Eric Dalius: 5 Important Factors tonote Before Defining the Retention Period for Database Backups

One of the topmost priorities for any organization is to create and maintain frequent backups of their database. This is crucial for a wide variety of reasons- the foremost being for the security of data, legal compliance, recovery, accessibility to primary data, and more. It is crucial for you as a business owner to ensure you have a proper and extensive plan set out for database backup and recovery in case of system crashes and other damages.

Specialists in database management state there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to the creation of the setting up of a backup retention period for a database. For instance, if you are using a SQL server, you can apply the considerations that have been mentioned below-

1. Regular plan- Make sure that you create and set up a proper plan for the creation of server backup. You can –

• Establish a regular schedule for the database backup on a weekly, monthly, or even daily. This will depend upon the nature of the modifications that you wish to make to the database.

• Make sure that you implement different database backups in your plan between these full backups so that you can boost your recovery points.

• Consider the use of transaction backup logs for your SQL server for the task of recovery.

2. The Storage of the backup – This is another vital aspect that you should never ignore when you are dealing with the database backup. Keep in mind-

• There is a possibility of users raiding your protected drives for retaining the data locally for a short recovery time

• Users often use disks for data storage and for recovering its backup on different servers in case your server, in this case, the SQL server faces any grave issue.

• Users are prepared to handle any critical problem by keeping data in tapes that are off-site or in disk drives to recover the data in any circumstance.

• The company needs to ensure that the costs are balanced when it comes to the storage needs of the database, and so backups require pruning frequently

• Tape backups can also be a component of the above pruning process

• Users can make backups offsite with the SQL for a whole month so that they can avert any disaster that might occur

However, you should note that in the above case, the retention period will cover all the aspects of maintaining backups on the devices that are off-site. You can never see a disaster that will cause data loss to the company. This is why specialists from esteemed database management companies in the USA like RemoteDBA.com suggest that you maintain off-site data as it is very important for the organization.

3. Setting up the recovery plan for the organization- Here you should consider the following steps-

• Determine the recovery point for database backup

• Determine the storage location for the data

• Users need to know well in advance whether the present software or the hardware infrastructure will support the data restore in the system or not

• Determine whether the database, as in the above case, the SQL server, can be restored after the database backup is conducted.

• Validate whether the process for restore is correct or not.

4. Solutions by third-parties- You should note the following when it comes to solutions by third-parties-

• You should use software by third-parties for backup and recovery that will boost security, meet your storage needs, and save precious time.

• You should research and later invest in those products that have automatic and continuous backups.

• Some organizations are specialized in handling all off-site backups, and small -scale companies or individuals can rely on them for taking care of their database backups. This step helps to reduce the retention period when these database backups are created.

4. Salient points for you to remember when you are creating backups- Last but not the least, when you are creating database backups, keep the following points in mind-

• In most instances, organizations have to incur a lot of energy, time, and concern when it comes to dealing with the backup process. However, there are some business owners and individuals that completely forget about the importance of the recovery process as well. So, if you are a business leader, you must ensure that you as well as all the members of your team, extensively go through the policies for retention carefully.

• In case you are not sure about the specific needs of the industry you are in, you should consult your IT team about the recovery and the retention process for clarifying any confusion.

• Legal policies are changing daily, and so it is prudent for you to stay updated with all these changes.

• In case there are changes in the period of retention, you should always inform the team about them as well as the costs that are involved when it comes to incorporating these changes in the software that you use for retention.

Large databases

In context to the example that is being discussed here, very often, you will find that SQL server databases tend to grow very fast in almost every organization as they contain both very old and recent data. The result is these databases grow into big and bulky files with time. The content of these files grows, and these databases become heavy. The process for back up becomes longer and consumes a lot of time. This is one of the key reasons why companies go forth to mandate internal policies for database maintenance for a limited period to avert the occurrence of damaged SQL.

Experts in the field say that though small databases are simple to manage, there are instances where you may need information from the old files, so they suggest that you tune your server backups well, use a large server for the backup and work with storage snapshots for a faster backup process.