Data backup is probably one of the most critical activities in business today. If you are not currently performing a backup of your data, stop reading this article right now and go get started.

Unless you are a lottery winner or can go to Vegas and return home with a suitcase full of money, you MUST perform a regular data backup.

There are many reasons why you should be backing up your data.  I want to bring up a couple of reasons you may not have considered:

• What is the impact upon your customer relationships?
• What is the “real” cost of a loss?

Soft cost evaluation is the reason to consider the reasons above. Just like any activity in your business from buying paper clips to putting together a marketing campaign, there are soft costs that you must include in the total cost formula.

Nearly everyone who has not had a backup will tell you that soft costs are real and are probably higher than the actual hard costs associated with re-generating the data and doing business again. Unless you want to become am expensive statistic, perform a backup.

If you were not convinced to perform a data backup, you probably are now and that is a good start. Congratulations, you are on the right track but read on. Let me explain why.

Data Backup is only half of the story.  You must make sure that AFTER a backup that you can successfully perform a restore. As obvious as that sounds, there are many, many businesses who still don’t do it.

ALL backup media fails. This should not be news to you. Tapes, Tape Drives, Hard Disks, or other means you use to perform your local backup are mechanical. Mechanical devices, even with routine maintenance, fail.

What files should you verify from the restore? In general, all of them.  For most people that is probably not possible given limited time and money.  As a shortcut, if you want to make sure your backup is correctly restored, you should pick files found in a number of directories and drives. The objective is to perform a random test. If you are able to restore, view and copy the files, you can be pretty sure that your backup has been performed properly.

Server backups need to be treated differently. That is especially true if the backup is of your database server. Since the data housed in your database server is quite literally the life blood of your business, you should be willing to spend additional time and resources to verify the backup.

There are many ways to effectively restore and verify a server. The method described here is the simplest we have found that predicts that the backup was successful. To verify a server is more complicated than simply checking a few random files. You should follow, at a minimum, these steps:

• Have a SEPARATE PC available with plenty of disk space
• Restore the backup onto the PC
• Perform a directory comparison with your running server using windiff or a similar tool
• Compare a few of the restored files with your running server to verify the contents

Database backups can be easily verified by restoring the database, verifying the schema by reviewing the table structure of a random collection of tables, and finally performing a few random queries that touch a number of the tables in the restored database.

After restoring and verifying your data, you have left the casino and are no longer gambling with the future of your business. Well done!

Scott Love is a managed services provider in Spokane, Washington that helps to educate business owners about the benefits of adopting a proactive approach to managing their computers.

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