AKRON BEACON JOURNAL (OH)
Business Section
August 25, 2003
HACKERS, VIRUSES, FIRES, FLOODS, BLACKOUTS POSE DANGER
BACK UP CRUCIAL DATA
PAYROLL, CLIENT LISTS NEED SECURITY
Erika D. Smith, Beacon Journal staff writer
Save early, save often.
It's simple advice. But complicated is the only way to describe the mess business owners could face if they don't follow it.
Electronic information is the heart of almost every company, so implementing a way to protect it is crucial, experts say. An office can always be replaced, but years of payroll files, client lists and other vital data can't.
"Small to medium-sized businesses never think about this stuff," said Dorian Cougias, lead author of The Backup Book.
Companies that don't backup the files on their computer servers are really playing Russian roulette. In this game, though, hackers, viruses, fires, floods, blackouts and other disasters replace bullets.
There are plenty of ways to avoid shooting yourself -- some of them cheap and some of them expensive, said John Reinmann, president of Area 51 Consulting.
Businesses that operate 24/7 may need to duplicate their data every hour. Others may settle for once a week.
"It really comes down to risk assessment," he said. "Where's your most critical data?"
A layered approach -- if you can afford it -- is probably the best way to keep up-to-date and easily accessible records, Cougias said.
Companies should start with a firewall, and anti-virus and anti-spam programs to keep out attackers. A hardware protection system should be in place, too, Cougias said, who's also president of the Silicon Valley consulting firm Network Frontiers.
The latter task often falls to RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks. ("I" originally stood for inexpensive.) The software comes with most moderately priced servers and works as a backup system for files on a network.
"RAID technology protects you in case of a disk failure," Reinmann said.
RAID creates a mirror image of information that's saved on a server. RAID 5 goes one step further, in that it splits the saved information across several hard drives. If one server drive fails, a company can retrieve the information from the other drive or drives.
The other side of hardware protection is installing an uninterruptable power supply (UPS). That could be a battery or a gas-powered generator.
"UPS allows users to shut down the system properly," Reinmann said about this month's multistate blackout. "When the power came back on, they turned the system back on and there was no data lost."
Many corporate and home users who got caught in the blackout didn't have a powerful enough UPS system, Cougias said. Newer computers and servers use more electricity, so it may be a good idea to reassess your emergency power device.
But even with a generator, business owners won't come out ahead if a tornado rips servers or computers to shreds. That's why keeping duplicates of critical files is important. Backing up files
The most common way to backup files is on what looks like an 8mm videotape. Each tape holds about 20 gigabytes of data and costs about $20.
Companies with bigger budgets may opt for bigger and faster DLTtapes. Depending on the compression rate, each $80 tape can hold as much as 80 gigabytes. Super DLTtapes can hold 220 gigabytes.
Ideally, Reinmann said, every company should copy all of their files to tape at least once a week. Plus, at a certain hour every day, IT professionals should back up every file that has changed.
That means, if a flood washes in at 2 p.m. and a company backs up files every day at 10 a.m., that business would lose about four hours worth of whatever data its employees changed.
Time constraints are another issue because backing up data takes time. It's best to do it when employees aren't at work, he said. That's not possible for some businesses, though.
"Snapshots" are good for business networks that are changing constantly.
Cougias compared them to frames in a movie. Every time a server is backed up on tape, the system takes a snapshot. That captures the network at a certain point in time, meaning IT professionals know where to look when they want to retrieve a specific file.
Even concerned companies usually don't take snapshots, run RAID, use tape and subscribe to a fourth layer of protection called Net vaulting, Reinmann said.
"Vaulting" is the way companies store data that has been backed up. Hiring companies to handle it can be expensive -- up to several hundred thousand dollars a month.
Boston-based Iron Mountain is a leading provider of physical vaulting. It can keep tapes and records in a private, underground vault, or download the data electronically and store it.
SunGard, on the other hand, specializes in Net vaulting, or what the company calls "high availability." This service lets clients back up their data in real-time on a dedicated SunGard server.
A company can choose how often it wants to back up. But the instantaneous data flow basically creates a mirror image that can kick in automatically if the company's server fails, said Dave Palermo, vice president of marketing.
"It's really about keeping people and information connected," he said.
SunGard also dabbles in a more basic service, which requires companies to make their own backup tapes. If a disaster happens, though, clients can bring the tapes to SunGard and temporarily restore their computer network there.
The idea is to get companies back online -- even partially -- as fast as possible. Time is money and businesses can lose both if they don't prepare for the worst.
"Without your data, there's not much we can do to help you," Palermo said.
