Backup Management
The importance of data availability
Computers have revolutionised the way business is conducted. Today organisations are very dependent on the accessibility of their IT systems to ensure the smooth running of their business.
But what happens if all of a sudden your IT system is not available?
Although you may have insurance in place to protect your office and its contents against disasters, most of the data stored on your computer network is unique to your business and you cannot simply go out and re-purchase it. So unless you implement a strict regime of regularly backing up your data to another device, such as a tape drive, in the event of a disaster you may find your staff are unable to call upon the information needed to make competent business decisions. In fact, recent studies undertaken by the DTI show that seventy per cent of UK businesses that suffered a major data loss came crashing down within 18 months!
Deploying a data backup strategy
No business today can really afford not to backup critical business data. All our customers are actively encouraged to deploy a comprehensive backup strategy so that their business critical information is always readily available. However, our experience shows that in spite of good intentions, many backup strategies fail because they are not properly implemented or managed.
Invariably someone needs to be given the mundane and time consuming job of managing the system. While this might be easy in a large company, in smaller companies often there are no obvious candidates. Too often the job of ‘backup administrator’ is given to the office junior or another individual whose energies are usually far more profitably spent doing the job they were originally employed for.
In practice these people tend to be neither suitably motivated and qualified nor have the time available to ensure that the system operates as originally envisaged. If you are lucky, they manage to change the tapes on a daily basis, but when it comes to restoring a critical lost file, it is usually chaos and panic and all too often you discover that the system has not been backing up as intended!
Backup Assist
Under our Backup Assist programme we seek to assist our clients in the running of their backup procedures to ensure that their critical information is always readily available.
Backup
Having clearly established a customer’s backup requirements, we oversee the day to day management of the backup regime. By working with the site ‘backup administrator’ we ensure that the business critical data is backed up on a regular basis, its integrity is proved, and that the tape rotation and storage procedures are properly followed. On an ongoing scheduled basis we will review with the client their backup requirements to ensure that the business’s changing needs are reflected in the backup strategy.
Restore
From time to time, as required, we will assist with the restoring of any lost files, ensuring that they are replaced properly using the most recent backup set. In the unlikely event of a complete disaster, where it is necessary to restore a complete backup to a new hardware platform, we will endeavour to ensure that the customer’s information is back online as soon as possible to a state equal to that of the last backup session.
