Venyu Blog

By my count there have been exactly two editions of “Common Sense. The first, published in 1776 and written by Thomas Paine, presented the American colonists with an argument for freedom from British rule at a time when the question of independence was still undecided. In just forty-eight pages Paine — using what has been called “extraordinarily straightforward and indispensable arguments,” encouraged his fellow citizens to take control of America’s future – and ultimately, her freedom. Astoundingly, it sold as many as 120,000 copies in the first three months and more than 500,000 in the first year alone (imagine the number of readers if there had been a Kindle around then; anyway, that’s an entirely different post and one far beyond the scope of this blog). The second edition, also called “Common Sense” was published in 2009 by talk show host and political wonk Glenn Beck which, according to its description on Amazon, “revisits Paine’s powerful treatise with one purpose: to galvanize Americans to see past government’s easy solutions, two-party monopoly, and illogical methods and take back our great country.”

As I said there have been exactly two editions of “Common Sense” published. That is, until now.

Although not strictly in book form, this article written by Andre Joubert of MWEB Business clearly and concisely lays out the reasons FOR automated backup and recovery. And the work is so compelling and its logic so indisputable, that I think it stands alongside the work of both Paine and Beck.

Joubert – using intelligence offered up by the National Archives & Records Administration in Washington and a secondary source I’ll get to – reveals that 93 percent of companies that lost their data for 10 days or more due to a disaster filed for bankruptcy within one year of the disaster. That’s statistical knowledge we’re well aware of, but Joubert goes the extra mile to suggest the reason many businesses don’t use automatic data backup is they think it won’t happen to them, this in spite of the availability of cloud computing technology and what Joubert cites as the “availability of affordable, uncapped broadband connectivity to automated off-site backup.”

Joubert’s other source – a study conducted by David M Smith, Associate Professor of Economics at the Graziadio School of Business, Pepperdine University in the US, finds six percent of all computers will suffer an episode of data loss in any given year.

“Data loss and computer downtime have serious implications for business. Lost data can lead to costly downtime for sales and marketing and reduced customer service while customer databases are restored or rebuilt. Lost financial data can lead to lost contracts and stock value, or worse. A recent study by Datamonitor found that as many as one-third of IT decision-makers believes that a major data loss incident at their firm could lead to bankruptcy. Small businesses may be more vulnerable, according to a recent survey by Verio. Seventy-percent of small businesses reported that a single incident of data loss would be considered significant and costly. These concerns are well grounded as over one-half of the respondents have already experienced some data loss. Although hard drive manufacturers claim less than a 1% failure rate, recent research by computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University found that a 2%-4% failure rate is more common and under some conditions the failure rate may reach as high as 13%. The cost of lost data varies depending upon its application, as well as the potential value that can be captured from use of the data. In addition, there is a cost associated with recovering the data, as well as lost productivity due to computer downtime. Using available data and existing research, this paper attempts to quantify the costs associated with episodes of data loss, considering the costs of recovery, as well as lost sales and reduced productivity.”

Joubert argues there are all kinds of reasons why businesses choose not to back-up their data regularly and with tongue firmly planted in cheek suggests that some of the most common are:

• My business isn’t big enough to need daily computer backup.
• It’s more important to focus on networking and establishing the business.
• All our important data is stored on my laptop, so my data is safely offsite every night.
• My server is brand new, so I’m not worried about backing up my data yet.
• I don’t have the time to perform a daily backup. Once a month is sufficient.
• My IT consultant takes care of that.
• Daily offsite backup is too expensive particularly as this will exceed my data cap and I will have to purchase additional bandwidth.

In turn, Joubert contends that each one of these excuses is fallacious given that automated online backup services can copy, compress and encrypt files that have changed since the previous backup and send them via a secure Internet connection to be safely stored in a high-security data centre. No human intervention is required nor do you need special hardware or consumables that are themselves at risk of failure.

He further contends that your data will stay intact and available even if your local disk/laptop is stolen or crashes; or your premises suffer some disaster. Automated online backup is not only reliable and easy to use and is available for a low fixed monthly fee.

The cost of not having it, argues Joubert, could be incalculable.

Which, of course, makes automated online data backup and recovery not only good business, but also exceptionally uncommon Common Sense.