In IT environment, Data backup is a process of backing up computer data in secondary storage to be used to restore in the primary storage in the event of data loss. Data backup system is almost always the most important factor of your computer or server, whether it is related to your job or leisure. Every single application or operating system can be reinstalled multiple times, but when you lose data, recovering and recreating the original data can be immensely stressful, frustrating or simply impossible without the backup systems in place. Significant data loss in a company may result in its subsequent bankruptcy. You should always backup any valuable information and have a plan for recovering this data in case of failure or theft. Many different kinds of adverse events can happen to a computer or server, such as cyber-attacks, cyber theft, physical theft, hardware and software failure. However rapid data recovery from the properly installed backup and recovery systems typically helps to minimize the negative impact of these all-too-often occurrences.

Before data are sent to their storage locations, they are selected, extracted, and manipulated. Many different techniques have been developed to optimize the backup procedure. These include optimizations for dealing with open files and live data sources as well as compression, encryption, and de-duplication, among others. Every backup scheme should include dry runs that validate the reliability of the data being backed up.