If you enjoy my blog, please recommend my blog for the Computerweekly IT Blog Awards 2009 in the CIO/IT Director category at:
http://www.computerweekly.com/nominate
The three fundamentals of IT.
1. Backups 2. Disaster Recovery plans 3. Business Continuity
1.Backups
The importance of backups cannot be underestimated. Systems get corrupted and users delete file all the time and without an efficient backup strategy, you can be left in the wild. When I started within IT, my first job was to go and change the backup tapes. It wasn’t long when I decided to ask my manager as to why someone else could not do this obviously boring, repetitive job. That is when it was explained to me why backups were important. Well, at least this area of IT remains unchanged. Ensure backups work and that you know the kind of backups that are being done. As there is always confusion on the types of backups. Backups should always be kept offsite and not in any kind of safe onsite including fire safes.
I will explain them below, courtesy of http://www.backup4all.com/kb/backup-types-115.html ;
Full backup
Full backup is the starting point for all other types of backup and contains all the data in the folders and files that are selected to be backed up. Because full backup stores all files and folders, frequent full backups result in faster and simpler restore operations. Remember that when you choose other backup types, restore jobs may take longer.
Differential backup
Differential backup contains all files that have changed since the last FULL backup. The advantage of a differential backup is that it shortens restore time compared to a full backup or an incremental backup. However, if you perform the differential backup too many times, the size of the differential backup might grow to be larger than the baseline full backup.
Incremental backup
Incremental backup stores all files that have changed since the last FULL, DIFFERENTIAL OR INCREMENTAL backup. The advantage of an incremental backup is that it takes the least time to complete. However, during a restore operation, each incremental backup must be processed, which could result in a lengthy restore job.