SOP Friday: Part 2 Backups - Backup Philosophies and customer communication -
The Ten Truths About IT based backups
This is part 2 in four series part on Safeguards. See Part 1 :. Setting your client backups
This week the topic is philosophies backup and customer communication. As you can imagine, I encourage you to have a standard philosophy with all your clients. Curiously, if a client has a strong replacement philosophy - which is good! Most customers know so vague that they should have a backup. But they can not really explain why, or what looks like a good backup.
What is a philosophy about backups? Quite simply, there is a standard set of beliefs or approaches you take. Here are the ten fundamental truths of our backup philosophy (Note :. You might not like all):
Truth # 1: The backup is not a recovery disaster plan.
a good backup is a component in a DRP (Disaster Recovery Plan), but it is not a DRP. It is necessary but not sufficient for a DRP. Therefore, it is more important than DRP
Truth # 2: .. We build all backup systems with disaster recovery in mind
This objective we keeps focused on creating robust backup systems.
Truth # 3: The good backup technologies abound on a regular basis; lazy technicians and training without fail.
Whenever we look at a technology developed by companies "big boy" and widely used throughout the world, we know that the technology is sound. Tape backups, for example, are absolutely the most reliable backup. They fail because the hardware is set up wrong, the software is misconfigured, the technicians do not know how to use the systems they sell, or humans fail to change tapes.
tape backups are not perfect. They are expensive compared to the current technology of the hard disk, and they are slow. But if I drop an old band of ten years on the top of the Empire State Building in a mud puddle, I'll be able to recover 100% of the data. . This is not true with a hard drive
Make no mistake: We are moving away from tape. But it is not because the band does not. It is due to the speed and price. We know that we are moving towards less reliable technologies (since the band is the most reliable). Therefore, we must be even more careful about backup systems that we create
Truth # 4 :. You (the technician) absolutely must master backup technologies you sell and use.
This means in hardware, software level, the level of the media, and the process level. This is one of your success muscles. You need to exercise and build muscle memory so that you make good decisions in a crisis and have a good sense of resources available for you
Truth # 5 :. Backup media should be turned off at the storage permanent site for several reasons.
permanent offsite storage means that they never return. They sit on a shelf or in a vault essentially forever. Why?
a) backups are a great snapshot in time for financial and legal reasons, rH ..
b) Each medium should only be used a few times. If used continuously for ever, the media become less reliable. This is true of tapes and hard drives equally. That's why we take the traffic.
c) go offsite backups in case the desktop systems need to be recovered in a disaster. This could include fire, water damage, or other event that makes it impossible to get to the office
d) The purpose of backups -. Including monthly offsite backups - is to provide the ability to restore client systems and data. Our normal preparation for today, yesterday, last week. But it is also important sometimes to go back in time a month or two, or even a year or two.
There are no limits to the good reasons for storing media out long term site. Theft, fire, flood, and all sorts of things can happen to your desk. If they arrive at your home or off site storage facility on the same day, then you must have insurance bargains (and maybe a good lawyer). How can you provide that
Truth # 6:. You should have as many "time points" as possible
This is essential. A database backup will get the file you deleted yesterday. A good backup, you will get a file from last week or last month. A large backup, you will get a file from several months or years back. A perfect backup will get your version each of each file ever created. (This perfect backup has not yet been invented, but it is good to think about.)
More than most technologies we handle, backup systems have a very clear relation cost-quality. You want something that works much? It's cheap. The perfect example is the USB drive him home from Office Depot for $ 49. You plug in and use whateverthehell software is included. Think a little sorta you can recover a file if necessary. But if you can not access the software. . . um. . .?
At the other end of the scale are systems that cost millions of dollars and are key components of zero downtime, instant fail on systems. In the middle, and much closer to the lower end, are the $ 1,000- $ 2,000 systems, we tend to put in the client's offices. From there, you can move up to BDR and cloud backups.
Create a simple checklist for your backup systems. What points in time do you need to recover? Select (Yes) or (No) for each:
- This last hour
- there is 12 hours
- Yesterday
- There are three days
- last week
- There are two weeks
- last month
- the last quarter
- 6 mos back
- late last year
- 12 months back
- 24 months back
- 5 years back
- 10 years back
- 20 years back
- Other
now consider what your media rotation looks . What does it look like to create restore points that you say you want? Now think of # 4 above: You absolutely must master backup technologies you use. Let's say you save to disk. After three months of backups, what exactly is on each of your backup discs? Are images full? file copies? File versions? How many restore points you
? (Note :. In Part 4, we'll talk about hard disk media and other technologies, their advantages and disadvantages)
If your backup system that you do for the elimination of files duplicate, what it means filenames or file versions? How does it work exactly? If you have bad sectors on your hard drive, have you lost all versions of a specific file? Master the technology
Note :. Many cloud backup systems horribly when it comes to dining options. Before spending your money, learn what really happens in this cloud. Check for yourself. Master the technology. If the only thing you can restore is the latest version of each file, is this enough
Truth # 7 :? Use enough media to ensure the points you want to restore
. Ideally we would like to see at least 6-12 long-term storage media off-site, in addition to media for the current week. If you have a safe place to store old media on site, you can bring them to the office.
