Dear Clients,
Recently, we have noticed an increase in phone calls regarding backups. We would like to pass on some information to increase your understanding about the backups and to minimize the amount of time spent on maintaining the backups. The backups you do are the most important function of your daily activities. It is imperative that they be done daily and that they are done properly. We here at ZYBEX will do all that we can to help you maintain your system and assure that you have a good backup. However, you are ultimately responsible for your backups. This is your data and your livelihood that you are protecting. Please read the following information carefully.
Backups should be done daily.
Your system should be backed up everyday. There should be a backup tape for each day of the week that you work. For example, many of our Urgent Care centers are open 7 days a week. They should have a tape labeled for each day. Label your tapes D-1 through D-7, with Monday being D-1 and Tuesday is D-2, etc. You should also have a backup tape for each month of the year (a total of 19 tapes). The more backups you have, the easier it is to recover data if there is a problem. You never know when you are going to have a problem, they can range from a hardware failure to a natural disaster. Many of our clients in the San Luis Obispo area realized the importance of their backups when their offices were threatened by raging wild fires. We have had clients affected by earthquakes, fires, floods, riots and theft. Once you have done your backup the tape should be stored off site. The office manager or one of the doctors should take a tape home with them. There are also services that will come in and pickup your tape and store it in a secure location. If your office is broken into, and all of your tapes are taken along with your computer, we will have nothing to restore your data from.
Storage and Archiving of tapes.
Backup tapes should be stored in a cool, dry place. You need to avoid exposure to heat, humidity and all other extreme conditions. The quality of your tapes will diminish over time with exposure to adverse conditions. At month end, whatever day of the week is the last day of the month, pull that particular tape and label it as Month End Archive, August 2003. This tape should be taken out of the rotation, and a new tape put in it’s place. This serves two purposes. First, it provides a permanent archive. Secondly, it will insure that fresh tapes will be rotated into the system through out the year.
How to back up your data.
How to tell if your backup is good.
It’s not enough to just tell the computer to do a backup. You must check the reports everyday to see if there are any errors. All clients should be printing out the backup error report.From the Main System Menu select number 11. Once you are inside the backup menu, option number 3 prints out the backup error report.
Once you have printed out your backup error report you need to verify that that date for the backup is the current date. We have found some clients just print the report out and do not look at it. If the backup is not working, we sometimes do not find out until there is a problem that requires us to restore some information off the tape and we can not find a good backup. The effect of this occurring is having to re-key all the data entered, from your last good backup forward. You should also have a logbook to record when you did the backup and what the results were. We have enclosed with this handout the forms necessary for each type of backup. If you use these log sheets, you do not need to keep the printouts from your backup for more than 3 months.
Please remember, you are ultimately responsible for your backups.