What is the recommended BarScan backup process?

There are many backup technologies in use today, ranging from cloud based server backups to high transaction replication servers.  Which method is selected is ultimately up to the customer.

All of these technologies have the same goal, to reduce the cost of the loss of data.  Losing data costs money in lost productivity and man-hours.  However, the backup strategy needs to match the value and type of data.  Some backup strategies have a substantially larger ongoing cost that others while giving no substantially greater protection of data due to either the nature of the data or the role of the data in the company.

BarScan recommends the classical backup strategy of using a backup program to back up BarScan data folders on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis to another server.  BarScan is not a high transaction data system and damage to data tables is most often confined to a single table set.  Damage to indexes can be corrected within BarScan itself.  In fact, standard inventory practice requires refreshing data from the real worlds in an ongoing manner.  This backup strategy means the maximum exposure to data loss is at most one day of activity, even in the face of catastrophic data loss, such as an entire server crashing.

It is worth mentioning however that BarScan does have built in systems for sending data away to other locations.  Here they are listed in the order of the most likely usable as a backup method:

Method #1 – Company Synchronization by Network Access

On a manual or timed basis a session of BarScan can copy the changes in one company to another company on the network.  The target computer does not have to have BarScan installed.  It is just a data repository.  If it runs during the day, user’s generally are not aware that it is running, but it can at times cause users to wait while it sends data, since any tables sent must be locked to ensure data integrity.  This feature requires that a session of BarScan be running, since it cannot currently be activated using the Windows Task manager.  The session will need write privileges to the target server.

Method #2 – Company Synchronization by Email

On a manual or timed basis, BarScan can send emails to another BarScan system, which, in turn, can load the data sent to it into its own data tables. This system is valuable for keeping two non-connected databases synchronized, but is not very effective as a backup system.  It requires that BarScan and Microsoft Outlook be installed on both computers and either an operator or an automated process must ‘catch’ the data on the target computer and run BarScan there to load it.  Also, while it is accumulating data to send, it must ‘lock’ its tables so that it is internally consistent, so it is generally not done during normal working hours, although it can be.  It can be activated by the Windows Task Manager.

Method #3 – BarScan Proprietary Data Transfer files

Users can manually range a set of assets and export them to a data transfer file set, saving them to any server where the user has write privileges. This can be done at any time. It can be all items or just a few.  However, it is currently a manual process. This process is normally used to transfer reports and initialize tables, onetime operations.

Method #4 – The BarScan Report Generator (exports)

Reports can be configured to send critical data either on a manual or timed basis.  They can be saved to files on a separate server or send as data files or PDF files through email. Again, this process is somewhat awkward as a means of doing backup, but is outstanding for getting critical information, especially by email, to those who need it.  It can be activated by the Windows Task manager.

Method #5 – Copy Company Database

An entire company can be copied to another server, either within BarScan or using the Windows file manager directly.  Many customers use this simple strategy to keep backups, that is, coping entire companies on a daily basis.  If done within BarScan this is strictly a manual process.  If done by File Manager, it can be activated by the Windows Task Manger.

Method #6 – BarScan Proprietary Formatted Export

This method is similar to creating reports.

Method #7 – BarScan Company Database Export

This is also a manual process.  Ranged items in any table can be moved or copied to another company.  This other company can be located anywhere on a network, as long as it can be seen by the user and they have write privileges.