Considering the importance of backups for small to medium businesses in Hampshire;
...Imagine that you own an incredibly successful business, you are swamped with orders everyday and you receive many testimonials a week which are immediately placed onto your website.
You don't need to advertise because most of your customers are sold on the praise they hear regarding your product and services from other ecstatically happy customers. When you do advertise it doubles your client base and also your annual profit. All of your customers' details and invoices are stored on your computer systems.
One day, there is a huge electrical storm. Luckily you miss it because you are on holiday, but on your return you discover that all of the data stored on your computer system has been wiped. This could potentially be the downfall of the business that you worked so hard to develop.
Hopefully everyone reading this will be chorusing "but what about the backups?" If so then this article will read as a lesson in common sense. It will be of more benefit to those out there who think that backing up their data and system state is too time-consuming, too expensive or simply not applicable to their circumstances. Sure, they could argue that the chance of a severe enough storm near their premises to corrupt the computer's storage device is unlikely, but there are other events that could jeopardise the future of a business by eradicating data;
• Fire
• Water damage
• Malicious damage
• Accidental deletion of data
• Computer viruses
• Corruption of files due to age of hardware
• Power surges
I'm sure that you can name more. Having a disaster recovery program in place should be on the essentials list for any company that uses computers. If a computer network is central to the everyday running of your business then you must ensure that you backup your data in such a way that your business could recover from a disaster such as those mentioned above.
But backing up data is not only important in minimising the effects of a disaster on your company's valuable database; it also makes routine network administration less stressful by creating a safety net. Suppose registry entries were incorrectly changed, or an important file or piece of software was accidentally deleted, if regular backups were scheduled these errors could be easily fixed. So how do you backup your system, and how often should you do so? Well, there are three main forms of backup, each with their advantages and disadvantages;
• Full Backup - As you can probably guess, this involves backing up all of your data. This method is the most time-consuming, but provides the easiest method of disaster recovery. If you don't have the time to perform full backups three times a week, there are some alternatives which will help reduce the number of full backups you need to do to ensure that your data is safe.
• Incremental Backup - This is the fastest form of backing up data. It backs up only the changes made since the last incremental or full backup. The downside is that to restore your data you will need the last full backup along with all of the subsequent incremental backups that have been done. This makes the incremental method the longest method to restore, although hopefully you will be backing up more that restoring.
• Differential Backup - These are similar to incremental backups in that you will need to perform full backups. Each differential backup stores the changes made since the last full backup, so to restore the data you need only have the last full backup and the most recent differential backup. With this you get the best of both worlds, while not as easy a disaster recovery method as explicitly using full backups, it is far less time consuming than using full backups and requires less to recover than incremental backups.
How often you backup is important. It is recommended that backups be made for every four to ten hours of data entry. For some businesses this could be everyday. An IT company that provides a backup service would be able to give you some idea of the schedule that best suits your business.
An IT company should also give you advice about where to keep your backups. It is possible for example to back your system data onto another partition of the drive it is usually stored, but for disaster recovery purposes this is not very sensible because should anything corrupt or damage that hard drive then you would lose your backups along with your data. The next step up would be to backup to a separate drive within the same server using mirroring. The data on the original drive would be safely stored on a different drive, but what about that burst water pipe or fire? This is still not an ideal disaster recovery plan.
Tape drives and other mass storage devices (such as external hard drives) are perfect because they can be removed from the original location of the data. It is wise to store your backed up data in a separate room or preferably building as the same fire, flood, theft etc that is destroying your server could also permanently damage your backups.
So, now that you know why you should develop a disaster recovery plan, how different methods of backing up data can reduce the time it takes to successfully do so and where you should be storing your backed up data, you should be in a position to relax. As long as your data is backed up (and in some regards your business too) you can know that should an unexpected disaster occur, your customers will be none the wiser, and your business will remain undamaged.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Avoid Losing Data In Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft Outlook is an email client (Mail User Agent to some) which I'm sure you know what it does. If not, let me try to explain it as simply as possible. Email clients are programs or application's which retrieves emails from the web server and downloads it onto your desktop.
Now with that out of the way, did you know that you can lose your mails because of your email client? This is a big deal as email is now a large part of communication both in the corporate world and the private/home user.
How can you lose your emails?
When you use email clients, you risk losing your email just like any other data on your desktop. Here is a list:
* - Virus attack
* - Corrupted partitions/volumes
* - Deletion/Format
* - Hard Disk Crash
* - Theft/natural disaster
In Microsoft Outlook versions 2003, 2002, 98 and 97, once Outlook's PST file size goes above 2gb, your emails, or rather, the PST file, gets corrupted.
* - PST corruption
Installation of anti-virus/anti-spyware
Prevention of viruses, spyware and basically all malware is important as they cause your system and programs to become sluggish, unstable and perform undesirable operations.
And since when you use Microsoft outlook, your emails will get affected as the mails on the server gets downloaded onto your computer.
* - Install anti-virus/anti-spyware and update frequently
Anti-virus/anti-spyware is available widely and should often be updated for the latest updates and patches.
Use it to scan you computer, and to scan ALL emails if they contain attachments.
Never download anything directly to your computer unless you are certain of the reliability and credibility of its source.
For a detailed view of how to remove viruses, refer to this article on removing viruses
Backup
The most reliable way to prevent the loss of your Outlook emails is to backup your PST file. To do this, simply copy your PST to another storage media (such as your thumb drive) or another drive on the same computer.
The PST file can be found by simply opening the search function (go to start menu and you can find the search function there) and copy and paste this term into the search box " .pst " without the double quotes.
