Computers and water don't mix

I have a friend who works for a builder of $1 million custom homes in the Dallas area. Her constant complaint: "I hate water." Leaks cause her more problems than any other service call.

My office, built in the front part of my garage, includes our water heater. This past weekend the heater gave up and flooded part of the office. Luckily, my computers sit on the floor on the far side of the office.

While obviously not on the order of the havoc wreaked by Hurricane Katrina as it slammed through New Orleans, Katrina and my heater experience serve as reminders that water in any office can lead to significant damage.

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I have a friend who works for a builder of $1 million custom homes in the Dallas area. Her constant complaint: "I hate water." Leaks cause her more problems than any other service call.

My office, built in the front part of my garage, includes our water heater. This past weekend the heater gave up and flooded part of the office. Luckily, my computers sit on the floor on the far side of the office.

While obviously not on the order of the havoc wreaked by Hurricane Katrina as it slammed through New Orleans, Katrina and my heater experience serve as reminders that water in any office can lead to significant damage.

Big companies learned long ago the mistake of putting heavy computers in the basements of building. While basements have floors strong enough to handle the weight of huge mainframes (letting companies avoid the expense of reinforcing floors higher in the building), water flows downhill so basement computer centers quickly lost their allure. And putting computers on the floor, as a few of mine are, is a common but somewhat risky practice because you don't need much water to ruin a computer. Your sodden computer won't care if the water comes from a hurricane or your water heater because it won't work either way.

Many studies have revealed the misplaced optimism small to midsize businesses have when it comes to data backup. One survey early this year said 60% of small to midsize businesses did not adequately back up their company data. A survey in England in 2003 said that 90% of small companies who suffered a data disaster, natural or manmade, weren't in business five years later.

Those numbers should give you pause. Ninety percent of small companies dead within five years after suffering a data disaster? For our purposes, a data disaster means your computer data suffered non-recoverable damage. These disasters include huge hurricanes, of course, but they also include water heater failures that soak your server sitting on the floor. And if your back-up tapes are in a box on the floor beside your server, they will also be wet and useless, turning an expensive mistake into a data disaster.

Other non-newsworthy data disasters include theft, sprinkler system leaks and employee mistakes and misdeeds. I have seen a server accidentally knocked off a table and crash to the floor. The crash included the hard disk, so the company suddenly depended on the quality of its backup to get back to work. When your accounts receivable software dies, it's hard to send invoices.

Luckily, things go wrong far more seldom than we have a right to expect. When failing pipes in your business finally spring a leak and turn your break room into a wading pool, the chance is still good that your computers will be spared. So we put that worry aside and start cleaning up rather than improving our back-up system.

Selling data protection is like selling life insurance: Nobody wants to listen, and when they do, they immediately get depressed. But just like with life insurance, when you really need your data protection, it's too late to buy any. It's not usually newsworthy, but comprehensive data protection in small businesses is the least glamorous yet most important insurance you can buy to keep your doors open.