2. WHAT IS A BACKUP ?
The process of copying and archiving data so that it can be
restored in the event of the loss of the original data
3.
4.
5. STATS 43% of companies who
experienced a major data loss
never re-opened
& 29% closed within 2 years!
Data Loss
Never Re-Opened
40% of companies who
experienced a major data will go
out of business if they CANNOT
gain access to their data within
24 hours!
Before I start, I’ve got a few questions.
How many of you have a backup process in place in your office?
How many keep their backups offsite?
How many have tested their backup in the last 3 months? In other words, are you sure that your backups are successful?
What is a backup?
A backup in terms of IT is the process of copying and archiving data so that it can be restored in the event of a loss of the original data.
OK – let’s just assume that we’ve all left here today, and if we don’t already have a backup solution in place, we’ve gone to put one in…
And we get into the office on Friday morning to either … our server having burnt down … or the office being flooded!
If a disaster was to strike:
Could you wait 2 or more days until you have access to your data?
Could your business operate during that time?
Can you afford not to have access to your emails for 2 days or more?
How much money would you lose during this downtime?
OK…let me give you some statistics on backups!
Well west assured – these statistics are all over the internet… but cannot be confirmed.
What I can tell you is this :
57% of SMEs do not have a disaster recovery plan
and at June 2013, 75% of WA government agencies didn’t have an adequate disaster recovery plan.
(Information Systems Audit Report, June 2013)
Disaster recovery is just not a priority for businesses!
What is Disaster Recovery?
Disaster Recovery is the process of recovering your IT infrastructure in order to continue your business operations.
A DRP (Disaster Recovery Plan) is the documented disaster recovery process which forms part of the company’s Business Continuity Plan
So…we’ve all seen Toy Story 2
Toy Story 2 was released in 1999 and had a $90m budget
It grossed $57m on the opening weekend in the US and over $500m
But here’s a fact for you - Toy Story 2 nearly never made it on the big screen
Someone at Pixar one day used a special command and deleted all the files relating to the movie in about 20 seconds. Unfortunately the backups had not been working for over 1 month. Luckily for Pixar, a copy of the data was found on the technical director’s personal laptop at home and the movie was finished!
Here are a few things to consider regarding backups.
Firstly – What to backup
Maybe even the whole server – for disaster recovery purposes
Another important matter to consider is where should the backups be kept
Onsite or offsite or both
Another important consideration to give to backups is the Recovery Point Objective & the Recovery Time Objective
Recovery Point Objective is: How far back do you protect your data – or the maximum amount of acceptable data loss
Recovery Time Objective: How quickly do you want to be able to recover your data/system
Now - Your primary constraint when setting your RTO and RPO will be your budget
The quicker you want to recover your data, or the older the data you want to keep, the more the cost of the solution will be!
Something to think about is the size of your backups
The bigger the size of your data and your backup, the more it’s going to cost to manage.
It’s important to archive unnecessary files, not allow staff to store music or movies on the company server!
Testing – This is one of the main component of having a backup process
Test your backups before you need them. It’s like your spare tyre being flat when needed!
Finally – what media will you use to store your backups
Do everyone understand that the process for backing up to the cloud is?
To finish off, I thought I’d give you some benefits of a cloud backup solution
(disclaimer – if done through Digital Office Care)
1 - External - your data is sent directly to a secure external location. This eliminates dangers like theft and fire, which do affect local (tape, disk) backups.
2 - Cost effective – no need to invest in the backup hardware or software – fixed monthly fee
3 - High availability - your data is continuously and directly available. When you lose data, you can immediately start with restoring your data.
4 - Secure - The encryption of data, the secured internet connection and the storage in a solid and secured data centre guarantee maximal privacy. Only you have access to your data
5 - Automatic – No need to change the HDD, take it home
6 – Peace of mind - Cloud backup is ‘Fire and forget’-software; once configured, it works fully automatic and you will receive emails with status updates. You will save time and therefore money.
7 - Easily restored - your data is sent directly to a secure external location. This eliminates dangers like theft and fire, which do affect local (tape, disk) backups.
