Data backup and recovery is one of the most overlooked parts of a company’s IT structure. With all of the technology available today, the absence of even the most elementary backup solution is a mortal sin in regard to the business technology universe. There are affordable backup and data recovery systems in every price range, so even companies with limited budgets can afford an elementary system at the very least. Also many computer services firms now offer backup and data recovery systems as integral parts of their managed IT services.

Here are the top 10 questions to answer when pondering the right backup and data recovery system:

1. What happens if I delete a file?
2. Where is my email stored and is it backed up?
3. What if my computer crashes? Even if my data is saved how long will it take me to rebuild my computer to a functioning state?
4. Is my data all located in the same physical space?
5. Will a catastrophe wipe out my backup solution i.e. {an earthquake,a fire, a flood}?
6. Does my business rely on any one system for business critical functions? How long can my business operate without a functioning system? Does my current backup solution accomodate that expectation?
7. Does someone in our company know how to retrieve information off backups?
8. Are my backups tested so I know they work?
9. Are my backups monitored so I know if they are ever failing?
10. Is the backup data media (i.e. hard drives or tapes) transferred in a secure, controlled manor since it contains all data for my entire business?

These questions covers about 1/4 of the questions that one should review when it comes to a practical backup and disaster recovery system so if you haven’t asked yourself these questions, start today!  If you are overwhelmed, contact a local computer services provider which should be able to assist your company.

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Data Quality Concerns

The overwhelming concerns surrounding unclean data have convinced many companies that a robust and flexible solution is the only way to handle data hygiene issues. A quality data is the foundation on which every company’s strategy is build as well as many by which it is communicated to various stake holders and customers.

A Gartner Inc’s research report has predicted that ‘dirty data’ will cause 50 per cent of the insurers to have compromised decision-making assumptions by 2012. Data cleansing (also called as data scrubbing) is the act of detecting and removing corrupt or inaccurate records from a database

MIDAS

Bodhtree’s MIDAS (Multi Industry Data Anomaly Solution) Provides scalable and flexible technique of giving customers the choice to opt for Application Integration, Data Integration, Data Quality and Advanced analytics. MIDAS is becoming popular among the various verticals, because it not only provides customers the data integration and hygiene issues. It also allows organizations to valuable options to seamlessly integrate the solution into various applications.

Data Anomaly issues across the Globe

Companies that can’t address this unclean data are going to pay heavy price, not only will they lose customers, but industry experts predict a huge law suits stemming from providing wrong data.

According to the Data Warehousing Institute, a US-based organization that provides high-quality education and research in the business intelligence and data warehousing industry, businesses lose more than $600 billion every year due to poor quality data, while direct marketers in Europe spend 195 million pounds annually on incorrectly addressed international mails.

Data Quality: Prime Agenda

The best way for companies to stay ahead by managing their data hygiene issues is to make sure their clean data becomes a goal not only of individual departments but of the corporation as a whole. CIO’S need to make quality data a corporate goal. Quality data needs become fundamental pieces of culture and put it on the same level as other profitability. Quality data creates satisfied customers

MIDAS Addresses data hygiene issues

Organizations across multiple industries can now save millions of dollars wasted on unclean data. Bodhtree’s MIDAS – Multi Industry Data Anomaly Solution helps solve data completeness, accuracy and integrity problems. MIDAS integrates across various applications and databases with its proprietary tools.

§ MIDAS offers a viable and convenient options:

–SaaS (Software as a Service), where in customer data has been transmitted to Bodhtree servers using secure FTP layer. Bodhtree performs data hygiene operations and report back results and enriched data through web based portal.

–On Premise, where in Bodhtree installs MIDAS at customer premises using data hygiene jump start templates. Jump start templates are set of tools and processes that Bodhtree has built over years of experience in handling critical customer needs. These templates enable faster deployment of solution at customer end.

– Turn-key Solutions, where Bodhtree’s proven processes would be applied at customer location using customer specific tools. MIDAS process is tool agnostic and can be applied on customer data using any existing toolset that customer owns.

MIDAS – Technology

• MIDAS is open standard based J2EE application which adheres to best industry practices in form of vertical specific pre-canned data / application integration steps, data connectors and reports.

