The recent tragedy in Christchurch has highlighted an issue of business data safety. A number of news articles recently have shown the effect of business owners not being able to reach their on-site computers and servers to reach their critical business data, and for many businesses data recovery will be virtually impossible. So, this is a good time to talk about backups and the cloud.
Servers vs The Cloud
The term "cloud computing" is thrown around a lot these days so probably most people out there dismiss it as some new trend like twitter or facebook that they don't really need to know about (in fact, you do need to know about facebook & twitter but that's not the topic here).
So, in general terms "Cloud Computing" is where the application and your data exist somewhere on the internet. You don't really care where it is, just as long as it is available, safe and secure. Cloud computing also generally covers Software as a Service (SaaS) applications like Synaps, Xero, Salesforce and so on. These are services you subscribe to and typically use in your web browser. The big advantage in disaster scenarios like this is that those applications are automatically backed up and designed to be able to shift servers in a disaster - this means that if something happens the guys who run these applications are ready to ensure the application and data remain safe and available.
The point of this is that if you happened to be a user of some cloud software for your business before the Christchurch quake then you wouldn't need to rush in as soon as the cordon is lifted to try and retrieve your data, you can just log in from wherever you happen to be now. If everything is onsite, then shifting your business data to the cloud is definitely worth considering - sure, it will probably incur ongoing fees but then again you might be able to ditch your server then don't need to do software patching and updates or hardware maintenance and replacement. You'd save yourself the cost of buying new servers every 3-5 years, and something else that many don't consider is that running a moderate server costs at least $25 a month just for the power alone if you leave it running.
Workstation Backups
The other set of data to consider is what's on each employees workstation at any given time. In most cases a huge number of documents, spreadsheets, email and other important items will reside solely on each workstation. One good solution is to use an online backup service such as Mozy or Carbonite which constantly backs up a computers files. Not only is this handy if you accidentally delete a file, but anything you had saved up to a few minutes before a disaster would be recoverable.
So, this online stuff is not just a fad, there are some real tangible uses and we'll probably see a surge in interest from down there in Christchurch once they start to get back on their feet. And of course, best of luck to all those affected by the quake.