Reminders for 2009

I have over 26 years of experience with personal and professional computer use. In that time, I’ve learned that year-end can be a busy time for computer administrators and users, to the point that very time-sensitive tasks are often ignored or delayed – often to devastating results months later.

Here’s some of my best reminders that you should not ‘low prioritize’:

1. If your main system(s) summarize 2008 detail transactions (such a financial) into starting values for 2009, make sure you back up your full system BEFORE you run the posting programs. This will enable you the option to ‘go back’ in the event of posting failure… or later enable research into ‘how did that number get there’ efforts.

2. If you run incremental backups, now is the best time to renew/refresh your master backups. If you don’t have a master backup (everything! not just database), you should make one for each system/server/workstation. The time you spend now will pay off when a system crashes or needs emergency rebuilding.

3. If your organization has had employee/user turnover, check your system and application logins and make sure they are current. Disable them whenever possible to keep security high.

4. Speaking of security, now is a good time to change admin passwords as well as force staff/user password resets (especially if they are not forced to change). Don’t forget vpn, remote access, router, and off-site (such as ftp and web server) passwords.

5. Finally, visit your disaster management plan. Is it still current? Valid? Effective? Update it for new assets, equipment and software you’ve added or removed.

See you in 2009!  Happy New Year!