Need a New Year's Resolution?

Are you trying to come up with a good New Year's resolution? Try these:

"I resolve to implement an automated backup system to protect my important computer files from accidental erasure, overwriting or hardware failure."

"I resolve to store backup copies of my important computer data in a secure
offsite location to protect against a fire or disaster."

"I resolve to set up a backup data retention plan that will ensure that I
can retrieve old copies of my important files in the future should I need
them."

Like most New Year's resolutions; these are all things that you should be doing with or without a resolution. You don't need the entire year to get these things done. They can all be done within about a half an hour by selecting a quality online backup service.

Another One Bites the Dust

About a year and a half ago I was sitting at our neighborhood swimming pool watching my kids and talking to a friend named Bill, who is the father of another kid in the pool. Bill owns a successful chain of sandwich shops. We talked for a few minutes about his business and then we talked about computers for a while. Somehow, the conversation always ends up on computers. Everyone has them and most people are becoming increasingly dependent on them. After a few minutes. I asked Bill the same question I ask a lot of people; "how are you backing up the data on your computer?"

Bill's answer was a little better than most. He is copying important data to CD's every once in a while. Of course I took the opportunity to encourage him to do a little more than that. I explained how online backup could be automatic and the data is much more secure off site than in his office drawer next to the computer. He didn't resist at all, he agreed and said he was going to take my advice and do just that.

A few nights ago, I saw Bill at a holiday party and the first thing he said to me was; "I should have taken your advice and used an online backup service." He went on to tell me that he had a problem with his computer and lost all of his data. I didn't press him for the details, but apparently he hadn't copied that data to a CD in quite a while.

This story is repeating itself over and over again. And its almost always exactly the same story every time. I talk to a friend or associate, advise them to backup their data on a regular basis and store copies off site. They almost never take action until they lose their data after some period of time passes. Then, after the loss, they are ready to implement and effective backup system.

There is no doubt that I will be telling you about a few more of these occurrences in the coming months. Since you are reading this blog, I expect that you are actually backing up your data on a regular basis. So hopefully, you won't be the subject of the next story like this.

Backup Data Retention and File Access Frequency

I want to make you aware of a situation that caused a business to lose some important data. This particular business was using a very competent IT consultant who was using an online backup service to backup their data. While, there is no need to call out names, we can all benefit from their experience. Here is what happened.

The data that was lost was accessed relatively infrequently. At some unknown time, file system corruption occurred on the server. At some point an entire folder on the file system became completely inaccessible as the directory structure was corrupted. The corruption spread slowly until it eventually effected some files that were needed.

The data on the computer was diligently backed up every day. The folder that was missing due to corruption was not backed up because as far as the OS was concerned it didn't exist any longer. Online backup systems generally retain files that are deleted or no longer current on the backed up computer for a predefined period of time. When a user deletes files from disk, the OS typically removes the corresponding information from the directory structure for the volume. So when corruption occurs that causes information to be lost from a directory structure, the corresponding files are deleted as far as the OS or any other programs are concerned.

It just so happened that in this case no one realized that the files were missing for a period of time. The online backup system retained the missing files according to the retention policy, but by the time someone noticed that they were missing, the online backup system had also deleted them from the backup storage.

The lesson that we should all take from this is that our backup retention policies should be longer that the typical frequency of use for the files being backed up. In simple terms; if you only use a particular set of files once a quarter, then your backup data should be retained for more than a quarter.

I typically use more information than the frequency of use to determine how long backup data should be retained. There are lots of other factors that should be considered. One such factor would be compliance with laws and regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. If you haven't checked recently, then I encourage you to review your backup data retention policies to make sure they meet your needs. Don't forget to consider how long it may be before you realize that important files are missing.

Data Sabotage Protection

I got a call from a real estate brokerage business owner inquiring about offsite data backup. He was concerned that a disgruntled employee might delete important files from his office computers. I didn't dig into the reason for his fears; whether they are justified or not is not really my business. I do know that employee errors and sabotage are very real threats to data and offsite data storage is an excellent mitigation strategy. Even without those concerns, offsite data backup should be considered essential for all businesses, large and small.

Backup data that is stored in the office or in the same location as the computer is vulnerable to many of the same causes of loss that the primary data is. For example; backup tapes and other media will likely burn in the same fire that destroys the computer. A disgruntled employee with a small amount of determination can easily wipe out your backup tapes as well as the computer files. In fact, a saboteur is well aware that they will only be effective if they delete or destroy the backup data.

Offsite backup is not always safe from sabotage. I have heard of cases where backup procedures were altered so that blank tapes were being moved off site. One of the best ways to protect against these kinds of threats is the use of an online backup service designed for business data. The business oriented services have safeguards in place that make it difficult to remove data from the off site location without proper authority. And good online backup services automatically generate reports if backup jobs are missed or no data is backed up.

In the case of the real estate brokerage, the solution was simple. We got them started on an online backup plan, and only the manager has the credentials to change the reporting or data retention. If the owner's fears come true and an employee deletes data from the office, the missing data can be restored months later if needed.