Offsite backup - Now a legal requirement for Trust Accounts
February 2008
"22(1) This section applies if a trustee keeps any books, accounts or records
mentioned in Section 3(6) by a computerised accounting system.
(2) The trustee must ensure that:-
(a) the computer system has enough capacity and backup capability to
record the information required to be kept under the Act; and
(b) the computer system is backed-up at least once a month; and
(c) a computer disk or other electronic device used to store the back-up
information is kept in an offsite fire-proof location that is unaffected by magnetic
interference or other thing that may adversely affect the stored
information; "
This is an excert from the Law Society regarding the storing of records relating to Trust accounts.
There are now legal requirements that data must be stored offsite. There are a few ways that tis can be achieved from Backup tapes to removable hard drives.
Low Cost It covers all areas of back up but one solution stands out above the rest in relation to offsite backup.
Better Back up is a solution to business that takes most of the human aspect out of backing up. A small application is installed on the client PC which automates back up over the Internet using government level encryption. It then stores this information in a data centre. This data centre has fire suppression systems and is fully redundant. Your data can only be accessed by you.
So it's just set and forget. Every morning you receive an email letting you know of the success of your back up and should you require your data back it is only a few clickes away.
Better Back up is a monthly subscription which starts from $38 per month.
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Email Archiving - Have you got all your emails?
February 2008
In 2008 the Australian Federal Court releases a set of new eDiscovery Rules that impacts the way every company in Australia needs to manage business email. The introduction of these new rules requires companies to be able to produce a compliant electronic record of any email correspondence upon request, as part of an eDiscovery process.
While most businesses only backup their email this does not guarantee record retention or deletion prevention and usually only provides months of data. While the costs of recovering selected email records from these backups is already significant, the new penalties for companies and directors that cannot produce required email records could cost even more.
As the need to satisfy compliance, legal discovery and storage management increases, a growing number of companies have added email archiving software to their networking infrastructure.
Related stories Microsoft had previously announced it would be withdrawn on January 30, 2008, but that deadline has been extended to June 30, 2008.
"[T]here are some customers who need a little more time to make the switch to Windows Vista," said Mike Nash, Microsoft's corporate vice president, Windows product management.
But next June will not usher in the demise of XP. As previously announced, system builders will be able to offer it until January 30, 2009. This is fine for individuals and small businesses that want to stick with XP for as long as possible, but it isn't a viable route for corporate customers buying in volumes that can only be realistically met by major vendors.
"[O]ur official policy as of 2002 is that versions of Windows are available through our retail and direct OEM partners for four years after they ship. Obviously this policy didn’t work with Windows XP given Windows Vista’s delivery date," said Nash.
"As a practical matter, most of our previous operating system releases were available for about two years after the new version shipped, so maybe we were a little ambitious to think that we would need to make Windows XP available for only a year after the release of Windows Vista."
IBM unveils virtualisation-ready system X Server
September 07
IBM on Wednesday took the wraps off a revamped System x Server with embedded virtualisation technology and the company's latest chipset for Intel's quad-core Xeon processors. The System x3950 M2 server, scheduled to ship in the fourth quarter, will include X4, the fourth-generation IBM's chipset for x86 servers. In addition, the new system will debut an embedded hypervisor -- a virtualisation platform for running multiple operating systems on a host computer at the same time.
Besides performance enhancements and processing efficiencies, X4 enables better server configurations geared toward virtualization, IBM said. In addition, the System x3950 includes an internal USB interface that connects the server's virtualization software to the chipset. The software is preloaded on a 4Gbyte USB flash memory device. The System x3950 also offers double the memory slot capacity of the previous version of the system. As a result, the x3950 has four times the amount of memory for handling more virtualization workloads.
The X4 is the fourth generation of the X-Architecture chipset, which IBM introduced back in 1997 and the second to include virtualisation capabilities. The latest iteration was built around Intel's soon-to-be-launched "Tigerton" Xeon processing technology, IBM said. The X3, introduced in 2005, also contained virtualization technology.
The use of virtualization is a growing trend within data centers. A key motivation for its use is to run more applications on a single server, making better use of its processing power while also reducing the number of machines. Such efficiency means higher power to performance ratios, and less money spent on cooling more servers. Besides servers, virtualisation vendors have also started targeting the desktop PC.
Among the advantages is in PC management. IT administrators, for example, can more easily set up new users or wipe out the virtual desktops of former employees.
While virtualisation boosts efficiency and performance in the data centre, it also creates new opportunities for hackers and virus writers.