Flooding...

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With all the flooding in Louisiana, we figured that it would be the right time to remind everyone about having good secure backups. A few things to keep in mind with backups are:

  1. Using an external drive can be a very inexpensive way to backup the company server, however, these backups need to be kept off-site in case of a disaster whether natural or un-natural i.e. flooding.
  2. Having an off-site realtime backup, like Carbonite, is always the best option. This also makes it possible to be back up and running much faster given that files can be accessed from anywhere. If you've taken the next step and started having the company server hosted by a service, then the team could log in and continue working as if nothing ever happened. 
  3. A final note is to regularly verify backups. We've seen far too many times where someone thinks they have a valid backup only to realize that either important files are missing or the backups are unusable.

Again, backups are extremely important and, in the long run, very cheap insurance. As always, if you have any questions, feel welcome to send those our way.

Backups: Fire and Waterproof

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Weather seems to constantly remind us that we can't control it. We don't know what's next, but we do know that there's a need to make sure that we all have good backups. Backups are like insurance and this insurance is very inexpensive. The hope is that it never has to be used, but no one regrets having the backups when they're needed. The following are a few tips that we always tell our customers when setting up their backups.

Tip 1: Now would be a great time to Take an Inventory and make sure everything is backed up. This would include data files, the operating system, and any other programs that are being used. 

Tip 2: Store the backups in a secure place. Fireproof and waterproof safes are good, off-site is better. Multiple copies provide an additional layer of protection and if the data files are not too large, USB drives make an excellent low cost backup.

Tip 3: Verify the backup to be certain that it can be read after the it's completed. The best insurance is backing up over the Internet to an off-site server. It's very cheap insurance and most internet based backup products run automatically so the backup is never forgotten.

Final Tip: Don’t procrastinate. Do a backup inventory today. None of us know when that next natural disaster is going to strike.