Copy that: thinking outside the (backup) box.

Everyone knows that they should be performing computer backups on a regular basis. Even if you are among the more faithful backup performers, chances are that you haven't given much thought about the safety of those backups.

Recent natural disasters, including the series of hurricanes hitting Florida the year before last and Hurricane Katrina's more recent devastation of New Orleans, have pointed out that backing up just isn't enough. You also need to make sure that the backups that you make are protected. In essence, you need to back up the backups.

Those disasters have also pointed out another vulnerability in the backup process. Assuming that you have a full backup of your production systems in hand, unless the hardware configuration that you are restoring the backup to is identical to that on which the backup was made, chances are good that the restored copy will have some problems running on the new system because of hardware and driver problems.

To truly safeguard your mission-critical applications and data, there are a couple of additional precautions that you can take. They aren't particularly difficult or expensive to implement, but you do have to exercise a bit of caution in precisely how you go about it.

Far, far away

The first step that you should consider is storing at least one backup copy of everything a fair distance away from your site. What constitutes a "fair" distance depends on where your office is located and what kinds of disasters you can reasonably anticipate.

For example, on the West Coast there is the possibility of earthquakes, mudslides, floods, and wildfires. Some of these are more or less likely, depending on where the office is physically located, with the possibility of an earthquake somewhat more likely in California than in Washington state.

The idea is to find a location to store your office's backup copy that's far enough out of an anticipated damage zone so that a disaster, if it should happen, doesn't take out both the backup copies and your original mission-critical systems.

The major fly in the ointment with this approach is that you need to be careful where the backup copies wind up. Privacy issues are major news these days, and sending your organization's sensitive records, even as backup, to people not authorized to be in possession of them, can land you and your organization in hot water. The cure in this case might be worse than the disease.

While your Aunt Molly, who has space in her desk in the Space Command Center in Cheyenne Mountain, might be happy to accommodate your off-site backup storage needs, don't just assume it's okay to send her a package of backup DVDs.

Don't worry, be happy

The most obvious caretaker of your way-offsite backup is an officer or other authorized staff member in a branch office. In setting this up, make sure management is involved, and that the offsite caretaker is briefed on the necessity of respecting and maintaining privacy and security.

If your organization doesn't have a branch office that can be used for this purpose, you might be able to use Aunt Molly, but be careful who you select and how you go about setting up this associate, friend or relative as a caretaker for your organization's backup data.

In every case, you'll need to have permission from an officer of the organization who has the authority to grant this okay. You should probably also have a legal document appointing the offsite caretaker as a person who has been duly authorized by your management to serve in this capacity. Finally, you might also want to get a statement from this caretaker that they agree to maintain security and privacy over the files that they will be safeguarding. Your organization's attorney should definitely be consulted in this process.

As an alternative, you might want to consider one of the Internet-based backup companies that provide just this type of service. Your accounting software provider is a good place to start your search in this regard. Many companies either offer this service, or partner with companies that do.

If you are able to set up a branch office or other fiduciary to serve as your backup caretaker, you then need to consider the actual physical process of getting a backup to them. One method is to just make another copy of your backup, using the same medium (tape, optical disc, or external hard disk) that you use for the primary backup, and mail or express ship it out as soon as possible to limit its exposure.

If both your organization and your backup location have access to a broadband Internet connection, you might consider setting up a Virtual Private Network (VPN), and let your backup software simply perform a backup to a location on the VPN located at the distant site.

A VPN lets you tie together two or more separated networks so they appear as a single physical network to the operating system and applications. Setting this up is not exceptionally complicated, and there are good tutorials available on Microsoft's Web site and other locations on the Internet. Just perform an Internet search on the phrase "Set up a VPN" with your favorite search engine.

Keep in mind that the remote site might need to have its storage capacity beefed up so that keeping your backup doesn't impact the location's own operations. There are several ways you can go about this, ranging from adding a second hard disk to one of the remote location's personal computers, to simply plugging in a NAS (Network Attached Storage) drive into the remote location's Ethernet switch or router.

The second vulnerability to be concerned about is restoring a backup to a different hardware or even different operating system configuration. One approach is to simply backup your applications' data files, and figure that you will have to reinstall (and possible replace) the applications themselves.

Another solution would be to use a backup protocol that permits restoring onto different hardware and/or operating system platforms. There aren't many backup products that have this total flexibility, especially in regard to alternate platforms, but the $79 Workstation Edition of Acronis (www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/ATICW/) True Image allows you to purchase a $29 add-on called Acronis Universal Restore that will let you restore to pretty much any Windows-based hardware/software platform that you have available.

The Acronis True Image/Universal Restore combo is also a great way to upgrade a laptop or desktop with a new hard disk or to move the contents (applications and data) from on old PC/laptop to a new one. But, that's another column.

Ted Needleman is the former associate publisher and editor-in-chief of Accounting Technology magazine. He is now a technology consultant and writer based in Stony Point, N.Y. His email address is [e-mail]