9.2.1 Assessing Backup Needs

Before planning network backup methods, you should comprehend the organization's backup and restoration needs. Inquiries, for example, the following may help in surveying the necessities that you should meet:

a)   How dynamic is the data stored on the servers? How regularly does it change, and in what ways does it change?

b)  How much data should be backed up, and at what rate is the amount of data developing?

c)   How much time is accessible to make the backup? Ensure that you maintain a strategic distance from circumstances where you have to backup terabytes of data utilizing a framework that can deal with just megabytes per hour.

d)  If an incomplete or complete restoration from a backup is required, how rapidly should it happen? As a dependable guideline, restoring data takes about twice the length backing it up, while in some cases the times might be approximately equal. As it were, whether it takes your backup framework 10 hours overnight to backup the whole network, it will take 10 to 20 hours to restore that data—and this evaluation does exclude the time required to determine whatever issue made it important to restore data in any case.

e)   How logical does the backed up data should be? As it were, does a collection of data files should be taken care of as a solitary unit? For instance, an directory containing a cluster of word processing documents isn't appallingly reasonable; you can restore one, numerous, or every one of them without much worry about how those reclamations will affect different documents. Then again, a collection of database documents for a top of the line database is regularly futile unless you can restore all of the documents in the set, from exactly the very same point in time. (Top of the line databases, for example, Oracle's—that require this sort of backup will have their own detailed guidelines for how backups must be made.)

f)   What is the required exchange off amongst expense and recoverability? You can outline backup frameworks that work moment to moment so that if something fizzles, the frameworks won't lose any data, and administration can put a high level of trust in this. (A bank, for example, requires this sort of top of the line backup framework.) Still, such backup frameworks cost a great deal of cash and require a considerable measure of administration. Most organizations would happily exchange that kind of compelling expense for some lower level of recoverability, for example, every night backups of the framework. What does your organization need and what is it willing to pay for?

g)   How numerous levels of redundancy does the organization need in its backups? Most backups are made onto tapes and bolster servers that utilization RAID arrays, so the tapes are really the second level of security. At times, many tapes might be required, each with a different duplicate of the backup. On the other hand another approach for greatest redundancy is to duplicate backups to an off-site storage organization over some kind of network association.

At the point when making your appraisal, it is imperative to include the senior administration of your organization in the process. At the very least, you ought to exhibit your discoveries and look for administration's conformity or participation.