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Weekly UpdatesFew of us question the need for backing up our data. It is well known that 43% of all businesses who experience significant data loss never re-open (1), and of those that do, only 51% survive an additional two years (2). Surprisingly, less than 1% of all small and midsized enterprises have backup processes effective enough to recover or limit their liability and risk from business-halting events (3). Conflictingly, 91% of them feel that they do have processes effective enough to protect them (4). Why is there such a discrepancy between those two percentages? This article will introduce some reasons why there may be a false sense of security within our business community.
For the sake of simplicity, specific hardware and software will not be referenced. Let's start by separating backup strategies in terms of internal and external. Internal refers to what you do within the confines of your establishment, whereas external refers to the opposite.
Internal Strategies
There are many ways of internally protecting your data. They all revolve around duplicating it from a source to some form of storage medium or device. The most common forms include the use of Optical Discs (CD/DVD), Magnetic Tapes and Hard Disks. Optical Discs
Optical discs are relatively cheap and have the advantage of offering direct restoration to any computer equipped with a compatible reader. On the flip side, this media offers limited capacities, which make them impractical for use with large amounts of data. As it cannot be done unattended, this could influence backup consistency due to increased labour which supports the 'putting it off until tomorrow' behaviour. Additionally, this media is prone to environmental influences such as heat and physical damage, which present a storage issue. Some discs have been known to degrade and lose data within a moderately short period of time.
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Magnetic Tape
Magnetic tape is the most widely used backup media, but the least dependable. They offer poor access times and are extremely prone to breakage, dust, heat, humidity, electromagnetic fields, and wear due to use. How they are stored and how often they are used must be considered so that they remain effective. A similarity with old 3.5" floppy discs comes to mind. If you recall their continuing to work until one day, they were inaccessible. Magnetic tape behaves very much the same way. Furthermore, tape backups are not inter-compatible with all tape readers, even from the same manufacturer. Ensure that you have a spare, tested, identical reader should the original be involved in the event causing the loss.
Hard Disks
Reasonable prices and extended capacities have increased the popularity of hard disk storage. However, recent studies report an annualized failure rate of up to 8.6% (5) and up to 15 times more than what vendors claire (6). Consider that hard disks today store thousands of times more data than in the past--and on smaller surfaces. It makes sense that their failure rate would follow suit.
Solid State Storage
Known as USB, flash or jump drives, these devices have relatively low capacities but offer excellent portability and ease of use. However, their small size makes them prone to loss or theft that can expose the business to increased liability.
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External Strategies
It doesn't matter how good your internal strategy is if backups are only kept onsite. I must stress this. You are accepting incredible risk by doing so. What use are backups that are destroyed in the same event that consumed the originals? Just look in any media source for evidence of these disasters, they happen more than you think. Protect yourself and ensure that your backups are always offsite!
The most important aspect of all external strategies is encryption. The loss or theft of any corporate data can bring your business to its knees. Proper encryption can make a loss a non-event! Non-compliance with privacy legislation such as PIPEDA can also lead to severe penalties. Consider the consequences of a public loss of data. Damages could include negative publicity and the loss of confidence with shareholder/clients, to name a couple. Identity theft and privacy are huge public concerns, so encrypt to eliminate exposure!
Always store your data in an environment specifically designed to protect and support the longevity of electronic data, media and devices. As previously described, all storage media have their own inherent weaknesses that need consideration when used in any backup strategy. If you don't, your data may be unrecoverable when you need it.
Remote Backup Services
Remote backup is becoming increasingly popular due to automation, extreme flexibility and a 'set it and forger it' ease of use. However, one should be concerned with if and how the data is encrypted, in addition to how and where it is stored. The provider must hot have access to the encryption key. Additionally, most remote backup services are impractical for large backups, due to speed limitations by bandwidth for backup, and, even more critical, for restoration. Relying on a physical delivery component tan make this problem worse. Use a service that can guarantee data delivery when you need it.
Conclusion
Always keep in mind that no strategy is complete without test restoring your data. This should be done routinely, as it is one of the biggest mistakes a business can make. You may think you have a bulletproof plan, only to find it's ineffective in meeting your needs at a critical time. Test, test and re-test--your business could depend on it!
