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Backups: An essential procedure for ensuring the security of your company’s data

This white paper explains the reasons for and importance of making backups of a company’s electronic data, as well as the various tools available on the market to protect data in this way.

• Table of contents
• Technological development
• The true risks
• Backup management procedure
• Backup tools
  • CD / DVD
  • Magnetic tapes
  • Log file
• Duration
• Frequency
• Preservation
• Recovery
• Conclusion

Technological development

Fire used to be the worst catastrophe that could hit a company. This type of disaster could result in the loss of irreplaceable information and threaten the very survival of the company. To protect yourself from such incidents and limit the consequences, the growth of our company has made it possible to develop and implement various technical methods, such as inflammable materials, smoke detectors, fire hydrants, fire stations, and others. Does this eliminate all risks?

While all of these methods are relevant and very useful, we must adapt to technological developments. These days, company data, both financial and operational, is no longer simply kept on paper. We are in the digital age. More than ever, all of this data is kept in a small box with a fixed physical size, but whose capacity never stops growing. This small box is the "hard disk".

The loss of computer facilities, even temporary, can seriously affect a company’s operations, resulting in significant monetary consequences. For example, you could lose the ability to maintain invoicing schedules, lose the list of current service calls, or the ability to restart tasks or work (dispatch), be unable to manage inventory procurement, etc. A disruption in operations would have significant monetary consequences. This justifies investing in a good backup system.

The true risks

Contrary to what you may believe, the risk of catastrophe has increased greatly. In fact, while the risk of fire still exists, the probability that your precious information is lost in some other way is much higher. To convince you, below is a short list of possible causes:

• physical failure of the hard disk
• failure of the operating system (Windows)
• attack by a virus or any other form of malicious program
• failure of an application
• electrical problem
• human error
• attack perpetrated by a computer pirate
• etc.

When it comes to human error, it is quite astonishing to discover how easy it is for a user to delete the contents of a hard disk, whether done maliciously or not. It involves a simple, but devastating operation. All you need to do is run Windows Explorer, press CTRL-A to select everything, and press the Delete key. That’s all there is to it! The hard disk is empty and recovering the contents will be very difficult. The recovery process is fairly easy on a desktop computer, but on a server, it’s a very different story.

Backup management procedure

Although companies handle millions of data records, a great many have no backup procedures. Those that do usually have insufficient or incomplete procedures. Are you using a good procedure? Similar to fire drills conducted in public buildings, ask your network technician to rebuild a new server from the backups on hand. You may be very surprised by the result.

This means it is necessary to establish a procedure for managing in the event of a computer disaster, in which copying applications and data is simply a step. Below is a short list of elements to be considered in setting up such a procedure:

• List of applications used, including the version, installed patches and any additional modules (operating system, management application, utilities, etc.).;
• Copy of configuration settings for these applications.
• Original copies of all these programs, including all patches and additional modules.
• Copies of all data, files, documents, system settings, etc.

Backup tools

Applications do not usually change very often. The data can therefore be saved on CD, including any new patches and additional modules. There are many technical options. Simply choose the option that best meets your requirements.

Regardless of the tool used, it is preferable, even essential in some cases, that the files not be used while backups are made. However, most databases have additional modules that run with the backup applications to temporarily close files during backup. For security purposes, these modules should always be installed with the backup application.

CD / DVD

For small volumes, burning to empty CDs or DVDs is the most convenient and economic option. For less than a dollar, you can easily select your important files and burn them onto a DVD that can hold up to 7 GB of data. That is a lot of data! To compare, maestro* data rarely exceeds 1 GB. You can also use rewritable DVDs.

Magnetic tapes

If you require higher capacity for your data, the next step is backup to magnetic tape. This requires the purchase of a specialized peripheral to write to the backup tape, usually called a "tape backup" unit. Magnetic tapes have a much higher capacity than DVDs and you can use multiple tapes thereby increasing the maximum capacity of the backup.

This type of tool for backing up data usually requires intervention by a qualified technician to install and set up the daily or weekly procedure. Once everything is set up, backups can be programmed directly in the operating system (Windows), and executed at predetermined times. Once the backup is completed, a descriptive file (specifying the status of the backup) is created on the hard disk or sent by e-mail. It is essential to read this document carefully. It tells you whether the backup was created correctly or not. If you are uncertain, you should consult with your technician immediately.

Tapes are expensive and users often reuse them to save money, usually using the same tapes for very long periods. We strongly discourage this practice. For one thing, tapes wear out over time with data being erased and re-recorded so often. In some cases, although the application does not warn of any errors in the backup, the tape may be illegible later when you need it. For another thing, since they are wound and unwound at high speeds, magnetic tapes stretch slightly, which may result in problems reading the tapes. New tapes can also cause problems because you may have to purchase a new peripheral that cannot read your old tapes.

Another important point: Make sure you have a good copy of your backup software. Often, the magnetic tape formats are dependent on the application. In this case, you must use the same application to read your tapes. In the event of a catastrophe, you will have to find the same peripheral with the same application to read your tapes.

Log file

For large companies, a log file can be generated, which contains the details of all modifications made to a database file at a given moment. Backups are usually made at night. After the backup is made, the log file is erased. Thus, from this time on, any modifications made to the files will be saved in this file. It is usually set up on a disk other than the one containing the database. If a catastrophe occurs during the day, it will be possible to restart with the backup from the night before, but it is also possible to apply the log file to the data in the backup to return the status of the database to what it was at the time of the catastrophe. This type of procedure can be very useful for companies with large volumes of data entered every day.

Duration

These days, with the size of disks, a backup could take longer than one night. We therefore recommend having more than one peripheral to retrieve data from different servers. The other option is to create incremental backups. In this case, a full backup is usually created on the weekend. Afterwards, only files modified during the day are backed up to magnetic tape at the night. In this way, the recovery procedure can be completed much faster. However, the disadvantage with this approach is that you must have all of the tapes in sequence to be able to recover one or more files. This approach should therefore only be used if the volume of data justifies it.

Frequency

A regular backup is required for data. The frequency depends on the volume of work you are ready to lose in the event of a catastrophe. For example, a small company could potentially recover the work for a week, often requiring a couple of hours per person. A weekly backup would probably be sufficient, whereas a large company with several dozen employees, even hundreds, would require a daily backup. .

Preservation

Where should you store your CDs, DVDs or magnetic tapes? Some companies keep a copy of a computer’s hard disk on another computer, tapes on the server, etc. This is not advisable. If there is a fire, for example, the copies are lost with the original. The same would happen if there is a theft. It would be better to keep a backup of the data in a safe location, other than where the originals are kept. One option would be to leave the office every day and bring the backups home.

With the Internet, new services are becoming increasingly available. New services make it possible to back up your data outside of your buildings by copying the files over the Internet. Technology exists to encrypt the files for security purposes. The end result is a daily backup of your data outside the walls of your company.

Recovery

To conclude, many very specialized and often expensive services can be used to retrieve files from defective hard disks or tapes. If you have lost your data and have no backups, all is not lost. But why take the risk?

Conclusion

To summarize, it is absolutely essential to establish a good backup procedure with powerful computer tools. Remember that you get what you pay for. Like insurance, this is an investment that could protect you from a computer disaster. It is also essential to confirm the result. You should make a full backup of all your data once per year. You can rest assured because, whatever happens, your data will always be available.