Best practices for laptop backup
Jon Oltsik
10.05.2004
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This article first appeared in "Storage" magazine in the September issue. For more articles of this type, please visit www.storagemagazine.com.
What you will learn from this tip: How to develop a project-oriented approach to laptop backup that will protect your critical data.
The scope of laptop backup can present a daunting challenge. After all, backup policies, operations and management of thousands of distributed systems are difficult, even under the best of circumstances. Rather than simply delve into the latest versions of available backup tools, smart storage managers should take a project-oriented approach to laptop backup by following these five steps:
- Determine the scope and business strategy. The brute force approach to laptop data protection would be to back up all laptops all the time. This would accomplish the goal of protecting critical mobile data, but at a heavy capital and operational cost. A more prudent strategy is to find a solution that meets business, financial and technical goals. How many users should really be covered? What's the actual data that needs protection? Is the data unique or do copies of that data reside on corporate (and protected) assets? Where do the users live? Are they truly remote or do they travel out of the home office? What type of network access do these users have -- broadband or dial-up? Answering these questions will determine the real need and give IT architects a blueprint for the appropriate solution design.
Explore your technical options. Some storage managers may immediately default to a familiar Legato or Veritas backup product. This may be the right direction, but these systems were architected for server backup, so it's worthwhile to investigate more PC-centric alternatives such as iFolder from Novell or LiveBackup from Storactive. Because of their PC-friendly architecture, these tools may provide administration, management and reporting benefits for enterprises that want to manage laptop backup independent of back-end systems. Given the cost and administrative effort of backing up numerous distributed systems, it's also worth considering backup services from providers such as Arsenal Digital, Connected and LiveVault. A backup service may look pricey at first glance, but could actually be a bargain on a TCO basis. To do a true comparison, build a model that factors in administrator time, software licensing, maintenance and equipment costs.
- Link data protection with laptop security. Backup is critical, but you also want to protect your assets against theft and minimize damages if a laptop gets stolen. To implement best practices, storage managers should engrave laptops with company names and serial numbers, password-protect laptops at the BIOS and system level and encrypt file systems or critical directories. For the most critical-use laptops, consider physical locks and cables from Kensington or Kryptonite as well as alarms and tracing services from companies such as Caveo, Targus and TrackIT.
- Train administrators and users. If you decide to administer a solution on your own, make sure that administrators and help desk personnel are well trained and can spot and remedy problems as they arise. This not only involves product training, but also means understanding user requirements, business processes and IT methodologies. Users should monitor backup activities, report problems and help storage managers improve their backup processes through regular feedback. On the security side, it's up to laptop owners to be attentive to security and use common sense to protect their systems and the mission-critical data they contain.
- Develop a process for laptop replacement. Inevitably, even the most meticulous data protection can't prevent the occasional laptop theft or damage. What happens when your best salesperson's laptop dies on a key sales call at the end of the quarter? Smart storage managers will anticipate these occurrences by creating a laptop replacement process. Again, the key here is to assess the business need. Keep a few spares on site to overnight to remote users who need immediate replacement and make sure you can rebuild the laptop and files so you can ship a bootable, no-hassle system. For the majority of users who can work on a borrowed laptop for a few days, build a more cost-effective process that's less of a fire drill, but efficiently provides a replacement unit.
Bottom line
Laptops are ubiquitous and important pieces of the overall IT infrastructure, so data protection can be just as important for mobile devices as it is for back-end systems. To adequately protect the potentially massive amounts of data stored on these devices, enterprises must acknowledge the importance -- and risks -- of mobile computing tools and start building processes to protect their data.
Read the rest of article tip in Storage magazine.
For more information:
Tip: How to determine acceptable data loss
Tip: Intro to backup audits
Tip: FAQ -- Serverless backup
About the author: John Oltsik is a senior analyst and storage industry veteran at the Enterprise Strategy Group, focused on information security.
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