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Data Backups -- Vital!!

ThailandGuru.com > Computer consulting > Data backups

First, you need to decide whether your data is worth backing up. For example, if your hard disk were to fail today, how much valuable data would you lose? Think about:

all the work that will be lost
missed deadlines
lost data in deliverables (e.g., lost revisions)
extra work you will need to perform to find and recreate data
lost time and energy to do other things you were planning to do
lost future income due to less time and data for marketing

Now that you've decided that you need to back up your data, the next question is how. You should have a reliable backup system. It should also be user friendly and simple so that it's used and not avoided. It should also be verifiable. Setting up a reliable, custom backup system for your particular data is not something you do in a few minutes. It is data insurance you pay for once and for all.

Unreliability takes two forms: media failure and human failure.

Many people never know how good or bad their backup system is until they need it -- when their hard disk has failed. If the backup system is bad, then it's too late. (Countless times, they've had someone set up a tape backup system who trained a low level secretary to just change the tape every day or every week. She doesn't know how to double-check to see if it's working right. But it's all your data!!)

Notably, it is not acceptable to institute a backup process and, if it fails, blame the inanimate media (e.g., bad tape, bad software, or some kind of system failure) or the user (e.g., "my underling said 'yes', they were backing up the data"). The company bottom line suffers nonetheless. Someone made the decision to put all your company's data into the wrong hands and must take full management responsibility for the total loss of data. (This is why the military makes higher ups responsible for all that goes wrong under them -- it's vitally important that they check, double-check and triple-check all personnel and systems, and do whatever is necessary, when you have lives and vital stakes on the line.)

A good backup system should have the following properties:

All hard disks and user habits should be analyzed in advance, and the backup system customized to your company's needs.
Any automated system should be audited, not just forgotten and assumed always working.
For manual personal backups, users can simply click on an icon and the backup launches automatically. When finished, it ends on a screen reporting successful completion.
If there are any errors, it stops to report them clearly, in simple English.
A simple log is kept for auditing purposes - every day that data was backed up, how much was backed up, and any errors.
If a day is missed (e.g., a user fails to click on the icon to back up their workstation for an entire day), the user is notified the next day they turn on their PC.

It is recommended that you keep a few backups off-site, so that you don't lose all your data in case of theft or fire.

There are different options for backing up which we can discuss with you. Most assume that you have a LAN, so that the backup device is wired to all PC's in the office. However, some can be adapted to a standalone PC, using a CD writer or a second hard disk or a USB memory stick.

ThailandGuru.com > Computer consulting > Data backups

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