Backup strategies

Your backup strategy will consist of making one or more backups on a periodic or triggered basis.

For each backup you incorporate in your strategy, you have to choose:

• the storage media and location of the backup data
• how to archive, and optionally, compress your data
• the contents, and frequency or trigger condition of the backup
• automated versus manual backup
• local versus remote control of the backup

Often, a comprehensive backup strategy incorporates some backups on the local side (i.e., controlled and stored on the same machine that the data is located on), and others that copy data to a remote machine. For example, you might automatically back up a developer's data to a second hard drive partition on a daily basis and have a central server automatically back up the developer's data to a central location on a weekly basis.