Are You a Data Hoarder? Plus Computer Solutions Can Help!
Posted by Alistair Hill on Fri, Jun 24, 2011 @ 06:54 PM
The capacity of data storage has been growing in leaps and bounds. Just recently I was standing in the isle of a local retailer, debating the $30 difference between being able to store 4000 or 6000 hours of CD quality audio. Not that I have 250 days’ worth of music, but I like to have options. In the office environment, with the ceiling of data getting ever higher, it’s easier to be lazy about what gets kept vs. what will be discarded for either reasons of redundancy or irrelevancy. Multiple copies of individual files, or even entire directories are a simple fact of life. Additionally, especially in the case of databases, namely Accpac, full database backups.
Procedurally, this can vary from system to system, but one way or another, you’ll find a need to do a spontaneous backup of your data. Reasons for this backup can vary, but often it’s because you’re going to do something a little more monumental than the usual day to day, like a year-end. These snapshots of your data tend to be approximately as large as your data, and if you have a few of them, the space they consume adds up. The question afterwards though, is how long should I keep it?
Often a company will have a policy on the lifespan of a backup. For example, we have two weeks’ worth of rotating SQL backups. This is easily managed, as they are predictable and consistent in their nature. A validated backup that is two weeks old will drop off when today’s is created. However, in the case of a spontaneous backup, perhaps one that was created by a third party with no control over your routine backups, there is no indicator that these should be removed. Possibly your IT person could review such files, but what tends to happen is either they are not found or your IT person is hesitant to delete something they did not create themselves.
Why do you even care? As I mentioned, capacity is no longer at a premium, right? Absolutely correct, however, what is still at a premium is the ability to move data to another location. A backup system great, but if the backup is sitting beside the server, what do you do if the building burns down? The most viable solution these days is offsite backup where the data is transferred over the internet. Internet backups are a great solution, but now we have limitations again. The first is how much space your provider allocates you, and the second is monthly limits on your internet connection. Until recently, our ISP allowed us 300GB of data transfer per month; we’re backing up more data than that weekly.
So now what?
Plus Computer Solutions can help. Our experts at Plus have an intimate understanding of Accpac, but more importantly, what can stay and what can go. There’s a pretty good chance that we can reduce the size of you Accpac related data.
Contact Plus for more info at 604-420-1099
Visit our website at www.plus.ca
Or email info@plus.ca