Few businesses would be reckless enough not to have comprehensive and regular backups of the data in their data centers and servers. Yet many businesses recognize that a huge amount of data is not stored in the data centers, but is instead spread out among thousands of desktops and laptops.

With mobile workers popping in and out of the office - and in and out of network coverage - endpoint backups can be quite a challenge. But it is a challenge companies must face in order to ensure the security and availability of their intellectual property.

With the almost universal deployment of word processing and other office tools on desktops and laptops, each employee has become a profligate producer of intellectual property. They create thousands of documents and spreadsheets every day without ever touching the data center. Companies have tried to control the flow of documents through sophisticated workflow engines and document management systems, yet many documents still never leave a user’s hard drive. Therefore, supplementing the existing back-up and recovery systems with back up of the endpoints is a prerequisite of any realistic back-up plan. A number of approaches are possible:

* Local backups - For temporary protection of documents, companies can distribute external hard drives that can be used for local user-controlled backups. This technique is only suitable for small companies with sophisticated knowledge workers who IT managers can safely assume will perform regular backups.

* Online backups - Automatically uploading changed files or complete disk snapshots at regular intervals can provide some level of protection. Many of the largest offsite storage companies offer online back-up software for desktops and laptops. With intermittently connecting users and asymmetrical broadband connections, this technique may not be ideal for roaming users and teleworkers.

* Hybrid systems - A beta-release of software VitalFile (free, click here) by IBM demonstrates this new approach in which files are monitored continuously for changes and stored on the local hard drive. In addition, the system will opportunistically upload the saved files to a file server or dedicated back-up server whenever a network connection is possible. The disconnected-operation mode balances the needs for continuous protection and off-site backup without any user intervention. IBM is launching this software as a Tivoli component.

Desktop file systems have always represented the least-reliable storage, especially on laptops, which have a higher rate of disk failures because of vibration and shock. With the increase in numbers of mobile users and teleworkers, opportunistic backups are the only way to ensure that laptop data is protected from failures. Hybrid approaches can bridge the gap between the last full backup and the recent failure by saving incremental changes whenever possible. In addition, these solutions offer protection against the most common form of data loss: “Oops, did I just delete that file?”