Backup tools to save you time and money

Safety Net

Article from ADMIN 01/2010

By James Mohr

One small oversight can cost you hours of extra work and your company thousands of dollars. Here are a few backup tools to help you recover gracefully.

Computers are of little value if they are not doing what they're supposed to, whether they've stopped working or they're not configured correctly. Redundant systems or standby machines are common methods of quickly getting back to business, but they are of little help if the problem is caused by incorrect configuration and those configuration files get copied to the standby machines. Sometimes, the only solution is to restore from backup.

Backing up all of your data every day is not always the best approach. The amount of time and the amount of storage space required can be limiting factors. On workstations with only a handful of configuration files and few data files, it might be enough to store these files on external media (such as USB drives). Then, if the system should crash, it could be simpler to reinstall and restore the little data you have. Doing a full system restore often takes longer.

Because each system is different, no single solution is ideal. Even if you find a product that has all the features you could imagine, the time and effort needed to administer the software might be restrictive. Therefore, knowing the most significant aspects of backups and how these can be addressed in the software are key issues when deciding which product to implement (see also the "Support" box).

Support

One consideration that is often overlooked is the amount of support available for your product. Commercial support might be necessary if implementing the backup solution for a company. However, the amount of free support (forums, mailing lists) can be an issue. When considering open source software of any kind for a business, I always suggest taking a good look at the product's website. If the product has not been updated in three years, you might want to look elsewhere. If forums have few posts and most are unanswered, you

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