Newbury Business Today

IT matters

11th March 2010

Email: richard.maynard@newburynews.co.uk

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In this regular column Charles Zealey, of ITSolve, covers all aspects of business and personal computing. If you have a question about IT matters, e-mail it to Charles at: itmatters@itsolve.co.uk

Regular readers will recall that I have been known to go on a bit about the need to back up.  While this may well send some of my readers towards the next column, the message is clearly needed if I judge by the number of people I talk to who have lost critical information recently.
Have a strategy
A proper back-up strategy for IT systems – whether personal systems or corporate – should have three aims.  Firstly it should enable a working system to be recovered sufficiently quickly in the event of a failure – that is to say, the operating system and programmes need to be recovered to enable the system to function.  Secondly, a back-up strategy should enable working data - files, databases, word-processing documents, e-mails, pictures and so on – to be recovered with a minimal loss of information (the possibility of some loss can never be entirely eliminated).  Thirdly, it should enable the recovery of data from a given point in the past.  This later point is often ignored, but it is important to guard against file changes or even corruptions that may rest unnoticed for months or even years.

How much?
In designing the strategy it is important to specify the time periods involved.  How long are you prepared to be without an operational system?  Are you prepared to lose a week’s work?  A day’s work?  As ever there is a trade-off between the cost of implementing the strategy and its effectiveness.  That’s a decision you have to make.

Floppy disk or tape?
There are many means of back-up that can be considered.  In the not too distant past we used floppy disks and tapes.  Now you should be considering tape, removable hard disk, USB memory stick, internet back-up, network attached storage, virtualised systems and probably some other possibilities as well.  There are a bewildering range of software packages to help with the problem as well.  Take advice or be sure you understand the implications of the package you use.

Be sure
And that is at the crux of any decisions you may make regarding back-up.  Assure yourself that the strategy adopted, and the hardware and software used, really does meet the requirements you specified.  If you are not sure, take advice.  This is one area where being certain is a good thing.

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