Your Data Backup Plan

A Backup Article Contributed by Melissa Larose

Your Data Backup Plan

A well though out data backup plan is the singularly most important point of a disaster recovery plan. It is an important part of ensuring a success when you face a disaster. There are many approaches to composing a data backup plan. Which approach is right for your company? We will discuss two approaches.

Data Backup Plan Development

There are many ways to backup data. Every company has its own needs and pressures when it comes to their data. Guaranteeing accurate data to the timeliness of restoring data are all important aspects of data backup. OF the many ways to design a backup plan two stand out as most obvious, centralization and vaulting. Let's look at both.

Centralization can ensure everyone is on the same page. Centralizing all of your data operations means that all software is updated simultaneously and all backups performed include all of the critical data. Centralizing data means assessing all of your computer systems and identifying the data that is on them. Some employees like to make copies of an important file and work on them on their own computer. Often times these types of files can get lost, misplaced, or corrupted.

Some times they even get forgotten, especially if the employee has taken the whole file from its folder instead of just making a copy for their own use. They may be totally unaware that they have caused a problem and if they don't know, how is anyone else to know? The file goes missing.

Tackle this type if problem by either a.) data backup for every computer on the network or b.) purchasing a file checkout system that only allows checkout of certain files to certain people and tracks who has the file.

The second type of data backup plan is a vaulting plan. Vaulting involves off-site storage of your data backup. After backing up your data, it is picked up by a courier from a vaulting company who then delivers it to the off site storage. Often that data backup is put on to tape and stored for a later need. The tape is recycled according to the vaulting plan you have set up with the third party.

Data Backup Can Save Your Business

It makes sense that data is considered the lifeblood of business. Along with the employees that create it and use it a business cannot survive. Creating a data backup plan should begin with understanding the data at hand and the way it is used within the business. Recovery should be at the core of the backup. If you can't recover it the backup was a useless exercise.

Data Backup Strategy

Aim to develop an effective strategy for data backup. The selection of a backup system, a general data control system, and an effective time frame for backing up, daily, weekly, monthly, hourly) should be the basis of your plan. Remember the goal is to protect your data. Embedding protection into daily routines can assure you of a successful recovery no matter what the disaster at hand has created.