I constantly use my email account as an online storage, I would rather store my importnat files not only in my cd’s and hard disk – hard disk might fail, same story for CD, and you know its always much simpler to do a search with gmail for your improtant files than to start with “where did I put that CD?”. This is where the freeware software Backup To EMail comes into action, it will make the backups you do to your emails so simple you will never stop using it, and one day you will thank that program, one of these days you are going to loose some files and you will search for them, and with this software a quick search in gmail will make you find it. The installation of the software is very simple (just next next next), Then just fill simple details (you can use any email address other than gmail ofcourse, yahoo which offers unlimited storage). And immediately start backing up. Quickly create backups of your files/folders to your email account. This freeware, Backup To EMail, provides you with the ability to send files/folders directly to your email account. For GMail is most easy, you just enter your gmail details and then you can right click any file or folder and by choosing “Backup To Email” a progress bar will appear and you will be able to upload files directly to your gmail account. The pro version (only $9.95 for lifetime) allows you to schedule backups to your email account. That means you can choose a certain folder and a certain scheduling period (for example every day at 09:00pm) and this folder will be sent as a zip file to your email account. The free version is freely enabled for life and allows you the right click functionality, automatic retries in case of failures, the pro version adds to this scheduling, zip with password of files, split merge of files (in case they are too big as attachments). It’s able to send .exe files and files which are not usually accepted by emails, that means your files are always sent to your email. It presents a nice progress bar where you can see the progress of the backup. Home site: http://backup2e.com
At any given moment disaster may strike. Many of us sit thinking we are safe at home, or in that cushy office chair, but the simple truth is that problems happen. Be it an earthquake, a fire, a flood, or something as simple as a power outage, disasters may come; and when they do our illusion of safety is often shattered.
When it comes to enterprise, it really surprises me how many businesses don’t have a plan to cope with problems. As simple power outage is sometimes all it takes to cause a business to close up shop for the day, and wait for someone else to provide the solution. That of course is the simplest type of problem, what happens when that same business is faced with a fire or a flood?
The truth of the matter is that planning for disaster is important to be able to maintain operations in the face of a problem. Without a proper plan in place, many businesses suddenly find themselves unable to continue when faced with disaster. The management and employees suddenly find themselves without an income, and that customer base that they worked so hard to build begins to turn elsewhere while the business works to recover. Proper planning is the most important element in maintaining business continuity when problems occur.
WHAT IS BUSINESS CONTINUITY?
Before we look at how to plan for disaster let’s first define business continuity. The term itself can become rather obscure if you account for everyone’s idea of what it is. So to start let’s look at the definition.
According to the United Nations Archive and Records Management, business continuity is: Procedures to ensure an organization’s ability to continue operating outside of normal operating conditions.
Creating a continuity plan then becomes: the procedures taken, right now, to maintain your business when it is faced with problems tomorrow. It is planning for the worst, by ensuring you can continue no matter what may occur. It is ensuring that, when a problem occurs your business maintains its ability to deal with customers, suppliers, and to continue to generate revenue.
DATA BACKUPS FOR BUSINESS CONTINUITY
Most businesses today are completely reliant on their computers for day-to-day operations. So the first step in creating a continuity plan is to ensure those systems are there when you need them. Often this is as simple as backing up your data.
For a business where their systems rely on a single point of sale system, backing up is as simple as performing daily backups of that system. This will ensure that is a disaster (a fire for example) occurs; all that is required is to find another computer and restore the system.
It’s when businesses rely on networks, and interoffice networks that things tend to get more complicated (at least from the managements point of view). They look at their 23 PC’s housed in office, the two servers that those computers rely upon, and the 10 laptops that their field works use, and are overwhelmed. This is often the reason why a backup plan was never put into place.
Even for that type of enterprise situation, backing up doesn’t have to be difficult. There are software solutions, such as our own data backup software, that allow for simple backup of PC’s across the network, and even from remote locations. When a problem occurs, any computer on the network can be brought back online using a simple point-in-time restore with a few clicks of the mouse.
When it comes to enterprise having a plan to maintain business continuity is important. As a first step, a proper computer backup plan is the right way to get started. With the ability to easily restore important systems and data, you enable your business to continue while the business next door, who didn’t take the same steps, is struggling to get going again.
