Lesson 5: Backup, backup, backup -- but not to tape

Fortunately that spring, as part of its emergency preparedness, the county had moved from tape backup to the Acronis True Image Server. The old tape system required 72 hours for a bare metal restore. "Fortunately, the servers went down after Acronis finished its automatic 11 p.m. backup. I put the backup CD into the drive, initiated a restore and held my breath. Eight minutes later it said 'Finished" and rebooted the system. And the server came up as if nothing had happened." He has been an Acronis fan ever since.

Lesson 6: Always keep the primary DNS server separate

"Never consolidate the DNS and Web servers on a single machine," Faulkner says. "If you do, you are asking for trouble."

Lesson 7: Protect your emergency generator