I am continually surprised by the number of small and medium sized publishers that don’t have a multi-tiered backup system for their royalty files.
One small publisher reported that the computer with his royalty files was stolen. A medium sized publisher’s server crashed and he found out that his backup software did not backup the royalty data folder. Another publisher discovered that his tape backups failed because the tape was full.
At Kensai we recommend that our publisher clients implement a 3 point backup plan;
1. Make data backups a part of an employee’s key results area in their job description and that of their manager. Trust but verify is a maxium that should not be overlooked.
2. Implement a multi-tiered backup strategy. Don’t rely on a single backup destination. Use at least two; a local hard-drive and an on-line backup service. We recommend using ioSafe fire and waterproof USB hard-drives for data backups if you don’t store a backup copy offsite.
3. Quarterly do a test restoration of the file to a secondary PC. This will tell you whether the backup is working.