• SOA & JSR 168 compliant architecture

• Comes with Role based access control (RBAC) mechanism

• Inbuilt data connectors for industry leading OLTP / ERP / DSS systems such as:

–SAP, Oracle EBS, JD Edwards, People Soft

–Salesforce, SugarCRM, Siebel On Demand

–Quickbooks

–EDI Connectors

–JMS, XML

–CSV and Excel Files

• 24/7 support from global delivery centers (GDC)

• SAP Certified Product

• Oracle certification in progress

Key Drivers for MIDAS to Conceive

One of the key drivers behind the development of MIDAS is the burgeoning global data cleansing market segment and the unprecedented growth of data generated by individuals that requires constant optimization attention. The market for data cleansing solutions is pegged at $100 billion in the US alone, of which the healthcare sector accounts for about $20 billion, which holds huge potential for solutions like MIDAS.

MIDAS Case Studies

1. MIDAS – Data Anomaly Solution

Client Background

The US client is the world’s largest infomercial company, with sales of more than USD 3 Billion, operating in US, Europe, Japan and Autralia, with a customer base of 30 million customers. The marketing channels used by the client are web, 1-800 numbers and kiosks

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Business Situation and Challenge

The client had outsourced the entire operations, where order calls are received by tele marketing companies and call centers and deliveries are handled by fulfillment centers. These centers are spread across the world in numerous locations. Orders come through various channels and geographies. Data from these companies are transmitted back to client at pre-defined intervels, and need to be loaded to client ERP and then to Data Warehouse.

The challenge faced by the client was the consolidation of customer records received from different data sources. A clean customer master was essential for the realization value of campaigns run by the client marketing teams.

Bodhtree MIDAS Solution

The customer master contained 30 Million records with anomalies such as incomplete, invalid, incorrect and unstructured data and customer duplicate records. The MIDAS solution provided by Bodhtree helped in elimination of 10 million duplicate records, enrichment of the customer data and mapping of the actual customers to the corresponding sales and inquiry records. MIDAS provided the client a “single version of truth”, which helped the client to calculate the actual realization value of the various marketing campaigns.

2. MIDAS – Critical Applications Integration

Client Background

The client is a leading global pharmaceutical company, pioneer in global drug discovery and pharmaceutical sales and has presence in more than 100 countries. It has wholly-owned subsidiaries in the US, UK, Russia, Germany and Brazil; joint ventures in China, South Africa and Australia; representative offices in 16 countries; and third-party distribution set ups in 21 countries. It is the first pharmaceutical company in Asia outside of Japan to be listed on the NYSE.

Business Situation and Challenge

The client has various applications such as SAP, forecasting applications, project management applications and third party .NET applications for stockist data maintenance which are part of their supply chain nodes. There is constant flow of crucial data between these applications. Currently data is being transmitted in different modes right from FTP, customer ABAP coding and custom .NET coding. Since the data transferred between the applications are crucial, any loss of data or delay in transfer will result in a down time in the application processing, which would in turn have a huge impact on the company’s supply chain operations.

Tracking and monitoring the flow of data between the systems was a huge challenge. The use of multiple technologies with out proper coupling for data was not reliable due to the increased instances of failures. Tracking the failures, finding the missing data etc. were non-productive as well as time consuming, apart from the other impacts it had on the business due to the downtime.

MIDAS Solution

Bodhtree’s MIDAS has the ability to integrate data and applications including ERPs. MIDAS was used as an intermediary for data transfer between the applications. MIDAS also provided a real time console for monitoring the status of data being transferred. MIDAS also provided automated critical alerts via and email and sms to the concerned personnel, to ensure timely attention and smooth processing of the applications.

MIDAS helped the client’s applications to integrate seamlessly and made the crucial data transfer flawless. It eliminated the downtime and resource overheads and ensured smooth flow of the supply chain operations.

Forensics is an ever evolving science with a lot of possibilities acquire deeper knowledge about by different forensics programs or forensics classes.
With the ever increasing importance of computers and digital media for both personal and corporate users, the number of crimes involving electronic data is now higher than ever. Thus, only data forensics experts can search computers for electronic evidence, make digital investigations, recover lost data and provide technical expertise. To count only a few of the judicial cases for which data forensics is useful, we ought to mention breach of contract, intellectual property theft, discrimination, sexual harassment and so on. Therefore, it was not difficult for data forensics to become a legal necessity in the context of the computers’ ubiquity.

