| Reliable Backup Strategies for Small Business | | | | your data periodically throughout the day, giving you |
| Small Businesses today use technology and rely on | | | | yet another level of backup. You can now recover |
| the validity of their data just like the big companies | | | | data from your server without paying those |
| do. However, they do not normally have the budgets | | | | expensive IT consulting bills. |
| to have elaborate tape storage or network storage | | | | Tape or Disk Based Backup Systems |
| devices to have multiple versions of customer | | | | If your company is using tape or disk (hard drive, CD |
| databases, accounting data or any other bits of | | | | Rom, or DVD) based backup systems, it is important |
| information that are important to the overall success | | | | to ensure that you are doing a full backup every |
| of their business. | | | | evening. This way if you need to restore from tape |
| Most small businesses that experience a serious data | | | | or disk, you can feel confident that all your data was |
| loss or catastrophe never fully recover or even stay | | | | backed up the night before. |
| in business. Events in the past few years like | | | | It is important to ensure that you have a GFS |
| Hurricane Katrina or 9/11, have shown the importance | | | | (Grandfather, father, and son) backup system in |
| of backup and then securely storing your critical | | | | place, you can do this easily with tape based back |
| business data outside of your office in a secure | | | | ups, you need about 10 tapes to make this happen. I |
| storage facility. | | | | recommend have 4 tapes for the Monday to |
| Here are some basic recommendations so you can | | | | Thursday backups, 4 or 5 more for each Friday of |
| sleep at night, knowing that your data is securely | | | | the month, and then 1 tape for your month end. This |
| backed up and also that you can confidently restore | | | | is a minimum, you can add more tapes if you wish. |
| your data when you ever need to. Remember it is | | | | Offsite Media Storage |
| not if you need to restore it is when. | | | | Storing your backup media offsite is critical to the |
| Versioning and Saving | | | | success of your company. I do not recommend |
| One thing that I have found to be effective in my | | | | taking this home or leaving it in your car, this is not a |
| own backup of files, especially this article, is to save | | | | secure way to store your business data. There are |
| versions of the file as you work. If your document | | | | many organizations that have secure vaults and will |
| or spreadsheet becomes corrupt for some reason, | | | | charge around $60.00 per month for a basic storage |
| you can always go back to a previous version. Also, | | | | plan. I recommend solutions from Iron Mountain, |
| ensure you save often. Nothing worse than having a | | | | Kestrel or a local organization, in Calgary we |
| system crash or freeze and you lose hours of work. | | | | recommend Calgary Archives ( |
| Invest in a Server | | | | Electronic Backup |
| Most Small Businesses chose consultants or resellers | | | | The next level of protection is electronic offsite |
| that rarely show the real value that a server can | | | | storage, this is a backup that is done electronically |
| bring to your organization. Microsoft has priced their | | | | and sends your critical data across the Internet to |
| Small Business Server so that all Small Businesses can | | | | the service provider's secure electronic vault. Your |
| put in a server with email services starting around | | | | data is compressed and encrypted at your office and |
| $3,500.00. | | | | then securely transmitted to the service providers. |
| What does a server offer? | | | | We recommend the services provided by eBackup ( |
| A server will provide you with a central and secure | | | | Their services will backup your critical corporate data, |
| system to store your corporate data. Permissions | | | | your mailboxes on your Small Business Server and |
| can be set on files to prevent unauthorized access, | | | | your critical customer databases. |
| which could lead to data deletion. Most data loss due | | | | Conclusion |
| to deletion comes from accidental deletion or | | | | The most important thing about any successful |
| disgruntled employees that are upset with the owner | | | | backup plan is to ensure you can restore from these |
| or management. | | | | backups. Proper and frequent testing of your backup |
| Also with a server you will have one place to backup | | | | plan will ensure that you can restore from backup in |
| your data to tape or disk, your data is not scattered | | | | the event of a loss of data or catastrophic disaster |
| on your computers all over the network. This will also | | | | such as fire, theft or critical system failure. |
| save you consulting dollars due to the ease of | | | | Remember, you can never have enough backups of |
| administration. | | | | files or enough types of backup. Better to be safe |
| Windows Servers today come with a service called | | | | than sorry. |
| "Volume Shadow Copy" that will take a snapshot of | | | | |