Corporate backup strategies have been in place for a very long time. Under a typical backup plan, a business may copy all corporate files to tape on a daily basis, usually during off-business hours. Those tapes are then generally stored in an offsite location on a weekly basis. When files need to be restored, the correct tapes have to be located and loaded, and the actual file recovery can be a lengthy process.

That old model is quickly changing for a variety of reasons.

• Growth in corporate applications and the associated data with increased demand for rapid backup of applications and data—with minimal disruption to systems or users.
• The evolution of a distributed workforce with the need for 24x7 system availability.
• A stronger emphasis on disaster recovery.
• Technology improvements. Advancements in disk storage capacity have made disk backup an inexpensive, reliable, faster and more convenient strategy than traditional tape backup.

A modern data plan therefore involves both synchronization and backup.

The Two Pillars of Data Protection: Synchronization and Backup
File Synchronization (or ‘synching’) is the process of ensuring that the same, up-to-date files are accessible from multiple storage locations. If a user adds, changes, or deletes a file from one location, the synchronization process will add, change, or delete the same file at all other locations. Files are copied in both directions, keeping two or more locations in sync with each other.

File backup is the last line of defense against data loss. It involves making a one-way copy of files from a source to a backup location. Keeping an easily restored backup of files is important for all kinds of recovery scenarios – whether a single computer needs to be recovered after a crash, or a small number of files have to be recovered after accidental deletion or after being corrupted.

How to Implement an Effective Backup and Synchronization Strategy
Implementing an effective data protection strategy will depend on a company’s specific needs. The following three scenarios are based on typical corporate environments, and include a brief description of how a company can use backup and synchronization to increase data protection and availability.

Multiple Workstations, Servers and Locations
Under this scenario, software is installed on each user workstation to backup data from that workstation to one of the central file servers. With this setup, each workstation performs frequent incremental updates to the server throughout the day. If a company has multiple offices, an ideal scenario would be to regularly synchronize all workstations in each office to a local file server, and then periodically synchronize these servers to each other. 

Multiple Workstations in a Single Office Environment
Synchronization of data in a single office environment is much simpler. All files on all workstations should be regularly backed up to the local file server. For greater data protection, companies should periodically synchronize the local server with a remote server through SFTP or WebDAV over an SSL connection.

Remote Users Logged in to a Network Server
A number of large organizations are moving away from issuing their employees fully-functional workstations and moving towards using “dumb terminals” that only allow users to log in to servers using a Citrix-type environment or Remote Desktop Connection. In this environment, synchronization and backup software should be configured to synchronize all the user data stored on the remote access server, with copies on a backup server. 

Bill Carey is the Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Siber Systems. Siber Systems creates and markets a wide range of software for both professional programmers and the general public. The company’s three best-known products are RoboForm, RoboForm2Go, and GoodSync. GoodSync Enterprise allows companies to implement a low-risk, cost effective, easy and secure file backup and synchronization solution. For more information, a free white paper or a free 30-Day Trial, please visit http://www.goodsync.com/enterprise/.

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