A normal type of computer investigation cannot detect or extract bits of information remained after deletion. File left-overs, deleted files, hidden and discarded files are searched and analyzed as part of the data forensics analysis. Although there are lots of challenges when trying to recover data or to identify the criminal process, experts in this fields have more than once been successful at finding the needle in the haystack. What relevance does such evidence have for legal cases? Well, it has been proved by practice that the recovery of a deleted e-mail message can change the course of a trial.

Data forensics constantly needs to face apparently unsurmountable challenges. The applications are indeed far-reaching, but it takes hours to extract digital evidence and make it stable. Sometimes the extractor has difficulties in getting to the information that is buried too deep in the electronic system, or too exposed to destruction. Moreover, for a successful data collection, data forensics has to protect the extracted elements by duplication so that  the information is preserved and not altered and spoiled during the process. Great caution, strict standards and lots of skills are required for each of these steps and only real pros can succeed.

A data forensics expert should be contacted immediately, once a breach in the security system or a criminal act against electronic media is detected. This will enable the appropriate and cost-limited data collection in the best conditions possible. Moreover, it is false to assume that data forensics only applies to computer hard drives as the main systems that can store information; there are cases of criminal action involving, USB devices, CDs, DVDs and even voice mail systems. Even photocopy machines include hard drives and the scanned or copied documents can be afterwards retrieved from them.

There’s no getting round the fallibility of computers:  the motherboard might die, the power supply may become beyond rescue or the whole thing might just become ridden with viruses and slow to a crawl.  If you decide to buy a replacement computer then the issue of data backup from the old machine to the new one is very important.Use the following steps if you find that you are in this situation:

1) Once you have finished unplugging the cables and peripherals from your old computer you will be ready to remove the hard drive from the faulty computer.  Your computer handbook will show you the correct way to open the case.Many older machines will have a case that requires unscrewing to gain access, whereas others will have latches that just simply have to be 'pushed' open.

2)  Now you have the components exposed you should be especially wary of causing damage via static electricity, as anyone well versed in ict facts will tell you.  In order to ‘de-static’ yourself touch something metal before you go near your computer.  Repeat this every time you step away from your machine.

3)  Next you should locate the hard drive.  This should be simple enough as it should be located at the front of your computer in a slot near the CD drive.  Again, in older computers it may be attached by screws.

4) Disconnect the hard drive's power supply unit as well as the data cable by gently pulling them out.  Unscrew the hard drive if necessary and remove it. 

5)  You should then insert the hard drive into the external hard drive enclosure.  Plug the data cable (USB) into an available USB port on the new working machine.  The computer should automatically recognise this as an external drive and assign it a letter as appropriate.  You will then be able to gain access to the data on the old hard drive.

If you are looking for for more sophisticated data backup solutions then you may want to approach a specialist provider.

It used to be that you would backup everything on your computer by using floppy disks.Today, when one sound or graphics file can easily be larger than the capacity of a disk, it would be impractical to back up even you documents using floppies, let alone your applications.  Luckily there are better options including Zip disks, CD writers, tape drives, external hard drives and even online backup services.You can also compress your backed up files so that they take up less space.Take in the following tips and you will be able to find the media that is best suited to your needs.

1) Determine the quantity and file sizes you will be backing up.

2) Figure out the quantity and file sizes of any documents or other applications you want to archive permanantly to a backup device or removable media.

3) Plan for that amount to grow considerably further along.

4) Work out your budget for a backup storage device and removable media to use with it.

5) Consider if you plan to archive photographs or scanned files, require portability of the media or the drive itself, wish to record music for playback on some other equipment, or need ease of use.Weigh each of these these factors along with your need to back up your files.

6) Work out the cost per MB of media for each drive that you are considering.zip drives themselves are cheap but the disks aren't.

7) You may want to consider buying a 100MB zip drive if you need limited storage capability (less than 1GB).An external parallel port or USB Zip drive will provide the most versatility as well as offering portability.You should consider buying a 250MB Zip drive if your storage requirements are moderate (a few GB). 

8) Buy an internal zip drive if you will only use the drive for backup and you can install it yourself (installation fees add up).

9) Consider buying a CD-RW drive if your storage needs are more moderate and you will regularly back up more than 500MB of data.

10) Consider buying a Jaz drive or perhaps even a tape backup drive if you will be backing up large amounts of data on a regular basis.

11) Buy an external hard disk if you will need a lot of space, wont be keeping the old backups and dont need portability.

12)  If you require additional security, data protection and the ability to recover your data quickly then online data backup should be a serious consideration.