Use Data Protection Manager to Backup Employee Files. While They're Still Working!
Think of your company's data like a big stream. Hundreds of employees creating information. Servers collecting it, adding their own. All combining to carry the business forward.
Take away a piece of that stream, and what happens? Incomplete information. People scrambling to recover. Time lost from the recovery effort, as well as the time spent creating that now-missing chunk of data.
The most successful enterprise companies build extensive backup processes into their networks. And they use them every day. Everything is backed up, all the time.
Is your enterprise covered?
Ask yourself these questions:
- Do you know the last time your data was reliably backed up?
- If your network crashed right now, would your backup system have this morning’s files?
- If an employee’s computer went down, could he resume work on another system (but the same project) within an hour?
- Could you take the backups you have right now, and restore your entire company in a new location?
- What’s the interval on your incremental backup?
In case your company doesn’t do them, an incremental backup only copies files that have changed since the last incremental or full backup was run. A good interval for an enterprise is copying employee file changes every 2-4 hours.
The Backup Solution Designed for Enterprises
You might think, "How could we run backups all day though? Backup routines are disruptive. People can't work while their files are getting backed up."
This was true in the past. Now those limitations remain in the past, thanks to Microsoft Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2007.
Data Protection Manager 2007
provides real-time incremental and full backups without disrupting anyone’s work.
It does this by running small "agent" applications on employee PCs. These agents plug into Volume Shadow Service (VSS), a Microsoft service built into all recent Microsoft products, like Exchange Server 2007, SQL Server 2005/2008, MOSS 2007, Windows Server 2003/2008, and XP/Vista client systems.
So half of this real-time backup functionality is already built into your computer’s applications. DPM just completes the chain, and lets you run backups anytime. Users won’t even know their files were just backed up.
Built around DPM, PlanetMagpie’s enterprise backup consulting includes these services:
- Backup/Recovery Planning
Together with our clients, we draw up a complete backup plan. This includes an interval for incremental backups, which systems are covered (and when), if you’ll use a secondary backup (tape, hard disk), etc.
- Backup Process Installation
PlanetMagpie installs Data Protection Manager 2007 and its backup media in your network. We schedule the full and incremental backups, build in the secondary backups, and test the new backup process via employee PCs.
- Backup and Recovery Operations
PlanetMagpie strongly recommends testing your backups regularly. We go on-site to verify backup reliability, and check your backup schedule so we know all files are up-to-date.
We also conduct "fire drills" (see our Disaster Recovery page) to make sure you could continue working if you had to do a complete restore.
The Benefits of Backing Up
The first benefit of enterprise backup is obvious: protection against a crash. But there’s more to consider, especially with the capabilities of DPM.
- You can quickly verify backed-up data through a restore or test.
- You have the ability to resume operations quickly after a disaster.
- Thorough backups help companies stay compliant with legal regulations like SOX and HIPAA.
- Peace of mind – your entire infrastructure is backed up, up-to-date and secure.
- Insurance companies provide discounts on some policies when a company has a formal disaster recovery plan.
Call PlanetMagpie at 408-341-8770 and ask us for an Enterprise Backup consultation. You'll see how a high-scale backup system like Data Protection Manager 2007 can help protect your data stream.