Security → 4 Backup Landmines Waiting For The Unwary ¿ ¿

TRUE ? ....."Backup is a unique use case within today's data center because IT uses it every day, but it's only rarely called upon to perform its primary function: The restoration of lost data.

As a result, CIOs may overlook potentially disastrous backup landmines, because these problems only become apparent when IT needs to restore. If these backup landmines aren't addressed before they are stepped on, the data center is seriously at risk.

The first landmine is the integrity of the backup itself. At Veeam, we've researched this issue in depth, most recently in our 2014 Data Center Availability Report. We have found that as many as one in seven backups fail to restore properly when they are needed most. The best solution is to test all backups and their associated restore to ensure that, when data is lost, the backup won't blow up in IT's face."..[ »www.informationweek.com/ ··· /1319978 ]

 
I learned the "restore" lesson the hard way, about 30 years ago.

There was a bug in the backup software that prevented the system files of the file server from being written to the backup tape.

Then, when I needed to restore the file server, all the data were restored, but the server would not boot because the MS-DOS system files were zero length.

Ever since then, I've routinely tested the restore process to assure the backups being created were usable. Oddly, since I've been checking I've never found a backup that could not be restored.

btw, I was able to get that server up and running again. It just took a long while to restore the data separately from the re-install of the server OS. No data were lost, but it was a long night.....

I got to "test" my backups over the years because I had to used them. In most cases that's been due to HD failures.

It's not uncommon that I restore individual files from backups due to accidental deletion/overwriting etc.

Like camper I learned the backup and backup often lesson decades ago.

Yarg! :gawk:

Thanks for the read 85160670

Regards

Back in the early 90's, one of my customer sites had a drive fail in their main data server. IT replaced the drive and loaded the backup tape. Only THEN did they discover that the system admin had checked the box that would cause the backup software to only provide a list of the files that would be backed up with the current settings and then he forgot to uncheck it. So for years they had just been writing a directory listing to their backup tapes... NO data. Needless to say, the system admin was unemployed at that point.

Quite obviously, no one had ever tested the site backup/restore strategy before that day.

THX ..... guys, 4 sharing your experiences & still enough IT ,just do the job an done
Testing, testing, testing is the only answer ...... every year minimum & NOT just relying @ Back-up software alone{{{ SMILE }}}

Here is one overlooked landmine. Are the backup tapes off-site?

There was a high-rise fire that gutted a whole floor of a bank data office center.
The bank setup time and required all employees to backup. They did everything
right. They had grandfather/father/son backups. They lost everything.

It was one simple photograph of the high-rise from the outside looking in. There on
everybody's desks were the charred remains of the tapes.

Off-site is very important. Hardware can be replaced, the data can not.

 
Good point.

As a corollary ... even if the backups are offsite, make sure a severe weather event won't take out your data and your backups. For example, if your offsite backups are in a building a mile or so away and you're in tornado alley, you effectively have just one site.

Off-site backup is the first thing I thought of too. You beat me to it.

Here are some ideas for personal off-site backups.
I use several BitLocker encrypted USB flash drives for data containing sensitive information. One is kept in safe deposit box and is annually rotated with one of the other two. The other two can be kept more conveniently accessible such as at a relatives and friends houses. A forth may even be kept at home or in computer bag.

Other data can be handle similarly. And though may not NEED encryption. My philosophy is to just encrypt every thing and be done with it. No having decision point to fail an missing something or later realizing should have encrypted something. Just encrypt it all and be done with it. Then store copies in multiple off-site locations.

BitLocker comes with Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 8.x Pro. Obviously there are other 3rd party solutions available too. But BitLocker is just there and convenient. May as well put it to use.

Off-site backups should be part of any decent disaster recovery plan.