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White Paper

Backups Will Save


Your Business

Backup and Recovery Strategies


for Small and Medium Business

TechRemedy
October 2009

email: info@techremedy.com.au Tel: +61 2 8213 6187


web: www.techremedy.com.au Fax: +61 2 8213 6204
White Paper

Introduction

Backup and recovery seemingly does not matter much at all until something occurs that makes it
matter way too much. How confident are you that the data upon which your business relies is backed
up successfully and will be able to be restored in a timely manner in the event of a disaster? Data and
system loss can happen anytime. Don’t leave your business vulnerable by taking taking the time to
ensure you have a secure backup and recovery strategy in place.

There are a number of types of issues that can cause the loss of data. These include:
- Hardware failure
- Human error
- Data corruption
- Viruses and malware
- Theft
- Destruction of your premises and equipment due to fire or malicious behaviour

For a very recent example of a high impact failure that has affected critical data you only need to see:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/10/t-mobile-we-probably-lost-all-your-sidekick-data/. No person
or business, whether small or large, are immune from possible disasters and loss of data.

Just imagine the impact to your business if your financial data like invoices, purchase orders and
general ledger was lost! Customer records gone! Stock control lost! Intellectual property lost or
stolen! All businesses differ and the impact of a system or data loss will vary. One of the most critical
tasks is to identify the data that is key to your business operations and then implementing a solution
and process to ensure this data is backed up on a frequent enough basis to ensure minimal disruption
to the business should a problem or disaster occur.

This white paper examines the types of solutions and data storage options available and that are best
suited to small and medium businesses as well as offering some tips and best practices to allow a
business to be secure in the knowledge that key data is readily available and can be quickly restored
when needed.

Why are Backups Critical?

Unfortunately, you can’t recover data that you haven’t kept.

Computers and disk drives can be replaced in the event of failure/loss with the software being able to
be re-installed, but the most critical element is the unique data upon which your business relies, be it
financial records, client records, email or correspondence. Recovery can be a simple task if a proper
backup process and storage solution are in place but becomes a long, time consuming and often costly
exercise if you need to go back to historical records to re-enter/re-create your data.

For example, in the event of a computer failure it is often possible to recover your critical data from
the hard drive, be it business information or just photos of loved ones, and restore to a new system or
drive, however, in some cases when a hard drive fails the data becomes inaccessible and is lost
forever. Even if recoverable the time involved and costs can escalate quickly. But in the event of theft,
damage by fire or a head crash on your hard drive the only way data can be recovered and your
computer systems restored is to have backups of your data available.

Even though business requirements vary the following are key elements that all businesses require to
ensure they can minimise both downtime and the cost of recovery:
- Backing up critical application data, often across multiple computer systems and different
storage mediums

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- The ability to restore your operating system and key applications, e.g. Windows, MYOB,
Exchange, Customer Relations Management system, from original installaton media or
backups
- The ability to restore systems to new and/or dissimilar hardware
- Storage of data and system information at an offsite location(s) so that you can quickly
recover your business even from a total loss of your systems and/or facility

Backup Planning

Nearly all businesses are increasingly relying on digital data for their management and operations so it
becoming even more critical that the right backup strategy and solution is in place to provide peace of
mind. Here are the steps required to plan for the right backup strategy and process to minimise your
business risk:

- Review and decide what data you need to back up


It is important to review your business processes and identify the data upon which your
business relies. The obvious candidates are financial data, client records and documents but
with the widespread use of email as a means of conducting business and communicating with
clients/suppliers the backing up of email is often overlooked.

- Determine the right backup technology and software to suit your business and data storage
requirements
For example, a solution for a small businesses with modest data storage requirements may
consist of removable USB drives and an automated backup/copy script, however, for some
organisations with larger data storage needs commercial backup software along with
removable media, e.g. tape, may be required. When considering the right technology and data
storage the impact and cost of downtime to your business along with knowledge of the time it
will take to recover needs to be understood. How much data is your business prepared to lose
and how long will it take you to restore your systems back to the point prior to failure? This
knowledge will help determine the frequency of backups and the amount of data you can
afford to lose and still be up and running again within a timeframe your business can tolerate.

- Maintain backup logs for audit and validation purposes


Logs should be kept and reviewed on a regular basis to validate that the backup process is
working correctly and that all key data is being backed up as per the backup plan.

