The world rejoiced as [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Andrew Sullivan) wrote: > Having undertaken the exercise, I really can say that it is a little > strange to think about what would happen to data I am in charge of in > case a fairly large US centre were completely blown off the map. But > with a little careful planning, you actually _can_ think about that, > and provide strong assurances that things won't get lost. But it > doesn't pay to call such questions "silly", because they are > questions that people will demand answers to before they entrust you > with their millions of dollars of data.
I was associated with one data center that has the whole "barbed-wire-fences, 40-foot-underground-bunker, retina-scanning" thing; they apparently /did/ do analysis based on the site being a potential target for nuclear attack. Realistically, two scenarios are much more realistic: a) The site resides in a significant tornado zone where towns occasionally get scraped off the map; b) The site isn't far from a small but busy airport, and they did consciously consider the possibility of aircraft crashing into the building. Presumably by accident, not by design; the company owns quite a number of jet aircraft, so that vulnerabilities involving misuse of aircraft would rapidly "fly" to mind... (Painfully and vastly moreso since 9/11, of course :-(.) When doing risk analysis, it is certainly necessary to consider these sorts of (admittedly paranoid) scenarios. It's a bit fun, in a way; you get to look for some pretty odd-ball situations; the "server room being overrun by Mongol Hordes." That particular one isn't too likely, of course :-). -- (reverse (concatenate 'string "moc.enworbbc@" "sirhc")) http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/advocacy.html "I've discovered that P=NP, but the proof is too long to fit within the confines of this signature..." ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to [EMAIL PROTECTED]