Every wonder why your IT Pro says you should never just press the power button to turn off your computer? The reason is because your computer is constantly writing information to the hard drive, and if the computer was in the middle of writing an important file when your computer was turned off, that file could now be incomplete, and therefore "corrupted." The databases that house your patient information, imaging, and accounting work the same way. If your backup software doesn't verify your data is in a safe state, it's likely your backup won't be recoverable.
File-based backup vs Image-based backup
- File-based backups are configured to make a copy of a specific set of files and folders on your server, and rely on the person (or robot =] ) who sets them up to include all the data that is necessary to make sure they are recoverable in a disaster. It's important to make sure you communicate with your IT provider when you change or add software to your network to make sure the data is backed up.
- Image-based backups make a copy of the entire contents of your hard drive, which means this type of backup will contain all the files and folders necessary, including the Microsoft Windows Operating System, to restore your server in a disaster. However, even with an image-based backup it's possible your files weren't in a consistent state during the backup and may not be usable, just like if you unplugged the power cord to your server.
So you're probably asking yourself... Is it even possible to get a good backup of my data!? Well, yes... it is! You just need to rely on people with the knowledge required to make sure your data is recoverable. Microsoft includes a technology with the Windows Operating System called Volume Shadow Services (VSS.) Realistically, what VSS does is ask applications to get to a "consistent" state to prepare for backup, so they are recoverable in the event of a disaster. Sounds easy, right? Just get a backup software that supports VSS! If it were that easy your IT pro wouldn't be so snarky all the time. The problem is that not all applications were built to conform to Microsoft's Standards for VSS compatibility. In fact, many of the applications still used today were originally built utilizing database technologies designed in the 90's and haven't changed much since then. If your software got much slower when you upgraded to Windows 7 then you know what we're talking about...
What does all this mean? We think it means if you're happiest when you're not worrying about whether or not your backup is recoverable, you should give us a call. We're happy to help.