Essential Data:
o Customer information
o Accounting Data
o Price List
o Budgets
o System Databases

Causes of Data Loss:
o Theft
o Fire
o Lightning
o Viruses
o User Negligence
o Hardware Failure
o Corporate sabotage

All that essential information would be lost and there would be a very slim chance of ever retrieving that data. Even if you had insurance, it would not come close to replacing the time and money lost trying recovering this priceless information.

What is the solution?
Ensure that on a daily basis, a reliable, error free copy of your data is made to a secure reliable media, and that the data is taken off site on a regular basis. Sounds simple, but what do you need to ensure that this happens?

Requirements of an effective Data backup system:

• Automated
Manually backing up data is very laborious and time consuming. Thus chances are you will forget to run the backup, because there are other things you need to do. If the system is automated, it would run in the background and you could forget about it.

• Reliability
No backup software can guarantee that you will have a perfect backup every time due to the nature and many variables associated with companies changing data. The only way to reduce this from happening is to monitor the backup process every time it runs for any problems it might encounter and deal with them appropriately.

• Off Site Storage
Taking a copy of you data off the premises is essential to maintaining a reliable copy of data available in case the original is unusable/stolen. What good is a backup if that backup is stolen or hit by lightning? The more often your data is taken off site, the more reliable and up to date your date will be when you need it.

• Security
Data, especially if it is being taken off site, needs some sort of security so no one can go thought without your permission. The best way to ensure that you data is secure, is to encrypt it.

• Media (hard drive, tape, optical disk)
Media is the medium that your backup data is copied on to e.g. Tape, Hard drive

The media also needs to be reliable and long lasting. What is the use of having a backup if the media wears out and your backup is rendered useless?

• Capacity
Given the growth of data on a day to day basis, a good/reliable backup system should be able to cope with the increasing volumes of data thus the media needs to be able to handle these large volumes.