5 Common Mistakes Business Make About Backup and Recovery

We are going to be talking about backups over the next few weeks - we are going to be talking about backups quite a lot. More precisely we are going to be talking not only about backups, but the other less frequent but oh so important bit - recovery.

The problem with the way most businesses approach backup is that they might take some backups (might) but they have never given a whole lot of thought to the other side of the equation - recovery. And there are some sobering stats here - probably the most sobering I have come across is this one:

"93% of businesses that loss access to their critical data for 10 days or more file for bankruptcy within 1 year. 50% of them file for bankruptcy immediatelly" - US National Archives and Records Administration.

So it's not only if you can get access to your information again, it's how quickly you can do it. And that is where things start to get interesting.

To get us started on our month of DR (Disaster Recovery) here are 5 common mistakes that businesses make about backup that means when push comes to shove they can't recover:

1. As long as I have my data I'm okay

Wrong.

Access to your data is contingent on a number of other pieces of infrastructure being in place. Sometimes this is a simple as a computer with say Microsoft Office installed in which case provided you can find a computer you are probably okay. But sometimes it relies on an application server, which has had 100 patches applied to it, which no one exactly remembers, and there was some bizarre tweak that someone had to give it to make it work etc.

Can you get access to the data again - probably. Will you get access to the data again before you are out of business? Much harder to know.

2. An Online Backup Over The Internet Is Our Best Option

Usually Wrong.

Online backup solutions are targeted at home users, and small businesses. They provide handy interfaces to help you see which files you are backing up, history etc. The problem is they are driven by people who, due to their limited IT knowledge, don't actually understand which critical parts of the system need to be backed up. For example, if you are using Exchange server only the system adminstrator has the access they need to the mail store.

If your whole server packed it in exactly how long will it take your online backup company to get you a copy of your data - a day, two days, a week? Have you ever asked? Have you ever tested their ability to deliver?

Also, as 1 above just backing up your data isn't really enough.

3. We Use Tapes

Wrong.

There are so many issues with tapes it is hard to know where to start:

• You need a tape drive (seems obvious right). But what if your previous tape drive was damaged (say by a power surge) so you can't move it across to the new server you just bought. Can you still buy the type of tape drive that you had previously keeping in mind it's probably three or four years down the track? This is what we call in the industry a "depedency".
• Tapes aren't growing in capacity fast enough to keep up with modern hard drives. Time and again we see new customers which have been sold a tape drive which can't backup a tenth the capacity of their server hard disks.
• Tape drives can subtly alter the length of tapes over time so that tapes will only work with that particular tape drive. Even if you can find a replacement tape drive your tapes may not work.
• Tapes need to have the basic operating system up and going to support the correct drivers. So if you are rebuilding from scratch you need to build a basic server, then install the tape drive and software, then restore (hopefully) and then reconfigure the server.

4. If a Part Fails In Our Server We Will Be Able to Get a Replacement Part

Wrong.

The scenario is like this - components in the computer industry tend to turn over on 12-24 month timeframes. After that the big PC/server manufacturers (HP, Dell, etc) will continue to carry spares for "warranty" customers. However, chances are they wont "sell" you one of their components - they need to hold an inventory to cover the customers which did pay for warranty.

Normally parts fail after at least a couple of years in service, meaning chances are you can't buy a replacement anymore. So if you don't have a warranty you probably can't get a like for like replacement. If you can't get like for like replacement then there is an awfully good chance that you will have to rebuild the system, or at least use a time consuming process to make the new part work with the old system.

Now this isn't true for some parts, like the power supply, or a non-integrated network card. These can often be easily replaced. But for the big components - like the RAID controller, Main Board and Hard Drives, it usually is.

5. If Our Server Crashes It Will Only Take a Day or Two to replace it

Wrong.

Yes you can go to Harvey Norman and buy a PC this afternoon. Servers are a different type of beast entirely. Because there are less of them sold they haven't reached the point where they are a standard item that retailers carry.

If you are lucky, and your business is small enough you may be able to limp along on a PC for a few days, although depending on your restoration strategy it could take days to get it correctly installed.

We will be discussing some of strategies we think you should pursue over the next few blog posts. Stay tuned.