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Let’s face it, the most important asset your business has is data – without it, your business could be lost. Given that, it’s surprising how many businesses don’t do enough to protect this incredibly valuable asset. Whether your business is small or large, it is imperative to have a data backup and recovery strategy in place so you’re not scrambling to put something together after a data loss or breach occurs. With such a plan, you can have your systems backed up and running quickly even in a worst-case scenario.

Here at my PC Techs, data backup and recovery are just two of the many computer maintenance functions we perform for our clients, from both a prevention and recovery perspective. Today’s blog will deal with the various types of data backup, how they are different, and the need to maintain and update your data on an ongoing basis; our next post will deal with the recovery process.

Overview

Let’s go over a few terms before we get too far into the types of backups. First off, a data backup is simply a copy of all your business’ records and data, stored in a storage system that is separate from your regular business operating system. This could be in the cloud, an off-site storage facility, or in a separate, on-site location. These backups can take many forms depending on what you are backing up, how secure it needs to be and how quickly you may need to retrieve it in the event of a data loss, hardware failure or theft. With the proper system, you will be able to restore data to your business computers or servers quickly, so your business is equipped to continue operating seamlessly.

Even the most comprehensive data backup and recovery plan is useless, however, if you don’t back up the data frequently – if you suffer a data loss event and the last backup was a week or 10 days prior, you have just taken a giant step backward.

Types of Backup

There are four primary types of backup, each of which has its own specific benefits and levels of security. These types of backup are data; system; database; and e-mail. Let’s take a closer look at each of these types of backup and exactly what each of them protects.

Data Backup

A data backup is exactly what it sounds like – it makes copies of your business’ files from their desktops or work stations and assures that data and information your company needs to operate is secure and available. Data backups are a good general solution to keep your business up and running in case of a data loss or breach, but does not back up your operating system, databases, or e-mail, any of which could be lost in a hard drive failure. It does, however, give your employees access to all their work files, and the primary cause of data loss is human error – accidentally deleting a file.

System Backup

While a data backup provides a baseline level of protection, a far more comprehensive solution is a system backup. This goes well beyond a standard data backup, saving operating systems, programs and settings as well. With a system backup, should you suffer from hardware failure or theft, a computer’s entire operating system can be restored including all the software and configurations. It also is an excellent tool to have in the event of a software upgrade: by constantly updating and saving your system settings, it allows you to implement changes in the system and know there is a reliable backup in place to protect you from crashes or accidental data loss. System updates are generally ran nightly and, in the event of a server with mirroring RAID drives, in real-time.

Database Backup

This is exactly what it sounds like – a copy of the back-end databases for your production software or servers. Any business that relies on a software solution to manage projects, accounting, or reaching out to clients or prospects on a regular basis should consider this type of backup. Like a system backup, this too is a “snapshot” backup that saves everything up to the moment of the last backup. With this type of backup, you also will have access to the backup to restore your database without affecting other system operations.

E-Mail Backup

E-mail is an extremely important communication tool for modern business. Most businesses use email heavily all day long, both to respond to incoming messages, as well as searching previous messages to recall prior conversations. And e-mail data is lost more often than you think, but not from servers crashing or hard drives failing. The most common way e-mail in formation is lost is by human error: accidentally hitting the delete button on an e-mail message or contact. To protect against this, my PC Techs recommends backing up your e-mail so your contacts, messages, calendars and other vital information can be retrieved in case of either a system failure or human error.

Which Backup Option is Best for Your Company?

Obviously if your budget allows it, implementing all these backup options provides your business the greatest security. The cost of these services varies depending on the size of your network. If you are looking for computers experts who are capable of helping you setup and manage the correct backup solutions for your business at a fair price, you’ve come to the right place. my PC Techs has delivered expert IT solutions you can trust for over 15 years and we can help develop, install, and implement a data backup and recovery plan that is capable of handling virtually any event.

We do work for several restaurants and retail stores here in Phoenix, Arizona. These shops are all using windows based point of sale systems. While the software and database that run on the computers to transact credit card payments and process menu items are highly customized and supported by the franchise in most cases, the underlying operating system and hardware is not.

We have learned a lot about these systems and can say with certainty that the biggest issues we have run into are lack of proper backups and lack of spare hardware. When a point of sale system goes down for a store, especially a busy store, it is NO FUN. Employees need to process payments manually by hand and write out paper receipts. As you can imagine, the slowdown at the register does a lot to aggravate customers and employees alike. But there are three things that you can do as a retail store business owner to minimize downtime in the event of a system crash.

1. Perform regular system maintenance

Hiring a firm like my PC Techs to regularly maintain your equipment each month can save you from several hours worth of headache and hundreds or thousands of dollars in lost sales. Our technicians will visit your store and examine your systems for irregular performance. System errors, faulty hardware, failing hard drives, botched OS updates, and corrupted data can, in many cases, be identified and corrected before it becomes a larger problem. Dust can be cleaned out (the largest cause of hardware failure), and parts inspected. Unnecessary programs can be removed and system performance improved. The best part of this scenario, the repairs can be performed before or after regular hours, so customers never experience delay.

