A Windows Server Disaster Recovery Plan goes into action in Sydney

We received a call yesterday from one of our customers. Their server was not running and would not start up.

This customer is on our FixedIT comprehensive maintenance plan. We are responsible for ensuring that their server is up and running - at a fixed price. This means that we wear the risk of things like the server having a hard disk failure or some other type of disaster. The cost of getting their server back up and running is worn by us!

I am sure you can understand that disaster recovery planning and preparation is high on our list of things to make sure happen. We employ a number of techniques to ensure our customers are covered in the case of a disaster. One of the primary techniques we use involves making images of ALL the hard drives on our client’s site.

This client is a perfect example of how a well planned and implemented disaster recovery plan can save your business. Did you know that most businesses that lose their data close their doors within two years?

David received the call from our client around 9:00am. He and John did some initial diagnosis over the phone and it quickly became apparent that we would be needed on site. John was on site before 10:00am and immediately started to investigate what was wrong with the server. Rather than bore you with the technical details I will summarise it this way. The server could not boot from the hard drive. The data on the hard drive was completely lost. This is the sort of disaster that businesses dread.

However, this is where our disaster recovery plan kicked in. We knew what needed to be done and how to do it. Once we were certain that no data could be recovered from their server we commenced re-storing their server from their backups.

100Gb of data and a number of hours later their server was back up and running that same day!

Their brush with disaster was avoided.

The Dream is Over

I sadly have to report that we were knocked out at the Quarter Finals. Going down 2-1 against Gladesville Hornsby Old Boys. We fought hard though and had we had the full 90 minutes I think we would have put in the second goal needed to level out the score.


The final 4 and their results are below:

Gold Medal Awarded to Laranja Mecanica do Brasil 40.
Silver Medal awarded to Gladesville Hornsby Old Boys
Bronze Medal awarded to Wahroonga Tigers

4th place Jesmond Rams

Congratulations and well down to all the teams that played and especially to the three that took home the medals.

The games are over and so now it is back to my normal weekly activity of helping small to medium businesses maximise the benefit they get from their IT (computer stuff).

Movember is coming

I will be growing a ‘Mo’ in Movember!

Movember (the month formerly known as November) is a moustache growing charity event held during November each year that raises funds and awareness for men's health.  (you can find out more at the Australian Movember website: http://au.movember.com/)

Movember wants to Change the face of Men’s health and raise money for two very serious issues - prostate cancer and depression in men.

Stay tuned for more updates to come.

In the mean time if you would like to support my efforts to ‘grow a Mo’ then please donate to Movember at the following address:

http://au.movember.com/mospace/48837

World Masters 2009 Sailability

2009 World Masters Sailability

Did you know that the 2009 World Masters includes disabled competitors? There are 3 classes of dinghies competing that can be sailed by people with disabilities. (See http://www.sailability.org/ for more details)

These classes are being raced at my home club for the dinghy I sail. (I sail a Heron when I am not playing football http://www.heronsailing.com.au/.  The Heron is a great dinghy for Mums and Dads to sail with their kids.)

Dobroyd Aquatic Club (http://www.dobroydsailing.org/) is hosting the following classes.

Access 2.3 Single handed dinghy
Access 303 Single (only 1 person sailing the dinghy)
Access 303 Double (2 people sailing the one dinghy)

The Dobroyd Aquatic Club facilities include a wheelchair accessible pontoon with a hoist for lifting disabled people into the dinghies. The Access dinghies are especially suited to people with a very wide range of disabilities, and DAC believe that they have enabled the first ventilated quadriplegic solo sailor in the world to take to the water. Now that is something!

One of the key features of the Access dinghies is that they are hard to capsize and have been designed so that they can self right (this means that if they capsize they should quickly come back upright again).  The centre board for these dinghies is lead filled and takes 2 adults to lift them.

I dropped in on the club house on Wednesday to see how things were going. Below are some photos of the racing.  (Click on the pictures to see a larger version of the photo.)

(Above) Rigging some of the dinghies before racing.  Once the dinghies are rigged they are put on a trolley and wheeled to the water.  Sometimes the skipper (and crew) get in the dinghy when it is on the trolley and are then wheeled into the water with the dinghy.  Support crews play a significant role in getting these competitors to the water.

(above) One of the dinghies being launched.  You can see the hoist just to the left of the people, at the end of the pontoon.

Racing on the water at Dobroyd Aquatic Club.

The photo above was taken between races. There is a lot happening as some dinghies are launching to start their races and others have just finished are trying to come in. You can see one of the skippers ready to be helped in to the dinghy. Also, see the red dinghy in the left foreground? The sails have been rolled up a bit (furled). This is another feature of these dinghies that allows the sailors to easily manage how much sail they use whilst they are racing. Most other dinghies don’t have this feature.

