Backups


Contents:


Introduction

Many of you (our users) have been around computers for years, and are very computer-savvy.  Forgive us if some of the contents of this page fall into the "sucking eggs" category for you.  But hopefully, some of you who read this page will thank us for labouring the point and spelling things out so clearly, when the day of reckoning for your backups comes upon you:
One doesn't need to be around computers for very long to appreciate the need for good and regular backup disciplines.  This is especially true of any vital data associated with the administration and/or finances of a business.  The golden rule of computing is to backup what you can't afford to lose !!!  The golden rule of backups is to test from time to time that they actually work (usually by deleting and restoring a special test file in one of the directories being backed up).  Backup of computer data provides a very cost effective safety factor, that you just don't get with purely manual records and paper based filing systems.
Backup media is extremely cheap compared with the cost of re-entering data (if you even have adequate manual records to do so) and potential business disruption.  How much is all your data worth to you?  For most of us, "backup what you cannot afford to lose" means we should be backing up key data every 24 hours, and making even more comprehensive backups at least weekly.  It is often a good idea to make two or more different types of backup, to different backup media (e.g. backup to tape, CD-ROM drive, and a hard disk drive on another computer on the network).

Disciplined Backup Schemes

Like all other risk management, your Backup Plan should cover all realistic possibilities for Murphy's Law.  Backing up to just the same disk (or tape) all the time, doesn't do this.  If there is a fault on the disk you are using, you may be unaware of this until an emergency occurs and you have to restore from it.  What can you do then ?  It is also possible to have a spurious failure on your hard disk that damages only part of your data.  You might not discover such a problem until you go to run a report that spans the damaged data or create an affected invoice at the end of the month.  In such a case, our Help-Desk would be able to rebuild your data for you, but only if you could provide a backup just before the damage was done, and an up-to-date backup that contained all the data entry done since that earlier backup was made.  Suffice to say that you should make plenty of backups, on plenty of separate disks, that span a good length of time!  (Read "disks" as "tapes" or "CDs" in the rest of this discussion if you use tape or CDs for your backup.)
Ideally you should have about fifteen (15) backup disks (or sets of disks) in active circulation.  A good scheme is to have five separate disks (or sets of disks, once a backup takes more than one), one for each day of the week, that preferably are kept in a fire-proof safe on your premises.  The Monday backup should go on the Monday disk, etc.  In addition you should make an extra "Off-site" backup, at least once a week and take it to some safe place (such as the office manager's and/or one of the Director's private home) that is well away from the business premises.  (If it is not convenient to make an extra backup, then just take your Monday or Friday backup off-site each week.)  This will cover you against a fire, burglary, or other disaster at your business premises.  You can rotate your off-site backups too.  A good scheme for off-site backups is to have two rotating pools of disks: a slower moving one that has the backups at the end of each month, and a faster moving one that has all other weekly backup disks.
Be aware that magnetic storage media has a limit as to how many times you can reliably write to it.  Consult the manufacturers specifications or ask your supplier how often disks or tapes can be recycled.  You are only fooling yourself if you exceed these limits to save the relatively small replacement cost (compared to the value of the data that would be lost if the crucial disk/tape you needed to restore had errors on it).  A rule of thumb for floppy disks is somewhere in the order of 20 to 30 backup cycles.

Generic Backup Mechanisms

Obviously Adminsoft data and programs can be backed up together with data files from other applications, as part of a larger backup.  If you have a regular overnight backup, it is much better to include Adminsoft data in this too, rather than have to remember to make separate backups using the facility we have provided.  It is a good idea to include a dummy file somewhere in the Adminsoft / GECL directory structure, that you can delete and restore from backup, to ensure that this is really working properly for you.

Adminsoft's Backup Facility

Adminsoft provides a basic but effective backup facility to help ensure that the data associated with it's software (which is usually pretty vital to your operation) is backed up easily.  This is very useful for smaller users, that don't have a big overnight server backup to other media such as a tape drive.  But even on sites with such a backup, we recommend that you use this in addition to your regular backup (for extra safety).
Our backup can be launched whenever you wish, utilising a special shortcut on your Windows desktop.   However, we recommend that you set this up as a scheduled overnight task that runs at an appropriate time e.g. at 4.00am say (i.e. after the main backup has had plenty of time to run).  You can do this using Windows Scheduler on a workstation that is always left running overnight (which has the advantage that you can also copy the backup files to that computer's local hard disk).  If you do not leave any workstations running overnight, and have a Microsoft based server platform, then you can run our backup on this overnight.  We apologise that we have not as yet produced a backup routine for Linux servers, but you should be able to adapt our Microsoft batch file fairly easily for running on your Linux server (or just write a much simpler one from scratch).  If you don't know how to set up Windows scheduler, it is very simple and quick task.  We can provide assistance with this (using our remote support facility) if you need it.
Our facility only backs up the data - the software can be re-installed fairly easily if it is lost or corrupted somehow.  (You are fully entitled to backup the Adminsoft program files as part of a tape, DVD, or other backup using another mechanism - we only leave them out of our facility to keep the resulting backup file as small as possible.)  The initial installation of Adminsoft software will create an "Adminsoft Backup" shortcut on your desktop.  (This is why it is best to install the software for the first time from your primary administrator's computer, as the shortcut is not created for any subsequent "Workstation" installs.  It is a trivial task to create a shortcut on another workstation if you need it.  If you have specified a non-standard directory structure for the Adminsoft programs and data during installation, then you may need to edit the Working Directory and Command Line of your shortcut appropriately. )

