Being Responsible With Data Storage Management
The computer has become an integral portion of every business; the data on the computer is even more valuable. Having responsible data storage management is a must, especially when the importance of the information is considered. A back up plan will cover every piece of equipment and detail what must be done when there is a hardware or systems failure. Understanding about redundancy, offsite storage, and disaster recovery is important to ensure proper management of data.
A systems engineer will often be tasked with implementing a backup and recovery plan for the vital servers within a company. Shared network storage servers provide a great way to avoid loss of data when a single user’s computer hard drive fails. Proper data storage controls will account for where data is stored and also the frequency with which it is backed up. Shared servers will be backed up on a nightly bases, either to a SAN (Storage Area Network) or directly to tape; tape backups are a necessary part of the process as it the disks for provide a means of obtaining offsite storage. Offsite storage becomes important in the catastrophic event that the building or server room is demolished or servers end up being destroyed. The importance of the data often dictates how often it is backed up and what level of redundancy is used.
A simple plan calls for information servers to be backed up nightly to a backup server; this backup server can be used to immediately replace data that was lost within a day or two. Once past the two day window, the backup server information is often transferred to tape; the tapes are used when data must be retrieved that is weeks or months old. The simple data storage management plan is successful, because of the redundancy involved.