Back That Thing Up

Okay, so I am not a big one on cautionary tales, or big time fear-mongering when it comes to HIPAA. Too many front-line healthcare workers have been traumatized by scary HIPAA presentations, and that is a big part of why there is so much push-back. But for IT people there is no excuse. All of us know about back-ups and archiving, and all of us should be aware of what is compliant and what is not. That is why studies like this one are so frustrating to read:

Dowling told Datamation that 42 percent of respondents said there was 'no need' for compliance processes. That comes, according to Bridgehead, despite the fact that Sarbanes-Oxley affects half of U.S. companies and HIPAA regulations affect about a quarter.
''Someone somewhere is going to get sued or charged and the federal government will start to punish folks not in compliance,'' says Dowling. ''And there will be a realization that to be compliant you need to do more than you've been doing.''

If you are simply hoping that your back-up software is going to take the place of having a proper archiving system, there is a very good chance that you will be very unhappy someday. Maybe someday soon.