Offsite Backups for Disaster Prevention

Written on the 5th of December 2008 by Scott Jones

Offsite Backups for Disaster Prevention

Everyone knows that data backups are important for a business.  We have written comprehensive articles in the past on why you need backups and what types of backup systems are available. 

It doesn't matter how good your onsite backup system is, however,  if it gets fried by lightening, or drowned in a flash flood.  Your busines MUST therefore have the added protection of an offsite backup.  This is an essential part of your business's disaster prevention and recovery strategy and can mean the difference between your business failing or surviving a disaster like fire, flood or theft.

An offsite backup could be as simple and cheap as buying a USB external hard drive, and having an additional Friday weekly backup record all the data to that drive, and thenm that drive is stored at a different location until the following friday. It could also be just a matter of using your existing tape drive, and ensuring that a Friday and/or Monthly tape is written and kept offsite.

However, there ARE some pitfalls to avoid.

1. Make SURE it is offsite

Asking a staff member to remember to take a friday tape offsite each week is a great idea.  But a LOT of businesses find at some stage that this procedure was not being done reliably, and the business was therefore at risk (or actually loses data as a result.)

Your staff member is not the one who is going to lose their business and their house if a disaster happens, so we urge business owners or high level managers to be responsible for this activity or conduct constant spot checks.
 

2. Make sure they are stored properly

Leaving a backup tape to bake in your hot car in summer WILL destroy data on the tape.

Knocking an external hard drive around in its weekly journeys to and from the office WILL increase the chance of the drive failing.

We never recommend using optical discs (CD/DVD) for essential backups, but if you so, these must be stored and handled properly. SEE HERE

3. Offsite Backups must be tested regularly

A backup medium is only as good as the last time it was tested.  When was the last time you tested yours? Better assume it hasn't worked since the last test, and decide if that is a risk that you can afford to take.

An easier option - Online Backups

For these and many other reasons, we have created an offsite backup system that

• works automatically on a set schedule
• does not require staff intervention, to run or keep offsite
• is run daily to minimise the data losss risk
• is monitored daily for successes
• is comparable in cost or cheaper than other offsite alternatives

It is called the IT Leaders Online Backiup Service, and it works by backing up your latest data across the Internet to our secure backup servers.

We monitor the success of the backup each day and advise you if a problem occurs. If you are on a DRIVE IT Management Plan, we also do a monthly test restore of some data.

If you need any data restored, we can either do this remotely (for small amounts of data), or else extract large amounts of data and bring them to you to be restored.

Please see here for current onsline backup pricing and contact IT Leaders for more information.

What ever you decide to you, make sure you put in place some reliable system to protect your business from the devestating effects of losing critical data - don't become another statistic.

(C) IT Leaders 2008