6 Data Backup Mistakes You Need To Avoid

Data is essential to all organizations, regardless of whether it is a small or large enterprise. Data is the center of operations in an organization. Data backup is, therefore, a detrimental task if the management is to ensure the continuity of their business. Businesses will set aside a budget for data protection: which means it is for a reasonable cost.

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Investing in backup solutions, which some like ottomatik.io are advanced, is a smart move. However, there are some common mistake that may cost you all your data protection efforts and worse still, lead to data loss that may incur losses for your business. The following are six mistakes that you need to be wary of during data backup.

1.    Not verifying backup:

You do not want to get shocked after four months of thinking that you have your data backed up, only to find that it is not. Top avoid his problem, you need to make sure that your backup software is backing up what you intend to. That said, you need to verify the time, date and the content that you need to be backed up. Also, it is vital that you confirm that the backup is complete: in case any errors occur, you will be able to identify and correct them. Finally, verify that you can be able to restore the data that has been written during the backup.

2.    Mishandling the transaction logs:

Note that for you to be able to restore an exchange database, the transaction logs need to be in good shape. If the logs are lost or damaged, your chances of restoring your data are zero. Nevertheless, that does not mean all is lost; you have the options to restore the logs first, then you can restore your data. It is for this reason that you should not remove log files by yourself; it is the work of the Exchange IS process to delete and truncate the log files: after an incremental or a full back up.  Also, another the alternative safety measure you can take is to transfer transaction logs to a separate location before you make data recovery.

3.    Employing the wrong backup method:

There are significant categories of backup, that is, offline backup and online backup. Online backup is most preferred during production processes. Why? It is because online backup will keep a continual copy of the Exchange databases without getting in the way of the access of the user. On the other hand, offline backup is best used when you want to install an Exchange or a Windows service pack. Note that performing offline backup may be more time consuming than an online backup. It is safer for you to perform regular offline backup and also production back up on the routine.

4.    Not backing up all your data:

What makes this harmful? You might think or feel that you have backed up all the info you deem critical to the organisation, only to find out later that there are missing pieces information: essential information for that matter. While doing a backup, do not just focus on the data present in PCs, if your staff is also using mobile phones, any data on the devices should also be backed up. Emails too contain essential pieces of information; you should consider including these in your data backup plan. No information should be left out!

5.    Not practicing:

One mistake that most managers make is waiting until disaster strikes to run up and down trying to learn how to restore data. This should happen before any risk occurs. Last minute will do you more harm than good, as you may end up also losing the data you are trying to recover. The best time to familiarise yourself with how to retrieve information is before any problem occurs. Practice makes perfect! You can get even by VMware Workstation, create a test server and use it to practice data restoration. You must learn how to put your preferred backup program to restore data to the original server and also a different server.  Also, you will always need to keep your CD-ROMs for product installation in safe locations. More so, a regular practice for recovering items that you may be required to recover if an actual outage takes place is. Practising in advance will be worth every second you used when trouble occurs!

6.    Not giving back up enough time:

Let no one lie to you that backup is a one-time process. It does take time. Underestimating the time that a restore will take will only leave the user disgruntled after violating service level agreements as a result of too much anticipation. By doing more restores and being able to accurately determine the time a restore may take will help you become familiar with the process and also be able to mitigate any problems that may occur along the way.

Avoid the mentioned mistakes, and your data backup should be error-free.