System Backups are your safety net in the event something happens to your data. It is important to understand and implement an adequate backup routine.
Data Loss and corruption can arise from many events, including and certainly not limited to…
- Hard drive crash
- Fire
- Theft
- Software errors
- Hardware computer errors
There are two backup methods you can select to use with ACR Release 2 software.
These are:
- Cloud Backup with On site USB Hard Disk Drive Backups
- Tape Drive backups
If your data is lost or corrupted, then you will be reliant on your system backups. An essential part of a good backup strategy is to ensure “all your eggs are never left in one basket”. This means that we don’t want you to rely on just a single backup (otherwise Murphy’s Law will ensure that one tape or drive will be faulty).
If you are using tape backup, we recommend a weekly tape rotation strategy . Use one tape for every day of your trading week. Tapes should be marked with their designated days (eg. Monday, Tuesday, etc…). The Monday tape goes in on Monday, the Tuesday tape gets put in on Tuesday and so on. Rotating your tapes means multiple copies of data and therefore increasing your chances of a successful data recovery.
If using the Cloud and USB Hard Disk Drive (HDD) method we recommend rotating the USB HDD’s once per week. Only one USB HDD should be plugged into the server at any one time. The USB HDD that is not plugged in needs to be taken off site. This keeps a physical copy off site at all times as a safety net in addition to your offsite cloud backup.
It is imperative to ensure that your latest tape or USB HDD backup is stored off-site.Your friendly neighbourhood thief will not be considerate enough to eject your tape and pop it back in the box while walking out of the door with your server, but will most likely take the tapes or USB HDD as well, and a fire will certainly try to destroy your tapes and USB HDD’s, even if they are stored in a safe.
If your system menu reports a red backup fail or a yellow backup warning, please ensure that you advise the ACR Support Desk to ensure any issues are resolved.