| All computers and their components are | | | | |
| subject to failure. In fact sooner or later | | | | It is recommended that you sit down with your |
| every business will be confronted with some | | | | systems administrator to create a backup plan |
| type of computer failure. The largest threat | | | | for your business immediately if you have not |
| to businesses during a failure will be some | | | | done so already. Also recommended, is that |
| type of data loss or data corruption. While | | | | you review your backup plan yearly as well. |
| the causes of data loss and data corruption | | | | When discussing your backup plan there are |
| vary, not all are easily fixed. | | | | certain options to consider. Such as how |
| | | | often to perform the backups and what type of |
| When a data loss or data corruption occurs, | | | | backup media is best suited for your |
| many times the only option is to restore the | | | | business. Depending on your type of business |
| data from a previously created backup of the | | | | and how much your data changes from day to |
| affected data. Many businesses today over | | | | day you may want to perform backups weekly, |
| look the importance of data backups until | | | | daily, or several times per day. For most |
| they suffer the unexpected loss or corruption | | | | small to mid-sized businesses I would |
| of valuable data. Once this occurs it would | | | | recommend a full backup once per week with |
| be too late, unless the business is lucky | | | | incremental backups at the end of each work |
| enough to restore the data by physically | | | | day. |
| recreating all the affected files from | | | | |
| scratch. This of course is only possible if | | | | You will also want to consider whether or not |
| they have a hard copy or another source from | | | | to keep some of your backups off site in the |
| which to recreate the data. It will also cost | | | | case your business is affected by some type |
| the business a valuable amount of man hours | | | | of natural or man made disaster. In addition |
| in recreating the data as well. That is if | | | | you may also want software to monitor your |
| they are lucky enough to be able to even | | | | backup process in order to ensure that your |
| recreate the data in the first place. | | | | backups are not corrupted as well. This is a |
| | | | common experience with some types of backup |
| If your business has made backups of all data | | | | media as well. |
| stored on the hard drives, restoring that | | | | |
| data will go much more quickly and require a | | | | Finally you may also want to perform a system |
| lot less effort. It will also require a lot | | | | restore on an occasional basis so that you |
| less man hours and tears shed over the loss | | | | can check the effectiveness of the |
| that has occurred. | | | | restoration process that you have set in |
| | | | place and to practice it so it goes as |
| Today there are many options available to | | | | smoothly as possible. |
| businesses for storing and backing up their | | | | |
| data. Some of the options available are tape | | | | Following these steps may be essential to |
| drives and tape libraries, CD-R's and CD-RW's | | | | your business continuity should your systems |
| to DVD technologies. There is also the option | | | | fail and you suffer a loss or corruption of |
| to use NAS (Network Area Storage) and SAN | | | | data. Setting up a backup plan as well as a |
| (Storage Area Networks) and even remote | | | | restoration plan will also go a long way in |
| backups over the internet. Even Windows XP | | | | ensuring your business operations if you run |
| Server 2003 offers a restore point in case | | | | into a system failure. This would help |
| your system becomes corrupted. Of course just | | | | establish a "who is to do what" list if your |
| having these tools available to you is not | | | | systems should fail. |
| enough. They need to be used properly and on | | | | |
| a continuous basis to be effective. | | | | Failing to backup your business data, |
| | | | especially mission critical data is nothing |
| Sooner or later all systems will face some | | | | short of a recipe for disaster. Nothing is as |
| type of failure that will require a restore | | | | important to your business as the data that |
| from backup. The point is to perform those | | | | sits on the hard drives of your systems. |
| backups so they are there when you need them. | | | | |