Chris Allen

Watch our short video guide below – giving you the rundown on the most common types of Backup which can benefit your business:

A Step Forward

So, you’ve decided that backup would be good for your business, that’s a step in the right direction. However, with so many backup options available it can be more than a little overwhelming to figure out what it is exactly what you would need! That’s why we’ve done the grunt work for you! We’ve collated everything you need to know about different types of backup and translated it from the technical jargon into a form that most normal people will understand.

Take a look below at the different types of online backup available.

 

Full Backup:

This is typically what people think of when they hear the term backup. This consists of backing the whole file or database each time a backup is performed. Generally, these are used at the start of a regular period for a business’ backup and then other backup types are used to add to this and avoid long backup times. These days after the first full backup, later full backups are synthetic in that they are created from existing full and incremental backups. Also, a full backup can mean an entire file, not necessarily the entire machine.

Pros:	Cons:
– Standalone backup you can restore from – Quick and easy to Restore – Enable you to restore data	– Takes longer than an incremental

 

Incremental Backup:

After a full backup is performed, incremental backups can be used, these will only backup any changes detected from the previous full or incremental backup – thus reducing the time needed to backup.

The downsides to this used to be that the restores would take longer as it would restore the full backup, then an incremental, then another etc. However due to the advancements in backup technology that is no longer an issue – you can now simply choose where you want the backup to restore from, this is due to the increments not being kept on separate disks anymore.

Pros:	Cons:
– Much quicker than performing full backups – Will only backup additional changes	– Not standalone used in conjunction with a full backup – If one increment is lost/corrupted, then a   full restore past that point isn’t possible

Files and Folders:

As the name suggests this is backup specifically targeted at protecting data held in folders, files, documents etc. According to Solarwinds MSP 70% of workstations are not backed up, despite this people are constantly storing important data locally. Backing up these files don’t take long at all, depending on file sizes of course, is fairly cheap and can easily be backed multiple times a day. A big benefit of this service is that you can access and restore your files from anywhere and so comes with more utility than just backup. Most backup software will have an option to backup just files/folders meaning you also have the choice to suit your needs.

Pros:	Cons:
– Simplest Backup Type – Individual files can easily be restored – Restore to anywhere	– Doesn’t protect the operating system. – Or Applications

 

Application:

This type of backup is used to backup application data, for example this is commonly used for databases or email systems where data is not held in flat files. Application backup is usually an option from a more advanced backup software. This type of backup simplifies the process of managing database and the log files which both need to be managed simultaneously.

Granularity, rather than restoring an entire mail server, gives you the ability to restore a single email account for example. Features like this are important/convenient for businesses that have email accounts with a lot of important information on them, or other similar databases. Depending on the application you use will depend on how easy it is to find backup software that is compatible with it. For example, more obscure database services will be harder to accommodate compared to something more common, like MS SQL.

Application backup software often allows for a targeted restore which reduces the time significantly compared to a full restore. Again, this makes it easier to accommodate to your time frame/needs.

Pros:	Cons:
– Application specific – Simplifies the process – Special features per application	– Not all applications are catered for – Software can require additional licenses

 

Bare Metal:

A bare metal backup is used when a whole server restore is needed. This goes as far as restoring the operating system, hardware drivers and optionally all the data. Everything is restored which is why it’s called ‘bare metal’, as in the hard disk in the usual medium on which a computers OS is installed on. This is generally only used when hardware failure, major corruption or a particularly bad virus is present.

The system must be restored to a state prior to this. This isn’t usually a common occurrence. This of course takes much longer than a regular full backup as there is much more to copy/restore.

Pros:	Cons:
– Quicker and easier than installing and              configuring the OS – Can restore a whole system – Good for server hardware failure – Good against corruption/viruses	– Usually only Windows – Additional cost involved

 

Archive:

This style of backup will create archived versions of data at fixed intervals for example at the financial year end. You can then go back to that point in time to review data if you ever need to. Generally, backups have a 30-day data retention period, i.e. the period of time from which you could choose to restore from. An archive backup is designed to be kept much longer, maybe indefinitely. Archival backups are useful for adhering to legal and compliance obligations.

