One crucial part of operating any critical computer system is backups and disaster recovery. Hardware fails, people make mistakes and sometimes things just go wrong.
One recent example of things going really wrong was at OVH, a data center provider based in Europe. If you aren’t familiar with that term, think of data centers as where the “cloud” lives. These are massive buildings filled with millions of dollars of servers and petabytes (or more) of data. These facilities usually totally resilient. They contain backup systems for every crucial part of operations, from backup power to redundant air conditioning and connections to the outside world.
This OVH data center burned down. Not caught fire and caused damage, not a fire that affected one or two customers, a fire that destroyed the building beyond repair. After trying to recover things, OVH decided they won’t re-open that data center and will move operations to a few other buildings on that site.
Where Disaster Recovery Come In
A fire is something that can affect any building at any time. They’re just one disaster scenario of many that can mean the end of all your on-site data and equipment. What would happen to your business if suddenly all your crucial data was gone? Do you have a plan to get it back?
Offsite backups are just one part of an overall plan every business should have to protect their essential data. Storing things offsite is possible for businesses of any size and is becoming easier and easier to set up. If the worst should happen, these give you a snapshot you can restore and get things back without too much hassle.
Essential Parts of a Backup Plan
When setting up these backups, it’s important to keep a few key points in mind:
- Use a backup program that is reliable and trusted. Many are available for different platforms, and choosing one that fits your needs is important.
- Encrypt your backups. Before anything leaves your network, it should be encrypted. This prevents anyone from accidentally having access to your files while they’re being transmitted or stored.
- Take snapshots. One important feature of backups is a feature called snapshots. This takes copies of your data at a fixed point in time and can guard against human error like accidentally deleting files locally.
- Make it automatic. Set up your program to take backups regularly (at least once per day) and without the need for you to do anything.
