Protecting Your Assets

Practically everyone who works in the computer business has heard the phrase "perform a complete backup" before running a long complicated procedure that modifies the system. In my experience, however, I've found that most administrators are rather lax about developing and implementing an effective backup solution—you shouldn't be.

How often does a company need to back up its data? Does a company need to protect critical changes that personnel make throughout the day? Can you afford the downtime you would need to reconstruct the data? You need to carry over the care with which you handle your data to the care and diligence with which you back up your data.

Backup Considerations
Because backup strategies are specific to a particular company, you need to know the value of your data to your business’s operation. Most businesses running Microsoft BackOffice Server store their company-vital data on a central server. The key to developing a backup plan that sufficiently protects a company's data assets lies in evaluating the time and money it would cost to recover from a catastrophic data-deletion accident.

Another major point to consider when examining possible backup solutions is how often the company creates, modifies, and deletes data items. For example, an e-shop could lose a lot of money if the company loses even an hour's worth of data, whereas a mid-sized business that works only on documents might not modify its data as often and, thus, might not have the same backup needs.

Other primary concerns include a backup device’s capacity and speed. Most corporate servers have lots of storage capacity. Consider how much data you need to back up. For example, my main server contains 19GB of data, but much of that data is convenience data. About 500MB of data needs daily backing up; weekly is sufficient for the rest. Select a backup drive and method consistent with the amount of dynamic data on the disk. I’ve found the OnStream ADR50 drives to be appropriate for most environments. These drives hold 50GB of compressed data and are very reliable. (I'll get into specifics on drives and software in the next column.) Speed is also an important concern. Most backups run at night and on the weekends when the system has minimal to no user load. However, if the device is too slow, you might find backups still running in the morning when users begin work.

Data Security and Integrity
Although backing up essential data is the first step toward protecting computing assets, that effort is meaningless if you don’t also take steps to protect the integrity of those backups. You need to investigate the write-protection features of the drive, media, and software, especially if you intend the backups to be long-term archives. Make sure that you keep all backup media—blank and used—secure on the premises, and explore the possibility of keeping backup copies in a secure place off the premises. This precaution protects you from fire, theft, and other unpredictable events.

A Backup Plan
The following items are potential elements of a well-rounded backup plan that you need to consider when planning a company's data protection:

You can use the following basic backup plan to start, and adjust it to your company's specific needs: