1. Automate Your Backups

Most everyone knows that you need to backup up your data. Unfortunately, most don’t make a regular habit of it. The best way to ensure you have up to date backups is to automate the process. An excellent way to do this is to use a tool like SyncBack. It provides an excellent GUI for creating “tasks” to backup data to external hard drives, network shares, encrypted volumes (see below) or other backup devices. Its integration with the Windows Task Scheduler makes it very easy to automate your backup tasks.

This is the solution I recommend for most users as it requires no batch programming and it is completely free. If you are backing up a business network I suggest using SyncBackSE, a premium version (~$30) that includes several more features including file versioning and the ability to backup locked files.

2. Get Your Backup Off Site

OK, now that you are making those backups on a regular basis you need to protect against tragedies like fires and floods. The best way to do that is to take backups off site. One way to do this is to use portable backup solutions like data cartridge or tape drives, external hard disks or a laptop. Each of these can be effective solutions providing you actually take them off site.

I recommend Carbonite for online backup.  It’s inexpensive, simple to setup and use and supports file servers.

A more complex alternative, if you have a FTP account – with enough capacity and bandwidth for your needs – you can use it as the target of your SyncBack tasks.

3. Encrypt Your Data

Another threat to your data is unauthorized access. Your network is password protected, but what about the backups. With all these off site backups floating around the likelihood of it falling into the wrong hands increases. How many stories have we heard about information workers loosing a laptop full of social security numbers, credit card numbers and other personal information? An excellent way to protect the data in your care is to encrypt it.

The tool I like best for this purpose is TrueCrypt. It’s a free, open source tool that lets you create and maintain encrypted volumes on hard drives and removable data cartridges. By backing up to these encrypted volumes you can be sure that your data is protected from unauthorized use.

If you are using an online backup service then configure it to backup the TrueCrypt volume only. This way you know that while your data is securely sitting on a third party server there is no risk of snooping or other data theft.

4. Use a Version Control System

If you work in an environment where several people make changes to a large library files then you may benefit by using a version control system. Traditionally used by programmers and software engineers, version control system can be valuable tools for others that need to maintain control over how and who can change files.

With a version control system authorized users are required to “check-out” documents from a repository before they can make changes to them. This helps prevent multiple users from editing the same file at the same time. When files are “committed” back to the repository the changes are stored as well. This gives you the ability to compare versions and rollback edits. So when some one accidentally deletes pages 5 to 21 of the employee handbook you can recover it from an earlier version of the document.

You can implement a basic version control system on your PC or network using a free tool like TortoiseSVN. You can also use a web based service provider like CVSDude to host your repository giving you the added benefit of anywhere access and off site backup.

5. Backup Your Power Too

Have you ever lost an hour or more worth of editing when the power went out? One solution to this problem is to SAVE OFTEN! But did you know that your changes aren’t always written to disk immediately when you save? It could be several minutes before their securely on the disk. The better solution is to use an UPS – that is an Uninterrupted Power Supply – or battery backup. When the power goes out a UPS will continue to keep your PC on long enough for you to save and shutdown the PC normally.

If you are running a business network a UPS is a must for file servers and database servers. Remember to use a UPS on network equipment as well. Even if your servers and workstations are on a UPS you won’t be able to properly close network resources if the switch loses power. That can lead to data loss too.

In addition to a continuing flow of juice a good UPS unit will also provide protection against power surges that can damage your computer and network equipment. Even small, unnoticeable fluctuations in voltage can cause electronic wear to sensitive equipment. If you are not going to use UPS, at the very least use a surge suppressor.

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This is how we build a LAMP stack. Start off with some commodity hardware that meets your applications specs for memory, hard drive space, processing power, etc. Without the built in OS license you should be able to save several hundred of dollars on the hardware.

Tip: Click here for great deals on barebone systems from TigerDirect.com

The ‘L’ in LAMP is for Linux … GNU/Linux that is. GNU/Linux is a term used to describe a variety of “Linux Distributions” that are freely available. I like the Fedora distribution, although the other free operating systems listed here are all good choices as well.

The ‘A’ is for Apache. Apache is the most widely used web server on the Internet. It can be extended with any number of modules. Use it as an application server that delivers your web site to the public, intranet applications to your employees and web applications to your customers.

For the ‘M’ load up the latest, stable version of MySQL Community Server to support all of your database driven applications. This is the most popular free database solution. Don’t forget the GUI Tools.

The ‘P’ can stand for a number of programming language platforms that are freely available. These allow developers to create custom applications on your LAMP stack. The main three ‘P’s are PHP, Perl and Python. For the later two I prefer the ActivePerl and ActivePython distributions.

The LAMP stack is used for a huge portion of the Internet application market. The web site you are viewing right now is being delivered via a LAMP stack as are many popular content management systems like WordPress. It is a growing part of the business application market as well, displacing Windows and SQL Server based solutions at a growing pace.

In addition to the products outlined here check out more free server applications at the Free Software Catalog here on GARA.com.

Need help putting one together? Contact me with your questions.

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