Recently one of our small business customers experienced something really awful. His laptop computer died… Actually, the hard drive had a mechanical failure, which was then replaced under the manufacturer’s warranty. Sadly, all of his files were lost and all of his email, contacts and calendar too.

Fortunately, his business subscribes to our Proactive Maintenance Plan, and as part of that plan we manage its nightly backups. All of our customer’s important files had been captured the night before, and the night before that, and so-on. Once we got our hands on his laptop, all we had to do was restore that data. Ta-da!

Backups are an essential component to a healthy network. Often the task of making backups is left to an individual. This is problematic for a couple of reasons. One reason is that the designated person may not know what to back up. Another reason is that, as we all know, people are busy and this makes us forgetful. Routines are often interrupted by all those little tasks we have to accomplish every day and every week.

The solution? An automated backup system. The lesson here is to back up often and back up comprehensively.