Chapter 26. Backup and Restore

Everyone hates backups. They are inconvenient. They are costly. Services run slower—or not at all—when servers are being backed up. On the other hand, customers love restores. Restores are why SAs perform backups.

Being able to restore lost data is a critical part of any environment. Data gets lost. Equipment fails. Humans delete it by mistake and on purpose. Judges impound all lawsuit-related documents that were stored on your computers on a certain date. Shareholders require the peace of mind that comes with the knowledge that a natural or other disaster will not make their investment worthless. Data also gets corrupted by mistake, on purpose, or by gamma rays from space. Backups are like insurance: You pay for it even though you hope to never need it. In reality, you need it.