IT Security: A Backup and Recovery Plan for the work and home

With the advancement of cloud computing nowadays, it makes good sense to backup our data not only on the cloud but also on our personal storage devices. This is because the internal operations of cloud storage may not be transparent to us.

Many of us may not see this as a necessity especially when it involves spending hundreds of dollars on hardwares such as a routers, firewalls, Network Attached Storage and so on. Sometimes, they can be also security issues on information disclosure without our consent. To avoid and free ourselves of such hassle, we may want to backup our data locally in the premises whereby we can control physically.

There are many options to backup our data. One of the way would be the use of external portable hard disk. We may use portable hard disk which sometimes may not be protected against drop or physically damage. It is also easily be stolen or get lost if we are not careful.

Another method would be the use of a more reliable mode of storage for home would be to get a Network Attached Storage (NAS).

How to select a good NAS? The following can be used as a guide to

a) Consider the needs versus budget?

b) From the budget, consider a two disk bay or a 4 disk bay or more?

c) Get from a reputable brand for the NAS as it tends to be more secure and last longer?

d) Next consider what are the stuff to backup on the NAS

e) Consider using the backup utility supplied by the NAS. A good NAS would tend to have a built in backup and restore software.

f) Also, get one with the antivirus built in as well.

g) If you need good bandwidth, some NAS may offer aggregating LAN ports to provide a higher bandwidth.

Consider a basic requirement of backing up our data from our notebook. We may assign a shared drive on the NAS. We can then backup the data from the notebook to the NAS using scripts or backup software from Windows operating system.

We may also use simple application like Hyper Backup to backup our data. This may be configured at pre-plan time as well. Using Hyper Backup data may also be backup from the cloud onto the NAS easily and both data can be automatically synchronised too.

About the Author

SHB had been working in the IT area for 20 years. He is specialised in software development and IT management system. He is CISA certified, lead auditor trained in ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 management system.

• Main initiatives include IT implementations through framework such as ISO 27001, Business Continuity Management and best practices from the industries.

• Enhance the security system in the organisation by looking into the network design and software configuration of the hardware providing awareness training to end users and IT staff.

• Worked in the area of software design & development and IT security.

• Implement numerous NAS implementation for the purpose of entertainment and backup.

Contact: 12consult@gmail.com