Well, maybe it isn’t the most exciting reading, but we at Symagio actually find it quite engaging.  Living in New York City, we read both the NY Law Journal and the NJ Law Journal on a regular basis.  Our significant others still roll their eyes when we pull out an old issue to read before falling asleep, even as they read Real Simple or the New Yorker.  But if there is one thing we’ve learned in this business, it’s that the importance of protecting your data is so pervasive you’ll likely find new and important analysis even in the most unexpected places. 

Having recently moved, a member of our team just came across an older issue of the New Jersey Law Journal from September of last year.  It contains an excellent article by Jonathan E. Sachs, Esq. entitled Ways to Botch Electronic Discovery.  The article has special meaning to any of our clients who are practicing law, or for those currently engaged in litigation of any kind.  Electronic discovery, as we’ve written about before, is an important and changing aspect of litigation that we all should be familiar with. 

Of the ten mistakes people make in electronic discovery, Mr. Sachs lists “neglecting to implement a backup policy or a document retention policy” as number two.  This is absolutely accurate in detailing the absolute importance of an adequate backup policy that is in writing and following religiously; just go back to our previous post on this importance in the case Coleman v. Morgan Stanley.  Here’s an excerpt from Mr. Sachs article listing the importance of such a backup policy:

A thorough retention policy should include a method for determining retention periods, the retention schedule, the retention procedures, and a records custodian.  When developing the policy, a company must ensure compliance with various state and federal statutes/rules that govern document retention time periods for certain classes of records and certain industries.  Finally, a company should review the policy regularly and assess whether litigation discovery obligations or business operation changes warrant modifications.  And always remember, even the best policy is weak unless it is regularly updated and consistently enforced.

Mr. Sachs really hits the nail on the head in this section, especially in the last sentence here.  Any backup policy we develop for our clients is a living, breathing entity: it is a dynamic document meant to be adapted to the changing business conditions rather than a static ’set-and-forget’ solution.  This is why we keep in such close contact with our clients: our backup solution is easy to implement and requires no human intervention.  By consistently asking our clients what they would like to get out of their backup plan, we can constantly update the schedule and frequency of backups to ensure their business is always protected. 

As we’ve said before, Symagio’s mission is somewhat atypical; we aim to educate our friends, colleagues, clients and partners first and foremost.  We tend to actively engage in an education campaign with each and every business person we meet.  Why?  Because so many of them don’t realize the risk they are exposing themselves and their business to every single day.  Conscious and deliberate risk-mitigation is the way business and our society in general achieves progress.  By protecting your data with a backup policy and active disaster recovery plan, you and your business can face these unknown risks with all the confidence you need.

Technorati Tags: Online Data Backup, Electronic Discovery, Legal, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

There’s significant change ahead in the legal field, and we at Symagio have been busy advising our clients and colleagues about what it means for them and their business.  The word we’ve been using most frequently is “e-discovery”, which is becoming yet another reason (as if you needed anymore) to backup your data with a trusted managed backup provider.  The phrase e-discovery, though, elicits a blank stare from all but our most legal-savvy friends. 

We recently came across a great article by United States Magistrate Judge Ronald Hedges about e-discovery, and it offers the most comprehensive analysis of the issues we’ve come across yet.  The article, Discovery of Digital Information, has proven to be quite a fascinating read.  (And yes, to preemptively answer your question, we really DO find it interesting!).  Judge Hedges quotes freely from the Sedona Conferences, which in their January, 2004 publication Best Practices, Recommendations & Principles for Addressing Electronic Document Discovery, define e-discovery as follows:

Electronic discovery refers to the discovery of electronic documents and data.  Electronic documents include e-mail, web pages, word processing files, computer databases, and virtually anything that is stored on a computer.  Technically, documents and data are ‘electronic’ if they exist in a medium that can only be read through the use of computers.  Such media includes cache memory, magnetic disks, optical disks and magnetic tapes.  Electronic discovery is often distinguished from ‘paper discovery,’ which refers to the discovery of writings on paper that can be read without the aid of some devices.

Alright, our clients say, we still don’t understand half of that.  Unless they’ve been unfortunate enough to have first hand experience with civil litigation, or have practiced law themselves, most of our clients aren’t familiar with paper discovery, much less this whole new breed of e-discovery.  After much searching, we’ve found the most comprehensive yet sensible definition of discovery comes from one of our favorite websites, Wikipedia:

In law, discovery is the pre-trial phase in a lawsuit in which each party through the law of civil procedure can request documents and other evidence from other parties or can compel the production of evidence by using a subpoena or through other discovery devices, such as requests for production and depositions.

What does this mean for you and your business?  First, you should ask your lawyer, as this certainly isn’t legal advice.  But a simple game of connect the dots reveals that more and more of your information, including emails, databases, and Word documents, are now subject to the jurisdiction of a court.  To make a long story short - blaming your backup tapes for lost information in litigation just isn’t going to work anymore.  Just ask Morgan Stanley.  We’ll write more in the next entry on why this means a fully managed backup plan is a crucial element to address this growing problem. 
 

Wall Street certainly has a new friend in government.  We’ve always thought that juggernaut Goldman Sachs excels in their industry like few others, and in recent years, this was in no small part because of their CEO Hank Paulson.  Known for his astute intelligence and his ability to cross political lines, he’s now serving the United States in an entirely different capacity: as the new Secretary of the United States Treasury. As we’ve read in this article on MSNBC, one of Paulson’s first acts in his new position has been to assess the preparedness of the financial markets in dealing with another tragedy on the level of September 11th.  We enjoyed in particular this section of the article: 

Scott Parsons, US deputy assistant Treasury Secretary said the utilities had made “tremendous improvements” but added: “We remain concerned about how to provide better resilience in telecommunications, which is the financial sector’s single biggest dependency.” 

In this flat world, as Thomas Friedman so often calls it, it is vitally important that the backbone of our economic well-being as a country - namely, Wall Street and its many institutions - remain capable to function in most any disaster.  This means, among other things, having an advanced and workable disaster recovery plan in place. 

Of chief concern in a disaster recovery plan in how your day-to-day operations can continue, and this requires, at the most basic level, available electricity and other utilities. This is why working with a data center, such as Telehouse America at the Teleport in Staten Island, that has on-site diesel generators and a substantial supply of readily available diesel all the more important.  We’re pretty comforted to know that our data center has experienced little to no downtime, even in the wake of the September 11 and the Blackout of 2003.