Tape backup introduction!

But what will happen if you experience a disaster? Are you sure that no files are being lost? Many fail to realize that loss of files can severely cripple their business. The office and your equipment is something you can insure, but insure your files you can’t. The files you lose are something you can’t buy back or repair. In fact, they gone!

That is why we need to look at the disaster recovery concept. What is disaster recovery? If your definition of disaster recovery is to somehow to frenetically trying to get back files that have already been lost, then you have got it wrong! Disaster recovery is the practice to protect your computer data within your business organization so that it can be restored safely if a disaster happens. The most important component in disaster recovery is to adopt and implement an industry standard file backup strategy.



What you have to make sure is that all data on the server are backed up to another storage medium (removable hard disk, tape, NAS device, etc.). Tape is the choice for most businesses. Let's take a look at how you can implement this in your own business and set up a strategy using tape backup.

Tape a perfect medium for data backup.

Tape as a media, is this not an anachronism of today there are optical disks, random-access storage media, removable hard drives and a plethora of other storage gadgets? Tape although perceived in relative terms as a dinosaur, is perfect for backup. It can store a lot of data but it is a slow ... you should be able to backup the entire server on a one mid-range tape. Plus, such tapes are extremely cheap - around $20 for a mid-range tape.

At what interval should you take backup?

Typically, at the end if each day a server backup is taken. Just insert the tape, start up the backup process and let it run overnight. If your server suffers a breakdown disaster, at least you have saved from the previous day all your files.

Tape Rotation.

The tape backup solution would ideal involve using one new tape for each backup. This means buying a new tape for each day of the operations of your business. This is not what you call cost-effective for business. Tape is inexpensive, but not that cheap!

This is the reason we talk about "tape rotation". To use tapes from previous backups is what is called tape rotation. The easiest tape rotation schedule is to have one tape for each day of the week. Label the tapes as: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

You can then restore the data from anyone of the tapes in your library - or in our case, from any of day of the past the week. With this strategy you only need five tapes. But it only store one week of data backup history.

Grandfather-Father-Son - A Case Study

The grandfather-father-son scheme is the most commonly used method, and includes backing up data the following way:

• once each day – on the "son tapes"
• once each week – on the "father tapes"
• once each month – on the "grandfather tapes"

With strategy you get the ability to restore backup data from the last week, any Monday from the last month, plus from any month for as many months you have taken tape backups. Variations from this strategy are available, and this provides a trade off between the number of required tapes, and the number of tapes available for each monthly.

Types of different backup.

Backups of different types are available in backup software.

• Full - all the files, including system data, etc.
• Differential - all added or changed files since the last full backup.
• Incremental - all added or changed files since the last full, incremental or differential backup.
• Daily - all added or changed files on the day of the backup.

Daily Incremental and Differential backups are all partial backups that are designed to reduce the amount of data that is backed up to the media, which result faster backups.

In order to restore data by using one of these backups, the latest taken full backup tape will also be needed, plus you need any partial backups that were taken since the last Full backup.

Tape backup software

At a first look, performing this tape backup may seem a complex and difficult task: Incremental backups using tape rotations,... of course, you can try to make this manually, but this will make the backup process rely difficult and open to human errors! One solution is to invest plenty of money in server backup software that will schedule and to manage the tape backups for you.

What is it you should look for in tape backup software? Price is what is vital for many small business owners. Many backup software products are simply too expensive - in the $1000+ range - and include features that you'll won’t need. Look instead at a backup utility that is specially made for the small business market, such as BackupAssist. It should be reliable, simple-to-use and affordable. Pick a good tape backup program and you'll are on the right track to safeguarding the data belonging to your business.

This article was produced by BackupAssist - tape backup software.

Small business strategic tape backup planning!