Data Backup Operations

You are backing up in a bank where I do some consulantcy work tapes are backedup hourly as well as having the data transfered to different servers in different locations as well as backup copies being kept off site as well as in fire proof safes that are only opened when you are putting in a backup set and removing the existing one at teh same time. In a case like this these tapes are NEVER overwriten EVER and we only use the tape once and always retain the data.

Then if you are working in asmall office where there is only a small amount of data to backup then weekly backups may be more than sufficent for that companies needs.

But as a general rule of thumb at the very least weekly backups should be performed and then taken off site so if something does happen then you havent lost all your data. These small opperations usually have a 3 backup set one which is the lattest being stored offsite then rotated back when the next backup is performed. In these operations it is imperative to make sure that the backup tapes actually do hold the DATA as I've seen 1 Government Department who insisted that the Security Officer performed the backups and he was computer illerate so all he did was to put the tape in the drive press a fewbuttons and then go on his rounds, but what was actually happening here was that the tape would run for a few minutes just to satisfy that it was the proper tape type and then shut down, this was not picked up for 6 months and then only after the server failed loosing all the stored data. As they didn't have any backups available they had to reenter all the data manually which took a lot of time and money to acomplish.