SOP Friday: Backups Part 4 - Changing Technologies -
If you do not remember the Floptical technology, it was like a floppy disk, but stored an incredible 21 MB of data on a single disc. Hell, Batman! SLAP in a SCSI card and not worth an hour's configuration, you have a backup of fat fast!
But Floptical technology was replaced in the mid-90s with Zip disks. Zip disks could hold 100 MB of data. This means you will need ten discs to hold a Gigabyte. In fact, they used to sell a pack of ten called Giga Pack. The announcement on the right is an eBay auction that ended Saturday, August 25, 2012. But fear not! There are other sales Zip disks current auctions now, so you can still get yours.
As you can imagine, it was not uncommon for people to use these technologies to store their data. In fact, I knew someone whose work included two hours a day swapping Floptical drives to back up a software development machine. Once again:. Not uncommon
Old technology is not uncommon. After all, we are in an industry that is changing at a dizzying pace. Many people go to all that is new. New monitors, new processors, new memory, a new storage. But when it comes to backup, you must be very careful.
Various backup items (noted at the end of this), it is clear that we store data for several reasons. Simple backups help us recover the file that disappeared yesterday. Better Backups help us recover deleted files it six months ago. Thorough, well-documented backups are the basis of a disaster recovery plan. So think about it: Why do you do backups
The answer to your question "why" will help you choose the right backup support
I get a lot of grief people because I. advocated tape backups for so long. Remember, I come from the world of mainframe and minicomputers - 370s IBM, Amdahl 3090s and 3000s HP. Tape has been and is the perfect king when recovery is a requirement, not an option. But even tape is not perfect.
Limitations of the backup media
Each medium has its limits. And all limitations are closely related to each other. The main limitations are:
- Capacity
- speed
- life media
- life factor
- Cost
- Ease of use
- custody and access to the media
capacity speaks for itself. If you have a medium that stores data 10Mb, you better be backing up a computer 386 with a hard drive of 20 MB! In the world of 'big data', we do not expect a backup to fit on a disk or tape. But in small businesses, the ideal is a full backup takes on a support. When a backup starts to go to a second tape or disk, you see the backups failed and incomplete rise dramatically. Indeed, the user does not switch the media. As simple as it is to change the disc, you have exceeded the requirement of ease of use for the customer.
speed is another obvious variable. If a backup does not finish by 8:00, it probably interferes with business operations. So you need a support that will contain a full backup and you need the speed to complete the backup in the allowed window. Many of us kickoff backups to 22 hours or 11 hours. When backups are long, we can begin sooner. But with small businesses, we find many owners and managers connected to nine at night, so our window is limited.
media life refers to the time period in which you can safely recover any data before the media start to degrade. For example, a cheap CD-ROM will last only two years. A good CD writing a bad device will last only ten. Archive quality media with high-quality material will theoretically last 50 or 100 years. See
http://www.audioholics.com/education/audio-formats-technology/cd-and-dvd-longevity-how-long-will-they-last
But in the real world, the number of clients (and consultants) have used the cheapest available media and the cheapest material to write with? Maybe 90%? Maybe more? It is another example of the simplicity paradox: I can create a CD. I can read the other machine. Therefore, I have a good copy / backup. Well, it's good and it's pretty good. If this cheap CD written with this drive cheap CD lasts five years, is that good enough ?
Life Form Factor refers to the period of time you can expect to find specific media and hardware / software related available for use in restoring data. Floptical the technology had a very short life. Zip disks have a longer lifespan, but are still hard to find today. tape reel to reel may be perfectly capable of recovery, but you still need a tape drive! DDS and various types of DLT / SLT bands have enjoyed a very long life. The key to their success has been a commitment to older bands playing. DDS5 a reader will read a DDS4 tape even if it can not write.
cost is partially self-explanatory. There is the obvious cost of buying the hardware, software and media. Then there are the hidden costs of operating and recovery. How much work does it take to manage backups regularly? Note that the reliability will have a significant effect on that. A less reliable system will require more work. . . and probably more in the long term. The cost of data recovery might also be important, especially if parts of the system are outdated.
Ease of use is critical to success. Of course, you should be able to configure, monitor, and test backups. Similarly, you must be able to recover data and whole systems as needed. When the technology is new which is much easier than when he gets older. Restore from old or obsolete backup systems can be extremely time consuming and expensive. And most importantly, you must be very careful not to damage the backup at any time
Remember Truth # 4 of the Basic Ten Truths about computer backups :. You absolutely must master the technology backup sell and use . When you fall on older technologies, you need to come to speed before starting to play with the media. This implies a major rules of success: Slow down, do more.
If you start a botched recovery, you might end up repeating the job again, and lose much time. If you do something wrong, you could destroy data backup and recovery mess altogether. Systems that are easy to use are not necessarily less effective or a lower quality. The easiest system is to use, the more effective in the long term. Of course, all these things are linked. You need to balance the variables.
Custody and access to the media have generally not been a major concern until remote backups and cloud computing services became popular. After all, if you back up Floptical disks, tapes or hard drives, you keep guard at all times or your backups are moved to and from a secure storage facility off-site through a tied agent. It is really only with the cloud-based backups that we lose control of our data. If your data storage company violates your business or industry standards, moves a copy of your data out of the country, or just does not document where your data is stored, you have no control over that. You can never know these things happen.
