Learn about Servers and Backups for a Business

Jonathan D’ Agostino How about the importance of the server? Because you know, that is another thing that I just, you know, I do not know much about but I know that it is very important especially in your network to have a good server. Whatever good means. Male 1: Well the key to a servers job is the central files storage room. That is really all it is and manage the security and who has access to what. That is really all server is. Jonathan D’ Agostino Okay. Male 1: You know if it is Mac, if you do not have a file room that is large enough or that has enough file cabinets, obviously you got the one with the problems. Jonathan D’ Agostino He likes the file cabinet analogy. So I mean— Male 1: Well good, you can handle this one. Jonathan D’ Agostino: What is you analogy. I mean storage wise how do you determine how much is enough? Robert Tozzi: You like to try to keep the storage under 50% of the server. I would like to see closer to 30% with 70% available. In a way you have enough room to grow but you have to, you have to monitor it is a, you know, it is a moving target because it depends on your business and how much new information is added over time. So the best way to do it is kind of, you know, take a snap shot initially look at it and then come back a month later or a couple of months later and see how it is progressing. Thought Jonathan D’ Agostino: How much space has been used? Robert Tozzi: Yeah. Jonathan D’ Agostino: Is it a good idea to have two servers or you just get the one server that does the job? Male 1: It depends on your [Voice Overlap] applications. I would say backup server. Jonathan D’ Agostino: How about a backup system? You know, we recently went to a an offsite backup system which is interesting. Do you recommend that? Robert Tozzi: Highly, that is a great idea. You know there are some statistics on—Federal Government got some statistics on businesses that lost their data for ten days. 93% percent of them went out of business in a year. Jonathan D’ Agostino: That is a scary statistic. Robert Tozzi: Yeah, half of them filed for bankruptcy immediately out of that 93%. Jonathan D’ Agostino: You know I was thinking, you know, your building burns down worst case scenario, you know, what do you do so the off site. Backup is a huge security blanket, you know, there are a lot of these sites available now or Male 1: Well it is getting more popular after what happened with 9/11 and Katrina. A lot of people realized that Katrina, and no not Katrina I’m sorry 9/11, there were actually some major banks that wanted to go under because their whole data center was in the world trade center, and they did not have any off set backup. You know 90% percent of companies and people that do backups, they will have a tape drive, they take the tape out, switch the tape everyday and put it right on the computer Jonathan D’ Agostino: We used to do that way back when. Male 1: So now there building [flood. Jonathan D’ Agostino: We were so happy we had a tape that is a Monday, a tape that is on Tuesday and then your, you know, your building burns down Male 1: Now I know your into audio tapes, what happens if you [Voice Overlap] played our audio tapes over and over again. Jonathan D’ Agostino: Where are stretches with the audio tapes see this Male 1: Okay Jonathan D’ Agostino: A tracks Male 1: Alright now you are dating yourself. But again it stretches, same with those data tapes To be quite honest a lot of the time, a lot of my experience with recovering from a problem with tape has been unsuccessful. Jonathan D’ Agostino: Really? Male 1: Because nobody ever checks the tapes. The tapes are all good they have a shelf life of about a year. Robert Tozzi: That is right Jonathan D’ Agostino: That is scary. Robert Tozzi: Yeah it is only about a year. Male 1: And each tape it they cost about an average of what, $30.00 or $40.00 people say, well why do I got to buy new tapes every year. Just keep using the same one Robert Tozzi: And when we use them if you have, you know, seven tapes or five tapes and you use them every week they last sometimes even less.