Backup

Backup in computer engineering refers to the copying of data for the purpose of having an additional copy of an original source. If the original data is damaged or lost, the data may be copied back from that source, a process which is known as Data recovery or Restore. The "data" in question may be either data as such, or stored program code, both of which are treated the same by the backup software. Backups differ from an archive in that the data is necessarily duplicated, instead of simply moved.

Related Topics:
Computer engineering - Data - Archive

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The word may be used as a noun, e.g., "have you remembered to move the backup to a safe place?", or as a verb, "he didn't back up the data, so we lost last week's work". Also common are various combinations, such as backup copy, backup software (the applications that are used for performing the backing up of data, i.e., the systematic generation of backup copies), backup policy (an organisation's procedures and rules for ensuring that adequate amounts and types of backups are made, including suitably frequent testing of the process for restoring the original (production) system from the backup copies).

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