How in the world do you decide what type of computer backup software to use? There are many different types of software out there. Some of it will need to be purchased separately, but there are also programs that come bundled with the computer backup hardware that you will be using. While these are not always the best programs, they still get the job done – although without all the usual bells and whistles. They are also likely to be better than some of the programs that you get with external hard drives for example.
Of course, you do not need backup software in order to backup your computer. You can always just go into it with some CDRs or DVDs and manually choose exactly which files to save and which ones to leave behind. However, this can rapidly get tedious and it’s easy to skip over or forget certain files or folders – that’s the very last thing you want to happen in case of a hard drive failure.
There are many benefits to using a proper computer backup package and these are seriously worth considering.
First, automatic setup. The computer will set up the information for backup automatically. Therefore, all you have to do is make sure that there is a disc in the drive. Likewise, you can also split large files across several discs with ease and without constantly having to change configuration information in the backup software itself.
If you’re worried about the confidentiality of your saved backups, you can also encrypt the information. This is especially important if you are going to be using any of the online backup options. You can also compress your data with a data backup program, in order to fit large amounts of data into a small backup space. Backup software will also allow you to choose exactly how much data you want to backup, and how long you are willing for it to take.
Do I have to buy software?
No. There are several programs that you can get for free – or that you already have for free with your new computer. For example, if you have a windows computer, you will have software called Microsoft Backup. This should be installed by default if you have Windows 2000, ME, or XP. You may also have this program available on your system discs if you have a computer that runs Windows 95 or 98.
If you are running a Macintosh system, however, there is also an option available to you. This is the Apple Backup software. This software should be included with whatever operating system you’re running. That way, you can easily make a backup of all the important data on your computer. With an Apple computer, you can back up your information without waiting to get CDs! Apple offers an online backup service called iDisk. The iDisk service allows you to backup up to 100MB of data online! You can also set your iDisk to synchronize between your computer and the online backup – so that you have the most current versions of all your files.
If you don’t like the software that comes with your computer, there are also free software programs that will come with any external hard drives you purchase. These backup programs are generally designed to do only one thing, however. With just a few quick mouse button clicks, you should be able to put all of your computer data onto the external drive.
Make this job easy and save your data! Use some backup software and save yourself a lot of grief and personal time.
There’s no such thing as backing up digital information too much, or too often. A solid, well-thought-out backup plan can mean the difference between a normal day and a major disaster in the form of lost business data, financial and legal information, family photos and videos, and a great deal of time and money trying to recover data and get caught up.
Anyone with a PDA, computer or other data-storing device should have a regular, comprehensive backup plan, and the technology to sustain it. Good plans combine complementary technologies to automatically save data in several different places. The following backup technologies can be coordinated to provide reliable, convenient backups – and peace of mind.
Hard Drives – Pros and Cons
Extra hard drives — especially portable ones — make great backup solutions for most households and small businesses. A single hard drive can store more than 400 gigabytes of data – at least 10 times the space most people use within the lifespan of the drive. Therefore, many backups of entire hard drives can be stored in one place. But hard drives are made of moving parts, which at some point or another will fail, whether due to mechanical malfunction, damage or age.
By using several smaller drives instead of one big one, data is replicated several times on separate devices to prevent data loss. This is accomplished with RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) technology, where multiple hard drives are grouped together so the computer sees them as one. RAID controllers are bought separately to manage the array. RAID software makes backing up data automatic and easy to access.
Networking computers is another way to put hard drives to good use. With small business networks or home networks, multiple computers can be backed up onto a hard drive or drives, even at the same time.
Making sure important information is stored on separate hard drives may seem like a sufficient backup system, but one lightning strike, power surge, flood or fire could wipe out all hard drives and backups at one physical location. So it is always best to combine hard drives with other backup solutions that can store data in remote places.
Flash Drives – Pros and Cons
Although they are handy for storing and transporting important files, flash drives (also known as thumb drives or jump drives) are limited in capacity and generally considered to be less robust compared to hard drives. They are intended to complement a hard drive rather than replace one.
These small, hand-held storage devices do not contain moving parts, so are less likely to suffer mechanical failure. However, they are much easier to misplace, damage or erase. In addition, regular backups require that they be connected to the computer at the right time, cutting down on the convenience of keeping them close at hand.
Online Storage
Uploading files to an Internet backup service or online storage space is an excellent third leg to a three-legged backup plan. As long as the storage service provided is reliable, Internet service is available at the time of backup, and a relatively small amount of data is being backed up at one time (daily backups that take three days to run don’t work), online backups make a great deal of good sense in combination with other backup solutions.
