BACKUP SOLUTIONS

What does backup mean?

Nowadays, every business produces and owns large volumes of data that are stored on different media, locally or remotely. Most of this information is important or even vital to the operation of the companies. However, few are the ones who ask themselves “What would happen if this information were lost?” And fewer give importance to the BACKUP process.

This is one of the most important but also ignored activities in the field of information technology. Practically, this should be part of any business continuity plan. The process itself involves making a duplicate of data and storing it safely, preferably in a place different from where the original is.

Situations and reasons

Most people think that “there’s no chance it will happen to me”. However, data loss can happen very easily, due to many reasons:
• Damage to hard disks, SSDs, or other storage media
• Viruses
• Theft
• Physical destruction, from a cup of coffee spilled on the laptop to falls or accidents
• Accidental errors, such as definitive data deletions
• Disasters such as earthquake, fire or floods.
Data loss can have devastating consequences for a company, including situations such as contractual responsibilities to customers or partners, or privacy or confidentiality protection laws.

What information should be copied safely?

The scenario is simple: Imagine that you no longer have access to your computer or the server you work with. What critical data do you need to continue your personal activity or the activity of the company you are part of? Important documents developed and stored, contact details, emails, programs, login data, favourite locations, all are tools that you work with. Without them you cannot go on with your activity. How much time and work have all these data required? How does their value compare to the relatively small effort that needs to be made for a backup?

What types of backup do exist?

Depending on the complexity of the information and infrastructure used, backup methods range from a simple copy of data to a portable stick or external hard drive (which is not recommended because the portable device can be lost and, with it, the confidentiality of data) and up to backup on storage servers or in cloud with specialized programs. Here are some backup methods:
• Full backup, where all the selected files are copied, and the process repeats at the next backup
• Incremental backup, where only the items that changed since the last backup are copied
• Differential Backup, which only copies the items modified since the last complete backup.
Each method has advantages and disadvantages related to the right infrastructure, the speed at which the data can be recovered, or the space required to store the information.
The backup process can run locally or the data can be copied to another physical location, through the internal network, or via the Internet, on a permanent online or cloud environment.

What is the most suitable method?

The suitable backup method is chosen according to several criteria:

Agreed time for data recovery
The amount of information stored
The dynamics/speed with which the data changes
Existing infrastructure
Number and type of computer network users.

Netland Computers has the experience of installing and operating various hardware and software backup technologies from partners such as Veeam, Acronis, Synology or Microsoft.