Insuring Your Company's Future by Protecting your Data
Fri, Sep 8, 2006 5:00 PM EST


Is your business at risk? Today's distributed computing environme nts and robust desktop machines mean that many companies no longer use mainframe computers. As a result, the majority of most s mall to medium sized businesses now store their data on servers or even individual machines, making their company's most critical information far more vulnerable than one might realize.

According to industry experts Gartner, recent natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina have spurred an increasing number of North American companies to re-examine their data backup processes. In fact, a recent Gartner survey of 104 North American IT managers found that 45 per cent of those surveyed reported backing up or replicating data to another disk, up dramatically from just six per cent in 2004.

Over the past two decades, businesses have migrated their critical applications and data from the mainframe to servers, and now to desktop and even mobile PCs. In fact, IT industry analysts with International Data Corporation (IDC) recently reported that more than 300 million business PCs have a combined 109,000 terabytes of data that is not backed up regularly and, as much as 60 per cent of corporate data resides unprotected on PC desktops and laptops.

Perhaps more worrisome are the industry statistics about computer data loss. According to industry experts, a hard drive crashes every 15 seconds, 2,000 laptops are stolen or lost every day, and one in five computers suffer a fatal hard drive crash during their lifetime. In addition, 40 per cent of small to medium sized businesses don't back up their data at all and that 60 per cent of all corporate data resides on PC Desktops and laptops, not on servers. So what's the bottom line on data loss? About 72 per cent of businesses that suffer major data loss disappear within 24 months after the loss.

As awareness of the vulnerability of data in today's distributed computing environments grows, more companies are learning about the importance of rigorous backup procedures. However, despite the fact that more companies are backing up data, the majority that do so use a local device, such as an external tape or hard drive, leaving their backup data vulnerable. Backing your data up to a local device and leaving it on-site means that if your company's computer equipment is threatened by fire, theft, flooding or other catastrophes, your backup media is equally vulnerable.

Remote storage of backed up files is the only way to protect one of your company's most vital assets. But periodically downloading your files onto a disk that the CEO takes home and tucks into a sock drawer or file cabinet isn't the solution. Nor is distributing the backups by sending disks home with employees a good strategy. This unprotected information is vulnerable to being misplaced, lost or even stolen.

An outsourced IT service provider can provide the level of protection needed to secure your business and keep you up and running in the event of a failure. You can opt to have them design and deliver an in-house strategy for you to back up and protect your data, or you can take it to the next level to ensure your critical data is fully secured. An external partner can not only pick-up and store your information off site; they can also provide such features as a duplicate server and additional spare hardware to fully restore your organization's IT service in the event of a catastrophe.

Backup and disaster recovery service providers are not limited to corporate locations. The home offices of key employees can also be included in a strategy, where appropriate, as can home based businesses. Fail-safe techniques typically include backup to multiple removable media, such as tapes, which have a rotation of each weekday, then at least once a week for a month. This serves to capture transactions that may not occur on a daily basis. For example, at Workshift Systems Corporation, we usually recommend you have a set of Monday through Friday tapes and then four Thursday tapes that rotate through every four weeks.

For ongoing data that is regularly updated and accessed, such as the accounting system, it is advisable to back this information up to a permanent to a CD or DVD at least monthly. This means that if any issues arise later, you have these backups on hand and can quickly review them.

The next level of data protection is to establish a redundant server and special software that can make the data transfer fast and reliable. The redundant server is best housed off site; you should also arrange for a business centre or service provider to temporarily host your company's IT system in the event a true disaster befalls your company. Should this occur, you simply restore your backed up data to the redundant server, connect temporary workstation(s) and resume business.

Beyond this solution, there is a higher level of disaster planning which involves backing data up to removable media as well as having a redundant system offsite, running a "mirrored", live version of your critical systems, ready to go at any time. This can be prohibitively expensive for smaller businesses but, as your company grows, may become an option to consider.

Companies that understand how crucial it is to protect data need not only a good backup and recovery strategy, but also need to test that strategy on a regular basis to ensure it is working properly and that business-critical systems and data can be brought back on line quickly and completely. Chances are, if you have had a computer failure, you may be grappling with other issues like securing your company's other assets including office equipment, paper files, and even employees.

As the experts at Workshift Systems Corporation can demonstrate, while there is a cost to any of the aforementioned approaches, you can quickly build a business case by comparing this expenditure to the cost of staff downtime during a major business interruption. Consider what it will cost for your company to be virtually shut down for an hour, half day, full day or even a week. Then imagine how you would start over from nothing, should you lose all your corporate data. This may make it much easier to find room in your budget for reliable backup and disaster recovery services.

By Workshift Systems Corporation