Why backups still fail…

Someone recently asked me why backups continue to fail on a nightly basis. His contention was that, with all the technology advances of the past 10 years, backup failures should be a thing of the past. That got me thinking – what are the reasons for backup failures…?

The most obvious and common causes for backup failures have very little to do with the technology deployed. Simply put, most failures are the result of operational issues, such as misconfiguring a policy or file listing, or making changes that aren’t appropriately tracked. When someone fat-fingers a file listing or enters the hostname incorrectly, backups will fail. Repetitive failures of this nature are indicative of operational control issues that should be corrected via documented procedures and rigorous testing prior to “go-live” for the backups. Ensuring that the backup works prior to enabling regular nightly backups should become part of the standard deployment of any new server.

Once a backup client is properly configured within the backup application, there are multiple ways its backups may fail on any given night, but nearly all of them can be traced back to proper change management. Backup administrators often receive requests for ad-hoc backups, changes to the schedules, or modified file listings. If these changes are performed with minimal adherence to a change control policy, backup failures may occur. For instance, many times I’ve seen admins remove a client from a nightly backup policy due to planned maintenance on the server. I’ve also seen too many cases where the admin forgot to put that server back into the policy the following day! The result is that the host is no longer backed up. While it doesn’t register as a backup failure in the application, recovering that server will be impossible. Proper change control processes (tracking the change, notifying uses of the change, and the following up on the change) can prevent these types of issues.

I know most administrators hate talking about process, so stayed tuned for my next entry when I discuss some of the technical reasons why backups continue to fail!

-Jeff Harbert, GlassHouse Engagement Partner

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