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Are Your Backups Enough?

Here are some of the best common sense practices everyone should adhere to:

Make copies of your backups

In the world of paper records, there are often requirements to keep originals in a very secure place due to the unique and often irreplaceable nature of certain documents. But in IT, we deal with electronic records, where copies are as legitimate as the original set of ones and zeros. By keeping duplicates of your backups, one onsite and one offsite, data is protected from loss due to fire or something far more common such as media error. Should one of the copies be lost, it is a simple matter of recreating it from the other copy. It's a simple task with most backup software, and the losses are reduced to the time it takes to recreate the copy and replacement media cost.

Make copies of archives, too

There is a fable making the rounds that suggest that archives don't really need to be duplicated. Archived records no longer class as production data, and we might not need to access it for a long time, if ever. Archived data is probably even more sensitive because of its age, as it is often the only record left; the original record was deleted from the production system and transferred or migrated. Unless data is archived "just in case we ever need it", it should be duplicated and kept in a separate location, especially if it is tied to any compliance or ediscovery requirement.

The other myth suggests that duplicating backups is too expensive; indeed, efforts at deduplication are the stuff of technical magazine articles. But if an organization thinks that duplicating backups is too costly, then one must consider how critical the data is. It is necessary to strike a balance between the cost of lost data with the cost of adequately protecting that data. Business logic would then dictate that the lowest cost is likely the way to go. However, here are hidden costs and while estimating the cost of duplicate backups is simple math, calculating losses are far less simple.

One copy of a backup may not be enough.