Wait for the search finish. The default .pst file name is outlook.pst. Then just copy and paste the .pst file onto your backup media. Backup frequently, as you may never know when the outlook files (or any other important files for that matter) gets accidentally deleted, formatted or corrupted.
Computer Maintenance
Although this should already part of your routine, it bears reminding again. You should maintain your system by defragmenting, running scandsk and so on. This is basic maintenance for your computer as it can help prevent file system problems. It also enables your system to run smoothly and prevent system slowdown.
Here is a slew of other maintenance tips for you to look into
Outlook housekeeping
Yes, even in outlook, you need to do some basic maintenance. This is done to prevent your .PST file from getting corrupted.
Before outlook 2003 (and in earlier versions of outlook 2003), the .PST file limit was set at 2GB. If the .PST file size exceeded this limit, it would be very difficult, if at all possible, to retrieve any data from the .PST file as it would get corrupted.
When you are doing housekeeping, you are trying to keep this limit down and at the same time, helps in organising you mails so that they are easier to retrieve when you need to read them again.
How do you do that? Simple.
Delete all the old mails that you do not need, and remember to empty the trash. Categorise all your mails accordingly. For example, all your work folders should be in a separate folder from you personal emails and so on.
Create a NEW pst file
Another way to keep control of your PST file size is to create another .PST file. Of course, don't create a new .PST file for the sake of creating one.
Have separate .PST files for business and personal mails. To create this a new .PST file, simply open outlook and follow these steps:
* 1.Go to File menu, to New, and then click Outlook Data File
* 2. In the next window, you should see two options. Simply choose Office Outlook Personal Folders file. In Outlook 2003, there is an option to increase compatibility with older outlook versions, choose the Outlook 97-2002 Personal Folders File option. Click Ok
* 3. Then choose an appropriate location to save your new .PST in. Choose a location, and the type in the filename of your new .PST file.
And there you have it. A new .PST file, all ready for use.
In actual fact, prevention of lost Outlook mails is not hard. However, you need to be constantly maintaining your system and backing up your mails which take up precious time. It is a necessary step to take to prevent you from losing all your precious emails.
Now with that out of the way, did you know that you can lose your mails because of your email client? This is a big deal as email is now a large part of communication both in the corporate world and the private/home user.
How can you lose your emails?
When you use email clients, you risk losing your email just like any other data on your desktop. Here is a list:
* - Virus attack
* - Corrupted partitions/volumes
* - Deletion/Format
* - Hard Disk Crash
* - Theft/natural disaster
In Microsoft Outlook versions 2003, 2002, 98 and 97, once Outlook's PST file size goes above 2gb, your emails, or rather, the PST file, gets corrupted.
* - PST corruption
Installation of anti-virus/anti-spyware
Prevention of viruses, spyware and basically all malware is important as they cause your system and programs to become sluggish, unstable and perform undesirable operations.
And since when you use Microsoft outlook, your emails will get affected as the mails on the server gets downloaded onto your computer.
* - Install anti-virus/anti-spyware and update frequently
Anti-virus/anti-spyware is available widely and should often be updated for the latest updates and patches.
Use it to scan you computer, and to scan ALL emails if they contain attachments.
Never download anything directly to your computer unless you are certain of the reliability and credibility of its source.
For a detailed view of how to remove viruses, refer to this article on removing viruses
Backup
The most reliable way to prevent the loss of your Outlook emails is to backup your PST file. To do this, simply copy your PST to another storage media (such as your thumb drive) or another drive on the same computer.
The PST file can be found by simply opening the search function (go to start menu and you can find the search function there) and copy and paste this term into the search box " .pst " without the double quotes.
Wait for the search finish. The default .pst file name is outlook.pst. Then just copy and paste the .pst file onto your backup media. Backup frequently, as you may never know when the outlook files (or any other important files for that matter) gets accidentally deleted, formatted or corrupted.
Computer Maintenance
Although this should already part of your routine, it bears reminding again. You should maintain your system by defragmenting, running scandsk and so on. This is basic maintenance for your computer as it can help prevent file system problems. It also enables your system to run smoothly and prevent system slowdown.
Here is a slew of other maintenance tips for you to look into
Outlook housekeeping
Yes, even in outlook, you need to do some basic maintenance. This is done to prevent your .PST file from getting corrupted.
Before outlook 2003 (and in earlier versions of outlook 2003), the .PST file limit was set at 2GB. If the .PST file size exceeded this limit, it would be very difficult, if at all possible, to retrieve any data from the .PST file as it would get corrupted.
When you are doing housekeeping, you are trying to keep this limit down and at the same time, helps in organising you mails so that they are easier to retrieve when you need to read them again.
How do you do that? Simple.
Delete all the old mails that you do not need, and remember to empty the trash. Categorise all your mails accordingly. For example, all your work folders should be in a separate folder from you personal emails and so on.
Create a NEW pst file
Another way to keep control of your PST file size is to create another .PST file. Of course, don't create a new .PST file for the sake of creating one.
Have separate .PST files for business and personal mails. To create this a new .PST file, simply open outlook and follow these steps:
* 1.Go to File menu, to New, and then click Outlook Data File
* 2. In the next window, you should see two options. Simply choose Office Outlook Personal Folders file. In Outlook 2003, there is an option to increase compatibility with older outlook versions, choose the Outlook 97-2002 Personal Folders File option. Click Ok
* 3. Then choose an appropriate location to save your new .PST in. Choose a location, and the type in the filename of your new .PST file.
And there you have it. A new .PST file, all ready for use.
In actual fact, prevention of lost Outlook mails is not hard. However, you need to be constantly maintaining your system and backing up your mails which take up precious time. It is a necessary step to take to prevent you from losing all your precious emails.
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