| Disaster Recovery and Data Recovery |
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This includes data lost in fire, flood, earthquake, accident, dropping of a laptop from a height, and other human-related mishaps. To put it in simpler terms, disaster recovery tries to get back data that you have lost because of something you were not prepared for. This data may be stored on a computer hard drive, mobile phone, laptop, digital camera or any other form of digital storage that we use to keep our data. Data recovery is the process of recovering data that has been lost through physical or logical means from the digital storage device. This includes disaster recovery of data too, apart from other reasons for data loss like virus attack, hacking, formatting of disk or partition, data loss through power surge etc. In other words, disaster recovery is part of the overall term data recovery. The Importance of Data Recovery We save all data because we want it. So when it is lost, we instinctively try to recover it immediately. What differs is the cost and time factor involved in the process and this depends on the volume and preciousness of the data lost. The more precious data is the more committed will the user be about recovering it. If a school students laptop falls into the water, the only outcome might be a spanking from Mummy or Daddy. But if a warship containing sensitive data is drowned, an attempt will still be made to recover the data from the bottom of the sea - no matter how daunting the task may be. So the chances of recovery depend entirely on the discretion of the owner of the data, the nature of the data, and the circumstances surrounding its loss. Here, it might be useful to quote some statistics regarding this. 1. 11% of data is lost through human-oriented errors in the UK annually, and this figure is on the rise. 2. 78% of data is lost through hardware failure, and 7% through software problems. 3. Hardware failure is mostly an indirect result of a human error. Sometimes, it is difficult to neatly categorise exactly why the data has been lost, it may be due to a host of factors, rather than just one reason. 4. A very small amount of data is lost through direct disasters like shipwreck or fire in the UK. Businesses and Data Protection Despite the fact that some 78% of businesses have lost data in some way or other over the past year in Britain, the attitude of company directors towards disaster control is still very slack. The main reason for that is the usual definition of the word disaster has such terrible associations with it. The internet has the story of a curious case of disaster recovery floated at one of the recovery websites. A company director was walking towards the exit with his colleague after a meeting, carrying his laptop, a pile of papers, and a mobile on which he was talking. Understandably, the laptop slipped, and fell down the six steps leading to the garden, where it parked itself in a puddle. Without going to a war or experiencing an earthquake, this man had managed to get the similar damages as he would if any of these things happened to him. Of course, the company had been able to bail him out of this disaster, so the story had a happy ending. The Remedy Most businesses in the country, for some obscure reason, fail to understand the value of having a system of protection against data loss situations in place until something unfortunate happens to them. These are the steps that should be taken, and it is already late enough in the day. 1. Awareness against possibilities of data loss and training as to what should be done in such situations is the first priority. 2. Each company must have a comprehensive system of keeping regular online and offline backups. This does not mean burning a DVD once at the end of the month. 3. All companies need to have ample protection against viruses, update them, and keep checking up on the firewall protection. 4. People often mess up by trying to mend things themselves. All employees need to realise the importance of the data they are handling, and should be asked strictly to report a problem as soon as it is spotted instead of trying ingenuous tricks to cover it up or rectify it. Hopefully, the companies which have lost something would teach by example. About AuthorJames Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. For more information on Data Recovery see http://www.fields-data-recovery.co.ukSource: ArticleTrader.com Read more at: ?a=articles&p=49977. |
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