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The other side of data loss is the
psychological and emotional turmoil it can cause to IT managers and business
owners. Despair, panic, and the knowledge that the whole organization might be
at risk are involved. In a sense, that's only fair, since human error is one of
the two largest contributing factors in data loss. Together with mechanical
failure, it accounts for almost 75 per cent of all incidents. (Software
corruption, computer viruses and physical disasters such as fire and water
damage make up the rest.)
Disk drives today are typically reliable. Human
beings, it turns out, are not. A Strategic Research Corp. study done in 2000
found that approximately 15 per cent of all unplanned downtime occurred due to
human error. A significant proportion of that happened because users failed to
implement adequate backup procedures, either having trouble with their backups,
or having no backup at all.
How does it happen that skilled, high-level
users put their systems - and their businesses - at such risk?
In many cases, the problem starts long before
the precipitating system error is made, that is, when users place their faith in
out-of-box solutions that may not, in fact, fit their organization's needs.
Instead of assessing their business and technology requirements, then going to
an appropriate engineered solution, even experienced IT professionals at large
corporations will often simply buy what they're sold. In this case, faith in
technology can be an vice instead of a virtue.
But human intervention itself can sometimes be
the straw that breaks the technology's back. When the office of a Venezuelan
civil engineering firm was devastated by floods, its owners sent 17 soaked,
mud-coated disks from three RAID arrays to us in plastic bags. A tough enough
salvage job was made even more complex by the fact that someone had frozen the
drives before shipping them. As the disks thawed, yet more damage was done.
(After eight weeks of painstaking directory-by-directory recovery, all the data
from the remaining fifteen disks was retrieved.)
Sometimes, the underlying cause of a data loss
event is simply shoddy housekeeping. The more arduous the required backup
routine, the less likely it will be done on a regular basis. A state ambulance
monitoring system suffered a serious disk failure, only to discover that its
automated backup hadn't run for fourteen months. A tape had jammed in the drive,
but no-one had noticed.
When disaster strikes, the normal human
reaction is panic. Because the loss of data signifies critical consequences,
even the most competent IT staff can jump to conclusions, and take inappropriate
action. A blank screen at a critical time can lead to a series of naive
decisions, each one compounding the preceding error. Wrong buttons get pushed,
and the disaster only gets worse. Sometimes the pressure to correct the system
failure speedily can result in an attempt to reconfigure an entire RAID array.
IT specialists are typically not equipped to deal with crisis modes or data
recovery techniques. Just as a good physician is trained to prolong life, the
skilled IT specialist is trained to keep the system running. When a patient
dies, the physician turns to others, such as nurses or counsellors to manage the
situation. When significant data loss occurs, the IT specialist turns to the
data recovery professional.
Data recovery specialists are innovative
problem solvers. Often, the application of basic common sense, when no-one else
is in any condition to apply it, is the beginning of the journey towards data
recovery. The data recovery specialist draws on a wealth of experience, married
to a "never say die" attitude, and a comprehensive tool kit of problem-solving
procedures. Successful recovery outcomes hinge on a combination of innovative
logistics, applied problem-solving, and "technology triage," the process of
stabilizing an affected system quickly, analyzing and treating its wounds, and
preparing it for surgery. The triage process sets priorities, such as targeting
which files are needed first or which are absolutely vital to the functioning of
the business, and establishes whether files might be recovered in less
structured formats (such as text-only), which may be desirable when time is
crucial.
The art and science of professional data
recovery can spell the difference between a business' success or its failure.
Before that level of intervention is required, though, users can take steps to
ensure that the probability of a data loss disaster is minimized.
Basic to any business technology plan is a
regular fire-drill procedure. Back-up routines may be in place, staff may
assigned to specific roles, hardware and software may be configured - but, if
the user isn't completely sure that everything works the way it should, a data
loss event is inevitable. Having adequate, tested, and current backups in place
is critical. A hardware breakdown should not be compounded by human error - if
the malfunctioning drive is critical, the task of dealing with it should go to a
data recovery professional.
Just as data loss disasters are rooted in a
combination of mechanical failure and human error, so, too, the data recovery
solution lies in a creative marriage of the technological and the human. The
underlying philosophy of successful data recovery is that technology is
something to be used by human beings, not something that uses us.
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