 

Pros:	Cons:
– Archiving offers a lot of utility if it is needed – Management of historical data	– Data storage requirements increase the      more points in time you are required to         keep – Additional cost involved

General Pointers:

For all the above services it’s usually fairly standard for a 30-day retention period for the data, this is to balance storage costs with usefulness of the backup. Sometimes it can take days or weeks to realise that data has become corrupt or is missing, if you only keep backups for seven days this would be a problem.  It is possible to have shorter retention periods if it suits your needs but 9 times out of 10 the 30 days is a good starting point.

Often you can unlock additional features in backup software with the purchase of additional licenses, which means you don’t have to change your software completely every time your requirements change.

 

Still Not Sure What You Need?

There is a lot of information to take in and while we’ve only gone over the basics of which each type of backup is/what it does, it’s perfectly reasonable to still not be quite sure what is best for you, it can be a pretty overwhelming topic if you don’t have much previous knowledge about it. Not to worry if that’s the case, just drop us an email or give us a call and we’ll be happy to help you out! You can get our contact information/make an enquiry here.

 

Want to Know More?

If you want to know more about any of the mentioned services, how they can be best used in your business or more technical info such as specifications we’ll be releasing another guide in the near future covering all of this! Alternatively, you can look at the backup product pages of our website.

Watch our short video guide, introducing you to the basics of online backup:

An Ever Present Threat

We all know that data loss can be the cause of devastating issues for business of all sizes, with potentially crippling after effects. You could have heard about it on the news or online, had it happened to someone you know or maybe even have suffered from it yourself.

Think if you’ve ever lost a lot of family photos from your camera or computer and how bad it felt when you realised, you’d lost them for good – wishing you’d copied them over to your computer beforehand. The same thing applies to your business’ data.

The worst part of data loss is that it can happen at any time, to anyone without any warning. Have you ever given any thought to what would happen to your business if you were hit by unexpected data loss? In a best-case scenario, it can be frustrating, and in a worst-case scenario the results can be devastating – particularly if you’re business is dependent on that data, like databases of customer information or internal resources used by yourself or staff regularly.

Imagine the potential cost, not just monetary, but the potentially considerable time it would take to get back to your current point. Would your downtime cause new customers not to be able to use you? Or maybe existing customers might leave because they need the service regularly?

There is a solution that can prevent all of this and is quite simple.

Backup your data!

Backing up your data on a regular basis should be part of any business’, no matter the size, standard operating procedure and is one of the best ways of protecting your business’ data. This can be particularly important for small businesses where all your data could be stored on one machine or server.

So, what exactly is backup?

Well the basic concept of it is creating a copy of whatever data you want to protect and storing it in a different location to the original, this acts a level of additional security and means that if the original is lost or damaged in some way you can restore back to that version you saved. This could be, on the simplest of levels, just keeping copies of things on a external hard drive. Of course, with an increased scale, frequency and importance of data comes more complications in infrastructure needed – which can often be too time-consuming or out of your area of expertise. This is where fully managed backup service providers, like us, come in to play.

Data loss can come from a variety of sources including:

• – Corruption
• – Viruses/Malware
• – Accidental Loss/Damage
• – Malicious Loss/Damage
• – Theft
• – Floods/Fires etc.

 

Online Backup

Businesses like us provide services to keep your data securely for you, we have the infrastructure and security measures in place to ensure that your data remains safe and sound. Advancements in internet services mean online backup can now be used as one of the best options for protecting your data uploading your data directly via the internet to a cloud or server which then allows for access and restores from anywhere.

Online backup is particularly useful for defending your business from all of these. A couple of shocking stats for you: according to Iron Mountain, data loss has increased by 400% since 2012. Also according to Boston Computing, 60% of business who have experienced data loss shut down within 6 months after. Scary stuff.

Backing up your data is easy.  But forgetting to backup is also just as easy. At HA Hosting we’ll ensure your data is safe, so you can focus on running your business.

Got a Question?

If you have any questions about how online backup could be used to benefit your business or anything else that we could help with just give us a shout and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can!