The 3 Components of an Effective Backup Solution

Creating a robust, reliable and effective backup solution is critical. In fact, for most businesses its now part of a quality control system and unless you have good backup practice in place you might even run into legal issues. With modern networks and multi user databases its no longer as simple as creating a few copies every now and again. Data almost has to be backed up on a consistent basis to minimize the risk of loss.

Whether it be hard drive meltdowns or stolen computers, the real issue is with being current with the backups and "catching" all the data - especially if you have multiple users in multiple locations. When it comes to backups, then there are 3 main issues to look at:

1. Backup Software

Your backups are only as good as your software. Not only does it compress the data, but it allows you to schedule your backups. More advanced data backup software will allow you to create centralized backups of complex networks and allows you to synchronize the data that's been backed up. Another important issue is with gaining access to the compressed data and if the data is sensitive you need to consider encryption as well.

2. Backup Medium

Traditionally, bigger companies used tape backups simply because of its capability to handle large amounts of data. The problem is that these tapes are quite expensive, they are slow and notorious for corrupting files. With hard drives being much cheaper lately its become much more viable to use hard drives for creating backups and with DVD's increasing in size its also a viable solution

3. Remote vs. Localized Backups

While localized backups has its benefits, the new trend is to do remote backups. With several companies online offering backup solutions its quite possible for small and medium sized businesses to use online backup services. They usually provide you with the software and all backups will happen remotely. This is a very easy solution and if used correctly it can be a very safe and robust solution. For larger firms you might want to consider setting up your own data center and centralizing all your backups.

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