Many companies that operate in the market with gigabytes of data rely on backup to survive. But do they get the right Backup or is it all their luck?
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We are talking about small personal or with small staff, companies that are required to keep data. If for some reason they lose this data, they automatically lose their customers and therefore no longer have a reason to exist. For example accounting firms, design firms, commercial enterprises, logistics, and a lot more.
Backup in this type of business is vital, not that if personal photos are lost from your home computer you will suffer less. The backup must be done correctly to make sense, otherwise at some point you will learn the hard way you made a mistake.
Especially in small businesses things get a little more complicated. Usually in the Greek market, the owner of a company, say, with two employees, assigns the most technology-related, in addition to his normal job, to back up critical files. This employee having an extra workload in turn instructs their computer that they have to take backups every day.
The computer engineer, who is at a level commensurate with the company's budget, in turn indicates how they will do the backup process daily, as soon as they finish their work. The Backup process is assumed to be reverently followed by employees.
In this usual scenario, evil will not be long in coming. A small budget, a computer engineer who does a little of everything (company site renewal, network monitoring, backup, computer repair, etc.), an employee who is "loaded" with extra work, an owner who does not oversee critical business processes, is an explosive combination for to make mistakes.
And mistakes can be fatal. At an accounting firm it can cost:
- Fines to customers
- Hours from the computer to restart the programs and import the latest backup
- Work for a long time to pass the items manually
- Serious blow to the clientele and the reputation of the office
- Delays in the office meeting the needs of customers
Files and accounting software are most of the work of an accounting firm. An incident like the above can cause a serious blow to your business as you have a particularly large responsibility and in addition there are fines if the necessary statements are not submitted on time.
Backup errors can be very costly if there is some data loss.
The concept of Backup means: Saving one or more files in two different independent locations simultaneously.
But what are the common mistakes a business can make?
1. Backup is stored on the same computer (eg in another partition of the same disk eg in D: \ or in another folder on the same disk eg c: \ backup)
This solution is not correct, as if the hard disk is damaged, both the original copy and the supposed backup file are lost.
2. Backup does not have different versions. For example, the new backup copies over the old one.
This risks for some reason not opening the last backup and therefore we have no other alternative.
3. The owner himself is not informed about the backup or does not know what policies have been set in his office
The owner is the one who will be penalized if something is lost and does not go well. In such critical cases, the owner should receive a formal update.
4. Backup restoration is never attempted
It is very important to do a regular test to make sure your Backup is working properly
5. Backup to the same physical location
The backup file should not be in the same area as the main file, as both can be affected by the same damage (eg fire, flood, overvoltage, virus, theft, etc.).
The correct Backup must include the following:
- First look at your needs and report the risks, so that the owner is fully aware of the consequences and to reduce his prejudice for a low budget.
- Automated backup in 2 points, a physical point in your space and one in the Cloud (outside your office), without the intervention and the charge of an employee.
- Synchronize data every 15 minutes to both parties.
- Possibility of remote recovery of your Server data even in case the machine breaks down, in case the computer engineer is in Jakarta on vacation.
- Notify the owner and the computer by email in case the backup is not done properly.
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