And when something goes wrong, you may have no recourse. I believe the horror stories on this will continue to grow. The laws governing this technology are made by legislators who can not set up an external USB hard drive and disputes are settled by the judges who have their printed e-mails by the secretaries and placed in their inbox every morning. Talk about the Wild West! The point here is that Cloud backups can be the ultimate safeguard in terms of flexibility, reliability, speed, etc. -. But we must address the issues of custody and access data more seriously than ever
media Collection and form factors
in a changing world, how décidez- that investing in technology? To answer this question, you must define the type of backup and archiving you need. For many businesses, the longest you'll ever have to worry of a financial audit is seven years. In some areas, you are required to keep records for ten, twenty, or more years. Some documents must be kept for the patient's lifetime. Some documents must be retained forever.
You need a process and technology to meet your needs.
If all data exists as data "live" in one format, then you can always change your backup systems, never leave the current system obsolete. At some point, you can add a full archive of data about data "live", ensuring that the archive will always be included in the current backup. This requires a lot of space and time, so you will need to balance the demands of cost and time.
More and more industries require lengthy or permanent backups of specific data.
Make sure you are an informed advisor to your customers. Make sure they understand that all this takes money. And then to design, build and maintain systems that are as reliable as necessary for as long as necessary. Again, you weigh all the factors discussed.
Cloud and Disc Backups
The band eventually fades into small companies because of cost and speed. And, to be honest, many technicians have never made the effort to master the technology and SCSI tape backups (they used to be linked to another). At that time, various types of backups on disk are in. Most of them are perfect for simple backups. But for the longer-term backups, they are also expensive than the bands because the media must be removed from circulation.
Interestingly, most disk-based backup systems fail on many levels for rapid creation, reliable backups with major food outlets. They are easy to use, but not much to creating reliable backups or disaster recovery systems. Again, the simplicity paradox. They are "good enough" for simple backups. But are they good enough for long-term archival and disaster recovery?
I fear, for many reasons, that this period of backups on disk will become a recovery era failed. Fifteen years from now, technological schools will teach poor backup drawing lessons and point this time for many examples. Fortunately, as Floptical readers, this time seems to be short-lived.
I exclude from this discussion, the well-designed disk to disk, tape to disk to disk, and disk backup -Disc to cloud systems. Good such systems tend to use SAN technology, redundant networks, and high-speed data lines. This puts necessarily outside the budgetary constraints of most small businesses.
Cloud backups - or disk-to-disk-to-cloud backup - seem to be the answer to many of the most difficult challenges of reliable backups with multiple restore points. Cloud backups are virtually unlimited capacity. Some systems have virtually unlimited versioning. Instant Point-in-time was a weakness, but that has more to do with personal habits that technology. Some good prosecution will bring that back online behavior. Just give it time.
The speed is always a major concern for many backup systems on the cloud. But if you back up to disk on-site and backup from disk to the cloud, speed becomes less relevant because the disk to disk piece is fast and can be completed overnight, and then the cloud component may sink as needed. You still have bandwidth considerations, so the cost can still play a big role.
Is the ultimate backup cloud backup, perfect? No, it scores very well on many variables, but the variables are always a mixture.
acertainly Cloud backup capacity. Media life is somewhat irrelevant since the cloud storage company takes the responsibility of making your data available. They have to worry about the media, form factor, and media life issues on their end. Your job is to choose the right provider so you can feel comfortable that these things are taken care of!
The speed and cost are still significant variables. Microsoft seems to be betting the farm that Internet connectivity is super-fast and super-cheap, to make their work plans. But we are certainly not there yet. If you want simple file recovery, then there are many options. If you want versioning dating back 12 months, you have fewer options and higher expenses. If you want real pictures or images - no "snapshots" reconstructed from versions - and costs go up and the options are slim
In all this, the usability can be very misleading. . It is the ultimate paradox of simplicity: Anyone can create a backup to the cloud that makes them feel comfortable and safe, but provides no real security for data. It seems so simple. And if you have very little technical knowlege, all systems look good and reliable. As a result, people put all the future security of their businesses on the technology that is often inappropriate to their needs.
More than ever, companies need good advisors to help them make the right decisions regarding backups. If this is you, please see Truth # 4 again: You absolutely must master backup technologies you sell and use. You must have a philosophy about backups and disaster recovery. You need a "system" you prefer and sell. You must train your team on the way to the construction, maintenance, and test the backups.
You can not be lazy about it. Every time you build and sell a new system of server or storage, you need to build and document the strategy of backup and recovery works best for this client and this data.
Feedback welcome.
This is the fourth article in the miniseries on Safeguards. See Part 1: Setting the backup of your client, Part 2: Backup Philosophies and customer communication, and Part 3 - Backup Monitoring, testing and management
See also previous articles on Document backups and daily monitoring procedures
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about this series
SOP Friday - Friday or standard operating system - is a series dedicated to helping small IT consulting firms develop the right processes and procedures to create a business successful and profitable consultation.
learn more about the series, and display the "table of contents" to complete SOP Friday http://www.smallbizthoughts.com/. events / SOPFriday.html
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the subject of next week: Friday's final training
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