Corporate Data Backup and Recovery Systems. Data Backup System: Definition and Types.

The types of data that you almost certainly should be backing up may include:

Any documents: word files, spreadsheets and other documents are typical example of things you likely need to back up. In case you are working on a different person’s computer, it helps to always have a flash-drive ready for use. Then you can simply copy to it, besides also being able to send the document via e-mail to your mailbox, or upload it to a cloud service and have it on-line.

Application and OS data. Any of the valuable entries that you do throughout the day should be protected and have a copy. These entries include e-mails, calendar entries, browsing history, contacts, social media and, often overlooked, application and operating system settings.

Media. Photographs, videos, sounds and other media need backing up. Media files are typically much larger in size, and may require a different strategy. This is discussed later in the article, in the context of the appropriate data backup and recovery systems.

• First and foremost, you should encrypt any backup containing sensitive data.
• Second, you should not forget to put your backups in different locations: offline and online.
• Third, it is a good thing to always verify your backups to ensure that files can be retrieved.

While making the RPO shorter means that you would potentially lose less data - it also means you’ll need more sophisticated backup system with bigger storage capacity. Similarly, at the same time it’s safe to say that a longer RPO likely costs less - if you’re willing to increase the risk of greater data loss.

A lot of companies, especially starting businesses and small or medium-sized companies are using an RPO period of 24 hours - it means there’s only one backup created each day. Using newer backup systems and applying a larger budget you might be able to afford an RPO time of several minutes. There’s also the possibility of having different RPOs for different parts of your data (tiered RPO) based on your own priorities. That way you can backup the most crucial data more often and implement a much longer backup time for less important data.

One more important term worth mentioning is ‘Recovery Time Objective’ (RTO). This  represents the overall time it takes for you to recover your backed up data in case of a software/hardware failure and get back to the point of working normally again. One of the main principles of business is that if your system is down, you are losing money - and the faster you are able to recover, the less money you lose. But it’s not that simple: in the same way as with RPO, making your RTO shorter means you will likely have to get better backup and recovery system with more hardware that can restore your data more quickly - and it can become rather expensive after a certain point. Regarding industry standards; the overwhelming majority of businesses keep their RTO at the “several hours” (from 4 to 8) mark.

It helps to determine how often you change your files. If you need to edit documents frequently and on an ongoing basis, it may be best to back them up via the Internet (either an automated online service, as discussed in the above, or with a more basic, manual online method). However, the internet can be a very slow option for backing up large media files. For this issue try using physical hard drives which can then be taken off-site and offline to ensure their safety. By the way, don’t forget about good old-fashioned CDs and DVDs. They are cheap and versatile, but do tend to be slow. It all depends on how often your data changes, how much data you need to safeguard, how critical it is, and how patient you can be.

Creating a centralized data backup system is a good multi-server solution, where you connect several computers to one another, get internet through a router and use network-attached storage (NAS). The backup storage device is universal to all of the computers in the local network. This can be useful for using other devices, including printers, and for managing a high volume of data. The majority of NAS drives are already equipped with some tools for backing up. With them, you get instant access to a very large drive, which can hold large-file media from every connected PC. IT departments and data centers are often using such network attached storage devices, because of their efficiency.

What is in the data backup and recovery system structure?

There are multiple types of data backup systems and software products available on the market, with each offering different RTOs, RPOs and/or the overall data amount they can work with. The information below gives a general idea of their classification.

Hardware Backup and Recovery Systems (Appliances)

Actual hardware storage is often represented by various rack-mounted devices of different sizes that can be installed and connected to your company’s internal network. Most of the time they are easy to both install and configure - you rarely even need to install any software to make it work, nor to provide some sort of separate server or OS to launch your backup and recovery system. The data backup process itself can be started once you’ve installed the necessary software on your working systems. This type of data backup system can give you access to files you’ve backed up, as well.

One thing you need to remember is that if this type of device is your only data backup repository, and it fails - you’ll likely lose everything. You can have a secondary backup solution to lessen the potential of such a disastrous event, but your recovery time is going to get longer due to the sudden need to access your secondary backup solution. On the other hand, it may be possible to support your physical backup with a cloud-based one as well. This solution could work well for long-term data storage purposes.

Rack-mounted devices aren’t the only example of a hardware data storage, it can also be pretty much anything that can store data, from USB flash storages and CD/DVD disks all the way to optical storage and magnetic tape recorders. There is also one more popular option - to use NAS (Network Attached Storage). You’ll be able to keep large amounts of data and be able to restore both complete backups as well as individual files or segments of your backup.

Cloud Backup and Recovery Systems

Modern IT trends are quite actively exploiting putting increasing amounts of data in the “cloud” - and data backup is no exception to that trend. That is why there are multiple service providers offering backup-as-a-service (BaaS) as another type of data backup system. By installing certain agents onto your computers and other devices you can both backup and recover the data between that device and the cloud storage provided by the vendor. Out of the currently presented three types (hardware, software and cloud-based), BaaS is the least complicated data backup and recovery system, as you don’t have to get yourself a storage of some sort and you don’t have to install and configure any other complicated software such as an OS.

On the other hand, if you’re dealing with and storing any kind of sensitive data, you might want to check if your chosen BaaS vendor meets your required standards before entering into a backup and recovery contract with it. For example, security and compliance standards is a likely aspect to consider carefully.

What is the best data backup and recovery system?

Each backup and recovery software system has its own advantages and disadvantages, and many of them have different strengths in different situations. You’ll want to consider  a lot of factors when choosing a data backup system for your business, including RPOs, RTOs as well as your own organization’s individual business and technical constraints and requirements. 

There is a useful industry approach to backing up your data that is worth noting: this is the practice of storing your data in three different places, using two different storage types and with one extra copy stored somewhere in a different geographical region. It is widely called “the 3-2-1 strategy”. Some of the examples of this strategy include ideas like disk-to-disk-to-cloud or disk-to-disk-to-tape (D2D2C and D2D2T). Both of these backup systems mean backing up your data to some sort of unified network storage, and then that same backup is copied to a cloud storage or to tape.

A good backup and recovery system means you can sleep at night and helps you quickly get back to being productive in case of failure. Try to find an approach that will suit your needs and offers the best way for storing your valuable data. Devoting some time to determine the best backup approach that suits your needs may not be attractive, but it is necessary to protect yourself and your business. Always back up your data!