Q & A with the Expert

James Barnett, Senior IT Engineer and Cloud Back-up Expert at Active8 IT answers common questions relating to Data Back-up.

  
We are currently using tapes to back up all of our data on a daily basis. Is this ok? I am concerned that things may be lost.

This is one of the most common issues documented and an important question. It is essential to regularly perform test restores and validate what is actually backed-up. With tape backups this is quite often overlooked, due to the nature of the media it can be time consuming especially as tapes may need to be couriered back to site.

Another issue is that many companies that use tapes and don’t actually take them offsite, which can lead potentially full data loss if the premises were to have a fire etc.

We are thinking of using a Cloud Back Up service provider. How and when is the Data backed up?

Software is installed on an existing on-site server or a dedicated backup server. The required servers and data can then be selected for backup. The backup server simply needs relevant user credentials and network access to the data required.

The backups can be configured to run as and when is appropriate to meet your requirements and there is also the capability to manage the bandwidth usage for offsiting of data. Another advantage of the software is automatic updating which is centrally controlled by your service provider so no user input is required.

What if I need to retrieve my data, how quickly can this happen?

There are 3 methods of retrieval

Local storage retrieval: this is most commonly just the latest generation of a file and is held on the your site for very rapid LAN or DAS speed recovery.

Offsite internet retrieval: any data to be restored that is not local can be retrieved over the internet and the speed here is almost virtually dependent upon internet connection due to the very high speed links in the data centre.

Offsite couriered retrieval: If a very large restore is required you can also request a “DisktoTape” which means required data would be extracted using an automated system and encrypted data can be shipped for local retrieval.

We have a large amount of Financial Data, can this be compressed? How safe will it be?

Ensure that you use a provider that hosts your data in this country using their  own equipment so no third parties have access to data and cannot get hold of data. The backups should be encrypted ranging from DES 56bit up to AES-256.

  The majority of data can be compressed with some formats reaching an 8:1 ratio and due to the incremental forever methodology the effective compression becomes more noticeable over time as only delta changes are sent.

If you have any specific questions regarding this, we are happy to help. Contact info@active8it.co.uk