When all the lights in our houses go out, the natural response is to look up. It's often times not the fault of the light bulb, but a block or city-wide power outage. Many businesses use generators and emergency lights to keep their IT rooms and other essential equipment going during a power outage. The same is true when it comes to your company's backups. When there is a problem or lost file, everyone looks to IT. It may not be the IT departments fault, but it is their responsibility to look out for the information.
So how is a backup like a generator?
1.) There should be a weekly test
How many IT people have verified that their backups are working like always, only to discover (during the crucial moment) that the backups have been completed on a corrupted hard drive or tape? Even with the verify options on, I still recommend doing a weekly restore of a file. Doesn't matter what file, just a file. Beyond training staff in how to do this, it also is the ultimate check that your backups are behaving themselves. Another ideology, although a more extreme one, is to have IT fire drills. The idea is to completely re-build a server, make sure it would work, then tear it down again. This is time consuming, but there is no better way to be prepared for full outages.
2.) It should be as close to automatic as possible
If people can recover their own files, that tends to work the best (at least in small environments). Provided that doesn't get setup, documentation on how and where to restore files is essential. That way any IT staff can find and restore data to where they need. This way there is not a bottleneck of only one guy knowing how to do this procedure... and he's busy (or worse, no longer there!).
3.) Time needs to go into planning what will happen during an outage
When a generator is put in, they generally have to plan which circuits are going to be put on the generator. The same is true for backups. You need to make sure what files need to be backed up and get that completed on a routine schedule. Beyond the planning, you also need to have documentation. I've seen red outlets to mark what is on the generator. You also need to have a manual of what is being backed up and when. This needs to be reviewed from time to time with non-IT staff to make sure all systems are being covered.
So how is a backup like a generator?
1.) There should be a weekly test
How many IT people have verified that their backups are working like always, only to discover (during the crucial moment) that the backups have been completed on a corrupted hard drive or tape? Even with the verify options on, I still recommend doing a weekly restore of a file. Doesn't matter what file, just a file. Beyond training staff in how to do this, it also is the ultimate check that your backups are behaving themselves. Another ideology, although a more extreme one, is to have IT fire drills. The idea is to completely re-build a server, make sure it would work, then tear it down again. This is time consuming, but there is no better way to be prepared for full outages.
2.) It should be as close to automatic as possible
If people can recover their own files, that tends to work the best (at least in small environments). Provided that doesn't get setup, documentation on how and where to restore files is essential. That way any IT staff can find and restore data to where they need. This way there is not a bottleneck of only one guy knowing how to do this procedure... and he's busy (or worse, no longer there!).
3.) Time needs to go into planning what will happen during an outage
When a generator is put in, they generally have to plan which circuits are going to be put on the generator. The same is true for backups. You need to make sure what files need to be backed up and get that completed on a routine schedule. Beyond the planning, you also need to have documentation. I've seen red outlets to mark what is on the generator. You also need to have a manual of what is being backed up and when. This needs to be reviewed from time to time with non-IT staff to make sure all systems are being covered.
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