DVD / CD
Burning a DVD or CD of especially important information is always a good idea. Backup media can be stored easily in other locations, and can be burned according to an automated schedule. However, automated backups to DVD or CD only work when a writeable disc is in the disk drive at the right time. Rewriteable discs can cut down on the cost and clutter of many backups, while ensuring that there’s always a valid disc in the drive.
The small amount of space available on a DVD or CD compared to other backup solutions means that these media are best for small, occasional backups.
Techie Tip: ALWAYS, ALWAYS VERIFY BACKUP FILES
Just because it appears data has been successfully backed up doesn’t mean it’s accessible or recoverable. Every backup file, on every backup device, should always be opened and tested to make sure it works.
Coupons, and Staples Coupons.
What is the best in each category for sharing files and backing both a Windows XP Desktop and iMac (OS X Tiger) to an external device?
1. Home Server
2. USB Drive
3. Wireless Router (draft n) and Storage Device
Remote access and media streaming would be nice, the but the most important feature is the ability to back up both Mac and Windows files, some > 5 GB. iMac has Tiger now, but plan to upgrade to Leopard.
Thanks!
When in the new project window, if I right click on a network computer and check the properties it says the Remote Agent is not installed when it is.
I have checked the firewall exceptions.
When the log on window comes up it does not work, only on the one computer and it is the same window everytime.
I have tried the disc install method as well as the command prompt method (ehis is the one that worked with the functioning computer).
I am using 11d on Windows Server 2003
Data is very important in any business whether it is online or offline. Data stored in your server cannot be lost as it puts a full stop to your business. If you lose data then you have to spend a lot money, time and effort to replace them. In some critical applications it is not even easy to replace the data. Hence a wise decision is to find some ways to retain your data. This is where Back-up comes into picture.
Data back-up is a process in which you save your valuable data to some remote server or in some media which can be used to restore them back when you need it. You may face situations in which you application becomes corrupt or your data file is corrupted. Intentional damage, natural disasters, and hardware failure are some of the other situations which makes your lose your data. During such situations you can use the data that is backed up in your remote server to restore.
A periodic backup is necessary so that you do not lose much data when a contingency occurs. Data backup in web hosting industry is common and is also a must, since they face a lot of contingencies mentioned above. With ever increasing viruses and worms you may not when you will lose your data. Hence taking backup of your data is a must in these days.
Any web hosting account that you purchase also comes up with a comprehensive backup scheme that can be used to backup the important data that you might have in the server. If you have a site that has many users (members), then it is important that you also backup the data of your users also. Under such situations it is better to backup the site data and the users’ data separately so that you can restore which ever you want.
A backup can be incremental or full backup. Full backup is to take a backup of all the data available in the site, whereas the incremental backup is to take a backup of the data that has changed since the last backup. It takes a lot of time and space to take a full backup of your site. Backup is taken usually in the tar format or the .gz format. Taking backups in these formats saves a lot of space and time.
Most of the web hosting services provides a backup plan which could be monthly, weekly, or daily basis. The data thus backed up is stored offline on a secure server. Some services charge you for the backup services provided by them. Some of the hosting providers provide you the necessary tools to take a backup so that you can schedule backup on your own. If your site has critical data then hourly backup can also be sought after. Such exclusive backups are charged by the hosting provider.
Hence taking a backup of the important data and the site is important in the web hosting industry so that the website can be restored in the minimum time with minimum interruption to the users.
You know that you should back your data up. But you still don’t
because you don’t know what to get. Here is the overview of four
budget backup solutions that I’ve personally used and can vouch
for.
Acronis True Image 8.0 (Acronis)
Acronis True Image allows you to create an exact disk image for
complete system backup and disk cloning providing the most
comprehensive data protection. The disk backup file contains the
exact copy of a hard disk, including all the computer data,
operating system, and programs. After a system crash you can
restore the entire system or simply replace lost files and
folders from your disk backup, so you don’t need to reinstall
Windows. Acronis True Image 8.0 is quite speedy, creating an
image of a 46 gig partition in approximately 8 minutes with
little compression. Restoring a complete image can be a lot
longer than creating one, but with the built in Rescue Media
Builder, its as easy as booting from that CD, telling it where
the image is, and what partition to restore it to. You can
wander off for dinner or TV and reboot your computer to the
image you have saved, ready to go in roughly 30 minutes for an
80 gig drive. The time to save and restore images is hard to
estimate here because larger partitions and more compression
takes longer then a smaller partition and no compression.
