Is Your Data Worth a Lifetime Supply of FREE Beer? It is to Somebody!
I spotted an interesting story on the BBC website. A New Zealand brewery recently had a laptop stolen. The laptop itself is of little value, but the contact details, financial data and designs held on the laptop were critical to their business. The cost of replacing this data is so high they have offered a lifetime supply of free beer for the return of the data!
It sounds a bit like that mythical pint of Guinness that never empties.
My guess is that there must be a thief out there dealing with a lot of emotional turmoil – the free beer must be very tempting, but the risk of getting prosecuted must be pulling him the other way. What a problem to have.
There is a serious side to this story. It does graphically indicate the value of data held on PC’s and networks today. Many people undervalue the importance of the data we have and how difficult it is to replace. I must admit I don’t often give it a second thought either, but then again I do know that my laptop data and our business data are adequately backed up.
So here is a basic data security checklist for you:
- Do you know which data is critical to you and must be backed up? Not all your files will need to be backed up but as a bare minimum you should back up the essential files in My Documents and any files used by applications such as Sage.
- Is the critical data being backed up to a regular schedule? It depends how often the data is changed. For some people a weekly backup is enough. We backup every day so that we limit our potential data loss – it doesn’t cost any more to back up frequently.
- Is the backup taken off-site? There is little point in having a backup on the same system or office as they are both likely to be stolen or destroyed at the same time. This may seem unimportant “as it will never happen to you”, but we have had clients who have either been flooded, broken into and fire damaged. If you are running a daily tape most businesses ensure that somebody takes one home each night. If you are running our automated online backup you will have an offsite backup our server centre.
- Have you tested your backup? Everybody thinks that their backup is working without ever testing it. Unfortunately a lot of backups that we come across either back up the wrong data or none at all! A good analogy is my home video – frequently it isn’t set correctly so the wrong TV program is backed up or somebody else tapes over it! Make sure you test restore some of your data on a regular basis.
These questions are the absolute minimum that you should be able to say yes to. Ideally you should have a full Disaster Recovery Audit from us on an annual basis, or after any major system changes.
If you would like us to look at your Disaster Recovery plans give me a call on 01932 233 962.
Best regards.
Jim Simpson
Managing Director
Ziptech Services
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