Round 4: 3-0 West Pymble FC over BUM FC

West Pymble FC had a 3-0 win yesterday of BUM FC. The first was an own goal.  I don't think our forwards could have struck it better.  The second was a penalty from the spot after Ash turned the ball back in and was tripped (see photos below).  The third was put in by one of our forwards. So we are now guaranteed a place in the quarter finals on Friday.

Well done boys.

The Quarter Finals match is at 10:15am on Friday morning, hopefully followed by the Semi Finals at 2:00pm!

The 2009 World Masters Opening Ceremony

The 2009 World Masters Opening Ceremony – A Competitors Journey

I arrived early for the march and joined up with my team mates.

There were crowds everywhere and everyone was talking and joking with all the other competitors.

The count down was started on the big screen at the Sydney Showground where we all congregated.

Many teams dressed up for the occasions. Some in official team colours and dress. Others were just out to have lots of fun.

Teams from all around the world were present.

Age is no barrier

Neither is height – I almost had a heart attack when I thought I might have to play the guy on the left in football. Thankfully he is playing basket ball. I breathed a sigh of relief when I found that out.

Finally our time to start marching arrived.

We left the showground and started to head down to the stadium.

Just because we were marching didn’t stop us from meeting people from around the world.

I even caught a glimpse of the REAL 703 team!

There were spectators cheering us on along the way.

We had to wait a few times on the way to allow those ahead time to enter the stadium. This didn’t dampen the atmosphere and was seen as another chance to meet other people from around the world.

The NSW Police were there, but had a fairly quite time as far as I could tell.

And the hard working and always happy volunteers did their thing.

We reached the Stadium and started our entry. I think these guys needed a rest (or maybe they were just waiting for some of their team to catch up).

And entered into the arena.

The Competitors just kept on coming! Over 26,000 competitors have entered the 2009 World Masters.

The opportunity to meet others from around the world continued.

The Ceremony started and the flags representing all the nations with competitors present were paraded. I lost count.

The World Masters Flag was raised and the Oath taken by all the Athletes.

And then the party began!

If you weren’t there then you missed out on a fantastic night.

Round 3: 3-1 West Pymble FC over Dunbar Rovers

A much needed win today, 3-1 over Dunbar Rovers. This was probably the most physical of the 3 games so far.

We changed our configuration slightly, going from a 4-4-2 to 3-1-4-2, employing a floating centre back/centre half. This allowed us to play a more attacking game.

The change paid off and we were the stronger team on the park. Ashley Pini taking out a hat trick. Dunbar had few opportunities but took a goal late in the second half with a shot from outside the box that was deflected off the chest of our sweeper.

Despite letting the goal in it was a good result.

We still need to win on Wednesday to ensure that we make it through to the finals.

8 teams progress through to the finals – two from each of the four pools. The first finals game is a sudden death leaving four teams to battle it out for Gold, Silver and Bronze.

Round 2: 0-1 Loss against Dunrooten

A disappointing 1 - 0 loss today at the hands of Dunrooten.

A poor start saw us defending for the first 20 mins and not really getting near the ball. They seemed to out number us and had several good opportunities. Finally they got their goal with a miss kick shot which kind of sparked us into playing some football.

We had an improved second half but could not get a good shot on target and eventually lost 1 - 0.

A good talk at half time saw us change our approach and with better shape we were at least able to compete with them. Time got the better of us in the second half.

The equation now is two wins from two games to get a crack at the QF's.

The surprise of the day was to see BUM FC win against Dunbar Rovers 2-1.  (BUM FC stands for Belconnen United Masters Football Club).

We play Dunbar Rovers tomorrow and BUM FC on Wednesday.

Round 1: 4-0 to West Pymble FC

The 2009 Masters are finally underway and what a way to start. A 4 - 0 win over a very ordinary Woolworths team. Probably a relief more than anything as we have now scored 4 goals in our first Masters attempt and won't finish at the bottom of the pool. We played on what would be one of the best fields I have ever played on.

Woolworths generally had the better of the first 5 - 10 minutes. After that the midfield started to dominate and our right half (Steve Green) was too quick down the right sending over some great crosses which put them under pressure. Finally we took our chance and got the ball into back of the net and then repeated with a cross from the left which was met in the air for a great goal. The subs started coming on and soon took full control of the game.

We continued to dominate them through the second half and put away 2 more goals, putting the game away and getting us off to a great start in the Masters campaign. On top of our 4 goals we had another 4 or 5 great opportunities that should have found the net but were put wide or over the goal.

The other game in our pool played today was between BUM FC and Dunrooten United. The score was 2-0 to Dunrooten United.

Tomorrow we play Dunrooten United. A win against them will greatly improve our chances of getting to the finals.