- Regularly review your backup data, technologies and processes


Business needs and computer systems are constantly changing so it is important to regularly
check that your business data is being correctly secured in the backup process. An often
overlooked action is to regularly test the ability of restoring your data from your backup
media. Horror stories abound where backup media has been retrieved from storage only to
find that the media is no longer readable or the data contained on the media is not what is
expected.

- Ensure the security of your backups and media


Given the potential risks highlighted above a suitable offsite storage location(s) should be
determined. Just as security within your office is required to protect your critical computer
equipment and data you also need to be secure in the knowledge that your backups can be
retrieved and restored when needed. Storing backup media in a suitable location, e.g. a fire-
proof safe, an offsite location or a remote internet backup service, is key to knowing that your
data is readily available in the event of a disaster. Disposal of unwanted media carefully when
it is no longer required will also ensure your data is not accessed or used by an unauthorised
person(s)

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Backup Strategies

The backup strategy will vary depending on the needs of each business. If high uptime is required due
to operational requirements, e.g. Point of Sale applications, then the ability to restore a system quickly
is key. In less critical situations the ability to restore from original system and application media and
then restore important data may be all that is required.

Types of Backup

There are different types of backups and a range of tools that are available to cater for the various
needs of different businesses. The most common types of backups are:

- Full offline backups


To fully restore in the event of a hardware failure or a complete loss of your system it is
recommended to take full image backups of your systems, especially in larger
businesses/systems where there are a number of key applications and downtime has a major
and costly impact on critical business operations. A full image backup allows for the quick
recovery of the operating system, e.g. Windows, and installed applications, with only the
business data needing to be updated to fully restore the system to the point at which the last
backup was taken. Given that computer systems change over time with software updates and
new applications being installed maintaining image backups that are up to date and current
can be a time consuming exercise. However, the payback in time should a major failure occur
can quickly justify the effort involved. In less time critical situations it may be easier to
rebuild the system from scratch, installing the operating system, applications and then
restoring your business data to return the system to working order.

- Incremental Backups
Incremental backups ensure changes to data are saved to a backup medium to allow for
minimal recovery work should you need to restore a system. This can be as simple as
recovering a single file or files that have been accidentally deleted or become corrupted
through to being able to fully restore all your data in the event of complete data loss or system
failure. Incremental backups need to be taken at intervals that suit the business requirements.
For some business situations daily backups are adequate, however, these may need to be more
or less frequent depending on the rate of change of key data and the impact of data loss and
downtime to your business.

Backup Software

There are a number of backup applications available, ranging from standard programs that are
available with your computer through to specialised software applications that can produce image
backups of your system along with automating the backup process. Many backup applications also
provide the facility to email notifications and logs to specified recipients. The type of application used
will depend on the requirements of the business and are often determined by the amount and variety
of data to be stored plus the need for users to have control over recovering lost files and data
independently as required.

For small businesses it is often sufficient to use built-in copy programs with a manual process or a
minimal level of automation so that the frequency of backup and ability to restore are controlled by
the users. However, in larger organisations where the volume of data to be stored is higher and
automation is essential to minimise user intervention then specialised backup applications are
recommended.

It is also important to note that in a networked computing environment with multiple users it is critical
that key data is either centrally stored at time of creation or replicated/copied to a central location, e.g.

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a file server, so as to allow for backing up and then offsite storage. Centralised management of data
and backups can simplify the process, removing the requirement for individual users to worry about
backing up their data plus also minimising the human error that can occur.

Data Storage Solutions

There are various data storage technologies available for backing up your data, the choice will depend
on the size and complexity of your data storage requirements:

- Hard disk
The capacity, size and price of hard disk drives has been rapidly improving for many years
and small, high speed, high capacity and low cost externally connected disks are now
becoming readily available and more competitive than magnetic tape as a bulk storage
medium. The use of multiple external USB drives as a backup storage medium is now
affordable and commonplace. The main disadvantage of hard disk backups are that they are
easily damaged, especially during transportation, and their stability over long periods and
varying storage conditions is largely unknown.

- Solid State Storage


Commonly known as flash memory, thumb drives, USB flash drives, CompactFlash,
SmartMedia, Memory Stick, Secure Digital cards, these devices are relatively costly for their
capacity, but offer excellent portability and ease-of-use. As these vary in size and even large
capacity devices are now becoming available at lower cost a backup solution that employs
solid state drives is an option where storage requirements are low.

- Removable cartridge drives


There are a number of removable cartridge drives e.g. Iomega ZIP and Rev drives, available
which offer high capacity reliable storage options for backups. Where storage requirements
are higher and reliability and ease of transport are required these offer an alternative medium
to a hard drive or tape solution.

