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DATA BACK UP AND RECOVERY– WHAT IS IT, AND WHY MUST A COMPANY BACK UP ITS DATA?

 

Data backup is the process of automatic and manual replication of a given set of information to serve as a preventative measure of data loss. The recovery aspect of data backup assumes that valuable data has been either lost or corrupted and is thus inaccessible, in which scenario the saved information (which is physically separate from the primary data location) is processed and retrieved. An easy way to think about data backup and recovery is on a home/personal computer. You may have a gallery of photos that you cherish, and decide to copy that content onto an external hard disk drive. The act of copying that data (the pictures) onto a physically separate location (the external hard drive) is data backup. If anything were to happen to your computer – a virus, hardware damage caused by an electrical short or humidity, etc. – your pictures would remain intact in the backup location, ready for retrieval.

This same principle applies to large corporations, except on a much grander scale. Imagine Google, Inc. Think about all the data that Google possesses, and how valuable that data is – not just to Google – but to others. Saved email messages, Youtube accounts and videos, data from the Google search engine, etc. Such a large quantity of data which is prized by many different parties must be backed up in real-time. Think about the number of times you have visited Youtube and seen site maintenance messages, or messages about server problems. After a few hours, Youtube is up and running as if nothing happened. The explanation for this is because Google backs up their information, and for a good reason too. If, for instance, Gmail accounts are not backed up, then after a server “goes down” there is a high probability that some email accounts will have missing data, from lost messages to lost accounts. This event would have an explosive effect that could negatively effect the lives of many individuals and interest groups, which would ultimately hurt Google’s authority and reliability in the eyes of the online community, which, in turn, would diminish Google’s dominance in the industry.

High volume data is typically backed up onto servers with high storage capacity. This data can be backed up automatically, though manual backup (and retrieval) can prove to be more efficient when storing massive quantities of data all at once; the end of a business day, for instance.

Although it seems quite simple, data backup can be quite a challenge when so many variables are introduced with larger quantities of data. If, for some reason, there is a sudden loss of power, data on a server that is not saved will be lost. This is why many corporations have data centers with backup power supplies and generators. Just in case the main power supply to the company’s servers goes down. This allows the servers to remain online and the data to remain intact and ready for storage on designated hard drives throughout the many different servers.

The importance of data backup is never underestimated. In fact, industry supergiants Google and Sun Microsystems place the endless supply of server racks within their data centers quite high on the priority list. With this in mind, both corporations are able to maintain efficiency in a worry-free environment. If anything should go wrong, precautions have already been taken to ensure that panic is an avenue that never needs to be traveled on.

Ali Hussain
2K Computer Solutions