Losing Institutional Data – One Layoff at Time (How not to!)

A pocket guide to preserving the enterprise value of backups in an era of institutional change

While the business world is always shifting and rebalancing in mid-2020, there are a lot of companies reassessing their organizations and reducing or reorganizing them. Backups of documents, data, and other forms of electronic work are key to retain institutional knowledge. Just having backups is not nearly enough.

Assuming that Enterprise IT coordinates with Human Resources to handle workforce reductions:

1. Laptops, desktops, and associated services are all backed up as their usage stops

2. On-web usage is backed up

3. Files stored on BYOD and home machines are backed up and wiped

That’s only the end of the beginning of preserving your enterprise knowledge. The next steps are:

A) All the backups have to be tested

B) The backup software/methods have to be documented and archived (along with any encryption keys, passwords, or – very important – passwords/access codes to log in to the archive image of the restore/retrieve software)

C) The backups have to be stored in a secured place where not only legal and compliance can find them, but for those backups to be useful, the affected groups/product lines/co-workers must understand how to get to the data and documents in them.

Then, the harder part begins:

D) Time (and money) needs to be spent to catalog, file, archive, and retain the record of where, how-to-retrieve, and what can be found on these backups. The enterprise has spent a lot of money generating the data and documents. Spending a little more to protect the investment by cataloging and providing access to the files is critical.

E) People with the appropriate responsibility and training need to be sustained that understand the methods, processes, and applications used to generate the data. That means that the workforce reduction process must identify and preserve these people. The methods to back up and retrieve the data also have to be sustained with people skills and process knowledge.

F) Systems (even if in the cloud) have to be kept that can run the restore or load (in the cases of databases). Often in the form of virtual machines, virtual images, or even physical equipment to read specialized media (like tapes) – these ‘systems’ will often violate security, can violate privacy, and can violate enterprise standards almost from the moment they are operative.