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This is incredible. In no way is it even remotely acceptable for them not to have backups.

viraptor 17y ago
It doesn't have to be the case of no backups. Many different things can happen... They could have a faulty backup design. They could have lost the backups. They could have a fault in their backup verification / checking procedure. They could miss some part of the data that wasn't crucial before, but after a couple of updates, they cannot restore contacts without it. Etc. There are many ways this could have happened - not that they are excused because of that, but it's not fair to say "not to have backups" until we know the whole story.
- ams6110 17y ago
  Backups are only as good as your ability to recover from them. How many of us think we are doing a good job backing up data, AND have actually tried to run a disaster recovery drill and have verified that you can recover your systems from your backups? You don't want to find the gaps in you backup strategy during a real system failure, when you're under the pressure of the clock to get the system back up.
- johnnybgoode 17y ago
  As far as I'm concerned, if you can't recover your data, you don't really have a backup. That covers every one of your hypotheticals.
  - viraptor 17y ago
    But you cannot be sure you can recover your data (you can be sure in theory only). In practice, you don't know if you can recover your data unless you migrate the whole company to the backup copy and ask them to check every functionality they use -- every time you make a copy (and rely on them doing 100% coverage). The best you can have during the normal operation is a high probability that what you get is a proper backup, because that would be the case the last time you did a full test (if you ever did). Datasets change, ways of interfacing with data change, etc. Testing is not perfect either, because your tests can be broken or can be reporting false positives. So yeah... noone can be sure they can recover the data. Does that mean that noone really has a backup?
    - johnnybgoode 17y ago
      Not to mention the planet could explode suddenly, so yeah, no one can be literally 100% sure that they can recover their data. > Does that mean that noone really has a backup? No, it means in some abstract sense no one can be 100% sure they have a proper backup. But there are some fairly obvious ways in which you can get that number pretty close to 100%.

It doesn't have to be the case of no backups. Many different things can happen... They could have a faulty backup design. They could have lost the backups. They could have a fault in their backup verification / checking procedure. They could miss some part of the data that wasn't crucial before, but after a couple of updates, they cannot restore contacts without it. Etc. There are many ways this could have happened - not that they are excused because of that, but it's not fair to say "not to have backups" until we know the whole story.

ams6110 17y ago
Backups are only as good as your ability to recover from them. How many of us think we are doing a good job backing up data, AND have actually tried to run a disaster recovery drill and have verified that you can recover your systems from your backups? You don't want to find the gaps in you backup strategy during a real system failure, when you're under the pressure of the clock to get the system back up.
johnnybgoode 17y ago
As far as I'm concerned, if you can't recover your data, you don't really have a backup. That covers every one of your hypotheticals.
- viraptor 17y ago
  But you cannot be sure you can recover your data (you can be sure in theory only). In practice, you don't know if you can recover your data unless you migrate the whole company to the backup copy and ask them to check every functionality they use -- every time you make a copy (and rely on them doing 100% coverage). The best you can have during the normal operation is a high probability that what you get is a proper backup, because that would be the case the last time you did a full test (if you ever did). Datasets change, ways of interfacing with data change, etc. Testing is not perfect either, because your tests can be broken or can be reporting false positives. So yeah... noone can be sure they can recover the data. Does that mean that noone really has a backup?
  - johnnybgoode 17y ago
    Not to mention the planet could explode suddenly, so yeah, no one can be literally 100% sure that they can recover their data. > Does that mean that noone really has a backup? No, it means in some abstract sense no one can be 100% sure they have a proper backup. But there are some fairly obvious ways in which you can get that number pretty close to 100%.