Backup & RecoveryProcedures

The Importance of Backing Up Data, and HowYou Can Recover It After It Has Been Lost.

The Backup of Data is very important so as you are able to recover it in the circumstances thatthe data is lost. There are various ways threats to this data which can be the cause of loss ortheft of information that resides within your computer or device.

Key threats to data security

Data may get:

- Lost or damaged during a system crash - especially one affecting the hard disk. - Corrupted as a result of faulty disks, disk drives, or power failures. - Lost by accidentally deleting or overwriting files. - Lost or become corrupted by computer viruses. - Hacked into by unauthorised users and deleted or altered. - Destroyed by natural disasters, acts of terrorism, or war. - Deleted or altered by employees wishing to make money or take revenge on their employer.

Consequences of losing data

Various companies that deal with significant data loss do not survive in the market, which is aserious consequence if data is not backed up and cannot be recovered. Some of the statisticsinvolved with data loss are staggering;

- 93% of companies that lost their data center for 10 days or more due to a disaster, filed for bankruptcy within one year of the disaster. 50% of businesses that found themselves without data management for this same time period filed for bankruptcy immediately. (National Archives & Records Administration in Washington)

- 94% of companies suffering from a catastrophic data loss do not survive – 43% never reopen and 51% close within two years. (University of Texas)

- 30% of all businesses that have a major fire go out of business within a year and 70% fail within five years. (Home Office Computing Magazine)

- 77% of those companies who do test their tape backups found back-up failures. (Boston Computing Network, Data Loss Statistics)

As you can see the consequences for not having adequate Backup and Recovery procedurescan be fatal for the success of a business, especially if the firm in question deals mainly online.

How to Backup your Data (Personal)

There are various ways to Backup your Data, in which you should have at least three up-to-datecopies of it at all times.

Manually Backing Up Data

- Insert a storagedevice to copy thefiles onto. Thequickest way toback up files is toplug an externalhard drive or amemory stick intoyour computer andcopy the files to it.You can also useCDs or DVDs, butthese are moreunwieldy to storeand are moreprone to loss andfailure than anexternal drive.

- Decide what you would like to back up. When you are backing up manually, it is up to you toensure that every file that you need backed up gets copied over. Make sure you are thoroughwhen scouring your system for files.

- Prioritize your data. Make sure that the most important data is always backed up. This includesimportant and sensitive documents, sentimental files and photos, and other irreplaceable data.Copying takes time, so make the most of your time by saving only what matters.

- Copy your data. Once you’ve decided what you want to save, start copying it over to yourbackup media. If using an external drive, thumb drive, or network drive, simply drag and drop thedata onto the drive and wait for it to copy.

- Remember to update your backups. Since you are manually backing up, there is not setschedule for when your data is copied. It will be on you to maintain a regular backup schedule inorder to keep your data safe.

Using a Backup Program

- Download a backup program. There are programs available for free and programs that costmoney, but all offer many of the same basic features. One of the advantages to using a paidprogram over manually backing up your data is the scheduling and automation options. Thisallows you to take a hands-off approach to your data backups.

- Choose what you want backed up. All programs will ask you what files and folders you want tohave backed up. Make sure that you have selected all of your important folders, and that youaren’t forgetting stray locations.

- Plug in your backup media. You will still need an external or network drive in order to use theseprograms. Make sure that it is plugged in before beginning your initial backup.

- Set your schedule. he span of time between backups depends a lot on how often you accessand edit your files. If you are constantly making changes that need to be saved, you’re better offbacking up frequently, as often as every hour. This can be especially important for artists,writers, and financial documents.

Using Time Machine (Mac OS X)

- Connect an external drive to your Mac. Ideally, this drive should have enough space to fit all ofthe data from your Mac with plenty of room to spare. This is because Time Machine makesmultiple copies over time, and is most effective when you have multiple copies to choose from.

- Time Machine should open automatically. If you haven’t set up Time Machine yet, plugging in anexternal drive will open a dialog box asking if you want to use it for Time Machine. Click the “Useas Backup Disk” to begin using the drive with Time Machine.

