieve data that has been backed up. Can be very expensive, especially if automated tape libraries are involved.
• Optical (CD, DVD) – Limited by capacity, even with significant compressing of the data. Leads users to be very selective in what gets backed up, a potential source of holes. Unknown how long an optical disk really lasts on the shelf. Usually a bit slow.
• Disk-to-disk copying – Using a USB or eSATA removable hard drive, copies files from the server or desktop system to the external drive. Can be inexpensive. But may be less likely to be removed from the premises.
• Disk-to-disk imaging – Takes a “snapshot” of a hard drive and copies it to an external disk. Great for quickly restoring a workstation or server that has crashed. Common programs are Symantec Ghost and Acronis.
• Over-the-wire backups (using the Internet to transfer data to a remote service bureau) – Becoming very popular. Can be inexpensive, but requires a fast Internet connection. May not be able to backup all data in a reasonable time frame. Security issues, and the ability to retrieve large amounts of data, can leave holes in coverage.

It is extremely important that, no matter what medium you use for backups, that the backups be taken to a site other than where the server is. If a meteor hits your main office, then your server is going away. If your tape drive or external hard drive is sitting next to your server, it too is doomed.

The cost of backing up data has to be weighed against the value of the data being preserved. If your company lost its entire client list, what would that cost? If your company lost one day of accounting data (and the paper records are still around and just need to be re-entered), what would that cost? This analysis will lead to the best cost/benefit solution, and also determine the frequency of backups.

The bottom line is this: you are not immune to data loss, but you can certainly lower (or even eliminate) the impact. Pick a backup solution – weigh the costs, the benefits, and your own habits (if an automatic, over-the-wire solution is best because you can’t be relied upon to take tapes out of the building, then so be it). Come up with a schedule, and decide what is valuable to your company. Get started on the plan, and use it. If you need help, well, you know who to call.

Most people wait until after data loss happens to implement backups. Don’t be like most people. There is a meteor out there with your name on it; save your data and your business.

ps

Recalling Rule Number 1, you may wonder how it is that computers can do anything at all. Well, as I alluded to briefly, the answer is clearly through the judicious application of that miracle of modern science, electricity.

Electricity is, so to speak, the food on which computers feed. Unlike real living organisms, who take time to metabolize their food, computers require a steady flow of electrons into the hole in the back of the box in order to function.

What about laptops with batteries? (Ah, I see the wise guy is back.) Batteries do the same thing; the hole is simply in a different place. More on that later. In this realm, laptops have an advantage over desktop/tower/bolted-to-the-floor non-portable computers.

In America, the juice coming from the wall socket is, mostly, being pushed out at a pressure of 110 volts or so (really anywhere from 105 to 125, depending on a number of factors). In most of the rest of the world, that voltage is 220 volts. And in either case, it is alternating current – that is, it swings back and forth from positive to negative, forming a sine wave. That sine wave has a frequency of 60 Hertz (Hz, cycles per second) in America, and 50 Hz elsewhere.

Inside a computer, however, those melted grains of sand and copper would fuse at such high voltages. Delicate stuff in there. Almost everything inside a computer operates at 5 volts or less – unless it has a motor (disk drives, optical drives, fans), in which case it runs at 12 volts.

And it’s all DC – always there, never oscillating, a solid signal.

How does all this happen? Through the magic of a special box inside the computer called the “power supply.” Now, that’s a bit of a misnomer – it’s really a power converter, but never mind – years of tradition and usage say “power supply” and so shall I.

Now, in another article, I’ll tell you what happens when the power supply fails.

For right now, lets talk about the incoming flow of electricity. The power supply is expecting that 110v input, and can reliably generate its 5v and 12v outputs as long as it’s getting fed properly. But the power company is a mildly fickle entity – and that input voltage could drop to 80-90 volts (a brownout) or vanish altogether (a blackout). Worse, the power might fluctuate up and down, up and down.

And what about the other direction? What if the voltage from the wall goes way up for a short time (a surge) or way, way, way up for a very short time (a spike)?

All of those are anathema to the power supply, and ultimately to your computer. Your computer is getting slowly poisoned – and unlike iocane powder, the repeated damage is cumulative.

