 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Are You Prepared? Gary Taig garyt@melbpc.org.au |
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There is an important truth in the world of computing. Your computer will not keep on running for ever and ever. It will malfunction or die, or through component fatigue one day it will cease to operate. That may be months down the track - it may be tomorrow - but be assured it will happen.
The value we place upon our data almost always determines the habits we develop with respect to backing up that data. It certainly influences the way we plan - or don't plan - for disaster recovery. Once I worked in an office where the work of a hundred or more technical staff was backed up on the hour, every hour. It was fully automated; no human intervention required. At worst, that company was prepared to lose a few hundred hours work.
Any person can say "That's important data, we'd better back it up!" but how many of us actually do it? We pay lip service to the understanding we are using fragile equipment. We acknowledge that our computers can stop without warning and we may lose data, but we don't always do something about it and take the required precautions.
Don't feel badly. I'm not criticising those who don't back up. We operate in
varying circumstances and we use computers for an equally wide variety of purposes. If you don't mind
reinstalling all your software when disaster strikes and if you don't handle any critical data, backing up
for you could be a sheer waste of time. But, how many PCs have no stored notes or memos on the hard disk, no
school assignments, no quotes or proposals, no time sheets or financial records of any kind, no e-mail
settings and passwords etc and nothing else of any value? Think about it. Is there data on your computer you
need, or would prefer to keep?
Another Element
Just as there are degrees of importance placed upon the data stored on our machines there are also varying degrees of importance placed upon the computers themselves; specifically the operating systems. In recent years, as desktop PCs have become so powerful that they rival and often exceed the speed (not necessarily "performance") of the older, more expensive mainframe computers, we are at risk of leaving ourselves wide open to disaster even if we do regularly back up our essential data. We stand at risk of being sucked into a way of life where just about anything and everything can be replaced at reasonable cost, with minimal loss.
Systems such as Windows 98 will install very quickly, almost completely automatically, on a reasonably fast and modern PC. Plug and Play is a breeze, isn't it? Magic stuff. All you need do is prepare your hard drive for reinstallation, perhaps there will be a format or some repartitioning involved, then simply run your install program. When that's done you restore your valuable data from the floppies or CDs you created yesterday, last week, last month... you did, didn't you? Anyway, restore your data onto the hard drive and you're up and running in no time. A few hours lost, your backup policy vindicated and your computing life almost back to normal.
But, there are operating systems that take many hours, days and sometimes weeks to install and properly configure. Install a Windows NT or Windows 2000 network and tweak it over the months to the point where you have it set up exactly as you need it. Is this worth backing up? How much space would it need? Also, how long is it since your Windows 9x was installed? Could you estimate with any accuracy whatsoever the time needed to reinstate your machine's operating system, regardless of whether or not your important data is regularly backed up. How many special purpose programs have you installed? View the directory structure under \Program Files\ and this will remind you just how many programs you will need to reinstate.
It's important not just to say "yes, I understand" but to seriously address
the issue of system configuration and its reinstatement and come to terms with a real and constant exposure
to system downtime.
How Much Downtime Can You Afford?
The more sophisticated are your daily computing needs, the more sophisticated should be your equipment replacement and disaster recovery plan. We must not be fooled into thinking that all computer installations are as easy to reinstate as the home PC. Even if we do back up all our data, that is just a tiny part of the big picture. Is your company running a small to medium size network? Do you have a trained and professional network administrator caring for that investment?
The old mainframe computers, and there are still many of them around, they often had security and disaster recovery built-in to the point where if one part of the machine broke down, another part simply took over. There are many designs but the manufacturers of those systems knew and understood the importance of minimum downtime. They designed their machines to be solid, secure and able to continue providing that all important computing power.
That is definitely not so with the modern day desktop PC. The PC of
today is very much a throw-away item.
False Sense of Security
The outstanding speed of modern PCs at extremely low cost produces a tendency for us to be lulled into that false sense of security. Backing up just your important data is not always a good idea. Think about the essential data. One day you will be faced with the prospect of recreating a complete setup, be it home or office, and that's the day you'll need more than just a few floppies or CD-ROMs of data. That will also be the day you are in the middle of an urgent job and take it from me, there are no magic wands. Recently I lost my server in the middle of PC Update production and I have backup CDs coming out of my ears, but they were no help when I had to reinstate the network itself. That ended up taking several days.
Do you have a network of PCs, perhaps a few, perhaps dozens, maybe even hundreds - they can be spread over one or more buildings. There may be a number of network servers and in many cases, almost every person in your organisation will have a PC at their desk or workstation. Many networks like this are installed and running, having grown over a period of time from initially a very modest installation, to a decent sized network that should have a full time, professional administrator.
Spare a moment to calculate the daily cost of not having that network running and then ask a professional to quote both cost and time delay on re-establishing the whole thing from scratch. The real question I'm asking here is "Can you afford not to be prepared?", because you'll pay the price, one way or another.
Make it a high priority to determine exactly what is involved in restoring
your system to running order and how much of that you can offset by backing up a few extra files. Disaster
recovery disks are not just a gimmick, they exist for good reason. Find out precisely what is on a recovery
disk, and why, and then find out how often they should be refreshed. That alone may save your backside. Above
all, don't believe that just by backing up those important data files every day, that you're protected.
Reprinted from the March 2001 issue of PC Update, the
magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
