Talk:Backup
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Backup was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. Reviewed version: September 10, 2007 |
A few changes I just made to the article: first the references to the "archive bit" in the "Types of backup" section have been removed - the archive bit is a system-specific feature of WinNT systems and is not relevant to backups in general (besides, it tends not to be used by most modern backup software, they keep their own info on what has been backed up). Secondly, I've limited the description of restoring using differential backups to the case (Full backup + differential backup) - there had been mentions of incrementals as well, which for the purposes of exposition had to be dropped - someone not familiar with the terms will be confused as to whether incrementals taken before the differential are required, whereas the author (I assume) meant any incrementals newer than the differential. For clarity, keep it simple, then the reader can grasp the concepts and the more complex cases will suggest themselves without clouding the descriptions.
There is a new article at Data backup, which may need to merged in this one. I left a note on the author's talk page, and recommended either merging it here or changing its focus enough to make a standalone article. 68.81.231.127 09:42, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
"A backup should not use compression. Compression reduces data redundancy. Redundancy might be useful when restoring data from damaged media." Does this apply to CD-R–based backups? —Wins oddf
- I've just rephrased that to be a bit more straightforward, but yes, regardless of media, it still applies. If you scratch the CD and the data on it is uncompressed, you'll lose part of a file or so. If you scratch it and the data on it is compressed you may lose the entire compressed archive. — mendel ☎ 20:43, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
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[edit] Paris bank fire
Talk copied from wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous Jay 08:00, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Which is the bank mentioned in the Backup article : "A few years earlier (to 2001), during a fire at the headquarters of a major bank in Paris, system administrators ran into the burning building to rescue backup tapes because they didn't have offsite copies." ? Jay 14:01, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
- In the last decade there have been two Paris bank fires. The Credit Lyonnais headquarters in 1996. And a fire at Banque de France in 1999, which I don't think anyone cared about. I can't verify the above anecdote. lots of issues | leave me a message 05:05, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
- Confirmed that the headquarters of the Lyonnais burnt on May 5, 2001, apparently arson. It is rumoured [1] that the disappearances of archives was intentional (the Lyonnais was, at the time, caught up in major scandals). The 1996 fire seems to be cited as an example of what should not be done on sites promoting data backups. David.Monniaux 16:18, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
- Yes, Credit Lyonnais seems to be the one since it gave many Google hits on "fire" and "Credit Lyonnais". Got a case study for data backup using this fire incident as an example. Jay 07:55, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Verb versus Noun
I have often seen the verb form written as two words "to back up the system", whereas the noun is always one. Not sure if this is worth mentioning in the article.
212.32.67.111 16:10, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Formats
"A backup should rely on standard, well-established formats."
- Such as?... — Omegatron 00:50, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
On unix and most NAS - tar, gtar, cpio, dump, On netware - sidf On Windows - MTF (Microsoft Tape Format), Vendor Specific - OTF ("Open" Tape Format - Depends on your definition of open, cf EMC Networker man pages), Netbackup multiplexed gtar, various Vendor specific implementations of MTF, and whatever TSM uses.
Thats the great thing about standards, there are so many to choose from.
--Sharkspear 00:37, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Incrementals
This article is wrong. The discussion of differential versus incremental needs to be corrected. It is fuzzy and misleading as it is now. I suspect the author doesn't really understand the concepts properly. Some examples of backup/restore strategies using "1) full backup + Incremental" and "2) Full backup + differential" bringing out the Pros and Cons of each is also necessary. 82.46.191.5 09:47, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
- Which part of the article is wrong? There is no explicit discussion of differential versus incremental. The only mention of differential backups is in the Glossary section and each of those entries looks good to me. I suggest putting the details of incremental vs. differential in the Incremental backup article. My opinion is that differentials are rarely used and that writing a lot about them in the general backup article would only serve to obfuscate the larger issues. -- Austin Murphy 15:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Storage Media
With regard to the Optical Media section, is "(This is equivalent to 12,000 images or 200,000 pages of text.)" really true? It depends greatly on formats, quality, compression etc.
