Organizations handle different types of data, but there are some types of data that have legal validity or important information that can’t afford to be lost. The consequences of losing these documents go beyond monetary losses and can even ruin lives or disrupt the business or individuals affected. Regardless of the type and nature of important data, any business handling this kind of data needs a robust, flexible and reliable backup, archiving and disaster recovery system.
Simply having a robust system is not enough. It is equally important to use the system in the right way and solve key issues that can flare up when dealing with backups or archives. Here are a few tips for choosing and implementing a robust data backup, archive and disaster recovery solution.
Businesses need to distinguish between data. Archiving important records such as agenda bills and ordinances, backing up databases containing personal information and maintaining a copy of a file containing the institution’s financial data all have to be treated differently, depending on the stated policy. The system in place needs to be flexible enough to accommodate different requirements.- When it comes to hyper-critical and official documents, it may be a good idea to backup to the cloud and server simultaneously. The added cost this would entail is pale in comparison to the consequences of losing these documents should any one backup or archive system fail or become inaccessible.
- An integrated system works best. Most offices, having evolved their backup and archiving systems over time, invariably have a mix of backup products from different vendors, multiple servers at different locations and local ad hoc backups. This setup makes backups and archiving highly inefficient and incomplete, and makes disaster recovery next to impossible. When servers are spread across different locations, efficiency dictates bringing all local servers to a single location.
- As the volume of data grows, backup often spreads over multiple tapes, and, in many cases, employees themselves have to change tapes manually. This can be a recipe for disaster. A fully integrated system scalable to meet the future requirements makes the process a lot more reliable and seamless.
- Many legacy systems backup the entire database and files, literally reinventing the wheel every time at the huge cost of manpower and time. It is a good idea to opt for incremental backups that backup only changes made after the last backup.
- Daily backups are only one part of the complete package. Many institutions forget about the “disaster recovery” part of the package. A fully integrated and reliable system makes data movement to the backup appliance seamless and painless, and makes retrieval equally seamless and disruption free.
- Many backup systems require frequent attention, making it time intensive for the system admin. A good system configures the server and host automatically, freeing up in-house system administrators to do their jobs instead of non-productive tasks.
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