“Disasters happen with Windows Servers (and all that crucial data your business depends on!), whether you’re ready or not.”
When we think of losing Windows Server data to disaster, it’s all too easy to go grandiose. Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, Californian earthquakes, floods, fires, asteroids, the wrath of God and the coming of the apocalypse – these are the tragedies that put servers at risk, aren’t they?
Well, yes. But for those of us whose companies aren’t headquartered in Tornado Alley, it’s this exact mentality that leads us to take backups for granted. Always a mistake. The cold truth is that from the perspective of a Windows Server stuffed with your crucial data, an intern with two left feet and a cup of coffee can be far more menacing than Mother Nature.
At the end of the day, all businesses need a disaster recovery strategy.
Regardless of how it happens, losing your Windows Server system is a disaster. Flippancy aside, there really can be some catastrophic consequences for the future of your business. We’ve all seen the poorly referenced statistics floating around – somewhere between 72% and a more humble 43% (or is it 80%?) of small to medium firms will collapse within a year of a data-loss due to a disaster.
Regardless of fudged numbers, the unavoidable truth is that losing important data from your Windows Server can be devastating to the future of your business. And as we mentioned above, it can happen far more easily than you’d think.
If it’s happened to you, you’re probably feeling pretty lousy right now. But you’re not alone.
Data loss disasters can happen to the best of us
Data loss happens. It’s an unavoidable fact of technology and it’s why you need to safeguard your company’s Windows Server like it craps diamonds. Unfortunately, there are plenty of examples of those who didn’t…
Have you heard of Ma.gnolia? Kicked off in 2005, it was a clever little start-up that allowed users to bookmark their favourite web documents and share them among friends and colleagues. It wasn’t the only site providing this service, but it was doing well for itself because it allowed users to save snapshots of their bookmarked web pages and share them within a collective ‘group’. Ma.gnolia was quickly gaining success, but like a whole wealth of other online businesses they depended on their data.
Queue the nightmare. In January 2009, the worst case scenario happened. In a moment that will keep Database Admins awake at night for years to come, Ma.gnolia suffered a catastrophic failure with total outage of its databases. Over the next few days things got worse – as it turns out, their untested backups had all failed. It took almost a month of frantically trying to recover corrupted data before Ma.gnolia threw in the towel on February 17th 2009 and closed permanently.
RIP Ma.gnolia. We’ll learn from your lesson.
Want another example? Alright, well just quickly. The Linkup was one of the first internet-based storage systems (think DropBox). Things were chugging along nicely for them for a few years until 2007 happened and they accidentally deleted “good data” along with “dead data” and lost the digital music, video and photo files of around 20,000 paying subscribers.
Ouch.
A year later The Linkup was no more.
But they shall live on in our memories forever as we fervently backup all our data – Windows Server, Hyper V, databases, everything!
While data loss may be less damaging for larger corporations, don’t think for a second that it doesn’t happen to them too.
Remember Toy Story 2? That massive Pixar Animations film that cost $90 million to make and delighted children globally back in 1999? Well poor backup policy almost lost all of their master copies of characters, sets and animations due to an accidental deletion. By pure dumb luck, one dedicated animator had taken the goods home to show her kids and happened to back up the files on her PC. It just goes to show, whether it’s your small business’ Windows Server or the future of happiness for the world’s children, backups are important and mistakes are easy to make!
Thankfully, you’re not alone here either.
Protecting and recovering your Windows Server system and databases is easy
With the right help, there’s absolutely no reason why data-loss should ever threaten your company. Using an intelligent, multi-tiered recovery strategy for your Windows Server system is the sure-fire way to ensure comprehensive data security no matter what. By implementing the right software, this strategy can even be set-and-forget. If you’ve lost the data off your Windows Server even once, you’ll know how stressful it is. Thankfully, it’s easy to make sure it never happens again by applying a few simple steps.
Windows Server backup is easy and affordable with help from the right software. At the end of the day, all you need to do is choose the program that’s right for your company’s needs. There are a wealth of options out there and we’re not going to try to sell to you right here and now. Take your time, do your research and choose the best strategy. Disasters happen with Windows Servers (and all that crucial data your business depends on!), whether you’re ready or not. Basically, the boy scouts are spot on when it comes to data protection – always be prepared.
Oh, and keep the interns away from your server rack!
Heard of other data loss catastrophes? Tweet them to us @BackupAssist, join the Twitter conversation with #datadisaster or share this article via your social media of choice.
Image:freeimages.co.uk