2. Perform regular, complete data backups

Usually during the same time as the system maintenance, our technicians can perform a complete data backup of all of your POS systems. This is important. When a hard drive crashes, you want to get your system back online as quickly as possible. To rebuild an entire system, restore data from on off site repository, and get all the hardware and software working correctly could take many hours. With a complete system backup, it could be as simple as popping in the right piece of replacement hardware and running a 30 minute recovery.

3. Identify and build an inventory of replacement parts

When a system failure happens, recovery time can be improved considerably when the right spare parts are kept on hand. Rather than buying hard to find computer equipment online, and waiting for it to be shipped, a replacement part can be obtained from storage and quickly installed to replace the broken component. That part can later be replaced to storage, so you always have a backup on hand for the next time disaster strikes.

When you think about the security of your data and your ability to transact business, keep in mind your local computer experts and ways that they can work with you to help improve the reliability of your computer operations. For help with the maintenance and emergency support of your POS systems, contact my PC Techs today. (602) 456-0150.

The modern office is definitely an amazing thing to watch. Emailing, scanning, printing, digital document processing, online database systems, more. What isn’t done via computer in today’s office? As a business owner or manager in charge of running an office, it’s important to remember that productivity in a digital office is often directly tied to the computers that power the office. Office productivity can be boosted significantly with simple technology upgrades. When is the last time the computer systems in your office were upgraded? What about the network? ISP? Accessories, such as printers, scanners, copiers? How about recently added mobile computing technologies (laptops, smartphones)?

It is important for your office to stay up to date with the latest technologies. When humans using computers power the majority of the operations in your office, it makes sense that faster computers will allow for faster work and increased productivity. Computers that have become old and slow due to age act as a handicap to your employees, and will hold them back from performing at higher levels. In addition, the speed factor is not the only negative that comes from using old technology. Older computers, networks and accessories are more prone to fail, causing office staff to take time away from work to focus on bugs, viruses, errors, and repairs.

Every office should maintain a reasonable technology budget that allocates a reasonable amount of money to spend, every year, on technology upgrades. When planning this budget, you should go beyond simply looking to replace computers that break. You should be looking to make upgrades that will increase office productivity. Simple things like replacing still working old computers with faster units, installing faster printers, giving employees access to email while in the field via laptops or smartphones. In addition to upgrades, your budget should include regular maintenance. A technician should visit on a regular basis, as often as once per week. Your technician should keep your computers updated, solve minor errors, and perform cleanup tasks to increase performance. That will limit the amount of time office staff must spend fiddling with computers and will allow them to focus on their work.

Ultimately, faster computers in your office will allow your office to perform more efficiently. You will process more work and, as a result, your business will have the capacity to grow further and faster than ever before.

Can anyone name a small business, or any business for that matter, that doesn’t rely upon technology for day to day operations? Computers play such an integrated role in our lives. Much like automobiles, it is important to maintain your computers and run periodic checks on them to avoid failure.

When doing routine system maintenance, there are several different areas of the computer that should be checked for potential problems. The operating system itself, installed software, updates and patches, anti-virus definitions, the network settings, the system fans, dust levels, hard disk drives, backups, and external devices! Some are more important than others. For example, if your hard drive fails, you could face some very costly data recovery issues. Dust is another one, dust and heat are the biggest killers of electronic components. A competent computer repair firm will have a checklist of items that a technician will run through, the hard drive and dust levels being just one of those, to ensure optimal performance.

Not to get stuck on the automobile analogy, but it’s so easy to do comparisons between that and computer repair. If you forget to change your oil, over time your engine suffers. If you go long enough, eventually your engine will fail. Computer maintenance is the same way. A lot of clients have come to us with failed hard drives. Sometimes we can get their data off pretty easily and recover their systems. In the worst cases, those hard drives need to be sent off to a lab where data recovery becomes extremely costly. Client with crashed hard drives are usually surprised when we tell them that the crash could have been avoided. There are warning signs that most equipment will give when things go bad, and the signs usually begin a while before the actual crash takes place. For hard drives, it could be slow performance, errors while working, errors in system logs, or even clicking or grinding sounds. Most computer fans make noises too when they are about to fail.

Our experts service and repair machines and are experienced in the different ways you can identify computer problems. If you hire a team of professionals that know how to keep your computers working, and have them come out monthly for a quick checkup, you too will be able to keep working. For most people, computer failures usually happen at the worst possible time. Like, right before an important project deadline. If your computer suddenly crashes or the network is not working you may lose work and income. All of this could be avoided with just a couple hours of preventative maintenance per month.

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