Over the last few days I've been reading about a number of interesting things around the state of the planet and how we should expect some major seismic activity. For example, some recent geological studies suggest some earthquake prone regions on the US' west coast are well overdue for a magnitude 9 quake that could cause a massive tsunami across the Pacific Ocean. Australians are moving into bushfire season and the tropics are getting into the time when floods are an issue. What are your disaster plans?

During the opening keynote for Cloud Day at VeeamON, Veeam announced the availability of the release candidate version of their new backup solution Veeam PN (Veeam Powered Network). Veeam PN for Microsoft Azure is designed to simplify and automate the setup of a disaster recovery site in Azure using software-defined networking (SDN). And, given what I saw during a demonstration given by Aussie technical evangelist Anthony Spiteri, it looks like a very powerful tool that is offered at the bargain price of free.

IT disaster recovery isn't fun. In fact, it's the opposite of fun. It usually involves going through all the things that could go wrong and preparing for every worst case which may never come to fruition. All of this costs time and money. It's no wonder many organisations are foregoing disaster recovery all together; often to their great peril. But experts say disaster recovery is still vital to businesses and we have some advice to make the whole process less painful.

Planning a disaster recovery (DR) strategy can be a complex and time-consuming task. One simple question can help you focus your planning: How much data are you prepared to lose?

We're absolutely not recommending that you place vital data on a USB drive and then feed it to Fido. But if you do, there's a fair chance you'll be able to get it back.

Deploying software on a private or hybrid cloud doesn't eliminate the need to have a backup in case things go wrong. Microsoft's newly-released Hyper-V Recovery Manager automates the process of restoring backups from Windows Azure if something goes awry in your cloud implementation.

With Christmas party season now firing up, we figure this is potentially useful information. Kroll Ontrack's annual list of the weirdest reasons it has had to perform hard drive recoveries includes a man who took "pissed off with his computer" to a whole new level.

EMC has refreshed its Data Domain backup and archive systems and added Active Directory integration to its Mozy cloud backup solution. The ultimate goal? Providing data protection as a service rather than relying on individual solutions for specific servers and systems.

Six months ago, Hurricane Sandy posed a major challenge for data centre operators across America's north-east coast, and the lessons learned by businesses in that area are useful for anyone trying to plan their disaster recovery (DR) strategies. Here are ten issues to keep in mind, covering everything from checking that your software licences are still valid in your DR site to making sure staff have access to essential medicines.

Floods, bushfires, earthquakes, nuclear disasters -- if those events in 2011 didn't demonstrate the importance of having a good backup and disaster recovery solution, I don't know what would. But a recent survey suggests that plenty of businesses still haven't got their backup strategy sorted.

Chances are you have a backup regime in place to ensure you don't lose crucial work information from your computer systems. But do you have a plan that includes where everyone will work in the event of a major emergency? One recent study suggests the answer is probably "no".

iPad: Having a plan for what to do if your business suffers a natural disaster or other emergency such as a break-in makes sense, but many organisations never get around to creating one. MyBizShield, an iPad app developed by the Australian government, simplifies the process by walking small businesses through the elements needed to create a recovery plan.