Genie Backup Manager Professional (Genie Soft)
Genie Backup Manager Professional is a very easy to use yet
powerful and flexible software that can backup and restore
files, documents, emails, settings, programs and more to
virtually any local or remote device including internal and
external hard disks, FTP locations, across network, CD/DVD
discs, removable media, memory sticks, and tapes. GBM Pro is
perfect for users of all computer comfort levels. Novice users
will find it easy to create their first backup job in matter of
minutes after installing the software, thanks to its intuitive
wizard-based user interface, while advanced users will
appreciate the software’s extended flexibility and features such
as preserving NTFS Alternative Data Streams, Email notification,
Self executable backup sets, and scripting capabilities
(GRunScript and GenieScript).
HandyBackup (Novosoft)
HandyBackup is so easy, you might actually find yourself backing
data up. HandyBackup is designed for an automatic backup of your
critical data virtually to any type of storage media including
CD-RW devices and remote FTP servers. You can use HandyBackup to
make a reserve copy of any valuable data on your system. Special
addons are provided to facilitate the backup of MS Outlook,
system registry and ICQ files. Restoring is as easy as clicking
a button, but you can also use a number of advanced options. The
program can be also used to synchronize files between two
computers on a network.
HandyBackup is designed for MS Windows 9x/NT/2000/ME/XP. Strong
file encryption and multi-choice zip compression on the fly, as
well as many other useful features, will protect your valuable
data. All backup activities are recorded in a log file. Detailed
online help is available, which is always nice.
Backup4All (Softland)
The software performs all four fundamental backup types: full
backup, differential backup, incremental backup and mirror
backup. Using the wizard you can easily set up any backup
configuration you wish. You can define powerful file filters and
schedule your backups any way you want. Once a backup is
performed, you can see what files have been changed since the
last backup using the explorer-like tree view or you can read
the statistics about the next backup execution. You can use the
context menu from the tree to run standard actions associated
with the file type. I now use Backup4all to do my day-to-day
backup, and I recommend it for those who want a more automated
solution. It uses its own file catalog to keep track of what’s
been backed up and when. That’s the only completely reliable way
to do it — you can sometimes miss files with other methods.
Another safety feature – all files and subfolders are included
unless you expressly exclude them (by unchecking). This means
that if new files or subfolders are added to a folder, the next
backup will pick them up as well. Not all backup programs work
this way. Once in a while you may not want to back up a file
that has been added to a folder, and if you forget to exclude
it, it will be backed up anyway. Better to have backed up and
not meant to, than not to have backed up at all.
Download Links
Acronis http://www.deprice.com/acronistrueimage.htm
GBM Pro http://www.deprice.com/geniebackupmanagerprofessional.htm
HandyBackup http://www.deprice.com/handybackup.htm
Backup4All http://www.deprice.com/backup4all.ht
Anyone who works with computers has surely at least heard the horror stories about someone whose drive is corrupted or damaged and their data lost. This can be more than an inconvenience, it can be extremely damaging to lose all of your data and some people might lose an entire career’s worth of work. You can also lose your personal data like photographs that you cannot ever replace. Instead of putting your data in constant danger, it is a wise precaution to backup that information.
There are a few ways to back up your data, including sending it to yourself in an email or saving it to a disk and keeping that disk safe, however these methods are not 100% effective and can be lost anyway. While the changes of losing your backup and your original data might not be great, why take the change with information that is important to you?
Companies can benefit from backups as well, keeping customer information secure while also keeping it safe in the event of a crash. Who can you trust to back up your data? Backup Exact is an online program that will help you automatically backup your important data so that you never have to worry about forgetting to back up files or about losing your backups. With BackupExact.com , you will also never have to worry about security or confidentiality, because Backup Exact is the leader in online backups.
Your data will be safe and available for recovery any time that you need it, and with off site backup, you will no longer have to worry about finding a safe space for your backup data.
My client has given me their old server which is now sitting her back at my offices, the client wants me to use this machine as an offsite backup solution.
I’ve never done this before and i’m pretty clueless on stuff like FTP so could someone point me towards a website with a description on how to setup something like this.
Also recommendations for software would be great, i was thinking of using an FTP client that syncs with the remote server.
Thanks in advance
Recent Comments