Continuing the disaster recovery theme, it’s time to think about automation. I confess that, actually, I already blogged about this. But it fits in our theme here. Automation really is king. There are very, very few instances where relying on manual effort results in anything but a big mess come recovery time–steps weren’t performed on time, weren’t performed properly, or weren’t performed at all.

There are exceptions–folks who operate like human clocks and can be trusted to always get the steps done for backup. Think back to “Ocean’s Eleven,” when Andy Garcia’s character was like a clock, always entering the casino at exactly the same hour and minute, via the same route, stopping at the same checkpoints, etc.

But do you have an entire payroll full of such people? Of course not. 99% of folks just can’t be trusted to back up manually. They simply will not “plug in the USB drive, launch the thingamagig, and backup.

Thus, automated processes are a real must. In the other blog entry I mentioned some simple, affordable online services (Mozy and Carbonite) that will do the trick. And there are others.

One way or another, though, rely on automation, not on humans.