- Allow Time Machine to work automatically. Once you have designated a drive as your TimeMachine backup, your data will be saved automatically every hour. Your Time Machine will savean hourly copy for the last 24 hours, a daily copy for the last month, and weekly backups for asmuch space as your external drive permits.

Backing Up to the Cloud

- Find a cloud service. There are several free cloud services available that you can use as analways-online backup location for your files. These include Google Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive,Apple iCloud, DropBox, and more. These services all come with a fair amount of space for free,and can be upgraded with more space for a fee.

- Copy your files to your cloud service. If you are using a free service, it will be up to you tomaintain your backups. Manually add the files to your service much like you would to an externalhard drive. Some services such as Google Drive and Dropbox will give you a folder that you canplace on your desktop. Anything added to this folder will be synced with your cloud storage.

- Monitor your storage space. While the amount of space you get for signing up may seem like alot, you may find that it goes quickly once you start adding your pictures and videos. Be careful tobackup only your most necessary files, and go through your files on the cloud occasionally andcull the old versions.

It is vital that at least three copies of your data is made, preferably stored in differentplaces, so that not all are in the same location in the event of a natural disaster or theftetc. This will allow you to recover your data if one of the copies is unavailable.

RaidWith RAID technology, data can be mirrored on one or more other disks in the same array, sothat if one disk fails, the data is preserved. Thanks to a technique known as "striping," RAID alsooffers the option of reading or writing to more than one disk at the same time in order to improveperformance. In this arrangement, sequential data is broken into segments which are sent to thevarious disks in the array, speeding up throughput. Also, because a RAID array uses multipledisks that appear to be a single device, it can often provide more storage capacity than a singledisk.In order to set up a RAID array, you'll need a group of disk drives and either a software or ahardware controller.

- RAID 0- RAID 0 implements a striped diskarray, the data is broken down intoblocks and each block is written to aseparate disk drive.

- I/O performance is greatly improved byspreading the I/O load across manychannels and drives.

- Best performance is achieved whendata is striped across multiplecontrollers with only one drive percontroller.

- No parity calculation overhead isinvolved.

- Very simple design.

- Easy to implement.

- RAID 1- One Write or two Reads possible permirrored pair.

- Twice the Read transaction rate ofsingle disks, same write transaction rateas single disks.

- Under certain circumstances, RAID 1can sustain multiple simultaneous drivefailures.

- Simplest RAID storage subsystemdesign.

- RAID 5

- Highest Read data transaction rate.

- Medium Write data transaction rate.

- Low ratio of ECC (Parity) disks to datadisks means high efficiency.

- Good aggregate transfer rate.

- RAID 10

- RAID 10 is implemented as a striped array whose segments are RAID 1 arrays.

- RAID 10 has the same fault tolerance as RAID level 1.

- RAID 10 has the same overhead for fault-tolerance as mirroring alone.

- High I/O rates are achieved by striping RAID 1 segments.

- Under certain circumstances, RAID 10 array can sustain multiple simultaneous drive failures.

Network Attached Storage (NAS)

A NAS box is a hard drive (or drives) that sits on your network, so all the users on the networkcan access it. It can be used to backup up multiple computers in the workplace, and manyfeature FTP, online remote access, security controls, and different RAID configurations todetermine how drives store your data.

Procedures

Backup Schedule

The firm needs to put a schedule in place, where an employee is responsible for initiating thebackup process. On the other hand, the firm could hire an individual for the sole task of theupkeep of data backup and the process of recovery. As shown about, data loss can account forthe failure of a business, and cannot be taken likely.

Testing

Backups need to be tested so as to find out whether they are functioning, and the firms data canbe recovered in the event of a loss. Not testing a backup can be as lethal as not backing up at all,as there could be a failure in the backup software used, or a crash during the backup processthat you may be unaware of, and could leave it as so, where the data cannot be recovered fromthis version.