What defines a backup?
Keeping it simple, a backup is 'a copy of your existing data'. This may sound easier than it is. Making a backup is a complex but very important activity. Many companies depend upon backups when calamities occur within the live environment.
Such calamities maybe:
Such occurrences will at all times disrupt continuity within your company. Ensuring yourself of a flawless backup system today is a mere necessity.
Types of backups
Several types of backups and different methods are available for making backups of an environment. The method of choice is defined by the importance of the data and the time it takes to run a backup. Also the restore time is an important aspect.
A server backup in most cases will be considered more important than a client backup. When backup procedures prove to be time consuming, incremental backups may be run on workdays with full-backups scheduled on weekends. During an incremental backup only the files changed since the most recent backup are included.
The time it takes to perform a backup depends on several different factors:
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How much data needs to be back upped?
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What is the speed of the backup system
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Which type of backup is scheduled, full, incremental, differential?
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Is de-duplication added?
Selecting and performing the proper backup-type definitely is very important. Qi ict gladly helps you choose and implement it.
What does Restore or Recover mean?
Storing data is a challenge, but recovering data certainly is an entirely different ballgame. Many companies perform backups but never try to restore them. Which leaves them in the dark about readability and reliability of their backup.
Recovering backupped data, or part of it, calls for Restore or Recovery of data that were saved via a backup mechanism. That process is at least as important and as complex at performing the backup.
Qi ict offers a number of products to facilitate performing the backup as well as recovering backupped data.