Offsite Storage, Is the Pipe Too Small for the Tank?

One key issue I deal with often is how business class bandwidth has not grown nearly as fast as needed.  Many companies have realized how important it is to have data stored in many locations in case of a disaster; however, getting the data there is the hard part. 

How are you supposed to move 10 GB of incremental backups daily from one location to another and still have enough bandwidth to handle day to day operations?  This is a question I have had to answer many times, unfortunately the answer usually isn't get a bigger pipe.  It has become financially very difficult for small to medium sized businesses to purchase large dedicated bandwidth lines, gone are the days of having just a T1 line.  Larger bandwidth lines become far more expensive for business versus consumers, $50 a month will get the average home user 10-20 Gbs speeds, however if you are a business and need steady thorough put, you will spend hundreds a month and get a fraction of the bandwidth. 

So how do you work within the confines that you have?  Well first off, if you access to and can afford it, get it!  You have no excuse if you have the means and the resources to make it happen.  If not, then learn to live within your means, such as cutting back on the amount of data being transferred.  I have seen it time and time again where a company will keep running daily backups on servers that data on them rarely changes.  The key is get what you need, not what you can take. 

Also ensure that the backup schedule will accommodate for the load, if too much is trying to get pushed, it’s just going to bottleneck and if it doesn't catch up, then what good is off siting your backups if it never gets there.  Always plan for failures, do not load up your bandwidth so that if a failure happens there is not a chance for it to catch up.  I have seen it too many times where someone takes out a calculator and starts adding up bandwidth usage based on a small window of information.  If you do not give yourself breathing room you will regret it.

Another option is to minimize unnecessary traffic, I know everyone loves to stream music or radio stations all day, but seriously that's what your iPod is for.  I suggest first sending out a request for users to minimize traffic, before you start cutting things out, it will go a long way for moral, and you never know, you may get lucky and enough people will stop keeping it under control.  I know that is a very unlikely senerio, but it could happen, right? 

You want to realistically try to make the most of what you can afford, and do so while giving your company a little breathing room for errors and growth.  And the final advice that I can give is to hope and pray that soon rather than later bandwidth will catch up to the usage that users and companies require to survive. 

Blocking Social Networking Sites, Is It a Security Threat or a Productivity Threat?

In the September 30th InfoSecurity article, they state that 72% of surveyed businesses block social networking sites.  These begs the question, are they truly worried about the security threat aspect of social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, or are they more concerned with the perceived loss in productivity.

Personally I believe they should be concerned with both but I don't believe blocking access is the answer.  Obviously, with the high number of malicious code working their way through social networking sites, businesses should be concerned, but I believe they should not block access, but focus on ensuring that their systems are safeguarded against the potential threats. 

Anti-Virus protection is pretty obvious, an IDS or IPS would also be a good suggestion as well.  In addition, employee education should also be a focus, as most malicious code found on popular sites requires some interaction by the user.  Focusing on educating the end-user, will help lessen the risk of incident, as well as help secure the organization.

I do not believe that blocking these sites will protect the company, as any knowledgeable security professional will tell you, if you block something that people want access to, they will find a way to get it.  In finding a way to get it, they may damage important systems, inadvertently, to do it or open holes to allow greater threats into the organization.

In addition, I believe blocking social networking sites is not going to last very long, as businesses see more and more opportunity to increase recognition and customer base.