Let's say you save each business day. That's five times a week. Ideally, these are all full backups (we did not use incremental backups since we are far from coil to coil backups in 1995). So we have five "current" off-site backups, backups more month-end permanently off-site for the last 12 months. That makes a total of 17 media offsite. If you have backups of year end, then you will have additional media offsite
Remember :. The driver of this discussion is the number of recovery points you need. Yes, it costs money. It is cheaper than going out of business
Truth # 8: .. The first media fail
This philosophy is true far more often than we would like to believe. Basically, it comes down to this: Assume that whatever media you use to restore from is bad. The first hard drive, the first band, the first cloud backup. Suppose something will go wrong.
Customers do not change tapes / discs. Power out. Damaged discs. The databases are damaged then saved. You must restore from back before the corruption happened.
Once you assume that you need backup plans for your backups, then you start to plan to a higher level. Place the Department of Redundancy Department within your office. Plan to fail; then plan around it. This is your work
Truth # 9 :. If you do not test your backup, you do not have a backup. If you can not restore from backup, you do not have a backup.
This is all because they really are the same. In addition to designing an awesome backup system, you need to design a restoration process and test the backup.
You must perform a full restoration to feel good in your backup. But you need to restore from each drive that was backed up (for example, C: D: x :), of each medium used (for example, disk 1, disk 2) from the elutable core BONE area (system status on the Windows machines) and from key databases (for example, a few emails in the Exchange database).
This is not trivial. As backup, you must design a restoration test that verifies that you can get the data back where it belongs. This keeps your technicians listening on the process and ensures that you do not have hardware or software failures.
We recommend a restoration monthly test. If you can not do it remotely, plan to get out there
Truth # 10: .. We can not care more about saving the customer they do
Really, we do not care anymore. But we must say that there is so much we can do. If the customer will not buy new media, will not take bakckups off site will not allow us to test restores. . . well, that's their choice. They get to decide how to spend their money. If they want the office manager to save data for a business of $ 12 MM on DVD once a month, that's their decision.
We need to try to communicate to our customers, employees, and our own employees about the importance of backups. We need to check every day. And we need to push the customer to take them seriously. But if they simply refuse to participate in the protection of their network, there is not much we can do.
See http://blog.smallbizthoughts.com/2012/07/sop-friday-daily-monitoring-of-client .html
On rare ocassions, we sent a memo to clients saying that we can not be responsible for the success of their backups because they do not do things that we have described. We propose to do these things for them (including backup devices change each day) for one price. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. But when customers do not care, we must try not to worry about it.
Communications Client
When discusss all this with clients, you must decline the geekspeak a bit. At the same time, you need to understand your company's philosophy and make sure the customer understands.
We get push-back on taking traffic lanes of some people. We get a lot of resistance to switching media (tapes or disks). Interestingly, we rarely have the strength depending on the overall price.
It is extremely helpful to have stories that you can use to illustrate your points. Collect backup stories. Believe me, I have one or more for each point above. Stories help connect your philosophy with the world matters to them.
Remember, most customers see backups as a necessary evil. It costs money, but few tangible rewards 99% of the time. Of course, the day you pick a database there six months, it is worth. When the desktop is burning, a return is worth it. When an employee sabotages a system backup is worth it.
I highly recommend that you write a memo page on your philosophy backup and distribute it to customers and prospects. It might be all "noise" to most, but it is a real selling point - especially if you insist on jurisdiction. Customers really want a good reason to justify the money they spend with you. Put yourself against a trunk slammer $ 60 / h when it comes to backups.
It also provides customer endorsements. I have a great my long time customer Hank "Karl saved my business - twice in one year!" This kind of thing goes a long way
Also, here's a great video :. How Pixar Toy Story 2. Almost Lost
This is the story of how Pixar has lost the film Toy Story 2 because of bad backups. Pixar. Bad backups for a month. The lesson is: If it can happen to them, it can happen to you
take this seriously .. Create a philosphy on Safeguards that gives your customers rock solid backup plans that work.
Your To-Do List
First, you must write your philosophy on Safeguards. Believe me: Most of your competitors is not the philosophy of this critical function. And almost nobody who reads this will actually follow through either.
Use my discussion above as a starting point, but really make your own. Who do you see with regard to the processes, procedures, non-media site, etc.?
Second, you have to go on with your technicians and make sure that everyone understands. This could lead to discussions or debates. Very Good: This means they think on Safeguards
Third, you need to implement what the parts you do not currently have in place. This could include the sale of additional media customers to ensure they are in compliance with your philosophy.
Fourth, you must communicate to clients in a form (as discussed above). Handouts are good. . The more professional better
Fifth, everyone on your team needs to support each other around this policy
Feedback Welcome
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about this series
SOP Friday - or standard operating system Friday - is a series dedicated to helping small computer consulting businesses develop good processes and procedures to create a successful and profitable business consultation.
learn more about the series and view a complete "table of contents" for SOP Friday http://www.smallbizthoughts.com/events/SOPFriday.html.
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the subject of next week: backups 3 - tracking backup, testing and management
and. . . Backups 4 - Changing Technologies
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