Plan for data backup and recovery

I've started writing about data backup and recovery as a necessity in a "digital era". To make it simple and successful it needs some upfront planning.
I've brought together most important issues about safe data backup and recovery. No matter if you have you PC hard disk full of pictures or have lots of business data on workstation, you should consider following subjects:

• Why do you need to make backups? (read Backup your important data article)


• Categorize your data - easy manageable big chunks divided by type/importance


• Plan for recovery - what is saving data worth if you are unable getting it back?


• Consider data retention - time horizon (short vs long term backups)


• Choose storage media/place - what suits your needs


• Simplify and automate backup procedure - use specialized software or scripts to keep your backup plan going with minimum work from your side


• Monitor condition and manage backup copies - think about change if process doesn't meet your needs

Maybe it seems dull and hard to implement, but everyone should cut it to their needs.
It's all about time and costs, but having saved your data is sometimes priceless.

Database related general application performance tips

Most of the serious applications nowadays use some kind of relational database engine. Database becomes main data source and data processing module in application architecture. That's the reason why it's common application performance bottleneck and main scalability factor.

Having design and data flow requirements its possible to prepare database system at the system planning and implementation phase. Don't get to much into performance details at that stage because "premature optimization is the root of the evil". Sometimes system requirements and design meets reality and final expectations, but changes in requirements that could change application data flow are more common. The most accurate results are coming from real data and users usage patterns, so getting system responsiveness metrics is crucial even at the early prototype stages.

Having such data about performance "weak points" is a start point to optimize and improve overall system scalability. It's good to begin from top more abstract layers in application architecture before rushing to lower level database storage tweaking.

There are some tips divided by subsystem scopes and ordered by top to bottom abstraction level:

Application scope

• discuss with project stakeholders responsiveness requirements for various application functionalities
• analyze data usage patterns like writes vs reads, common data usage vs casual reporting, written once or changed often etc.- it gives image what could be improved, and what kind of underlying database mechanism you will need
• remove worst bottleneck (having biggest performance impact) first to get best results
• use cache for most used data (reads and writes if its possible)
• design transactions smart- long transactions cause performance problems
• at first you should use normalized data schema, but there are situations where little denormalization is crucial for good performance (f.e. copying some data to most read table to eliminate need for joining other big tables)

Database system scope

• use indexes where it works best (every index adds performance penalty for data writes)
• use vertical and horizontal data partitioning - move less used data into other tables or use database engine specific features
• configure database and use its features like special table types, special indexes for your best

Operating system scope:

• use database dedicated host or performance cluster - for large scale systems
• check network latency and throughput for large data transmissions
• tune underlying disks structure and file system- separate partitions or disks for database files, use low overhead file system or custom database "raw" partitions (like in Oracle DB)

The meaning of "realistic" in FPS games

Grog News wrote long and interesting article about reality of guns, gears and tactics in FPS games. Even games most rated as "realistic" have large discrepancies vs reality.

Although gaming industry considers fun more important over realistic features, new FPS games are incorporating more complicated graphics, physics and AI engines, to raise playing experience to the next level.

Games having good balanced reality and fun, are tough enough to keep interest of players for a long time (like Counter Strike type games). Too much realistic constraints in game are resulting in too hard and annoying experience (f.e. player can't jump 20 meters down, or can't run long distance keeping constant high speed). It's an entertainment industry so usually more fun means more profit.

I have to admit that even simple change in details pointed in Grog News article, could improve both fun and reality. It doesn't even had to be some kind of new fancy physics engine. Let's take for example weapons and ammunition/magazine compatibility issues or bunny jumping tactic to avoid shots. I really would like to have features like ricochets effects, but there is a field to improve simple mechanisms first.

There is a bright future for "reality simulating" games, these are just slow evolving.

Backup your important data

Organizations are collecting more and more data on their workstations/servers. They are doing also regular data backups to prevent loss of assets, time and money. Are you doing data backups? Are you ready to lose your data?

Simplest hard disk drive failures are bad-blocks affecting single files. If file is important there is good chance that it can be recovered using proprietary tool. More destructive could be malware erasing or damaging random files, or user hitting "delete all" button on wrong marked files.

Hard disk drives aren't perfect and there is quite large probability that you hard disk will die. The last resort then are data recovery companies, but the cost starts from about thousand of dollars and more.

What about laptop theft or lost external drive? There are events that could physicaly destroy your hardware, like fire f.e. Then probably all is gone.

Backup your important data. In best case you will save your time or money. In worst you will prevent of loss of valuable data.

Little change in the blog title

Choosing good blog title could be difficult art. I have chosen "IT Pro Life" that seemed good so far. Maybe it is too pompous and enigmatic, but I wanted something simple and short, that defines character of that site.

When I started analyzing keywords I realized that many times my content is in "pro-life" context. It seems people may be confused finding totally unrelated content
("what? pro-life? It looks like no life!").
My bad, I didn't seen that at the start.

I'm doing little change in title to IT Pr0 Life, using slang word for "professional" that is: pr0 (PR zero). It will look more funny, but there is place for sense of humor too :)

I keep domain name untouched, I will see how it works with search engines.