Disaster Recovery – The process, policies and procedures of restoring operations critical to the resumption of business, including regaining access to data (records, hardware, software, etc.), communications (incoming, outgoing, toll-free, fax, etc.), workspace, and other business processes after a natural or human-induced disaster.  Source: Wikipedia.

Every business, large and small, has a responsibility to prepare for the possibility of discontinued operations, due to a number of factors, with the goal to minimize that level of disruption and discontinuity, moving quickly to restore normal and full operations.

While your information systems, software, and data are just one component to be taken into account with your entire Disaster Recovery policy, it is an extremely important component.  Without reliable access to your software and/or your data, your business will definitely suffer a disruption – potentially a very serious one.

Many times, data loss can be the result of NON-disaster causes, like faulty hardware, employee mistakes, etc., which end up creating disasters!

Over the last 14+ years at DHS, we have seen first-hand the frustrations of customers that have lost their data, and many times we have been called on to assist companies with restoring data and/or re-configuring their mission-critical software system.

The purpose of this article is to highlight some of the CPR+-related aspects of Disaster Recovery, and more specifically: Data Backup and Restore.

When it comes to data backups, the #1 most important aspect of your internal processes is to TEST YOUR BACKUPS!  There is nothing more important than this critical function.  Countless situations have occurred where businesses think that they are doing their backups the correct way, only to find out that when there is a need to get data from a backup (restore), there is some problem, and the data is NOT AVAILABLE.

There are many reasons for data not being available to restore when you think you are backing it up successfully every night.  The most common situations are:

#1. Tapes are bad
#2. Files are open
#3. Backup procedures are invalid.

Bad Tapes

This is the most common problem with restoring data.  Tapes are physical devices, and as such, degrade over time.  You remember the old “8-track” and “cassettes”?  Many of your backup tapes are of a similar technology, and can get dusty or lose their elasticity, and when you attempt to perform a restore, you can get errors.  The best way to avoid this is to VERIFY your backups and TEST THE RESTORATION OF YOUR DATA.

Open Files

The next most common situation, although not as lethal, is that there are files open when the backup occurs.  Typically this situation is minimized by only open files not being able to be backed up, but many times the open files are the most important files you need!  Most tape backup software will alert you to open files, but this is something you and your IT personnel need to stay on top of.

Invalid Backup Procedures

Do you have a backup “schedule” that does full backups for certain time periods and incremental backups each night?  Or are you just backing up everything each night?  And have you set your backup to just back up “modified files”, and if so, are you sure you have a good backup of the original (“non-modified”) files? 

These are all very relevant questions of your IT personnel to ensure that you have a good backup.  If you backup everything every night, that’s fine, but what if you wanted to go back to restore data from a week ago, or a month ago, or longer?  Could you get that data back?

A solid Backup Plan is critical to ensuring that the data you need backed up, historically, is backed up correctly and you can get to the data when you need it.  Many IT personnel put together a Backup Schedule or “Tape Rotation” that assists the person who is changing tapes to put the correct tapes into the tape drive each night.  Do you have something like this in place?

Here is what an example Backup Schedule or “Tape Rotation” might look like:

Click Here to view/download the full sample schedule.

Off-Site Backups

What if you were to have a disaster such as a fire or a flood that not only destroyed your computer hardware, but also destroyed your tapes?

It is imperative that you have processes in place that gets your backed-up data AWAY from your office.  This is typically done by several ways:

#1. Company staff taking tapes home or elsewhere
#2. 3rd Party Service (e.g. Iron Mountain)
#3. Remote / Online Backup Service

You can assign one or more employees to take tapes home and bring them back to the office in a rotation.  This will ensure that you at least have a set of backed up data off premises.  This can be factored into your Tape Backup Rotation.

You can contract with a 3rd party vendor, such as Iron Mountain, to come to your offices and retrieve your tapes each day.  This is an excellent service, and forces you to make sure not only that you have tapes off-site, but that they are created in the first place.

You can subscribe to an Online Backup Service which will perform backups on your computers each night and transmit your data via the internet to a remote storage facility.  These services are very popular for consumers (backing up Windows files, pictures, documents, etc.), and are becoming more prevalent in business scenarios.  D.H.S. has a CPR+-specific Backup Service that is currently in beta-testing with 5 CPR+ customers, and will be offered to all CPR+ users in approximately 2 months.  Click here for more information or contact Erika Seitz at 866-277-4876 or via email at erika@cprplus.com.

It cannot be reiterated enough that the most important function of data backups is to TEST YOUR BACKUPS.  Almost all Off-Site Backup methods (such as taking your tapes home, using Iron Mountain, and most online Remote Backups) DO NOT VERIFY YOUR DATA AND ENSURE THAT YOUR DATA WILL RESTORE SUCCESSFULLY. (However, the CPR+ Backup Service will verify your data for you.)

So forward this article to the person in charge of your backups and ask them, “If we need any of our backup data (and software systems), whether from last night or several months ago, are we 100% sure can we can get it all back, restored successfully, in short order?”  Make sure the answer to that question is an emphatic “Yes”!

Return to Top of Newsletter

Rock-Pond Solutions

by Jeff Johnston

Editor’s Note: Stuart and I have known Pete Tanguay for a long time now and we are very pleased to feature he and his results-oriented company, Rock Pond Solutions in the CPR+ Weekly Infusion.  In the early ‘90s, he started MBI – Management by Information. We came along in 1993 and we got to know one another as friendly competitors.  Pete sold MBI to Option Care in 1996 and he started Rock Pond Solutions in 2000 to help home infusion therapy companies get the most value from their investment in technology.  Pete is clearly one of the thought leaders in the home infusion industry.  He is an active member and frequent speaker at NHIA and beyond that, I think the guy knows just about everyone in the home infusion business.

Pete and his staff are “roll up their sleeves, figure-it-out” kind of folks.  There are lots of excellent consultants and companies out there but the thing that has differentiated Rock-Pond over the years is their understanding of CPR+ at the data level.  Working up from the data stored in the over 700 SQL tables, their mission is to help all of you extend the value of your investment by delivering as they like to say, “the information you need from the data you’ve got”.  Rock-Pond has helped many CPR+ customers over the years with their consulting services and comprehensive list of management reports available with the HomeInfusionReports.com product.

So Pete . . . What the heck is a “Rock-Pond”?

Pete explains it this way - “It really has two meanings - the first was an image I had of a fast moving stream of water with a large rock anchored along side that created a pool of water allowing safe access to the waterway.  The water represents the fast paced changes in technology and healthcare and the pool of water represents our goal to help home infusion providers successfully enter and navigate these waters.  My wife, Lynn, who also works in the business, is quick to point out that Peter means 'rock' and Lynn means 'pool of water'.  So there you have it!”

We work closely with Rock-Pond Solutions when they are working with our mutual customers.  They are constantly learning more about CPR+ and how to help you get the most from it.  They have worked with many CPR+ customers, large and small, including some of the early adopters of v7.x as well as several very large multi-site providers.  We enthusiastically recommend Rock-Pond Solutions, whether you utilize their consulting services to address a specific business need, subscribe to their Home Infusion Reports product that offers over 350 Crystal Reports that work seamlessly with CPR+ or receive Rock-Solid Intelligence, their free monthly e-Publication dedicated to the home infusion industry.

Check them out online at www.rock-pond.com or contact Mandy at 501-513-1212 or mandy@rock-pond.com.  Also be sure to attend Pete Tanguay’s presentation at the 2008 NHIA conference on “Using Information Systems and Technology to Maximize Reimbursement Results” and stop by Rock-Pond Solutions at Booth 540.

Return to Top of Newsletter