Let’s Talk About Backup

 

At TechMD, we get questions about data backup all the time.  So I thought I would take a couple of minutes today to talk about the most confusing aspects of data backup.

Let’s start with the basics: What is data backup?  Most organizations backup their data in some way, often using tape, backup servers, or online providers like Carbonite or Mozy.  Basically backup refers to whatever you use to save a copy of your data so that if something happens to your file, computer or server, you can get your data back.

Alright then, Why do I care about data backup?  Let me lay some scary statistics on you: 80% of businesses suffering a major disaster go out of business in three years, while 40% of businesses that experience a critical IT failure go out of business within one year.  In the case of experiencing a fire, 44% of enterprises fail to reopen and 33% of these failed to survive beyond 3 years. (Source: Financial Services Technology)  So imagine what steps you would have to go through to recover if your server fails.  What if your server is stolen or destroyed?  What would that downtime mean for your business?

Okay, so you don’t want that to happen.  The next question is usually: What should I be backing up?  This is one of the fundamental considerations with backup: the difference between backing up your files and backing up your entire server.  Often people think that as long as they have a copy of their files, they will be able to recover if their computer or server goes kaput.  But unfortunately, that’s not enough.  It’s like the difference between having a CD and having a stereo to play it on.  If you have your Quickbooks file, that’s good, but you can’t do anything without your Quickbooks software.  That’s why we make sure our clients backup their entire servers, so if there is a fire or theft in their office, we can use their backups to recover not only their files, but also their applications.  It can mean the difference between being back up and running in minutes or hours, instead of days.

Next: How do I backup?  The gold standard in backup used to be tape drives.  You would stick a tape in the drive in your server room and each day or week someone in your office would go in and switch out the tape.  Then maybe once a week or once a month, that person would take one of those tapes home with them so that you would have some data offsite just in case.

Unfortunately, that level of risk is just too much for most businesses these days.  What if the tape doesn’t work (over 40% of tape backups fail)?  What if our office manager forgets to change the tape?  Or loses it?  Or leaves it in her purse and its damaged or stolen?  Even in the best case scenario, the tape is only backing up your data at night, so you would still lose 24 hours of data if something happened.  And if there was a disaster, you can’t run a server off of a tape, so it could be days before your business is back up and running.

With all these considerations, we encourage our clients to move to more current backup technology.  The new best practice protocol in backup is called business continuity solutions (BCS).  These solutions combine virtualization technology with cloud technology to completely bulletproof your data, and therefore your business.

Here’s how it works: you have a BCS device that lives in your server room, backing up your data as often as every 15 minutes.  That device also acts as a standby server, so if one of your servers goes down it can virtualize a copy of that server in minutes.  This way you are up and running while your IT staff fix the server.  The device is also sending your data offsite to a data center.  If a disaster happens (your servers are stolen or destroyed) you can run versions of your servers in the cloud while the data center ships you a new device, with all your data, that you can use to run your servers at your temporary location.  Downtime goes from days or weeks, to hours.

You know your business, and you know how much being down means to your business.  If a disaster happens, you need to be prepared.  Make sure you know how your data is being backed up, and what your plan is if the worst case scenario happens.

If you want to read more about backup options click here.  If you have questions, please contact us.