Backup vs archiving

If you use different SaaS applications in your business, such as GoogleApps, Office 365, Salesforce etc., make sure that your information is safely backed up. You can’t ever lose your data because of Google mistake, but you are never protected against human errors or an intentional malicious act.

Google Corporation’s equipment is quite strong and the chance of their servers lying down are negligible. The same may be said about other large vendors. That’s why many companies rely on simple archiving of their data and do not care about regular backups… until the disaster strikes.

So what is the core difference between these two actions, the data archiving and the backup? Why shouldn’t IT managers who care about their data security ignore rerular backup?

The core differences

So what makes the difference between data archiving and backup?

1. Frequency of actions

   Data backup is performed on the hourly, daily or weekly basis while archiving keeps data that is no longer useful but should be kept  “just in case”.

2. Speed of the restoration

   When you perform data backup you suppose that you will be able to quickly find and restore it in case something goes wrong.

   When you archive data you do not assume that you will need it so soon. The archiving is performed for data that should be kept for years or even decades, such as construction or any other legal contracts. And the speed of its restoration does not matter for you so much.

3. Data format

   Moreover, there is a big difference in the data format. While backup applications keep data in a handy way, so that a user could easily find and restore any piece of information quickly, this may become a real problem in a long-term period. Backup softwares constantly upgrade, and the data you backed up 10 years ago may be absolutely unreadable now. So if you need to arcive your data you should use an application especially designed for such purposes.

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Feel the power of the backup

Carry out such an experiment. Choose 5 documents in your GoogleDocs or in your Office365. These must be the documents that have no real value for you. You may even create some new empty files. Just make sure that you gave them some normal names, not “New document 1”.

Then delete them. Got to the thrash bin and remove them from there too.

Now open the tool you use to restore your data and try to bring those files back to life. If the process is long and painful perhaps it is time you tried something else.

Try UpSafe GoogleApps Backup or Office365 backup tool to easily back up and restore your files and appreciate its capabilities.