Remember, no backup process is 100% effective. Ensure that you consider the risks you currently face and improve processes to limit your liability. Mixtures of internal and external strategies are required to do so. Employing this philosophy will put your business in the top less than 1% that have backup processes effective enough to recover or limit their liability and risk from business-halting events.
La plupart d'entre nous connaissent l'importance de la sauvegarde des donnees d'entreprise. Des etudes demontrent que 43 % de toutes les entreprises qui sont victime d'une perte importante de leurs donnees ne peuvent rouvrir (1), et de celles qui peuvent rouvrir, seulement 51% survivent deux ans (2). Etonnamment, moins de 1% de toutes les petites et moyennes entreprises possedent des procedures de sauvegarde efficaces qui permettraient de limiter les dommages et les risques associes a la suspension des activites de l'entreprise (3). Malgre cela, 91% des entreprises pensent avoir mis en oeuvre des procedures adequates pour les proteger (4). Pourquoi y a-t-il une divergence entre ces deux pourcentages? Cet article presente quelques-uns des motifs qui pourraient expliquer ce sentiment de fausse securite qui habite le milieu des affaires.
Pour des raisons de concision, nous ne mentionnons aucun materiel ou logiciel specifique. Commencons par faire la difference entre les solutions de sauvegarde internes et externes. Les solutions internes concernent les procedures effectuees dans l'enceinte de vos locaux, alors que les solutions externes concernent celles effectuees a l'exterieur de vos locaux.
Solutions internes
Il y a plusieurs facons de proteger vos donnees d'entreprise a l'interne. Toutes les solutions consistent principalement a faire la duplication des donnees a partir d'une source vers un support ou un appareil de stockage. Les formats les plus utilises incluent les disques optiques (CD/DVD), les bandes magnetiques et les disques durs.
Disques optiques
Les disques optiques sont relativement economiques et ont l'avantage de permettre la recuperation des donnees a partir de n'importe quel ordinateur equipe d'un lecteur compatible. Par contre, ce support n'offre que des capacites de stockage limitees, ce qui les rend inappropries pour la gestion de volumes de donnees importants. Le fait que cette solution ne peut etre effectuee sans surveillance peut influer sur la frequence de la procedure de sauvegarde en raison du surplus de travail que cela implique, augmentant les chances que la procedure soit remise a plus tard. De plus, ce support est susceptible aux conditions ambiantes telles que la chaleur et les dommages physiques, ce qui peut representer un probleme de stockage. Certains disques se sont meme degrades en un court laps de temps, perdant ainsi toutes les donnees qui y etaient stockees.
Bandes magnetiques
Les bandes magnetiques sont le support de stockage le plus couramment utilise pour la sauvegarde de donnees, mais c'est egalement le moins fiable. La recuperation de donnees a partir des bandes magnetiques prend souvent beaucoup de temps et elles sont susceptibles a la poussiere, la chaleur, l'humidite, les champs electromagnetiques et a l'usure. La maniere dont elles sont entreposees et la frequence a laquelle elles sont utilisees doit etre prise en consideration afin qu'elle soit efficace comme methode de sauvegarde. Elles font penser aux disquettes 3,5 po. Ces disquettes fonctionnaient tres bien, puis du jour au lendemain, il etait impossible d'acceder a leurs donnees. Les bandes magnetiques fonctionnent sensiblement de la meme maniere. En outre, les bandes magnetiques ne sont pas compatibles avec tous les lecteurs de bandes, meme ceux du meme fabricant. Il faut s'assurer d'avoir un lecteur de rechange identique au premier dans l'eventualite que ce dernier soit en cause de la perte de donnees.
Disques durs
Les capacites etendues de stockage en plus de leur prix raisonnable ont augmente la popularite du stockage sur disque dur. Cependant, des etudes recentes indiquent un taux de defaillance annuel jusqu'a 8,6 %5 et jusqu'a 15 fois plus que ce que les detaillants pretendent (6). Considerant que les disques durs d'aujourd'hui peuvent stocker des milliers de fois plus de donnees que par le passe, sur de plus petites surfaces, il n'est pas etonnant que leur taux de defaillance est augmente.
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