Data Management

Why Should You Backup Your Data?

August 22, 2012

by Jeremy Miller,Technician
Even though it’s common knowledge, I thought I’d offer a quick refresher on data backup and why it is important.

What is a data backup?
A data backup is a copy of your data stored in a different location. This can be as simple as copying a document or picture to an external drive or disk.

It could also be a copy of your entire operating system, so if your system crashes you could recover it relatively quickly. Backups are usually not stored on the same location as the primary data.

Why should you backup your data?
You should always backup your data to at least one external source. It is best practice to have at least one on-site backup and one off-site backup.

You never know when a catastrophic event will take place. There are a number of things that can corrupt your data to the point of needing recovery.

For example, you could corrupt a file from losing power, or selecting cut instead of copy when moving files and the process errors out.

If you have files that cannot be replaced such as photos or emails that you have saved, and they become corrupt, the only way to guarantee recovery would be to have backup copies of these files in a different location.

The different location is one of the most important parts of backing up data. The reason is because if the drive your original data is on fails, and your backups are stored on the same drive there is a good chance you will not be able to recover your backups either.

If you are constantly making changes or installing and removing software then taking a backup image of your PC during a known-good configuration would be a great option.

You could set up your PC with a fresh-install of your operating system of choice that is up-to-date and just the way you like it.

Then you could take an image backup of the instance that way if you want to recover to that state it will only take the effort and time to load the image. There will be no hunting for drivers or remembering settings for printers, it will be easy to just load and go.

What is the best backup option?
Choosing the right backup is based on the kind of data you need to backup and how often it needs to be protected.

You must decide if you only need to backup some files, most files, all files, or the entire operating system.

Then you must decide how much money you want to spend on your backup solution. You must also decide where you want to store your backups such as an external hard drive or using a cloud storage service.

We offer Experts Total Backup, a cloud-based off-site storage system that’s rock solid and secure. It operates entirely in the background, encrypting your files and replicating them to an off-site storage system.

In conclusion if you have data that you cannot or do not want to lose then you must backup your data. This is the only way to guarantee that you do not lose any data. Once you have these backups you must test and safeguard them.

Keep a few copies so that if one backup gets damaged you have more to fall back on. Testing your backups is a great way to know that you will be able to restore from your backed up data.

Data Management: From Storage To Security

January 20, 2012

One of the most important aspects of maintaining a smooth running safe and secure network comes down to data management.

How you or your company manages its data is important because if managed improperly, or not managed at all, you risk losing years of important confidential data due to failed hardware or even worse, theft.

Data management needs to begin with an audit of your various assets and how they should be managed properly.

This is the first step because you need to know what you have to manage and more importantly how it needs to be managed (can you use a simple flash drive backup, do you need a NAS, how secure does the data needs to be, should data be encrypted, etc.)

An audit should take place at the beginning of your data management plan as well as at the end which will be touched on later.

During your data management audit you need to first lay out what data is being used, when it is in use, when your slow periods are, and how securely you need to store this data.

For example client credit card data requires much more security than say your pictures from the company party.

After establishing what data you have as stated above you need to separate it into its various classes.

Generally people will store all of their data together so if that is your plan, you need to plan your security based on your most important and confidential data sets.

Some people may have a very large amount of data and smaller data sets that need more extreme security.

In these cases backup sets can be separated to allow less confidential data to be backed up to a less secure and much cheaper backup device while you could have a more secure setup for your confidential data.

One major consideration when it comes to backing up your data is encryption.

The stronger the encryption on data the longer it will take to recover in the event of a data loss.

Encryption is one of the best methods to store data, determined by level of security – it can be high or low.

Again the amount of encryption contributes greatly to recovery time. Data can be managed and stored in many different manners.

Some of the various storage solutions are; a network drive to another computer, a NAS, a flash drive, an external hard drive, data drives and tapes, offsite backups, etc.

Depending on your needs and the amount of recovery time needed, your choices can vary.

For instance, if you have 1 TB of data you are backing up chances are you would be doing an onsite backup rather than offsite to decrease down time in the event of a crash.

A terabyte of data in an offsite backup is going to take a very long period of time to download to your server if your only recover option is to download from the Internet.

A much better solution for this amount of data would be a data drive like a “REV” drive. A REV drive in combination with good backup software offers plenty of space to backup and encrypt your data.

Backups via tapes or data drives should have at least the previous night’s copy taken offsite each night to ensure that you keep one data set safe at all times. It is a horrible idea to store all data onsite.

After you have a plan in place, run through the audit again once things seem to be running smooth to see what is in place, how its running, how secure it is in the event that a data set is stolen, and is the backup time/recovery time acceptable.

If the answer to any of these questions makes you feel your backup solution may be inadequate, it may be a good idea to try something different.

Even though it would cost more money to change data management solutions, it will save you money and hassle in the long run if you find it does not meet your company’s needs.

For a full data management audit give us a call today and we can happily sit down and discuss with you possibilities for your backups and data management as this only touch on a very small portion of data management.

Your data is very important and generally people do not realize just how important it is until they’ve either lost it or had it stolen due to poor management practices.

Feature Article Written By:
Tech Experts

It’s Severe Weather Season… Do You Have A Disaster Plan?

May 27, 2011

tlfheadshot_web — Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.

Perhaps it’s just me, but this spring has been one of the worst I can remember in terms of severe weather. The ﬂooding and tornadoes we’re seeing around the country should serve as a wake-up call for small business owners to review their business continuity plan.

A disaster recovery plan prepares a business to deal with disaster scenarios such as ﬁ res or tornadoes that disrupt the business’s operations.

Although larger companies create such plans as a standard operating procedure, small businesses tend not to do this type of planning.

In fact, according to Symantec’s 2011 SMB Disaster Preparedness Survey, only 50% of small businesses have a plan in place for a disaster or data loss.

Your disaster plan serves two purposes. First, the plan should limit the ﬁnancial impact a manmade or natural disaster has on your company.

Second, the plan should establish the steps you will take to begin operating again quickly following a disaster. Developing the plan and making employees aware of it helps protect your business and mitigate risk.

Plans should name speciﬁc employees that will play key roles in the event of a disaster, and identify critical assignments that each employee must complete in a disaster scenario.

Finally, the plan should focus on keeping your company’s irreplaceable data safe. That data includes customer information, email correspondence, sales information and accounting and ﬁnancial records.

Most businesses our size don’t have the resources to implement redundant ofﬁce locations, but the plan should include a strategy operating at an alternate location.

The resources needed to resume operations within 24 hours of a disaster may differ from those needed to resume operations within three to four days. The plan should call for the minimum set of resources possible to meet the established targets.

We’ve put together in a free report that will help guide you through the planning process – from assessing the risks to setting up in a new location. The report is free – simply call the ofﬁce at (734) 457-5000, or email info@MyTechExperts.com for your copy.

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