Enter the Battery Backup Unit, also called the Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS).

As its name suggests, this device contains a large battery and it is inserted between the hole in the wall and the hole in the back of your computer (that is, it gets plugged into the wall, and the computer gets plugged into it). It also contains circuitry that knows when there is a problem with the power from the wall. If the power goes too high or too low, the UPS responds by switching to battery power. Most UPS’s have another even more important function: the battery acts like a big sponge, soaking up the surges and spikes coming in, and delivering a clean flow of 110v to the computer. (That’s, by the way, the advantage of a laptop with the battery in it – the same functions are performed by the laptop battery.)

Get a UPS. Don’t argue, just get one. They are much less expensive than the parts they replace, and infinitely less expensive than the data you could lose if the power goes out in the middle of a large project that you haven’t saved lately.

Ah, but which one? Good question. I have found that brand names (APC, Belkin, Tripplite, among others) are highly reliable and well supported. You will not go wrong with any of these. As to size: This tool over at APC’s website is really a good means of sizing a UPS properly.

Here are a few things to remember:

• A UPS is not designed to keep your system on for a long time. Twenty minutes, tops – long enough to shut it down gracefully in the event of a blackout.
  
• Never plug a laser printer into your UPS. It will suck the juice right out of it, and damage the battery.
  
• Replace the battery when the UPS tells you to.
  
• Don’t underbuy, because you will upgrade against your will. See the wizard mentioned above, then go one size up at most.

Don’t poison one of your most valuable assets. Keep the power clean, and your equipment will run better longer.

ps

Rule Number 1 to avoid Technology Stress:

Computers are Stupid.

We all know this, have always known this.

But do you know why computers are stupid? Because they are made out of rocks. They have earned their right to be stupid.

What do I mean?

What do you think I mean? Exactly that. Computers are stupid because they are made out of rocks.

Think about it. Where do silicon (and the components of GaAs, wise guy) chips come from? Beach sand. Beach sand is melted, cleaned, doped with a few molecules of other chemicals, and extruded as ingots. These are sliced, etched, and cut up to make the integrated circuits that do the heavy lifting.

The wires? Copper. Sometimes gold or silver. Always metals harvested from the ground. Very special rocks, but rocks none the less.

The case? Plastic. And the source for plastic? Oil. Petroleum. From the Latin petra meaning rock, and the Latin oleum meaning oil. Did you see that? Rock. Rock Oil.

I could go on, but you get the picture.

It’s a lump of rock. Remember that the next time it makes you mad. The next time it chooses to be slow. The next time it locks up, freezes, and generally fails to bend to your indomitable will. Then get up and take a walk.

Find some fresh air. Breathe it. Find some flowers. Smell them. Find some blue sky. Bask in it. The computer will somehow have failed to follow you.

Then come back, refreshed, and take away the only thing keeping the computer doing anything at all: its electricity. Turn it off. That’s right, give it the old Raytheon Reset.

Wait a moment, and turn it back on. Don’t be afraid. I’m here for you, and I will help you fix any messes you make.

Just keep reading, and I’ll help you learn how.

Next time: Poisoning your rocks.

I’m delighted to be here.

I’m delighted to be.

Too often, the technological tools of our trade, or any trade, treat us like trash. That’s tragic.

My goal here, on the Technology Therapy Weblog (or “blog” as we cognoscenti call it), will be to share helpful advice for you, gentle reader, about how to avoid Technology Stress.

You may know all or some of the things you’ll find here. But sometimes a reminder is necessary – and we don’t want to be reminded to back up our data by the smoke coming out of the guts of our computer, do we?

We don’t want to be reminded about power protection after the electricity has gone out and trashed our entire doctoral thesis that took two years to type in and thousands of test subjects who really DID respond better to the placebo and would have died horrible convulsive deaths (much as did the test group) had they been given the actual medicine and those horrible, horrible men and women (oh, yes, they were far worse) wouldn’t give me the extra time or money or troubled youth to continue my experimentation and…

…ahem.

I digress.

Just keep reading, and I hope you can learn something to save your proverbial bacon.

ps