Dear PropellerHeads: My buddy had a flood in his office and one of his servers got ruined. I have backups. Should I be worried?

A: I've never been a big fan of worrying. But could this (or worse) happen to you? The answer is yes.

If you are like many small businesses we talk to, they set up their backup and restoration regimen some time ago, probably when the server was first configured. Those backups are going to a DVD, tape, or second hard drive. They figure they got it all covered. In reality they probably don't. But, maybe we can help.

That backup probably covers the most likely scenario, which is a server hard drive failure. Should it fail, a backup hard drive could be installed in maybe about 24 hours, restored, and then you are back in business.

Yeah...but when was the last time you tested that backup? What about the stuff that needs to be backed-up that wasn't considered when this was all set up?

Oh yeah...and what about a physical disruption like a fire, flood, or theft that might make the entire server and the backups useless? You are taking the backups off-site, right?

Oh oh yeah...What would happen if a disgruntled employee, a virus, or some other cyber threat made your servers and the backups unusable?

Oh oh oh yeah...I haven't even mentioned your Internet connectivity. What if your routers, switches, or ISP failed? What then?

The first thing to ask yourself is how your business would be disrupted if your servers are unavailable and for how long before it becomes more than just a pain. You might be fine for four hours...but how about four days?

If you don't know the answer to that question, you should probably run a test and see. Unplug your servers one morning. Record what is disrupted. After a couple of hours, talk to everyone in the office and ask them what the impact to your business would be if this went on for a day or a week.

Next, try to put a price tag on the impact of a significant system disruption so you can evaluate the costs you might encounter to mitigate these risks.

Now you know what your exposure is. If it turns out to be significant, you may want to call in a disaster recovery or continuity planning specialist to do a thorough review. After their assessment, they would prepare a written disaster recovery plan with step-by-step instructions for conducting a thorough test.

Here are some things to consider if you want additional protections:

* Consider putting redundant servers at a second office location or your home.

* Consider moving your servers offsite to a local server bunker to manage - they have safeguards against many external threats.

* Consider backing up your servers to the cloud at places like iBackup.com, Carbonnite.com, or Barracuda.com.

* Consider a BDR (backup disaster recovery) device for failover of the entire server (for more read: http://bit.ly/14bskTn).

* Consider renting your needed computer capacity by moving to the cloud (for more read: http://bit.ly/wIcpTP.

Whatever you do, test. And do it regularly. That would be at least once a year and after any significant server or application changes or upgrades.

I think your first step might be to do a little more research at http://bit.ly/14Nh0bRor http://bit.ly/169ja9oand then sit down with your IT support folks and come up with a plan.

That's better than worrying, right?

When the PropellerHeads at Data Directions aren't busy with their IT projects, they love to answer questions on business or consumer technology. Email them to questions@askthepropellerheads.com or contact us at Data Directions Inc., 8510 Bell Creek Road, Mechanicsville, VA 23116. Visit our website at www.askthepropellerheads.com.