{"id":3362,"date":"2011-10-28T10:08:36","date_gmt":"2011-10-28T00:08:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/?p=3362"},"modified":"2018-12-11T14:54:31","modified_gmt":"2018-12-11T04:54:31","slug":"20-common-misconceptions-about-backup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2011\/10\/28\/20-common-misconceptions-about-backup\/","title":{"rendered":"20 Common Misconceptions about Backup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s lots of misconceptions about backup \u2013 here, I want to present 20 of them:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Backup is an IT activity. <strong>It&#8217;s not<\/strong>. It&#8217;s a <a title=\"Backup is insurance\" href=\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2010\/02\/11\/backup-is-insurance-2\/\" target=\"_blank\">corporate insurance policy<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Backup is a function of ILM. <strong>It&#8217;s not<\/strong>. It belongs in ILP, which is <em>not<\/em>&nbsp;the same thing. See &#8220;<a title=\"Think backup belongs in ILM? Think again\" href=\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2009\/09\/12\/think-backup-belongs-in-ilm-think-again\/\" target=\"_blank\">Think Backup Belongs in ILM? Think again<\/a>&#8220;.<\/li>\n<li>Backup is not a production activity. <strong>It is<\/strong>. See &#8220;<a title=\"Backup is a production activity\" href=\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2009\/08\/25\/backup-is-a-production-activity\/\" target=\"_blank\">Backup is a production activity<\/a>&#8220;.<\/li>\n<li>You don&#8217;t need a support contract for your backup environment. <strong>You do<\/strong>. See, &#8220;<a title=\"The perils of an Icarus support contract\" href=\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2010\/03\/17\/the-perils-of-an-icarus-support-contract\/\" target=\"_blank\">Perils of an Icarus support contract<\/a>&#8220;.<\/li>\n<li>You can migrate hardware you&#8217;re phasing out of production into backup and DR. <strong>You can&#8217;t<\/strong>. See, &#8220;<a title=\"If you wouldn't drink it, don't cook with it.\" href=\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2011\/09\/28\/if-you-wouldnt-drink-it-dont-cook-with-it\/\" target=\"_blank\">If you wouldn&#8217;t drink it, don&#8217;t cook with it<\/a>&#8220;.<\/li>\n<li>Backup failures happen. <strong>They don&#8217;t<\/strong>. (Potential recovery failures happen.) See, &#8220;<a title=\"There is no such thing as a backup failure\" href=\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2011\/05\/07\/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-backup-failure\/\" target=\"_blank\">There is no such thing as a backup failure<\/a>&#8220;.<\/li>\n<li>You can have a backup system without a zero error policy. <strong>You can&#8217;t<\/strong>. See &#8220;<a title=\"No zero error policy? No backup system\" href=\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2011\/04\/15\/no-zero-error-policy-no-backup-system\/\" target=\"_blank\">No Zero Error Policy? No backup system<\/a>&#8220;.<\/li>\n<li>Backup stops at servers and the occasional desktop. It doesn&#8217;t. See &#8220;<a title=\"What don't you backup?\" href=\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2011\/08\/23\/what-dont-you-backup\/\" target=\"_blank\">What don&#8217;t you backup?<\/a>&#8220;, and &#8220;<a title=\"But where does the DPA fit in?\" href=\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2011\/08\/24\/but-where-does-the-dpa-fit-in\/\" target=\"_blank\">But where does the DPA fit in?<\/a>&#8220;<\/li>\n<li>Deduplication can be tacked into a backup solution and immediately solve your capacity problems. <strong>It&#8217;s not that simple<\/strong>. See &#8220;<a title=\"7 common problems with deduplication\" href=\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2011\/08\/07\/7-common-problems-with-deduplication\/\" target=\"_blank\">7 common problems with deduplication<\/a>&#8220;.