Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
resource or to the cloud. These are basic backup application systems which have limited
features compared to commercial backup application software.
Backup utilities have a number of features such as being able to backup the system image
only. In the event of a computer crashing, the system image can be restored. These utilities
also allow users to set specific time and date when backups can be performed. This means
that backups can automatically start even when the user is not available in the office.
There are also commercial backup applications which are used to backup large volumes of
data in real-time. These backup systems are able to make backups of data on large data-
bases over long-haul networks across countries or continents. These backups are taken as
data is being captured using differential backups for example. Some backup systems use
snapshots which copy data which has changed over a short period of time, such as a few
seconds.
To prevent data theft, most backup systems have encryption features which protect backup
data from being stolen or modified as it is transmitted over public networks, such as the
Internet. Data can also be encrypted on disk storage in order to protect backups.
Error checking is one feature available in most backup systems. Data being backed up is
checked for errors by comparing data being backed up with the source data. It is possible
that data can get corrupted during backup or transmission. Where errors are discovered, a
fresh backup is requested to correct the identified errors.
Backup software is also able to perform scheduling of backups. These allow backups to
take place automatically without human intervention. The scheduler tools can be con-
figured to run at a particular time and day. Several backups can be scheduled to run at dif-
ferent times. Many backup administrators would prefer to run backups in the night when
the networks or servers are less busy. It is often a complicated situation when backups are
done across different time zones to determine when and which location and networks are
less busy.
Rollback management is another important feature in backup software as it enables the sys-
tem to rollback in the event of an error. This protects previously backed up data from being
completely lost.
Backup software support differential backup and incremental backup so that only data that
is new or has changed compared to the backed up data is backed up. Most backup soft-
ware have sophisticated backup techniques which are able to identify changes to data being
backed up.
An enterprise should have in place a backup policy which will be used to support imple-
mentation of backup procedures. The backup policy is one of the documents the IS auditor
would review before carrying out further audit work on the backup processes. Most of the
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