Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/43031
46 • OCTOBER 2011 • WORLD FENCE NEWS Tackling the topic of backing up data, part 1 THE HUMAN LINK by Jim Lucci Management Motivational Associates This month, I have been asked to discuss the electronic backup of data and records, and the need for proper storage of hard files. Some time back, I tackled the topic of backup as it per- tained to paper, but in today's society, we are all basically electronic and our focus needs to be updated. First, I think we should establish some background information to put everyone on the same page. We'll start with the concept of backup. In infor- TILT-A-WAY RESIDENTIAL & INDUSTRIAL OPERATORS mation technology, a backup, or the process of backing up, refers to the making of copies of data so that these additional copies may be used to re- store the original information in the event of a data loss event. The verb form is back up in two words, whereas the noun is backup, often used like an adjective in com- pound nouns. Backups have two distinct pur- poses: The primary purpose is to re- cover data as a reaction to data loss, be it by deletion or corrupted data. Data loss is a very common experience for computer users. It is estimated that some 67% of internet users have suf- fered serious data loss at one time or another. The secondary purpose of backups is to recover data from an "historical" period of time within the constraints of a user-defined data retention policy, typically configured within a backup application for how long copies of data are required to be available. Though backups popularly repre- sent a simple form of disaster recov- ery, and should be part of a disaster recovery plan, by themselves, backups should not alone be considered disas- ter recovery. Compare our quality! You will see there is a difference! Commercial Residential Not all backup systems and/or backup applications are able to recon- stitute a computer system or, in turn, other complex configurations such as a computer cluster, active directory servers, or a database server, by restor- ing only data from a backup. Since a backup system contains at least one copy of all data worth saving, the data storage requirements are con- siderable. Organizing this storage space and managing the backup process is a complicated undertaking. A data repository model can be All operators meet UL-325 and CSA-247 (800) 523-3888 www.tiltaway.com info@tiltaway.com used to provide structure to the stor- age. In the modern era of computing, there are many different types of data storage devices that are useful for making backups. There are also many different ways in which these devices can be arranged to provide "geo- graphic redundancy," data security and portability. Before data is sent to its storage location, it is selected, extracted and manipulated. Many different tech- niques have been developed to opti- mize the backup procedure. These include optimizations for dealing with open files and live data sources as well continued on page 48