Most companies realise the IT system is a critical part of the business. The real gold is the information ("data") held by these systems and effort must be made to secure this data. Remember, when disaster strikes, without this data the hardware is just bits of metal and plastic.
Backup of the data is essential but all too often little or no thought is given to its safe keeping - an overlooked area by any business whether they are small or large. With so many employees now choosing to work from remotly, ensuring that you have a suitable backup solution in place is vital.
So many backup solutions?
There are plenty of solutions out there but there is not a single universal solution that is right for everyone. Backup solutions vary in price, features, performance, size and medium. Some use tape, whilst others use newer formats such as DVD or external hard drives, others still use dedicated Storage Servers and increasingly popular is Remote Off-Site Internet Backup.
Backup solutions require two key elements: hardware and software. Here are some examples which Logical Micro are able to supply, install / configure and monitor:
- Acronis True Image
- Symantec (Veritas) Backup Exec
- Microsoft Backup Utility
- Scripts & batch files (Bespoke packages written to your requirements)
- Remote Offsite Backup
- All of the above with a variety of hardware such as CD/DVD writers, external hard drives, zip drives, Tape drives, network shares, NAS and SAN.
Size matters!
Well, yes it does but thats not the only thing to look for when considering a backup solution. Other considerations are:
- How much actual irreplaceable data are you backing up?
- Do you need to back up the Operating System (OS) and programs if you have them on CD/DVD?
- What medium does the backup use? i.e. DVD, Tape, Hard Disks
- How reliable is this medium? i.e. does it wear out,
- How many gigabytes can be stored on each media?
- How fast can the backup device write the data?
- How fast can data be restored?
- How fast is the network that will be used to transfer data across to the backup device?
- Do you need any special equipment or another PC to perform a restore?
- Who will be responsible for monitoring the backup and/or changing medium? i.e. change tapes.
Network backup solutions
Network Servers typically use magnetic tape drives due to their large capacity and fairly fast transfer rates. However the ever-popular Tape drives are now being replaced by offsite Internet based Remote Backup.
Other solutions can include:
- Network Area Storage (NAS) drives - backup across a network
- Storage Area Network (SAN) drives - backup to virtual drives across a network
- Removable external hard drives
- DVD writers
- Redundant servers
- Remote OffSite Backup (or Internet Backup)
We usually work with partners such as Acronis for server backup solutions providing Acronis TrueImage or Symantec Backup Exec providing features such as:
- Scheduled backups
- Rotational media management
- Email notification
- Automatic cancellation
- Holiday allowances
- Individual file restore
Workstation backup solutions
In a Network environment we generally recommend that users should store their data on a central Servers rather than their workstations. Doing so means that only the OS and programs are vunerable reducing the need for additional workstation backups. However where appropriate suitable secure backups of local PC data is copied to a secure location on the server, files can be optionally encrypted too.
Home user backup solutions
We also advice and assist many home users in setting up their own backup solutions to preserve important information such as documents, photos and videos. This often a variety of software solutions can involve synchronisation with servers or external hard drives. For home users Internet based Remote backup is also worth considering.
For more information or to discuss your needs, please call us 0845 450 2231 or complete our enquiry form here.