You might be new to the role of administrator. Or, you might be new to the world of IT, servers, networks and data. Either way, there’s one tool that you must get to know because one day it could save your company, your data and maybe even your job.

The tool in question makes it possible to clone your servers. What these tools do is make it possible to create exact clones of your servers or your data, so that, in case disaster strikes, you have a working copy to start from.

Jack Wallen, writing for TechRepublic Premium, explains the details in this guide.

Featured text from the download:

First, let’s separate the wheat from the chaff. What a backup solution does is make a copy (either in a directory or image format) of the directories housing your data, which can then be copied back to the original server, should the need arise.

The cloning tool, on the other hand, creates a 1:1 copy of the entire drive, that can then be copied to a new drive, should the need arise.

Here’s the really important bit: You should do both. Why? Cloning a drive can take a long, long time, especially if the drive is large and holds a lot of data. Backups, on the other hand, can be much faster. Because of this, you don’t want to run a daily or weekly clone process on your server drive. Why? Not only because of the time but because the foundation (the OS and the installed applications) aren’t going to change nearly as much as the data. With that in mind, you could do, say, a monthly clone of the drive and a daily backup of the data. That way, should disaster strike, you have a relatively recent clone of the drive and the most recent backup of the data. You would then copy the clone to a new drive and then restore the data from the latest backup.

Boost your knowledge of cloning tools with our six-page PDF guide. Previously priced at $49, this is now available for download at just $9. Alternatively, enjoy complimentary access with a Premium annual subscription. Click here to find out more.

TIME SAVED: Crafting this content required 12 hours of dedicated writing, editing and research.