Skype and Microsoft Updates

If you are a Skype (voice over IP) user, you have probably had problems with your service over the last several days. Skype claims that it was caused by Skype user's computer systems rebooting after the latest Microsoft patches. Skype says that all those restarts overwhelmed the system as it tried to reconnect everyone.

The result was no phone service for Skype users. And if that is your only phone access for your business or home, then you have been feeling the pain.

No matter what the cause of the outage (and I am not convinced that the MS updates are the real reason), it brings to mind a Disaster Recover (DR) plan. You got one?

A DR plan is not just for businesses (small or large). It applies to home users. Sure, you might be able to go without your home computer for a while. And you may have cell phones you can use as backups.

But what about your Disaster Recover plan for your data? What about all those family pictures on your computer's hard drive? What if your computer or hard disk dies? Or get stolen? Or an even worse disaster, such as a house (or business) fire that destroys everything? Hurricanes? Tornadoes? Floods?

Do you have a data backup plan? Is your important data (personal or business) stored off-site? How often do you backup your data? Is the backup location secure or safe? And is the backup data encrypted if necessary? (Remember all those stories about tape backups with personal data that were lost? And the business expense of notifying your customers?)

Even at home, a backup plan is good. What's yours? And how do you start?

We'll give you some ideas in the next post.