And the rule with backups is that two is one and one is none. You should have multiple, separate backs/locations for data that's really important.Roni Lahav and her three-year-old son Idan were asleep last week in their home on Kibbutz Gan Shmuel in Israel when thieves broke into their house and stole cash and electronics, including the iPad that had the last recorded videos of Roni’s late husband Yuval who died of cancer two years ago when he was only 32-years-old.Lahav is now appealing to the thieves via Facebook writing that while the loss of the money is no big deal, she’d like them to return the iPad. Yes, the device was valuable, but its content to her was priceless. “On the iPad there were videos of Yuval and Idan, Yuval my husband died two years ago of cancer,” Lahav writes. “In the videos, he’s dancing with him and happy, just a few short months before Yuval died…I didn’t have a chance to back it up anywhere and it’s the only thing that’s important to me.”
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Important security rule: back up your data
Data backups are something that a lot of people play fast and loose about, but it's terribly important:
I don't know how many times I have has to explain to clients:
ReplyDeleteEven if you are an individual get a safety deposit box and a fire safe.
Rotate your backups off site.
Do full backups periodically and incremental ones more regularly. The length of time between backups should be less than the sum total of work you are willing to have to redo if everything went pear shaped right now.
Keep old backups on archival media.
The cloud won't cut it.
Heck I remember having VPs look at me funny when I suggested co-locating servers in geographically diverse areas, you know in case of a natural disaster ot utility failure.
Off site backup, and doing them ROUTINELY are the key...
ReplyDelete"And the rule with backups is that two is one and one is none."
ReplyDeleteAnd the other rule is that two copies of a corrupt backup are no better than one.
When I used to do backups for a living, I saw people who thought they were backing up key data but actually weren't. I saw one customer who thought they were backing up a file system - but, because of a subtle error in the settings of their backup software, they were only backing up the directory structure, not the files under it. (Fortunately, they caught that in time.)
You need a RESTORE strategy, not a BACKUP strategy.
Any data you have one copy of is data that you not care about.
ReplyDeleteWhen you come to my desk crying that it was important, I will tell you that it was not, and that your behavior is proof of that. A laptop with your last three years of research? You have learned a life lesson. Next time back it up. Then back it up again and store it off-site. Then cloud store it.
And if it needs to be kept secure, that is another discussion.
I lost track of the number of times I brought up things with clients like remote mirrored systems, off-site data vault storage, having a complete duplicate system to test on - including running recovery drills from the backups - and the difference between so-called "disaster recovery" and business continuity. And, I'll agree that the cloud is not where you want your backup data.
ReplyDeleteI remember walking into one client's record storage center which was filled floor to ceiling with decades of paper records, and sitting, in the open, on one of the shelves were all their backup tapes, including the ones they generated the previous day.
I lost track of the number of times I brought up things with clients like remote mirrored systems, off-site data vault storage, having a complete duplicate system to test on - including running recovery drills from the backups - and the difference between so-called "disaster recovery" and business continuity. And, I'll agree that the cloud is not where you want your backup data.
ReplyDeleteI remember walking into one client's record storage center which was filled floor to ceiling with decades of paper records, and sitting, in the open, on one of the shelves were all their backup tapes, including the ones they generated the previous day.
boy howdy I've learned that lesson the hard way.
ReplyDeleteNow my redundancies have redundancies.
“And the rule with backups is that two is one and one is none.” – Everyone should remember this rule. Having extra copies of your file is highly advised. Others may find it exaggerating, but that's the best way to protect your files. You don't want to end up feeling miserable after losing them, right? So do what's right. Start backing up your documents now.
ReplyDeleteRuby Badcoe @ Williams Data Management
Backup can't be further stressed, especially when you invest too much in an informational medium. You can use whatever storage device you want, it's up to you. Same time, you have the right to purge data you feel shouldn't have to see the light of day, & to make sure that absolutely, positively occurs.
ReplyDeleteKurt @ Tab Data System