The amount of data on business computers has grown astronomically over the past few decades. If a company loses this data, business grinds to a halt. The following tips can help you select the hardware and software you need to safeguard the integrity of your data, guarantee accurate restores, and manage backups without placing an undue burden on IT personnel.
Top Ten Data Protection Tips for SMBs Once upon a time, a small or medium business (SMB) could protect all its important data by copying a handful of important files onto backup media and tossing it in a desk drawer. Things aren't that simple today. The amount of data on business computers has grown astronomically over the past few decades. Many SMBs now have databases, file servers, and e-mail systems with constantly changing data that is crucial to day-to-day business operations. If a company loses this data, business grinds to a halt. A reliable data protection strategy is built on two key components: proven, dependable storage hardware, and backup and recovery software tailored to the needs of SMBs. The following tips can help you select the hardware and software you need to safeguard the integrity of your data, guarantee accurate restores, and manage backups without placing an undue burden on IT personnel. 1. Step up to RAID Storing data on a server disk or a non-RAID external disk array leaves you vulnerable to data loss as a result of hardware failure. A failed disk could cause you to lose all the vital business information created after your previous backup. Storing backups on a RAID disk array, such as the EMC CLARiiON AX150, provides SMBs with a new level of advanced functionality and data protection. The high degree of redundancy inherent in RAID protects your data against disk, component, or power failure. With RAID you don't have to worry about losing important information. Applications continue running, and your employees remain productive. 2. Take advantage of shared storage Consolidate your storage. A shared storage solution is efficient and convenient. A disk array eliminates the need to constantly monitor storage on individual servers. It avoids the expense and inconvenience of acquiring too much storage for some computers and too little for others. Monitor storage for multiple computers from one central location. Allocate or reassign disk space to multiple computers quickly and conveniently based on each computer's requirements without having to purchase new disks for each computer. If a computer is not making full use of the disk space allocated to it, simply reassign the storage to another computer with a few easy steps without having to manually shuffle disks between servers. 3. Be sure your storage can scale to meet your needs As a business grows, so does the amount of data needed for day-to-day activities. Is your storage scalable? Will your storage solution grow as your company expands? An SMB needs the flexibility to quickly and easily increase disk space for shared storage or backup capabilities. To provide backup storage for other servers, desktops, or notebooks, your shared storage solution must be easily expandable to deliver additional storage capacity. Select a storage option, for example a shared storage disk array, that enables you to easily add extra disks or upgrade to higher capacity disks as available storage space is consumed. 4. Choose iSCSI or Fibre Channel Whether you opt to use iSCSI or Fibre Channel depends on the needs of your business. iSCSI is a natural choice for most SMBs. It keeps costs down by using commodity cables with standard GigE ports and switches, which are also easier to set up and configure for most IT departments. Fibre Channel switches and cables are more expensive and require more expertise to install and manage, but Fibre Channel is a better choice for environments that demand a consistently high level of performance. 5. Protect everything Select business-class backup software, such as EMC Retrospect, that protects more than just files and folders. Backup software should protect all your computers, support the most popular operating systems, and back up all the data necessary to restore your computer in the event of a failure. Some backup strategies protect only file servers and business-critical application servers. A complete backup strategy needs to protect servers, desktops, and notebooks, which can remain unprotected because they are often not connected to the network during scheduled daily backups. Protection should also encompass the operating systems, device drivers, applications, application settings, and user settings on the computers in your network. When a computer fails, you shouldn't be forced to spend countless hours locating applications
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