Back-up Strategies for SMBs

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Data backups are critical. Big businesses need reliable backups of their PC data; small and medium businesses (SMBs) need them, now, with the growing demand for storage of personal data like digital photos and home movies; and individuals need them, too. For a PC system builder, providing backups is a great add-on to the business. Most of your customers and users already know they need backups. Providing backup services is easy. And the service can include value-added consulting.

In this article, I'll provide a quick and easy customer backup evaluation that will help you develop a solid backup solution tailored to your clients' needs. I'll also give you step-by-step instructions on how to add backup to any PC—at build time or after delivery. We'll be using some hot new hardware that not only makes the installation a snap, but also can help your sale by taking advantage of the big-dollar advertising and brand recognition offered by Maxtor, Iomega, Dantz and EMC.

But first, a bit of background: For the purpose of this TechBuilder Recipe, computing environments can be divided into four broad categories: Data centers; enterprise desktops and notebooks; small to midsize businesses (SMB), and small office/home office (SOHO). Data centers require the performance and scalability of specialized backup software for server environments, and are probably beyond the scope of most system builders. But the other three categories are all fair game. While some network-backup applications may be required for enterprise PCs, many of these systems can be treated as standalones. And naturally, both SMBs and SOHO users are ideal prospects for individual backup systems.

Clients Need Backup Help

Selling generally begins with having to prove to the customer a need for your product or service. For backup products, nothing could be easier. Anyone who has had the misfortune of losing an important file—and that's everyone—knows they need a solid backup solution. Panic calls to retrieve lost data abound. The average cost to professionally recover lost data from a crashed drive is in the range of $400 to $1,200 for every 2 GB, even more for difficult recoveries. So why do so many systems go unprotected? And why, even when users do have backup plans, do those plans so frequently fail?

For many, the backup ritual is both confusing and time consuming. As a result, critical backups are either put off to a "more convenient time" or begun with good intentions but then dropped in the interest of something deemed more important. Sometimes, backups start out well, but peter out. Invariably, impromptu backups (those that rely on humans) have proven to miss important data. In the end, these kinds of backups are often not much better than having no plan at all. The good news is that these common mistakes can all be easily avoided with a little planning and the right components.

A Plan to Avoid Disaster

Knowing some reasons that backups commonly fail, let's move on and talk about the right questions to ask to determine the best backup solution for your client. A solid backup solution begins with understanding your client's needs. Be sure to ask your users or clients the following critical questions, and to get their clear answers:

• Do you really need to backup this PC? Is this is an entertainment PC or one that could easily be rebuilt from a collection of application CDs? If the data is stored elsewhere on a network, perhaps this PC is generic enough to be replaced with a clone or standby.

• Is the PC's configuration critical? For systems where the configuration is more important than transient data stored there, image-backup only may be sufficient. And example would be a media-editing PC or a network workstation.

• How much critical data do you have? A more general question is, "How much disk storage does the PC have?" This information will help you determine a suitable size for backup target device. For general office purposes, and considering growth, I like a target that is twice the size of a source. This may not be practical, however, for larger systems.

• Must backups to be stored off-site? You may need to add a manual process to your solution for a simple "A-B rotation," or use removable media and a safe deposit box or other secure location. Pay special attention to this, as your customers can cite it as a benefit to their own clients.

• How often does your critical data change? This will determine the frequency of backups. For most office applications, nightly backups work well and offer sufficient protection.

• How quickly must your operation be restored? A general question to guide your solution. "Mission critical" PCs might need to be cloned for swapping in a disaster. A demand like this is a good reason to keep builds generic enough to be "hot replacements" in the event of a disaster.

• Do your applications manipulate very large files? Many clients won't know, but applications that manipulate large files present interesting problems for backup software. Such large files may warrant a separate backup.

• Do you need to restore previous versions of files or just the most recent? This will help you determine if your client needs a "file-based" or "duplicate" backup solution, both of which I'll discuss below.

For most SOHO users, the data created in their applications will be most important to them. The following is a list of common concerns you'll hear from these home and small-office users:

• Data files created by applications--for example, .doc, .mdb, .xls, and .ppt files created by Microsoft Office applications.
• E-mail files such as Outlook and Outlook Express messages stored in .dbx files.
• Address-book files ending in .wab.
• Browser favorites--files ending in .url in Internet Explorer, and Netscape's bookmark.htm.
• The entire \Windows directory.
• The entire \Program Files directory.
• The Windows Registry