Besides your people, there is nothing more important in your business than the data on your computer.
It houses all of your customer information, sales and inventory history, and all of your financial history. This data is used to make marketing decisions, buying decisions, and is also required by auditors. What if one day you came in and it was all gone?
The full cost of losing your business data is difficult to calculate, and is not limited to having staff simply re-key a few days of invoices. If all of your data is lost, the historical information you use to decide what inventory to order is no longer available. The customer history you use for marketing is no longer available, and all of your financial detail is lost. This leads to investing in the wrong inventory and losing sales, something no one wants to be subject to.
A basic tenet with business systems is that you should always maintain a current backup of your data. In adhering to this principle, all too often assumptions are made that could have a harmful impact on your business.
The first assumption is that the backups are actually being done. You may have assigned someone from the office to backup the data, but over time they either got out of the habit, or they have left the business and the task was never passed on to their successor.
Another assumption is that the backups are being done correctly. I have seen many instances where the person put the tape in the machine, and removed it when it looked like it was done. The problem was the system had actually filled the tape with data, and was asking for a second tape, which was never inserted.
One other assumption is that the backup media is still readable. If you are using tapes, they have a limited shelf life, and need to be replaced annually. Imagine thinking you have a current backup and discovering that all of your tapes are unreadable!
How can you address these issues?
The first way is to automate the process, taking the people and backup media out of the picture. Your system should be able to automatically backup to a second hard drive, whether it be an external hard drive or a second server. This should be an event set up to kick off sometime after the close of business, and simply verified via a backup log the following morning.
Even automating your backup leaves some vulnerability. If some sort of disaster (e.g. hurricane, fire) should hit your building, your data could still be vulnerable. Some software vendors offer automatic off-site backups, where the data moves to a secure off-site facility, or another device on your network not subject to simultaneous disasters. This means that even if your building were to be lost, your data would still be secure as of the end of the previous day, and can simply be restored onto a new server.
One other area to look at is putting yourself in a position to continue doing business if your hard drive fails. By utilizing RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) technology, the data is written to two disk drives on your server simultaneously. If the first drive fails, it can automatically switch to the second device. This will allow you to continue conducting business until the first drive is repaired.
Combining automated remote backups with RAID technology will ensure you always have the data you need to run your business.
