Looking after your own backups | Feb17 Alan Arthurson
Whenever we visit a new business client, or re-visit one of our ad-hoc clients, our field technicians know they must ‘check the Backups’. Generally, backups are not why we have been called out – something else has gone wrong that needs fixing, but we always check the Backups whilst we’re there, because they’re SO important. I’m sure you’ll agree!
Now, I need to define what we mean by ‘Backups’ – when your Computer or Server fails, you don’t just want your data, you want a complete and accurate ‘image’ of the whole shooting match, taken as recently as possible, for restoring onto your repaired system. Having a recent Backup image available not only saves you time and money, it also means you get everything back as it was pre-failure, even your desktop, and certainly those special programs you’ve paid mega-bucks to setup (like MYOB, for instance).
So, now to my story.
We supplied and installed a business-grade Backup System on our Client’s file server three years earlier, and apart from a scheduled UPS battery replacement, we hadn’t been called back for the past two years (hence, an ‘ad-hoc’ client).
When we arrived, we found their backups had been failing for the past 18 months! This meant that had the hard drive in their file server failed, we could only restore them back to 18 months ago. Somewhere along the way, they had stopped checking their backups (and started risking their business). It was lucky for them that nothing went wrong.
So we fixed the original problem and re-started the backups, explaining to the Owner what had happened and how we could manage their backups remotely for a small monthly fee.
He said he’d look after it himself ... again.
No doubt we’ll see him again in a few more years and I hope for his business’s sake that his backups keep working.
Meanwhile, let’s you and I check our own Backups right now, just in case. And maybe give us a call, if you need help with automated backups.