- Tape drives
Magnetic tape has been commonly used where bulk data storage, backup, archiving, and
interchange of data are required. Tape medium had an order of magnitude higher capacity and
price ratio when compared to hard disk, but as noted above, with the ever declining cost of
hard disk drives the benefit of tape over other storage media has declined. Being a sequential
access medium, access times are higher, but the rate at which data can be continuously written
or read can be quite fast. The main advantage of tape is that it has been used as backup media
for many decades and its characteristics and reliability are well understood.

- DVD/CD RW drives
Optical disks such as recordable CDs and DVDs, being relatively low cost, provide an option
for backup, especially for archival purposes as the data can’t be changed. The advantage of
optical disks are that they can be restored on any machine that has a CD/DVD drive. Larger
capacity disks such as HD-DVDs and Blu-ray dramatically increase the amount of data that
can be stored on a single disk but may be cost prohibitive for many people at this time. The
other consideration for the use of optical disks is the physical lifetime of the disks has become
a concern as it is possible for some disks to degrade over time and potentially lose data within
a few years.

- Remote backup service


As broadband becomes more widespread and affordable backups to another site where
businesses have mulitple offices or utilising a remote backup services are becoming an option
for many businesses. Whilst backing up data to a remote location can protect against worst

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case scenarios such as fire and flood that affect everything in the local area there are a number
of factors to consider before making the decision to rely on a remote backup service. These
factors are the speed of the internet connection, which is often considerably slower than local
backup storage options, the volume of data that needs to be stored and also the security and
integrity of entrusting one’s data to a third party service.

Managing Backup Data

Irrespective of the backup process and data storage media used there is always a need for balance
between accessibility and cost. Backup data management options are not meant to be mutually
exclusive and can be combined to meet the needs of your specific situation. For example, using
online disk storage as staging prior to copying to removable storage such as a USB disk, cartridge or
tape is a common example and allows for fast recovery times in the event of data deletion or
corruption.

The following management strategies should be understood when considering your backup strategy:

- Online
Online backup storage is the most accessible type of storage and allows for very fast access
and restoration of data. Examples of online storage are internal hard disks, network file shares
or network attached storage (NAS) and whilst convenient and speedy, these can be vulnerable
to deletion or being overwritten either by accident or as the result of malware or virus
infection.

- Near-line
This is typically less available and less expensive than on-line storage options but still useful
where access to backup data is required on a regular basis. An example of would be a tape
library which provide for low access times but generally involve a mechanical device to
load/unload media so data can be read or written.

- Off-line
This management strategy generally requires human intervention such as inserting a tape or
connecting a hard drive to the system so limits the accessibility of backup data but does
provide protection from many of the on-line backup failure scenarios.

- Off-site
Off-site storage of backup media protects against disasters that impact a facility or location so
many people chose to send or take backups to an off-site location. The storage can be as
simple as a staff member’s home or a more sophisticated option such as a fire-proof safe or
vault.

Getting Advice

Given the criticality of protecting your business data don’t be afraid to ask for advice. The decisions
you need to make when creating and implementing a backup strategy and plan are dependent on the
nature of your data and your reliance upon and attachment to that data. So an investment in time and
professional advice to create a plan and a backup process will pay huge dividends in the event your
data is damaged or lost.

Individuals and organisations that range from one computer to thousands all have the same
requirement for protecting data. Irrespective of the scale, the more important the data that is stored on
your computer, the greater the need for backing up the data. But it is also important to understand that
backup is a process and the ability to both quickly access and restore the data when needed has to be
factored into any solution. Ensuring that the data is verified and the process tested at intervals is key

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to having peace of mind, knowing that your business is safe from the many factors that can impact the
integrity of the data upon which your business relies. Making the process as automated as possible
will remove any human error factors.

This white paper is not intended to provide a comprehensive guide for Disaster Recovery Planning.
Disaster Recovery planning requires a review of a business’s specific requirements and unique needs
and it is recommended that expert advice be sought if a comprehensive plan is required to ensure
minimal downtime and loss of business and productivity in the event of a failure.

TechRemedy is able to assist small and medium business with the management of their data storage
and backup process. Along with Disaster Recovery services help is available to ensure your business
is not adversely impacted should a computer failure or disaster occur. For a free consultation to
review and discuss your backup and disaster recovery strategies and plans contact TechRemedy on
+61 2 8213 6187 or by email at info@techremedy.com.au.

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