Also I was considering changing the format of this section to an "Advantages/Disadvantages" format. Ozstrike 01:34, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
- I agree that the 12,000/200,000 comment is basically baloney and suggest removing it. As to changing it the whole section, I would mostly be interested in including the characteristic features of each medium rather than turning it into a face-off of sorts. Feel free to contribute! -- Austin Murphy 01:57, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
this is a back up —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.161.83.133 (talk) 07:53, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Link spam for Veritas NetBackup
I see a lot of proprietary language on this article based on Veritas NetBackup. Is this a really, really hot product or does this reek as much as I think? Marc W. Abel 16:44, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
- Hi Marc, I just delinked NetBackup from two of the glossary entries. The point in mentioning NetBackup by name 5 times in the Glossary is to make sense of some of the unique terms used for different functions. NetBackup is one of the Big Three commercial unix backup packages. The other two are Tivoli and Legato. BackupExec is pretty big on Windows. I don't know the terminology for them so I didn't include it. If you have other terms that could be added, please do. -- Austin Murphy 18:33, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Grammar
The grammar in the 'backup' article appears to be erroraneous in a few places. Take for example the opening line: "backup refers to the copying of data so that these additional copies may be restored after a data loss event." I have issues, particularly with the text "restored after a data loss event". From what I understand, "data loss" is the result of failure (software/hardware, electrical infrastructure anomaly, fire, etc), while the "event" refers to the instance in which the said data loss occurred. I suggest rephrasing the text like so: "backup refers to the copying of data onto supplementary media and facilitate data restoration in the event of a failure leading to data loss." (66.41.51.46 01:37, 12 May 2007 (UTC))
- I agree the language was a bit clumsy, so I've updated it. However, I don't think "supplimentary media" really makes any more sense than the previous wording. Check out the data loss page. There is more to data loss than failures. Time playes a crucial role in how data is handled. I think the phrase "data loss event" accurately conveys this. -- Austin Murphy 15:21, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Failed GA
This article has failed the GA noms due to being written like a list, as well as the few amounts of jargon in various places. If you disagree with this decision feel free to take it to WP:GA/R. Tarrettalk 20:53, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Too much like a list?
The GA criticism seems to indicate that a way to improve the article would be to make it less like a list. Wikipedia:Embedded list and Wikipedia:Lists have a bit of official info on the subject. I think they generally support the way the article is laid out. Still, it may work better if there was more prose. Comments? -- Austin Murphy 15:02, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] A few points based on experience..
I often ask myself why many (if not most) users fail to maintain any sort of backups, and the main reason is most likely the massive level of complexity of the commercially-available backup systems. Complexity which for the most part is totally unneeded. A key example is the 'media pooling' regime of Windows servers, which through its complexity and troublesomeness is a very frequent cause of backup failure.
It would be beneficial to explain in straightforward terms WHY rotational backups are needed; most users do not grasp the fact that repeatedly using the same media only protects against losses which are immediately noticed. A few pictorial examples of rotation might be helpful in explaining the principle.
Another point worth touching on is that many proffered backup 'solutions' are OK for backing-up documents, but woefully inadequate when it comes to a hard-disk failure, in that they are incapable of fully restoring the OS or system-partition from a backup.
The point about standard formats is a good one, and to this I would add that a backup is of little use for disaster-recovery unless the format in which it was made, and the disk-partitions it represents, are documented. As is a copy of the backup software itself, especially if this is proprietary.
Perhaps the point about verification could be made more strongly, in that many backup systems are notorious for failing to notify the operator that they have started to 'write blanks' and will continue to do so indefinitely unless a periodic manual check is made that the backup actually contains data.
Finally, it might be relevant to mention that since backup processes typically run under a specific useraccount (e.g. root or Administrator) a frequent pitfall is that of forcing a change of this account's password as part of a security-policy, and thereby knocking-out the backup. Since this typically also knocks-out any error-notification process, the fact may go unnoticed until a data-loss occurs. --Anteaus (talk) 11:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- Hi Anteaus, I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at here, but you are welcome to make the edits yourself. Wikipedia's guideline on this is called "Be BOLD!" If you would like to "test-drive" some edits, you can leave them here for some feedback. Also, consider that this is an encyclopedia, not a how-to manual, and it is directed toward a general audience. Deep levels of detail are welcome, but they must fit into the context. -- Austin Murphy (talk) 16:44, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] backup window
The backup window is not necessarily the same as doing a cold backup of a database or application. Fuzzy backups are a risk when doing hot backups or open file backups improperly. Cold backups require a strict backup window, but the term backup window is more broad than just that. -- Austin Murphy (talk) 19:08, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
- Well, I have different understanding of the term, but I won't argue. But could you at least mention fuzzy backup somewhere in the article? Do you feel this is non-issue? --Kubanczyk (talk) 07:43, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
- Sorry, I got distracted after that edit and forgot to move fuzzy backup to where I thought it fit. Open file backup is an important topic. I'm thinking of starting a new page to better describe the process for different types of data and the problem of getting fuzzy backups. -- Austin Murphy (talk) 18:14, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
- OK, great work. I also feel that open file backup is a often overlooked major practical issue. Maybe it would be better to generalize Fuzzy backup article, as opposed to creating a new one? I think it's a good starting point. --Kubanczyk (talk) 20:09, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
- Sorry, I got distracted after that edit and forgot to move fuzzy backup to where I thought it fit. Open file backup is an important topic. I'm thinking of starting a new page to better describe the process for different types of data and the problem of getting fuzzy backups. -- Austin Murphy (talk) 18:14, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
