Back it up, or lose it forever!

Often times at conferences, or reading a book, the facilitators will say something like, “we want you to have a wow moment”. That moment when something just clicks. Those are the best, aren’t they? Well, what about that “uh oh” moment? Not so good, right? I’m going to tell a little story about an “uh oh” moment that a very close person to me experienced this past weekend in hopes that you will take the necessary steps to ensure you don’t go through this yourselves.

This person is a paralegal with a very small law firm and has a very small network with a very small server and a handful of very small workstations. Still with me? Good. Last week she accidentally deleted an entire folder containing documents and forms critical to the operation of the business. Have you ever done that? I have. I thought that I selected a certain folder, clicked delete and away it all went. Turned out to be the My Documents folder where I stored EV-ERY-THING and was a HUUUUUGE bummer. The same thing happened to her, a terrible mistake.

Her first instinct was to check the tape backup, after all she changes it on a regular basis like she was instructed. Low and behold the backup had not run since 2006. That’s right, 2006. How often do you think documents and forms need to be backed up at an attorneys office? At least daily, right? Wrong, the tape gets changed Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but that doesn’t matter because the backup was not running AT ALL!

How often does your backup run?

Is it backing up your data as it should?

Can you verify this?

During your quarterly technology meetings, ask your IT provider to provide you with a report showing the success of your backup.

Wait, your IT provider doesn’t meet with you quarterly?

Well, that is an entirely different conversation.

Do you question the importance of verifying a successful backup?

I had a customer several years ago, a good friend that I keep in touch with as a business mentor these days, who had explained to me how he lost an entire business because of a data backup situation.

Have you ever run into a situation where you were unable to get back critical information?

Southshore Managed IT Group, specializes in complete data backup solutions. Call us at 219-226-3386 if you have questions about the verification of your data backup so that you don’t have to risk your business.