The importance of a good backup and data recovery strategy cannot be overstated, particularly in today’s age where people expect to be able to access their data at any given point, sometimes remotely. But no matter how solid your strategy, there are problems that can arise.
Backups serve as the last line of defence in a data loss scenario – but data recovery from a backup should be the absolute last resort. Even if you think you’ve got a solid backup strategy in place, unforeseen issues can make data recovery impossible. By integrating redundancy into your backup solution, you can eliminate potential areas of failure within your infrastructure. The key part of your data backup strategy is avoiding the need to have to use your backup in the first place. Data recovery from a backup can result in data loss if the restoration occurs since the creation of a recovery point in an incremental backup.
The best way to minimize the need for data recovery is to use redundant servers and storage on your production network. The Windows Distributed File System (DFS) can be used to replicate data to replica servers, keeping the data intact and accessible even if the physical media were to fail. While using redundant servers can protect your data against certain failures, this should never be a substitute for backups. For example, if the redundant file servers were in use when someone made an accidental modification to a file, it would then be replicated to the other servers. To recover the data, you’d have to revert the file to an earlier version.
Another way to protect your data is through redundant backup media. If your business still backs up using tapes, you should create two copies of each tape. One of the copies can remain on-site for swift data recovery if needed, while the other can be shipped off-site for safe keeping. If your organisation utilises hard disk backups, then one option is to perform disk-to-disk-to-tape backups, copying the data on your disk-based backups to tape for safekeeping. You can also use mirrored storage, which allows your backup to be replicated in the form of an identical storage array.
It’s clear, then, that as a business, there are a number of backup and data recovery strategies, and ways of keeping them safe. It’s vital that your backups are tested on a regular basis, to ensure they’re functioning as intended, and data recovery can be undertaken if needed.
