MeatMeter

Backup just a minute!

There has been a recent paradigm shift in the world of backup and recovery of data.  Although the shifting sands seem to move slowly, the sand dune encroachment of cloud computing is soon to be the repository of a full fledged desert.  Now, what in the heck am I talking about?  Sit back, relax, pour yourself a beverage and read on.

As I see it, there are really three different consumers of data space.  There is the student/home/personal user with pictures and tax returns; and there is the business class user who has mission critical data to protect, and the third animal is somewhere in between.  This would be the guy or gal who mixes work with pleasure and has business info and personal info on both their home and business computer at work.  The three different types of data space consumers need to attack their backup and recovery plans in a way that mimics usage.    

BUSINESS ENTITIES

As a consultant in the industry, it never ceases to amaze me at the lack of “dundancy” out there with my clients.  What is “dundancy”? It’s having at LEAST ONE copy of your mission critical data.  Forget RE-dundancy, howza bout start with just one good copy?  Many clients use antiquated servers with antiquated disk drives and configurations, but they just keep doing business as usual and expecting the servers to keep chugging along.  Unfortunately, this is a recipe for disaster as many companies have cut back on IT Expenditures and many disks and servers are aging.  Any good IT person worth his salt, should be able to move from antiquated servers to newer servers, or even move applications to the cloud where the backup solution falls on the cloud service provider.   A prime example is using GoogleApps instead of keeping up (or worse yet upgrading) an antiquated Microsoft Exchange Server.  (by the way, if you are a non-profit, the full version of GoogleApps is available to you for free).  Google completely supports your domain name and you can use them to send your me@mycompany.com emails easily.

I could go on and on about the different ways that business should build in redundancy, but let me cut to the chase.  Make a copy, keep a copy in two physical places (co-location disk to disk, or offsite tape vault).  Most importantly SIMULATE a recovery.  Want to see how good your current system really is? Tell your head IT guru on Friday at 5 that your mission critical server crashed and that it needs to be rebuilt and/or back up and running by Monday?  That will tell you what you need to know.  Too many people find out after a disaster that backups have been inadequate or not even working.  Test it, test it, test it, before the problem occurs.  This can easily be simulated with virtualization software like VMware or by incorporating a co-location facility, which can get complicated and costly, but may be necessary depending on your client/customer needs.

For the home user, there are a few tools that you can use to make this process quite easy.  Here are the products to focus on.  Mozy.com – online backup, Carbonite.com – another online backup which also allows online anywhere access to these files, and finally, my favorite, Dropbox.com.  Mozy and Carbonite are a bit more traditional in that you tell it what files or folders to back up and at a predetermined time, copies are made.  Dropbox is a little different.  It is a virtual online folder.  I like it because I can save a file to it and it is readily accessible on any internet connected device.  I have it on my iPad, my iPhone, my laptop and my business computer.  With this application, you’ll never need to print anything ever again if you have an iPad.  I like it for that reason alone.  This application is particularly relevant to the mix business with pleasure user.

As a home user too, at the very least you should be loading copies of your photos to services like flikr.com or to Google’s picassa web albums.  You should also use Gmail for all of your mail. If you want to use Outlook, it is easily configurable and you can synch the calendar to your iPad or iPhone.  (we now have a clean refrigerator door clear of the family calendar clutter).  I need to do a whole other entry on how Google can change your routine with its many offerings.  That’ll be for later.

In conclusion, if you are a business out there who is still backing up to tape and still has a closet full of antiquated servers and you have never had a disaster recovery drill, call me I can help you.  Also, pull out your Policy and Procedures manual on Disaster Recovery and review them.  I’ll bet you a dollar to a donut hole, they’re out of compliance.

For the home user, take advantage of free online “cloud” services like dropbox.com and Gmail to keep your important data and files safe.  Let’s not forget the social media site you love to hate, facebook works too, for pictures.  Oh, and on a related subject, I would use Gmail’s contact list to keep a list of the contacts you have in your phone for that inevitable time when you lose or break your phone.  They can easily be imported to a new phone with a few steps.  (iPhones, unfortunately don’t play well with Google’s contacts, but they do particularly like Yahoo’s contact list, it might be worth it to set up a shill address just to keep you contacts there for the future).

All for now, and don’t forget BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP and TEST, TEST, TEST your recovery.