<\/li>\n<li>Inclusive backup policies work. <strong>They don&#8217;t<\/strong>. See &#8220;<a title=\"First, backup everything\" href=\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2011\/04\/16\/first-backup-everything\/\" target=\"_blank\">First, backup everything<\/a>&#8220;.<\/li>\n<li>Backup (and more generally, IT) issues are technology issues. <strong>They&#8217;re usually not<\/strong>. See, &#8220;<a title=\"Technology is rarely the issue\" href=\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2011\/04\/12\/technology-is-rarely-the-issue\/\" target=\"_blank\">Technology is rarely the issue<\/a>&#8220;.<\/li>\n<li>Backup capacity issues are solved by adding more capacity first. <strong>You should add backup capacity last<\/strong>. See, &#8220;<a title=\"A basic data lifecycle\" href=\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2011\/01\/04\/a-basic-data-lifecycle\/\" target=\"_blank\">A basic data lifecycle<\/a>&#8220;, and its follow up posts.<\/li>\n<li>Archive is backup. <strong>It isn&#8217;t<\/strong>. See &#8220;<a title=\"Archive is not backup\" href=\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2010\/09\/09\/archive-is-not-backup\/\" target=\"_blank\">Archive is not backup<\/a>&#8220;.<\/li>\n<li>A complex backup environment is a good backup environment. <strong>Wrong<\/strong>. See, &#8220;<a title=\"Of unicorns and horses\" href=\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2010\/02\/20\/of-unicorns-and-horses\/\" target=\"_blank\">Of unicorns and horses<\/a>&#8220;.<\/li>\n<li>Backups should be rigorously cost controlled, with every saving aggressively pursued. <strong>Wrong<\/strong>. See, &#8220;<a title=\"Backups are not about being miserly\" href=\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2009\/05\/18\/backups-are-not-about-being-miserly\/\" target=\"_blank\">Backups are not about being miserly<\/a>&#8220;.<\/li>\n<li>Cross-site backups allow you to avoid cloning or backup duplication. <strong>Nope, definitely not<\/strong>. See, &#8220;<a title=\"You can't escape cloning with cross-site backups\" href=\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2009\/09\/09\/you-cant-escape-cloning-with-cross-site-backups\/\" target=\"_blank\">You can&#8217;t escape cloning with cross-site backups<\/a>&#8220;.<\/li>\n<li>Backup sucks. <strong>Wrong<\/strong>. It&#8217;s actually one of the best jobs you could hope for. See, &#8220;<a title=\"Backup does not suck\" href=\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2009\/08\/27\/backup-does-not-suck\/\" target=\"_blank\">Backup does not suck<\/a>&#8220;.<\/li>\n<li>Tape is dead. <strong>No, the usage strategy has evolved<\/strong>, that&#8217;s all. See, &#8220;<a title=\"Direct to tape is dead, long live tape\" href=\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2010\/01\/22\/direct-to-tape-is-dead-long-live-tape\/\" target=\"_blank\">Direct to tape is dead, long live tape<\/a>&#8220;.<\/li>\n<li>Capacity planning can be done quickly. <strong>No, it can&#8217;t<\/strong> (unless you have the right tools). See, &#8220;<a title=\"Capacity planning - quickly or properly\" href=\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2011\/02\/27\/capacity-plan-quickly-or-properly\/\" target=\"_blank\">Capacity planning \u2013 quickly or properly?<\/a>&#8220;<\/li>\n<li>The dense filesystem problem doesn&#8217;t really happen. <strong>Yes, it does<\/strong>. See, &#8220;<a title=\"In-lab review of the impact of dense filesystems\" href=\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2009\/06\/17\/in-lab-review-of-the-impact-of-dense-filesystems\/\" target=\"_blank\">In-lab review of the impact of dense filesystems<\/a>&#8220;.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s lots of misconceptions about backup \u2013 here, I want to present 20 of them: Backup is an IT activity.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-backup-theory"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pKpIN-Se","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3362"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7498,"href":"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3362\/revisions\/7498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}