Why back up UNIX or Linux (or windows) systems?
Posted by Vivek Gite
[Last updated: February 17, 2006]
This is one of main responsibilities of a system administrator. It is his/her job to safeguard data stored on the system. Data is lost by (according to IBM white paper):
- Hardware or System Malfunction (44%) such as Hardware equipment failures
- Human Error (32%) such as Accidental removal of files
- Software Malfunction (14%) such as Software failures or crash or File system corruption
- Viruses (7%)
- Natural Disasters (3%) such as Fire
- Others such as Crackers/Hackers, Unskilled employees or Dissatisfied employees
How much data can you afford to lose?
The cost of recovering data and time both are very high for example:
To recover sales and marketing data 50M data it could take 15+ business days and cost running over USD $15,000+.
Therefore, to minimize the chance of data loss you should do regular backups: Regular backups result into:
- Minimize data loss
- Stability
- Keep your users happy
The exact backup procedure is different for each organization; it depends upon factors such as:
- Number of users
- Amount of activity
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- How To Run Common GNU Utilities Under MS-Windows
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Excellent, to the point.