Three rules of data backup for business
You come into work on Monday morning to see smoke coming from your office building. Terror immediately enters your heart as you wonder whether your suite has made it. Then you take stock of the assets you might lose. What will you need to have to get things back up and running after a catastrophe such as a fire or theft?
For most businesses, their stored digital information is the most valuable asset. This data is important not just for day-to-day operations, but also in the case of the sale of business. A purchaser will expect all data associated with the business to be intact and backed up.
The standard rule for data backup is called the 3-2-1 rule. Here’s how that looks in practice:
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Have at least three copies of your data. This seems a bit silly because what’s the statistical probability of two copies of your data being lost at the same time? The statistical probability of the synchronistic failure of two data sets is 1 in 10,000. The probability of synchronistic failure of three data sets moves that chance to 1 in 1 million. That’s big jump in the chances of you keeping your data safe. In addition to these statistical reasons, three copies of the data help avoid a situation in which all of the data is stored in the same physical location.
Store the copies on two different storage media. If you assume that internal data stored on a RAID array (more than one hard drive in a storage unit) will be safe, you may be disappointed. The chances of all drives in a RAID array failing around the same time is high because they are likely from the same batch of hard drives. Therefore, utilizing an external hard drive, tapes or even DVDs for backups is critical.
Keep one backup copy off site. This strategy is particularly important for catastrophic data recovery. In the event of a fire at an office, there needs to be a copy of the data at another physical location. The restore times for getting that data back over the internet is not as fast as restoring from a local hard drive, but this will unlikely be an issue if the entire building needs to be rebuilt after a fire.
Along with all of these rules is automation. Human beings are flawed. We forget things. Any backup solution should be a “set it and forget it” solution. In addition, the backup application needs to have the ability to send notifications of a failure of a backup. Gone are the days of taking a hard drive home with you to protect your data. The cloud allows for security and redundancy of off-site data backup.
With the loss of hardware, an insurance claim can get you back up and running. Think about backup before you have to. In the world of business, data is hardest to replace. Protect it.
Shaun Oshman is founder and chief executive of iSupportU in Boulder. He can be reached at 303-630-9974 or shaun@isupportu.biz.
