Creating Your Disaster Recovery Plan

As businesses rely more heavily on information technology, the potential damage caused by an IT disaster to a business’s success increases dramatically. Your ability to save your business in the event of a severe hardware malfunction depends a great deal on whether you have a Disaster Recovery plan ready and staff that is ready to implement it.

Preparing for Disaster Recovery

The first step in creating your Disaster Recovery plan is to recognize potential problems, based on the hardware you are using, the way your hardware is being used by your employees, and the location of your hardware. You need to plan for all types of potential problems including:

• Purposeful damage by disgruntled employees.
• Theft (physical) and data theft (hacking).
• Environmental issues related to your geographical area.
• Age and reliability of hardware.
• The adding and deletion of technology and editing of sensitive server files.

You should go over with your staff how these potential problems could occur, how they can be prevented, but also the worst case scenarios based on the severity of these potential disasters. This will help your business prepare for Disaster Recovery, should it need to occur, as well as understand what may go wrong so it can more easily be found and addressed.

Developing Your Plan

Once you have gone over the potential problems that can occur with your data it is time to develop a plan for Disaster Recovery that your staff will be ready to implement. Your staff should be well versed in what to do in the event you lose your data, with each employee knowing their exact role in order to make the process smooth and simple.

Your first step should be to have a set budget for Disaster Recovery. Time spent fixing problems is time not working, and several pieces of hardware may need to be immediately replaced (i.e. Network Storage Server). All of these can be fairly extensive costs to your company if it has not been properly budgeted. It may also be a good idea to purchase insurance on your hardware that you can use to easily replace the pieces that are missing/damaged.

The next step is to draft the Disaster Recovery plan. For obvious reasons, the plan should be printed on paper with multiple copies available and the name of the individual who is supposed to perform a specific action clearly outlined. Each step should be carefully described and written in clear language.

Once you have written out your Disaster Recovery plan, you should practice it – especially when there is turnover within your company. Once you have created, practiced, and prepared for Disaster Recovery, the process should be much easier.

3 Places You Can Store Your Server Backup

It is estimated that 50% of all businesses that lose all of their data will experience such a financial toll that they will close within one year. Now that almost everything related to your business is computerized, the risks associated with not performing Server Backup are as great as they will ever be. But a Server Backup is a tricky system – many of the less technology savvy businesses tend to store their backup files on their server.

This can be a problem. If your server crashes, there may be no way to restore all of your data. Instead, you need a place to keep your Server Backup that is safer and more reliable than storing your data on your server’s hard drive. There are three different methods people use to save their Server Backup.

1. Separate Computer

Some people save their Server Backup on the hard drive of a separate computer, not hooked up to the network. This is not a bad place to keep the backup file, as it is unlikely to be affected by viruses or the hard drive crash of your server. There are still risks, however. If fire, flood, or theft is what caused you to lose your data, the alternate computer is still at risk. In addition, you will need to manage the separate computer in order to perform the backup, which can be time consuming.

2. Portable Storage

Another option is portable storage, such as a USB drive or external hard drive. These are also good places to save a Server Backup and can potentially be safer for maintaining your backup than a computer that stays in-house. It does suffer from the same downside as a separate computer – you will need to be around to complete the backup before you can move it to the portable storage device. In addition, should you not be around when your server crashes, there is no way to retrieve the data until it can be brought back.

3. Remote Backup

A third option is a remote Server Backup. This is when the backup occurs automatically and the file is saved online through a third party system. A remote Server Backup is your safest option, as it allows you to ensure that your files cannot be corrupted or destroyed before a restore can take place. However, these options do cost a monthly fee with an outside company that may be a slight expense for smaller businesses.

These three options are all good places to save your Server Backup. Which you choose will depend largely on the size of your business, the amount of data, and the IT staff that you have on hand.

Benefits of a Remote Backup For Your Business

Any business that uses computers for its daily record keeping – even a small business that only uses its computer to keep track of sales – needs to backup its data often. The entire life of the business is found on those computers, and something as simple as spilled coffee can permanently delete all of your data leaving you without records and without the necessary files that you need to run your business correctly.

