Whereas some data is mission-critical, other data is far less important, and the tactic of using one method - often expensive enterprise back-up systems - to back up all forms of data is inefficient and expensive, according to Mark Sweetman, architect with BrightStor Solutions CA, who presented a seminar on the topic at Storage World 2003.
Sweetman pointed out that an organisation shouldn't waste AU$10,000 protecting data worth only AU$1,000, and likewise should not risk AU$100,000 worth of data with a cheap solution.
"The hardest thing from an IT perspective is knowing the value of the data," Sweetman told ZDNet Australia . "We don't know the value of the data, we're just told to back it up."
Sweetman argues there needs to be stronger discussion between the IT department, who is responsible for backing up the data, and the business workers, who actually own the data and know how much it is worth.
"Business owners [people who use the data] need to qualify what data is important to them, and how important," said Sweetman. "They have a clear idea of what's important, but they have a difficulty imputing a dollar value against it."
The business has to know which data is mission critical, and be able to answer the question "if I lost this, how much would it cost me?" Once this information has been communicated to the IT department, they can work out how much should be spent to protect each section of data.
For example, if a business was heavily reliant on B2B functionality a failure of their Web system would put them out of business. On the other hand, a database used by a small group of people would be less important, and may only need to be backed up once a week.
Sweetman added it was important that the different systems used for protecting different data needed to be integrated and to flow seamlessly into one another.
