Backup Anytime

I got an email this morning from searchstorage.co.uk

I receive them on occasion. This one attracted my attention as it related to 7 key questions to ask before moving to disk based backup. I wanted to read it. I stress read. I clicked the link. I disappointingly found myself in a form filling exercise. I reckon they lose most visitors at that point. I continued and was careful with the boxes I ticked regarding the possibility of them allowing third party junk mail to come to my inbox. I was even more careful about areas which required personal information as they are a serious security concern. I ignored the questions I was allowed to and fudged where I had no other choice but to provide information or not see the “7 key questions” I had gone to so much trouble to see.

Next I was presented with the option of opening a podcast now or downloading it for later! There was no plain text version. Not even a html version. Given I am in a work environment and therefore have no sound card or speakers on my system this was of no use whatsoever to me.

I closed the screen and dutifully reopened the email to remove myself from their mailing list. If you need to do this, the removal function is in the right hand margin of their email.

In response to this total waste of time we will create a text version of our own question list to consider and ask before moving to disk based backup. You will not need any specific hardware to avail of it. You will not be asked to provide any personally identifiable information and you will not be sent on a round trip of form filling for third parties. You will be allowed read it in plain text.

Are search storage unable to bring this level of convenience to readers. I fear I will never know as I am no longer on their mailing list.

Update 13:38 (9 October 2008)

Seven Key Questions to Ask Before Moving to Disk-Based Backup

We believe there are far more than seven. Given that seven is the order of the day, here are seven of the most important key questions to ask of yourself, local I.T. and your intended provider before moving to disk based backup.

1. How secure will remote data store be with regard to protecting it from hackers?
This is a serious issue. You don’t need to scour the media to find examples of businesses suffering greatly from data leaks. These stories run on a daily basis. They are never good news for those concerned.

2. How secure will remote data be with regard to availability.
Keeping your data safe from prying eyes in one issue. One major exception is obviously yourself. You need to know that the data is available to you without delay when needed.
Any limitations need to be discovered before you have an urgent retrieval requirement.
3. What implications will this have for any current data backup systems?
Few responsible data backup companies will actually tell you to refrain from continuing the use of legacy systems such as tape. This has to do with your online backup providers limited  knowledge of client systems on an individual basis and sensible legal reasons. Your provider should however be able to work with your onsite I.T. support to identify any issues from the online backup perspective and allow your onsite I.T. support to advise you as to any such modifications.

4. Will I be fully empowered to manage and monitor data backups?
The straight answer to this must be yes. In almost all cases it will be. If your provider has difficulty with a positive answer here, you may well consider your options as this is in most cases a standard feature and requirement/

5. What level of support will I receive relative to general queries?
With an task as serious as data backup, you want a reasonable response time to even the most mundane of day to day queries. Any doubt left lingering is at best a cause of stress and possibly a serious data risk.

6. What levle of support will I receive with regard to any disaster recovery requirement?
This one needs to be established in written format. The section of your S.L.A. which deals with this is an important variable in the determination of the usefulness and value of the service provided. The actual response relative to the promise is of course the true variable  so ensure the S.L.A. provides sanctions to your provider which are of a strong enough nature to be effective in ensuring promises are kept.

7. What data retention period or data retention version numbers can I avail of?
This is sometimes overlooked, often underestimated from an importance viewpoint and commonly misunderstood.
Many providers offer a 30 day or 30 version life-cycle. This can be a dangerous limitation. An example is the case of a virus infiltration. The virus your system got three months ago may not become apparent until today. If your restore window is thirty days, you will find yourself in a position which may allow only older and equally infected versions of files to be restored. You should avail of a service with a high retention period and better still a configurable one which you can amend at will and without having to liaise with your provider.

So there you have it, a text only list. No form filling, no need for multimedia and no concern over providing personally identifiable information.

Online backup seed installation.

The word installation above could be misleading but is included because of its’ common and accepted usage when detailing the “backup to disk” function which  comes with all quality online backup systems. Backup to disk can actually be run at any time but here we are talking about the initial backup post installation.

A seed install is effectively an installation for which the first backup is run locally. There are a number of reasons for which this may be the chosen first backup method. Most equate to broadband, time, data quantity and backup window limitations. Lets take a closer look.

Broadband.

Commonly, download speeds are  significantly greater than upload speeds. In the main this is logical as web browsing involves far more download than upload and most web users general download more and more often than they upload. This offers advantages when restoring data online but the actual backup process which is the more common online backup communication direction uses upload. If your upload speed is low a seed install may be recommended.

Time

Your provider (and likely your software) can give a reasonably accurate estimate as to the amount of time the first backup will take. If you are depending on the online backup system before it has run in your environment for some time (not recommended) then the length of time between to initial backup starting and the next backup completing will be of much importance to you. If the first backup is going to take more time to run than a “backup to disk” and forwarding of same to your provider would take then a seed install may be the best choice.

Data quantity.

No matter how good your upload speed, if the data quantity is inordinately large it will take considerable time over broadband thus making the seed install an attractive option. It must be remembered that companies with enviable upload speeds commonly have significant quantities of data so upload speed advantages are often negated by excessive data quantities.

Backup window.

Your backup window is the length of time a backup has to complete to allow for user access,  application access and next scheduled backup. Seed installs are commonly used to beat the backup window deadline. In these cases it is standard practice for a technician to run the install on site and collect the data if it is to be at the data-store when the next backup starts.

There is one other area of consequence which was not listed above and that is the area of “technical issues”.

An acute example of this in computing is when a process with a progress indicator hangs on circa 99% of the completion indication. This is normally not a coincidence and usually a sign of an error, bug or fault anywhere in the system. If this equates to a significantly large first backup only it may be resolved by a seed backup but regardless the fault should be sought and rectified. Remember that any compromise on a large backup will likely be required in the instance of a large restore. 

In short. Seed installs are common. If a provider is running a seed install at your office, find out why. Many reasons are acceptable. If however, the reason is due to a system crash discuss this with the technician and see if the issue can be resolved so you do not run seed installs for the wrong reasons.

Remember that a crash may not be the fault of the technician. The online backup technician who arrived at your ofice for the first time today can not be responsible for technical issues which have been in existence visably or dormnant for some time. It could be due to a slow processor, a lack of RAM, a network issue or  your broadband. It is also important that if it is possible to rectify the issue for the technician that you  do this rather than run an unnecessary seed install.