May 1, 2024
Updated May 12, 2025
16 minute read
Backup and Recovery: Protecting Your Digital World
In today's world, data is everywhere. From personal photos and documents stored on our phones and computers to the vast databases that power businesses and governments, digital information is critically important. Backup and Recovery (often shortened to B&R) is the practice of creating copies of this data (the "backup" part) so that it can be restored (the "recovery" part) if the original data is lost or damaged. Think of it as an insurance policy for your digital assets, ensuring that valuable information isn't permanently gone due to hardware failure, accidental deletion, software bugs, cyberattacks, or even natural disasters.
Understanding Backup and Recovery is essential not just for IT professionals but for anyone who relies on digital information. For businesses, effective B&R can mean the difference between a minor inconvenience and a catastrophic event that halts operations, damages reputation, and incurs significant financial loss. For individuals, it safeguards irreplaceable memories and important personal records. The field offers engaging challenges in designing robust systems, solving complex technical problems under pressure, and playing a crucial role in ensuring the resilience and continuity of modern digital life.
Core Concepts and Terminology
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Reading list
We've selected 23 books
that we think will supplement your
learning. Use these to
develop background knowledge, enrich your coursework, and gain a
deeper understanding of the topics covered in
Backup and Recovery.
Provides a comprehensive guide to disaster recovery planning and execution, covering all aspects of disaster preparedness and response, making it highly relevant to the topic.
Offers a comprehensive, platform-agnostic guide to designing and implementing enterprise-level backup and recovery systems. It focuses on corporate procedures, policies, and best practices rather than specific products, making it valuable for understanding the strategic aspects of data protection. It's considered a must-read for IT decision-makers and professionals involved in safeguarding enterprise data.
Focuses on disaster recovery in cloud computing environments, providing practical guidance on leveraging cloud services for data protection and recovery.
Comprehensive guide to disaster recovery planning and implementation. It covers analyzing risks, choosing backup strategies, and developing plans for various environments. The third edition includes lessons learned from significant events, making it a valuable resource for understanding the broader context of backup and recovery within business continuity.
A practical handbook for security leaders and IT professionals, this book bridges the gap between strategy and action in building secure and resilient organizations. It covers steps to build a cyber-resilient program, including aspects related to data protection and recovery in the context of cybersecurity.
Covers incident response and recovery in the context of cybersecurity breaches, providing guidance on responding to and recovering from security incidents.
Provides practical, problem-solution-based guidance for using Oracle's RMAN (Recovery Manager) for database backup and recovery. It's highly relevant for those working with Oracle databases and offers step-by-step solutions to common scenarios. It useful reference for database administrators.
This handbook classic guide to business risk management and contingency planning, with significant coverage of business continuity, which is closely related to disaster recovery and backup. It provides a global perspective and covers core BC activities, standards, and methodologies.
Provides expert insights and best practices for using Oracle RMAN and Data Pump for backup and recovery. It focuses on real-world examples and techniques to minimize backup and recovery time, making it a valuable resource for Oracle DBAs.
Provides practical strategies for building cyber resilience, a key contemporary concern that includes effective backup and recovery as a foundational element. It equips readers with knowledge and tools to develop a robust cyber resiliency framework.
Explains how to use Oracle RMAN for backup and recovery in Oracle Database 12c environments. It covers generating archives, performing restores, automating processes, and utilizing Flashback recoveries. It's a detailed guide for Oracle DBAs looking to master RMAN.
Authored by a MySQL expert, this book covers various backup and recovery options specifically for MySQL databases. It provides detailed descriptions and examples to help in developing an appropriate backup and recovery plan for MySQL environments. It's a valuable resource for database administrators focused on MySQL.
Includes a chapter on backup and recovery, providing a risk-based approach to data protection planning and implementation.
Provides a broad overview of backup and recovery concepts and practical, freely available solutions for various operating systems and databases. It's a good starting point for gaining a fundamental understanding of the topic and exploring different open-source tools. While published in 2007, the core principles and tools discussed remain relevant for foundational knowledge.
Explores data recovery techniques from a hacker's perspective, providing insights into how to recover data from compromised or damaged systems.
This O'Reilly book, an earlier version of 'Backup & Recovery: Inexpensive Backup Solutions for Open Systems', provides foundational knowledge on backup and recovery concepts and solutions for various systems. It's a classic in the field for its comprehensive coverage of basic utilities and open-source products.
Must-have reference for data protection professionals, clarifying core concepts of GDPR and suggesting practical data protection controls. Understanding GDPR and other data protection regulations is essential for implementing compliant backup and recovery solutions.
Offers a practical and accessible approach to IT disaster recovery planning. It guides readers through assessing risks, developing plans, and keeping them updated. It's a good starting point for those new to disaster recovery planning.
While not solely focused on backup and recovery, this book includes a chapter dedicated to monitoring and backup in MongoDB. It provides essential information on creating consistent and accurate backups and the importance of a reliable backup strategy in a production environment. It's a relevant resource for those working with MongoDB.
While focusing on data privacy and security law, this book is highly relevant as legal and regulatory requirements heavily influence backup and recovery strategies. It covers legal liability issues, compliance, and data security measures, which are crucial considerations in designing backup solutions.
Offers a comprehensive guide to planning and implementing backup systems for enterprise environments, covering both UNIX and Windows NT. While an older publication, it provides a solid tutorial on the general topic of data backup systems and strategic advice.
Focuses on data privacy from an engineering perspective, covering how to design and implement privacy programs. While not strictly a backup book, it addresses the technical aspects of data handling and protection, which are integral to secure backup and recovery processes.
This pocket reference handy guide for DBAs using Oracle RMAN for common backup and recovery tasks. It provides concise explanations and checklist-style instructions, making it a useful quick reference tool.
For more information about how these books relate to this course, visit:
OpenCourser.com/topic/n9wa10/backup
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