How well can you get back a missing file?

I have been in the IT environment now for nearly forty years. I have seen a host of changes in that time which, on their own, have revolutionised the way we work. And I have seen some things that simply never seem to change. In this newsletter, I want to deal with having an adequate backup of your data, and more.

Why backup?

Incredibly, computer storage devices are not infallible. I can guarantee you that, at some time, every hard disk, tape and memory stick will fail. And if this device contains the only copy of your important data, it will be lost: forever.

This is why you need to backup. Without an adequate backup regime in place, you will be unable to recover the lost work, often at considerable risk to your business and its client relationships. You backup to keep your business and its intellectual property safe and secure.

When to backup?

To provide the ultimate in backup security, you will make your security copy as soon after the task of creating or updating a file is completed. In the real world, most business backup every evening, starting soon after the doors close. Each day, the medium from the backup solution is removed from the backup device and a new medium is loaded. As a minimum, the most recent medium is then taken off site. Keeping your most recent backup off site is insurance against the destruction of your server or principal machine in such a manner that the currently running backup is also destroyed. The off site medium may be the only copy of your data in existence after an office fire, for instance. The data on this tape, CD, disk or memory stick may be the only way you can expect to get back into business with any certainty. It is that important. If the nature of your business is one where important data updates continuously throughout the day and the loss of intraday data transactions would be critical, then an alternative backup process to a daily backup must be investigated.
When you backup is a function of the critical nature of your data, and a backup regime which provides an adequate backup at a realistic cost is the nub of this decision.

What to backup?

If you have a backup device which is big enough to backup the whole of your computer or server, is this something you might consider? Maybe you would feel happy to simply backup your data folders, leaving your system files and programs, your configuration files and logs to be lost in case of catastrophic failure. Again, this is a balancing act. Anything you do not backup will need to be recreated should your hard drive fail or is accidentally reformatted, for instance. If you do not backup your macros and templates, if you do not backup your drivers and log files, all the work done to get your system working the way you want it to work is sacrificed in case of failure. What you backup should be everything you can backup, preferably to a single medium. And I prefer that each backup is a complete rather than an incremental backup. It makes it much easier and safer in case of a restore.

Where to backup?

On a workstation, you can backup to a CD or DVD, so long as the medium in use has adequate capacity to meet the requirements you have established. On a file server, you should attempt to backup the whole of your hard disk drive sub-system. Normally, these days, you would backup to tape using a suitable tape drive and some proprietary software, or Windows own NTBackup if it does an adequate job.
Between these two options is an array of options, like Rev disks, memory sticks, Zip disks and the like. In essence, these vary only in the capacity of the medium in use, and the reliability thereof. However, if your server is important to the running of your business, maybe you should be looking at a medium and software combination which will expedite the recreation of your server in case of catastrophic failure. Some descriptions of the capabilities available include: continuous data protection, bare metal recovery, open file backup, backup to NAS, open volume snapshot and server aliasing. There are options which allow you to backup to a remote device. SAN to SAN replication provides failover in case of a storage sub-system failure. To where you backup is, again, a compromise between what you desire to achieve and the funds you are prepared to put to the cause.

What should you do?

Check out how your business is backing up your valuable data. Check that you consistently have an off-site copy readily available if required. Check that you can restore easily and reliably from the backup medium you employ.
If your business processes fail in any of these respects, please call Tripos IT and arrange for a review of you data security procedures and a tailored proposal to resolve its shortcomings.

Your business’ life could depend on it.

Principal, Tripos IT