Seems almost weekly that some new technology comes along claiming it is going to forever change — or revolutionize — the backup industry. The proverbial “better backup mousetrap”.

First there was tape. Then floppy disks. Then zip drives. Then CD/DVDs. Then the portable hard drives. Then Network Attached Storage and thumb/flash drives.

Now, special-purpose appliances and online data vaults.

Yet, even with all this fancy technology in use, businesses all over the world still regularly lose critical computer data.

How could this be?

No matter what storage medium (technology) you choose for securing a copy of your valuable data, it’s a given that your team MUST develop (or contract) the expertise required to:

1. Setup and configure your technology
2. Monitor that backups are occurring (daily)
3. Alert your team when there is a problem (daily)
4. Restore files, folders, databases as required
5. Test periodically to verify the whole process is working

Choose a “cool” technology and forget to take care of these five items…and you run a HIGH RISK of suffering a crippling data loss — even using online backup!

Shame on any vendor that tells you that you’ve bought an “automatic” backup solution that doesn’t require management or monitoring.

Be a S.M.A.R.T. consumer. Think about what it REALLY takes to deploy a SECURE and RELIABLE backup solution for your organization. Then, give Dr.Backup a call 🙂

On a serious note, if you really do want to build a better MOUSE trap, take a look here.