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RESOURCE LIBRARY  >>  CASE STUDIES  >>  SMALL RETAIL GIFT STORE

Small Retail Gift Store

Computing environment:

• Two 8 year old PC's used as point of sale terminals
• Two newer office PCs used for financial and inventory control
• One 10 yea old server that had been converted from NT4 to windows XP Professional to allow it to act as a file server and to house the Point of Sale software

Problems/Issues

1. Very time intensive, manual back up solution utilizing a low density tape device. The backups were not performed on a regular basis and were never tested.
2. Back up solution only captured the mission critical data on the server. The applications themselves were not backed up, neither was the data on the other PCs.
3. Server had several errors in the event log.
4. No data duplication of any kind was being performed at the server level.
5. No UPS devices on the critical POS PCs.

Ramifications:

1. Since the backup was not performed regularly a server or disk failure would have been devastating for the business. Months of sales and inventory data would have been lost.
2. The current backup solution only captured information, not the applications or the settings. If the hard drive were to fail and need to be replaced, the company would need to re-install all of the applications, all the service patches, and then reconfigure them to work as they did prior to the failure. Potentially the point of sale vendor would need to reinstall and reconfigure the software to make it work properly. Getting everything 100% operational could take days of effort.
3. None of the other stations were being backed up. The store owner felt that since there was no data being stored there it did not need to be backed up. A failure of a POS PC would result in spending hours reinstalling all software and restoring network configurations and settings.
4. No one was responsible for performing routine maintenance. Several undiagnosed errors had gone undetected for a long time. More than one of the services on the server was malfunctioning causing the server to run even slower as it consumed memory and CPU cycles. The hard drive was extremely fragmented. If these issues had gone unchecked the server would have crashed in a matter of weeks.
5. The server did not have redundant hard drives. Therefore, a hard drive failure could have crippled the store's ability to service their customers.
6. The lack of UPS devices created a vulnerability to power outages due to electrical storms or power fluctuations.

InfoGuard Solutions:

• InfoGuard recommended a backup solution that was completely automatic and hands free. An image level backup would cover all data and applications on the server. Image level backups allow you to recover in less than half the time of a data alone solution and would not require interaction with the point of sale vender.
• InfoGuard would also incorporate image based PC level backups of their point of sale workstations. This would allow recovery of these critical machines quickly.
• InfoGuard recommended an ongoing maintenance plan that covers the PCs and server. Computers require basic service from time to time such as keeping the software updated with the latest security patches. Diagnostic tools can help tell you important information about the overall health of the system and if failures are imminent
• InfoGuard recommended that mission critical information be stored on newer, more stable systems. We recommended replacing the current 10 year old server immediately and a reasonable schedule to retire and replace the PCs.
• InfoGuard recommended using a UPS(Uninterrupted power supply) for all critical devices such as the POS PCs. When you experience a power outage with a UPS the store owner has enough time to check out any customers and shut down your PCs in a normal way.

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