Business owners know the importance of running proper data backups. Until recently the only inexpensive way to do backups in-house was with tapes, CDs, multiple USB-attached portable hard drives offsite for performing proper data backups in-house. Compare these mundane methods with the costs and benefits of using an Online Data Backup Service. Online data back up will save you time and is highly cost efficient in these economic times--where maintaining proper data is detrimental to all businesses regardless of industry or size--it’s natural to try to conserve money by reducing expenses.
The reality is, most small businesses do not do proper backups. Many companies have failed because of the loss of their data from a fire or flood, a hardware failure, a virus, or just a simple mistake like erasing the wrong folder. If you don’t have a backup, or your backup system is outdated, statistics show that your business may never recover.
This article discusses the real costs of running backups, and how you can save hundreds of dollars per month while improving your backup procedure to the level of large companies with an IT staff. You can make sure your vital business data survives even the worst catastrophe.
Key Terms:
Recovery Time Objective (RTO): The Recovery Time Objective is the maximum acceptable amount of time between your request to recover a file, and its recovery.
Recovery Point Objective (RPO): The Recovery Point Objective is the maximum amount of data that you are willing to lose, in time. The RPO determines how often you need to make backups. The lower the RPO, the more your backups will cost.
File Retention Policy (FRP): The File Retention Policy specifies how long you will retain backup copies of your files. The longer you keep files, the more your backups will cost.
Downtime Objective: The Downtime Objective is the maximum acceptable amount of time that your business, or part of it, can cease operations without substantial loss. The lower your downtime objective, the more your backups will cost.
Do-It-Yourself Backups Using Hard Drives
Before doing backups you will need to design a backup methodology taking into account your RTO, RPO, and FRP for different file sets. Select the software and hardware you need to support your backups. Design a protocol for verifying and testing backups. Design and document procedures for backup and restore operations. Designate an employee to do the backups, and a backup to that employee, and train them both.
All companies are different, and all companies have different file sets. There is no software or user’s manual that can help you design a proper backup strategy for your specific company. You will need to hire a consultant to help with this.
Proper on-site backups must be done manually. This usually means that they are done during business hours, when the network is in use and files are in unstable conditions.
With on-site backups hardware is needed.
There are two options: Tape drives and portable USB hard drives.
Tape Drives: Tape drives are on their way out of fashion. They are costly, slow, expensive to maintain, unreliable, insecure, and unsupported by many backup software utilities. Here’s a breakdown of the cost to set up a tape backup system for your server (This assumes you already have a SCSI controller card):
• HP StorageWorks DAT 72 SCSI Internal Tape Drive - $550
• DAT72 tapes (21) ? $214
• Installation and Setup - $200
• Software - $199
Total Cost to install a tape backup system: $1,163
USB Hard Drives: USB hard drives are getting smaller, cheaper, and more reliable. The least expensive portable USB hard drive found online in the $60 range for 160GB. The only way to get the same quality of file retention using USB drives as you can get with Online Backup is to buy 91 hard drives for $5460. These drives are going to last about two years, hopefully giving it an amortized their cost over 24 months at about $28 / month. And most backup software won’t properly handle Exchange or QuickBooks.
A trained employee must complete backups daily; spending roughly 45 minutes to do an entire backup. Let’s assume that person makes $15 an hour in salary. At that rate, it costs $11.25 per day to do backups - $225 per month.
Once the backup is finished, you should take it out of the building and store it securely somewhere else. If the building burns, all your backups will go up in flames, too. The easiest, yet less secure procedure is to allow the same person to take out of the building and store in a secure facility like a bank safety deposit box.
If you are paying your employee for drive time and mileage, you can conservatively add another $7 / day to your cost of doing backups. That’s $140 per month plus the cost of the safety deposit box of roughly $400 a year.
RESTORING FROM DISK DRIVES
Assuming the data back up was done correctly you will not be able to restore data from your hard drives without outside assistance. There is no automatic restore utility. You’re going to have to call in a consultant who understands your process, and who can manually find and restore your data. Typically this means restoring from several drives in the proper sequence, building a stable restore set, then testing it, and doing this over and over until it is correct.
This kind of restore process can take hours and even days, and can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, and can result in downtime far beyond your original downtime objective.
Problems with Do-It-Yourself Backups
• Do-it-yourself backups are far more expensive than it seems they are, as much as $523/month for a 90 day backup plan.
• Data on the backup drives are not encrypted, and can be easily read by anyone who steals the drive. The drives are small and easy to steal.
• Proper backups must be done at least once a day. The difficulty of the manual process, and the trouble it causes for the enterprise, makes it easy to skip a day or two.
• The person responsible for backups is often a low-level employee with little or no experience in Information Technology and may fail to recognize a problem with the backups, assuming they are being done properly.
• Restoring data is cumbersome and not intuitive. Most companies hire an outside consultant when data needs to be restored. Restoring a single file, or a small group of files, is an expensive and time-consuming process.
• The procedure described here of running backups using USB hard drives works well on only one computer. It will not back up your laptops, and is very difficult to scale up to multiple servers and workstations.
Advantages of Online Backups
• Online Backups are usually up to 75% less expensive than do-it-yourself.
• Online Backups do not require an expert employee to monitor them or run them. Backups are done automatically by software–¬no reminders are necessary.
• Online Backups are usually scheduled to run at night when offices are closed, and file systems are stable. This makes sure that all file¬¬s are backed up.
• Online Backups are sent offsite. There’s no need to carry or store portable hard drives.
• Online Backups are encrypted before transmission, only accessible by password only know to user, complying with privacy and data security regulations and preventing data theft.
• Restores can be done in minutes by the end user by simply picking files from a list, or running a Wizard. Restores can often be done from anywhere on the Internet using just a web browser.
• Online Backups operate 24/7/365 without the need for consultants or end user intervention. Restores can be done any time weekends, holidays, and nights.
• Online Backups run on ALL computers in your company not just the file servers. Even laptops that are not connected to the office network full-time can be backed up.
• You receive emailed reports after every backup. You can use these reports to help audit your business practices and to keep track of your backups.
ERTBackup.com is a provider of Online Backup for small to midsized companies. The company's backup solutions enable individuals, mobile users and corporations to ensure reliable, convenient, secure and affordable data protection and compliance of their along with reliable and easy to restore convenience. For more information, visit http://www.ERTBackup.com.
