BACK IT UP!
By Eric Barb
The phone rings. On the other end is a breathless voice – yes an end user in a dead
panic. “I think my computer crashed”. Already knowing the answer, I ask,
“When was the last time you backed up your data?” The silence or excuses that
follow are sad and kind of Dilbert like. As an IT support professional, if you haven't
experienced this yet, trust me, you will. The best thing to do is be
prepared for the situation by having a sound backup strategy in place. Let’s talk about a few different ways to go about it.
Before we get started you are going to need two things; software and media. The software
is the program that is doing the work.It performs the backup of the selected data at the
scheduled time. You could buy the software such as Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image
however, windows actually comes with a free backup program cleverly named “Backup”.
It can be found in your start menu under ‘Programs’ -> ‘Accessories’-
> ‘System Tools’. This program starts in a wizard that makes it easy to setup
and offers advanced options if you would like to schedule automatic backups. The other
thing I mentioned was the media. This is where the backup is stored. Media for
backup includes CD’s, DVD’s, Flash Drives, External Hard Drives, or even
networked computers. Since most computers on the market have CD burners, CD’s are
the most cost effective method right now. Obviously there are pros and cons with anything
and this isn’t without exception. This method of backup is cheap and easy however, as the
user you have to take the responsibility of making sure this is getting done at appropriate
intervals.
An alternate backup approach that is growing in popularity is the online backup. With
permanent high speed connections on the rise, it’s much easier to backup large amounts
of data over the web. A few of the more popular online backup sites include IBackup.com and
LogMeIn.com. With any of these services and your computer connected to a constant high speed
connection, backup takes place automatically at scheduled times without user intervention. On
the downside, someone else has your data and is responsible for it as well as at a recurring
cost. These two services run $10 and $7 per month or $100 and $60 per year respectively.
As you can see there are alternative approaches to backing up user data with varying degrees
of cost and effort. It just depends on what is more important to you. Whatever the case may be,
prepare yourself now so that when disaster strikes your computer you can rest assured knowing
that your data is safe. For more information on backing up your data or the technology and
integration solutions offered by VCS, please contact me at
vcs@getvitalized.com.
A MESSAGE FROM THE PRINCIPAL
By John Smaling
We’re half way through the year and, coincidentally enough, the VCS Technology
practice is six months old! To date, we have enjoyed tremendous acceptance among our customers,
who have demonstrated a healthy appetite for a wide variety of our service offerings.
Presently, we are engaged in a litany of activities, such as providing Cerner and Eclipsys
System Engineers in support of our clients’ application implementation and upgrade
activities. We’re delivering highly flexible and reliable enterprise wireless network
designs and implementations to address organizations’ critical need for mobile voice and
data solutions. We’re assisting customers in crafting their Identity Management
strategies as they realize that single sign on, password management, context management and
user provisioning are much more challenging than the brochures would have them believe!
Server consolidation efforts are hot, and Vitalize is there to assist our clients in
significantly reducing the number of physical boxes in their bursting data centers by
leveraging vmWare and MS Virtual Server.
These are just some of the ways that our technical team is staying busy through the summer
and beyond. It has been exciting to see that, as healthcare organizations continue to expand
and strengthen their clinical and business systems, they understand the critical role that
highly available and high performance infrastructure plays in these endeavors.
To our existing technology clients, we thank you for your confidence. To those of you who
are not yet customers, we hope that you’ll give Criag Fetner or me an opportunity to
earn your trust and business soon. Criag can be reached at
cfetner@getvitalized.com. Call to see how we can
strengthen your team with ours.