Remote Work and Backup Plans
It’s every remote worker’s worst nightmare. Your internet connection goes down, what do you do? If you’ve been in the remote work game for any length of time, you’ll already have backup plans at the ready.
Now imagine you’re in the corporate office and the internet goes down. It’s time for a coffee break! As a developer you’re unlikely to be responsible for troubleshooting the network problems so there’s little stress.
As a remote developer however, it’s a different story. We’re under far more pressure to make sure equipment-related issues do not prevent us from being online. It’s just the reality of a remote worker’s life.
Be Prepared
The Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts of America have a simple motto, be prepared. Good advice for us as remote workers. Our level of preparedness though will depend largely on how remote we are.
If you’re living near a major metropolitan area in a developed country, you don’t need to sweat too much. There will always be a coffee shop nearby with internet access or a computer supply store for any equipment you may need. Cell service is also likely to be excellent. Tethering to your cell phone’s hotspot is often all you need to weather a home internet outage.
Things become much more critical when it comes to remote work and backup plans when you live farther away from civilization. What do you do when the nearest Fry’s is thousands of miles away? Or what do you do when your home internet connection goes down and there’s no coffee shop around the corner with WiFi?
Like any smart person would, you have your backup plans ready to go ahead of time. Your home internet connection may be Plan A. Plan B might be a cell phone with hotspot service just in case. Plan C might be hopping in the car and driving an hour to an internet cafe.
The Essentials
The non-negotiables for us as remote developers are an internet connection, a computer, and phone service. We could even get away without a cell phone by using Skype or Zoom through our computer. Everything else could be pruned away if necessary.
Given our two absolute essentials, an internet connection and a computer, it makes sense to focus here first with our backup plans. Here’s an example of how a friend of mine, who works remotely from the South Pacific for a US employer, manages his internet situation.
A Remote Internet Backup Plan
My friend has two ISPs available at his location, so he maintains service with both. He also has cell service with hotspot capability with two cell phone providers. If those options were to fail, he has the option to drive less than 30 minutes to a coffee shop or internet cafe for WiFi access.
Plans
- A: Main ISP Home Connection
- B: Secondary ISP Home Connection
- C: Cell Phone Hotspot with Cell Provider X
- D: Cell Phone Hotspot with Cell Provider Y
- E: <30-Minute Drive to Coffee Shop or Internet Cafe for WiFi Access
To be fair, this backup plan may seem a little extreme. However, given my friend’s location in the South Pacific I think it’s an outstanding one. In fact, I plan to duplicate this backup plan when I move back to the South Pacific next year. It adequately protects against all but the most extreme situations, such as a catastrophic internet backbone failure which is incredibly rare.
A Remote Hardware and Software Backup Plan
If we’re living far away from a good computer retailer such as Fry’s or Microcenter as found here in the States, we’ll definitely want to plan accordingly. Having a backup laptop is a necessity for the more remote of us.
It’s also good to have spares of a Bluetooth headset, wireless mouse, and power cable to name a few other useful items. While we could do without the spares, it’s worth the peace of mind to have them on hand.
Automating the setup of our development environment is another worthy endeavor. Using Docker Compose for dependencies is worth looking into to prevent having to start from scratch in case your main development computer goes down. We’ll of course need to backup our critical development environment files and configuration to an external source as well.
Finally, it’s always good to know what our resupply options are. For example, if you’re living in the South Pacific it might take 3 weeks for a new laptop to be delivered to you. You’ll also need to know which companies will actually ship to your location. These companies can be hard to find for the more remote of us.
Summary
Remote work and backup plans go hand in hand. The farther afield we live, the more thoroughly we need to plan for internet and equipment failures. It’s an added responsibility we accept when embracing a remote work arrangement, but ultimately I think most would say it’s worth it.
The two essentials we need backup plans for are internet connections and computers. A good internet backup plan has several non-linked options in case of failure. Likewise, we’ll definitely want at least one backup laptop, ideally with an automated means of reconstituting our development environment.
A little planning can ease a lot of stress. Especially for us remote workers of whom more is expected. Once you have backup plans in place for your essentials, you can free your mind of worry to focus on more important things, like delivering value to your company.