Our backup facility will compress all the data and configuration files in the Adminsoft / GECL directory structure into an intermediate backup file in the "\Adminsoft\Backup" (or "\GECL\Backup") folder and offer to copy this to a floppy disk.  You can change the target for the backup media by adding a parameter to the "Command line" of the shortcut.  This can specify a CD-RW or IOMega Zip drive letter, or even another hard disk drive and directory on your local network.  Examples of parameters that might be added are:
Our backup facility utilises one of the following data compression tools, and tests to see if they are installed:
The installation creates three DOS batch files in the \Adminsoft folder (GEBackup.bat, GEBackNT.bat, and GEBack98.bat).  The "Adminsoft Backup" shortcut targets the first one.  You can edit it if necessesary.  However, to reduce the risk of your version being over-written during a subsequent upgrade to the software, we recommend creating a copy having your own file name, which you then edit, and pointing your shortcut to this instead.    (GEBackNT is just a second copy of GEBackup.bat, while GEBack98 is a simpler version that can be used on Windows 98, ME, and 95 computers if you have trouble running the normal GEBackup file for some reason.)

Spare Parachutes

If you have a workstation with a big hard disk that is under-utilised, it can be quite good to use this as a "spare parachute", just in case you have a problem with your main server (or primary backup), and need to get hold of some information or a Word Document urgently while the server is still being rebuilt.  Especially if your primary backing up is to tape, an extra backup to a hard disk can often be more efficient for recovering a file that you have just messed up.  It is fairly easy to write a simple batch or script file that is scheduled to run at a suitable time overnight (such that it won't clash with your main backup).  The "XCOPY" program is quite useful for this (using the /D and /Y switches).   Your shortcut command line or DOS batch file might contain a line such as "xcopy f:\Adminsoft\*.* c:\Backups\Adminsoft /D /Y".  Obviously a reasonable level of computer literacy is required to set things like this up.  But it can be a very cost effective extra weapon up your sleeve, in your battle with Murphy's Law.

A Comment on Floppy Disks

Floppy disks are a notoriously unreliable media for backups.   Error rates are quite high, and they deteriorate with age and use.  Usually, you don't realise a diskette has a problem until you find out that you can't read from it.  A bigger backup that spans several diskettes increases the risk, and a failure on one disk will usually render the whole backup useless, in that you can't easily access the data on the other disks either.  (Charles Lindbergh's rationale for choosing a single-engined plane for his Atlantic crossing, is equally applicable to floppy disk backups.)  You should not re-use them more than about twenty times for backup purposes.  After that, it is not worth taking risks with important things like vital data.  Replace them with new diskettes and file the retired ones (with the last backup you did on them) away safely somewhere for a year or so, covering the remote chance that you might someday need to access them.

If the size of your backup gets up to three or more diskettes, then it is time to seriously consider using some other higher capacity media, that is more reliable, faster, and can easily handle your backup as one big file. These days, re-writeable CDs are a sensible, cost-effective next step up.  (If you already have an IOMega Zip drive, these are good too - albeit having smaller capacity, and their disks being considerably more expensive.)  Memory sticks can be useful as a 'spare parachute', but are pretty expensive for primary backup purposes (which would tend to suck you into 'carrying too many eggs in the one basket').

Restoring Data from Backup
There are a number of important things to consider when restoring Adminsoft data. We have put these on a separate web page, so that you can print them easily.
Click here for information on restoring Adminsoft data



If you need further assistance or have feedback you would like to give us, please contact our Help-Desk:
E-Mail now to:    Support@Adminsoft.com

Phone: (09) 262 2010,  Fax: (09) 262 2021  (within New Zealand)
(From overseas +64 9 262 2010 or +64 9 262 2021)
Return to the main Help page