What is Data Backup?
A Backup Article Contributed by Melissa Larose
What is Data Backup?
The term data backup sounds like you need a plumber or an IT technician to help you unclog the data drain. Data backup actually refers to copying your data to another location incase of data corruption or loss. But there is more to data backup than just copying data files.
Data Backup As Part of Disaster Recovery
Even if you don't use a routine backup plan for the sake of recovering corrupted, deleted, or misplaced data files, you must include it as part of a comprehensive disaster recovery plan. If not, you run the risk of losing your business.
Disaster can strike at any moment and under any guise. IT can occur through an electrical outage, a tornado, an employee spilling coffee on your most critical of servers, or an equipment failure. Each of these, and many more scenarios, must be planned for in order to keep the business up and running.
What would you do if your servers were down for 48 hours? Can your business survive an outage that long without critical data? Could you lose customers over a 48-hour outage?
And what if the data becomes corrupted through a virus or other mishap? Is your data backup there, clean, and able to be recovered? Have you tested how that process would take place? Just because you have a data backup plan doesn't mean that it works. It must be tested routinely.
Data Backup Can Happen Many Ways
As many companies as there are there are that many and more ways to backup data. From snapshots, to continuous backup, to off-site, to copying data to a separate hard drive, data backup processes vary greatly.
Your data backup process is only a piece of the disaster recovery plan. The data that has been so carefully backed up also needs to be able to be recovered and placed back into the network where it belongs. Can this happen easily for your IT department? To happen easily you will need backup software that can afford a fast and painless recovery.
While a manual recovery is always better than not recovering at all, it can take days in some cases to complete. How would you like to manually recover a three-terabyte database or file system? It's a waste of money and manpower.
Data Backup Should Prevent Data Loss
The goal in creating a backup plan is to prevent data loss. The second goal should be data availability 24/7. But the closer you get to achieving both these goals the more expensive the tools are to make it happen.
Your last line of defense in many cases is the choice of backup software you have made. A poor choice can provide you with less options and flexibility and limit your capability when it comes down to recovery. Determine what level of protection you need for your data and data backup. And consider the price you can afford. IT is the backbone of most businesses and data and data backup the lifeblood.
