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First let's get some assumptions out of the way.

• This is geared toward a relatively well connected organization. What well connected means will greatly depend on the size of the organization but for a relatively small company with maybe a few hundred GB of storage that you want to backup online a business class cable connection will probably meet the bandwidth requirements but DSL or T1 will not. The quality (downtime etc.) is actually much less important than the raw amount of data you can upload.
• I implemented a solution in an environment I previously worked in and it worked well. Watch the caveats I add throughout the document. They are from experience.
• This is very much a low tech low cost solution.

At work we have decided to backup some of our Hyper-V servers to disk using the built in Windows 2008 tools and then back that up to tape for rotation. You will find instructions for this process in this article.

Enable VSS on the Hyper-V server

Install Windows Server Backup (WSB) feature

start /w ocsetup "WindowsServe Backup"

Edit the Registry

From command line:

reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WindowsServerBackup\ApplicationSupport\{66841CD4-6DED-4F4B-8F17-FD23F8DDC3DE}"

This is presented in the same vein as Lenny Zeltser’s How to Suck at Information Security.  If you have not read Lenny’s article it is highly recommended.

What makes a good backup solution?
Part 1 of 4
Critical Elements of a Backup Plan

For as long as I would say that I truly understood computer security I have believed that security in depth is one of the most important elements of security. Coming from this perspective I often find it interesting how many relatively easy elements are not implemented by practitioners. Some of these are the same practitioners that will go to extraordinary lengths in other areas to secure their systems.

This is very old. Don't take this as current or authoritative. I will leave this up for the time being because there is still some good info to be gained from this document. 

This paper looks at the major spam filtering techniques in current use. In looking at methods both success rates and possible problems with each method are explored. Methods discussed include key word filtering, open relay filtering, open proxy filtering, dial-up filtering, non conforming mailing list filtering, cooperative sharing of spam samples, known spam origin filtering Bayesian filtering, Markovian discrimination, gray listing and challenge response.

Much like much of what is called "safe sex" would be more accurately called safer sex, I will call this safer computing.

This is in some sort of order but I will not promise order of importance because it is all important.

Over the years anyone who is even vaguely familiar with the security world has had the idea of security through obscurity being worthless drilled into our heads. While I will agree that security through obscurity is exceptionally weak security there is still a place for it in a complete security plan.

After years of hearing the argument that security through obscurity is no security at all it becomes easy to assume that obscurity does not add any level of security to a security plan. As long as obscurity is a part of an overall security plan it should never hurt and will in most circumstances improve your security.

I will give a few examples where security through obscurity can and does help.

The intention of the guide is to give a quick and easy to read guide to the pros and cons of three different approached to firewalling your home or small office. This is far from a complete guide but it will get you started in the right direction to figure out exactly what you need in order to protect yourself. This particular guide comes out of my desire to provide a quick and easy comparison for a friend who had a small business and was trying to decide what to use for protection. If you are looking for specific reviews of products I recommend the Home PC Firewall Guide.

This paper looks at the major spam filtering techniques in current use. In looking at methods both success rates and possible problems with each method are explored. Methods discussed include key word filtering, open relay filtering, open proxy filtering, dial-up filtering, non conforming mailing list filtering, cooperative sharing of spam samples, known spam origin filtering and Bayesian filtering.

I finished this paper in December of 2004 so the most recent techniques of both spammers and spam filters are not covered. Most crucial is the absence of coverage of image spam. Even with the slight age that this article has it will still be valuable to anyone trying to figure out how to minimize the amount of spam coming into their companies.