Data protection

I read a news article at http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/080826/world/britain_us_banking_internet_company_rbs_ebay_data_1.These kind of articles are making headline and reminding us that we need to handle our Information Technology infrastructure with more care and strong policies. After reading the complete article, I think it is high time we should review Information Technology Best practices regarding the acquisition and access of assets till its disposal. In today’s world when we are storing everything in computer, which includes but not limited to source code for s/w program, customers demographic details, personal details, trade secrets, business model, its security should be first priority for every company. When we dispose off our computers/servers/hard disk special care about data erase should be mandatory. When we don't need computers/servers/hard disk, data should be backed up to the active server (Data retention Policy) and data should be cleaned from the computer asset we are going to dispose. A strict policy regarding asset disposal and handling should be in place in every organization to avoid the mistakes like this in future.Not doing so is like giving our home key to intruder.

Virtualization

Virtualization is a new buzz word in the technology industry. It helps in the full utilization of the current hardware resources, with the help of virtual software; single machine can host number of virtual machine. Virtual machines have their own OS, Software environment etc and don’t interfere with other Virtual Machine on the Host server. Virtualization is advantageous especially in software testing and development environment. A backup copy of production server environment can be maintained on Virtual Machines to make system up and running fast in case of disaster recovery. In virtualization if virtual machine stops working it can be restarted or fixed without affecting other Virtual Machine on the Server. However if server hosting Virtual Machine crashes its fix is more involved. However Virtual machines can’t be relied upon for mission critical and production data’s.