However, simply backing up your data may not be enough. Remember, when you run a backup program, your backup file is saved onto your own hardware – hardware that may be lost in the event of a fire, electrical surge, theft, or simple product breakdown. A backup file is not valuable if it is on the hard drive that has crashed, and while you can save it to a different server or computer on the network, it is possible that whatever affected your first hard drive could also damage your other hard drives as well.

That is why one of the most effective ways to keep all of your data safe is to use Remote Backup. Remote Backup is when your entire backup is saved online, using a Remote Backup service that saves every one of your backups in an offsite location that will not be affected by whatever damaged your servers.

How Does Remote Backup Work?

Every night at a pre-determined time, software provided by your Remote Backup service will perform an incremental backup, scan it for data errors, and if everything comes up clean it will load the data onto its server providing you with a full backup that can be reached online.

This data is offsite, so it is not prone to the same problems that can occur within your office. You do have to pay a monthly fee to use a Remote Backup service, but these fees are usually minimal and pale in comparison to the costs of trying to restore lost vital business data in the event of a server crash.

The benefits of Remote Backup are:

• Data saves automatically and incrementally, so a full backup is always available.
• Data is checked for errors and corruption to ensure backup will work successfully.
• Data is not prone to the same environmental or other factors that could damage your backup.
• Data cannot be edited or deleted by disgruntled or misinformed employees.
• Data can be accessed at any time for immediate restore capabilities.

With the considerable risks involved with losing data in your business, a Remote Backup is one of the best ways to be absolutely sure your data is kept safe.

How Often Should You Run Your Backup Program and What Should You Back Up?

The value of a good Backup Program is how you use it. There are programs that come with your operating system, software you can purchase for more complicated backup procedures, and network specific Backup Programs for system wide support. These systems only have value if you use them, as no Backup Program is beneficial if it remains unopened.

How Often Should You Backup Your Data?

How often one backs up their data has a lot to do with the amount of data that you use, as well as the value of that data to you.

• Businesses and universities should back up their data nightly, and every computer system wide should be saved. On any given day, the data on an employee’s computer could be invaluable towards making a sale or doing research, and if it has not been backed up, the data can be lost. Ideally your Backup Program will work across the network and be scheduled to perform an incremental or full backup daily.
• Individuals that do work from home, or often save items of value should also consider using a Backup Program daily, but once a week will generally suffice unless you are often saving pieces of data that are extremely important.
• Individuals that rarely save important files and do not do any work from home should still use a Backup Program weekly if possible, but once a month will suffice. Also, any time you are going to make any major changes to your computer or download anything that may harm your computer, running your Backup Program may be a good idea.

What Types of Files Should Be Included?

When you run your Backup Program, you have the option of choosing what you would like included in the backup. The files that should always be included are documents, spreadsheets, photos, videos, music (if it is a home computer) and any other files you often work with on your computer. For those that are less computer literate, it may be a good idea to simply backup everything, including your operating system data files, as the time it will take to reinstall them all for a computer novice may be difficult.

Also, if you have a website, do not forget to use your Backup Program to save all of your website files as well. Even if they are all online, it is possible that your web service provider can lose them, and without a backup your website will be lost should your hosting provider lose your data.

Benefits of Online Backup

The goal of backing up your files is to save your data if anything should happen to your hard drive. If your hard drive crashes for any reason, simply open the backup file (using the Backup Program used) and all of your data will be restored as new. A successful backup will make it as though your hard drive crashing never occurred, taking much of the stress out of what can be a stressful incident.

However, backups can be imperfect. When you have performed a backup, our backup is saved as a file. Once you have that file, you have a few options:

• Save the file to your hard drive.
• Save your file to an external hard drive.
• Save your file to a memory card.

Each of these options creates a problem, however. If your hard drive completely crashed, you will not have access to the file in order to restore it. And if anything happens to your memory card or external hard drive (which, if your hard drive crashing was due to environmental problems such as a flood, is very possible), the same problems occur.

One of the solutions to this problem is to Backup Online. When you Backup Online, your backup file is saved on the Internet, where it can be accessed from any computer at any time. This file cannot be damaged by the environment, nor can it be harmed by a potential virus or other problematic computer issues.

