The main purpose of the existence of data backup is data recovery. Fortunately for all of us, on-line data backup is mature enough to the point that there are many options nowadays. There are also many different levels of services attached to those: from pricing, to likes to features.
There was a time long ago when we used to back up our data with no encryption, awkward compression and very complicated interfaces using external devices such as Hard Drives, magnetic media cartridges, CD/DVD Disks, and –believe it or not- tape cassettes!
Real data backup compresses the data and encrypts it so that nobody but the owners of such data can access it. Copying data is not really a backup, rather a simple copy.
Big organizations replicate their data between cities and in doing so have an easy and fast way to recover in case of disaster, using a variety of methods and devices to accomplish this. For the rest of us, from big vendors such as Dell to small dedicated companies such as Mozy and Carbonite, they all offer a huge variety of on-line DBU products.
We of course would recommend ecBackup and SOS Backup. You are probably already using one of these.
Showing posts with label Data Backup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Data Backup. Show all posts
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Dreading new Data Backup setups
I remember the old days when backing data up took not only lots of preparation in every sense, but also lots of time for practically every task associated with the process.
Choosing the right type of tape drive, then the software to be installed, configured, and finally monitored. The daily, weekly, monthly resources allocation for simply inserting, extracting, labelling, storing tapes was then replaced by either CDs and DVDs or HD cartridges. The options for backing up to these would range from very expensive-corporate-like products, to affordable-but-difficult proprietary packages.
Lately, most of the big names in data backup have finally switched their attention to NAS and external Hard Drives. Finally! ...a little too late though.
Last year I set into production our first Windows 2008 Server box. A few months ago I used its Data Backup console to set a scheduled job that has been working like a charm. I already tested the data recovery and all; all just works. So, no extra software to be purchased, no hassle.
Today, I added a 2nd drive to the equation; I expected a somehow difficult setting having the existing job not interfere with the new. I was surprised to find that I could simply add the second drive to the existing schedule with not much thinking or tweaking.
I dreaded this task for a couple of months, I even avoided it somehow. It is SO easy now to manage all these tasks that I wonder why it took so long to the BU SW manufacturers to get to this. Mind you, this is a Microsoft product (service).
Not dreading anything anymore.
Next “complex” task, here I come!
Choosing the right type of tape drive, then the software to be installed, configured, and finally monitored. The daily, weekly, monthly resources allocation for simply inserting, extracting, labelling, storing tapes was then replaced by either CDs and DVDs or HD cartridges. The options for backing up to these would range from very expensive-corporate-like products, to affordable-but-difficult proprietary packages.
Lately, most of the big names in data backup have finally switched their attention to NAS and external Hard Drives. Finally! ...a little too late though.
Last year I set into production our first Windows 2008 Server box. A few months ago I used its Data Backup console to set a scheduled job that has been working like a charm. I already tested the data recovery and all; all just works. So, no extra software to be purchased, no hassle.
Today, I added a 2nd drive to the equation; I expected a somehow difficult setting having the existing job not interfere with the new. I was surprised to find that I could simply add the second drive to the existing schedule with not much thinking or tweaking.
I dreaded this task for a couple of months, I even avoided it somehow. It is SO easy now to manage all these tasks that I wonder why it took so long to the BU SW manufacturers to get to this. Mind you, this is a Microsoft product (service).
Not dreading anything anymore.
Next “complex” task, here I come!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)