In any aspect of life, from the insignificant realm of entertainment and sports, to everyday occurrences and routines, to weighty issues of personal and professional importance, we can experience circumstances and results that could be considereddisastrous.
On one of the spectrum, if your favorite team gives away a playoff game in its waning moments via turnover, that’s a disaster for the fan base and an outcome that will live in infamy for the franchise’s history. Somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, the decision to get a clown tattoo could have disastrous ramifications in one’s personal and potentially (depending on the location of the tattoo) professionallife.
But levity aside, a real disaster has significant consequences and typically requires traveling a long road torecovery.
Two articles in this issue address the potential for disasters in cabling systems and networks. They each take their own perspective on what you might be able to do before and immediately after a disaster to mitigatedamage.
MicroCare’s Mike Jones acknowledges that in the event of a flood, “In terms of prevention, there’s not much you can do.” Yet, he emphasizes, “The best disaster recovery plans are established and rehearsed long before the disaster hits.” That sentiment is what journalists call the “nut graph”—the statement that puts everything else into context. Jones's article, as well as the one by Roxtec's Jason Hood, address complex and, to an extent, controversial subjects. But they both explain there are steps network administrators can take ahead of time to minimize the considerable effects of a naturaldisaster.
Hood’s article references projections and predictions related to climate change—a polarizing issue for many. But I ask you not to make it so in this case. Regardless of how you regard climate change, scientifically or politically, today’s practical reality is that natural disasters disrupt lives and disrupt networks regularly. What’s going to happen to coastal cities 80, 40, even 20 years from now can be hotly debated. But what’s going to happen to your network, or your customer’s network, within the next year … we don’t know for sure. We published Hood’s and Jones’s articles in this issue in hopes that they might help you prepare for what could, but hopefully won’t, happen.