To Backup Online, all you need to do is sign up for one of the many services available. A variety of companies, especially anti-virus companies, allow you to Backup Online for a nominal fee. You can also schedule a weekly or even daily backup to occur in order to ensure that all of your files can be restored.

When it comes to the safety of your files and documents, no amount of precautions is too great. While the availability of options for backing up your computer are plentiful, many of these options still present risks that can occur when the backup file is on a single location.

However, when you Backup Online, you have the opportunity to make absolutely sure that your file is and will be available in the case of emergency. Only when you Backup Online do you have that kind of confidence, and it is a confidence that, when it comes to your data, you should not be without.

The Vital Role of Home Backup For Your PC

For many individuals, backing up data is meant for businesses only. Their data is more valuable, and should they lose access to their documents, spreadsheets, and other files, their entire business can go down with it.

But a Home Backup is equally as important. Every day you send and receive files, photos, videos and music. Many people work from home or have children that do homework – each of these creates data that can be lost in the event of a computer crash.

In addition, your home is far more prone to problems that do not tend to occur with the high end equipment used in businesses. That equipment is often held in individually cooled rooms with backup power generators and the world’s most powerful surge protectors. In your home, a simple flood or electrical surge can completely wipe out your data, leaving you without any of the files you had taken for granted.

That is why a Home Backup becomes such a useful tool for saving your files and ensuring that your data is not lost forever. In addition, a Home Backup is a simple and easy task. Windows XP and Windows Vista both come with their own Home Backup and Restore programs that you can run to quickly back up your data and restore it again if necessary.

How Do You Run a Home Backup?

To backup your computer, simply go to the start menu, click on “Programs,” then “Accessories,” then “System Tools.” There you will see the backup and restore program. Click on it, and you get the option to set up your next Home Backup. You can choose from one of three options:

• Incremental – Creates a new backup while saving the old backup. The new backup records only the changes made to the files saved in the older backups.
• Differential – Creates a new backup file but saves the changes that were made since the last full backup.
• Full – Completely backs up your files.

For those that have never backed up their hard drive before, or are planning on making changes to their system, the full backup is recommended. Once you have completed the backup your computer will save a .bfk file which you can save to a hard drive. Should anything happen to your computer, simply open the file and your computer will be back to the way it was at the time of the backup.

A Home Backup is a useful tool for ensuring that your files and settings get saved in case of emergency. And since a home backup is so easy to run with Windows Vista and XP, there is simply no excuse not to back up your files just in case you require the services of a Backup And Restore feature.

What to do Before You Make Any Changes to Your PC

Windows, for all its bugs, comes with some very useful features. Most of the newest forms of Windows (XP Systems, Vista, etc.) come with their own Backup and Restore features.

These features are safe and easy ways to make sure that your files and configurations are safe from a hard drive crash or from making changes to your PC that affect its performance.

What is Backup and Restore?

Windows provides you with the option to backup your computer using a simple Home Backup feature.. This allows it to save and condense all of the files and settings on your computer so that in the event of a hard drive crash, you restore your computer back to the way it was.

In Windows Vista, you would do this by going to the Start Menu -> All programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Backup Status and Configuration (or Backup and Restore Center). Once there, you can set up automatic backups, or request that your computer back up the files right away.

Once you have run the program, your computer will create a .bkf file. This is your backup file. It is a good idea to put this file on an external hard drive, as you are protecting your computer against your hard drive crashing. Should your hard drive crash and the backup file was on your hard drive, you may not be able to restore it. But if you are only backing up your computer because you are about to edit some important programs, it may not be as necessary.

In the event something happens to your computer, all you need to do is run the “restore” feature, and your Backup and Restore program will have been a success. The file will restore your computer to the data it had saved before the hard drive crashed.

When to Use Backup and Restore Features?

It is a good idea to back up your computer often, especially if you have files that you cannot afford to lose. Windows Vista has an automatic backup option, but you may simply want to run a full backup every few weeks or months depending on the amount of time you spend on the computer.

However, an important time to backup your computer is when you are going to adjust various settings that could drastically alter the performance of your PC. Should you be downloading dangerous software or changing the system files in your Windows folder, Backup and Restore becomes a necessary program to use to ensure no data is lost.