 |
|
 |
|
07.20.09 Every Good IT Department Needs A Good Recovery Plan  By Michael GrayAfter reading about Lisa Barone's laptop being stolen, I got into a bit of a discussion about how I use cloud computing for part of my backup and disaster recovery plan. Since a few people started asking details I think this post might be useful. First a bit of history, anyone who worked in IT in 2001 probably heard the phrase disaster recovery plan. For those of you who aren't familiar with it a disaster recovery plan is basically an offsite hardware/software backup that allows you to store all of your documents, programs, applications, databases or information that you can bring online and have access to with a minimum of fuss and as quickly as possible. Onsite backup are quicker, easier and cheaper to put into place, but offsite backups give you an added level of protection should something make your primary location non functional. For example since most people keep their external hard drive next to their computer it's likely that if your computer is destroyed in a fire the external drive sitting under the desk will be too. Cloud Document Storage First off you need to classify and separate your documents into sensitive and non sensitive data. Anything that's non confidential can be stored in the cloud. I like google docs, but you can use zoho or any service. This allows you to reduce the amount of hard disk space you'll need on your computer and backup. Articles or blog posts you are writing or authors are writing for you can go here. They don't really contain "confidential" information, and they are really only secret until they are "published". If someone does manage to gain access to your "7 Ways Make Brocolli Lasagna" before you push it on Digg it won't be the end of the world ... really. File Server We have multiple computers in my house, so it just makes sense to backup all of the documents in one location. Every night between 3am and 6am a syncback job executes wakes up each of the computers and does a backup of all documents on every computer. Your file server doesn't have to be powerful or fast, you just need to have a lot of storage space, I'd recommend using an old computer with 500GB or a Terabyte hard drive, they are cheap enough at this point. So you store your client documents on each computer and they get backed up every night. If you keep this in place you'll never lose more than a days worth of work.
NAS or External Drive Because your file server is computer like every computer it can break down, if this is your only backup you have a single point of failure. So the next recommendation is to backup the file server. You could use a NAS (which is what I use) or an external hard drive. Usually this type of hardware comes with some automated backup software, make sure it's running. Offsite Storage and Disaster Recovery If you use a reliable cloud document service you may have to deal with the occasional outage, but you don't have to worry about backups. However you don't need to be concerned about someone breaking into your house when you announce you are going on a two week vacation to Outer Mongolia on twitter,your house burning to the ground, or any other event that completely destroys any onsite computers, files servers and NAS devices. The simplest and easiest to use of these services are Carbonite and Mozy. Both of the services run in the background automatically backing up any folders you specify (I put mine on the file server). Your initial backup may take several days or weeks depending on how much data you need to backup. I accidentally deleted a whole year's worth of photos and carbonite saved my butt, so they get a thumbs up in my book. NetBooks and Folder Synchronization Continue reading this article. About the Author: Michael Gray is SEO specialist and publishes a Search Engine Industry blog at www.Wolf-Howl.com. He has over 10 years experience in website development and internet marketing, helping both small and large companies increase their search engine visibility, traffic, and sales. Michael is a current member of Internet Marketing of New York ( IM-NY.org) and a guest speaker on Webmaster Radio. He is also an editor for the popular search engine new website Threadwatch.org. |
|
| ||
| -- ITProWire is an iEntry, Inc. publication -- iEntry, Inc. 2549 Richmond Rd. Lexington KY, 40509 2009 iEntry, Inc. All Rights Reserved Privacy Policy Legal archives | advertising info | news headlines | free newsletters | comments/feedback | submit article |
