Plan for the worst, hope for the best: backup and disaster recovery.To backup or not to backup, is not the question. Everyone in business today understands the importance of performing periodic backups; however, a good question to ask is if the backups being performed are with disaster prevention in mind? Disaster on a computer system can come in many forms from a corrupt file, to a failed disk, to a fire in the computer room. Disaster Recovery: The Ultimate Goal The wrong way to find out whether your backup strategy is providing adequate disaster recovery protection is to experience a failure and find out that you can't recover the lost or damaged files from your last backup or, in some extreme cases, any backup at all. For a small percentage of the readers of this article this will be deja vu See DjVu. , while for others lightening lightening /light·en·ing/ (lit´en-ing) the sensation of decreased abdominal distention produced by the descent of the uterus into the pelvic cavity, two to three weeks before labor begins. will indeed strike sometime in the future. Like death and taxes, computer failures are going to happen--with potentially disastrous results unless an adequate prevention plan is implemented and practiced religiously. Disaster Prevention: Implement a Plan While software and hardware lay the foundation for recovering from the myriad of computer problems that can occur in any business, a good backup plan involves much more. As a producer of backup software See backup program. (tool, software) backup software - Software for doing a backup, often included as part of the operating system. Backup software should provide ways to specify what files get backed up and to where. with thousands of users. I've heard many stories of woe that were entirely preventable. You do not have to hire a Big Eight consulting company Noun 1. consulting company - a firm of experts providing professional advice to an organization for a fee consulting firm business firm, firm, house - the members of a business organization that owns or operates one or more establishments; "he worked for a to develop a good backup plan. What Does it Take? The time, effort, and expenditure required to develop and implement an effective backup strategy will always pay off in the long run. To prevent a disaster from happening, the first step is to buy and install the necessary hardware and software. The next step is to thoroughly train the operators (notice plural PLURAL. A term used in grammar, which signifies more than one. 2. Sometimes, however, it may be so expressed that it means only one, as, if a man were to devise to another all he was worth, if he, the testator, died without children, and he died leaving one ). If the only operator who knows the software is on vacation when your primary data disk crashes, who's going to recover it and get the system going again? Training the operators to schedule backups and perform restores is only part of the story. Operators must be vigilant, conscientious con·sci·en·tious adj. 1. Guided by or in accordance with the dictates of conscience; principled: a conscientious decision to speak out about injustice. 2. and dedicated in their duties of administering backups and verifying their successful completion. Furthermore, keeping a log is a good idea with an entry made for each backup. Any anomalies should be noted in the log, along with detailed information about tape use and cleaning (assuming you are using tape). A tape drive can fail in many different ways, and often the process begins with a little hiccup hiccup or hiccough, involuntary spasmodic contraction of the diaphragm followed by a sharp intake of air, which is abruptly stopped by a sudden, involuntary closing of the glottis (opening between the vocal cords); the consequent blocking of air here and there before failing completely. A log can also help sort out whether bad media could be the source of a backup failure, or maybe dirty tape heads on the drive. So far, I've talked about basic hardware and software, and implementing a backup plan. Other elements of a good backup plan include replacing or retiring media on a systematic basis, performing sampling restores periodically, practicing off-site media storage, and documenting the entire backup and restore procedure so that a part-time or new operator would be able to perform a restore in an emergency. Training part-time operators is particularly important when emergency restores must be performed after hours Adv. 1. after hours - not during regular hours; "he often worked after hours" or over a weekend, when the regular operator just isn't available. The one thing to always remember is that a good backup plan should have a contingency for every type of computer problem that can occur. Plan for the worst and hope for the best! Morgan Edwards Morgan Edwards, (May 9 1722 – January 25 1795), was a Baptist pastor and historian. Edwards was born in Trevethin parish, Pontypool, Wales, and attended Bristol College, after which he began preaching in 1738. is CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of UltraBac Software (Bellevue, WA) www.ultrabac.com This is the first in a series of columns by Morgan Edwards addressing Backup and Disaster Recovery. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion