Making Users Back Up Important Data?

Lux Interior asks: "Help! I am the ad-hoc computer guy in a small satellite office of a larger company. We have no CIO, no IT department, and no policies whatsoever as regards data retention or backup. Therefore, a lot of company property exists one place-- on individual hard drives. The office is made of almost entirely of rudimentary users, on WIN98 and 2000 machines, who never, ever, back up any company information. Has anyone out there had experiences in a small-office setting with: changing users' behavior in regards to managing their data; setting up best practices for backing up information properly; and making sure that the most computer-apathetic users comply with what you've put in place?" Sometimes the best way to make users conform to policy is to not give them a choice in the first place. Automated backup systems on each workstation can go a long way in helping this. Which software packages have such functionality (the more unobtrusive, the better)?

"Several weeks ago we lost six years' worth of extremely important data on current and continuing projects that not even a data recovery service could get back. As a consequence, it is now my job to make sure this doesn't happen again. I have an offsite data storage service retained, but now, how do I get people to back up their files to our file server so I can back up our data from one location? (Also, having the data backed up on our file server of course means that most inadvertent deletions can quickly be fixed in-house).

This is all taking place in a Windows environment, with an NT 4.0 file server, and I am far from an experienced Sysadmin. Fun, Fun, Fun.

Any input from slashdot readers would be great, and save me much dyspepsia, insomnia, and general hassle."

Comments

rule through the fear of force

[Lord Omlette]

Create a network drive that everyone can use, H:, the home directory. Usually already set up on networks, but whatever. Tell people that any work related stuff that isn't saved to the H: drive will be deleted.

Warn them a week in advance, warn them a day in advance.

Then, in the middle of the night, format everyone's machines and stick fresh OS installs on all of them. If possible, ghost one machine's fresh install and use it everywhere. Then, the only backup you have to worry about is the H: drive.

If anyone ever has a computer problem, just reghost their drive, removing whatever pointless software (screen savers, comet cursor, kazaa, etc) that got installed and caused the problem.

Minimal hassle for you, easy backups, and everyone will fear you.

Use a mapped drive

[QuantumRiff]

Create a shared drive on the server, and put peoples names in directories on it. Then, map a drive in Windows to the network share. Even better, if you right click on "My Documents" you can move it to a mapped drive, and under the users directory, and it moves all the data with it. that way, users will think that they are saving to my documents, but instead will be redirecting it onto a single network volume. Then, get a tape drive, (or CD-RW depending on your budget)

Then become the data gestapo and slowly, kindly, patiently drill it into their head to always save things into "My documents." If they ask you to help them with their computer, and you see files that should be in the "My docs" folder, move them there, after they get used to always loading stuff from there, they will get used to saving there too.

The key is patience and Persistence. Practice your waitress smile! ;)

Use Retrospect

[davebo]

Check out Retrospect by Dantz software. We use it for a mixed network of Macs & PC's. Backup occurs automatically from all workstations at administrator defined times. This way, you don't have to "teach" everone to store to a network drive or anything like that.

Re:Waivers!

[forehead]

I don't know about this guys situation, but in some companies it is part of the admins job description to take every reasonable action to force users to "do the right thing". Having them sign a document absolving him/her of guilt would just not cut it. In his case, he should put in place the appropiate software/hardware to implement a backup system and ensure that it is either hard or impossible for users to do the wrong thing. At the absolute very least the workers should be trained on the new/proper procedures (and reminded as appropriate). The idea of a sacrificial lamb mentioned earlier would be interesting, so long as he made sure to have a copy of all the important data first (i.e., I'd fire his ass if he pulled a stunt like that and intentionally destroyed valuable company data).

Re:Workstations bad.

[SuiteSisterMary]

Assuming you're a Windows shop, put 2K (or XP I suppose, possibly even nt4) on the laptops, and use the 'synchronize network share' options. This'll take care of it all for you, and let those roadwarriors have all thier docs.

Backup Procedures....

[Asprin]

I went through something similar a couple of years ago.

My experience is that the less your users have to do with backups, the better - they click through error messages, they don't read EULAs, they will not take the care you will because it is not a concern they have internalized. In general, it needs to be as automatic, hands-free and brainless as possible. REMEMBER, SIMPLE == GOOD, COMPLEX == BAD! However, you also need to realize that the backups procedures are just one part of the larger picture. Simply backing up isn't good enough, you need to create a situation where they don't have to make decisions about backing up. From their perspective, they have to just remember to keep their files in X location and the backups will just happen.

Here's (roughly) what I did:

Create a folder to hold all user files on the server, say "Files". Make sure this folder gets backed up. :)

Share the folder, and create a logon script that every user runs at logon to map this share to a COMMONLY AVAILABLE drive letter, say W:.

On W: Create several top-level folders: Private (create a folder in here for each user accessible only to them) Shared (create folders here that need to be shared by groups) Apps (create folders in here to hold for application files and data used by programs) Software (for program install files) etc...

Make sure security is set up to PREVENT users from saving files where they do not belong (like the root of W:). You may want to create a user group for each folder and use membership in that group to control access to the files. They should have to come to you to create a new folder for them in most cases, that gives you the opportunity to review the request with your superiors to ensure proper Policy & Procedures are being followed.

Teach your users this mantra "PUT ALL FILES ON W:" Put it in your email sig, your memos and on your voicemail! Use it in casual conversation - I'm not kidding, REPETITION!)

Go to each PC and move their files into their W:\Private\username folder.

Delete the moved files from their hard drive.

Reset all apps (word, excel, etc.) to default open/save on the W: drive.

Your goal should be to reprogram them to think of the network drive as the only place there is to save files.

Human Intervention == Bad

[wdr1]

Any regular processing that requires human intervention is setting
yourself up for failure, not setting yourself up for success. People
are people, and we all forget things. Working late, bleary eyed, the
best of us can forget to "copy files to the network server for back."

Suggestions as to have users sign papers to say I know I need to back
up, and if I don't it's my fault, yada yada are bad too. That's not
solving the problem, that CYA. Lame.

Workstation backup isn't that hard. If you totally lose a drive, all
you need to restore it are the app and OS binaries, and the user's
data. The app and OS are on CD's, so those serve as backups for that,
so it's the user's data we need to focus on.

Designate a few folders to back up. E.g. where-ever email is stored,
the desktop, a user folder (if it's in windows, Documents and Settings
is a good one, as a lot of programs default things to save in there.
if it's unix, just make it the user's home directory). You don't need
to backup the entire drive. In fact, that's more than likely a waste,
except in a few cases.

Users can easily understand the should work in a specified folder or
folders underneath that folder. This doesn't require an additional
step (it's still just saving), it's a matter of where they're saving.

Are there hypothetical holes still? Sure. Do they happen in practice
that often (if ever)? Not really. If you're super paranoid (or super
diligent, depending on how you look at it), you can write a process
that looks for modified files outside the targeted back up region. If
it's a file common on a lot of machines, it's probably a standard file
(e.g. a config, preference, etc.), and you can most likely whitelist
those. Others could notify yourself (or the user) via email, and
politely ask that they move it if it is to be backed up.

Lastly, *test* *your* *setup*. This cannot be emphasized enough. You
don't need to delete a user file or anything dumb like that. Just
ask someone to name a random important file, and confirm you can
restore it to a different drive. Or pretend your production server
just crashed and you need to bring it back.

This has two key advantages: 1) obviously confirms your setup works,
2) lets you get comfortable with the restore process in a non-stressed
manner, which things going wrong is okay. You don't want to be trying
to figure it out when you're already stressed out because things have
gone horribly wrong.

Anyway, HTH.

-Bill