What is data recovery?

The term data recovery refers in the broadest sense to the detection and recovery of incorrectly transmitted data. In a narrower sense, this means restoring the original data on a data carrier after data loss using backup systems or Continuous Data Protection (CDP). After a disruption in data transmission, a more precisely defined state is restored during recovery. Especially after the failure of a physical transmission line, the user uses recovery points to continue his application without loss.

The causes of data loss can be varied. The physical and chemical life of a data carrier is finite and can range from a few years to a few decades. External influences such as strong electromagnetic fields, mechanical damage, elementary damage or, in the case of optical data carriers, strong light radiation can also cause data to be lost or changed on a data carrier. Undervoltage, overvoltage, worm and virus attacks can be harmful. Last but not least, the cause can be user error, for example accidentally overwriting or deleting a file. Reinstalling a program or the operating system can lead to an inconsistency in relation to the old data (English: data corruption).

A distinction must be made between the Recovery Point Objective (RPO), which means the acceptable data loss, and the Recovery Time Objective (RTO), which means the time window in which the data is accessed cannot be accessed.

Recovery times play an important role in network configurations and services such as video and audio transmission. Although the spanning tree routing protocols (STP) support reconfiguration in the event of an error, this takes a few seconds too much time. For example, there are faster alternatives for Ethernet ring concepts.

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