Data Backup Tips to Learn from Google's Gmail Acount Data Loss

Google recently came under fire for losing the Gmail accounts of some of its users. According to the technology behemoth, about .02% of Gmail accounts were suddenly lost due to a software glitch. The trouble is that the software glitch also destroyed the backed up copies of those users' emails that had been stored on the company's additional servers. Ouch.

While the story got a lot of press initially, Google's Gmail data backup system hasn't received a completely fair treatment. Most people who follow tech news will readily tell you that Google lost a bunch of accounts, but many don't realize that Google is working on a full restoration of all of those accounts-including their data-as you're reading this (or, if you're reading this in a few days, before you read this.

There's a lot to be learned from how Google backed up its customers' Gmail account data, and all businesses and home computer users should take notice of the excellent data backup procedures that will save the accounts of many Google customers.

Two Forms Of Backup

You might be wondering how data will be recovered, since Gmail's backup servers had the same software glitch as their main servers. Google keeps a second copy of data in the form of a tape backup. For those who aren't in the know, data tapes are a physical form of backup that can carry a tremendous amount of data. They can be written very quickly, and many companies use them as a primary source of data backup for this reason.

Google uses them as a secondary form of backup in this case. Regular tape backups were performed and a secondary backup server was used so that any lost data would always have two copies.

Each one of those servers was likely protected with RAID 5 or a similar technology, so hard drive failure couldn't cause a data loss. The only thing that really could would be a software glitch, and Google had planned for that eventuality.

What We Can Learn

Ultimately, Google's backup system wasn't particularly complex and it wasn't unique. Thousands of companies use multiple levels of backup. However, this type of situation doesn't call for ingenuity. It calls for consistency.

By regularly backing up its user data onto data tapes, Google protected itself from lawsuits and bad press. Every business should look for ways that data loss might overcome their existing backup systems in this way, and every home computer user should take care to realize that one form of backup isn't always enough.

What do you think of how Google handed the Gmail account data loss? Post your thoughts in the comments section below.

Source:

Chawla, Sunil. "Google Recovers Wiped Emails From Tape," Spinport News.