Depends on the business. But it's usually determined by a legal aspect of the business. In healthcare for example, retaining everything forever is mandatory. Actually, there can be several different retention policies within the same company. For example, retention of pharmacy records is different than the retention of patient records. Is there a rule of thumb for how often companies should back up their data?
Depends again. In most cases, it's a legality issue. But a company's data changes every day so they should back up their data every day. For average personal computer users, it's whatever they're comfortable with. But for companies, practices are dictated by the kind of business they're dealing with. Pretend I'm a new IT Director tasked with budgeting my company's storage management needs. What advice would you give me?
Quite simply, don't get sold into something that is the latest and greatest. New doesn't always mean the best quality or fit for your company. Additionally, when one gets a new IT Director, the first thing they should do is meet with their new team and assess the landscape of their storage system. They need to assess if backups are done nightly, as well as what the statistics are for successful backups, archive jobs, and restores to the customers. In addition, they need to find out if they are up-to-date with the necessary information for the software as outlined by the contract. (They need to see the contract and meet with the contracts administrator/director.) Only when these requirements are met can they understand what their needs will be and how to budget. Do you enjoy your job as much as you did three years ago?
Well, I'm not getting the instant gratification I used to in the healthcare industry, where I knew that everything I did affected patient records, and subsequently, patient care. I am presently on a large-scale project, so the rewards are not as fast as I like them to be. But that's more of a personal thing than anything. But yes, I enjoy what I do. I like solving problems. Any last words of wisdom?
I really hope the people that read this will take the human aspect into consideration. Communication, in my opinion, is the key to success in any industry, especially in IT.
