Protect Your Data on World Backup Day
Today is World Backup Day, created as an independent effort in 2011 on the eve of April Fools' Day. The goal is to underscore that it takes a fool not to back up their files regularly. Described as an independent effort created under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, it was founded because many people still don't understand the need to back up their data. Hence it's aimed at bringing awareness to the issue. While the intent is well grounded, it doesn't seem to have garnered much attention.
As far as I can tell, even some of its sponsors, including Backblaze, LaCIE and Western Digital, haven't made much noise about World Backup Day this year. Could it be that most providers of data protection software assume everyone backs up their data? Certainly enterprises do and the April issue of Redmond magazine looks at improvements to Microsoft's new System Center 2012 R2 Data Protection Manager and how third-party providers of backup and recovery software are offering new ways to replicate server data of specific apps and functions such as SharePoint, SQL Server and VMware-based VMs.
But the majority of people are still careless when it comes to protecting their data. According to the World Backup Day Web site, 30 percent of people have never backed up their data. With 113 phones being lost or stolen every minute and 10 percent of every computer infected with viruses each month, those 30 percent need to get on board.
If you're one those who haven't backed up their PCs and devices lately (you know who you are), take the time today to do so. At some point, you'll be glad you did.
Posted by Kurt Mackie on 03/31/2014 at 12:30 PM